Dragon Prince 01 - Dragon Prince Page 6

  “Just look at her,” Pandsala whispered to Ianthe. “That bitch!” Ianthe smiled sweetly. “Lenala, you cannot play the horse atop the rider, dear. Naydra, explain the rules to her again, won’t you? Sala and I are going for a stroll.”

  The younger pair left the elder and wandered across the lawns. Vines spread splashes of color across rough-hewn stone walls that rose to twice the princesses’ height and sealed in the trellis garden, just as the rest of Castle Crag and, therefore, their world was sealed. But they could feel the sheer drop of the cliffs beyond the wall, and the free, swift rush of the Faolain far below, just as without looking at it they could sense the silent, spired bulk of the castle behind them. Generations of their forebears had made it the most imposing keep in all the princedoms. The maze of rooms and corridors, antechambers and staircases was punctuated with turrets and towers jutting out wherever builders had found breathing space—with the result that there was no breathing space anywhere in the piles of gray and black stone. It was said that long ago the dragons had favored the cliffs here as a summer home during non-mating years, and had flown across the sky in so many hundreds that they blocked out the sun. It was from this place that Ianthe and Pandsala wanted desperately to flee, as the dragons had done long ago.

  Pandsala plucked a rose from the wall and put it in her hair. “When are we going to do something about Palila?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it.” Ianthe’s dark eyes sparkled gleefully. “Have you ever noticed how many women there are at Castle Crag, and how many of them are pregnant at any given time?”

  “It must be in the air,” Pandsala replied, making a face. “Women breed, and they breed daughters.”

  “Not all of them.”

  Pandsala frowned, then stared. Ianthe laughed.

  “If Palila has a son—which isn’t likely, but all things are possible—I have my eye on several girls right now who are just as far along as she is.”

  “Why not do to her what she did to poor Surya?”

  “I’ve considered it,” Ianthe admitted. “But her personal servants are absolutely loyal—Goddess alone knows why! She sleeps either with Father or with guards outside her door and two women on the floor of her chamber. She doesn’t go out riding, she doesn’t leave the grounds, she doesn’t bathe with the rest of us and she never eats anything her own servants haven’t prepared. If you can find opportunity in those things, be my guest!”

  “I always did think her ‘delicate stomach’ was a flimsy excuse.”

  “She doesn’t trust us any more than we trust her. Oh, she makes sweet eyes at us and pretends we’re all the closest of friends. I don’t know who she thinks she’s fooling—certainly not Father!”

  “He doesn’t give a damn about any of us, except when we can amuse him. Ianthe, I’m so tired of amusing him! Tell me what you have planned.”

  “If we’re to be rid of her, we’ll have to be even more devious than she. You know she’s planning to sell us to the highest bidder.”

  “I could do with a husband. It would get me out of this nursery!” She gestured to the lawns where their half-sisters played in the sunshine.

  Ianthe paced along the garden wall until she found a perfect violet rose. She plucked it and ran the soft petals across her cheeks and lips. “There’s nothing wrong with a husband of one’s own choosing. But remember who’s sent emissaries recently? Prince Vissarion—now, there’s a fine specimen, if you like lechers. And then there was that lisping idiot sent by Prince Ajit. How would you like to join the list of wives he’s buried? Four now, isn’t it?”

  “Five—no worse than Father,” Pandsala retorted, but there was fear in her dark eyes now. “Very well. So the idea is that if Palila manages a son, we’ll find some way to switch the child for a girl.”

  “If Father gets an heir, we’ll count for less than nothing.”

  “I know.” Pandsala scuffed the toe of her slipper against a clod of newly turned earth. “But Ianthe—this is our brother we’re talking about.”

  “And if he grows up a servant’s son instead of a prince, what of it? It’s our future we’re concerned with, Sala! Father’s wealth split seventeen ways is bad enough—but if there’s a son, instead of a seventeenth part we’d be lucky to get a hundredth. You and I and Naydra and that imbecile Lenala will get larger shares, of course, being princesses. But five hundredths is still nothing multiplied five times.” She crushed the rose in her palm. “If there’s no son, Father will have to choose the next High Prince from among our sons.”

  Pandsala’s eyes narrowed for an instant, but then she hastily smoothed her expression. “Some other woman than Palila might give him a boy. You know, Ianthe, we’d do better to have him gelded.”

  The younger girl burst out laughing. “And you call me foul-minded!”

  Pandsala laughed with her. “I’d call us both practical, wouldn’t you?”

  But as they walked on, conversing in perfect accord, neither spoke of the sons they hoped they would have—or the husband each hoped would father them.

  The High Prince—who was not as unaware of his daughters as they believed him to be—sat behind the desk of his private study high above the gardens. Roelstra’s forty-five winters showed in a thread or two of white in his dark hair, a line or two around his pale green eyes, a notch or two let out in his belt. He had been a remarkably beautiful youth and had matured into a handsome man; oncoming age only added to his looks. But many years of absolute rule had set certain things into his eyes—arrogance, cynicism, contempt. All of these were in evidence as he looked at his most valued, though not most trusted servant.

  “So. The old dragon is dying. It’s certain, Crigo?”

  “Yes, your grace. He was gored most horribly and now lies in his bed, from which he will not rise.”

  “Hmm.” Roelstra tapped his index finger against his lips and regarded Crigo. “You seem tired. Have you been indulging too much or too little?”

  The man’s fair head bent. “I . . . apologize for my condition, your grace.”

  “Sleep it off. Come back to me at moonrise, for I wish to send a message to our contact at Stronghold. And you must take better care of yourself, Crigo,” he cautioned, smiling without humor. “It’s not every prince who has his very own renegade Sunrunner.”

  Crigo’s lean shoulders flinched at the reminder of what he was. Roelstra studied him for a few more moments, thinking that it might become necessary to acquire a new faradhi soon. Crigo was beginning to look used up.

  “Leave me,” he ordered, and rose to look out the windows. The door latch clicked softly, and Roelstra was alone. He gazed at his daughters, saw Palila’s auburn hair gleaming in the sunlight, and wondered what plots were whirling around in their heads today. The princesses were getting to a dangerous age, he reflected—too old to be placated with toys and games, old enough to want more of the silks and jewels that were an idle woman’s playthings. Ianthe and Pandsala in particular would bear watching, for they were intelligent. A woman with a brain was not a thing to be relished.

  He wondered if the young princeling had a brain. Son of the old dragon and nephew of the redoubtable Lady Andrade; perhaps he could think. Roelstra hoped so. It would make life much more interesting.

  He wondered, too, if Andrade knew about Crigo or the dranath. Such a humble little plant, growing only in the highest reaches of the Veresch, but incredibly potent when boiled, dried, and refined to powder. Crigo was its slave, and because Roelstra was master of his dranath supply, the Sunrunner was Roelstra’s slave as well. It was a pity so useful a tool was wearing out.

  Inhaling deeply of the moist breeze off the river, he thought of the dry heat of the Desert and grinned. One of his daughters would soon find out how people survived there. The Goddess had not cursed him with so many female offspring for nothing. Prince Zehava would be dead soon; by late summer when the Hatching Hunt was over, the new prince would be seen for the weakling he was. At the Rialla in autumn, Rohan would find himself matche
d to one of the princesses and overmatched in his dealings with their father.

  Roelstra stretched his powerful shoulders and smiled, thoughts of the Rialla bringing to mind the beach at Brochwel Bay and making love to Palila there. But he reminded himself that pregnancy would have swollen her to grotesque proportions by then. Roelstra preferred very slender women. But if her looks were lost for the sake of bearing a son—He bit his lip against a hope that surely ought to have died after seventeen daughters.

  Which one should be Rohan’s bride? Naydra might do; Lenala was impossible. Pandsala or Ianthe—now, there was a thought. Beautiful, brilliant Ianthe. But would she come to relish power and forget who had given it to her by making her Rohan’s wife? He tried to identify the faces and characteristics of his other girls, and could not; there were so damned many of them. Still, the fact that they had rarely been called to his notice led him to believe that they might be more trustworthy than Ianthe. Women who wanted his attention inevitably wanted something more—gowns, jewelry, trinkets to keep them content for a while before they desired more. Those things were easy compared to doling out power. No true child of his would ever be content with anything less.

  Which of them would understand his goals and play the game with relish to match his own? Which of them could be used best and trusted most? It was a pretty problem, and he mulled it over as he gazed down at his girls. A pity Kiele was too young; aside from Ianthe and Pandsala, she showed the most spirit. But perhaps one of the others would surprise him. He would have to keep an eye on them over the rest of the summer.

  Whichever one it turned out to be, he would have to provide handsomely for her. A nice, fat dowry, and the border castle of Feruche thrown in, none of it very hard to part with because within ten years he would have it all back, and the Desert itself besides. All the wealth of mines and salt, horses and silk trade would be his. He would have everything.

  Except a son.

  Crigo shivered in the day’s warmth as he crept between the bed-sheets. His head ached abominably, his tongue was thick in his mouth with the wanting of dranath, and his fingers shook as he clenched blankets in his fists. But he was used to the physical discomfort and knew how much of it he could take. What he had never grown used to was the betrayal of everything he was.

  Five years ago he had been on his way north to Fessenden, assigned by Lady Andrade to replace a faradhi killed in a climbing accident. Crigo had been thrilled by the honor and enchanted by the long journey overland, for aside from Goddess Keep and his home farm in Grib, he had never been anywhere in his life. He’d sent his impressions back on the sunlight to his friends at Goddess Keep, keeping them amused and envious for many days. But just inside Princemarch it had been necessary to cross a branch of the Faolain River, and even that short row over placid water had left him insensible. And that was when the High Prince’s men had taken him.

  Crigo had not been bound; there had been no need. All they had had to do was keep him on the river. Technically he was free to leave at any time—but sick, shaking, unable to think past his physical misery, he had barely been aware of the journey upriver to Castle Crag. When he finally was in possession of his faculties again, he found himself lying in a soft bed within a luxurious room. This chamber, with its brocade hangings and its view of the mountains, had become his prison—for this chamber had contained a pitcher of wine laced with dranath.

  At first he hadn’t known. Lady Palila herself had brought him the wine, and the honor of having her serve him had not seemed unusual to a Sunrunner accustomed to instant respect and hospitality wherever he went. She had told him word had been sent to Goddess Keep that he was safe, and he need not worry. She had been all smiles and solicitude. He had suspected nothing.

  But the wine had changed. Crossing water had been nothing compared to the loss of dranath during those rainy days of late autumn when the sun denied itself to him and the moons vanished behind clouds. His physical agony was made all the worse by the fact that this time he had all his wits about him. At last the High Prince himself had come to him late one night after some sort of celebration, wrapped in a cloth-of-gold cloak that shone in the firelight. Its brightness seared Crigo’s eyes and sent swords of cold fire into his brain. After drinking the wine Roelstra offered, he had listened in mounting horror as the High Prince explained exactly why Crigo felt better now.

  A thousand times since that night he’d asked himself why he hadn’t chosen to die. There were easy answers: he was young, he loved life, he had thought to wean himself from the drug, he had intended to report back to Lady Andrade in secret. He had long ago recognized all these answers as lies. Shuddering into his blankets, he wondered bitterly why he could still feel such shame, and closed his eyes to the cool silver pitcher on the table. He hated it, craved it, blessed it, cursed it. It owned him as surely as Roelstra did. And that was the only answer that counted.

  A thousand times since that night he had ridden the light for the High Prince, using his faradhi skills to communicate with Roelstra’s spies in major courts. Today he had made his regular contact with Stronghold’s wine steward, bracing himself against the bite of that rapacious mind in order to glean the information the High Prince wanted. Tonight he would use the moonlight to contact the steward again, this time to convey whatever message Roelstra wished. Crigo nearly sobbed aloud as his aching body crying out for the drug. Lady Andrade had special ties to those at Stronghold, ties of kinship and affection. To betray the young prince was to doubly and triply damn himself. Worthless in his own eyes, he was worth a very great deal to Roelstra. It was the difference in the price they each set on his soul.

  Slowly, painfully, Crigo sat up. He raked the thin blond hair back from his eyes, drew in a long breath—and poured himself a measure of drugged wine.

  Palila was in Roelstra’s chambers when the renegade Sunrunner was admitted. She was always nervous in Crigo’s presence, for he was a reminder of the bizarre old crone who had provided her with the dranath years ago. She had heard of a sorceress in the mountains who guaranteed all sorts of charms and spells. Desperate for a son—and needing something to put in Lady Surya’s wine that could not be traced or suspected—Palila had summoned the old woman secretly to Castle Crag. No son had come of it, though Palila had done everything required. But Surya had died of something the crone claimed was dragon’s blood, and in addition Palila had learned the secret of dranath. She would much rather have had the son than the presence of this pallid, drawn Sunrunner at Castle Crag. Roelstra had been forbidden an official faradhi by Lady Andrade for offenses not even rumor could guess at, and Palila did not mind the lack. Sunrunners did things she feared, and in the five years Roelstra had been using Crigo she had never gotten over the suspicion that one day he would reach his limit. Who knew what somebody trained by that witch Andrade might do? But Palila was wise enough to sit quietly on her couch and hide her wariness, for Roelstra wanted her to witness what happened this night.

  “Come in, Crigo,” the High Prince said. “Be seated.”

  A chair had been placed in the full moonlight. He huddled into it, wrapped in a thick cloak though the room was still warm with the day’s sunlight, shivering, his eyes slightly glazed with the effects of the drug. The three small moons were far apart in the sky, casting a blurred series of shadows and making Crigo’s usual pallor almost greenish.

  “Before the message is sent, you’ll do something for me, Crigo,” Roelstra said. He withdrew a candle from a pocket of his tunic and Crigo flinched. “I have a whim to see this young princeling. Conjure him for me.”

  Palila caught her breath and Roelstra glanced at her over his shoulder. Quickly she said, “Forgive me, my lord, but I’ve never seen—”

  “I’m sure you’ll find it interesting.” He held out the candle to the faradhi. “Light it,” he commanded softly. “Show me the princeling, Crigo. I want to see what manner of foolish child I’ll encounter at the Rialla.”

  Crigo lifted both thin hands, the six rings of
his earned rank glimmering in the moonlight. The wick sprang to life. Crigo looked up at Roelstra dully, his eyes reflecting the tiny flame. Palila held herself from shrinking back as the Sunrunner stared into the Fire of his calling.

  The flame grew and a face began to form. Palila was drawn forward despite herself, fascinated. First the vague oval of the face, crowned by fair hair; then the lines of jaw, brow, nose; at last the features resolved and the curve of the mouth and the color of the eyes were clearly seen. A proud face, and very young; untested, unripe, and unaware of Roelstra’s fine manipulations of power.

  “Well?” the High Prince asked suddenly. “Which of my girls will do for him, Palila? I value your advice.”

  She stared at him in shock, distracted from the face in the flame. So this was why he had spoken with his elder daughters tonight at dinner, she thought. He usually ignored them, preferring to concentrate on the little ones and their amusing chatter. But tonight he had tested each of them, and now he was testing her. Mind working furiously, she tried to outguess him. He had already decided which daughter would marry Rohan, of course. She would have to anticipate that decision. His green eyes were coldly amused as they watched her during the few seconds she had in which to think.

  “Ianthe,” she said.

  He frowned and she knew it was the wrong answer. “Why her?”

  “She’s the prettiest of your legitimate daughters, and close to this boy in age. She’s sensuous, and this man-child is obviously a virgin. Anyone looking at him could see it. Ianthe will be able to rule him through his senses if she’s clever enough. And Goddess knows the girl is clever.” She paused and made herself look at the flame again.

  “Why should I give him one of my legitimate daughters?”