“Yeah. Don’t want the lord angry with us for your dallying!” Another man called.
“Stop pesterin’ our women and get on wi’ yer job.”
“Stop yer yammerin’.” The guard cursed the mob surrounding him. Embarrassed he passed them all through with only a brief glance at their faces.
Sometimes the best way to avoid detection was to call attention to oneself.
The kitchen was hot. An entire side of beef roasted in the giant fireplace on the central wall. Darville sniffed deeply of the belly-warming aroma. Game birds turned on smaller spits at side hearths. Long tables down the center of the huge room were crowded with men and women chopping vegetables, sifting flour into cavernous bowls, and doing all the other noisy, busy work necessary to preparing a banquet. Small boys darted about fetching supplies while smaller girls swept up discarded peelings and other residue.
Heat and savory smells washed over the prince. The noise of a hundred people filled his head. It was like coming home. The kitchen in his own palace was much the same. As a small, lonely boy he had sought refuge there when his parents and tutors were too busy to entertain him.
There was always at least one cook or drudge willing to let him taste and experiment.
Before the nostalgia could blind him, he sought his companions in the throng. Jaylor was already edging toward the staircase leading to the upper floors. Brevelan had just deposited her cabbages near the scrub sink. As she straightened, her face lost all color. Her eyes began to roll upward in faint. He was beside her before the others noticed her odd behavior.
Meat. The smell alone would make her ill. The sight of it roasting, plus the churning emotions and frantic activity of all these people, had caused her to seek refuge in unconsciousness.
He grasped her around the waist just as her knees buckled. “Not here, love.” Again he used the rough syntax of the people around him.
A woman with a huge chopping knife glared at him.
“Like as not it’s her first child, eh?” The woman opened her mouth in a near toothless grin. He tried to smile back at her. “Well, get her out of here. We don’t need another body underfoot,” the woman commanded.
Darville didn’t argue. The woman was too occupied with her turnips to notice he led the wilted Brevelan toward the interior of the castle rather than back outside into the fresh night air.
“The main hall is there.” Brevelan pointed to the archway to their left. “That is where the banquet will take place.” She peeked through the draperies masking the servants’ staircase from the huge central room.
Pain throbbed behind her eyes, the pain of Jaylor’s coming ordeal and the press of too many people. She gulped back the flood of emotions. If only there were a tiny tune somewhere in her soul that she could summon to counteract the rising panic within her.
But there were no tunes left in her. Grief for Jaylor overwhelmed all else.
Jaylor seemed calm since reaching a decision that freed his emotions from fear. The wild mood swings he had suffered since he’d failed to transform Shayla the first time were gone. But, she sensed, he was shutting her out of his mind as well as his feelings.
Darville, on the other hand, was fairly bouncing with excitement, despite his suppressed grief for his father. He tried to hide it from her, but she knew him too well. When this night was over, Darville would be king, duly consecrated by a dragon.
“I’ll need a place to hide until the assembly is gathered and you are prepared to . . . to do what ever it is you’re going to do,” Darville said. His eyes scanned the hall with a soldier’s eye to strategy.
“Take Mica.” Brevelan pulled the dozing cat out of Jaylor’s pocket. “She’ll find you a place.” Briefly she nuzzled the cat’s head. Mica’s eyes opened round and hazel, and for once she didn’t shift to a vertical amber slit as she looked into Brevelan’s heart. Understanding passed between them.
“I guess this pesky cat can be of some use,” Darville growled, though his voice held the same tone as a puppy’s whine for attention. He pulled Brevelan close and kissed her hard. “For luck,” he whispered for her ears alone. One gentle finger caressed her cheek.
“You have the witchbane?” Jaylor interrupted.
“Right here.” Darville patted his breast pocket. “I won’t hesitate to throw it at Krej at the first sign of magic.” He looked once more into the hall and slipped through the draperies.
Alone with Jaylor, Brevelan turned her attention to the next task.
“I can smell the Tambootie paneling.” Jaylor’s nostrils pinched in distaste.
“All of the walls in this room are covered with the wood, even the floor and ceiling. Krej used to keep a Tambootie wood fire burning in the hearth, until it made the servants so ill they couldn’t continue their duties.” She had to breathe through her mouth to keep the acrid odors away.
The staircase landing seemed to grow smaller as Jaylor’s magic filled it. Brevelan touched his arm and felt much of what he saw.
The animals were still there. A gray bear, a wild tusker as large as a hut, a snow-white stag with fifteen points on his rack and several others she could not name. The spotted saber cat was gone, she hoped never to return. No animal, no matter how ferocious, deserved the living death of Krej’s sculpture cages.
In the center of the room on a low, wide dais stood Shayla. All of her intense beauty was captured in the glass. Each transparent hair of her fine fur was crystallized to reflect back the light of a thousand torches. Along her spine, horns, and wing ridges a rainbow of colors swirled, daring the eye to look anywhere but at her.
Brevelan tugged at Jaylor’s arm. “Shayla said that dragons eat of the Tambootie to become the source of magic, yet they have none of their own! Krej eats Tambootie like a dragon. How can he throw magic and be a source as well?”
“That I don’t know. Unless his body reacts with the Tambootie differently. When he is near, I can sense no gatherable magic anywhere near him.” He shook his head, puzzled. “There is no time to worry about that now. I must find the strongest point to stand. There are precious few lines of power running through. this castle.”
“No one is in the room.” She felt all the emotions in the castle, but they were behind her and above her. “No one except Krej can stand to be in this room for more than a few minutes.”
“Where is he right now?”
“Above.” His emotions were easiest to separate from the others. “He is very upset about something.” Too upset. She had to block him out before his anger became her own.
“Good. Maybe he’ll be so preoccupied he won’t notice us.” Jaylor pulled her tight against his chest and kissed her with fierce passion. “For luck,” he grinned.
Deep in his eyes she saw another sentiment. The kiss was for farewell.
Chapter 34
A myriad of servants scurried among the trestle tables below the dais. Plain white cloths covered the boards; pewter platters and plain iron knives marked each place. The head table, on the dais, where Krej and his special guests would sit, was covered with the finest white damask and set with plates of gold and cutlery of fabulously expensive and incredibly rare steel, forged in secret half a world away.
Spring flowers sweetened the rushes underfoot and tasteful arrangements of greens and dried plants adorned baskets about the room. A grouping of three such tall baskets shielded a tiny alcove where Darville crouched unseen, with the pesky cat, Mica.
He shifted his weight for the umpteenth time. Mica hissed at him to be still. He felt like swatting her. His legs and back ached from the unnatural position. Mica was perfectly content to curl her small body into a tight ball and doze until action was needed.
But the image of Mica transformed into a lovely nude woman, with hair as bright and multicolored as the cat’s shimmered before Darville’s mind. Had he dreamed the true nature of the cat or had he really seen her in Shayla’s cave? He shook his head clear of the image.
He couldn’t nap and he couldn’t dwell on
dreams. He needed to stay alert. He half-wished for his wolf form. The four-legged creature would be much more comfortable hunkered down in this cold corner.
He shifted again just to spite the cat. This time his purloined sword clanked against the stone wall at his back.
A servitor in green and red tunic and trews whirled to seek the source of the noise. Darville froze, hardly daring to breathe. The blacker than black hair with wings of silver at the servant’s temples looked familiar.
The man scanned the room with wary eyes. They rested on Darville’s hiding place then moved on. So did his hands. One moment the table was fully set. The next, two of the knives were missing.
Zolltarn the Rover! Of course. Darville knew he’d seen the man before. Like as not, more than two of the metal knives would be missing before the guests were seated.
Darville tried to blend in with the stones at his back. It didn’t work. As soon as the other servitors were gone from the room, Zolltarn began searching the flower arrangements.
Silently Darville stood and eased his dagger from his sheath. When the Rover was close enough, he dragged the thief back into the shielded alcove.
“A sound and your throat is slit,” he hissed. His right arm encircled the man’s chest. His left held the wicked dagger across the bobbing apple in the middle of Zolltarn’s throat.
“Probably not, companion to the magician and the little beauty with red hair.” Zolltarn almost chuckled, as much as any man in such a position could chuckle.
Darville raised an eyebrow but kept silence.
“A knife in a throat is a messy way to die and you have not the time or patience to clean up.”
Mica hissed her agreement.
“A knife in the back is just as easy and cleaner. So answer my queries instead.” Darville swallowed deeply. Though trained for combat since early childhood, this was the first time he had held a man’s life in his hands.
“I can but try. Krej pays well for information. Can you pay more?”
“You payment will be your life if you answer truly. How much does Krej know about me and my companions?”
The man laughed, but not loudly. It was an evil kind of sound. That made it easier to prick the stretched skin of the Rover’s neck. Zolltarn stopped abruptly as a tiny drop of blood oozed from the cut. Darville swallowed deeply again at the sight of the blood he had inflicted.
“The Lord Regent asked if I had stolen a wooden staff from the magician and his lady who were traveling with a great golden wolf.”
“And if you saw such people in your journeys, did you steal the staff?”
“Ay, yes, we did. A shattered piece of wood is as good as stolen. I report everything to Lord Krej when he pays. But I did not know then that his description of you meant a real wolf. He would give much to know the wolf now walks on two legs instead of four.”
Darville breathed a little easier. He didn’t release the pressure on the man’s neck. “What will buy your silence?”
“The promise of your seed for my people after this night’s adventure. Your sons would be kings.”
“My sons will be kings anyway. I do not waste my seed on temporary alliances.” At least not since he’d met Brevelan. She was the only woman he wanted now.
“There is a boy, Yaakke, in the kitchens. He could grow to be very powerful if guided by me.” The man’s voice becoming seductively smooth. Fortunately, Darville had spent enough time with Jaylor and Brevelan to resist this attempt at compulsion.
“I am not like my cousin. I do not trade in lives. If the boy wishes to go, he may. It is his decision, not mine.”
“Then I do not know what to ask for. You do not look as if you could pay more than Lord Krej. After all, he is Lord Regent with the wealth of a kingdom at his disposal.”
Anger burned deep within Darville’s gut. Mica hissed again. It sounded like she was commanding him to kill the evil Rover. He was very tempted. But the man might be useful yet.
“I can tell you where my cousin keeps his prettiest baubles. It will take you most of the night to break the seal on the lock.”
“I am a Rover. I can smell such hiding places.”
“Not in this castle, home to a rogue magician.” The Rover made a hasty (if halfhearted) gesture against evil at that comment. His eyes went wide, but there was no struggle to wiggle free of the very sharp dagger at this throat. “In a moon or more of searching you might find it. Do you have that kind of patience?” Darville felt more than a little satisfaction at the visible signs of the Rover’s fear.
Zolltarn started to shrug, but the knife blade scraped his neck once more. Another drop of blood oozed from a cut.
“Tell me and you have my silence.”
Baamin pushed aside intruding servitors and guards with a regal gesture of his staff. He allowed his armor to glow in his signature colors of yellow and green. No man tried to interfere with him twice.
A tap of his staff against the wide double doors to the banquet hall gained him entrance to the private feast. Eerily silent wind preceded him down the center of the room.
Shocked silence followed.
“What are you doing here?” Krej half rose from his thronelike chair in the center of the dais. His voice sounded unnatural in the increasingly heavy hush.
The senior magician stopped his progress toward the high table. All around him the noble men and women of the kingdom gasped at Krej’s impropriety. One should never be this rude in public, and certainly not in front of foreigners. The ambassadors from Rossemeyer made frowns of disapproval toward their host.
Baamin suppressed a small smile. He needed the support of all these people. Very shortly he would ask the nobles to turn against the man they had elected regent. But that was only a small portion of his duties tonight.
If Jaylor failed, then he, Baamin, Senior Magician, had to follow through with Shayla’s rescue.
“It is my right to sit at Council,” Baamin stated simply.
“The Commune is broken. You have no more rights, old man, just as you have no more magic.” Krej sneered.
He must be very certain of his position to risk such a public display. It was time to upset some of his security.
“Are you sure about that?” Baamin raised his right hand. It held a ball of unnatural red fire. He pointed at the ball with his left hand. One finger wiggled. The ball raised and bounced about the room. It landed in the headdress of one highborn lady but did not ignite it. The red flames split into a myriad of stars cloaking the lady in flattering sparkles of blue, red, and gold.
“Oh, how lovely.” She caught a few of the cold sparks in her hand and blew them to her husband, like a lover’s kiss sent across the room. As each morsel of light landed in the man’s palm it spread and grew into a delicate flower.
More smiles and exclamations of pleasure.
“I have arranged my own entertainment for tonight.” Krej reseated himself. “Pay him no mind, gentlemen.” He spoke more casually to the ambassadors at the high table. “An old man, feeble in the brain.”
“So feeble I can not do this anymore,” Baamin taunted as he brought forth thunder and lightning. This time the crowds cowered in anticipation of rain. It came, but Baamin evaporated it before it could drench the guests. It did, however, douse some of the torches. Select portions of the hall plunged into darkness. Shadows crept outward in imitation of uncertainty and evil. One small and insignificant drudge nodded to him from one of those shadows.
Tricks and sleight of hand to alter the mood of the assembled guests. Baamin had to make them vulnerable to his suggestion when he denounced Krej.
“Enough of this play, Baamin. You were not invited because the kingdom has no more use for you or the Commune. My armies are now our source of protection. Return to your University and pack your belongings. Three mornings hence, my soldiers will take possession of the buildings as barracks and storage and training ground.” Krej dismissed him with a wave of his hand.
“I think not, my Lord Krej. By morni
ng our rightful ruler will command the army.” The time had come to finish this game. He could sense Jaylor’s readiness. He need only be sure Krej’s attention was fully engaged.
“I am the rightful ruler of Coronnan. Need I explain to you once more that during this last, and most likely final, illness of our king and in the absence of his heir I have been elected regent?” Krej’s face was heated, growing nearly as red as his hair.
“But I am missing no longer, cousin.” Darville stepped from his hiding place. His strong left hand rested on the hilt of his sword. His other hand lingered near a pocket as he moved close to the dais. Though not richly made, his clothes were respectable, and the prince’s very regal bearing left no doubt as to his identity.
The ambassadors shifted uneasily. They looked from their host to the newcomer, unsure of where to place their allegiance.
“You might as well be.” Krej was standing now. “You’ve been away for several moons with no explanation, no regard for the welfare of Coronnan. You’ve allowed your father’s health to fail through your unconcern. And now that I have things under control, you’ve decided to return.” His hand waved to the guards who lined the walls. They began to move slowly forward.
“You should know precisely where I was, cousin. For ’twas you who lured me away, and you who allowed a rogue magician to entrap me into the guise of a golden wolf.” Baamin and Jaylor had agreed beforehand that they could not accuse Krej of rogue magic without visible proof. Hopefully Krej would supply that proof before the night was over.
Noble guests looked carefully around for signs of any rogue. Some made the cross of the Stargods, others crossed their wrists and flapped their hands in an older gesture against evil. Three cowering women did both. Baamin could hardly think over the babble of frightened whispers. That suited him fine. The prince was handling the situation quite nicely.
“The last time I saw you, Lord Krej, I was ensorcelled in the guise of a golden wolf, familiar to a witchwoman, who just happens to be your illegitimate daughter.” Stunned and superstitious silence met that announcement.
The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I Page 32
