I liked Mandorathan – once I persuaded him to stop falling on his knees every time I entered the room. A man in full armor is so noisy when he does that. I did notice that the level of civility at my ‘court’ improved enormously when my fully armored champion stood just behind my chair looking ominous. My vassals by now had fairly good manners, but Mandorathan’s presence encouraged them to polish those manners until they positively gleamed.

The twenty-eighth century was a time of peace and prosperity in Arendia, and my duchy flourished, in no small part I think because my vassals followed my lead in the business of enriching the soil. There are many lakes in what is now Sendaria, and most of them have peat bogs surrounding them. I’d discovered on the Isle of the Winds that peat does wonders when plowed into the soil, and if the weather cooperated only slightly, every year in my realm was better than the previous one. I introduced new crops and brought in new strains of cattle from Algaria. I pillaged uncle Beldin’s library for treatises on agriculture – largely written by scholars at the University of Melcene – and I applied the most advanced techniques in my domain. I built roads from farm to market, and to some degree I controlled prices to insure that the farmers in the duchy were not swindled by the merchants who bought their crops. I was denounced in some circles as a busybody, but I didn’t really care about that. I mothered the Duchy of Erat outrageously, and as time went on, my subjects came to realize that ‘Mumsy would take care of everything.’

There were a couple of things that ‘Mumsy’ did that they didn’t like, however. I absolutely insisted that they keep their villages tidy, for one thing, and laborers eager to get to the nearest tavern after work didn’t much enjoy picking up their tools before they went off to celebrate. I also put a stop to wife-beating, a favorite pastime of a surprising number of men. My methods were very direct. A man who’s stupid enough to beat his wife isn’t likely to listen to reason, so I instructed the constable of each village to ‘persuade’ wife-beaters to find another hobby. I did urge the constables not break too many bones in the process, however. A man with two broken legs can’t really put in a full day’s work, after all. There was, I remember, one very thick-headed fellow in the village of Mid Tolling who was so stubborn about it that he wound up with both arms and both legs broken before he got the point. After that, he was the politest husband you’ve ever seen.

The tournament at the Great Arendish Fair became a fixture, an addendum, if you will, to the annual meeting of the Arendish Council, and I think that made the chore of keeping the peace even easier. Toward the end of the century, however, the Oriman family came into power in Asturia, and the relations between the four duchies became strained. The Orimans were greedy, ambitious and devoid of anything remotely resembling scruples. The first of the Oriman dukes was a rat-like little fellow who thought he was clever. His name was Garteon, and he began to find excuses not to attend the meetings of the Arendish Council. After the third year marked by his absence, I decided to go have a talk with him. My champion at that particular time was one of my own barons, a huge man of Alorn background named Torgun. We rode on down to Vo Astur, and Baron Torgun let it be known that he’d dismantle large numbers of people if I were not immediately escorted into Duke Garteon’s presence. Alorns can be useful at times.

The unctuous little Garteon greeted me with an oily smile and fell all over himself apologizing for his repeated absences.

‘Have you by chance heard of “Nerasin’s complaint”, your Grace?’ I cut him off. ‘You show all the symptoms of an onset of the disease to me, and I am a trained physician, so I recognize all kinds of illnesses. I’d strongly advise you to make a special point of attending the council meeting next summer. Duke Nerasin found squirming around on the floor while he squealed and vomited up blood to be terribly inconvenient.’

Garteon’s face went very pale. ‘I’ll be there, Lady Polgara,’ he promised. Evidently Nerasin’s tummy-ache had entered the body of Asturian folk-lore.

‘We’ll be expecting you then,’ I said quite firmly. Then Baron Torgun and I left Vo Astur.

‘You should have let me split him down the middle, my Lady,’ Torgun growled as we rode away.

‘We’re supposed to be civilized, Baron,’ I replied. ‘Civilized people don’t hack up their neighbors. I think Garteon got my message. If he doesn’t show up at the meeting next summer, I might have to be a bit more firm the next time he and I have one of these little chats.’

‘Can you really do that?’ Torgun asked curiously. ‘I mean, can you actually make a man start throwing up blood?’

‘If I need to, yes.’

‘What do you need me for, then?’

‘For the pleasure of your companionship, my dear Torgun. Let’s move right along, shall we? It’s almost harvest time, so there are all kinds of things that need my attention.’

Garteon of Asturia was defenestrated by his barons a few years later. That’s one of the disadvantages of living in a palace with high towers. There’s always the possibility of ‘accidentally’ falling out of a window about seven stories above a flagstoned courtyard.

His son, also named Garteon, was probably an even greater scoundrel than his father. Asturia was getting to be a problem.

We entered the thirtieth century, and I realized that I’d been manipulating Arendish affairs for almost six hundred years. I rather enjoyed it, actually. The Arends were much like children in many ways, and they’d come to look upon me as a wise parent to whom they brought most of their problems. More importantly, maybe, was the fact that they checked with me before they put anything major in motion. I was able to head off all sorts of potential disasters because of that.

It was in the spring of 2937 that I advised my co-rulers that Torgun’s successor as my champion, a Mimbrate knight named Anclasin, was getting along in years and that his hearing was beginning to fail. Moreover, he had a number of grandchildren down in Mimbre, and he really wanted to spend more time with them. Parenthood is nice, but grandparenthood is golden.

This, of course, added a certain excitement to the annual tourney at the Great Fair that summer. The winner, always referred to as ‘the mightiest knight of life,’ would be rewarded with the dubious pleasure of living under my thumb for the next several decades.

I arrived at the fair a few days early that summer, and my seneschal, one of Killane’s descendants, nosed about and brought me some rather disturbing news. It seemed that an enterprising Drasnian merchant was accepting wagers on the outcome of the tournaments. Now, if someone wants to waste his money on gambling, that’s none of my concern. What I didn’t want was for someone to start tampering with the various events in order to determine the winner in advance. I spoke rather pointedly with the Drasnian, laying down a few rules for him to follow in his venture. The rules were fairly simple. No bribes. No tampering with equipment. No introduction of exotic herbs into the diets of contestants or of their horses. The Drasnian entrepreneur’s expression was a little pained when he left my pavilion. Quite obviously, he’d had some plans that I’d just disrupted.