The Road To Vanador by Terry Mancour

Author:Terry Mancour [Mancour, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-02-02T05:00:00+00:00

Part Four

An Interlude With Astyral

We actually didn’t make it out of the city until late the following afternoon. Though work levies exhaustively shoveled snow out of the way, it took time to clear enough of a path for carts, not just foot traffic. We had to stop and wait several times, and twice, in a fit of frustration at the wait, I used magic to eliminate the snow.

“Why didn’t you just do that in the first place?” Dad complained, as we proceeded through the steaming puddle I’d created.

“I was trying to be respectful of their work. But we’ll have to hurry, if we want to make it to the inn by nightfall, now,” I explained. “I don’t have time to wait.”

“Why would a man object to magic completing his task?” Dad asked.

“Would you like it if I found a way to magically bake bread?” I challenged. “That would be easy enough, I think, if I put my mind to it.”

“I see your point,” Dad chuckled.

“Being a wizard implies using magic wisely,” I continued. “Making a job easier is one thing. Eliminating it is quite another.”

The countryside was beautiful, under the freshly fallen snow. Though the wheels slipped more than I’d prefer, the team was sure-footed and spirted, in the snow. We made good time and came to the village on the River Dreadwell, where we could hire a barge headed upstream.

That proved more difficult than I expected. The inns where such hires were made were nearly shut down by the heavy snowfall, and many of the barges expected had not arrived on time. It was another day before I was able to hire a boat willing to take us up the Dreadwell as far as Cambrian . . . for a high enough fee.

This barge was far larger than the one that had brought us to Barrowbell. It had a five-man crew and a sail, though the winds were rarely strong enough to employ it. Only the heaviness of my purse and the promise of magical aid convinced the captain to head upriver in the face of the melting snow.

The rivers got twistier, here, even as the land flattened out. On the west bank of the Dreadwell the rolling hills around Barrowbell quickly flattened into hectare after hectare of flat, snow-covered fields. Come late summer, they would be white with a different kind of white: cotton. Gilmora’s rich soil and hot summers produced some of the finest cotton in the Five Duchies, if not on all of Callidore.

The Barony of Farintosh is where the Cottonlands really begin in Gilmora. From here clear to Vengly, near the frontiers of the Westlands, every acre that could support it grew cotton, cotton which fetched a premium price in ports across the Shallow Sea. Farintosh had scores of domains, hundreds of vast manors, all dedicated to the singular purpose of producing the richest cotton possible. It was a process that required a lot of labor, more than mere wheat or barley required. That encouraged

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