“No.” Emily tried to sound commanding, but she suspected she wasn’t fooling him. Alassa could snap her fingers and have everyone obey. Emily had yet to develop the talent. She rather thought Sir Blackley saw her as just another aristocratic brat, a legal child who would be married off — with or without her consent — and gift her lands to her new husband. “They’ll be convinced to maintain the roads once they prove their value.”
She ignored his snort of disbelief as the coach rattled down the bumpy road. The peasants regarded the road network as a curse, not a blessing. Better roads meant more aristocrats crashing their horses through the farms, more taxmen trying to take everything they had and more soldiers looting, raping and murdering their way through the countryside. Emily intended to improve the roads, as well as building a rail network, but it would take time to convince the peasants it was a good thing. Legally, they were meant to maintain the road network. Practically, they did as little as possible. And how could she blame them?
Her eyes widened, peering forward as the village came into view. It looked strikingly rustic, the farmhouses, cottages and a handful of other buildings somehow woven into a corpse of trees. Some were wooden from top to bottom, the kind of log cabin she’d read about in history books; some were a strange mixture of wood, stone and earthen works that blended together into a single whole. The inn was the sole building isolated from the rest, resting right at the edge of the village. It was probably an unspoken hint that any visitors shouldn’t go further into the village.
The carriage rattled to a halt. Sir Blackley opened the door and jumped down. Emily followed at a slightly more sedate pace, looking around with interest. The village looked strikingly prosperous, unlike some of the towns and hamlets too close to the castles and manors for their own good. The map she’d checked before leaving the last manor hadn’t been very accurate, but it was clear the village was right on the borderline between two separate demesnes. The villages were lucky they weren’t paying taxes to both aristocrats.
And that’s going to change too, Emily reflected, wryly. The nobility can’t take everything that isn’t nailed down anymore.
Sir Blackley roared for attention. Emily gritted her teeth as children and chickens ran for safety. She’d tried to keep her progress low-key — she’d defeated a necromancer; she didn’t have to worry about bandits or overawing the peasants — but Sir Blackley had ruined it. The peasants were going to think she was just another overbearing lord, rather than someone who meant to make things better for everyone. Unless they’d heard news from the last few towns and villages she’d visited… It was possible. There were no radios in her new world, no means of long-distance communications that didn’t involve magic, but word spread anyway.
And some of the regents hate it, she thought. The absent lords had left their regents in charge, men who saw the opportunity to take everything they could and blame it on the aristocracy, but she’d put a stop to that too. How many taxmen got lynched once word spread about the new laws?
A man — short, stout, wearing a chain of office — hurried up to her, a tall blonde woman who looked to be in her early thirties right behind him. “My Lady,” he said, falling to his knees and grovelling in the dirt. His wife followed suit. “I am Tonabrix, headman. I bid you welcome to Winter’s Edge.”
Emily motioned for him to rise. She’d never been remotely comfortable with grown men bowing and scraping before her and the headman was old enough to be her father. Probably. It was never easy to tell someone’s age, not on her new world. The lower classes aged rapidly — the headman might only be a decade or so older than she was, his wife no older — while the upper classes used glamours and cosmetic magics to hide their true ages. Tonabrix stumbled to his feet, eyes downcast. She shuddered, wishing — not for the first time — that she’d been able to resist the king’s gift. She hadn’t even realised how much power he’d given her until she’d travelled beyond the castle. She could do anything to him and they both knew it. Their former baron had been given to executing — or worse — peasants on a whim.
“The land you work will be formally recognised as yours,” Emily said, holding out a scroll for the older man. Tonabrix might not be able to read it, but there would be people in the village who could. English letters and Arabic numbers had spread with astonishing speed, despite — or perhaps because of — the aristocracy's best attempts to put the brakes on. “You will all be freemen under the law, with the rights and duties that implies.”
Tonabrix looked as if she’d hit him with a brick, as if he didn’t know to applaud her or suspect a sadistic trick. Emily understood. The previous baron had ruthlessly manipulated the laws, using the common folk’s ignorance against them when he didn’t simply make the rules up on the spot. Even here, so far from the castle, the impact had been noticeable. She had no intention of following in the old baron’s footsteps, but Tonabrix didn’t know it. And her laws might be a mixed blessing. She’d given rights to women, set an age of consent, banned forced marriages and quite a few other things. She had done the right thing — she was sure — but she’d also upset a lot of apple carts. It would be years before everything settled down again.
She allowed herself to be shown to the inn, where a hot bath and a meal were loudly calling her name. Sir Blackley had complained about using the inns — he’d argued they should stop at the manors overnight — yet Emily had been insistent. The manors might be luxurious, by the standards of the barony, but they were creepy. The regents were either openly hostile or masked their hostility behind grovelling obsequiousness; the staff and servant seemed terrified of putting a foot wrong in her presence, as if they thought she’d turn them into toads if they got the slightest thing wrong. Inns were more honest, she’d thought, and it let her make a show of being economical. The feasts some of the regents had prepared for her, when she’d started her progress, had been large enough to feed an entire town for weeks. It had been so wasteful she refused to tolerate it.
The remainder of the day was no different from the others. She toured the village and spoke to the locals, inspecting the blacksmith’s shop and noting — quietly — how he’d already taken a few things from the New Learning. It might be a while before he and his apprentices churned out a printing press, or a steam engine, but they were on the way. Reading between the lines, she thought they were producing weapons. Peasants were not allowed to carry anything more lethal than a club, but that didn’t stop them. They might need to fight their lord one day, when he went too far. Emily hoped they would be ready when the king’s wards tried to return to their lands.
“These villages aren’t paying their taxes,” Sir Blackley observed, after a brief welcome feast hosted by the headman. “It’s outrageous!”
“They’ll change, too,” Emily said.
Her lips twitched. She’d been quite impressed by the feast. She had no fondness for ultra-aristocratic food and the village food had suited her, while watching the villages had been a lesson in local democracy. The headman listened to the other villagers before making up his mind, something that marked him as smarter than his aristocratic masters. But then, a heedless headman would wind up dead in an accident that was nothing of the sort. No one would really give a damn.
She ignored Sir Blackley’s suggestion of sharing a bed — sorceresses could have sex whenever they liked, but she didn’t intend to do it— and went to sleep, after carefully casting her wards. It was unlikely anyone would try to sneak into her chamber — they’d have to be foolish, insane or desperate — but there was no point in taking chances. Alassa had told her horrifying stories about how some marriages came to be in the aristocracy. A man might rape a woman and then offer her the flat choice between marrying him or being branded a whore for having sex outside wedlock. Her fists clenched in disgust, her magic sparking in response. If Sir Blackley tried it with her, she’d blast him to pieces and tell the king to be more careful next time.