Dragon Heart (25 page)

“The fleet!” Broga threw his hands up. “You talk of the fleet as if it were on our doorstep—it's been overdue for months.” He cast a wicked glance at Mervaly. “And you should not speak of such things in front of spies.”

“My lord, you overreach,” Oto said. He leaned back and took her by the arm. She resisted the pull, but he wrenched her up by his side, and then clutching her hand, he brought her fingers to his cheek. “My beloved Queen is not a spy.” He licked her wrist and she wrenched violently out of his grip.

Broga paced across the room. “They are all spies. They are plotting against us, all of them—the townspeople—all. We should never have let the boy go.” He turned, brisk. “We should go after him, drag him back, find out what he knows.”

“My lord,” Mervaly said, “my brother knows nothing. There is nothing to know. I pray you, leave him alone.”

Oto got her arm into his grasp again, and dragged her against him, groping at her with his fingers. But all his attention was turned on Broga. “I am the King, and will dispose. You will obey me, and my Queen—” He crushed her against him, smirking at Broga.

Broga stared at them a moment, his nostrils flared and his face harsh with contempt. Finally he said, “Just keep her away from the rest of them. We have to find out what's going on. Make her tell you.”

Oto said, “Go. You must have important work to do.”

Rigid with bad temper, Broga was silent a moment longer, and then he turned on his heel and walked out. Mervaly slipped from Oto's loosening grasp and went to the window. Slumping down in the chair, Oto seemed to shrink into himself, relieved.

He turned to his breakfast. “Mind me. You heard how he regards your brother.”

She said, “Surely an honorable man of the most noble blood would not harm a child?”

Oto pulled a bright, false smile over his face. “Not if I restrain him.” He gestured toward the table. “Be sweet, Wife. Come and cut my bread.”

Truce, then. Time to think. She went to the table, and attended him.

*   *   *

Grunting, soaked with sweat, Dawd heaved his end of the hod up the last step onto the landing. Marwin said, breathless, “Help me.” Dawd went down and together they lifted the whole stack of stones up onto the flat. He straightened and wiped his face on the tail of his shirt. He had left his doublet and breastplate off when he got up that morning, knowing what was to come. With so many soldiers gone and no servants, they had to do this kind of work all day, and the uniform got in the way.

Marwin slacked against the wall. Stone dust smeared his face. He said, “Are we supposed to make this without mortar?”

Dawd looked around at the doorway they were supposed to seal. The square-cut stones they had just brought up were flat and even, and he thought they could set the stones dry. After that, maybe, plaster the whole thing. He faced front again, hearing feet on the stair from the top room of the tower, and Broga came rapidly down into sight, a guard behind him.

“Where is the priest? I'll drown him in his own holy water.” The Archduke stopped on the landing, looking around. “Good; that seems like enough stone. Keep on.” He went on down the steps, the guard following after.

“Now the priest is gone,” Dawd said. He chose a stone and laid it into the doorway. He tried to keep from looking into the room beyond. It was dark, anyway, and the great lump of black stone filled it almost entirely. He stacked the stones carefully, lapping the chinks, like a puzzle he could put together. Bending over the hod, he sorted through the remaining stones for ones that fit best into the next row. “It's bad when we can't even hold the priests.”

“Likely he's down in Undercastle,” Marwin said. “How many men do we have left?”

Dawd had just counted; he said, “Nineteen.”

Marwin jerked a little, all over. “Well, well.”

“I want to bring them all in to camp in the gate yard. Inside the wall. No more patrols,” Dawd said. “Double guards at night.”

“Keep somebody out?” Marwin said. “Or keep them in?”

Dawd said, “You'd better get busy, or—”

Marwin knelt down and began laying stone. More steps sounded on the stair, this time Oto, who swung down onto the landing with several soldiers around him, all in their uniforms, their helmets on their heads, their pikes in their hands. Dawd and Marwin snapped up straight, at attention, saluting. The King looked them quickly over, and then at the chapel door.

“What is this, now?” He wore a long, fine cloak with a fur hem, which he swung up over his arm. He laughed. “Well. The works of men.” He went away down the stair with his guards.

Marwin stood back, dusting his hands off. “Tomorrow he'll order it all torn down again.”

Dawd slid a stone into place in the doorway. He agreed with Marwin but did not say so. Dawd understood why the men were deserting. Although likely Marwin was right and they had just drifted down into the town. It was a long march home. Dawd's eyes stung with sweat and he swiped his forearm over his face and for a moment could not see. Then more footsteps pattered on the stair above.

This was the Queen, Mervaly, in slippers, holding up the hem of her gown with one hand. Her long, curly hair floated behind her. The two Imperials straightened, at attention, but she went softly by them without speaking. Dawd watched her go, faced the wall again, and pushed the last flat stone into place.

*   *   *

“It's all ritual,” the little easterner said. “The heart of the Empire is ritual, and I do the rituals. Did.” He nodded, or his head bobbed uncontrollably; Amillee could not tell. He was very drunk. She had only seen him before in his long pale robe and she had not recognized him when he first came into the brewery and insisted on sitting inside, away from the crowd.

“It doesn't work here,” the little man said. “Nothing makes sense here.” He gulped. He was going to be sick. Amillee went for the basin. He retched awhile, but nothing much came up, and he finally curled his arms on the table under his head and fell asleep. She took the basin off to the garbage.

Coming back into the room, she met her mother, hauling out a tray of cups. Lumilla said, “We have other custom, you know.” She slapped the purse on her belt. More of the people were paying now in Imperial money, and Lumilla was very fond of it.

Amillee looked down the room toward the priest. “He's interesting. He grew up in the Holy City.”

Lumilla harrumphed. “Well, this is Undercastle, where we are now standing, and trying to live. Take the pitcher out to the porch. What is going on in your head? Since the King died you never have both feet on the ground at the same time.”

Amillee burst out, “What's there for me? To marry some poor lout—” Abruptly the whole emptiness appeared before her, the dull days of the rest of her life. “There must be more. I want more.”

Lumilla shoved her. “Stop whining. Do your work; let that be enough.”

“How can that be enough?” Amillee cried. “How can that ever be enough?” She stormed off out of the room, up the back stair, to get away from all this.

*   *   *

Jeon came home before dawn, put his horse up in the stable without waking anyone, and found a passage there that went into the castle. He followed the narrow way up through the dark walls, one hand on the stone, which warmed at his touch. The passage crossed into the big burial chamber, and on the threshold he bowed before he went in. All around him in the silence and darkness he felt them watching him. He felt their charge upon him. At the far threshold he turned and bowed again, and went up.

In the hall, where the dawn light shone out beyond the terrace, a man wearing only the bottom half of a uniform was sweeping up. His doublet was a black and white heap by the far wall. He hardly glanced at Jeon; none of the Imperials thought much of him. He went back out to the antechamber and up the right-hand stair to his sisters' room.

There Casea was feeding the birds from a tray of seeds and fruit and bits of mice. When she saw him she dropped the tray onto the floor and rushed to meet him. “I'm so glad you're back.” She began to cry, and he put his arms around her.

“Where is Tirza?”

“She is … out. On the Jawbone, likely. Mervaly—” Casea stepped back, her hands in his, and looked into his eyes. Tears ran down her cheeks. “Mervaly has married Oto.”

“What?” He hurled himself away, turned around in the middle of the room, and faced her again. “What? Why?”

“I guess we are all a little mad, Jeon. She thinks she is protecting us. You and me, that is, since we must pretend that Tirza is dead.” She wiped her eyes, which kept on leaking.

“Tirza dead?”

“No, no, she's lively as ever. Oto just thinks she is dead and so we must—he ordered her dead; it's a long story. What happened? Where did you go?”

“Up the coast.” He did not want to tell her what he had learned, or what he was thinking. Instead he snarled, “Mervaly. She married him, and he is still alive?”

“Yes.” Casea's voice went ragged. “He thinks he's King.”

“What are you doing?” He gave her a suspicious look. She shrugged one shoulder. He thought, She is up to something. She too. With a grunt he went down the stair and into the hall.

The sea glittered, out there through the gap. He sat down at the table, in the place to the left of the high seat, and sat staring at his hands, lying on the table before him in the clear morning light, thinking about what to do next.

Broga came in, trailing one of his men, and crossed the room straight toward Jeon and said, “I sit there, boy.”

Jeon gave him a long look, rose, and went on down to the end of the table. As he was settling himself again, there was a bustle in the doorway. Two soldiers marched in, swung to stand on either side of the door, saluted, and shouted, “Glory to the Empire!”

Oto walked down between them, with Mervaly beside him, holding his hand.

The muscles of Jeon's forearm twitched, as if he drove in a blade. He turned his head and looked toward the sun glistening on the sea, running wild all the way to the horizon.

With ceremony Oto and Mervaly came to the high seat and sat down together. Servants brought warmed spiced wine and fruit and bread. Jeon, through the corner of his eye, saw Oto turn to kiss his sister, paddling with his fingers in her neck, and Mervaly allowing this. Jeon took a chunk of the bread to calm his hands. In his mind he saw them locked together, naked, thrashing together, and his stomach turned.

He kept his gaze on the sea. He told himself, They think nothing of you. That helps.

Oto said, “Prince Jeon, now my brother. Welcome home.”

He said, “I am happily home, my lord.” He gave Oto a wide, empty look. Over the Archduke's shoulder Mervaly glanced at Jeon, and their looks crossed and he ripped the piece of bread in half.

“You went east along the coast? What did you find out?”

Now he could craft this. He said, “Somebody has been attacking along the coast. Pirates, likely slavers, they come in, burn everything, and take off everybody they don't kill.”

“What did you find at the new fort?”

Jeon began eating the bread. “It's demolished, as your sergeant said. There were only a dozen graves. That means the rest left with the pirates.”

“Where are they coming from?”

“Likely from the north seas. Another part of the world out of reach of your Emperor.”

Oto said, “Keep your tongue polite, boy, or I'll twist it out of your head. You found other places they attacked?”

“A village, north of the new fort. On toward Santomalo, a cove full of wrecked ships.” Looking at Oto, he could not help looking at Mervaly, and he blurted out, “I see you've found your place in this.”

Unruffled, unsmiling, Mervaly said, “Someone had to act. Luka was gone. You ran away.”

Oto gave a grunt of a laugh. Sitting on the high seat, he seemed different, his knees clutched, his head settled into his shoulders, his coat open: not the tidy courtier of old. He rubbed Mervaly's arm, and said, “You've proven useful to us, Prince Jeon. Keep on so, and you will prosper.”

Jeon took his eyes from his sister, and lowered his head. “I am pleased to serve,” he said. He put another piece of bread into his mouth.

*   *   *

Casea had run out of her favorite bright yellow thread, and she went down to the weavery, to get more. The woman behind the counter went to look, and came back shaking her head. “No, that's all gone. I have only a dark purple, and a very pretty lilac.”

Casea had brought her work with her, as always. She had not looked at it as a piece in a long while; she had been rolling the finished part up to keep it out of the way, and giving herself over to the fresh new cloth. Now she spread the last several feet of it out on the counter. She was surprised how long it was; when she got to the end of the counter, she still had the roll in her hand, feeling as thick and heavy as ever.

She went along the piece she had spread out on the flat countertop, stroking it with her hands, seeing the colors in their stitches and knots, swirls, satiny fills, intertwinings, and endings. Here was the dark red she had loved so much, wound with a thick black silk spangled in gold, and here she had run out of the red and the black silk had gone on alone, filled and tangled with the sun-bright yellow, the blue, the green, and the purple. And now the black silk had slipped away, and the yellow was gone also, and the other colors ran on in waves.

She saw what she had done, and coming to the unfinished edge, she looked on it with her eyes clear. She knew what she had in her basket, only a little blue left, only a few strands of the green. She looked up to see the weaver woman coming back, carrying a carved wooden box.

“Here is all I have,” she said, and set the box on the table. “The ship from the south has not been here in a while; that's where I get most of these pretties.”