The Broken Dragon: Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2

by Irene Radford

  “He was obsessed with Princess Rosselinda.”

  “If he awakens . . .”

  “And she returns from hiding . . .”

  “Lucjemm could try to use her again to rebel . . .”

  “And claim the throne.”

  The girls thought better together, jumped ahead of Jaylor with their combined intellect.

  “We don’t know how trustworthy Jemmarc is, with or without his son. Politically it is expedient to keep him in the capital where we can observe him closely,” Jaylor said.

  “You’ve stripped him of much authority . . .” Valeria said.

  “And influence. He could become resentful and start a new rebellion,” Lillian added.

  “He blames Princess Linda for his son’s ailment.”

  “He resents the entire royal family.”

  “He could import mercenaries from Rossemeyer or the Big Continent to his province,” Valeria said.

  “Keep them secret and march on the capital before you or the king knows what he’s up to,” Lillian finished.

  “Precisely.”

  “When do we go to Sacred Isle to get our staffs?” they asked together. A staff to channel and enhance magic was a life-long tool, acquired only as a reward for promotion from apprentice to journey status.

  “Not yet. A staff is too overt a symbol of a Magician. I need you both to be overlooked, dismissed as unimportant.”

  “Like Old Maisy at court, a babble-mouth seamstress who was everywhere,” Valeria said sadly. She’d been with the woman when she died last spring, helping to save the kingdom from wild, raw, and uncontrolled magical energy, unleashed and lashing out against the poison of an iron pole thrust into the middle of the Well.

  “If I had a staff to ground me, I might be able to initiate a summons to you, or Val,” Lillian said sullenly. “I’ll need to do that if I’m a spy in a household set up for treachery. What if I have something important to tell you, Da, and I can’t because I’m a failure at being a magician?”

  Skeller slung the straps of his harp case over one shoulder and his smaller rucksack of essential clothing and supplies over the other. Automatically he patted Telynnia, the harp within the specially designed case, to make sure she was still in there, whole and ready to sing with him the moment he tuned her loosened strings. Quietly he watched the crowd of passengers and crew disembarking from the commercial ferry that ran regular routes between his home in Amazonia and Coronnan City. Travel between the two ports had become more regular this past decade, after centuries of isolation and mistrust, but not any shorter. He needed to stretch and walk a bit to ground himself in this new land. A loud group of dark-skinned merchants wearing flowing robes and high turbans elbowed him aside. He slipped into line behind them. Merchants always traveled ahead of diplomats, laying the groundwork for understanding and advantage.

  The harried customs officer on the dock barely lifted his eyes from a parchment roll as he barked, “Customs duty, one dragini for each of you.”

  The head merchant grudgingly fished in his belt wallet hidden beneath the outermost layer of brightly colored robes and pulled out three coins. “Three drageen,” he counted as he placed the first coin in the customs officer’s open palm. “Six drageen.” He placed another coin in the man’s hand, then looked around as if counting heads. Skeller kept his face low, wondering if he had enough copper pennies to make a full dragini.

  The merchant replaced the third coin in his wallet, making a big production of extracting a smaller metal disc. “Seven drageen,” he said with some satisfaction. “Seven brother, seven drageen.”

  Skeller counted heads as well. He made the ninth member of the group of merchants.

  The customs officer examined each coin and bit into it to make sure it was solid and untainted by baser metals. Seemingly satisfied, he dropped the coins into his own belt pouch and waved the men on. He didn’t bother counting heads for an accurate taxation. Maybe he couldn’t count. Skeller had heard many a strange tale about the dearth of education in Coronnan.

  Skeller sidled to the far side of the group now that he was off the narrow confines of the plank, staying as far from the customs officer as he could. But the official had already turned his attention to the next passenger departing the ferry.

  “That was too easy,” Skeller muttered. “Nothing in my life is ever that easy.”

  Just to prove that the Great Mother and all her sisters laughed at him, he spotted the face of the most untrustworthy man in the world, the one person who must never recognize him in this foreign kingdom.

  He was standing behind the customs officer, avidly watching the departing passengers and crew. Behind him, anonymous servants with the shoulder-length hair common in Amazonia, but too short for Coronnan, carried a box about three feet cubed toward a sledge lined in animal furs and special braces. The red and black enamel paint in cryptic slashes told Skeller all he needed to know about the cargo.

  He shuddered in fear.

  Skeller had no doubt the man he knew only as “Sir” had hastened to Coronnan City ahead of him in his role as spymaster, and now first ambassador in a long time, for King Lokeen of Amazonia. Lokeen, a man who ruled by his own authority and not his wife’s, made Skeller gag in revulsion. Unnatural. More unnatural than the deadly cargo in the red and black box.

  And Lokeen had hired an unnatural adviser and spymaster. A magician! A magician who had corrupted sacred beliefs about the sanctity of life and made them into outdated policies. A magician who moved between Coronnan and Amazonia often and without notice and even now checked every arriving ship for Skeller as well as that box.

  Time to do the unexpected.

  He searched the bustling crowds and caravans of snorting sledge steeds for inspiration. Caravans?

  Hmm. He wondered which of them needed a bard and wondered if any of them traveled in the same direction he needed to go.

  At the moment any direction would do, so long as he removed himself from the docks forthwith.

  CHAPTER 3

  GLENNDON, CROWN PRINCE of Coronnan, hastily sanded the fresh ink on the parchment. He watched the lords in the Council Chamber as they milled about, discussing trivia and local gossip. The ink still looked too wet to roll the parchment. Stargods, he should be able to be-spell the black liquid before a meeting, so that it dried rapidly without the sand. But he hadn’t had time since becoming Crown Prince to do more than dash from one assignment or ceremony to another. Every day, it seemed, the king handed him new responsibilities, hastening his education into all things governmental and diplomatic.

  He could whisper a few words to hasten the drying process, but not in public, with so many of the leaders of Coronnan still afraid of magic.

  Master Magician Dennilley passed a hand over the chronicle of today’s meeting as he followed Lord Bennallt. The lord paused beside Glenndon.

  “I look forward to watching you dance with my daughter tonight at court,” he said, loud enough for the entire Council of Provinces to hear. Then he moved on, taking Master Dennilley with him. The ink looked dry and solid.

  Glenndon groaned as he rolled the parchment. He liked dancing with Lady Miri, but she always, always wanted more. Usually he managed only a brief kiss behind the tapestries in an alcove. Not an unpleasant experience. But Glenndon didn’t like the aura of commitment that came with a kiss.

  As Crown Prince he had to think beyond pleasure. When he made a commitment to a young woman, both of his fathers, the king as well as the Senior Magician, would have more to say about the alliance than he would.

  “Do you have time for a practice bout in the arena?” Mikk asked, frowning. Mikk also liked to dance with Lady Miri, but she never trapped him in a quiet corner.

  Glenndon relaxed a bit. He liked his shy and bookish second cousin. They shared the chore of recording the proceedings of the Council of Provinces, then comparing notes and producing a clean and coherent report for the archives. Mikk was better at the clean and coherent part.

  Aft
er three months of working together they’d formed a kind of friendship. Not quite brothers—no man would replace Glenndon’s brother Lukan in his affections—but it was nice to have another male near his own age and rank within the court to talk to. He had Frank too, his bodyguard who was also the son of the king’s bodyguard. But Frank was always on the job, rarely unbending enough to carry on a conversation that didn’t involve escape routes and positioning so that an assassin couldn’t creep up behind them.

  Frank had turned his back and whistled jauntily many times when Miri shoved Glenndon into a corner.

  “You sure you’re up to another bit of training?” Glenndon asked. This was the first time Mikk had voluntarily asked for a bout. He hadn’t the height, breadth of shoulder, or strength that Glenndon had. But there was time. Mikk was three years younger than Glenndon. He would grow.

  “I need to develop skill as well as strength. Grand’Mere never allowed me to do much of anything at home. Except read. Grand’Pere always brought home new books whenever he returned from court. I think they intended me for the Temple.”

  “Then a bout it is. I have listened to the lords hiding subtle threats and anger beneath polite political phrases for too long today. So be prepared to succumb to my blows.” Glenndon grinned and slapped his companion on the back.

  Mikk didn’t quite stagger, but he clasped the edge of the desk they shared face to face.

  Together they set about rolling their parchments (Glenndon nodded thanks to Dennilley’s back for the assistance), cleaning their quills and capping the inkwells. By the time they finished, the lords had gathered in their cliquish groups and exited. Glenndon and his cousin shared a quick glance, noting who gathered with whom, and whom they shunned. Only Mikk’s grandfather, Lord Andrall, of all the eleven lords, sought the king’s company openly. Lord Jemmarc hung back, trying to ingratiate himself into the aura of power without being obvious. Besides, since his disgrace last spring, none of his peers dared talk to him lest another faction interpret politeness as rebellion.

  Glenndon briefly checked his father the king—the father he hadn’t known was his until last spring, when Darville needed a male heir so desperately to keep his lords in check that he finally acknowledged his son and legitimatized him. Not quite noon and the king’s hands were still steady, his speech clear, and his color healthy and tanned. Three months now since he’d had a drink of beta arrack, the strong liquor imported from Rossemeyer, the queen’s homeland.

  Perhaps he could maintain his vow of abstinence. He didn’t even take wine or small beer with his meals now. Only water that had been purified of poison and disease-bearing taints by a magician.

  “I’ve a mind to try a slightly heavier practice sword today,” Mikk said brightly.

  Glenndon suppressed a groan. “Stargods only know I’m not an expert, but I think it’s easier to develop skill first with a lighter sword, then build strength,” he offered.

  “You use a broadsword nearly twice the weight of the one I use.” Mikk didn’t quite pout, but he came close.

  “I’m three years older with broader shoulders. There are times I wish that General Marcelle would allow me to train with a battleax. I’d certainly have more skill and a more comfortable grip.” He’d honed that skill splitting logs and chopping wood to feed his mother’s hearth.

  “Only peasant infantry use an ax,” Mikk gasped. A look of horror opened his eyes wide and pursed his mouth into a deep frown of disapproval. “A noble, especially a prince, needs to ride a magnificent steed and carry a sword so he can be seen by all his troops and inspire leadership.”

  Glenndon swallowed a sneering protest that he’d been raised as a peasant magician at the Forest University with his mother and Senior Magician Jaylor, the man he had considered his father until the unwanted summons to court last spring; the man he still called Da.

  And though he saw his Da most every day in the city or Council Chambers, he missed Mama with a deep and abiding ache.

  “What are you wearing to court this evening?” Mikk asked, interrupting Glenndon’s sad and looping thoughts.

  “Hadn’t thought about it.” He urged Mikk out of the round Council Chamber. “Whatever someone lays out for me.” He hated maintaining a fashionable wardrobe. What was wrong with his homespun, forest-colored, but serviceable tunic and trews as long as they were clean? He grabbed his staff from where it stood leaning against the wall beside the huge stained-glass window and stumped toward the door with three scrolls beneath his arm.

  As they emerged from the chamber into the wide receiving room with King Darville’s and Queen Rossemikka’s thrones on a dais to their right, Glenndon came to a stumbling halt. Across the polished tiles, gathered into a huddle like a gabble of flusterhens, six teenage girls awaited them. Lady Miri, Princess Rosselinda’s former lady-in-waiting and now attendant upon the queen and the two younger princesses, raised her head and engaged his eyes with a winsome smile.

  “Stargods protect me,” he whispered, pounding the staff lightly against the floor.

  “What’s wrong?” Mikk asked, sidling slightly behind Glenndon. He had no weapon other than a ceremonial short sword—next to useless—and his penknife.

  “Girls. Always hanging on me as if I alone stand between them and a long and painful death,” Glenndon grunted.

  “Oh, the girls. They aren’t so bad. You just have to get them talking and pretend to listen. Actually, they know more about the goings-on at court than anyone else. I’ve learned many interesting things from them.”

  “That’s because they see you as a friend. I’m prize meat in the marriage market at the moment because I’m the heir. All they talk to me about is how their pretty lace, imported at great cost from SeLennica, enhances their bodice. An open invitation to stare at their cleavage.”

  “You don’t find that enticing?” Mikk blinked rapidly in dismay.

  “Of course I do. But I’ll never get to act on it. As long as I stay in the capital, I can expect nothing less than an arranged marriage to a foreign princess.”

  “Ah, but if any these girls can bear a royal bastard before your marriage, it enhances your reputation as a virile mate and gains her family much influence with the royal family. I, on the other hand, will have something to say on the choice of my bride when the time comes.”

  “I won’t do what my father did—beget a bastard and ignore him until he needed me.”

  Glenndon looked around and rapidly noticed each and every person in the room or stationed at doorways. Frank, his bodyguard, wearing the green and gold uniform of a trusted royal attendant, peered out from behind an elaborate tapestry hanging behind the throne. He beckoned. Glenndon grabbed Mikk by the elbow and judiciously retreated through the private family passage before the girls could follow him. “Swordplay. I need to bash some heads to get the sight of all those heaving bosoms out of my mind.”

  “Today you ride instead,” General Marcelle said, appearing out of nowhere and grabbing each young man by the elbow.

  Glenndon groaned. Mikk sagged as if his thighs already ached and chafed from contact with a saddle.

  “You just said, Master Mikk, that a prince must appear princely on a magnificent steed. As of yet neither of you looks anything but miserable astride an embarrassed steed, even a dainty palfrey the young princesses feel at home with.” The general propelled them toward Frank’s hiding place. The bodyguard held the hidden door ajar for them.

  “Maybe if we started with dainty palfreys and worked our way up to magnificent stallions . . . ?” Mikk asked hopefully.

  “His Grace the king told me not to coddle either of you. You have a lot to learn, in a hurry. Best we start where we hope to end up.”

  Mikk rolled his eyes, and Glenndon firmed his posture. Learning to speak after a lifetime of silence was easier than mastering the steeds General Marcelle considered docile.

  “Lukan, where are you going?”

  Lukan paused in his attempt to cross the home Clearing as rapidly as possible
. He shrugged rather than answer his mother.

  “You are not Glenndon. I will not allow you to dismiss me with that horrible gesture,” Brevelan admonished him. She slipped a well-worn travel sack over her shoulder—she must have had the thing since before she met Da—and stepped into the sunshine.

  He watched her lift her face and welcome the light and warmth. A brief word of thanks crossed her lips. Her once bright red hair tossed glints of gray and darker shades into her aura. Tiny lines around her eyes and mouth smoothed out for that short moment. She looked as young and vibrant as his sisters.

  Then she turned her attention back to him, and advancing age slid back onto her face. How old was she? Thirty-six? Not forty yet. Surely. Yet she looked as if she’d aged a decade in the last few months, ever since she had stopped ignoring her latest pregnancy and openly admitted that her seventh child was due in early autumn—or earlier judging by the size of her belly.

  “Long ago, the dragons promised you six children in a dragon-dream.” He cast his gaze upward, away from her. “Which of us is the unwanted seventh?” he whispered to himself, knowing that he was the unwelcome one, the odd one, the ordinary one in a family of brilliance and talent.

  “I might ask you what you are doing, Mama,” he said aloud, moving to her side and taking the sack from her. “Where are you going with a travel sack?” He suddenly felt protective. Brevelan, the core and center of life in the family, and in the Forest University, seemed tiny, almost shrunken beside him. The top of her head barely reached above his shoulder.

  He remembered hugging her knees because that was all he could reach.

  “Since when do I have to report my comings and goings to my second son?” she asked, a bit of humor returning to her voice. She reached up and caressed the partially healed weal along his cheek. “That’s going to scar. Mistress Maigret has an ointment that might help.”

  Lukan shook off her caress. He’d earned that scar observing the Circle of Master Magicians, spying for Da and figuring out who was going rogue before his father or either of his sisters had a clue. Master Marcus had sought him out and praised him for his actions. Da had ignored him. “I ask because you never leave the Clearing without good reason.”