Dragon Prince 01 - Dragon Prince (31 page)

“What could they possibly do to harm me?” He laughed.

“Marry somebody nearly as powerful as you and make your life hell.”

“The only prince who’ll come close to me in power will be Roelstra—and not for long.”

“Ambitious, aren’t you? But more to the immediate point, those daughters of his could make Sioned’s life hell.”

“They wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh, no? Tobin mentioned that she and Sioned and Camigwen had run into Ianthe and the other pretty one—Pandsala? Yes, that’s her name. They tried to stick their knives into Sioned—and right now they think she’s a
rejected
bride! What d’you think they’ll be like when you present her as your wife?”

“Who says I’m going to?”

“Damn it, Rohan, stop it! I can’t help you if you won’t be honest with me!”

“If you’re telling me I should fear for Sioned, don’t bother. She’s being watched. I’m not that stupid.”

“Who’d suspect a woman, and a princess at that? Roelstra’s daughters want you, Rohan. Not for your charming self, but as an escape from Castle Crag and into power. It doesn’t hurt that you’re not a pockmarked, cross-eyed hunchback, of course. There’s lust in their eyes for you as a man, too. But once you reject them, you’ve made fools of them—and they’ll go after Sioned. She’s where you’re vulnerable.”

“There are other princes—other lords with as much money and power as I have. Why does it have to be me?”

Chay shook his head. “You don’t see it. I owe you an apology for all the years I thought you a nice, over-learned little boy. I’ve watched you since Zehava died. You’re as ruthless as Andrade and much more dangerous than your father ever was. His armies were in the field. Yours are invisible. Those ideas of yours are your soldiers, and your schemes are your armies going to battle. Nobody expects it. You play the fool of a prince, but there’s something about you that you’ll never be able to hide, not after killing that dragon. It’s power—and it’s very personal. That makes you worth a lot to any woman, especially one who has a taste for power herself.”

Rohan stared. He had never heard Chay talk this way before and had no notion of how to react.

“You don’t think Roelstra gives those girls anything useful to occupy their time, do you?” Chay went on. “Zehava always kept Tobin busy—he gave her enough work so that she knew her own strengths. She was her own woman before she became mine. Sioned’s the same kind. She has the look about her. She knows who she is and she has worth in her own eyes. But those princesses—you’re their chance to become somebody other than just another of seventeen daughters. They’ve been stewing in that castle their whole lives, looking for the day when they’ll marry some man who’ll let them play with his power. And once they find you’ve played them all for fools—”

Rohan’s fingers clenched around handfuls of moist grass. “You’re right, Chay. I’m stupid about women.”

“You’ve only known Tobin and your mother, Maeta, a few others. None of them has a vicious bone in her body. Rohan, anything spoils when it’s not allowed to live. A few more years and I would’ve started being afraid for
you.
But you’ve felt your own power now. The princesses see it. They want it.”

“I should have listened to Sioned,” he murmured. “She tried to tell me the same thing.”

“I thought you never even
spoke
to the poor girl!”

“Remember how I used to arrange meetings between you and Tobin? Walvis used the tricks I taught him.”

“Corrupting innocent youth. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Me? Who taught me in the first place?”

“I know a few more, and I’ll have my people use them to keep watch on her.”

“Just as you’ve set watch over me,” Rohan guessed.

Chay grinned in the darkness and got to his feet. “I don’t have to.” He gestured to the rise above the river. Rohan peered into the trees and after a moment made out the shape of a tall man. “Her fellow Sunrunners take turns,” Chay informed him dryly.

Rohan stood, speechless with fury. Then, very slowly, drawing out each syllable, “Why that sly, conniving, secretive, cunning little—”

Chay laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “All of which makes her just like you!”

Rohan managed a very sour smile and started up the bank, his eyes on the shadow next to a tree. As branches shifted and moonlight seeped down in new patterns, he saw the outlines of a frame much broader than his own, and made a guess. “Meath!” he called out, and the shadow moved abruptly. Rohan snorted. “I’ve seen you, so you might as well come explain this.”

The
faradhi
stepped out of his hiding place and bowed formally before straightening to his full height. “Your pardon, my lord. The Lady Andrade—”

“I quite understand,” Rohan interrupted. He knew very well the Sunrunner was about to tell him a convenient lie on Sioned’s orders, and did not wish to hear it. “I appreciate your concern, but I have a favor to ask of you, Meath—something my aunt apparently hasn’t thought about.”

“Yes, my lord?”

“You know the rumors about Sioned. Roelstra’s daughters aren’t likely to take those rumors of her presence very kindly.”

“I heard them with her and Princess Tobin at the Fair, my lord,” Meath remarked calmly.

“Just so.” Rohan knew he had no need to speak further, and smiled to himself. Sioned would now be guarded not only by his people and Chay’s, but by her own kind—and without her knowledge. It was a neat trick to play on her for guarding
him
, and one that would solve the problem of her protection. “My thanks, Meath. And now I think we’d all best retire so we’ll be fresh for the races tomorrow. I hope you’re placing a bet on Lord Chaynal’s horses—”

Suddenly Meath gave him a powerful shove and he staggered down to hands and knees in the grass. Chay swore sharply and as Rohan glanced up he saw Meath running headlong for the river.

“What the hell—?” Chay exclaimed, helping Rohan to his feet. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” He brushed off his clothes. “But what was all that about?”

Meath soon came striding back, carrying a limp figure over his shoulder. “Your pardon, my lord,” he said again to Rohan, and dumped his burden on the ground. “I hope you’re not injured.”

“Not at all. Who’s this?”

Meath casually conjured a small flame above the man’s form, and Rohan gave a muffled exclamation. Chay bent down and touched the man’s face, turning it from side to side as if unable to believe what he saw. But the dark hair and ritual chin scar of the Merida royal house were unmistakable, even in the dim light.

“You don’t appear all that surprised, my lord,” the
faradhi
observed.

Rohan glanced up, startled by the man’s perceptiveness, and only then saw the dark stain on Meath’s left arm. “I wasn’t aware Lady Andrade allowed her Sunrunners to walk around the holes in their clothing,” he said mildly, though his whole body had clenched with fury. It was one thing for his own people to be wounded in his defense; it was quite another for a Sunrunner’s blood to be spilled.

“Nothing but a scratch, my lord.” Meath produced a wicked throwing knife, its glass blade twinkling in the conjured flame. “There’s enough of me so no harm was done,” he added.

Rohan cleared his throat. “Come to my tent and my squire will look after you, then, if it’s not serious. I’d rather Andrade didn’t hear about this.” He turned to Clay. “And not a word to Tobin or anyone else, please. Meath is right—I’m not especially surprised, except for the fact that it’s a son of the Merida Blood responsible.”

“What are you talking about?” Chay demanded.

“Come with me, and I’ll show you. And leave that here,” he said, nodding to the Merida. “It’d be too much bother to keep him captive, and I want him alive to tell his brethren he failed.”

The three men made their way by a roundabout route to Rohan’s tent, where Walvis wakened instantly from a light doze. His eyes went wide as Meath shrugged out of his shirt to reveal the knife wound, and he scrutinized Rohan intently to make sure there were no similiar holes in his lord’s hide. While the boy cleaned and bandaged the wound as all Stronghold squires learned to do from Princess Milar, Rohan dug into his saddlebags for the other knife and presented it silently to Chay.

“When?” the older man asked.

“On the way here. Both knives missed me. I think the other one went into the river, but this one stuck in the mud near the bank. Merida,” he added unnecessarily.

“I can see that!” Chay growled. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Rohan shrugged.

“Sometimes you are the most damnably stupid—”

“Well, what would you have me do? I didn’t want Andrade and Tobin fussing over me—or you either!”

“What about the Merida?”

“I’d rather see what their game is than try to stop it at this point.”

Chay drew breath for an explosion of temper, but Meath, his wound now invisible beneath a bandage, spoke first. “You’re well-guarded, my lord, as you now know. I think your decision to do nothing about them is wise.”

Walvis had turned a look of pure reproach on Rohan. “Why didn’t you
say
something, my lord?”

“Never mind, Walvis,” Chaynal said. “You and I both know he does as he pleases, with no thought to anyone else. Well then, Rohan, with so many eyes watching you, I suppose you’re safe enough. Is it any use asking if you’ve any idea about what caused this?”

“A few.”

“But you’re not telling.” Chay sighed with exasperation.

Rohan smiled. “Meath, if you can part with your souvenir, I’d like to keep it for a while.”

The
faradhi
handed it over, and Rohan fingered the hilt. “They’re advertising their presence, all right,” he mused. “This is a knife fit for a prince—look at the jewels in it. Even if it wasn’t made of glass. . . .”

Meath hesitated, then said, “A good thing it is, my lord. It’s only a rumor, and nobody I know has ever tested it out—but it’s said that Sunrunners pierced with steel can’t control their powers.”

Chay frowned. “I can understand why it’s only a rumor. There are quite a few people who’d be interested—if it’s true.”

Meath shrugged, wincing slightly as his injured shoulder protested. Rohan gestured to the doorway. “Go back to your tent and get some rest. And thank you for my life, Meath.”

“They weren’t serious about trying to take it away from you, my lord, not tonight or the other time. If they had been, you’d be dead.” He bowed and left them.

“He’s right, you know,” Chay said thoughtfully. “Three Merida knives are three warnings. But of what?”

“To make me nervous, I suppose, so I’ll make mistakes. I wonder whose tents they sleep in?”

“High Prince Roelstra’s,” Walvis muttered as he put away his medical supplies.

“No proof,” Rohan told him.

“Only evidence,” Chay added, toying with the glass knife in his hand. “And speculation about what they’d gain with your death.”

“A five-year-old child on the Desert throne. Oh, with a very capable fighting commander and a princess to rule during his minority, but a child just the same.” Rohan sat down and stared at his boots. “I never realized that before, Chay—about Maarken and Jahni, I mean, being in danger because they’re my heirs. Thank the Goddess they’re safe at Stronghold.”

“It hadn’t occurred to me, either,” Chay said slowly. “But your own son will be a Merida target from the moment he’s born.”

“I know.”

“Does Sioned?”

Rohan had no answer for him. Chay gave Walvis the knife and silently took his leave. The squire fingered the blade for a time, his young face dark with worry. At last he said, “My lord, they wouldn’t really try to kill you, would they?”

“Do I need to answer that, Walvis? But stop looking so grim. There are plenty of people watching me. And I’ll be in a crowd all day tomorrow at the races. Nothing can happen to me there.”

“In a crowd of princesses? It’s then that I’ll fear the most for you, my lord!”

Rohan laughed. “Oh, I’ll have a very effective guardian against the princesses. My sister.” Who would also take good care of Sioned, he told himself. He wondered suddenly if part of Andrade’s motive in providing him with a Sunrunner wife was to weave a network of their protection around him—but to defend him against the Merida, or Roelstra, or both?

T
rees had been planted generations ago between the princes’ camp and the racetrack, as much to provide the horses with peace and quiet as to protect the tents from the dust and smell. Paddock and pasture had been laid out long ago, too, and the track pounded by innumerable hooves,
Rialla
after
Rialla.
The racing oval was a full measure around and wide enough to allow twenty horses between its multicolored rails. Each third was presided over by a judge who watched for violations from a little wooden tower—although anything that happened out of their line of sight went unpunished.

The stands faced south. Seats reserved for the nobility were protected this year by a leaf-green silk canopy that had cost Prince Clutha half a year’s revenues; it would have cost more, but Prince Lleyn had given him a discount on the material, for he disliked getting sunburned while he watched the races. The common folk milled around the perimeter of the track, sampling food and drink from the booths set up there—race day being the only one of the
Rialla
when merchants were allowed to bring their wares across the river. But highborn or commoner, everyone bet on the races; only the sums wagered were different.

Rohan had always liked race days. This year’s added attraction was that he would not have to bite his tongue and pretend ignorance. As the son of his father he was expected to know horseflesh, and it was a relief to be able to show off his knowledge as he walked the paddock for a time, sizing up Chay’s competition before joining his brother-by-marriage.