Dragon Novels: Volume I, The

by Irene Radford

  “I’m called Fred, sir. But I need to warn you, Sir Holmes is leading a full squad of men to search for you.” He hung back, resisting the friendship offered by his prince.

  “I have no doubt that Sir Holmes will lead that squad on quite a wild lumbird chase. He’s in on my plan to consult with Master Baamin.” Darville dragged the boy off the bridge into the courtyard.

  “Yes, sir.” Fred stopped short at the entryway. “I can’t go in there, sir.” He touched head, heart, and both shoulders in approved Stargod ritual, warding against evil. Then, surreptitiously, he crossed his wrists and made a second, much older, flapping gesture.

  “Come now, Fred. Master Baamin is a friend of mine, as well as a valuable and wise old man. He won’t hurt you.”

  “But they’re magicians, Your Grace! They’ll steal your soul and eat your heart for dinner.”

  The boy’s absolute horror both stunned and tickled Darville. Superstition was one thing. This dread was quite another. He needed to turn the boy’s fears into a joke.

  “I assure you, Fred, the magicians of Coronnan do not steal souls and eat men’s hearts. They are men themselves and oath-bound to serve all people.” He fought back a smile.

  Fred did not look reassured.

  “Magicians are our healers. Our priests are magicians. We owe our communications and much of our defenses to the University. They deserve our respect and courtesy, an occasional virgin, and maybe the first fruits of the season, but not our souls. You wouldn’t be a virgin by any chance, would you?”

  “I’ll wait here for you, sir.” Fred tried to back up onto the bridge again. “I wouldn’t go in there unless a dragon was chasing me, Your Grace.”

  “Then you are a virgin!” Darville teased.

  Fred ignored that comment.

  “Look, Fred, unless I go in there now, there aren’t likely to be any dragons in Coronnan ever again.”

  Fred didn’t say anything to that.

  “If I had just one dragon to name me king, I could bring the seceding provinces back into the alliance. I’d end the divisions in Coronnan so we were no longer weak and vulnerable to the invasions from SeLenicca.” Darville pinned Fred to the wail with his gaze. “My mission to Lord Baamin might very well bring back our dragons!” He had to impart some of the urgency of his quest to the boy.

  “And I wouldn’t have to make a marriage treaty with Rossemeyer, our former enemy, nor learn that princess’ unpronounceable name,” Darville added under his breath.

  Mica circled and recircled their feet in a complicated pattern. A compulsion to walk through the gate together rose from her purring circles. Fred’s eyes widened in fear. He searched around for an avenue of escape.

  “Uh . . . sir, I don’t think those guards coming toward us are going to let you through the gate of the University.” Fred fingered the hilt of the sword that hung awkwardly at his hip.

  “They won’t cross the bridge,” Darville reassured the boy.

  “But the magicians behind them will.” Color drained from Fred’s face, leaving red splotches high on his cheeks.

  “Simurgh take them all!” Darville cursed. All five of the magicians marching behind the rank of ten Council guards were assigned to the courts of lords loyal to Lord Krej.

  Darville had no doubt any of those five master magicians wouldn’t hesitate to throw a spell that would make Darville seem to revert to his wolf form just because he was near the University gates.

  Suddenly those gates seemed to shimmer and thrust him back toward the bridge. The magicians had armored the door against intrusion. He had to get out of here. Now.

  “I think I know a way out, Your Grace.” Fred made the feeble warding gesture again, then tugged on Darville’s sleeve, indicating that he should come along.

  Darville followed the young man’s gaze. The University walls seemed to grow straight up from the river. No escape there. But across the courtyard lay a second bridge, one that led into the heart of the city. Darville scooped Mica into the inside pocket of his cloak and took off at a run, Fred close on his heels.

  The heavily armed guards pounded after them while the five magicians remained in the courtyard, arms crossed, too proud to be seen running in pursuit of an errant prince.

  At the far side of the bridge, Darville skidded to a halt. Fred slid down the last arched planks of the span and fetched up right beside him. One guard had made it as far as the bridge, the others were just a bit slower.

  With a mighty yank, Darville pulled the linchpin of the bridge, just as the young thief had done earlier.

  “Yoowll!” The guard on the bridge fought to cling to the railings. He scrambled for a purchase for his feet. They slipped again and again on the rain-dampened planks. He was sliding into the muddy, surging river, even as his fellows grasped his flailing arms to help him back up onto solid ground.

  “Quick, down this alley before they go around and catch you, sir.” Fred led the way between the backs of two sprawling workshops with overhanging dwellings above.

  “You just got promoted to sergeant, Fred.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but you can’t promote me. I’m a Council guard.”

  “Then I’m transferring you to the Palace guards as a sergeant.” Darville dived behind a dustbin as heavy footsteps entered the narrow alley behind him.

  “What are you going to pay me with? Most of the Palace guards are being paid by the Council and owe their loyalty there, instead of to you. Though they don’t much like working for Lord Krej.” Fred crawled over a wall into yet another alley; this one barely wide enough to admit them single file. The confines of the river islands didn’t allow for much room between buildings.

  “I still have some funds—rentes from the city—even though the lords are withholding their tithe to the king until I’m crowned.” Darville stopped for breath and looked around. He hadn’t been in this part of the city since he and Jaylor had been boys. “There’s a path off to the left that will work us back toward Market Isle. We can get into the palace from there.” He led the way.

  “I’ve got a widowed mother and three sisters claiming my pay.” Fred paused to make sure they weren’t being followed.

  “I said I’d pay you.”

  “Just making sure. I mean, what’s a man to do when he’s got family depending on him and the price of bread goes up every day? Some of the troops have wives and children to think of.”

  Silence lay heavy between the two men for a moment. “I’ll accept the transfer,” Fred offered. “Rather do honest work for you than spying for the Council anyway. Once they know for sure where their pay’s comin’ from, some others might follow me.”

  Darville wanted to laugh. He hadn’t had this much fun since he was sixteen. Eluding his tutors and governors was a full-time occupation then. Circumventing the selfish ends of the Council seemed to be taking the place of those childish pranks.

  Darville leaped over a pile of garbage with a lithe spring, reminiscent of his misspent youth. His landing was a little awkward and he growled a curse.

  “Good. Don’t be obvious about recruiting. The time might come when I’ll need the element of surprise. As of this moment you are my personal bodyguard. Move your things into the alcove beside my apartment. Where I go, you go.”

  “Yes, sir.” Fred snapped upright to full attention. “I promise to serve you faithfully to the exclusion of all others. Even if you turn back into a golden wolf and rip out my throat.”

  Chapter 2

  “Princess Rossemikka! What have you done?”

  Rosie opened one eye and glared at her governess Janataea and the silent maid hovering in the doorway. Her vision rapidly shifted from clearly gray-toned to an onslaught of confusing colors. To mask her momentary disorientation, she concentrated on how her fingers flew through her thread game. The length of colored embroidery silk never tangled and knotted in her intricate pattern.

  If only she could weave the threads through one more series of movements, she might understa
nd how the circles of life and fate had brought her to this instant in time.

  “Rosie, this . . . this is a disgrace,” Janataea wailed.

  Rosie didn’t think so. She had taken the tangle of threads in Janataea’s embroidery box and organized them. Just because she had chosen to arrange the skeins in a star pattern on the floor instead of in the box, it shouldn’t bother her governess.

  “You know what this is, don’t you? This is an eight-pointed star, a cabalistic sign that is forbidden.” Janataea’s voice grew strident.

  Rosie didn’t know what made an eight-pointed star different from a five or six. She didn’t know anything that hadn’t occurred to her or been told to her in the past two years. Her life and memory were empty prior to that awful night of dust storm and rage.

  Anger born of frustration tore at her reason. She wadded her cat’s cradle into a mass and flung it in the general direction of Janataea.

  Rosie’s fingers arched and flexed. She stretched and yawned, slowly and deliberately, as she turned her back on Janataea and the maid behind her.

  “Rosie!”

  Janataea’s vexation couldn’t touch Rosie.

  She continued her vigil in the window seat where she preferred to sit out the lonely hours. A streak of autumn sunshine warmed the spot.

  Janataea’s hand stroked Rosie’s hair, just behind her ears. The princess leaned into the caress.

  “Hmmm.” She shut her eyes. Almost. A narrow slit allowed her to continue to observe her governess.

  “Come now, Rosie. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Janataea’s fingers massaged the sensitive spots behind Rosie’s ears. “Choose a dress so we can join your brother and your uncle at the court. Then there will be a nice banquet. With fish.”

  “I like fish.” Rosie started to drift off into another nap. She hated making decisions. Janataea always chose her gowns for her, unless another servant was in the room. Then the elaborate protocol of the court demanded the governess defer to the princess. For the temptation of fish she just might accept the role assigned to her by a fate she couldn’t comprehend. “Very well, the brown velvet with gold trim.” Barely a decision. When forced, she always chose that gown.

  “That gown suits you best of all. The golden brown is so like your own hair.” The governess gave the bold white streak in Rosie’s waist-length mane one last caress.

  “A witch’s mark,” the castle servants whispered.

  The story that flew through the castle like dust on the wind said that Rosie’s Uncle Rumbellesth, regent of Rossemeyer, had locked her in a tower room as punishment for running away. That same night, Rosie’s pet cat had turned up missing. Rosie had howled and screamed, torn her hands trying to claw her way to freedom, and driven the entire castle nearly mad with her violent protests.

  Exhaustion had claimed her at dawn.

  Everyone within the environs of the castle had walked cautiously and spoken in whispers for many hours. At last, Regent Rumbellesth had summoned his willful niece. She faced him in the grand audience chamber a changed woman, quiet and docile, with no memory of her life up to that moment.

  The streak of white hair was a constant reminder of the emptiness that taunted her. Uncle Rumbellesth proclaimed that the once defiant princess had been branded as a result of exorcising her demons.

  The whispers continued. Princess Rossemikka had been marked by a witch.

  Rosie held her arms out from her sides so that Janataea and the nervous maid could clothe her. Not a word passed between them. Rosie rarely spoke unless directly addressed.

  As the heavy cloth folded around her slim body, Rosie ran her hands down the soft nap of the velvet. Just like silky fur.

  “Your uncle has requested that you sit at his left tonight. Please remember to use your knife and fork when you eat the fish,” Janataea instructed her charge as she adjusted the high-waisted gown just under Rosie’s firm breasts.

  The bodice was barely wide enough to cover her nipples, but it was less revealing than most of the gowns worn by the women at court. In Rossemeyer the display of an ample bosom proclaimed a proud ability to bear and nurse children.

  The skirt drifted from bust to floor in straight lines. Her hair was bound up and hidden beneath an intricate cap and snood of gold lacework from SeLenicca. No hint of a woman’s hair or ankle could be revealed in Rossemeyer, lest they incite a man’s lust.

  The maid was dismissed before Rosie spoke again.

  “Isn’t Mama dining with us?” A stir of unease penetrated Rosie’s mind. Verbal assaults were limited when the Queen Dowager joined the family at table. Otherwise, “Uncle Rumbelly” and Rosie’s brother Rossemanuel argued continuously all night.

  “Queen Sousyam is ill again. She hasn’t been truly well since you demanded the impossible in exchange for your consent to marry Lord Jhorge.”

  “My uncle’s son is a pimple-faced, squeaky-voiced, viper. His hands feel like snakes on my skin.” Rosie practically hissed her dislike of her cousin.

  “Then it’s a good thing the boy withdrew his offer.” Janataea circled the princess three times, widdershins, as she inspected her grooming. Not once did her long skirt even brush the eight-pointed star on the floor.

  “If Uncle Rumbelly has a new candidate for my hand, I won’t sit at the banquet, even if I don’t get any fish.”

  “I don’t know what the Lord Regent has planned.” Janataea clasped Rosie’s hand in her own and led her from the luxurious suite.

  “I can’t go until I have washed my hands and face,” Rosie said, drawing back.

  “Very well, but hurry.”

  Half a candle-length later, Rosie paused behind the draperies covering the doorway to the family salon behind the banquet hall. She watched the quiet room for several moments before entering.

  Rossemanuel sat at a narrow table. Sheaves of parchment littered every available surface. His hasty writing kept pushing a bottle of ink precariously close to the edge of the table.

  He stopped writing a moment. A quill pen made from the long flight feathers of a Kahmsin eagle dangled from his fingers. The pen dripped ink onto the document in front of him.

  “Rossemanuel, cease your endless writing. No one ever reads your reports anyway.” Lord Rumbellesth’s temper was at the growling stage. He’d quaffed at least three tankards of beta’arack. Distilled from the monster treacle beta, the liquor was one of two exports from Rossemeyer. Valiant mercenary regiments were the other.

  Manuel looked up at his uncle, biting his lower lip in thought. Then his eyes glazed over and he returned to his writing.

  The Lord Regent shrugged his sloping shoulders and poured himself another tankard. His distended belly marred the straight fall of wide pleats from shoulder to toe of his traditional, black sand-colored robes. The vast amount of fabric issued to clothe his otherwise spare frame was a symbol of his power and wealth. But none of those advantages could cure the growth that ate away at his innards. Only increasing doses of beta’arack could temporarily numb the pain, a little.

  “Eavesdropping again, Princess?” Rumbellesth threw the draperies aside so quickly the supporting rod nearly broke from its brackets.

  Rosie narrowed her eyes to look more closely at her uncle’s puffy skin and mottled red nose. His hair was thinning on top, streaked with gray where it fell to his collar in limp, greasy strands.

  She wrinkled her nose in disgust at the Lord Regent’s lack of fastidiousness. How did he tolerate all of that body dirt accumulating hour after hour, day after day? Even in a land noted for its lack of water, there were other ways of cleansing the body. Her feet began an unplanned retreat from the room.

  “Don’t go yet, Sis,” Rossemanuel protested.

  Rosie smiled at her favorite brother. He was younger than she by two years, but taller, with the same brindled brown hair and greenish-hazel eyes. She embraced the boy who was always gentle in his teasing. In less than a year he would achieve his sixteenth birthday and his anxiously awaited crown.

  He
would take control of Rossemeyer away from their increasingly erratic uncle.

  As Manuel resumed his chair, Rosie moved the ink bottle to a more stable position and set the dripping quill into it. She automatically began straightening the parchments into neat piles.

  “Leave your endless fussing while I address you,” Rumbellesth roared.

  Rosie’s hands continued their work as she looked over her shoulder toward the regent. He sighed in exasperation.

  “Your brother has convinced me to tell you privately, before the gathering of the court, that I have found you a husband.” Uncle Rumbelly swilled another huge mouthful of his potent drink.

  “Niow!” Rosie protested. Her fingers curled inward until her long nails dug into the table wood.

  “Yes, Princess,” her uncle sneered. “ ’Tis your duty to marry. ’Tis my duty to provide you with a husband. And you will do us the courtesy of not rearranging the tableware before you consent to pick at your food.”

  “Tell me it isn’t true, Manuel.” She reached for her brother in desperation. “You know how strangers frighten me. They want to touch me, to trap me in a cage! They ask questions about. . . .” She reached a tentative finger to the streak of white hair above her right temple.

  “Don’t, Rosie. Don’t frighten yourself. Prince Darville is not a cruel man. I met him once. A few years ago. We had a grand time hunting together. He has a marvelous sense of humor. You’ll love him.”

  Rosie didn’t think so.

  “Think of Rossemeyer, Princess,” Uncle Rumbelly advanced toward her, shaking a bony finger in her face. “We haven’t had a decent war to bring in ready cash in many years. Prince Darville needs this alliance,” Uncle Rumbelly boasted. “Coronnan is on the brink of civil war and our old enemy SeLenicca is massing for invasion to their west. This is a grand opportunity to strike a major blow at SeLenicca and reestablish our country as an empire.”

  “I won’t do it, Uncle.” Rosie stood straight and defiant, just as she was told she used to.