The Last Dragon [Book One] Page 4

  He was older than me, smaller, and his eyes were intelligent. Our prior meetings had convinced me he was honorable in his work, and in repaying favors. Hopefully, that was not wrong.

  The taskmaster was seated at the high desk front where he could keep a stern eye on his charges. My voice was slightly louder than necessary, ensuring the scribe would hear me and understand to offer help, “Princess Elizabeth requires the need of a royal scribe for a short time. Have you one who is between assignments or one that you can spare?”

  My eyes met the eyes of the scribe I’d helped and wished to speak with. I raised my eyebrows slightly to encourage him to volunteer.

  He quickly stood. “Sir, my assignment is nearly finished, and I can be of service to the Lady.”

  The taskmaster growled at me, “How long will this take?”

  How long didn’t really matter. It was a face-saving question. Princess Elizabeth wanted a scribe and would have one, no matter how long she required him. “One sheet neatly penned,” I lied. “The words are ready for transcription.”

  He nodded and turned to the scribe, “Accompany him, Simon. Return quickly, there is more work for you.”

  We departed together. Instead of taking him to Elizabeth’s quarters, we exited a side door and stepped out into the fresh air, a rare treat for someone doomed to work inside at a desk all day, most days. We walked together, past a small barn and into a patch of forest where a few rickety benches had been placed along the paths over the years. It was an area for a private conversation between friends under the shade of oaks and maples. In the winter, the lack of leaves on those same trees allowed the weak sun to warm those sitting.

  “I have something to ask of you but need to determine how to best do it in a manner you can answer without you violating your oaths. Perhaps you can instruct me on best how to progress.”

  “Thank you. Your friendship is appreciated, but I have sworn duties.” His attitude had turned formal and stiff. “What is it you need?”

  “Good. You are honorable, as I believed. If I ask an improper question, will you simply raise a finger in warning to stop me from speaking?”

  “Yes, that is something allowed.”

  It would have pleased me to reveal to Elizabeth that through my clever and extraordinary insights, I extracted the required information with only a few words. The truth paled in comparison. With the first few words of every question, every scenario presented, and every prompted situation, his finger lifted, and my question was quashed. After what seemed like a hundred attempts, we were no closer to the truth we required.

  On impulse, to change the subject and out of frustration, I finally attempted to make a joke. “Does the King wear royal-purple bedclothes when sleeping this time of the year, or does he sleep nude?”

  Simon paused. His finger remained curled with the rest of them in his lap, and he smiled only a little. He knew from the previous questions what area of information we were seeking, yet each question had been rejected until now. Then he looked directly at me and said, “No.”

  There! In one word he’d provided the information I required, for how else would he know for certain what color bedclothes my king wore or if he slept nude unless he’d seen for himself? Which now brought up the indirect question of why would he have been in the King’s bed-chamber? However, that was a question I could not, and would not, broach.

  Even in the rules we’d set, there was a delicate line we’d toed, and any debt he owed had been more than paid. I smiled my thanks and said, “Now I am indebted to you. We have both been true to our masters and yet managed to do what is needed without breaking any oaths. This was important, or I wouldn’t have come to you.”

  “Time for me to get back,” Simon said stiffly. “You do not have to accompany me and pretend you are my friend any longer.”

  The turn of his attitude bothered me. Had he tread too lightly on his oath and now regretted it? Maybe. Was he concerned or disappointed in my demand for such a valuable favor in return for the small deed I’d done for him? Perhaps. Still, he had reason to hold his head high because he had answered honorably. It proved to me again that a favor owed can be a valuable asset—or burden.

  The second part of my task was easier. Before entering the old wing, I’d stopped by the kitchen in the south wing and demanded, in Princess Elizabeth’s name, eight fruit tarts. I’d hoped for cherries, of course, because they are the best, but received plums, almost as good, and still warm. They also provided a pitcher of fresh milk.

  After my quick visit to the kitchen on the ground floor, I walked with such light feet I might have skipped like a child all the way to the fourth floor. It was what we called the old wing, one of the few remaining portions of the original palace. Over five hundred years old, some said.

  Old, yes. However, it stood more opulent than the newer areas. The ceilings were higher, the walls sheathed in slabs of nearly white granite cut from the Pearl Islands and sent here by ship. The floors were yellow oak planks thicker than my fist, even after several scrapings and refinishing over the years.

  I’d always had an affinity for this part of the palace. The doors were the same yellow oak, thick and sturdy. The tapestries and the shape of the halls somehow absorbed sounds, or some said they shunted them away. Whatever may be correct, walking along the hallways in the old wing was a thing of quiet beauty.

  Just before reaching the end of the hall, a single door beckoned. It stood beside a back stairway used only by the staff. Inside were tables for folding sheets and blankets that had been laundered on a floor below. After being cleaned, dried, and folded, they were placed on wide shelves, ready for use by visiting royalty.

  There were three older chambermaids assigned to the royal rooms on this end of the floor. Men cleaned the hallways and stairs, but women too old to work at tasks requiring more physical activity were assigned to the bedding room as a reward for years of performing harder tasks. They cleaned spaces only when the guests were absent, which usually meant they worked from midday to supper if that.

  Yes, the occupants of the royal suites were late sleepers, the lot of them. Not all were royals by any means, but there were royal handmaidens, wealthy merchants, owners of fleets of ships, high ranking army officers, priests, and even mages and sorceresses.

  Inside the laundry room sat and gossiped the three women I’d wished to encounter with my gifts in hand. They were cranky, coarse, and more fun than most.

  The cooks had wrapped the pastries in a white cloth and given me instructions on how to best carry them without spilling or crushing the tarts. The pitcher of milk was carried in my other hand. Inside the laundry room, the three women were near an open window where a breeze stirred the curtains. They turned at my entrance. Two smiled openly. One scowled, but she always did.

  “Ladies.” My greeting encompassed them all while taking note of the scowl on the one face for future consideration.

  “Damon, you haven’t been here to tell lies with us for ten days or more,” one said with a wide smile. “We’ve missed you. Have you gotten into trouble again with your princess and need a place to hide out?”

  “No.” My grin widened. “But guess what came my way?” I placed the milk on the table and whisked the white cloth off the tarts as if a mage was making them appear from nothing.

  The third maid, the one who scowled at me when entering said in a sour tone, “Eight? How do you suggest we evenly split them between the three of us?”

  “Easy,” I laughed, ignoring her snide attitude, and again decided to follow up as to why she acted so rude. Even for her, the attitude was sour. “Two for each of you and two for me. I wished to share my good fortune with you, but if you insist, I’ll eat them all.”

  Mugs appeared from somewhere, milk was poured, and the tarts were divided. The third woman still eyed me suspiciously. We joked us, recalled old rumors about royal families, and repeated a few harmless, but juicy stories without asking for anything in return.

  The thing is,
a question asked is almost as revealing as the answer. The laundry maids, or at least one of them, would then repeat the question to another gossip, who would pass the information on again, and again. Soon, the entire palace would know what I wished to know, and they all knew of my relationship with Elizabeth. My interest would quickly raise other inquiries, and every gossip, guttersnipe, and chinwag would wonder why my interest was in those people who had recently departed the palace.

  I had observed on my way to the laundry room the small placards placed on the latches of the doors by the maids. Nearly half the rooms and suites were empty, cleaned, and ready for occupancy. At this time of the year, there were no parties or balls. Priests were off converting or preaching, officers directing wars, and merchants hunting for new buyers.

  The warm breeze still flowed into the room from the open window, the tarts and milk were treats the maids tasted once or twice a year. We gobbled them down amid laughter and small talk. Finally, I wiped my mouth with my sleeve, a disgusting habit that told the servants I was one of them. Steering the conversation without asking a question is an art. “With all the empty rooms, it figures you’d all be sitting around here getting fat with nothing to do, so my good fortune with the tarts made me decided to contribute to your cause.”

  They laughed and cackled together as only old women do. One said, “You can come by and bring milk and fruit tarts with you anytime.”

  Another said, “With only nine rooms to clean, we have only three each. I could have bribed either of these two wenches to clean my three with just one of your tarts.”

  Only nine rooms. Eight, if you subtract the one for the one mage called Twin, who still remained in the palace. Who else was gone? A stroll down the hall could eliminate a few because I knew the occupants. There was an apartment where a tall, cadaverous priest lived, and another where a bald sorceress lived who couldn’t seem to conjure up a spell to grow her hair again. She wore poorly made wigs and occupied a room at the very end of the hall, as she had for years, rarely leaving. That left only six rooms and the three mages we wanted to know about. Still, I wouldn’t and couldn’t dare mention the word, mage.

  “Is that normal?” I asked peering out the window at nothing, as if not caring to hear the answer or not.

  “No,” the first one said. “At this time of the year, we usually have five or six rooms for each of us to clean, which is still our slow time. When the mages return, we’ll be almost back to normal.”

  There. What I needed had just fallen into my lap. Waiting had paid off. She said if the mages returned. That told me they were not here, verifying Elizabeth’s hunch. They were elsewhere. Probably in Mercia. However, confirmation of the meager information was what Elizabeth wanted, and the last thing I wished for was that third woman, the silent one who often scowled at me, to figure out where my interest lay. Without a doubt, she would run to tell of my interest, and a new rumor would take hold. Worse, Elizabeth would hear it and scold me for being careless. She used to do that a lot, and now had either learned to hold her tongue at my numerous failures, or I was becoming more skillful in my deceptions.

  With the milk and fruit tarts gone, the mood in the room had improved, and I hadn’t asked for anything in return. By my way of calculating, the three women now owed me some future small favor. Yes, they had given me what I’d come for, but that was aside from the point because they didn’t know it.

  “Ladies, it’s time for me to run. Next time my desperate need for good conversation strikes, or there are tarts in my hands, I’ll be back.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I strolled into Elizabeth’s apartment with the confidence of one who has accomplished a goal and is eager to spread the word. I threw the bolt with a solid clank of iron to draw their attention and then sat on the small sofa facing my sister and the princess. My expression was intended to give away the swagger in my bragging of a job well done. Manipulating others was becoming as easy for me as it was the two sitting across the room who manipulated me daily. No, that generous lie didn’t even fool me. They were far better.

  Elizabeth said, “I hope your self-satisfied expression tells us the mages have departed the palace, and you have also confirmed a clandestine audience for Princess Anna with the King.”

  “Both.” Sometimes a single word is more powerful than many. At least that’s what Elizabeth had told me ten days ago. Since then, I’d tried using fewer words and hadn’t noticed any concrete positive results but would continue trying.

  “Care to explain?” She grinned at me, which seemed to be in complete opposition to her earlier advice. As she grew older, she often seemed to say one thing and then contradict herself later. At first, I’d thought she was testing me in some odd manner. Lately, I’d decided she said one thing to win a specific point, then made another absurd observation and backed it up with whatever nonsense was required to make her right again. There was no consistency. Worse, my sister seemed to be doing the same thing.

  I’d learned to never ask about it for fear of both of them attacking me in unison. In short sentences, I told her what and how I’d discovered each tidbit of information, probably with more than a little pride in my voice. She didn’t compliment me directly, but she didn’t criticize, and that spoke volumes. Kendra wore her faint smile that said she knew something of value, which reminded me that she’d given me the signal she wanted to speak in private and I’d forgotten.

  Never one to listen to my own advice, I asked, “Where does this leave us?”

  Elizabeth wore that same expression again, the one that indicated she had lost faith in my ability to act like an adult and reason things out for myself. She exchanged a knowing glance with Kendra before telling me, “Princess Anna crossed our entire kingdom to deliver a message to the king, something so important only a royal could be trusted to deliver. So important, she was granted an audience to a man too ill to receive guests.”

  “Th-there must be more,” I stammered, confused again.

  “Of course, there is,” she smirked. “Consider the timeline. Princess Anna arrived after the mages departed, but where did they go? And how did the mages know when to leave? They departed to Mercia because they were somehow informed of a pending emergency—one so significant it required the intervention of three mages. That is unprecedented.”

  “You’re drawing a lot of conclusions from a minuscule amount of information, Elizabeth,” I cautioned.

  She smiled and scooted her chair closer so we could share a moment and she could instruct me. “Only because you have not verified their destination. You know they departed, but not their reason or where. You do not know why they went there, but that is too much to ask—and too dangerous a question to pursue. However, it would answer most of our questions.”

  Kendra said, “Wyverns fill the skies in Mercia, the book about dragons says. That is the one item different about Mercia than anywhere else in the world, so pure logic indicates near-dragons are at the heart of this matter.” She crossed her arms over her chest as if she’d solved one of the great mysteries of the world.

  I wisely did not correct her misuse of the word, dragons, or that it was the first I’d heard of wyverns being called near-dragons. There are no more dragons, only wyverns, the smaller, related beasts with only two legs. That is what the book had said, without her embellishments. It did not match my beliefs in the nonexistence of dragons of any sort. If a dragon flew over, I might believe. Maybe.

  Elizabeth still sat knee to knee with me. “Do you believe you can find out where the mages went? And just as importantly, without anyone knowing you are trying to find that information. Lord Kent already mentioned the spies in the palace, and my information says he is somehow involved, although he has not departed. Avery also knows something we should. Therefore the Heir Apparent will know it too. Yes, he’s my brother, but will hold his tongue on state secrets. However, you must stay away from him at all costs. Do nothing that will reveal your interest.”

  That was perhaps the longest
instructions she had given since we were ten years old. Sure, we had talked, discussed, argued, quarreled, and debated other subjects. This was different. The element of danger was forefront. “But you want me to find out where the mages traveled without asking.”

  “Yes.”

  Her simple statement had me on my feet and ready to investigate without arousing suspicions for the third time in one day. My mind reviewed everyone in the palace, their duties—official and unofficial, and how to get them to talk without asking them to do so.

  The answer came easily. Horses, sheep, cows, pigs, and goats are a favorite food of wyverns. In the eastern part of the kingdom, they were watched over by shepherds carrying bows to ward off wyverns. At night the herds and flocks were gathered safely into barns or above-ground basements beneath homes. All domestic animals were in danger in Mercia from the dragons.

  Leaving without another word, my heels clicked on the hard surface of the hallway, sounding like a series of twigs breaking. The image didn’t impress me, and the cobbler would soon face my wrath. I wanted boots that sounded like boots, those that a general might wear to impress his troops, not a pair that went Tic-Tic-Tic as I walked. The sound desired was Bam-Bam-Bam and I’d either have that or a new cobbler.

  The meager sound of my footwear was still foremost in my mind as my angry hands shoved the stable doors open. There was no small gift for the stablemen as was my normal routine, but since I did own a mare who was kept there my presence was well known, expected, and welcome. My beautiful horse had been a gift from Elizabeth years ago when it was a bay colt on wobbly legs.

  Her name was Alexis, the prettier and smarter sister in the ancient story of the old gods. In those stories, Alexis always outdid her sister Elizabeth, in everything. Some people always manage to win at all they undertake, but it takes looks, intelligence, or personality to be that successful, which was the point of the story. In them, Alexis had them all. Her sister did not.