Dragonsbane (Book 3) (31 page)

“Why?”

“Because I’ve got every reason to believe the Countess will kill you the second she gets a chance.”

Thelred’s throat went dry.

“My father was one of her top merchants,” Aerilyn explained. “She used to visit us often. Once, when I was a little girl, I told her that a boy from the village had kissed me on the cheek. He disappeared a week later and was never heard from again. I can’t prove it, but I think my father might’ve … paid her to protect me.”

A chill rose up Thelred’s spine. “It was probably just a coincidence.”

“It wasn’t,” she insisted. “I knew the Countess was a bad woman. I’d heard all sorts of nasty rumors. When I asked my father why he kept working for her, he said:
I owe her a great deal. In fact, I owe her everything
. That was the only answer he would give me. I don’t like to think about it,” she said, cutting over the top of Thelred’s question. “Just please … don’t go anywhere alone for a while. At least until I return.”

She stood — then promptly sat back down. “Oh, and you should probably find some excuse to stay in the ballroom. I expect Chaucer will come looking for you shortly. He’s going to offer you a spectacular deal: your life for the Endless Plains. Don’t take it.”

She tried to stand, but he snatched her down. “What in high tide are you talking about?”

She made a frustrated sound. “D’Mere thinks you’re my husband, but Chaucer knows you’re not. So why didn’t he out you immediately?”

Thelred groaned. “Because he’s going to use it for leverage. Things would be much simpler if you merchants just killed each other off like civilized people.”

She smiled wryly. “Simpler, yes. But not nearly as fun. Now, if there are no more questions, I really must —”

“Wait.” Thelred grabbed her wrist. “You think the Countess killed a boy for kissing you on the cheek?”

“I can’t prove it, but yes.”

“Perfect. And now she thinks I did
that
to you,” he thrust a hand at the bump beneath her dress, “so I suppose it’s only a matter of time before I’m slowly tortured to death.”

She smiled sweetly. “Don’t be ridiculous — it could be quick. Farewell, my dear,
dear love.” She grabbed him by the hair and planted her lips against his forehead.

He wiped it away with his sleeve.

She was wrong. He could tell by the way that blasted forest guard was staring at him that his death would be a long and torturous affair. The Countess’s knife probably wouldn’t start at his important bits …

But he bet she’d get to them eventually.

Chapter 28

The Lurch

Countess D’Mere couldn’t sit still. She paced back and forth through her chambers, listening to the surf as it crashed against the rocks beneath her window. The rhythm reminded her to breathe deeply. She tried to time her breaths to match the waves.

And she waited.

The high-pitched moan of her door stopped her pacing. One of the twins had come to fetch her. She glanced to see which hip he wore his sword on. “Is it done, Left?”

He turned sideways, and she knew he meant for her to follow.

D’Mere’s heart beat faster with each step through the winding halls. She didn’t know who that cripple was, but he wasn’t Aerilyn’s husband. The pirate captain she’d written about in her letters was a handsome man — she remembered his face had been drawn on the back of one of the pages.

The man Aerilyn was with now was a scowling lurch — probably one of her servants. Had he been the Captain Lysander she loved so dearly, D’Mere might’ve considered sparing him.

But the lurch knew too much.

Left broke from the side passages and led her down the main hall. She grew more frustrated the closer they got to the ballroom. “You had very specific orders to keep things quiet …”

Music drifted over the top of her words. It wasn’t part of a ballad, or even a ballroom dance. No, this song coursed through the halls like a single, powerful thought — the inner musings of the man who played it.

Left walked straight into the ballroom, turning to glance at D’Mere over his shoulder. He caught her eye and led her with his chin. Then he marched to join his brother.

It was the lurch who played the piano. He was hunched over the keys; sweat hung thickly in the creases of his tunic. That horrible stump of a leg creaked each time he shifted his weight. The rough red on the back of his neck stained him against the finery of the room.

And yet … that music.

It covered over everything else — it hushed the councilmen and slowed the servants’ work. Ladies wandered in from all corners of the castle, peeking at him from behind their fans. Slowly, the ballroom began to fill.

They pulled chairs from the tables and turned them around so that they faced the piano. Councilmen in their gold-embroidered garments sat next to merchants’ wives. Maids gathered at the back of the room, their chores half-folded in their arms. All were united in their gazes, their silence. Every ear equally captivated by the music’s spell.

While the lurch sat under the watch of so many eyes, there would be no dealing with him. So D’Mere resolved to wait.

The front of the room had suddenly become the back. She took her place at a table near the head and turned her chair around. Before long, Chaucer appeared. The music seemed to have no effect on him: he strode straight through the crowd, arms clasped behind his back, and halted beside the piano.

“What a charming ballad,” he said loudly.

The music stopped.

“Is there something I can do for you, chancellor?” The lurch’s voice was like two stones grinding against each other — every bit as unrefined as that whittled lump that hung from his knee.

Chaucer smirked. “Yes. I was wondering if I might ask you to join me in my office. There are some things I’d like to —”

“Oh, there’ll be plenty of time for business later,” one of the councilmen said. “I was actually beginning to enjoy myself. Let the lad finish his song!”

Others murmured their agreement. One of the ladies started an applause that drowned out Chaucer’s protests. The stern line of his lips snapped upwards for a moment as he surrendered. He raised his hands and walked away … the skin beneath his beard turning redder with every step.

Now
this
was a song that made D’Mere smile. A clever trick — one designed to keep the lurch out of her grasp and away from Chaucer’s office. As she listened with her mind tuned to this realization, she began to enjoy it.

Music poured from the lurch in a rush, softening his edges. It was a burst of white water against the rocks, a contrast that drew her attention. And perhaps it was because the music and the lurch were such an unlikely match that D’Mere felt her lips bending into a smile.

She rather liked surprises.

The lurch’s hands danced across the piano’s keys for an hour more. People drifted in and out — disappearing upstairs before returning clad in their session garb. Councilmen donned blue coats over their tunics, while councilwomen wore broaches adorned with delicate blue shields.

As the chairs began to fill, D’Mere traded idle chatter with her tablemates — a small delegation of soldiers from Midlan.

Their leader had a beard that curled down to his chest. He introduced himself as some captain in the King’s army, and then proceeded to go on endlessly about how he’d been chosen to head up the envoy:

“The King doesn’t let just anybody handle these sorts of things. There’re too many dolts lumbering around the barracks. Most have got skulls thicker than their arms, if you want my opinion.”

D’Mere didn’t.

“When do we get to eat, anyhow?” The captain lifted the plate in front of him, as if he expected to find some morsel tucked beneath it.

“After the session opens, I believe,” D’Mere said.

His eyes traveled down the curve of her back, glinting. “I can think of something else we can do after the session opens.”

It was so easy, almost as natural as breathing in. D’Mere turned and arched her chin high. She slid her gaze from the dragon on his chest and along the matted strands of his beard — settling at last upon the greedy light that flooded his eyes. “So can I, Captain. In fact, I mean to give you a night you’ll never forget.”

His eyes moved more boldly. “I can’t wait to see if the legends are true.”

They were. They were truer than that oaf and his ratty beard would ever know. D’Mere forced herself to keep smiling, to deflect the captain’s many offers while keeping the hunger burning in his eyes.

It was a light that reduced all men to stumbling fools: their greed made it easy to disarm them. She could shatter them with a smile, a touch. For all their great strength, they melted far too quickly beneath her powers.

Perhaps that was why she’d always found men to be such …
disappointing
creatures.

D’Mere kept her ears tuned to the music as she weathered the captain’s prattling. When the song ended, she glanced back and saw that Aerilyn was helping the lurch into his coat. She draped it over his shoulders and smoothed the wrinkles out of his back. They talked for a moment, their heads close.

Aerilyn had painted her lips. How many times had D’Mere told her not to? Paint might’ve hidden flaws in other women, but against Aerilyn’s skin the bright red was a blemish, a nuisance — a smear on an otherwise perfect picture.

“Councilmen, I thank you all for joining this session,” Chaucer bellowed. He stood behind the head table, one hand resting on the enormous silver chalice next to his plate. “In a few moments, dinner will be served and the doors will be sealed. Once we’ve eaten, we’ll get straight to the v —”

“Ah, just a moment, chancellor. I’m afraid I have a question.”

A man two tables behind D’Mere got to his feet. He was a small man with far too large a nose and a shining spot at the top of his head.

“Councilman Alders, a representative of Harborville,” he said, with a slight bow to the tables around him. “As many of you know, my ships do a great amount of trade with the people of the Valley. We’ve spent years dealing in weapons and armor forged of mountain steel — first for the Duke, and now as loyal members of the free people’s council of the High Seas.”

D’Mere couldn’t stop herself from smiling. Chaucer’s face was about to get a great deal redder.

“I’m afraid I’ve heard a rather unsettling rumor,” Alders went on. “I was hoping you might be able to lay it to rest.”

“I’ll see what I can do, councilman. But you know how quickly rumors become monsters, in the High Seas,” Chaucer said lightly.

Alders chuckled along with the others for a moment, an unconcerned smile on his face. Then: “Is it true that you’ve been privy to a list of treaty conditions drafted by the King, and one of those conditions is that we wear Midlan’s armor during our acquisition of the mountains?”

The laughter went out like a candle’s flame.

“What’s this about conditions?” the woman on D’Mere’s left said. “I’ve received no such list.”

“Nor have I,” a man piped in.

“We haven’t even agreed to
join
Midlan, yet. Why are there already conditions?”

The woman bolted to her feet. “Surely you haven’t agreed to a treaty without the council’s consent. That would be a serious breach of office, sir!”

Chaucer held up his hands before the murmuring in the ballroom could grow too fierce. “Ladies and gentlemen, please. If you’ll all take your seats, I’m certain we can sort this —”

“I have the conditions list right here,” Alders declared. He whipped a folded square of parchment from his pocket — sparking a round of gasps from the others. “It came to me from a very reliable source and I must say, it certainly looks official. Shall I read it aloud, chancellor?”

To his credit, Chaucer did a remarkable job of keeping his face calm. “Please do, councilman. I’m very eager to hear it for myself.”

While Alders rattled off the list, Chaucer’s hand went to his coat pocket. He clenched the fabric so tightly that his fingers looked almost skeletal in the white.

D’Mere had seen him put the list inside that pocket. How it had wound up in the hands of Alders was a complete mystery. She turned ever so slightly and had to prop a hand over her lips to hide her smile.

Aerilyn.

Her face was innocent, but her chin jutted out defiantly. It reminded D’Mere of a little girl she used to know: a girl who would swear up and down to Garron that she was only going for a walk — and return hours later with her hems covered in mud. She’d stand wide-eyed under his interrogation, melting him with the innocence in her gaze … but the point of her chin always told clearly of her mischief.

The ballroom grew steadily noisier as the list went on. The councilmen were concerned that their various trades would be overlooked in favor of those from Midlan.

“These conditions will cost us gold that we could be putting back in our own coffers.”

“Yes, keep our coin in the seas!”

“I vote to put this matter on hold,” Alders declared. “Before we vote on an alliance, the council shall draft a new list of conditions — one that benefits us all. The seas are happy to join His Majesty’s cause,” he raised the parchment high, “but as his allies, and as a free people. Our voices
will
be heard!”

The thunderous applause that followed his words drowned out anything Chaucer might’ve said. He kept his hands raised until the room fell silent. “I agree with councilman Alders. Under the circumstances, I move that we put the signing of a treaty on hold until we’ve added our own conditions to the list,” he said with a forced smile. Then he waved to the envoy of Midlan. “Our concerns must seem strange to those outside our region. I’m sure the King meant no offense.”

The captain, who’d been staring with his mouth open for quite some time, sprang to his feet. “Uh, none, chancellor.”

“There you have it. Now to open this session, Countess D’Mere of the Grandforest has offered us a case of spirits from her region.”

She stood at Chaucer’s gesture and turned to smile at the rows of tables behind her. “A liquor from my personal cellar — it should pair well with sea fare and spirited debate.” She bowed slightly at their chuckles. “My thanks to you for allowing me to join this session.”

They applauded as she sat.

Chaucer gave the order and dinner was brought in — along with the bottles of D’Mere’s liquor. She watched as the servants poured the amber spirits into the waiting mouths of goblets. Everything was going well. There was just one final matter that needed settling.

She excused herself from the table and made her way to the back of the room. Aerilyn and the lurch were still standing by the piano. They tucked their smiles away as she approached.

“I suppose you think you’re clever, don’t you?” D’Mere said.

Aerilyn pulled out of her curtsy. “What ever do you —?”

“Spare me, girl. You know I’m not easily fooled.” She waved a hand. “And I know that
thing
isn’t your husband.”

Her face flushed pink.

The lurch glared at her. “If you’re going to kill us, then go on and be done with it. Otherwise, get out of our way.”

“Thelred!” Aerilyn hissed.

“No, I’m tired of all this chattering and sneaking about. I’m not afraid of her.” He reached out and snatched a goblet off a servant’s tray without looking. “To your health, Countess.”

The goblet was an inch from Thelred’s lips when D’Mere slapped it out of his hand. “You might’ve won this battle,
pirate
, but you can’t save the seas.” Then she turned her glare on Aerilyn. “Out of respect for your father, I won’t kill you tonight. But if I see your face again — either of your faces — I will carve them from your skulls.” Though the revelry around them was loud enough to drown out a battle horn, she dropped her voice to a whisper. “Now you will return to your ship and you will sail home immediately.”