Dragon Prince 02 - The Star Scroll (18 page)

“The false step added to make the formula worthless in case it got into the wrong hands.” Andrade gave in to wonder and admiration, convinced now. “From what you’ve told me of Lady Merisel, she was devious enough to have thought this up. Can you imagine her in her old age, writing all this down as the first scroll says she did, laughing herself silly while she made sure no one would make use of this knowledge even if they found it?”

“And the clue is in the histories,” Andry agreed. “It really is the only thing that makes any sense.”

“Hmm,” Urival said, still skeptical. “The only way to prove it would be to pick a recipe and follow it both ways. With your permission, Andrade, I’ll do just that—choosing something we know we can cure, of course.”

She nodded permission, then turned to Andry again. “Read me a section that doesn’t have to do with potions. I want to find out if this holds true.”

Andry immediately chose a few lines of cramped script, giving Andrade the correct impression that he had planned the whole conversation to lead up to this point. “ ‘The herb
dranath
cannot augment powers,’ ” he read aloud, then met her startled gaze. “The mark is below the word for ‘cannot.’ ”

She knew for certain that he had deliberately maneuvered her to this. She resented his skill and admired it, but stronger still was her fear. “If it cannot augment, then it must increase. Was that their secret? ‘The herb
dranath
can increase powers’? The damnable herb that corrupted my Sunrunner to Roelstra’s use?”

Andry flinched slightly. “My Lady—I’m sorry—”

She stared into the fire. “It enslaves, addicts, kills—but it also healed the Plague. And now you tell me it enhances power.”

“It would seem so,” he said cautiously.

“I don’t believe it!” she stated. “Prove the rest of it as you wish, but this I will not believe.” Rising, she turned her back on him, needing the fire’s warmth to soothe more than the chill of a spring storm. It was a gesture of dismissal, and she listened as the scrolls were gathered up, slid whispering into their leather tubes, replaced in the saddlebags. There was a breath of air around her ankles as the door opened on silent hinges and then closed.

Urival knelt to put new logs on the fire. “You lied to him. You believe.”

“He led me by the nose where he wanted me to go!” She backed off a step as the flames rose hotter. “Urival—I didn’t even sense it. He deceived me completely with his fine little show.”

“He’ll make a properly devious Lord of Goddess Keep.”

“Yes, he is as we’ve all made him. Especially me. He’s good, is young Lord Andry. Very good. When he’s ruling here, from my chambers and my chair—” Sinking into her chair again, she closed her eyes. “Goddess be thanked that I won’t be around to watch.”

 

For all the privileges due to his kinship with Lady Andrade, Andry wore only four rings and took no special precedence at Goddess Keep. Officially he was an apprentice, though he hoped that by summer’s end he would earn the fifth
faradhi
ring, marking him as a fully trained Sunrunner. The sixth would signify his ability to weave moonlight with equal skill; the seventh, that he could conjure without Fire.

He closed the door of his chamber behind him and sat on the bed, staring at his hands, seeing them empty of the honors he knew one day would be his. But in all honesty he knew he would have to learn much before he was worthy of the rings, including the eighth and ninth he intended to earn. He had botched his ploy for convincing Andrade and Urival about the scrolls. Their belief had been within his grasp, but he had made a mistake. If he ever hoped to wield real influence among
faradh’im,
he would have to learn subtlety.

For the first time he dared to imagine the tenth ring, the gold one on his marriage finger and the thin chains that would lead from it and all the others to bracelets clasping his wrists. Lord of Goddess Keep. Master of this place and all Sunrunners—and of the princes and
athr’im
who possessed the gifts. The number was very small now, but would grow. He intended that it should grow, for he believed wholeheartedly in Andrade’s long-term scheme.

Andry bit his lip and tried not to see all ten rings on his hands. Yet part of him argued that there was nothing wrong with aspiration to high position. Certainly his siblings were not shy about their abilities. Maarken with his six rings would one day be Lord of Radzyn and military commander of the Desert and Princemarch. Andry’s twin brother Sorin was to be knighted this year at the
Rialla,
and had made no secret of the fact that he wanted an important keep of his own, which their uncle the High Prince would undoubtedly give him. But Goddess Keep was the only place Andry wanted, the only honor he coveted, the only life he had ever believed would suit him. He had the gifts in stronger measure than Maarken, and no desires toward Sorin’s knightly accomplishments. He wanted ten rings and this castle, the right to govern all
farad-h’im,
and the privilege of guiding the princedoms as Andrade had done for so long.

He heard footsteps outside in the hallway. It was time to go down for the evening meal, yet he made no move from his seat by the small brazier that barely lit and rarely warmed his chamber. He never felt the cold; the joke at the keep was that he had soaked up so much Desert sun and heat in his childhood that nothing short of a winter at Snowcoves would ever chill him. But he did regret the feebleness of the brazier’s light that did not allow him to read until all hours, and looked forward to the fifth ring that would bring with it a larger chamber, one floor below, complete with its own hearth.

“Andry! I know you’re in there, I can hear you thinking,” a familiar voice called from outside his door. “Hurry or you’ll be late.”

“I’m not hungry, thank you, Hollis,” he replied.

The door swung open and his elder brother’s unofficial Chosen stood there, hands on slim hips, braids like twin rivers of dark sunlight falling down past her waist. She gave him a grimace of good-natured exasperation, and he smiled. He liked Hollis and approved of his brother’s choice—the two of them were certain to produce not just handsome, intelligent children but
faradhi
-gifted ones as well. But he wondered how his parents were going to take to the idea of Maarken’s marrying a woman without family, possessions, wealth, or anything else to recommend her besides her beauty and her Sunrunner’s rings. Of course, they were concerned with their sons’ happiness above all things—Andry would never have been allowed to choose this path otherwise—but Maarken was their heir. Andry wished Sorin had already met Hollis so they could compare notes and work out some sort of strategy for supporting their elder brother in his aims.

Hollis had not gone out of her way to make Andry’s acquaintance or to make him her ally. Indeed, she had avoided him quite devotedly for some time after her return from Kadar Water this winter. Andry had been insulted until it had suddenly dawned on him that she had been sick with nerves, afraid he wouldn’t like her and that he would disapprove of her less-than-highborn blood, and hadn’t dared approach him for fear he would think her currying his favor. Andry had spared a shake of the head for the incomprehensible ways of women and sought her out. Within a day they had reached a good understanding, helped along by her shock and then her laughter when he had opened with, “So you’re the Sunrunner my brother’s going to marry.” His bluntness had been matched by her honesty in confessing her trepidations, and they had become friends quite apart from their love for his brother.

So it was that she scolded him like an elder sister. “Not hungry? And what do you expect to live on, then? The sheer brilliance of your intellect as you sit here thinking great thoughts? Comb your hair and let’s go eat.”

He stood up, made her a humble low bow marred by a grin. “Goddess help my brother once you’re wed.”

“Goddess help the poor girl who weds
you,
” Hollis replied tartly, smoothing his hair into place. “Come, you don’t want to miss the presentations, do you?”

“Oh! Of course not. I’d forgotten it was tonight. Thanks for coming to get me, Hollis. I love watching them make their first bows to Andrade.” As they left his chamber and descended the staircase, he went on, “Even though I’d known Andrade all my life, I was
terrified
that night! I always try to smile at them so they see at least one friendly face. But I don’t know how much good one smile does.”

“Not much,” she admitted. “It was different for me, being born and raised here—although when I made my first bow my knees knocked so hard I had bruises!”

“How many are there tonight?”

“Six. Urival says he’s expecting another six or so before summer’s over. We hope to get twenty per year, but we’re lucky if we get ten.”

They turned the landing and took the next flight of stairs. These were carpeted, unlike the bare stone higher up, indicating they had reached the more public areas of the keep. Andry shook his head at Hollis’ last remark. “I can’t imagine why anyone who even suspects they’ve got the gifts wouldn’t want to get here as soon as possible.”

“Your father didn’t need you to work the land or inherit his trade,” she pointed out. “You’ve a brother to rule Radzyn, and another to carry on the knightly tradition—and marry some rich, landed girl,” she added a bit wistfully.

“Which leaves Maarken free to marry where his heart is,” Andry told her firmly. “But I see what you mean. It works the same way for women, doesn’t it? They’re needed at their keeps or their trades—or to form marriage alliances. It’s too bad. All of them should come, no matter what.”

“Others have different duties and points of view. Besides, I think Andrade sits there being scary just so the timid ones who
aren’t
sure can be weeded out.”

“If they don’t want to be here, they shouldn’t be. But I still can’t imagine anybody who
could
be a Sunrunner not fighting for the chance.”

They were at the bottom of the stairs now, emerging into a long, wide corridor that led in one direction to the refectory and in the other to the archives, library, and schoolrooms. Andry and Hollis were among the last to walk down the high-ceilinged passage, and as they went by a window embrasure they saw four boys and two girls huddled together, listening wide-eyed as a Sunrunner instructed them in making their obeisances to Lady Andrade. The girls and one of the boys were no older than thirteen winters; the other three boys were older, fifteen or sixteen. The tallest of these was a handsome, self-possessed youth with glossy night-black hair and deep gray-green eyes. He met Andry’s smile with perfect calm, and did not return it. His gaze shifted to Hollis with the appraising, approving expression of a male who knows his own attractions and how to use them. But there was something more about him, a consciousness of rank and worth that surprised Andry. The slight flush on Hollis’ cheeks surprised him, too.

They separated inside the huge refectory, she to join the other ranking Sunrunners, he to sit with his fellow apprentices. The meal progressed through the usual three courses of soup, meat and salad, biscuits and fruit. Andrade set a plentiful though plain table, and Andry was looking forward to the elaborate meals served at the
Rialla.
He had a sweet-tooth that fresh berries and spice-dusted biscuits did little to satisfy. Steaming pitchers of taze were passed around last of all, and as he poured himself a full mug he inhaled deeply of the sharp scent, faintly tinged with citrus. He missed nothing about his life at Radzyn so much as expeditions with his family to collect various leaves, bark, and herbs to be ground up for his mother’s own special blend. Taze was her favorite domestic ritual. She would spend several evenings a year in the kitchen creating just the right mix, while her husband chased the servants out and donned an apron to bake fruit tarts that were his contribution to the family ceremony. Andry had wonderful memories of hours filled with laughter and companionship—and flour fights with his brothers—as his father placidly negated his warrior’s image by baking and his mother filled huge sacks with another season’s grinding of taze.

Memories slipped away as the six new arrivals were brought into the hall. He tried to see them as Andrade might, as a Lord of Goddess Keep might evaluate newcomers. His attention soon fixed on the black-haired youth. A glance at Hollis told him that she, too, looked only at the boy, who moved with an easy assurance worthy of a lord’s son. There was a look of highborn blood in his fine, handsome features, and his hands were well-tended, though his clothes were simple and rather worn. Andry was too far down the hall to catch his name, but he could easily read Andrade’s reaction. It took long familiarity with the nuances of her lips and brows and the muscles around her eyes, but Andry knew immediately that she was impressed. As the six returned down between the tables from making their bows, heading for the lowest seats, Andry saw the boy catch and hold Hollis’ gaze as long as he could, a smile in his eyes.

As soon as Andrade had dismissed them all and withdrawn to her own chambers for the night, Andry sought out his brother’s Chosen and asked, “Who was that, anyway? Did you hear his name?”

“Whose name?”

“You know very well who. The one with the black hair and the strange eyes.”

“Did you think they were strange? His name is Seldges or something like that. I didn’t hear clearly.”

“I wonder where he comes from,” Andry mused. “Did you see the way he never once looked down, but stared right into Andrade’s face?”

“Any boy who looks the way he does is used to being stared at, himself. I imagine staring right back is a defensive reaction. But one thing’s for certain—that one was made a man quite some time ago. The night of his first ring won’t be anything new to him at all!”

Andry smiled to hide the embarrassment that could still come to him years after the fact. He himself had been very much the virgin on that night. He had no idea which of the women here had come to him, and he trusted to the Goddess’ mercy that he never
would
know, for he suspected he had been nothing to marvel at. Maarken, who had still been resident here at the time, had guessed—not that he’d said anything directly, of course. But within a few days he had found the opportunity to make the casual observation that it was damned inconvenient sometimes, being unable to find attractions in any woman but his absent lady, and that it seemed to be a family failing. Andry had correctly interpreted this as a comforting reassurance that he would enjoy things much more with a woman he truly loved. That night was, after all, supposed to demonstrate the difference between physical desire and genuine love, and how infinitely preferable the latter was. Andry trusted that one day he would be as lucky as Maarken and their father and Rohan. Yet even the prettiest girls at Goddess Keep roused no more than passing admiration in him.