\hypertarget{charlatan-iii}{%
\section{Charlatan III}\label{charlatan-iii}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``Beware of they who speak of doing good without speaking of those
whose good they seek.''}

-- Theodore Langman, Wizard of the West
\end{quote}

The townsfolk of Beaumarais were not particularly superstitious or
zealous, but when the number of practitioners in town more than doubled
over a season's span it was only to be expected that there would be
unease.

Olivier tried to think of it in the same terms as if the number of
people carrying swords had swelled by the same amount, but he knew there
were differences. An unscrupulous mage could to a lot more damage with a
little black knowledge than a rapacious fantassin could do with a sword
and heartlessness. But unease was not outright fear, and it'd remain
that way so long as the House of Light kept supporting this arrangement
through Sister Maude. It was only a matter, then, of soothing away
apprehensions and making clear that all these `wizardly vagrants' -- as
he'd heard Old Gontrand call them quite loudly in the streets -- were
useful to the town. Thankfully Olivier had been raised among
practitioners and spent most his life since trying to make coin out of
thin air, so when it came to acquiring usefulness he had ideas aplenty.

The first two who'd come, a certain Master Maurice and his young
daughter Segoline, had been the easiest of all. They were peddlers by
trade, openly offering Maurice's services as a smith in small towns
without one but more discreetly offering some healing and enchanting in
towns that seemed to have a tolerance for magic. The man was a widower
who wanted a place to raise his daughter in peace, and as soon as the
town smith Mistress Caroline was reassured that none of her business
would be taken from her all opposition melted away. Olivier's private
suggestion of a partnership with Master Maurice, enchanting some of her
products for a fee so that \emph{she} might sell artefacts herself, had
caught her interest. The town smith even began throwing her weight
around in favour of the `guests'\emph{.}

It was the arrival of the one who introduced himself Maxime Redflame, a
middle-aged and grizzled man who claimed to have served in several
fantassin companies as a war wizard, that began to complicate things.
Much as lords and princes might prize those whose Talent could be turned
to violence, Olivier had no real use for them. It did not help that he
liked his drink and got rowdy when drunk. Alisanne, who'd never heard of
half the companies who'd supposedly employed him, suggested the drinking
was why he'd sought refuge out here in the mountains. Drinking could be
forgiven in a simple soldier, but in a mage it was another thing: no one
wanted a drunk throwing around fireballs. The man was put to work
gathering herbs out in the mountains, for he was handy with a knife, and
made to learn enough to improve his rather mediocre brewing.

Maxime Redflame resented the work and took no pains to hide it, but he
was in no position to bargain.

Just before the snows the fourth practitioner arrived in town, in almost
every way unlike the last. Morgaine was her name, and she was both young
and comely -- not even twenty-five, and though obviously a wanderer she
was well-dressed and of some means. She claimed to come from the
Principality of Orne, to the south, though she was a traveller who'd
spent some time in the Free Cities and the Thalassocracy. Morgaine was
well-read and genteel in ways that sometimes made Olivier uncomfortable,
for his own worldliness had never ventured much farther than these
mountains. Though she remained vague on the depths of her leaning in
matters magical, she proved a very fine healer as well as capable of
predicting the weather to some degree. The latter did much to endear her
to the town, as it the snows had come early that year and might have
caught the townsfolk by surprise otherwise. Morgaine was charming and
well-spoken, and so for all the power that she was known to wield she
quickly became a darling of the town.

It was a young man called Ludovic that proved to be the greatest trouble
of all, though in a fit of irony. Ludovic himself was shy and gentle,
with all the temperament of a mouse, and was half-dead of cold when he
stumbled into Beaumarais after having taken the mountain paths before
the ice could take enough to make them unusable. He knew no magic,
though it was undeniable he had the Talent, and had been almost abjectly
grateful for being given a bed and a hot meal. Ludovic, as it happened,
came from the town of Grisemanche. A little under two weeks away by
wagon, when the paths were clear and dry. He'd run away from home after
losing control of his Talent and rendering his mother mute, hoping that
the rumoured `home for wizards' in Beaumarais would take him in. It was
unlikely that Ludovic's family would be coming after him anytime soon,
not with winter making such a trip so arduous, but with spring that
would change.

Olivier saw to it that the younger boy was given a cot in the back of
the shop until proper accommodations could be found for him, and
reluctantly he asked for Morgaine's help in ensuring that the weeks
travelling in the cold with little food or rest would not leave marks.
He gave them privacy during the examination, and when the slim dark-eyed
woman emerged from the backroom it was with a look of tightly controlled
displeasure on her face.

``Ill news?'' Olivier asked.

``The frostbite was mild, and though he has thinned it is nothing that
regular meals will not be able to fix,'' Morgaine said. ``It was also
the least of his troubles. Most of the bruises on him are older than his
travels and some of his bones were broken several times.''

The young man breathed out sharply. It was not unheard of, this. While
it was against the teachings of the Heavens to mistreat a child, magic
made things different in the eyes of some people.

``Understood,'' Olivier simply said.

Morgaine fixed him with a steady look, a strand of her crow-black hair
having come loose from her elegant hairdo.

``And what do you intend to do about this?'' she asked.

``Settle affairs with his family when the snows melt,'' he replied. ``So
long as the curse of muteness is lifted and reparations made, his kin
should be willing to surrender their claim to him.''

``That boy was beaten,'' Morgaine said. ``Often and cruelly. And you
speak of \emph{reparations}?''

``I speak of removing him from that peril,'' Olivier calmly replied. ``I
am not a lord or a magistrate, to be able to take it further than
that.''

``There are other ways to discourage that sort,'' Morgaine said. ``Some
are discreet. It would not be so difficult to arrange for persistent
nightmares or move a few sprites to mischief.''

``And when his kin go to the mayor and the House of Light to complain of
being harassed by mages intervening in their family's affairs,'' the
young man flatly replied, ``which they very well might even if we do
nothing, mind you, but if they do and we \emph{have} harassed them --
what will we do, when hard-eyed men in House livery come sniffing around
and we truly have something to hide?''

``Is your deal with Sister Maude not meant to shield us from that very
scrutiny?'' Morgaine said.

``She is a single sister in a backwater town,'' Olivier replied. ``This
arrangement has been allowed to continue because for some it represents
an opportunity. If it ever becomes a threat, even a written contract
will weigh no more than smoke.''

``I had believed you bolder than this, from the stories told in this
town,'' the dark-eyed mage said.

``I had believed you wiser than this, from all the stories you've told
of your travels,'' Olivier flatly replied.

It ended with that, the two of them parting ways with courteous words
but also a distinct chill. He sensed he had disappointed Morgaine in
some way, but then she had also disappointed him. He spoke of it with
Alisanne, the following evening when they spent time together, and she
was unsurprised.

``She believed you to be ambitious in a different way than you are,''
she told him.

``I'm not ambitious in the slightest,'' Olivier said.

Alisanne's grey eyes were rich with the laughter at his expense she was
too well-bred to indulge in.

``Indeed?'' she said.

``I've some notions of what the future might look like,'' Olivier
allowed.

``You've proved a fair hand at soothing the fears of the townsfolk,''
Alisanne said. ``That aside with the smith might even have worked better
than you think.''

His brow rose.

``How so?''

``I have it on good authority that our own Master Maurice has been going
on long walks with Mistress Caroline,'' she said. ``A widower and a
widow, brought together by the\ldots{} heat of the forge. How
passionate, no?''

She was teasing, as she often did, but months of increasingly ardent
embraces away from prying eyes had taught him to tease back.

``I know no passion, save the taste of her lips,'' he quoted in answer.
``Is it not a folly, how my heart skips?''

Her cheeks pinked, as he'd thought they might. The following poem by
Genevieve the Rossignol grew rather more risqué than the first two lines
might lead one to believe.

``It is a good thing that you are not as handsome as your brother,''
Alisanne decided. ``Such a man would be entirely too dangerous to my
gender.''

It was difficult to feel insulted by that when she followed up by
catching the back of his neck and dragging him close for some very
enthusiastic kissing. It was late, and there were only the two of them
in the shop, so when clothes began to drop the ground -- first his shirt
and then her robes, until neither of them wore much of anything at all
-- Olivier said nothing. It was only when they were to be entirely bare,
and what they both knew would follow, that he forced himself to speak.

``Are you certain?'' he asked, though he might just go mad if she said
no.

``Gods yes,'' Alisanne hissed.

The visible desire in her eyes only fed into his own arousal. There were
no more objection from him after that, and hardly any words at all until
they were well and spent. The two of them ended up holding each other on
the rug of the store's backroom, enjoying the warmth of the other's
body.

``What kind of ambition did you mean?'' Olivier asked. ``Earlier, I
mean, when were talking about Morgaine.''

``You want to talk of another woman \emph{now}?'' Alisanne said,
sounding mightily amused.

``I could withdraw my question until tomorrow, if you'd prefer,'' he
drily said.

She dragged him closer, silenced him with a kiss, and he took it as the
end of the conversation. It wasn't, however.

``You've the services of several wizards, some coin and ties with the
House,'' Alisanne sleepily said. ``I hear tell you've even been seen
seducing highborn ladies of late.''

``Lies,'' Olivier amiably said, ``I assure you it was entirely the other
way around.''

His shoulder was swatted in half-hearted admonishment.

``She expected you to make yourself into a sort of lord, using the mages
as your enforcers,'' Alisanne said. ``Now, since you've had the
indecency of forcing me to think you'll have to fetch a blanket as
atonement. I'd rather enjoy you for a little while still than return to
the temple.''

Disinclined to argue with that, Olivier extracted himself from their
embrace and rose to his feet. His heart skipped when he noticed the door
to the front of the shop had been slightly cracked open this entire
time, a damning testament to how\ldots{} distracted they had both been.
No one had come in, however, so after closing it shut and grabbing the
blanket he'd been sent questing after he put the whole matter out of his
mind.

---

It was not a long winter that followed but it still felt too short to
Olivier.

He'd not wasted the time, instead cementing the usefulness of the shop
in the eyes of the town by arranging for the mages to create enchanted
stones capable of radiating heat as well as light when firewood began to
run low in some homes -- freely given out, though with a signed promise
of payment when the season turned and coin was had again. Roland and
Morgaine had proved to be a remarkably gifted team when working
together, and though the other practitioners had not helped much the
successes of those two had reflected on all of them. Yet when spring
came there would be changes. There would be fewer quiet evenings where
he and Alisanne could lose themselves in each other, for one, but there
was also a hanging sword above their head: Ludovic's kin would come for
him, sure as dawn, when the ice thawed. Roland's visits had also grown
rarer, as he dove into his studies with both their parents and accepted
Morgaine's own gracious offer of sharing some of knowledge. Olivier took
to visiting him regularly instead.

It was one night on the eve of spring that he found his younger brother
in his rooms at the family house, reading through Mother's eastern
poetry book, and to his surprise Roland eyed him with thinly-veiled
antipathy.

``Ollie, is it true that you and Alisanne are lovers?'' Roland said,
closing the book and hastily putting it away.

Olivier's brow rose. He'd believed the two of them to be discreet, or at
least as discreet as one could be in a small town. He did not consider
lying, though it would have been simpler.

``Yes,'' he admitted. ``Though that is best kept secret.''

Though no rule of the House forbade dalliances, a lay sister would be
expected not to dabble in them if she'd been sent to a temple to learn
temperance in the first place. It'd reflect poorly on both their
reputations if it became common knowledge they were involved.

``You know that I am fond of her,'' Roland accused.

``So am I,'' Olivier frankly said. ``And you barely know her. I am sorry
that this pains you, but you've no real call to be bruised over the
matter.''

His little brother's face reddened. Though he was not exactly spoiled it
could not be denied that Roland was used to getting his way, especially
if he put in the effort. It sometimes brought out ugly things in him.

``It will not last forever,'' Olivier sighed. ``So put it out of your
mind. She will bore of the town and leave eventually, Roland. She's too
clever to stay in a place like this forever.''

``She might,'' Roland denied. ``She is the youngest of seven, she has
little to inherit.''

The young man's brow rose as he considered his brother. He'd known that
Alisanne had siblings -- she'd mentioned two in passing -- but he'd not
known how many, which made it more than passing odd that Roland
\emph{did}.

``How do you know that?'' Olivier asked.

His brother looked aside.

``Roland,'' he sharply said.

``I asked, that's all,'' Roland angrily said. ``Let it go, Olivier. It's
none of your business.''

He swallowed the angry reply on the tip of his tongue and nodded.
Perhaps it wasn't.

``I'll see you tomorrow, then,'' Olivier stiffly said.

His little brother grimaced, looking guilty.

``I'm sorry,'' Roland said, then hesitated. ``Do you mean it, though?
That the two of you won't last?''

``I cannot see how it would,'' Olivier admitted.

He would miss her sorely when she left, and be morose for a long time,
but he would not delude himself into thinking that their affair would
keep her from leaving this backwater when the opportunity to return home
to Apenun beckoned.

``Then it's nothing,'' Roland firmly said. ``Just bruising, you're
right.''

Olivier left, both heartened by the almost cordial way the conversation
had ended and oddly troubled. Yet there was no time to delve into his
unease, because within days spring had come and fresh troubles with it.

---

Jacques and Annette of Grisemanche were, Olivier grasped within an hour
of first having met them, in their own way some of the vilest people
he'd ever met.

Ludovic's parents had not gone to the shop, when they'd arrived to
Beaumarais, but instead straight to the House of Light. Alisanne had
slipped out while they spoke with Sister Maude, bringing with her bad
news. Ludovic's wild spell that'd rendered Annette Grisemanche mute had
faded over the winter, as untaught magic often did, and the attentions
of a priest capable of wielding Light had been enough to chase away the
lingering wooden tongue that'd been the last remnant of the curse. There
would be no leverage or goodwill to be had by removing it. Olivier sent
the youngest mage in his charge away from the village, out with Maxime
Redflame to camp in the mountains and harvest herbs for a few days, then
prepared for what would no doubt be an unpleasant few days.

That very evening he was invited to have a cup of wine with the two
strangers and Sister Maude, so that the priestess might host them and
help `resolve the dispute'. Given the half-faded bruises on their son's
body he'd half expected the couple to have horns and burning eyes, but
instead they turned out to be rather personable. Neither good-looking
nor ugly, they dressed modestly and spoke courteously. They were in good
odour with Sister Maude's equivalent in Grisemanche, Sister Lucie, and
considered to be respectable by their community. Their children had all
found trades, and they donated regularly to their temple.

``Ludovic was always troubled,'' Annette of Grisemanche sadly said. ``We
never suspected it might be something as serious as magic, Sister, but
perhaps we should have.''

``The signs were there,'' Jacques of Grisemanche agreed. ``We were
blinded by familiar love, I fear. To think he would attack his own
mother!''

``Troubling indeed,'' Sister Maude said, turning a steady gaze towards
Olivier.

He'd waited patiently for them to cease talking, remembering the look on
Morgaine's face that night. The one when she'd emerged from a room where
she'd seen repeatedly broken bones in a boy barely twelve. He understood
her anger a little better now, he thought. It was a dead end, such
things always were, but then it was easier to be calm when it was not
you the blows were raining on.

``Blinded is perhaps the right word,'' Olivier said, smiling pleasantly.
``For I cannot imagine how else you might have missed the many bruises
on his body, or the oft-broken bones.''

There was a moment of silence.

``That is a heavy accusation,'' Jacques of Grisemanche harshly said.

He was not a big man, but he was larger than Olivier -- who was not done
growing but would not be tall even when he had. The older man leaned
forward, as if to loom, but the younger one had been faced with bare
steel before. Posturing seemed like a trifling thing, after having seen
your own death reflected in a blade.

``It was a simple statement,'' Olivier calmly replied. ``I wonder why it
is you might feel accused, Master Jacques.''

``Any parent would feel this way, when told they missed the injuries of
their child,'' Annette of Grisemanche said. ``Emotions are simply
running high, Master Olivier. No doubt Ludovic simply hid them from us
with his magic, ashamed of his truck with evil spirits.''

Olivier did not doubt for a moment there'd been evil in that child's
life, as it happened. How could he, when at this very moment it was
looking at him with measuring eyes?

``A short recess is in order,'' Sister Maude said. ``It will allow for
the heat of the moment to pass.''

Her gaze on him was no longer quite so demanding, but she was still
handling the couple carefully. Olivier frowned. Why? She had to know
that allowing them some time to speak alone would let them agree on some
sort of story explaining away the evidence of beatings. The two
strangers left for a short walk through the garden, even as Sister Maude
broke with etiquette and filled Olivier's cup anew herself.

``This is a problem, Olivier,'' the priestess said. ``You are poking at
more than you can afford to provoke.''

Why would she think that? Gods, why would a woman of even middling faith
allow a beaten child who'd suffered not just bruises but broken bones to
return to -- \emph{oh}, he thought, blood going cold. The bones. They'd
been broken several times, yet never healed wrong as such a break badly
set or healed often by magic would. Ludovic used his arms and hands
without trouble, after all. There was only one person in Grisemanche
that would be able to heal the boy like that. \emph{And since it
happened several times, even a fool would have been able to figure out
why}, Olivier realized. The couple, he'd been told earlier, was seen as
respectable.

They even donated regularly to the temple in Grisemanche.

``I do not wear a red cross on my clothes,'' Olivier said. ``I do not
crusade the cleanse the world from all evils. But I will not return that
boy to beatings, Sister Maude.''

``I have not asked you to,'' the priestess stiffly replied. ``Yet I warn
you now that if Sister Lucie requests an inquiry by the House in Apenun,
then all that was built here will vanish into thin air.''

So he would have to grease the palms of the hollow things in human flesh
that'd sat across him, and perhaps even the crooked sister as well. Else
a fuss would be kicked up, before the shop and what it represented was
ready to withstand the attention, and the consequences would be on his
head.

``I understand,'' Olivier de Beaumarais said, tone forcefully even.

``I knew you would,'' Sister Maude said. ``Patience is a virtue,
Olivier. All accounts are settled in due time.''

He did not answer, the anger too sharp and close to his tongue. When the
couple returned he began to negotiate in indirect, meandering pretty
words how much it might cost to buy their son. They wanted to continue
taking a cut of his salary and the profit of his works, the parasites,
but he managed to present that as taking from the revenues of the House
of Light so they hastily withdrew. In the end it came down to thirteen
silvers and three promised artefacts of a nature yet to be determined,
the quality of which would be attested by Sister Maude. It was steep
cost, but Olivier at least finagled them into having to settle any
doubts by their \emph{friend} Sister Lucie themselves. May they all
choke squabbling over what their shares of the bribes should be.

He left the temple feeling exhausted and feeling dirtied, so it was not
a pleasant surprise for him to find Morgaine waiting at the shop.
Lounging behind the counter, the beautiful sorceress did not take the
initiative to greet him and only studied him with dark and knowing eyes.

``Morgaine,'' he greeted her. ``Can this wait until tomorrow? I find
myself in no state to converse.''

``There is a spell from the east that allows one to see what is far
away, within certain rules,'' Morgaine said. ``Mine is a paltry enough
imitation, but it still allows me sight within the temple.''

Olivier's irritation mounted. Not only was she admitting to having spied
on him, she was stubbornly refusing to take the hint that he was in no
mood for this.

``Should you be caught indulging in that, it is not you alone that will
suffer the consequences of it,'' he sharply said.

The dark-eyed woman smiled.

``Does it unsettle you, the lack of control?'' she asked. ``The
realization that your authority exists only so long as we allow it to?''

That have him pause. His eyes narrowed.

``You are beginning,'' Olivier calmly said, ``to speak unwisely.''

``Ah, and we \emph{must} be wise,'' Morgaine mocked. ``Always. Else we
are wicked, and so we'll be clapped in irons and ran out and butchered
and \emph{burned}. But you fine folk, well, that is different. Even if
you beat us and break our bones we are to smile, and if we're lucky we
can pay you for the privilege of leaving us alone. Eventually, that is.
After you tire of the cruelty.''

The longer she spoke the more the anger dripped into her voice openly.
Her hands clenched over the counter as her expression hardened and
sorcery flickered around her fingers in thread of red light. Olivier had
never really thought of magic as something that could be turned against
him, that could be used to \emph{hurt} him, but in that moment he
realized that if she struck at him with a spell he would most likely
die. She'd not survive the night, for he'd die loudly and draw
attention, but simply because of her magic and anger she had power over
him. And he was but a young fool in the middle of nowhere, he knew. How
galling it must be for an officer in expensive armour to feel like this,
or a highborn magistrate. And so Olivier understood just a little bit,
now, why people feared mages. Why they wanted them gone. It was a
shameful thing, but he understood the fear at last.

And yet for all of Lady Morgaine's anger it seemed to him that her eyes
stayed calm. Calculating. But it must be a mistake, he thought, for
there was nothing calculated about this confrontation. It felt too raw
for that.

``You ask me to change the writ of things,'' Olivier said. ``I cannot,
Morgaine. It is unfair, and it should not be this way, but it is not in
my power to mend. All I can do is what I am doing.''

The sorceress looked tired, suddenly.

``You are not as those two jackals are,'' she said. ``But this\ldots{}
stray dog refuge you are trying to make for us, it is not an answer. You
are trying to protect us like we're children, to chase away those who'd
harm us while we hide in the mountains until you have settled our
affairs for us. It is no way to live. You make decisions in our name
without truly understanding our troubles, because they have never been
\emph{your} troubles. It is a well-meaning condescension you offer but
condescension nonetheless.''

It wounded this pride, that this stranger would come and complain of
what he had built with little help from anyone at all. He was not an
angel, to be able to solve all troubles with a snap of his fingers, and
she was not forced to be here. If there were better offers to entertain,
then let her take one of them. Yet that was anger and pride. It was
resentment, a many-headed snake that Olivier knew still dwelled in him
for all that years ago he had decided to take the other road. One
decision, though, did not choose the cast of an entire life. He would
have make that same choice again, as many times as it took. So he
breathed out, and forced himself to calm.

``You have qualms, evidently,'' Olivier said. ``Express them properly so
that they might be addressed.''

``You have made yourself into the lord of this little town's wizards,''
Morgaine said. ``With good reasons and intentions, but you have made
yourself a lord still. We are beholden to you, you settle our troubles
for us and we ply our magic on your behalf.''

\emph{She expected you to make yourself into a sort of lord, using the
mages as your enforcers}, Alisanne had said. Instead Morgaine thought
him to have made himself lord of only the mages, and this it seemed she
could not suffer.

``Is this your own belief,'' Olivier asked, ``or that of all mages of
Beaumarais?''

``The sentiment is shared by many,'' Morgaine said. ``Ask, if you do not
believe me, though I imagine some will be afraid of being tossed out if
they truly speak their mind.''

He would not take her word for this -- she'd done nothing to earn that
sort of trust from him -- but neither would he dismiss what she'd said
outright. That would be dangerously complacent.

``The nature of the arrangement that brought you to Beaumarais is not
something I can change,'' Olivier frankly said.

``No,'' Morgaine softly said. ``I imagine not. But for all that it is
your name on the parchment, it need not remain so.''

His brow rose. That he might sign over the shop to her was a suggestion
both foolish -- the House would not accept it -- and personally ruinous.
He'd invested most of his coin into the venture and drawn on his
personal connections extensively. It was also exceptionally
presumptuous.

``I do not mean to steal from you,'' Morgaine said. ``Only that, while
keeping your shares of profit, you might eventually pass the reins to
someone who might truly make this a home for our kind.''

He frowned.

``And who would that be?'' he asked.

``Your brother,'' Morgaine firmly said.

Oliver started in surprise.

``Roland does not know how to run a shop, much less deal with the
House,'' he said.

``He is young,'' the dark-eyed sorceress said. ``You can teach him.''

That was\ldots{} not untrue. And it would keep the shop in the family,
which settled some of Olivier's troubles with this. Yet he was balking
at the notion, some part of him refusing to even seriously think of it.

``Consider it,'' Morgaine quietly said. ``That is all I can ask.''

She left him to the silence of the darkened shop, lost in thought.
