Not Really the Prisoner of Zenda (6 page)

*I’ll try harder not to listen, then,*Ellegon said.

Neither Thomen, personally, nor anybody else in Holtun or Bieme, had anything to apologize to Ellegon for — Ellegon had, granted, spent a couple of centuries chained in the sewage pit in Pandathaway, forced to flame the city’s wastes into ash or be buried in offal, but that was Pandathaway, not the Empire, after all, and things were different here.

*I guess I should admire your detachment, but I’m not sure that I do.*

“Well, then, I’m sorry,” he said. He set down the papers, stood, stretched, and walked to the window.

*It’s not your fault, Thomen.*

“No, but I’m still sorry. Really,” he said.

*I know.*

Beyond the bars, the dragon stood in the courtyard, stretching his neck out to shoot a gout of flame skyward. Ellegon preened himself, and stretched his wings, then turned his head toward where Thomen stood.

“So,” Thomen said. “Last I heard, you were going to fly Baron Keranahan and his party home tomorrow.”

Ellegon flicked his wings; a sort of draconic shrug.*Jason asked me to. You have some objection?*

Thomen shook his head. “No, no objection — just some petty jealousy. I’m stuck in this castle, while Jason is back in his barony, probably already out hunting, and —”

*And Lady Leria is also returning to Keranahan, with her betrothed. Does that bother you?*

Thomen’s jaw tightened. “Read my mind if you want to know that badly.”

Yes, Thomen had been more than slightly attracted to Leria, and had entertained the possibility of marrying her, which made sense for reasons of state, as well. Thomen’s main task, as he saw it, was to bind Holtun and Bieme together, and for him to marry a girl of an old Euar’den family might help to do that.

His private thoughts were none of anyone else’s concern.

*My turn to apologize, I expect,*Ellegon said.

Thomen forced himself to unclench. He was just tired, and overreacting. Complaining about Ellegon reading his mind was silly. It was natural for the dragon to do that —

*At least with friends, and at least on the surface level,*Ellegon said.*I can sense that there are some things you’re trying hard not to think about — some painful memories, perhaps, or some things you’re ashamed of, possibly — but I’m not looking at those, Thomen. Not that it would matter if I did. And not that I would tell anybody, either.*

Thomen nodded. “So, you’re back to carry the baron and his lady home?”

*Yes. But I made it a point to be a little early. They won’t be ready to leave until morning, unless I wake them up now, and I’m not of a mind to, for any number of reasons.*

“Such as?”

*Can you keep a secret?*

“Yes.”

*Well, so can I. In any case, they’re not leaving until morning, and …*

“And?”

*And I was wondering if the Emperor can drag himself away from his paperwork for a short ride.*

“For what? Is there something —”

*No, there’s nothing wrong. Not everything has to be a problem, or a solution, after all. I just thought you might like a break.*

“No important affair of state?”

*No. No surprise inspection of the guard in Tyrnael; no quick survey of wood stock in Adahan; nobody to talk to except me, and nothing to do, except maybe look at the river from cloud level; it’s pretty under the starlight, and the faerie lights over Kernat are lovely tonight. No plans — although I might swoop down and swoop up a sheep, because I’m getting hungry — just for fun.*

Thomen looked back at the stack of paper on his desk. It hadn’t gotten any smaller while he had been chatting with the dragon. He was the Emperor, after all, and he had responsibilities. And he was a grown man, and had been, for years, and not a boy, who could simply take off whenever he wanted to, to do whatever he wanted to.

*Sure you can. As long as you don’t do it very often. I warn you, though: your mother will have a fit.*

Thomen smiled. You didn’t have to read minds to know that. “You just talked me into it.”

A gout of flame roared skyward.*I thought that would do it. Dress warm; it’s cold up there.*

2

H
OMECOMING
I

The old saw says that the first time is an accident, the second time a coincidence, and the third time enemy action. As a matter of policy, I’m suspicious of accidents, and I don’t believe in coincidences.

— Walter Slovotsky

T
HE
WIND
RUSHED
by too fast, too hard, driving tears from his eyes back into his ears.

Or whoever’s ears they really were.

These ears sat too closely to his head, and where there should have been a ridge of scar tissue at the top of the left one, there was only smooth skin.

The only way that they felt like his ears was that they felt wet.

At least he had long since stopped throwing up — what little he had had of breakfast had been spread over three baronies, and even the dry retching had stopped.

Had he known he would be riding on dragonback, he wouldn’t have had as much as a sip of water that morning. He had ridden on dragonback before, a few times, and those few times were far too many, as far as his stomach was concerned.

*Fortunately for you, lots of people get airsick. There’s nothing distinctive — or revealing — in that.*The dragon’s mental voice was, for once, at least vaguely sympathetic instead of acidly sarcastic.

*No, that’s only in your mind, Kethol — or should I be calling you Forinel?*

He didn’t have a smart answer to that, and if he did, he wouldn’t have given it anyway — not to the dragon, of all creatures. Kethol had spent little time around the dragon — as little as possible — and being around Ellegon always made him nervous.

*I do have that tendency, don’t I?*

That was understandable. The dragon was a huge beast, its yellowed teeth the size of daggers, and its fiery breath could incinerate a man in moments — Kethol had seen it do just that — or send a man, or several men, flying through the air, broken like a child’s shattered toy, with one blow from a tree-trunk leg.

The physical fear was bad enough for most, but it was different for Kethol.

No, it wasn’t a matter of that kind of fear, not really. Kethol was perfectly capable of feeling fear — the bitter, metallic taste in his mouth, the pounding of his heart in his chest, the way that the palms of his hands tended to sweat so that he had to force himself not to grip the hilt of his sword or the shaft of his bow too tightly …

Those were all familiar to him.

But he was used to that. That was normal, natural; fear was simply part of the job. He had been a simple soldier since he was barely old enough to shave, and he’d been damn good at it — and damn lucky, as well — in order to have survived this long.

No, he was used to danger, even though he would never have said that out loud, particularly in front of Leria, for fear of sounding boastful.

*Well, yes, it would sound boastful — but I would say that it’s true enough, although not so unusual that you should sprain your arm patting yourself on the back over it. Many of your kind have courage. It’s a lot more common than, say, wisdom. As for me, I think wisdom is better.*

But what he wasn’t used to was pretending to be something that he was not, and the dragon — and only a few others — knew just what a fraud he was.

*Get used to it. Dragons aren’t much good at forgetting, either.*

He would have to get used to it, just as he had to get used to looking at fingers that were a trifle shorter and slimmer than they ought to be, or at arms and legs and a chest that were almost devoid of the scars that they should have had, at a face in the mirror that frowned when he frowned, smiled when he smiled, winced when he cut himself, but he could not make himself believe was his.

*You had better start.*

That was easier for Ellegon to say than it was for Kethol to do. The elven wizards in Therranj had changed him, yes, with magic far beyond what any human wizards could do, with spells that didn’t merely create a seeming, the way that Erenor could, but which had altered his flesh irrevocably.

He looked just like Forinel.

Physically, he
was
Forinel, from the the widow’s peak that stubbornly defied his receding hairline, to the thick black mat of hair that covered his chest and arms, down to the missing toenail on the little toe of his left foot.

He looked like Forinel, but that was only on the outside.

And it was a lie.

Behind him, Leria leaned forward to place her mouth next to his ear. He didn’t resent that she had taken naturally to riding on Ellegon’s back, and in fact was relieved — there was nothing he could have done to protect her from the nausea that racked his guts.

“There’s the Nifet River,” she said, pointing, “and the Ulter Hills begin just beyond, right at the horizon. We fly quickly across farmland and over Dereneyl, and we’ll be at the Residence before noon.”*Or perhaps not. I think it would be a good idea to drop you off in Dereneyl, since we’re not expected. Pirojil and Erenor agree.*

Nobody had asked him, and that was understandable.

Kethol’s jaw clenched so hard that it hurt. He’d been an idiot to agree to take this imposture on.

But it was either that, or let the son and heir of the bitch that murdered Durine become Baron Keranahan. Elanee was dead, but even dead, she would have won. Forinel couldn’t return to the Empire to claim the barony, not with the elven woman that he had married in Therranj, and particularly not with their half-breed child.

Parliament and the Emperor had been about to award Barony Keranahan to Miron, Forinel’s half-brother — Elanee’s son — and if there had been nobody to take Forinel’s place, that is just what would have happened.

That was unacceptable.

Kethol didn’t mind the thought of dying, but losing?

No.

He had to keep telling himself that, that that was the reason why he had agreed, and that it had nothing to do with the way Leria looked at him, the way that her hands and eyes had rested on his hands and eyes. It had nothing to do with the definite certainty that if he did not agree, Leria would find herself in another man’s bed.

It couldn’t be that, after all. She was too good, too fine for the likes of him, and she belonged in a better man’s bed, in a higherborn man’s bed.

No. He had to make it just another way to fight.

He knew fighting, and he was good at it.

*And what do you say to the notion of Dereneyl as the destination, Baron? It’s your call.*

There was no trace at all of sarcasm in Ellegon’s mental voice.

But no, it wasn’t his choice. He was just an imposter. The others were in charge, not him.

So let it be Dereneyl, he thought.

*I’m so glad you agree,*the dragon said,*because I was going to drop you off in Dereneyl anyway.*

***

Spiraling down out of the sky so fast that it made Kethol dizzy, the dragon came to a steep, bumpy landing within the inner walls of the keep.

It must have rained much more heavily here last night than it had in Biemestren — the wind from the dragon’s buffeting wings sent a spray of water from the ground into the air, soaking Kethol thoroughly.

He’d live; he had been wet before.

*Everybody off, and quickly.*

It was risky for Ellegon to drop them off there at all — the Empire in general and Ellegon in particular had enemies, and there was always the chance that some fool with a dragonbane-tipped arrow or spear would be lurking about. A fool, yes — Pandathaway could offer a hundred times the killer’s weight in gold, but collecting it would be another matter, after all.

Kethol quickly unstrapped himself and made his way down the dragon’s broad sides, fingers and toes digging into the rough surface of the thick scales for purchase. When he reached the ground, his knees trembled and threatened to buckle beneath him, but he tensed up, and forced them to lock in place.

He quickly handed Leria down, releasing her as soon as he decently could. It wasn’t right, after all, that somebody like him should be touching someone like her.

She still took his breath away.

It wasn’t just the regular features, the pert little nose and full red lips, the golden hair, bound up for travel, leaving her long neck bare. It wasn’t even the way that she had felt in his arms, her tongue warm in his mouth.

No. It was the way that she had always treated him and Pirojil and Durine like they were real people, and not just blood-spattered instruments. More: it was preposterous, silly little things, like how she couldn’t keep her hands from tending a campfire at night, or how, when she awoke in the morning to find him asleep — or so she thought — across her doorway, she would shake her head and smile.

(Erenor often said, in muttered conversation with Pirojil that Kethol pretended not to hear, that it had been a foregone conclusion that Kethol would fall in love with the first woman who smiled at him, but that wasn’t true. Kethol had been in service to the Cullinane family for years, and had guarded both the late Emperor’s adopted daughter and his wife, and all of them had smiled at him, often, and while he certainly had liked them all, not one of them haunted his dreams by night.

(Then again, what Erenor said and what was true only coincided by accident.)

Pirojil was down almost as quickly as Kethol was, and was at his side, with Erenor not far behind. The two of them made an unlikely pair — Pirojil, large, misshapen, and ugly; Erenor almost a caricature of a wizard, with a lined, bearded face partially concealed in the hood of his gray robes.

Appearances were sometimes deceiving.

Kethol
hoped
that appearances were sometimes deceiving, although he couldn’t for the life of him understand why somebody didn’t take a quick look at him and start shouting, “Imposter!”

There was a commotion along the ramparts, but the soldiers over by the main gate and the stableboys and house girls in their noontime game of touched-you-last quickly disappeared from sight, the soldiers quietly ducking into the guard shack, some of the children running for the darkness of the stable, others disappearing behind the bulk of the keep itself.