Robinwing Conclave

The Robinwing Conclave (sometimes called the Robinwing Convocation) was the first great peacetime gathering of the High Magi and warmagi after the founding of the Kingdom of Castalshar. Minalan called it for the spring before the gurvani could resume their offensive (gurvani dislike mud and snow even more than humans do), and chose Robinwing Castle — remote, comfortable, and crucially not in any current frontier — as the venue.

The host

Sire Forandal of Scafford, a coastal aristocrat-turned-warmage who had distinguished himself at Timberwatch, had been awarded the Domain of Robinwing as his Magelord's estate. Unlike the half-ruined Sevendor that Minalan had inherited, Robinwing came fully functional: a great old Baronial March castle on a high promontory, the Temple of Peras of Imperial Wisdom in the village below it, well-run inns, and three or four well-bred wards still living in the keep. Forandal proved a gracious host with a court magician's instinct for hospitality:

Robinwing was just larger, better-appointed, and well-run . . . but I do confess a few moments of castle envy after I arrived.

— Minalan, on first sight of Robinwing

Who came

The list was the most senior assemblage of working magi the kingdom had seen in a generation. Pentandra arrived from Castabriel by river barge with her father, her cousin Planus, several senior members of the Order of the Secret Tower, and a baggage train. Terleman the future Knight Commander, Azar, Astyral, Curmor, Carmella, Mavone, Taren, Master Cormaran, Master Icorod, Master Dunselen, and the bulk of the surviving Magical Corps came in person. Banamor attended as the official representative of the kingdom's footwizards and unregistered practitioners at Minalan's personal invitation.

What it founded

The Conclave's working sessions, held in the temple precinct rather than the castle proper to ensure privacy, founded the great Arcane Orders of the Kingdom of Castalshar as a coherent institutional system. The two flagship orders were named for the warmagi who had fallen at Timberwatch:

• The Hesian Order, named for Hesia, dedicated to defensive magics, supply, ordnance, intelligence, and engineering — Carmella was named Mistress of Works. Their sigil was a black castle tower on a red field surmounted by five white stars.
• The Horkan Order, named for Horka, the militant order of Knights Magi who would range the Penumbra. Their sigil was the Ilnarsi death-rune surrounded by five black stars. Terleman was named Knight Commander; Azar Commander of the North; Astyral Commander of the East; Curmor Commander of the South.

Three additional orders followed at the Conclave's second day:

• The Order of Mandros, the medical High Magi, headed by Master Icorod (who paid Minalan three hundred ounces of gold for the appointment).
• The Order of Tarkarine, scholarly magi, named for a famous pre-Conquest magical philosopher of Wenshar, headed by Master Dunselen and charged with founding six new regional academies of magic.
• The Order of the Secret Tower, thaumaturgical research, under Pentandra's family's sponsorship.

The footwizards, undocumented hedgewitches, religious magi, sport-Talents, and Wild magi were placed under the umbrella of a future College of Wizards, with the Regency deliberately left unfilled while the Orders worked out what to do with non-Imperial practitioners.

The titular role

To his consternation, Minalan was made titular head of the two great militant orders — Lord Commander of the Order of Horka and Master Adept for the Order of Hesia — though Terleman ran day-to-day operations and Carmella ran the works. Minalan kept Hesia's witchstone aside, refusing to award it to anyone for years, as a personal memorial.

I think I could feel both of them smirking at me from the afterlife.

— Minalan, on the orders named for his fallen comrades

Why Robinwing matters

Every magical institution that follows in Castalshar — the deployment of warmagi to the Penumbra, the magelord baronies, the Academy at Inarion, the eventual Magelaw, the political balance between militant and civilian magi, the trade in witchstones, even the structure of irionite distribution — rests on the foundation laid at Robinwing. Pentandra would later say plainly:

The balance of power within the arcane orders must not be absolute. As it is, almost two-thirds of the stones in our control lie with the militant orders, the Horkan Order most of all. But if the balance of that sum is not held by civilian magi, then the future of magic in the Kingdom will lie along military lines.

— Pentandra, on the post-Robinwing balance

The Conclave gave Minalan and Pentandra the institutional vocabulary to manage that balance for the next two decades. It also gave the magi of the kingdom, for the first time since the fall of the Magocracy, an explicit and legitimate professional structure.