Chương 124: Chapter 121 - Royal Inquiry

"Where are you from?" the king asked. Alric had expected the first question to be worse. That did not make it better. It merely meant his prepared answer had arrived sooner than expected, which felt suspicious in its own way. He had spent the carriage ride repeating the story in his head until the words had begun to lose meaning. It had seemed simple when Stromni said it. Then again, Stromni had not needed to say it in front of a king.

"A small farming village outside Dracken Hold, Your Majesty," Alric said. The king watched him for a moment.

"Name?" Alric blinked. That had not been in the version he had practised. He searched his memory, found the name Stromni had given him, and dragged it forward before the silence became noticeable enough to have consequences.

"Bracken Hollow, Your Majesty." One of the advisors behind the king made a note. The quill scratched against the board with a small, neat sound that Alric disliked immediately. The king nodded once.

"Continue." Alric drew a slow breath.

"I was raised there. It is a small Human village, mostly farms and farming. Not much else." He paused, aware that this sounded both too little and too much.

"Eventually, they found out I had mana." The three robed men shifted at that. Not much but enough for anyone ordinary to call it a reaction. Alric had spent too much time around Seren, Vale, merchants, priests, tavern keepers, and Stromni pretending not to be amused. He had learned that small movements often meant large thoughts. The king noticed too.

"And then?" he asked.

"The farming village grew food for the dwarven city nearby," Alric continued.

"They practice runemancy, as I'm sure you know. One of the old spells they knew was the item box spell. Useful spell, that. They taught it to me." The room changed. Not dramatically. No one gasped. No one stepped back. The guards did not draw swords, which Alric decided to consider a success. But the three robed men were now looking at him differently. One of them was old enough that his beard had given up on choosing a colour and had settled into several. He tilted his head slightly.

"Dwarven runemancy?" he asked. Alric looked at the king first. The king gave the smallest nod.

"That's what they called it," Alric said.

"I know how to use the spell. I don't know how to explain the theory behind it." The oldest robed man's mouth tightened. Another of the mages, narrower and sharper in the face, looked almost pained.

"You learned an old dwarven storage formula without understanding its structure?" Alric considered that.

"Yes." The third robed man closed his eyes briefly. The queen's mouth moved. It was not quite a smile. The king leaned back slightly.

"And you use this spell for brewing?"

"At first, mostly for moving things," Alric said.

"Grain. Tools. Later, beer. It helps with cold storage too, though I'm not sure if that's how it's supposed to work." The three mages looked at one another. That, Alric suspected, had not helped. The king noticed that too and, to Alric's growing concern, seemed to enjoy it.

"You learned brewing from the dwarves as well?" the king asked. Alric nodded, "Yes your Majesty, I would ask anyone who would answer, read books when they would not, spent a lot of time being ignored."

"That is called learning," the queen said. Alric glanced at her, then back to the king.

"Yes, Your Highness." The room paused. The king looked faintly amused.

"Majesty." Alric froze. One advisor looked down very quickly. Vale, standing off to one side with Seren, became so still that Alric could feel the disappointment beginning to build from across the room. Seren's face did not change. Alric turned back to the queen and bowed his head, not fully, because he was no longer confident he knew when bowing would make things better.

"My apologies, Your Majesty."

"That one is correct," the queen said. Alric could have sworn there was a wink there. The king made a low sound that might have been amusement.

"Continue, brewer." Alric decided that continuing was safer than thinking.

"My mana became a problem. My family did not really know what to do with me, so I came here. To Avengard. I met Stromni Redbeard. He became my friend and business partner."

"Your family sent you away?" the queen asked. There was no softness or cruelty in the question. It seemed a careful probe.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"And you hold no resentment?" Alric opened his mouth, then closed it again. He had never thought through that part of the lie properly. Or perhaps he had, but only in the way a man thought about a roof while hoping it did not rain.

"I think," he said carefully, "they did what made sense to them." The queen studied him. The king did not speak for a moment. Alric wondered if that had been the wrong answer. The narrow-faced mage stepped forward slightly.

"Your Majesty, if I may?" The king lifted a hand. The mage turned his attention fully on Alric. It was the sort of attention that made Alric feel like he had become a measurement.

"You understand that your mana reserve is unusual?"

"I have been told that," Alric said.

"That is not what I asked."

"No," Alric admitted.

"I don't understand it." The mage's expression sharpened with something that looked a lot like irritation wearing formal clothes.

"You possess more mana than trained mages three times your age." Alric stood very still. He had known he had a lot. People kept saying it. Margaret had said it with a face that suggested she had been personally inconvenienced by the fact. Hearing it in front of the king was different.

"Oh," Alric said. The oldest mage inhaled through his nose. The king watched Alric with growing interest.

"That is all?"

"I'm not sure what else to say, Your Majesty." The mage leaned forward slightly.

"How often do you use mana?"

"Every day."

"For what purpose?" Alric hesitated. It was not the answer he was ashamed of. It was the fact that everyone was waiting as though the answer might explain something important.

"Producing beer, mostly." Silence arrived neatly. It seemed well trained. The king stared at him. The queen blinked once. The advisors did not move. The three mages looked at him with the shared expression of men who had spent decades studying a subject only to discover someone had been using it to prop open a door.

"Beer," the narrow mage repeated.

"Yes."

"You use your mana," he said slowly, "to make beer?"

"Yes." The king's mouth twitched. The mage pressed two fingers against the bridge of his nose.

"For heating stones?" the oldest mage asked, voice strained.

"For transport? For storage?" Alric nodded to all points.

"Yes."

"For purification enchantments?"

"I don't know any." The oldest mage looked briefly at the ceiling. Alric was beginning to suspect the ceiling was where educated men sent their patience when it died. The king laughed. It began as a breath, then grew into something deeper and far less courtly. The advisors seemed uncertain whether to join him, which left them trapped in various stages of expression. One smiled too soon, saw that no one else had, and retreated from it with admirable speed.

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"You have more mana than these three old coots put together," the king said, gesturing toward the robed men, "and you use it to make beer?" The oldest mage's eyes opened. The narrow one looked personally wounded. The third mage, who had not yet spoken, appeared to be deciding whether the phrase old coot applied to him by association or rank. Alric felt a grin pull at his mouth before he could stop it.

"Yes, Your Majesty." The king laughed again. The queen scoffed, though there was something amused beneath it.

"You find that funny?"

"I find many things funny," the king said.

"Few of them are this expensive though." The narrow mage clicked his tongue.

"Such wasted potential." The mage was watching him with open displeasure now, no longer bothering to hide it behind courtly restraint.

"Far too much mana," he said.

"Far too little instruction. Such a thing should have been cultivated properly." Alric shrugged, then remembered where he was and tried to turn it into a smaller movement halfway through. It became something awkward around his shoulders.

"I was never really cut out for that kind of life." The mage's brows lowered.

"What life?"

"Standing around in robes being important about magic," Alric said, then immediately heard the sentence after it had left his mouth. Seren made a sound so small it might have been a breath. Vale looked at nothing with great commitment. The king's face went still for half a beat. Then he laughed harder. The queen turned her head slightly away. Not enough to hide her expression, but enough to make it clear she had chosen not to assist. The narrow mage flushed. Alric cleared his throat.

"I mean, no disrespect. I just like making things. Useful things."

"Magic is useful," the mage said coldly.

"Yes," Alric agreed.

"When it does useful things." That did not improve the mage's mood. The king raised a hand before the conversation could become educational.

"Enough. We will return to that." Alric had hoped they would not. The king's amusement faded with unsettling ease.

"You are aware that failing to register as a mage is illegal?" Alric's stomach dropped.

"No, Your Majesty," he said at once.

"I wasn't. I apologise."

"You did not know?"

"No. I knew people registered with guilds or temples or noble houses or whoever owned the problem. I didn't know it was illegal not to."

"Whoever owned the problem," the queen repeated softly. Alric glanced at her, then wisely decided not to explain. The king folded his hands.

"What do you consider yourself, then, if not a mage?" Alric thought of Margaret, the atelier, Stromni calling him a walking disaster with a storage spell. He had no good answer.

"I'm just a man with mana, Your Majesty." All three mages disliked that at once. It was almost impressive. The oldest mage said, "Far too much mana." The quiet third mage finally spoke. His voice was lower than the others.

"And far too little fear of it." That landed differently. The king looked at him. Alric did too. The third mage did not look offended. That was worse. He looked concerned. Alric swallowed.

"I'm careful."

"No," the mage said.

"You are practical. There is a difference." The king watched Alric's face for a long moment. Alric said nothing. Mostly because he did not know whether arguing with a man who had just described him accurately would count as lying. The king nodded once, as though placing that answer somewhere.

"Now. The guilds." Alric found himself missing the mana conversation immediately. The king's voice did not sharpen. It did not need to. It simply lost the amusement that had been making the room survivable.

"I have reports," he said, "that you began a price war." Alric glanced, very briefly, toward Seren. She gave him nothing. That was probably wise. It was also deeply unhelpful.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Why?"

"The guilds tried to corner me." One of the advisors behind the king shifted. The king did not.

"Explain." Alric took a breath.

"Most of this is hearsay, but we understood that one guild wanted to use my brewery to sink the other. I wanted nothing to do with either." He paused.

"Then my staff were attacked." The king's eyes changed. Only slightly. But Alric saw it.

"So you lowered prices?" the king said.

"Yes."

"To punish them."

"Not quite, Your Majesty. I wanted it to stop before someone got killed." The room became very quiet again. This silence was not as neat as the earlier one. This one had edges. The king tapped one finger against the arm of his chair. Once.

"Do you understand what a price war can do to a city?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"And you did it anyway."

"Yes."

"Because of your staff." Alric straightened a little. Not intentionally. It simply happened.

"Yes, Your Majesty." The king studied him for a long moment. The advisors behind him looked less comfortable than before. The mages, oddly, seemed less offended by this than by the beer. Perhaps violence and commerce were easier to understand than using mana to brew ale. The queen tilted her head.

"Would you do it again?" Alric knew there was a correct answer. He also knew he did not have it.

"If someone attacked my people again?" he asked. The queen did not answer. Alric looked back to the king.

"I believe I would." Vale closed his eyes. Seren's expression remained calm, though Alric suspected several internal ledgers had just caught fire. The king did not look angry. That worried Alric more than if he had.

"You answer very directly," the king said.

"I was told not to volunteer information unless asked." The king looked past him. Alric did not need to turn to know Seren had just become the centre of a very small amount of royal attention.

"Good advice," the king said.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Not always enough."

"No, Your Majesty." The king leaned back again.

"The temple, I was informed the temple blessed your brewery." Alric nearly sighed. He managed not to, which he counted as personal growth. Alric held his expression still with effort.

"Yes."

"You requested this?"

"No."

"Encouraged it?"

"Absolutely not." The king's mouth twitched again. Alric continued before someone else could say divine ingredient and make the room worse.

"The temple investigated the beer. The beer has… a divine ingredient. They tested it. There was a crown. It glowed. Then the temple decided to bless the brewery." He hesitated.

"Quite thoroughly." The queen's lips pressed together. The king turned his head slightly toward her.

"Quite thoroughly."

"I did not ask them to make the building visible from across the river," Alric said, closing his eyes briefly before remembering to add, "Your Majesty." The king laughed. This time even one of the advisors smiled, though he hid it behind his writing board almost immediately. The queen chuckled, softly enough that it could pretend to have been breath if necessary. The oldest mage looked unsettled.

"A divine ingredient?"

"Beer," Alric said quickly. The mage stared. Alric realised that had not helped.

"We use one beer to seed another. The temple tested it. The divine part is not something I understand, and I am not claiming to. I just make the beer."

"You just make the beer," the king repeated.

"Yes." The king looked toward the window for a moment, though the brewery was not visible from where he sat.

"That phrase seems to do a great deal of work for you."

"It has had to." That earned another small sound from the queen. The king let the room settle. Then the queen moved. She simply shifted her attention fully onto Alric, and somehow that was enough to make the next question hers before she spoke it. All it took was a small turning of her shoulders.

"Why are you registering an atelier?" Alric felt the change immediately. The mana questions had been concern. The guild questions had been risk. The temple questions had been irritation wrapped in theology. This one was future.

"I use magic in brewing," he said.

"More than I probably should without understanding it properly. I've met Margaret. She'll teach. I'll learn."

"That is not an answer," the queen said. Alric nodded slowly. Fair.

"I want to research practical uses for magic. Brewing, yes, but not only brewing. If possible. Safer food, easier lifting, but I don't know enough yet to say that without sounding foolish." The third mage watched him closely. The queen did too.

"I'm not that interested in magic for its own sake," Alric continued.

"Not unless it does something. Throwing fireballs sounds impressive until something is on fire." The king smiled. The narrow mage did not.

"You reduce the higher arts to utility?" the mage said. Alric looked at him, his irritation briefly winning out.

"Do the higher arts clean barrels?" The silence that followed was brief, but satisfying. The king covered his mouth with one hand. The queen did not bother to hide her amusement this time. The narrow mage looked at Alric as though he had personally insulted several generations of education.

"No," the mage said.

"Then I'll start with utility," Alric replied. The king lowered his hand.

"Careful, brewer." Alric immediately bowed his head.

"Yes, Your Majesty." But the king still looked amused. The queen studied Alric for another moment, and he became aware of her again. Not because she was beautiful, though she was. Anyone with eyes would have noticed that. It was more that she seemed to have the unnerving habit of being still at exactly the wrong time. Every movement in the room had somewhere to go except hers. She could sit quietly and make other people feel like they were explaining themselves badly. Alric kept his eyes on her face.

He was not sure if that was court etiquette, but it felt safer than the alternatives.

"You are unattached," she said. It was not a question. Alric's mind took a moment to catch up. Then it caught up too quickly. Alric shook his head before remembering himself.

"No, Your Majesty. Uh… rather, yes, I am unattached." The king looked suddenly entertained in a way that gave Alric no comfort at all.

"According to the reports," the queen continued, "you have no wife, no betrothed, and no formal arrangement under negotiation?" Alric wondered which report had included that and whether Seren had already had a list of suspects.

"That's correct, Your Majesty."

"You have had offers."

"Yes."

"And refused them."

"Yes."

"Why?" Alric opened his mouth. Closed it. This had not been in Stromni's backstory either. He decided, not for the first time, that Stromni had left out several important categories.

"I'm young," Alric said carefully.

"I'm in no rush. Most of the offers have been… pushy." The queen's brow rose slightly. Alric continued, because apparently he had learned nothing.

"I'd rather get to know someone first." The king put a hand over his mouth again. The queen stared at him. Then she asked, with perfect calm, "Are you a princess, to be so idealistic?" Alric blinked. There were several possible answers. All of them died before reaching his mouth. The queen let him sit in that silence for exactly long enough to make it clear she had done so deliberately.

"When you do find someone," she said, "the crown will expect to be told." Alric nodded.

"Yes, Your Majesty." This, he decided, was somehow worse than the mage questions. The king leaned back in his chair, his amusement fading into thought. He looked at Alric for a long moment. Then at the mages. Then at the advisors. Then back to Alric.

"You are a very odd man." Alric did not know whether to apologise.

"I am told so frequently, Your Majesty." The king seemed to approve.

"You have an old dwarven storage spell, an obscene amount of mana, a brewery that has upset the guilds, attracted the temple, been blessed hard enough to trouble the skyline, and now you intend to register an atelier for practical magical research." He paused.

"And somehow, you seem less ambitious than half the clerks in this building." One of the advisors became very interested in his board. Alric was not sure if he was allowed to agree. The king continued.

"That is what bothers me." Alric frowned before he could stop himself.

"Your Majesty?"

"You seem normal," the king said. Alric waited. The king's eyes narrowed slightly.

"Painfully normal, dangerously normal. Irritated by inconvenience. Loyal to your staff. Interested in production. Bad at courtly answers. Annoyed by waste. Offended by poor logistics. You may be the most ordinary dangerous man I have ever met." Alric did not move. The room seemed to agree with the king. The mages were watching him. The advisors were watching him. The queen was watching him in a way that suggested she had already begun arranging future problems into categories. The king smiled faintly.

"And right now, I believe I may be the only person in this room who is not properly wary of you." Alric looked around. The oldest mage did not look away. The narrow mage looked as though he had been wary for years and had only now found the correct target. The quiet mage looked concerned. The advisors looked like men who had just realised a number in a ledger was moving by itself. The queen's expression was calm. Which was not reassuring. Alric looked back to the king.

"I am becoming more wary, Your Majesty." The king laughed once. Short. Genuine.

"Good. Keep doing that."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"I want to see this brewery," the king said. Alric's thoughts stopped. Then restarted in a much less organised condition.

"The brewery, Your Majesty?"

"Yes."

"Ah." The queen looked amused again. The king raised a brow.

"Is that a problem?"

"No, Your Majesty. Of course not. It would be my pleasure." This was, socially speaking, the correct answer. Privately, Alric brain was picking up speed making an internal list. The floors were clean. The casks were mostly organised. The staff were reliable unless someone important arrived, at which point Hal might salute with a mop or Henry might say something honest. Tarrow might be there. The glow had faded, mostly. Did kings expect samples? Did kings drink beer? Would Seren know? Of course Seren would know.

Seren probably already had a palace visit checklist tucked somewhere inside her mind.

"I may attend," the queen said. Alric's internal list caught fire.

"It would be an honour, Your Majesty."

"I am certain," she said. The king looked at Seren and Vale for the first time since the questioning had begun.

"Your people may prepare him. Shall we say a week from today?" Seren bowed. Vale followed. Alric bowed a half-beat after them, but this time he did not completely embarrass himself. It was not graceful. It would not have inspired poetry. But it had the general shape of respect and did not require immediate correction. That seemed enough.

"You are dismissed," the king said. A servant stepped forward to guide them out. Alric turned carefully, because turning incorrectly now felt like the sort of thing that could become law later. Seren and Vale moved with him. No one spoke until they reached the doors. They closed behind him with a soft, final sound. For one brief moment, the corridor felt wonderfully empty. Then laughter came from inside the office. The king's laughter. Alric stood very still. He looked at the servant beside the door.

The man's face had arranged itself into the polished emptiness of palace service. Alric pointed faintly back toward the door. Seren exhaled through her nose. Vale looked at him with an expression that suggested there were many things to say and none of them could safely be said here. Alric started walking.

"We need to prepare the brewery," Seren said quietly.

"Yes," Alric said, letting go of a deep breath. He glanced across at Seren. She was already thinking. The lists had begun. Behind them, somewhere beyond the closed door, the king laughed again. Alric decided, with absolute certainty, that he would rather have faced the carriage.