Might of the Dragon

by Jessica Drake

  And I have to meet this guy in a week? I grumbled to myself. I’d better let Salcombe do the talking if King Zoltar addressed us. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold my tongue, knowing the guy was a despot who treated women like chattel, and as a foreigner I’d receive even harsher treatment than a local if I offended the king in any way.

  I was just entering the dining area for a late breakfast when Willsworth, the butler, stuck his head in through another door. “Lady Astilla is here to see you, my lady.”

  Already? Damn. “Please, invite her in,” I said. “You can tell her she’s welcome to join me for a late breakfast if she hasn’t had anything to eat yet.”

  I was just about to bite into a freshly buttered slice of toast when the woman bustled into the room, hands aflutter. She was mid-thirties, blonde, with excellent bone structure and a face that would have been quite pleasant to look at if her blue eyes weren’t bulging out of her skull as she rushed toward me.

  “Lady Zara!” she cried, knocking the bread from my hands. “You mustn’t eat that!”

  My heart jumped into my throat. “Why?” Was it poisoned?

  “Because you’re about to go to a fitting, of course!” She looked at me as though I’d lost my mind. “The modiste won’t be able to measure you accurately if your stomach is bloated from all that food!”

  I raised an eyebrow, glancing down at the forlorn piece of toast on my plate. “I’m not convinced that a single piece of bread and butter is going to spoil my figure, Lady Astilla. Besides, if the modiste is off by an inch or so in my waist, that merely means I won’t suffocate to death if I end up going to dinner in this dress.”

  “This is your presentation dress,” Lady Astilla said. She sounded utterly flabbergasted. “You won’t be wearing it for any other occasion!”

  “Even so,” I said firmly, “this toast and I have a date, and it will not be delayed any further.”

  To Lady Astilla’s consternation, I ate not one but three slices of toast, liberally slathered in jam and butter. I would have happily added ham and eggs to my plate if we’d had time for a proper breakfast, but I had gotten up late, and I didn’t actually want to stuff myself right before a fitting. I could always eat afterward, I told myself.

  “All right,” I said, setting down my napkin. “I am ready to go.”

  “It’s about time,” Lady Astilla said. “Fetch your parasol so we may be off.”

  Parasol? I almost blurted out, then thought better of it. Anyone could surmise by the healthy color in my skin that I wasn’t the type who stayed out of the sun, but carrying a parasol was the proper thing to do, and I didn’t need to tip the lady off about my uncouth upbringing.

  I went back upstairs to my room to fetch said parasol, plus a small coin purse Salcombe had given me for incidentals. This went into my skirt pocket, along with a small steak knife that I had filched from the dining table a few nights ago. It was no dragon blade, but it would have to do until I could steal my stuff back from Salcombe.

  When I came back down to the foyer, Lady Astilla was already waiting for me. “Let’s be off,” she said, a little impatiently. “We don’t want to be late!”

  “Hang on.” I turned to Willsworth. “Where is Trolbos?”

  “He is with Lord Trentiano today,” the butler said. “Your husband thought that you and Lady Astilla would enjoy your outing better if it was just you ladies today.”

  “Too right he is,” Lady Astilla said. “It is admirable that your husband worries for your safety, but you are perfectly safe at my side, traveling through the city in broad daylight. It is not as if we are going into the seedy parts of town, after all, and a manservant is hardly necessary for a trip to the modiste.”

  I swallowed a grin as I followed Lady Astilla out to the waiting carriage. It had to chap Trolbos’s ass that he couldn’t follow me around today, but Salcombe was right. Walking around with that big brute over my shoulder would draw too much attention. He was just going to have to rely on the threats he’d made against me and my friends to keep me from running off.

  Willsworth helped the two of us into the carriage, and Lady Astilla smoothed the lilac skirts of her dress as she sat on the bench across from me. “Well, this is quite exciting,” she said as the carriage lurched into motion. “Your very first presentation at court! Are you nervous?”

  “A little,” I admitted. “I’ve never done this before.”

  Lady Astilla’s eyes widened. “Never? You never had your debut when you were in Warosia? Surely your father would have presented you to the court there!”

  Crap. I hid a wince. “Oh, no, of course he did,” I said hastily. I’d forgotten that countries with monarchies did that sort of thing amongst their elite. Did the Elantian nobles have a similar custom? I’d grown up on the streets, so I had no way of knowing. “I only meant that I’ve never been presented at court in a strange country. I don’t know the customs.”

  “Don’t you worry.” Lady Astilla patted my hand in a motherly fashion. “I promised your husband that I would help you practice. There is a strict set of rules regarding how one is to be presented at court, but I am confident that we can get you ready in a week’s time.”

  I swallowed. “What kind of rules?”

  But Lady Astilla waved her hand. “We can discuss all that after your fitting,” she said, sounding unconcerned.

  “But—”

  “This is a very exciting time to be visiting court, don’t you think?” Lady Astilla went on, completely ignoring me. “His upcoming marriage is certainly shaking things up.”

  “Marriage?” My brain switched gears. “But I thought the king was already married.”

  “Oh, he is.” Lady Astilla’s eyes sparkled with glee as she leaned in. “But the king is divorcing her, on account of the fact that she has failed to produce a son in the three years they’ve been married. The latest object of his affection, Lady Hariana, is actually one of the queen’s former ladies-in-waiting. She’s a mercenary little bitch,” she added with a curl of her lip, “flaunting their relationship in front of everyone even though the king is still technically married.”

  “Sounds like it.” I couldn’t quite hide my own disgust. I had learned that King Zoltar was an unpleasant, capricious man who had little regard for the sanctity of marriage, but I hadn’t realized it was this bad. “How many times has he been married?”

  “If Lady Hariana succeeds, she will be his fourth.” Lady Astilla smirked. “Though I don’t imagine she will last very long. She is quite pretty, but her hips are on the narrow side. I wouldn’t be surprised if she fails to provide the king with an heir either.”

  I shook my head. Was this really what the nobility was focused on, while war loomed on the horizon? But then again, Traggar was a conquering nation—they were always going to battle with some country or other. For the nobles, war was a natural part of life.

  The carriage slowed as we got to the busier section of town, and I glanced out the window, trying to distract myself. My mouth dropped open as I found myself staring at an execution scaffold that had been set up in the middle of the square. Six bodies hung from the ropes, swaying in the morning breeze, their faces purple and bloated in death. That in itself would have been shocking enough, but what was next to it—

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” Lady Astilla said in a shocked whisper, leaning in to stare as well. Next to the scaffold, mounted on a pike, was the head of a dragon. Not just any dragon, I realized with dismay, but Hallus, my former patrol partner’s mount. The last time I’d seen him, he and Carvin had been hurtling toward the ocean, struck out of the sky by a bolt of lightning. I’d thought they would have sunk to the bottom of the sea, eaten by fish, but this…

  “Those dragon riders think they’re so superior to us,” Lady Astilla continued in a haughty tone, completely unaware of my distress. There were people crowded around Hallus’s head, and the sight of them jeering and throwing rotting vegetables at it made my stomach turn. “And yet we were able to take this b
rute out of the sky quite easily with our cannons. We don’t even have the newfangled ones the Zallabarians have invented. If the Elantians could see this now, they would think twice about going to war with Zallabar. The fact that they haven’t surrendered already shows how foolish they are.”

  “Indeed,” I said, my voice hollow. I knew the self-congratulatory story about the cannons was a load of crock—I’d been there when Hallus and his rider had been struck out of the sky by a bolt of lightning. We’d been in the midst of a storm so fierce that no one from below would have seen us even if they’d been near a cannon. It was far more likely that a group of fishermen recovered Hallus’s body and brought it to the authorities for his head to be hacked off and displayed here.

  Lady Astilla frowned. “Are you all right, Lady Zara? You look a bit peaky.”

  I cleared my throat and leaned back in my chair, away from the gruesome view. “I’m a bit shocked, that’s all. It’s not every day you see a dead body, never mind six in a row.”

  “Of course.” Lady Astilla tugged the curtains closed, adopting a soothing tone. “I should have thought of this. You wouldn’t be used to the public executions we do here.”

  I stared. “You mean this is normal?”

  Lady Astilla laughed, but it was a strained sound, with an edge of fear. “It didn’t use to be, but times have changed. We have a hanging at least once a week, sometimes two.”

  My blood ran cold, and once again, I was reminded of how close I’d come to being one of those bodies left swinging in the wind, life and dignity stripped from me. Anger surged in my chest, and I had to lock down my expression so Lady Astilla would not notice. I was sick of this country, sick of these people! And I was sick of the military, too. It was a mere stroke of luck that Hallus’s head was on that pike rather than Lessie’s—we could have been struck by that lightning instead. If only we hadn’t flown into the storm, I wouldn’t be stuck here in this carriage, amongst these bloodthirsty people who hid their brutality behind smiles and satin. The curtains might be blocking the view, but I could still hear the boos and shouted insults from the crowd outside.

  Finally, the carriage moved forward, the traffic jam ahead unblocked. Lady Astilla chattered on about court gossip, but it was easy enough to tune her out—she seemed more than happy to talk at me rather than to me. It took another twenty minutes before we finally arrived at the establishment—Madame Ricci’s Dress Shop.

  “Your husband instructed that we were to purchase a full wardrobe for you while we are here,” Lady Astilla gushed excitedly as we walked into the shop. The place was busy; women crowded around counters as the dressmakers showed them sketches and helped them select bolts of cloth and various trimmings for their gowns. “Once we are done here, we will visit the milliner, the shoemaker, and the jeweler. He is such a generous man to insist that we spare no expense, don’t you think?”

  “He certainly is,” I said, biting my tongue to keep back the retort that sprang to my lips. Salcombe had rarely shown me generosity in his life—anytime he’d given me anything, he’d expected me to pay for it in some fashion or another. This wardrobe was another investment, nothing more. Schooling my features into a pleasant smile, I allowed Lady Astilla to lead me to the counter.

  “Lady Zara Trentiano and Lady Astilla Denham,” she announced to the rail-thin woman standing there. “We have an appointment.”

  “Ah, yes.” The woman brightened, apparently recognizing the name. To my horror, she switched to Warosian. “My name is Madame Ricci. It is such a pleasure to have a fellow Warosian in the shop today!”

  “Wonderful,” I said, and tried not to cringe. I was fluent in Warosian, but I spoke it with an accent. “Do you have a catalogue I can look through?” I asked, switching back to Traggaran, which I was becoming fairly adept in now that I was forced to speak it every day. “I’m afraid I don’t know what presentation dresses in Traggar are supposed to look like.”

  The modiste narrowed her eyes briefly, and my heart sped up. Was that suspicion? But she quickly covered it with a smile, then pushed a small binder toward me. “These are the basic designs.”

  I perused the sketches, trying to hide my dismay. All of the dresses had unwieldy hoops and ridiculously long trains. “Are those ostrich feathers?” I asked.

  “Indeed,” Lady Astilla said. “All ladies who are presented at court are required to follow a strict dress code.” She passed her hand over a particularly ridiculous dress, the skirt enhanced with panniers so that it flared out wide on each side and appeared flattened in the front. “I think that would look quite nice on you.”

  “That is going to make me look like a box.”

  The modiste gave me a wry smile. “Perhaps you would prefer this one.”

  She flipped to a sketch of another gown, and I frowned as I studied it. Like the others, it still had the hoops and the ridiculous feathered headdress, but the skirt was more like a bell than a box, beginning at the waistline and flaring out until it touched the floor. The neckline was a V that exposed a healthy amount of décolletage, and the sleeves were short and puffy at the top.

  But it was the decoration of the dress itself that caught my eye, for it did not feature flowers or abstract designs like many of the other dresses did. No, the skirt was embroidered with beautiful peacock feathers that swept from the middle of the skirt down to the hem and along the train.

  I jabbed at the feathers. “Would it be possible to incorporate these into the bodice?” I asked. “Real ones? Like so.” I traced my fingers over the bodice to show how the feathers would line up, their tips brushing over my chest and covering up that V-neck.

  Lady Astilla frowned. “That is an unusual design for a presentation dress,” she said. “The necklines are usually cut lower.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Is pushing up one’s breasts until they are in danger of spilling out at the top of one’s dress a part of the presentation rules?”

  The modiste exchanged a glance with the society matron, who likely was regretting this outing with every second that passed. “No,” she said, the corners of her mouth quirking up in a smile. “I suppose it is not.”

  “Astilla!” a woman cried. A brunette in her mid-forties arrowed straight toward us, a girl of maybe seventeen at her side. “How lovely to see you!”

  “Claria!” Lady Astilla exclaimed with delight. “Lady Zara, this is my friend, Lady Claria Thrain. Claria, this is Lady Zara Trentiano.”

  “Oooh, the wife of the mysterious Lord Trentiano, is it?” Claria’s eyes gleamed as she sized me up. “You are quite a bit younger than I expected.”

  “I married well,” I said simply, and she laughed.

  A few more women came over to chat with Lady Astilla, and I listened to them with half an ear as I continued my session with the modiste, flipping through sketches so I could flesh out the rest of my wardrobe. Apparently, the relatives of the current queen were furious at the king, and might very well refuse to attend the coming reception where Salcombe and I were to be presented. Tensions were fraught at court, and, as with Lady Astilla, the women seemed to be more occupied with who was backstabbing whom than with the war.

  At least, until they came to the subject of Tavarian.

  “It is really too bad that the man is an Elantian,” Claria said with feeling. “He is so handsome and distinguished, and clearly quite wealthy. He would make a fine husband, don’t you think, Laia?” she said to her daughter.

  “Never mind Laia,” one of the other women said with a lascivious wink. “I would fancy taking a turn with him myself, I think!”

  The women laughed, even as the daughter’s cheeks turned a deep crimson. “Well, if you want to, you’re going to have to move fast,” Lady Astilla said. “With the way things are going, the only way you’ll be able to visit him is at the gaol, if he is not kicked out of the country.”

  The conversation quickly moved away from the subject of Tavarian, but I was no longer listening, still stuck on his fate. I wondered what he would th
ink if he knew the noble ladies were tittering about how handsome he was while simultaneously bemoaning his unfortunate circumstances. I wished there was some way I could help him prevent the war, but after everything I’d seen and heard so far, it was clearer than ever that I needed to put all my attention on playing my part convincingly.

  “All right,” Madame Ricci finally said, closing the binder. “I believe we are all set. Let’s go into the back and take your measurements, shall we?”

  “Yes,” I said, with feeling. I was so sick of looking at dresses. Apparently, the few outfits Salcombe had furnished me with were not nearly enough for a lady of my supposed breeding. A proper lady required morning gowns, visiting gowns, walking gowns, promenade dresses, carriage dresses, dinner gowns, ball gowns, and riding habits. And that didn’t include the various underpinnings required—shifts, chemises, stays, corsets, hoops, petticoats, stockings, and more! The list was endless, and I briefly wondered if Salcombe knew how much all of this was going to cost. Were we going to be here long enough for me to wear even half of these garments?

  The modiste whisked me behind a curtain, where a team of ladies stripped me down to my chemise and measured me within an inch of my life. “So, which part of Warosia do you and your husband come from?” she said casually as she switched back to her native tongue.

  I fought back my anger at the enterprising glint in the woman’s eye—after all the money I was spending, she was still going to try and twist my arm? “I am not actually from Warosia,” I said, giving her what I hoped was an apologetic smile. “I am from Ruisin, and I became acquainted with my husband through a family friend. When the two of us married, I naturally moved to Warosia to be with him.”