The Well-Favored Man

by Elizabeth Willey

  “All creatures have appetites scaled to their size.” Marfisa looked around at us all.

  “Yes.” I let that sink in for a moment. “We must act against him before he acts against us or ours.”

  “What kills those things?” Walter asked.

  I spread my hands, shrugging.

  “Father,” Alexander said, a touch of black humor we didn’t need.

  “I can think of various things that would kill it, but many of them would have undesirable side effects on the landscape,” I said. “It is likely that he shall be well able to defend himself against conventional and sorcerous attacks and to counter them in kind.”

  “Thus perhaps unconventional and nonmagical is the way to go,” Alexander said.

  “You have an idea?” I asked. It sounded promising.

  “No. I merely offer a line of inquiry.”

  The discussion went on. Finally we winnowed out our choices:

  One was do nothing and wait and see if the beast moved on. “Not likely,” I said. “Mount Longview is an ideal dragon’s roost. It’s a major Node, with a strong upwelling of vitality from the Spring, and they prefer such places, I’ve heard. It has caves and ruins and the Errethon highway runs through Longview Pass to the east. Easy pickings.”

  Another was to attack him immediately with everything we had to hand, a preemptive strike before he had struck against us or established himself in his new abode. Alexander and Marfisa favored this, and Prospero did not conclusively speak against it. Phoebe chewed her lip and said nothing as they chaffered this back and forth, and finally looked at me and said, “You were serious before, weren’t you.”

  “I usually am.”

  “About one of us being dead before the dragon is.”

  Everyone stared at me. I grew uncomfortable. “Fortunetelling is to neither my taste nor ability. But I think it quite likely.”

  Alexander looked suspicious. “I disagree.”

  “Your prerogative.” I inclined my head to him politely.

  He glared at me.

  A third option was to do research, both abstract and applied, and find out more about dragons in general before tackling this one in specific. I favored this choice. I pressed it by mentioning, during the debates over the others, how tactically sound it would be if we knew more about the thing we assaulted before we did so.

  In last place was to attempt to coexist peaceably with the dragon. Belphoebe brought it up, she said, because Mother would have, although personally she didn’t think it could work. We all agreed and shelved that one right away. Mother’s ideas only worked, sometimes, for Mother.

  More discussion and slightly-less-subtle leaning on my part resulted in consensus on the third choice. We would study, inquire of our Landucian connections, and find out what was definitely known about dragons. It was even possible that this individual would be known to someone. The draconid family in general live a long time. This decided, we adjourned to a sitting room and lounged around catching up on each other’s lives.

  My sisters and brothers and I get along well, better than many, which is good because we are a very small family by Argylle standards. There are tensions, conflicts, but we pull together more than apart. Gaston and Mother fostered this in us and with them gone Prospero continued to try to do so, with great difficulty at times. With only five of us siblings, and none but Walter who sought close long-term bindings with others, any genuine quarrel would split us fatally. We have not the cushioning structure of a real, wider family around us, and the loss of even one member of the broader group, let alone three, could have destroyed our fragile unity.

  It has seemed strange to me that in Argylle, where everyone is bound to lovers, blood-kin, trading partners, and fellow-citizens generally by affection and goodwill, our family are all distinct, insular individuals. Perhaps it is because we were reared severally—a handful of only children—or because of something in our genetic makeup, or because of the Spring and the Well in us. We are each conscious of standing apart from the others, and we must each continually strive to stay connected.

  This evening we were in effortless accord, though; there was a problem to solve, something new and different and excitingly dangerous to confront, and we all love a good fight, except maybe Walter. So the conversation was animated, even cheerful.

  It was quite late when we finished and turned in. Belphoebe knocked on my study door.

  “I’m minded to head off toward Longview and camp nearby to keep an eye on our guest,” she said.

  “Do it,” I said. “But for heaven’s sake be careful.”

  “I understand. I’ll send tidings twice daily.”

  “Or if anything noteworthy happens.”

  “As you wish. I’ll leave at dawn.” She left silently. I kicked myself mentally. I should have thought of that at once.

  I had another thought, and I went to Prospero’s door and tapped. He opened it immediately, a book in his hand.

  “Prospero, do not speak of this to Ottaviano.”

  “Hm. Good thinking,” he said. “I’ll be mum.”

  “He may hear anyway—”

  “From whom?”

  I explained the decision Walter and I had reached that morning, to keep our emissary cousin mewed up in the guesthouse save when accompanied by one of us, with the possibility of more lenient treatment later—for the man had done us no wrong as an emissary. Prospero did not like it, but reluctantly assented. “If one of us escorts him, there’s little mischief he can work.”

  “Just so. He speaks some Argos, I believe.”

  “Aye. Some. ’Tis folly to hope his ‘some’ is not greater than you think.”

  I shrugged. “At any rate, it’s our problem, not his. I want no … interference. I’d rather he heard about it when it’s over. I cannot think how, but he might find some way to use it against us when you bargain with him.”

  “True,” Prospero nodded. “On the morrow I shall breakfast with Walter; I’ll instruct him of this then.”

  “Thank you.”

  I lay awake in bed, unable to sleep, and finally lit a candle, took up pen and paper, and began making notes on things I would have to do, things I would have to have other people do, and things that might happen—three lists. I was growing concerned about the general population’s reaction to this beast’s sudden advent. How could I break the news to them? Rumors at first, then facts? Argyllines are a fairly levelheaded, calm people, but a dragon is not an everyday occurrence. One of the fellows whose family’s barn had been adopted by the wyvern was deeply terrified by the incident, and his wives and brother had wanted to move. Luckily they had a lot of relatives in the area who wanted them to stay. On top of everything else, I did not need a panicked exodus of villagers and farmers whose lands bordered on Threshwood.

  This was going to be an acid test of their faith in me: would they trust my word, would they be calm and not panic if I assured them that things were fine, that we would cope with this one for them?

  Early the next morning I called on Walter again and discussed breaking the news with him. On anything to do with public relations, his judgement was better than mine. He sucked a reed—I had interrupted him practicing—and thought about it.

  “Less than full honesty will work against us,” he said finally, around the reed. “Tell them everything.”

  “But all we know now is that it’s there.”

  “Then tell them that, and tell them you’re working on it. No secrets.”

  “If they panic …”

  “Bah. When he eats somebody, then there’ll be fireworks. Not before. Argylle always has odd things happening around the fringes. This is closer in, but it’s still fifty miles away in Threshwood.”

  I walked back to the Citadel slowly, taking the river path, scuffling through leafdrifts under the big trees. What would Mother have done? I wondered, and decided, yes, she would tell them. She had never hidden anything that affected the realm, and the people had understood this and backed her up w
henever she needed it—with one noteworthy exception, which had taught them the value of compliance. Yes, I could gamble on their solidarity. The Archives were on my way, and I looked in on Hicha the Archivist and asked her to give me, top priority, today, everything there was in Argylle on dragons.

  “Dragons?”

  “Yes.”

  Hicha nodded thoughtfully, already mentally listing sources to check. “Whatever you want, Gwydion. Odd—Marfisa asked me that last night.”

  Marfisa had slept at Hicha’s house, not in the Citadel. “Oh,” I said. “Give it to me, and I will share it with her.”

  She smiled. “Very well. I’ll send you what I find.”

  I found Utrachet the Seneschal looking for me at the Citadel. The highway closing had been received with bad grace and he suspected a lot of people were going to try to sneak around it, one way or another. The Councillors were offended because I hadn’t consulted them, but were giving me the benefit of the doubt. Since Alexander and Marfisa had been seen in town, people realized something was going on.

  “I’ll make an announcement tonight in the Great Hall and explain why I’ve ordered it,” I told him. He went off to arrange this, informing the Council first and then spreading the word through the streets.

  The other thing I had to do was get our southern neighbors to close their end of the highway also. Our relations with them had been strained, but still cordial, since the Tython business. I spent the rest of the day drafting and redrafting, meticulously, a message to the Headman of Errethon and finally sent it via postal barge to Ollol and then to Errethon on a special clipper ship. He would have it the day after tomorrow, barring disasters.

  The Great Hall was packed. My stomach fluttered as I glanced out over the sea of candlelit faces while I crossed the black stone dais from the side entrance that leads to the Citadel proper. Utrachet preceded me, announced to the crowd that the Lord of Argylle would speak, and sat in his chair a few steps below.

  I took the Black Chair. Its stone was chill but comforting; I felt more in control of things there and less alone—the Chair still reminded me of Mother, and I still felt as if I were just keeping it warm until her return. Tonight more than ever I wished it were so.

  After allowing the crowd to quiet down for a few seconds, I announced that a large dragon had been sighted near Longview Pass, through which the Errethon road ran. Until further notice, traffic headed south would have to go by ship. I explained that this was an intelligent, maleficent animal, unlike wyverns and manticores, and that it liked to eat people best of anything. If it captured and questioned someone, I went on, the risk to all would be augmented.

  One way of getting through to Argyllines is to emphasize common interests. I saw heads nodding.

  Someone stood and asked me why shipping was safe if the roads were not.

  “I do not know that it is, but the Errethon road is a good sixty miles from the shore. My hope is that he is too lazy to travel the distance for a small return.”

  Another person asked if we were sure the dragon was hostile.

  “Hostile is not what I said. But it eats people and it is intelligent and powerful. It is dangerous to everyone who would like to go on living. I think I speak for all of us there.”

  Tense amusement.

  What would it eat if it could not get people?

  “Other meat.” I didn’t go into details.

  There were a few more questions about when I thought it would be safe to travel and just what I was going to do. The answer to all of them was, “I do not yet know. We are working on it now.” The assembly broke up quietly and people went home, nervous but trusting me.

  This was scary. They were trusting me to protect them from something I myself did not understand.

  Prospero joined me for a late supper. The twins, Alexander and Marfisa, had gone off to dine with old friends in the City, Alexander at Shervé Miruin’s house and Marfisa with Hicha. We ate with little conversation until the fruit and cheese were served.

  “Today I had a gossip with the fair Oriana,” he said, picking currants off the stem and stacking them in pyramids. “She’d like a look at this guest of ours. She said the description rang familiar, but could not think just how.”

  “She said nothing definite, though.”

  He chuckled a little. “Oh, no.”

  “Perhaps,” I said. The sorceress Oriana of the Glass Castle was always ready to meddle with magic, and Mother hadn’t trusted her, although Prospero did and my tutor had. Sometimes. Oriana knows her sorcery, whatever else one might say about her. Mother wouldn’t say anything, but her sniff spoke volumes.

  Prospero steepled his fingers and looked across at me over them. “Thereafter I made a few other casual calls, polling about. Avril says the most draconic thing he’s ever slain was a beast called a wantley, no dragon as we know them, when he was but a stripling: long ago. To my surprise, Prince Josquin says he’s slaughtered many dragons, large and small, but nearly was dinner to the only great magical one he faced—’twas quite by accident. He escaped with a trick and his heels scorched, along the Road. It was a fleeting, or fleeing, encounter; he learned naught save that a dragon-slaying career is glorious but brief, and renounced his. He too believes your father Gaston conquered one, but knows no further.”

  I laughed as Prospero described Josquin’s experience. My cousin was the last person I could imagine as a dragon-slayer; I would twit him on it when we met again. “You prompted him …”

  “Nay, he volunteered the tale, rue-faced. Fulgens has never met a great dragon, although he’s dressed a few of the other kind and their cousin sea-monsters. Herne has seen them on occasion, but says they’ve shunned his purlieus—wise creatures. He’s athirst for a chance to prove himself ’gainst one; said naught of Gaston’s prowess, but averred Ottaviano has spoken with a dragon.” Prospero tried to keep the note of respect from his voice and did not succeed.

  I was impressed. “Truly. And lived to tell the tale.”

  “Methinks if anyone in Landuc could, he were the man. Herne said ’twas his notion that Otto had done it of necessity, not curiosity. However, he did not kill it … else surely we’d heard more of it ere now.” Prospero turned his attention to the currants, eating them stack by stack. “Herne’s sifting the story behind Gaston’s fighting one; thought it sounded likely when I spoke of it, but knew no particulars.

  “Oriana has never slain nor seen one, but she said she’d made Gaston a gift of a book about them when she heard of his marriage to your mother.” Prospero’s mouth twitched slightly, an impenetrable expression, and he continued blandly, “I supposed his collection of such books has largely fallen to your lot, so I begged of her generosity naught but the title: On the Ways of the Lords of the Air.” He swept the remaining currants into his palm and ate them all at once. “The great difficulty that comes of your father eschewing our company,” he said after we had sat for a while longer, “is that his memory goes back further than nearly any living man or woman I know, and largely in his head he carries matter that’s nowhere found in books. I’m in no mood for necromancy to question, say, Panurgus. ’Twould be dear-bought information, too dear.”

  I picked apart a pomegranate. “I think our present resources are adequate,” I said slowly. “Your experience and our—enthusiasm—”

  He chuckled.

  “Seriously, Prospero. Among us we share all the talents needed to kill this thing. I don’t think we must beg help from Landuc. I don’t think we ought to do a Summoning of the Dead. And I don’t think we must hale Gaston out from his retreat.”

  Prospero drank wine, looking out the window at the city lights. “There I’m of one mind with you. We must honor his wish for privacy. He’d be a puissant ally against this creature—none better—but if his heart were here, here would he be, and have been.” He tipped his chair back, lit a pipe, smoked thoughtfully. “You ought not to hesitate so, Gwydion.”

  “Hesitating?”

  “You’re groping, c
reeping cautious ’long the walls. Follow your humor. Don’t falter so; don’t wait for the world to choose for you your deeds, your plans, your thoughts. If you stumble, the fall will seldom be so great as to allow no recovery.”

  “I feel young for the job.”

  “You are young for the job. But you’re carrying it right well.”

  We sat and drank the rest of the wine slowly. The sky was clouding over. The autumn storms would be settling in soon, and then the short dark days of winter would close around us. The wind rattled the glass as Prospero and I talked about the Landuc–Argylle trade pact. He had been in Ollol to pick up scuttlebutt on what the merchants thought of the present agreements and what they wanted to change.

  “The conviction’s widely held that Freia was overgenerous to Landuc. But I mind that at the time the Emperor cried we were most miserly—howbeit Gaston himself advised her to be more frugal with our wine.” Prospero smiled. “He was not without selfish motives, stocking his cellar by betraying his own Emperor as ’twere … Yet it’s played against us, too; our cellars are full, with fine wines ripe and peaking, and every crevice with a bottle in it.”

  “The wine is what Landuc really wants. I understand it’s become very popular.”

  His smile grew wider, gloating with satisfaction. “Exceedingly. They’re hard-pressed and we can squeeze them dry. The bottleneck is that no one agrees on what we ought to get for it.”

  “Here, you mean?”

  “Yes. Tobacco, coffee, silk: vice for vice. Perhaps ’twill become clear in time.” He shrugged.

  “Much does.” And much does not. Where was Gaston now? “We have all winter to talk it over. And more pressing issues to consider.”

  “Such as the habits and physiology of dragons.”

  Having to spend the morning listening to the Council fuss meant I had no time to sit down and read in my study until the following afternoon. To my great relief, things held quiet; I heard no reports of murder or destruction from Longview Pass. Against reason, I hoped the dragon had moved on, but as I ate lunch Phoebe sent in a report that he was still there.