Stronghold Page 15

  “I offended him. He showed me something he wanted me to see, and I didn’t believe him.” Pol started to reach for a pastry, remembered his self-imposed prohibition against desserts, and refilled his cup from the pitcher of taze instead. “He conjured up something that looked like a dream, though it was very real to him. Father, do you think dragons dream?”

  “Why don’t you ask Azhdeen the next time you talk to him? What about it, Sioned?”

  “How should I know? It’s not something that’s ever been an issue. They can imagine things—we’d never have received permission to build Dragon’s Rest if Elisel wasn’t able to imagine sheep penned up for her supper. But—dreams?” She shrugged. “I’ll ask her the next time I talk to her.”

  Tobren heard all this with her blue eyes starting from her head. Chay noticed first, and smiled. “I know—sounds perfectly insane, doesn’t it? Talking to dragons! But they can.”

  “Grandsir—how?”

  “If I knew, I’d do it myself. Maarken? You want to explain it?”

  “It’s a little like Sunrunning, Tobren.”

  “My father taught me before I left Goddess Keep,” she said with shy pride. “Does that mean I can talk to dragons, too?”

  “Did he, now?” Pol asked, in a tone betraying nothing more than interest, but she suddenly stiffened in her chair.

  Rohan smiled at the girl. “I’ve always wanted to be able to. When I was little I used to imagine flying over the hills and valleys just like a dragon, only my wings were made of sun- or moonlight.”

  “It’s just like that,” Hollis said with a warning glance at Pol. None of them had been aware of Tobren’s ability; he wondered if any of them suspected Andry as strongly as he did of setting the least obvious spy imaginable in their midst. But what other motive could Andry have for teaching her? She was only twelve, absurdly young to know such things.

  “I like Sunrunning,” Tobren said, encouraged by her elders’ interest, but still with a wary eye on Pol. “I can talk with Andrev and Valeda and Nialdan, and when I get homesick I can look at Goddess Keep—” She stopped abruptly.

  “It’s all right, heartling,” Maarken said. “When I was a squire at Graypearl I used to get homesick, too. Didn’t you, Pol?”

  “All the time. And I didn’t know how to go Sunrunning. But you know, Tobren, nowdays I sometimes go take a look at Graypearl, because I miss it. I expect you’ll miss Whitecliff and Radzyn one day, too.” His suspicions shamed him. What better way to soothe a little girl away from home for the first time than to teach her how to use light to talk with her friends whenever she needed to? Andry had plenty of faults, but he adored his children.

  “Anyway,” Maarken went on, “communicating with a dragon is done the same way as with other faradh’im, only you don’t use words. You use pictures and feelings. The thing about dragons is that they always know the truth about you. It’s impossible to hide your feelings from them.”

  “And they’re fascinated by what we feel,” Hollis added. “Almost the way we’re fascinated by tiny babies—what must they be thinking and seeing and feeling? It’s rather humbling,” she finished with a chuckle.

  “I can tell you one thing about dragons—don’t ever get one mad at you.” Pol winced. “Azhdeen nearly ripped my brains to shreds, he was that angry with me for not believing him.”

  “What had he seen?” Rohan asked.

  “Dragons on water. I tried to point out to him that ships look very much like dragons—sails for wings, the prow for the head, and so on. He took exception to being corrected. Dragons sailing the sea were what he saw, and that was that.”

  “I trust you were properly contrite in asking forgiveness.” Sioned winked.

  He laughed. “Mother, I positively groveled. We’re friends again. But I’ll think twice before I ever disagree with him.”

  “I should hope so,” Chay said, entering the conversation for the first time. “If I was a Sunrunner, I’d never contradict my dragon.” His voice was light and teasing, and he smiled, but there was a darkness in his eyes that Pol found perplexing.

  “But that’s another thing about them,” Sioned mused. “Elisel isn’t my dragon. I’m her human. I belong to her, not the other way around.”

  Rohan pulled a mournful face. “And here I thought you’d promised to be only mine forever. I’m wounded. My heart is breaking.” He snatched a pastry off her plate and added, “And the seams of Hollis’ lovely dress are going to break as well if you don’t stop stuffing yourself.”

  The servants came in to clear the table and the party dispersed—for bed, for a walk in the moonlight, for games of chess. Pol claimed fatigue after the journey and went upstairs, but was unable to sleep for quite some time.

  When would he not distrust Andry’s every word and action? He resented what the mere thought of his cousin made him think and feel. He wasn’t a suspicious man, or a jealous or vindictive one. He had offered Andry trust and friendship many times.

  A certain fundamental honesty compelled him to admit that “offering” was not the same as “giving.” Andry was as proud as he—and had been hurt more. Oh, he understood the man, even felt compassion for him. He had never forgotten what Sorin had whispered just before he died—to go gently with Andry. For Sorin’s sake, he had tried. But Andry made it damned difficult.

  Was his dislike based only on personalities? Somewhere along the years the easy cousinly friendship had been lost. He regretted it, but would not accept the whole responsibility himself. He and Andry were simply too different to like each other.

  Or perhaps too much the same. Born of the same princely family, raised in the Desert, Sunrunners, powerful in those arts and in politics—it might be that they understood each other too well.

  Yet Andry’s power could never seriously threaten Pol’s. Lord of Goddess Keep he might be, but Rohan had seen to it that he knew his place. And Pol knew that his father’s power as High Prince wasn’t half what his own would be as Sunrunner and High Prince both.

  And sorcerer, he reminded himself. There were things in the Star Scroll that Andry would never be able to do. He lacked the diarmadhi gift, similar to and subtly different from that of Sunrunners.

  So we’ll go on playing the game until one of us makes a mistake and the other pounces. I suppose it ought to comfort me that I’m the Dragon’s son. Everybody knows what happens to anything a dragon considers prey.

  But it saddened him that life had to be like that.

  Chapter Seven

  On the thirtieth day of Autumn, Faolain Riverport prepared to celebrate two events. The first was the annual harvest festival presided over by the sons of old Lord Baisal of Faolain Lowland. Baisath, athri of the thriving port, was the younger son; his brother, Miral, had inherited the family’s main holding at Lowland. Good, tradition-bound farmers both, for all that one now lived in a town, they traded the festival back and forth between them. This year it was Baisath’s turn, and the whole clan gathered in his large, comfortable residence for the occasion.

  The second celebration was more personal. Miral’s daughter Karanaya had finally Chosen a husband, and they would wed at the New Year. Naturally such an occasion warranted presents, and this touchy subject had brought together two ladies with very different aims. Michinida, Baisath’s wife, was determined to spend the least amount of money possible; Kemeny, mother of the bride, was just as determined to see her daughter splendidly gifted at Michinida’s expense.

  They had been receiving merchants all morning.

  “Too small, too flashy, too paltry,” Michinida enumerated as a silversmith proffered various pieces of jewelry. “I want something simple and elegant, you wretch. Have you nothing worthy of anyone but a peasant’s daughter?”

  The man combed his beard and cast his dark eyes from side to side as if seeking spies. “Noble lady, if I show you my most precious things, I must respectfully beg that if you do not purchase them, you will not speak of them. Not their existence, and certainly not their price�
�”

  “What insolence!” Kemeny exclaimed. “Are you insinuating that my dear sister-by-marriage would skimp money on my daughter’s betrothal gift?”

  Michinida frowned her annoyance. The woman was so vulgar—and so perceptive.

  “Show us these marvels,” Kemeny ordered, with a sidelong glance at Michinida.

  The merchant sighed, fingering his beard, and placed a plain wooden box on the table before the women. He did not open it.

  “Before viewing robs you of speech, gentle ladies, allow me to compliment you on the marvels of this place. Where I come from, we rarely see such magnificence. Why, there must be fifty rooms here!”

  “Only forty,” Kemeny said with a sliver of malice that instantly found its way into Michinida’s breast and festered there. Lowland had forty-six rooms. “Open the box, be quick! I want to see my dear friend’s gift to my daughter.”

  “Instantly, my lady. Only—” His fingers toyed with the hasp. “I cannot imagine why this fair abode is not guarded better. I saw only five soldiers on my way in. I tremble for my person if anyone gets word of what I carry in this box, should you not be pleased with it.”

  Michinida scowled. “The residence boasts a sufficient number of armed troops—almost seventy, I believe. But this is my husband’s business, not yours. Will you open that box!”

  He worked at the catch. “It hasn’t been opened in so long, it’s grown stiff. I beg patience.” His fingers fumbled and poked. “Seventy seems a small number to guard so rich a prize.”

  “Who would dare attack?” Michinida laughed. “You are absurd, merchant.”

  “Yet there are stone ramparts on the river side, my lady. Ah, there, I think it’s coming.”

  “So,” Kemeny observed, “is winter.”

  “We have never considered it necessary to surround Riverport with walls,” Michinida said loftily. “Oh, that fool architect wanted to, but as we rightly pointed out to him, to our east lies our own princedom. Rohan would have to go mad and Chaynal and their armies with him before they would fall on us. We are the most important trading center on the whole coast.”

  “Except for Radzyn, with its exclusive right to silk,” Kemeny reminded her.

  “Does Radzyn see the variety of goods that pass through our warehouses bound for everywhere? It supplies the Desert. We supply three princedoms!”

  “Lowland has the honor of supplying Stronghold itself,” Kemeny purred. “For which service Sioned granted of her own purse the stone to build the keep.”

  “Oh, look, it’s open,” Michinida said, quelling the usual argument about whose was the more prestigious holding.

  “Gracious ladies,” the merchant said, “I show you now the most beauteous objects ever beheld.” And he stood back from the table with a low bow, his eyes never leaving their awestruck faces.

  Nestled on puckered white silk were six smooth, flawless black pearls. Not charcoal gray or purplish, as were sometimes found off Dorval, but black as night, overlaid with a hint of shining iridescence.

  “Noble ladies,” the merchant whispered, “the Tears of the Dragon.”

  Michinida was the first to recover her powers of speech, but even so her voice was hushed. “Where did you—were these lawfully obtained?”

  The merchant stroked his beard and said nothing. When she dragged her eyes from the gems, he shrugged and very nearly winked.

  “Not even the High Princess has such pearls,” Kemeny whispered. Her hand went out, one finger extended as if to touch them, then drew back as if she didn’t dare.

  “The Tears of the Dragon,” he repeated solemnly. “Nothing so magnificent exists anywhere. It is said they number twelve in all, and when together possess such power over any who see them that—” He shrugged to indicate his inability to express the colossal import of a complete set. “It is further said that they were wept by the mother of All Dragons for some mysterious sorrow, and worn by the Goddess herself.”

  “A pretty conceit,” Michinida remarked as casually as she could. “But I’m not interested in stories, merchant. I’m interested in the price. I assume it is equally outrageous?” She felt queasy at the thought of the cost. She had intended to make Karanaya a nice present, but these must be worth a year’s revenues. Two years’.

  It was as bad as she’d feared. But with Kemeny there, she had no choice. As the bargaining commenced, the merchant wrung his hands, clawed his beard, clutched at his heart as if the sums she offered were physically painful. But at last she wore him down to a payable, if expensive, price. Thrice what she’d intended to spend, of course, but halfway through the negotiations she had an idea. When she called in her chamberlain to arrange payment, she explained it, beaming.

  “I have the most cunning notion! These pearls will start a family legend! The first of the—what did you call them? The Tears of the Dragon?—I’ll give the first to Karanaya, and the second to your son’s wife, Pelida—belatedly, true, but the thought is what matters. When my sons marry, they shall have the next.”

  Kemeny frowned and opened her mouth to protest breaking up the set—which naturally should go to Karanaya whole.

  Michinida smiled sweetly at her. “Do you think it would be terribly selfish of us, my dear, to keep one each for ourselves?”

  She looked at the pearls, thought of her daughter, and replied slowly, “We might keep one each . . . ah, in trust, as it were.”

  “I’m so glad you agree with me!” She didn’t like giving up even one, but this was better than handing all six over to Karanaya. They fell to discussing how best to set their pearls—ring, necklet, earring? They did not notice when the merchant departed, his pockets bulging with gold, his beard split by a contemptuous grin.

  • • •

  A placid family evening at Gilad Seahold was shattered by a single scream. Lady Paveol pulled the face of her young son against her breast and cried out, “Oh, Goddess, how horrible!”

  Lord Segelin surged to his feet, livid. “Get out! How dare you bring such foulness into the presence of my wife and child?”

  The young juggler lost his balance. Six cups nimbly aloft an instant before smashed to the stones. “My lord—please, I meant no offense!” On his knees now, he tried to scrape together the shattered fragments, babbling all the while. “It’s tradition in my family, we’ve always used cups made of—and now mine are broken! Where will I find more? These were given to me by my great-grandsire, who displayed his art in front of High Prince Roelstra himself, earning a gold coin and six silver buttons! I hoped to make my way with them, but now—” He looked up hopefully. “Shall I sing for you, my lord? I have a fine and pleasing voice, and know all manner of songs—”

  “Get out!” Segelin roared, and his son began to cry.

  “A cradle song!” the juggler said desperately. “A soft song to soothe the young lord from his fright—”

  “You and those horrible—things—frightened him!” He advanced from the sofa where his wife sat trying to calm the little boy, her face as bleached of color as the shards still littering the floor. The juggler scrambled to his feet and backed away, fingers tangling distractedly in his thin beard.

  “My lord—please—don’t kill me—!”

  “Get out, or I’ll do worse than kill you!”

  He gave a high-pitched shriek and fled—not through the garden doors by which he had entered to amuse the family with his clever tricks, but out the main door and up the stairs.

  “Goddess damn him!” Segelin yelled for his guards. The juggler led them a swift chase up to the top floor and across the wall, then disappeared into the stone tower that was the most ancient part of the manor.

  “Wait, let me light a torch, my lord,” one of the guards panted. “Those steps are uncertain enough by daylight, and it’s gone dusk.”

  “Hurry up about it. When I catch the whoreson—do you know what he was juggling with? Do you know what those cups were made from?”

  He spat onto the ragged stones, as if to rid himself of an
evil taste in his mouth. The guard lit the torch and gulped at the expression on Segelin’s face. No wonder the juggler had run headlong.

  “I’m sorry, my lord, I didn’t see what he—”

  “Skulls! Hollow skulls with the jaws wired shut and the eye sockets filled with clay!” Segelin grabbed the torch and made for the entrance to the tower.

  Guards followed with more light. Some went down the narrow, crumbling stairs, but Segelin climbed to the top of the tower. He’d guessed correctly; his quarry was no field prey with the cleverness to run to ground, but rather a terrified bird trying to take flight. The juggler stood shivering on the roof, arms wrapped as far as they would go around a huge triangular crenellation.

  “I ought to push you over the edge,” Segelin snarled.

  “Oh, great lord, please! I don’t know what came over me, I’ve never had so powerful a man angry with me before and I panicked—please don’t kill me!”

  Some of the shock had worn off by now, and Segelin’s primary emotion was one of scorn for this trembling craven. He held the torch higher and saw that the stupid fool had actually wet his trousers in his fear.

  “Bah!” he said, disgusted. “It would insult my blade to stain it with blood like yours.”

  “Oh, Goddess bless you, my lord, Goddess give you a hundred sons—”

  “Pick yourself up, swine, and get out. And if I ever even hear of you within a hundred measures of my lands, I’ll hunt you down and have your hands cut off. Move!”

  He lurched to his feet and stood there swaying. “It—it’s growing dark, my lord—I need a torch—”

  Segelin took one from its bracket near the door and lit it from his own. It quivered and shook in the juggler’s hand. A few steps, and he tripped over an unevenness in the old stones. The torch went sailing over the wall and down to the beach.

  “By the Goddess’ fiery eyes!” Segelin bellowed. “I never saw anyone so clumsy! Can’t you juggle your own bones, or only the empty ones of others? Find your way down in the dark for all I care! I want you out of my keep now!”