Dragon Prince 02 - The Star Scroll (17 page)

Pol launched into a description of Chadric’s many virtues, and during his recital Sioned recovered her poise—as Rohan had intended. They went on talking for a time, and then he suggested that it might be polite for Pol to go compliment Sionell on her new pony. Pol grimaced, then sighed.

“I guess she can’t help it,” he observed philosophically. “She’s only a little girl, after all.”

Neither Rohan nor Sioned missed the authority lent by a whole three years’ advantage in age, but neither gave in to further amusement. Pol left them, and Rohan took his wife’s hand in his own.

“It hurts me to see you upset, love.”

“I just wasn’t expecting him to say what he did, that’s all.” She shrugged. “I hate to have him grow up believing a lie—I know, I know, it’s a necessary lie until he’s old enough to understand what really happened, and why we never told him. But it’s lucky that the Fironese claim doesn’t come
only
through me. In honor, we would’ve had to refuse.”

“And think up a very good reason why. But not much will change in Firon, you know. Pimantal of Fessenden isn’t likely to close his fist tight around his new possessions—especially after I’ve had a little talk with him.”

“The same tactic you use with Princemarch. It’s been fourteen winters since Pandsala became regent, and the people have learned where their advantage lies. By the time Pol is old enough to rule there, they’ll find our methods completely natural.”

“I wonder if the other princes will.” He rose and went to the windows, looking down at the courtyard. “Firon is too good an opportunity to pass up—and the fact that they came to me instead of the other way around soothes my conscience a bit. But I’ll have to be careful, especially with this Roelstra’s son business to deal with, now of all times.” He snorted with sudden laughter. “Can you believe it—old Ajit had six wives and was thinking of taking a seventh, and he still couldn’t get sons any more than Roelstra could!”

“Sometimes it depends on the woman, you know,” she murmured, and when he turned with a stricken look on his face, smiled at him. “Oh, stop it. I’m not sensitive about
that
anymore, Rohan. I did give you a son, after all. And besides, Ajit did have an heir who died many years ago.”

“That’s right, I’d forgotten.” He heard shouts and laughter outside in the courtyard, and beckoned Sioned over to the windows. “Come look at this!”

She joined him and together they watched as Walvis, playing dragon for his son and daughter, fluttered an immense green cloak like wings as they tried to ride him down on their ponies. Shrieking with laughter, the children were barely able to stay in their saddles. The outraged ponies were forced to trot up and down, up and down, while wooden swords were waved at the dragon. Pol stood nearby, his face eloquent: he longed to join in the fun, but his sense of dignity as Rohan’s heir and Lleyn’s squire forbade it. Sionell solved his problem for him by kicking her pony over to where he stood and tossing him her sword. Pol swept her a low bow, then sallied forth to oblige her by slaying the dragon.

“Oh, she’s marvelous!” Rohan laughed. “Just what he needs!”

“Well, we’ll have wait until he’s older to see if he inherited his father’s taste for redheads,” she teased.

“It’d be nice if it happened. But he can choose his wife from scores of girls.”

“They way you did? I can still see you that year in Waes, hip-deep in princesses!”

“And drowning in one pair of green eyes,” he responded gallantly, kissing her.

“Very romantic,” she approved. “Teach Pol some of that, and they won’t let him alone.”

“I don’t recall that it was a very agreeable experience, personally. And speaking of Waes, what was all that about Maarken?”

“I’m not telling. You can torture me, starve me, pull out my fingernails, throw me in the dungeon, or even tickle me—and I won’t say a word.”

“I don’t
have
a dungeon. And I’m all tickled out for today, thanks. Torture is messy, my own faithful guard would use me for target practice if I tried to starve you, and as for fingernails. . . .” He picked up one of her hands and nibbled her fingertips. “It’s an idea,” he admitted. “At least I wouldn’t get scratched in bed. You can be so emphatic, Sioned.”

Sionell was congratulating Pol on his conquest and Walvis had disappeared into the keep, presumably to consult with Chay and Maarken. Rohan saw Jahnavi, eight years old and already an accomplished horseman, execute a series of showy maneuvers around the horse trough. But his main attention was focused on Pol, who shrugged away Sionell’s attentions and went off to the gardens. The little girl stamped her foot and ran after him.

“You know,” Rohan mused, “I think I’d like to build him a castle.”

“You already have several.”

“Well, not a castle, really, but a palace. Something along the lines of what Lleyn has at Graypearl. Not a keep ready for war, but a peaceful place, with lots of gardens and fountains and all those things.”

“And where would you site this marvel?”

“Halfway between Stronghold and Castle Crag. In fact, I’m going to inspect a few places on the progress. Think of it, Sioned—a new palace for a new prince, uniting two lands. I’d like to start building next spring, so it’ll be ready by the time Pol takes a wife.”

“I’ll bet it’s Sionell. And as stakes—”

“Extortionist. What do you want if you win?” He smiled at her.

“Feruche.”

The shock went through his whole body and he drew back from her. “No.”

“The pass through the Veresch is important, Rohan. Feruche always guarded it—but now there’s nothing, not even a garrison. Feruche should be rebuilt.”

“I don’t want to have anything to do with that place ever again,” he rasped, looking out the windows with blind eyes. Feruche—the beautiful rose-pink castle rising from the cliffs; the deadly woman who had ruled it; the night he had raped her and she had conceived his son.

“You promised a long time ago to give me Feruche,” Sioned reminded him. “There are dragons near it who need watching and protecting. I want Feruche, Rohan.”

“No. Never.”

“It’s the only way either of us will ever forget what happened to us there. I destroyed it with Sunrunner’s Fire—for me, it lies in ashes. But for you it still stands, because you never went back to see it razed to the ground. I want it rebuilt, Rohan, so that it’s not Ianthe’s anymore but
ours.
”

“No!” he shouted, turning on his heel for the door. “I won’t rebuild it, I won’t set foot within ten measures of it! And I won’t have you speak of it again!”

“When we tell Pol the truth, shall we also present him with the charred ruin where he was conceived and born—and where his mother died? Or will we make a new place that has nothing in it of the old, nothing to bear witness to what happened there?”

He stopped, his hand on the doorlatch. “If you love me, you will never say the name of that place in my hearing as long as we live.”

“It’s because I love you that I have to say it. I want Feruche, Rohan. And if you won’t rebuild it, then
I will.
”

L
ady Andrade stood at the closed gray library windows with her back to Urival and Andry, unwilling for them to see her chafing her hands together. Pride forbade her to huddle by the hearth as her chilled flesh begged her to do, and especially did she reject the plea put forth by her aged bones for the warm softness of her bed. She glared resentfully at the rain-wrapped tower across the inner court of Goddess Keep. Had the winter cold and spring rains been worse this year, or was she only feeling her age? This last New Year Holiday had been the seventieth of her life; compared to Prince Lleyn, she was a mere child.

“Whatever possessed them to leave Dorval for this dismal place?” she muttered.

Urival came to stand by her shoulder, soundless as an expert huntsman seeking skittish prey. “This will be the last storm of the season. But you’re right—clouds are a Sunrunner’s natural enemy. Why
did
they choose to build here?”

She put her hands in the pockets of her gown to hide their trembling, then turned to her young kinsman. “Well? You’ve had a while to puzzle out the scrolls.”

“Not very long, my Lady,” Andry reminded her. “But I think I may have a few clues. It’s maddening, though—some words are very like the ones we use now, but they’ve changed over the years in context. I’ve had to be more careful with them than the ones that made no sense at all in the beginning. But I think I’ve found something interesting.” He ran a finger over the section of scroll they had been examining all morning. “A little mark like a bent twig appears over and over. The first few times I thought they were just blots on the page, mistakes—but now I think they’re quite deliberate.”

“And they mean?” she asked impatiently.

Andry hesitated, then shrugged and plunged in. “I think they mean that the word above them is to be taken as its exact opposite. You know how strange it’s been, reading one thing and then later finding it contradicted. But the mark appears with suspicious regularity on the places that seem to be the opposite of what went before or after.”

“What a delightful confusion!” Andrade snorted. “Are you saying they deliberately wrote untruths, trusting their little twigs to signal the lies?”

“I think so.” Andry began to speak with more enthusiasm for his theory, even in the face of her obvious mockery. “For instance, there’s one place that says Lady Merisel stayed on Dorval for the whole of a certain year, but later on it says she stayed with a powerful lord in what’s now Syr that same summer. Later still there’s mention of an alliance between the Sunrunners and this man that was formed that summer—and in that very first passage I told you about, that little twig sign appears.”

“You need a better case than one instance that’s probably a mistake,” Urival frowned.

“But it’s the only thing that makes sense! Otherwise it all comes out as a series of statements that constantly negate each other until we don’t know what’s right or what’s wrong—which is probably what Lady Merisel intended when she had this written, as a matter of fact.” He unrolled the parchment to another section. “In all the parts I’ve studied, where one place says one thing and somewhere else it says the opposite, the mark always appears at the key word. Listen to this.” He found the place he wanted and read aloud, ‘The twin sons who were Lady Merisel’s by Lord Gerik were treated by Lord Rosseyn as his own.’ And the mark shows up below Lord Gerik’s name.”

“And what does this mean?” Andrade put acid into her voice to disguise her growing excitement.

“I think it means that—that the boys weren’t really Lord Gerik’s sons at all! They might even have been Lord Rosseyn’s! Please, just listen to me. If I read it as the mark indicates—‘The twin sons who were Lady Merisel’s but
not
by Lord Gerik were treated by Lord Rosseyn as his own.’ Couldn’t that mean that
he
was the father?”

“Evidence,” Urival demanded. “Give us proof, not conjecture.”

“Here it says they fought over a few measures of land near Radzyn—but I know that area. Why would they contend over a worthless plot of Desert? The mark confirms it, for it indicates that the land was
not
the reason why they fought the battle. And in this section later on it says Lord Gerik was pleased that Lord Rosseyn used his powers in battle. But only a page before it states that he and Lady Merisel had
outlawed
the use of the gifts to kill—and there’s the sign, right below the word for ‘pleasure’ in reference to what Rosseyn did.” He raked the hair out of his eyes and looked at Andrade. “It’s the only possible way to explain all this, my Lady.”

Urival peered down at the scrolls. “They gave us two versions of their history, then? Good Goddess, it will take years to sort through it all!”

“What we have to remember is that they weren’t giving anybody anything,” Andry said. “They couldn’t know who’d find the scrolls, or even if they’d be found at all. This must’ve been their way of confusing anybody who shouldn’t be reading this—the contradictions would drive you crazy. It nearly did me, until I figured out what their twig sign must mean.”

“But why confuse the issue so?” Andrade asked. “Who’d care at this late date whether this Rosseyn, whoever he was, sired Merisel’s twin sons?”

Andry pulled in a deep breath and stared at his four rings. “I think it’s far more subtle than that, my Lady. Why were these scrolls buried along with the one on sorceries? To provide the clue that would help us interpret correctly that one essential, dangerous scroll—and to keep people who weren’t as persevering from discovering what that scroll meant.”

Andrade returned to her chair and sat, hands clenched into fists inside her pockets. “Show me the Star Scroll,” she ordered.

Andry took it reverently from its case and unrolled it atop the other. “The marks are all over it,” he explained. “This formula, for instance. It says it can cause loss of memory. All these roots and herbs and directions—but instead of leaving
out
an essential ingredient that would cancel its effectiveness, they put
in
something that would ruin the recipe just as surely. Here. This flower nobody around here has ever heard of, with the little mark beneath it. And look at this one—directions on how to boil a certain ointment that can make a wound fester instead of heal. But the sign indicates that it shouldn’t be boiled at all! And here—this recipe for a powerful poison. It’s just the same, my Lady—the list of ingredients with the little sign beneath several of them that I’d swear combine to produce the antidote within the poison itself, so it wouldn’t be dangerous if anybody happened upon the scroll! In all the ones that could be dangerous, the little twig appears somewhere—telling us
not
to do something that the uninformed reader
would
do in following the directions.”