Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III

by Irene Radford

Midafternoon, queen’s solar, Palace Reveta Tristile, Coronnan City

  “Random matings, solely for the sake of conceiving children are no longer appropriate for Spring Festival,” Katie stated firmly to the five ladies gathered in her private solar.

  “But, your Grace, Spring Festival has always been a time of betrothal. How are our young people to find the right mate if not in the rituals designed by the Stargods?” Lady Balthazaan turned pale with shock.

  Katie doubted her Terran ancestors had contrived the ritual dance around a maypole—Festival Pylons they called them here—where the men danced in one direction and the women opposite, changing partners on the whim of the patterns called by village elders. Whichever partner one ended the dance with was their mate for the evening. If that one night together resulted in a child, then the union was blessed by the Stargods and the couple married on or before the Solstice. If no child was conceived, then the couple parted and tried again the next year.

  Some of her ancestors probably sanctioned, maybe even participated in the dance. Few of them would have had the imagination to create it.

  “The selection of a life mate is too important to leave to young people,” Lady Hanic added. Like her husband, she always waited to see what others thought, then formed her opinion to match that of the strongest faction. “Such decisions are best determined by the Stargods.”

  The remaining three women nodded their heads in vigorous agreement.

  “Did you participate in a Festival dance?” Katie asked all of the women.

  “Of course not!” Lady Balthazaan gasped. She held her hand to her throat in dismay. “My marriage was a political union. The negotiations between our fathers went on for years.”

  “I would think a union that important should be left to the Stargods as well,” Katie replied quietly, head down.

  She played with her needlework a moment to keep her hands busy. All she ever did with her sewing was play and pretend she accomplished something. She’d never learned the fine art before coming to Coronnan. However, her afternoon gatherings with the ladies of the court seemed to demand she join them in the skill.

  No one in the room spoke. Katie peeked to see the five women exchanging horrified glances, shaking their heads and biting their lips.

  “Spring Festival is a good time to announce betrothals.” Katie decided to partially agree with the women. “The dance is even a good way to introduce couples and to celebrate the joy of Spring. But children deserve a stable, loving family with parents who choose to be together rather than those who come together randomly. I do not want Festival in the capital city to degrade into an orgy.”

  “Our retainers will be most disappointed, Your Grace,” Lady Nunio interjected.

  “I’m certain young men and women who want to experiment with sex will find a way to do so. But let it be discreet and private.”

  “What of the young men going off to war? Many do not return. Festival is their only chance to sire a child,” Lady Hanic asserted.

  Strange that she, of all those present, would present an argument. Like her husband, she usually waited to support whatever side of an argument seemed likely to win.

  “We are at peace, Lady Hanic. With luck and diplomacy, the men will not be marching off to war any time soon.” Or did she know something Katie didn’t?

  “One of the reasons we have clung to Festival for so long is to replenish the unstable population due to generations of civil war,” Lady Nunio said mildly. “We may have peace now, but we also have a disease running rampant that is killing as many as any major battle. But we lose women and children as well as men in their prime. We need a good Festival to bring hope back to the people.”

  Katie stilled in shock. She’d read reports of a few isolated cases of a disease felling many in a single village. A plague running rampant had never been mentioned. Who hid the information and why? Was it the plague?

  “Your Grace!” Kaariin ran into the solar from the nursery. She wrung her hands in anxiety. Her face looked too pale. “Come quickly, Your Grace, the baby is sick.”

  Katie dropped her hopeless embroidery as she stood. “How?” she demanded, running toward the inner room.

  “She coughs until her skin turns waxy and blue. I’m sorry, Your Grace. I’ve taken good care of her. I’m not responsible . . .” the girl babbled.

  “Send a message for King Quinnault to return immediately.” Katie dashed past her maid to her daughter’s crib.

  Sure enough, little Marilell coughed deeply again and again interspersed with whimpers of pain and bewilderment. Katie picked her up, patting her back in soothing circles. Too tired and weak to hold her head up, Marilell rested her head on her mother’s shoulder and continued to cough.

  Chapter 13

  Midafternoon, royal nursery, Palace Reveta Tristile, Coronnan City

  Katie looked carefully at her baby, searching for the cause of her illness. “Send for the king immediately, Kaariin,” Katie commanded. The maid curtsied and ran down the corridor.

  Marilell continued coughing, weaker now, gasping for breath between each spasm.

  “Allow me, little sister,” Jamie Patrick said emerging from the shadows behind the doorway. “I think I know what ails the child. My own Kevin did the same thing.” He held out his arms for the baby.

  Katie relinquished her daughter reluctantly. Only the deep love and trust between herself and her brother allowed her to part with her ailing child. He had a little more experience than she with two young children back home with his seldom seen and rarely acknowledged—by her father—wife.

  “Thank the Stargods you’re here. Is it . . . is it the plague?” she asked, almost afraid that if she voiced her deepest fears they would come true.

  “Nothing quite so bizarre,” her oldest brother replied. He sat on a nearby stool and draped the little princess over his knee.

  Marilell screamed her distress.

  “She gets enough air to protest whatever ails her,” Nimbulan remarked from the doorway. He held his daughter, Amaranth, easily in the crook of his right arm while raising his left hand, palm outward, fingers slightly curved as if he still gathered magical information with the gesture.

  Myrilandel stood beside him. “We were in the palace and interrupted Kaariin on her errand.” She marched to stand over Jamie Patrick and the baby.

  Jamie Patrick rapped the baby smartly on the back with the flat of his hand. Marilell gasped and choked, spitting up a thin line of fluid. Another rap brought a whoosh of air from the baby’s mouth along with a small metal object that rolled across the floor to land at Katie’s feet.

  “Lucky for all of us Kaariin noticed her distress so quickly. Much longer and the ring could have pushed farther down her throat and torn delicate tissues or choked her completely,” Myrilandel commented as she nodded approval of the way Jamie Patrick rubbed the baby’s back.

  Katie stooped to pick up a man’s ring lying at her feet. Intricately twisted silver strands distinguished it from an ordinary signet ring favored by the men of the court.

  “I remember Amaranth trying to swallow a very large chunk of raw yampion when she was that age,” Myrilandel said as she relieved Jamie Patrick of his sobbing burden. She cuddled the baby against her shoulder, cooing soothingly to the little princess before handing her over to her mother.

  “Thank the Stargods you knew what to do, Jamie Patrick.” Katie accepted the precious bundle of sobbing child. She held her daughter tightly against her shoulder as she introduced her friends to her brother.

  “Sorry, I can’t stay, sis. Kinnsell doesn’t know I’m here and doesn’t want me to contact you, but I had to say ‘Hi,’ one more time before we leave.” Jamie Patrick bent slightly to kiss her cheek. Like most Terran men, he stood only half a head taller than Katie, and much shorter than most of the natives of this planet.

  “Be careful, Jamie Patrick. Kinnsell is up to something.” Katie caressed his lightly bearded cheek. He had sported a dapper little beard since he could gr
ow one, convinced it added maturity and intrigue to his narrow face. His hair was more blond than red, and he’d said he felt washed out in comparison to the rest of the family.

  “We’ll be in touch, Katie. I wish we could drag Kinnsell out of here now, but our mission isn’t complete.”

  “What mission?”

  But he was gone, as quickly as he had come.

  “What do we have here?” Nimbulan removed the slobber-covered ring from Katie’s grasp. “Unusual design. I have seen something like it before.” His graying eyebrows dipped into a sharp V as he frowned in concentration.

  Myrilandel studied the entwined strands carefully.

  “It looks Rover,” she mused. “What do you think, Lan? You lived with Televarn’s tribe an entire season.”

  “Possibly of Rover design. They do very distinctive work. But the memory that tugs at me is older. Much older.” He shook his head sharply. “I’ll remember at the least likely moment. Forcing the image into my mind won’t help.”

  “Rover?” Katie gulped. “I’ve heard that the Rovers sometimes steal children. A . . . a kidnapper could have dropped the ring if disturbed in the act.” The same legend of stolen children followed Gypsies and Tinkers back home—usually more myth born out of fear of strangers than from any basis in truth. Were the local version of those wanderers guilty of a heinous crime or victims of malicious gossip? She didn’t know.

  At the beginning of the riot last autumn, the man in the orange shirt had accused his neighbor of having Rover blood. But Orange-shirt’s gaudy clothing more closely resembled Rover preferences than his victim’s sober tans and browns.

  What was going on here? Was there a connection between the riot and a stranger leaving a potentially lethal object in Marilell’s crib, a simple piece of jewelry a teething baby would likely swallow and choke to death on?

  “There’s been no filthy Rovers in my nursery!” Kaariin protested from the doorway, wringing her hands. “I’d never leave my princess long enough for one of them to sneak in here.” She stood straight, fists clenched proudly at her sides.

  “No one is accusing you of negligence, child,” Nimbulan said soothingly. “A true Rover needs only a heartbeat of time to work mischief.”

  “Who would do this, Nimbulan? Who would sneak past numerous guards and servants to try to steal my baby?” Katie hugged her daughter closer. Marilell squeaked in protest.

  “Someone who wants to hurt you and Quinnault very much. Someone who seeks to control Coronnan by controlling you.”

  “Kinnsell collects odd bits of unusual jewelry. This is just the sort of thing that would appeal to him. He is also the one man no servant or guard would detain near the royal apartments,” Katie whispered.

  She had to warn Jamie Patrick. He had to take their father away now, not later, not when their mysterious mission had been completed. Now.

  Late afternoon, on a royal passenger barge in the center of the Great Bay

  A fragrant spring breeze drifted from the mainland toward the passenger barge traversing the Great Bay. Journeyman Magician Bessel inhaled deeply of the clean air colored with salt and new lilies. He stood on the top deck with five ambassadors and their ladies. Below and ahead of them a dozen oarsmen pulled the vessel toward shore by brute strength, helped only a little by a tide nearing its lowest ebb.

  Master Scarface had assured Bessel that the deaths in his parents’ village were isolated. Lord Balthazaan’s greed and mismanagement had left his miners ill nourished. The storms and privations of winter had weakened the common people, leaving them vulnerable to all manner of diseases. No true plague ravaged Coronnan. Nor would it now that the books with references to technology had been isolated.

  The Commune, meaning Scarface, was in control.

  The disease that killed his mother couldn’t have been the plague. He prayed it wasn’t.

  The flower-laden air replaced the stink of the plague in Bessel’s memory.

  Yet the scent, a mere hint of Powwell’s telepathic rendition of the dragon dream, but very prevalent at Ma’ma’s deathbed, continued to haunt him.

  Every time Bessel voiced a doubt, Scarface reminded him that he need not concern himself with plagues and such. His duty to the Commune required he complete his diplomatic training, hence his presence on this barge.

  But he still hadn’t revealed the hiding place of the little book he’d been reading just before Scarface rearranged the library. A new iron gate with only one key and a personalized magical seal blocked off the now forbidden books. But the book with intriguing references to blood magic was safe in Bessel’s room, hidden beneath a loose floor tile.

  Scarface had been most generous in reassuring Bessel after the incident in the library. Bessel had expected punishment. Instead, Scarface had assigned him to this luxury barge. As ordered, Bessel listened to and observed five diplomats and their ladies while they toured the new port city at the edge of the deep water in the bay. For an entire day, Bessel had maintained a light trance so that his mind could understand the conversations conducted in five different languages, even if he couldn’t understand the words themselves.

  Fatigue dragged his shoulders nearly to his elbows and his eyelids drooped heavily. His stomach growled often. Soon he’d be back at the University where he could sleep and eat and then report to Scarface all that had transpired today.

  The depth-finding machine at the center of the barge beeped quietly. One little beep every ten heartbeats. Bessel paused in his savoring of the warm breeze to examine the machine with all his senses. The steady beep told him that no hidden submerged obstacles or suddenly changing channels within the mudflats threatened the barge. But what other threats did the machine disguise? How could the Commune be sure the machine did not emit unseen plagues, much as dragons emitted unseen magic?

  He wished the Guild of Bay Pilots was not dependent upon the machine to negotiate the mudflats between the port islands and Coronnan City.

  But when King Kinnsell of Terrania had magically constructed the port city out of four natural islands as part of the queen’s dowry, he had built jetties that changed the pattern of shifting channels within the mudflats of the inner Great Bay. The port city kept cargo vessels, passenger ships, and invading fleets safely in the depths of the outer bay. The Guild of Bay Pilots had the responsibility of ferrying legal cargo and passengers into Coronnan City. They had no way of learning the changes in the channels fast enough to fulfill that responsibility other than with the depth finder.

  Queen Maarie Kaathliin would see to it that no other machines were introduced to this planet by her father. But what about this one?

  Maybe Scarface had been right to ban certain books. If anyone understood precisely how the depth finder worked, they could duplicate it, adapt it to other uses. . . .

  Bessel took a few moments to draw the warm sunshine on his back deep into his bones. In a few moments, when he could master his bouncing stomach, he’d look at the sparkling light on the shifting waters rather than the mysterious machine. The muck of the mudflats might be only a few fathoms below the water here, but the constantly changing waves disguised the depths. He had no focus to anchor his stomach or his magic. The staff in his hand was useless without that focus.

  He put up with his queasy stomach and listened to the prattling of the ambassadors and ladies who shared the barge with him. Understanding would be so much easier if he just eavesdropped on their thoughts. But Nimbulan had drilled into him respect for the privacy of others.

  Bessel hadn’t even invaded his mother’s mind to catch her dying wishes. He wished he had. He hadn’t felt her love for many years, and he missed her more than he thought possible.

  His stomach lurched with a new shift of the currents and tide. Power simmered within the kardia beneath the waves, begging him to tap it and calm his innards. The power could show him how the depth finder worked. He refused the invitation to rogue magic.

  If he had refrained from tapping rogue magic to help his mother, he cer
tainly wouldn’t do it to make himself more comfortable.

  From the look on the face of the new ambassador from Jihab, he didn’t like the rising and lowering of the deck with each new wave any better than Bessel did. The portly man, who had made several fortunes as a jewel trader before turning to politics, blanched and clamped his teeth together. His normally ruddy skin took on the ghastly pallor of green akin to light-shy fungi in the back of a sea cave.

  Bessel liked the jovial jeweler. The other four ambassadors, their ladies, and aides on the barge were all too aware of their own self-importance to pay him any attention. But Heinriiche Smeetsch had greeted Bessel politely and seemed genuinely interested in his studies to become a master magician. Bessel had even confided his secret wish to succeed Master Lyman as librarian.

  He could think of no better way to protect the banned books and the knowledge they contained. S’murghit, how could Scarface be so sure the disease that felled Lord Balthazaan’s province wasn’t a plague that needed more than fresh supplies to cure it?

  The beeping black box beside the pilot’s chair at the exact center of the barge increased the frequency and intensity of its signal. Bessel sensed no change in the mudflats. But dragon magic was Air-based and didn’t lend itself to Water-oriented spells. The Kardia-based rogue magic would be able to delve into the mysteries of the Bay.

  Kardia and Water were teamed as were Air and Fire.

  Raanald, the representative from the Guild of Bay Pilots, kicked his arcane machine. “S’murghit, I know these waters. There was nothing in this region yesterday to hinder our passage. We should be well beyond the bar. Two degrees starboard,” he called to his helmsman. “S’murghin’ machine. Why is it telling me to avoid a clear passage?”

  Raanald brushed the folds of his gaudy maroon-and-gold uniform sleeve into a straight line, very aware of his elite calling. He knew the waters better than the machine did.

  Or so his attitude indicated. If he knew the waters better than the machine, why risk having the machine at all?