Dragon Weather (15 page)

“Come in!” she called.

Like Rose, she had saved a portion of her breakfast for him; between bites he thanked her for her thoughtfulness.

“Oh, don't be silly,” she said, reaching up to pluck a cobweb from his hair. “Look at this! You've gone and messed up all our work. We'll have to teach you to take better care of yourself!”

“I'd like that,” he said. “Perhaps there are other things you can teach me, as well.”

“I'm sure there are,” she said, putting her hand in his lap and leaning her face toward his; he started, scattering crumbs across the bedside table.

She giggled, and slid her hand in the waistband of his breeches. “I told them I wasn't feeling well,” she said. “Unless someone asks for me specifically and won't take no for an answer, we should have at least an hour. And you've
already
mussed your hair.”

Half an hour later, as they lay side by side on her bed, he remembered himself enough to ask, “Have you ever heard of someone named Lord Dragon?”

“Not by that name,” she said, running a finger across his chest. “Why?”

“I need to kill him,” Arlian told her.

Sweet propped herself up on one elbow and stared at him. “Could you explain that, please?”

Arlian explained; in fact, once he began talking he found it hard to stop, and he poured out everything—his happy childhood on Smoking Mountain, the long, hot months of dragon weather and their horrific end, his discovery by the looters, his years in the mine, his long conversations with Hathet, his rescue of Bloody Hand and the overseer's repayment, his dreams of vengeance and justice.

It took more than half an hour, but Sweet made no move to stop him; she listened intently to all of it.

He ran through all of it, his life story to date, then began to fill in bits he had skimmed over at first. When he described lying trapped under Grandsir's corpse, Sweet shuddered and asked, “You swallowed his blood?”

“I choked on it,” Arlian answered.

“Was there venom in it? They say dragon venom is powerful magic.”

“What kind of magic?” he asked. For years, he had tried not to think about that horrible moment; now he suddenly tried to recall every detail.

And he remembered what Grandsir had told him, that human blood and dragon venom were supposed to bestow long life. Did that mean that he could expect to live a century or more? Somehow, in seven years in the mines, he had never really given the matter much thought—time and age didn't seem important down there in the dark.

Sweet shrugged. “I don't know,” she said. “We hear stories about dragons sometimes, though—some of the lords like to talk, and sometimes they talk about the dragons. They seem to admire them.” She shuddered again. “What does
that
say about them, that they admire monsters?”

And what did it say about Lord Dragon, Arlian thought, that he had taken his very name from a monster?

And what did it say about him that his face was so hideously scarred? That was no clean cut left by a sword stroke, nor the marks left by pox.

“Have any of your customers here had a scarred right cheek?” he asked. Perhaps Sweet knew Lord Dragon by another name.

She laughed, a high, sweet sound. “Oh,
dozens
of them are scarred!” she said. “At least one in ten, perhaps one in five. And the right cheek is as common a place as any.”

“Oh,” Arlian said, disappointed and confused. Several of the men in his home village had been scarred, but most commonly on the hands or legs or chest, rather than the face.

“I'm sorry I don't know who your Lord Dragon is, Triv,” she said. “But we'll fix you up, and teach you everything we can, so that when you go looking for him you'll have a better chance.”

“Thank you,” Arlian replied. “I wish there were some way I could repay you.”

She waved that away. “Just knowing there's someone out there trying to right some wrongs is enough for
me,
” she said.

“I'll do my best, then.” He sat up and looked at his clothes, lying bunched up at the foot of the bed. “What were you planning to do with those, wash them? I don't know if those breeches will ever come clean…”

“Those?” Sweet kicked at them with the stump of an ankle. “We'll give those to the first beggar who asks, and make you some
real
clothes!”

Arlian blinked, startled. “
Make
me clothes? Today?” It took more than a day to make a decent suit of clothes.

She laughed. “No, not today, silly!”

“But I thought I'd leave today or tonight…” Arlian began, puzzled.

“Have you looked out a window?” Sweet asked, grinning.

Arlian looked at her playful expression, then got up wordlessly and crossed to the window, where he pulled back the curtains to reveal a dim world of gray and white—gray skies, drifting white flakes, and white ground.

He blinked and stared. “It's snowing,” he said stupidly.

“So Eahor told me,” she said. “When he brought my tray. I made him open the curtains so I could see.”

“But I could still go,” Arlian said.

“You'd freeze,” Sweet said. “And more importantly, you'd leave tracks, and tracks go both ways. You are
not
going to leave a trail back to my window, Lord Trivial! I'm in no hurry to meet those dogs Rose mentioned.”

“You want me stay until the snow melts? But that might be days!”

“It might be until spring,” Sweet said, smiling wickedly. “And that wouldn't bother me at all.”

Arlian turned to stare at her. “You think you can hide me here until spring?”

“I think it will be fun to try!” Sweet told him.

BOOK
II

Triv

13

Departure

Arlian fluffed his pillow, settled down onto his bedding, then blew out his lamp. He groped for his coverlet in the dark, started to pull it up, then hesitated.

The attic was warm tonight, almost uncomfortably so; he didn't need the coverlet. He left it folded at his feet.

He might never unfold it again. This was to be his last night here in the brothel's attic. The snows had finally melted, and he had been planning his departure for several days now, discussing possible destinations with Sweet and Rose and the others—he had been introduced to all fourteen of the other whores in the House of Carnal Society, one by one, over the course of the winter, and all of them had heard his story and made suggestions about what he should do with himself after he left.

After considering and discarding several other possibilities, from Arithei to the Eastern Isles, just about everyone had finally agreed that he should go to Manfort, at least at first. The great city was less than a full day's travel to the east.

Arlian intended to set out the next day and head in that direction.

Sweet was still trying to talk him out of leaving so soon, claiming that footprints in the mud would be just as bad as footprints in the snow and that there was still too much he didn't know, but Arlian was resolved; he couldn't stay here, the pampered pet of a dozen or so whores, forever. He needed to make his own way in the world—and to avenge the injustices visited upon him and his family.

Besides, Mistress, the dreaded manager of the House, had almost caught him the other day. He had barely gotten the closet door closed when she had marched in with the guards behind her and begun upbraiding Sweet for being too openly unenthusiastic about Lord Jerial's fancies.

Arlian had seen the marks Lord Jerial had left; he had had to fight down the urge, unarmed as he was, to leap out and defend Sweet.

Sooner or later, if he stayed, either someone would discover him accidentally, or he would give in to one of his impulses to confront those who abused the occupants of the House of Carnal Society. In either case, he was likely to be killed without accomplishing anything.

In the morning he would leave; he would slip out a window and be gone, bound for Manfort. It shouldn't be too difficult for a charming, well-dressed, well-muscled young man to make his way there. The girls had spent the winter making his wardrobe, teaching him etiquette, explaining everything they knew of human nature, training him out of his rural accent, and educating him in many other ways, as well, in preparation for whatever he might encounter in his search for revenge on Lord Dragon.

His strength had been built up by years in the mines, and he had kept his arms and back strong by carrying the poor crippled women hither and yon; he had not let himself go soft despite the luxury of his surroundings.

Even his attic was luxurious now; obtaining bedding that was deemed too stained to remain in use downstairs had been easy, and his lamp was dented and had therefore been discarded, but was still entirely serviceable. He would bundle it all up and bring it with him, one more small addition to his fortune.

He had a few other additions, as well. Occasionally the whores were given coins or other tokens by their customers, and Sweet, Rose and Hasty had collected a modest sum and bestowed it upon him—as prisoners here, they had nothing they cared to spend money on.

Furthermore, Rose had taken him aside one night and whispered a secret to him.

“Sometimes our customers tell us things,” she said. “Many of them come here drunk, after all, and then when they've had their fill of us they're often relaxed and careless.” She added bitterly, “And after all, what harm can it do to tell
us?
We're trapped here.”

“I understand,” Arlian said soothingly.

“Well, one night when Lord Kuruvan was exceptionally drunk and sentimental, he told me he was one of the owners of this place—one of
my
owners—and that if anything ever went wrong, he'd come and get me, and we could flee into exile together. And he said he had money hidden away, so that we could live in luxury even then. And he told me where it is.”

Arlian looked at her warily. “I'm not a thief,” he said.

“
I
earned that money for him, Triv,” Rose said fiercely. “I, and the others here.
He
never lifted a finger for it. And if we can't have it, then I'd rather
you
did.”

“
I'd
rather that
you
did,” Arlian replied. “After all, as you say, you earned it, not I.”

“But I'll never be able to get it, Triv, and someday you might.”

Arlian frowned thoughtfully.

“You do what you think is right, Triv,” she said. “You always do.”

“No,” he said, “or I would have left long ago. I owe you all more than I can repay.”

“Well, you can repay
me
by taking that money Lord Kuruvan hid!” she said. “He'll probably never even know it's gone. It's in a keg marked ‘sour wine' in the northeast corner of the cellars under an inn called the Blood of the Grape, on the road to Manfort.”

“I'll remember,” Arlian had told her.

He still hadn't decided whether or not he would actually try to find Lord Kuruvan's little cache; he was already so far in Rose's debt that he quite literally saw no way he could ever repay her, and that troubled him. Still, she wanted him to find it …

Well, he would decide once he saw how he fared in the outside world. The money, if it was there at all, had stayed hidden for years; it could wait awhile longer.

With or without that cache, he was ready to move on, but he knew he would miss the women here, all of them—beautiful Sweet with her joyful laughter, practical, motherly Rose, Daub the amateur portraitist who was constantly studying his face, poor bewildered Hasty, moody Sparkle … all of them.

Sweet most of all, of course. The thought of leaving her here, not seeing her again, was painful—his heart ached every time he looked at her and remembered that they would be parting. He hoped he could come back for her someday—but still, he had to go. There were things he had to do if he was to live with himself.

He lay back on the downy bedding, ready for sleep—when a thump and a bang sounded from below, and he snapped his eyes wide, suddenly alert.

He heard Rose complaining sleepily, though he couldn't make out the words through the ceiling and closed trap door; then he heard Mistress's harsh bellow.

“… been hiding someone! At first I thought I was imagining it, but the more I thought about it—bedding is missing, and you've been using up fabric without new gowns to show for it, and food's cost more this winter than it should. So it's been going on for months! And you haven't been sneaking him in and out—I've changed the guards, and there weren't any tracks. So you've been hiding him, but I couldn't think
where
he could be—until ten minutes ago I remembered the attic…”

By the time she got this far in her speech Arlian was squatting on one of the beams, all his belongings gathered into a hasty bundle. He wrapped them in a small roll of canvas Daub had provided out of her painting supplies, and bound them with a pair of leather belts as he considered his options.

“I know he's up there,” Mistress shouted. “Is he armed? Tell me!”

Arlian could not make out the words of Rose's reply—unlike Mistress, Rose was not yelling—but he could tell from her tone that she was feigning innocence.

Mistress undoubtedly had at least two of her guards with her. He might be able to surprise them, and in the mines he had learned something about brawling, but they would have swords and know how to use them, and there might be more than two. The brothel employed six at various times, and for something like this Mistress would have summoned all of them.

He would have no chance of defeating six armed men, and even escaping them seemed unlikely.

He could surrender—and be put to death. Even if he was never identified as an escaped slave, he was a thief and a trespasser.