Chapter 1: Isekai Life & Circus

Two months have passed following my marriage to Katriana. Our days were generally slow-paced and idle, sometimes to the point of frustration. To the modern ear this sounds weird- what’s so bad about not having anything to do for a month?- but in a world without easy access to video games, the internet, and everything else, it was remarkably difficult to find things to fill the hours.

The week and a half it look for Calliope’s new spellbook to be written were the hardest. The combination of having servants to address our every need, our having explored the city fairly thoroughly during our adventures, and the added spice of the possibility of ambush from the Dwarven thieves’ guild all combined to give us little reason to leave the palace.

We attended some court events that the Lord-Paramount held, just out of pure boredom. A couple of balls- Hawkins wasn’t married and had need of an heir, after all- the official coronation, sometimes just sitting in on the court as Hawkins laid out pronouncements regarding laws and such. The latter were most interesting to me- while it had started out of idleness, watching Hawkins in action showed me just how little I actually knew about managing and running a nation. If I wanted to be a good king, I’d have to learn.

The most difficult were the balls, as, well, Katriana, Calliope and Ashryn were good looking women, and it was generally known that Katriana was also my sister. While, according to Bekker, rumour seemed to have it that both Ashryn and Calliope were my lovers, that didn’t stop a great number of the eligible knights, functionaries and even well-to-do merchants of the city asking all three of my wives and fiancees for dances or to join them at table. They couldn’t refuse too many however- it would create a lot of rumour, and we didn’t want to become the target of other people’s curiosity. It was a little hard for me to watch, even though I trusted the girls not to be seduced or fall for another man, but it was easier for my lovers to be polite-but-uninteresting eligible bachelorettes of the court than for them to refuse everyone and for us to become more of a curiosity. I had plenty of dances of my own from them, but we had to maintain a certain facade.

I attracted little notice myself. I suppose it was a cultural thing- the women here were looking to marry upward in status, while the men just wanted to secure a beautiful bride. I suppose you could say that almost no women seeking me out was a good sign. Either way, I generally ended up wallflowering with Voss and Enna. Once Enna received some basic instruction in formal dance from Calliope following the first ball, she ended up taking Voss and I for a spin or three on the dance floor.

When we finally received Calliope’s copy of the court mage’s spellbook- a heavy-looking tome of freshly pressed paper bound in silver-stamped leather- we all agreed that we wanted to leave shortly, so that we wouldn’t overstay our welcome. Immediately be began making preparations to leave.

Katriana had long since picked out a warhorse from the Lord-Paramount’s stables, a towering grey stallion that had sort of a haughty nature, and certainly didn’t like me, aiming kicks at me every time I walked behind. He came with chain barding and a massive war saddle, all of which we had to ask for a second chest just to carry around with us. The animal came with the ridiculous name of Shadebolt, as if whoever named it couldn’t decide between which story to pay tribute to between the children’s cartoon and the fantasy epic. He liked Katriana though, and she was very pleased with him, spending a lot of her spare time riding throughout the city and stableyard.

As for outfitting the rest of the party, Bekker and Voss went to the edge of the city and came back with seven horses, of a certain variety. For him and Enna, Voss had procured a pair of smaller, strong and quick warhorses, suitable, he said, for light cavalry. Unlike Shadebolt, who was built for shorter engagements where he’d need to be strong enough to carry a fully armoured warrior queen, the lighter horses wouldn’t tire very easily, and could easily be used for hunting and scouting in the field. He took the energetic painted brown, who he named Stout, while Enna received a more even-tempered black horse.

We then had the challenge of teaching Enna how to ride the creature. Despite not having the proficiency for it, I at least could recall the basics of riding and had a decent muscle memory for it, a little bit like the dancing. Enna had never been on a beast’s back in her life save being trussed across a donkey one time when she was arrested. Calliope spearheaded her education, and starting her on one of the porter donkeys in the palace, quickly worked her up to having a practical knowledge of riding. Enna wouldn’t be charging into battle anytime soon, but she could at least ride her stallion, who she named Coal, without the beast getting too out of hand.

For the rest of us, Voss brought in a trio of smaller geldings, fit riding horses that were easier to control and use but would be more likely to panic in close combat. Calliope took the worst-tempered of the lot- a cream-coloured little guy that was fairly placid but liked to nip. She named the horse Buttermilk, maybe hoping that a sweet name would help make the horse’s bad habit more tolerable.

Ashryn named her grey-streaked brown gelding Polaris, which was an odd name for such a peaceful, lazy animal. My horse turned out to be a tall, leggy silver who didn’t seem to care about anything, having the same expression and attitude whether I was riding or not, and really only reacted to the offer of molasses treats. I ended up naming him Snacks for this, and also because I was pretty sure nobody else would ever name their horse “Snacks”.

The last horse was a big, wide-shouldered piebald draft horse. We purchased a small wagon to go with him, the intention being that we would put most of our baggage in the wagon and Bekker would pilot the lot. The term “piebald”- referring to the big horse’s irregular splotches of brown and white- was new to Ashryn and gave her the giggles, so she ended up named the big horse Custard after her favourite kind of pie.

All this cost us nearly one thousand gold crowns, which I was less enthused about. We still had plenty of money, so I suppose it was all well spent, but I wasn’t expected that level of investment. It was another almost seventy gold to get provisions, and to gather all these things, plus Enna’s riding lessons, took a week to get together. But finally, we were able to make our goodbyes and hit the road.

Ricard Parett had left ages ago- just after the wedding, in fact- but when he left he reiterated his invitation. So, after some discussion, we agreed to take him up on his offer. He didn’t live all that far from Tresens, and we might get a better of idea of where we want to go afterwards by paying attention to rumours on the road.

The road to Parett’s vineyard was northwest, through the mountains and into a region known as the Lakelands, where much of the water draining out of the mountains formed a series of rivers and shallow lakes all throughout the lowlands on it’s way to the sea.

The day that we loaded up the wagon and mounted our horses was unseasonably hot and grey. High, grey clouds clung to the mountain peaks, not quite threatening rain and seeming to trap the heat down here in the valleys. As we set out, and got up into the hills, the temperature cooled to a pleasant level, and intermittently in the heights we would get sprinkled with a refreshing drizzle of rain. Our road out of town took us by the tomb of Malgarath worshippers which we investigated during our very first quest in the area, which felt oddly nostaglic to me.

For three weeks we travelled from town to town. After all, we were travelling a well used overland trade route to Tresens, and so the road was pretty safe, at least through the mountains. It seemed every valley and vale had their own little village, and most days we were able to spend nights in an inn or at least as some remote farmer or goatherder’s guests. Some lucky days we would lunch in one village then make it over the next rise to rest in another.

Eventually, the road began to slope down one final time, and the great, wide vista of the Lakelands open out before us. A massive river- flowing from a different source and destined for a different ocean than the Islingquet- came out of a distant valley and shattered into the lowlands, creating a land where you couldn’t be sure whether it was one river with a multitude of thousands of islands or a wide plain crisscrossed with hundreds of rivers. Lakes gathered, it seemed, wherever the rivers crossed, seeming to shine silver in the sunlight.

It was the first time Enna had seen any geography other than mountains and city, so despite the city awaiting below us, we stopped for our midday meal on that overlook, taking in the view. For her part, after staring in naked wonder for awhile, she seemed to recover and gave the vista a curt nod. “Uh, that’s pretty flat,” she eventually commented, “Looks wet, too.”