The Dragon of Despair (36 page)

Derian once again envied Firekeeper for not needing to worry about intrigues within intrigues. The sound of distant laughter from an open window reminded him of something he had been meaning to ask.

“And Citrine? How is she and how does she take being asked to disguise herself as a New Kelvinese?”

A strange look passed over Elise’s pretty features.

“She is doing well, far better than she did either in her brother’s care or in her sister’s.”

“A compliment to you,” Derian offered gallantly when Elise seemed reluctant to continue.

“I wish I were so certain,” Elise replied. “Certainly she weeps less and has nearly given up her hysterical fits—including those where she draws so deeply into herself that it is as if she sees or hears nothing. Only occasionally does she make one of those odd comments.”

“Odd comments?”

Elise laughed a trifle uneasily.

“I forgot, you haven’t seen her. Citrine has been given to making comments that on face value seem to mean nothing. Later, however, they almost always prove to mean something.”

She told him about the hole in the road.

“There were other such comments as well,” she continued. “At Eagle’s Nest Castle, Citrine kept some of her regular attendants quite on edge. Ninette learned from a rather indiscreet bit of gossip that it was being put about that Citrine had inherited some sorcerous talent from her mother.”

Despite himself, Derian felt uneasy.

“But you say Citrine is all right now?” he asked, and hated himself for sounding so in need of reassurance.

Elise didn’t appear to notice.

“Maybe not ‘all right,’” she replied, “but at least much better. Citrine says she likes the idea of disguising herself as a New Kelvinese child. She even said she hopes to help us, that ‘No one notices a child or watches what they say around one.’”

“It sounds as if you have done well by her,” Derian said, feeling Elise needed reassurance.

“Not me so much as Doc,” Elise replied with a smile that was momentarily so unguarded and so warm that Derian was assured that, whatever else had passed between these two the winter before, Elise’s feelings had not much changed.

“At first Citrine was furious at Doc,” Elise continued. “Then she underwent a gradual change of humor, as if seeking to prove Doc wrong. Today she is hard at work with Wendee and Grateful Peace, designing her costume.”

“Have they found a way to deal with that gemstone?” Derian asked, thinking that it would little matter how they disguised Citrine if her identity was proclaimed by the presence of the gleaming gem, especially since the New Kelvinese practice of shaving the front several inches of hair meant that the forehead was more than usually visible.

“Wendee did,” Elise replied, admiration in her voice. “She discovered that the band that holds the gem has some play in it—as it must for matters of hygiene. She experimented while tending to Citrine and discovered that Citrine is not at all upset if the stone is worn front to back or side to side, just as long as it is there.

“Headbands are not uncommon in New Kelvin, especially for those whose hair is not long enough to braid behind. One idea is to turn the stone to the side where it can be concealed in a variety of fashions. Or they may make a sheath for the entire band—though the difficulty there is making one that does not show so clearly that it covers a thicker, heavier portion. What is important is that Citrine will be disguised and in a fashion that will arouse no comment.”

Derian was satisfied—and relieved.

“I’ll just go look up Wendee, then,” he said, “and offer to take over the packing and quartermastering so she will be free to work with Citrine.”

“Do,” Elise agreed. “You will be staying with the other young men in the gatehouse. It must be getting quite crowded by now.”

“Not really,” said Derian, who had already been by. “Lord Edlin is staying there only part-time. I hear that he is splitting the rest between the other house and his kennels.”

Elise shook her head but didn’t voice the disapproval so evident on her features.

“I appreciate your willingness to take over as quartermaster,” she said, “but you also need to talk with Grateful Peace about improving your New Kelvinese. I see it as essential to the success of our story that everyone—other than Firekeeper, who hardly speaks Pellish—shows some comfort with the language. After all, this is a trip we are supposed to have been contemplating since last autumn.”

“Yes, my lady,” Derian said, startled slightly by the commanding tone in her voice. They had been talking so easily that he’d almost forgotten that Elise was the daughter of a baron. “I’ll look Peace up right away.”

“You may find both him and Wendee in the same place,” Elise said, softening slightly, “since they are preparing Citrine for her new role. If you see Ninette, tell her I will be in my rooms reviewing the trade reports and she need not stop her work with Citrine to come to me.”

Elise sighed slightly. Derian, remembering her outburst on how little privacy she possessed, thought he understood. Daughter of a baron or not, he pitied her.

Book Two

XIV

IF THERE WAS ONE THING
that amazed Melina about the New Kelvinese it was that a land so obsessed with the past could be so immune to curiosity.

Even during her first visit to the country, back when she was fifteen, Melina’s awe and wonder had rapidly been followed by a flood of questions.

What did the symbols that adorned everything from skin to fabric to the walls of buildings mean? (For she rapidly deduced that they were more than merely alphabetic signs.) Why was the ruler of the land called the Healed One? Why was his elected administrator called the Dragon Speaker? What purpose did the sodalities serve? Was there any truth to the hundreds of legends that were repeated in so many different contexts?

Melina wasn’t interested in the more practical elements of international trade or city management or local economics. However, the heritage that underlay these things and shaped them either explicitly or covertly rapidly became an obsession.

Was it really necessary that a special dance be performed every time a new glass furnace was opened? What purpose was served by the elegant rituals that began and ended each session of the Primes? What would happen if these things were not done?

This last she even asked, shocking her New Kelvinese hosts. Her mother, who she had accompanied on this journey, had been mortified and forbade Melina to ask anything else.

From this incident Melina came to believe that the New Kelvinese did possess magic. Why else be reluctant to answer questions about the fashion in which things were done? Why else be so steadfast in refusing to change even the smallest detail?

Melina had seen paintings of the first Primes—old paintings, contemporary to that revered body—and the clothing the members wore, the manner in which they styled their hair, even the way they folded their hands or positioned their feet in their awkward, curly-toed slippers, remained essentially unaltered all these years later.

The attempts to awaken the magic within the three artifacts that Melina had contrived to have enter New Kelvin’s hands had proven a great shock to Melina. Watching the thaumaturges she had heretofore revered as wise mystics and faultless keepers of knowledge bumble and argue their way toward a solution had nearly shattered her reverence for the New Kelvinese.

Nearly. The experience did teach Melina to view the thaumaturges’ claims to magical knowledge with less confidence, but it confirmed her certainty of their devotion to the magical arts. Therefore, even after the catastrophic end of that venture, Melina had resolved to remain in New Kelvin.

Political connections were not enough to assure Melina the place she desired among the thaumaturges. She must have a more solid link.

After some observation, Melina decided that there was nothing more solid in all New Kelvin than the respect in which the Healed One was held. At first she thought about simply making Toriovico her advocate, but when she got to know the young man better and learned enough of New Kelvinese manners to recognize the lithe strong body beneath the heavy robes, she could not resist making him her husband.

Melina’s desire was not solely based on sexual attraction. The Healed One was unmarried, but would not remain so for long. There was a resistance bordering on insanity to having the Healed One succeeded in his office by anyone but a male of his own begetting.

Childless and with no brother or even uncle to follow him, Toriovico must marry. A wife—no matter how docile a broodmare Melina might use her connections to arrange—would insert herself between Melina and her chosen anchor in her new homeland. Therefore, there was no choice but for Melina herself to become Toriovico’s new wife.

Not that she found this prospect at all repulsive. The Healed One was younger than herself, his dancer’s body strong and virile. Rolfston Redbriar, Melina’s late husband, had long ceased to pleasure her when she permitted him into her bed. However, Melina had been too interested in perpetuating her family’s connections to risk the stain of infidelity. Celibacy had been a deliberate choice, reluctantly accepted.

It was to the comet that glowed through the night skies late that winter that Melina owed the successful approval of her marriage to the Healed One. In Hawk Haven an astronomical phenomenon of that order awakened responses ranging from the passive interest with which sunsets and newborn babies are viewed through superstitious fear.

In New Kelvin the comet was an event to celebrate, proof that magic had not gone entirely out of reach. The Sodality of Stargazers was particularly voluble, explaining that the comet was a star come free from its place in the heavens. This was an event regularly witnessed in the fall of shooting stars and always indicated change.

Dropping a few hints into sympathetic ears, Melina suggested that the comet was absolute proof that Toriovico was meant to marry her—that she was the shooting star and that her marriage to the Healed One was indicative of great events to come.

Melina knew that this was true, but doubted that those who so blithely spread the word of this good omen realized just how much change she meant to engender.

After Melina had placed her mark on him, the Healed One became the perfect lover, interested only in his wife’s pleasure. Moreover, outside the bedchamber, Melina discovered a void of intense loneliness within her young husband, a void that cried out with flattering intensity for her to fill it. There were times when Toriovico turned those blue-green eyes of his on her, their expression intense with many levels of longing, that Melina could have begun to love him.

Love, however, was a weakness in which Melina did not plan to indulge. Her woman’s cycles still followed their lunar order, but they did have their irregularities, and Citrine’s birth had been nine years before. Time would show whether or not Melina was still capable of bearing a child.

In order to secure her hold on the Healed One and, through him, upon her newly acquired homeland, Melina must not only bear a child, but a healthy male child—and preferably more than one such son. Having already borne five living children, Melina found that prospect exhausting even to contemplate.

Thus, although she consulted a discreet (and controllable) member of the Sodality of Herbalists, and faithfully swallowed powders and potions meant to enhance her fertility and ability to bear a healthy child, Melina delved into more definite ways of securing her rule in New Kelvin.