The Dinosaur Knights (4 page)

Karyl opened one eye. “Worried?”

“Shouldn't you be?” Rob asked.

Karyl smiled slightly. Then he laid his head back against the cool painted wall and to all appearance dozed peacefully off.

I hope you've got some bloody plan in that dented, nightmare-haunted skull of yours
, Rob thought savagely,
and aren't just sinking back into the cold-comfort muck of fatalism
.

But Rob's psychic powers failed him. Which was small surprise, since despite his heritage he had none. Which was just as well, or he'd likely be held in thrall by some bloody banking-house, Creators' Law against slavery be hanged.

Which on reflection didn't look so bad a place to be, just now. Bogardus clearly favored the men he'd hired. So did the commoners, peasants and townsfolk alike, who had fought at the blueflower field. But sentiment among the townsfolk who had crowded in to watch, and more to the point, among the surviving Council members, ran strongly against them.

Despite the tension, and sleeping from the time they'd been locked into villa rooms in lieu of cells—not very restfully, for some reason—until summoned for trial, Rob dozed off.

As he discovered when a voice blaring like a trumpet too close to his left ear jarred him awake.

“Can I be heard?”

*   *   *

In the darkness the horse whickered and tossed its head as Jaume cinched the saddle on top of the pad. He ignored the beast. It might have a name; he didn't know or much care. To him it was a mode of transport—a living being to be treated with kindness, of course, because that was the Lady's way, as well as his natural inclination. But it meant nothing special to him, not the way a good dinosaur did. Certainly not like his beloved Corythosaurus Camellia. In that he was the opposite of his estranged lover, who cared little for dinosaurs but doted on horses, especially her mare Meravellosa.

Melodía
. The name tolled like a funeral bell in his mind, and left a taste of ashes on his tongue.

The orange glow that danced suddenly upon the polished leather of the saddle told him the horse wasn't in fact reacting to this unaccustomed nocturnal activity, but to the approach of living beings.

He turned. His first reaction was to frown. The torch was held up by the trembling hand of none other than his arming-squire, Bartomeu. It illuminated the glum faces of five Companions.

“Wouldn't it be easier if you had light to work with, Lord?” asked Florian with deceptive lightness.

“I learned to saddle a horse in the dark when I was a boy,” Jaume said, “campaigning against the miquelets in the mountains of Dels Flors.”

The Companion horse-paddock was next to the stouter enclosure where their war-dinosaurs lowed and grumbled to each other, in a little valley near the town of Red Crag. The Companions had sited their cantonment so that the winds mostly kept the stench of the rest of the army away.

Tree-frogs sang in the copse from which the party of Companions had emerged.

“I'm sorry, Lord!” Bartomeu blurted. “I—”

“Don't blame the boy,” rumbled huge Ayaks. “We intimidated him.”

“It's all right, Bartomeu,” Jaume said. “You didn't do anything wrong. My actions stuck you between two stones, I'm afraid.”

“Where were you going, Lord?” asked Manfredo.

Jaume smiled.
I won't lie
, he told himself.
These are my friends—my Companions
.

Besides, it wouldn't do any good.

“Following Melodía, of course,” he said.

“Pay,” Florian said to the Taliano. “I told you he'd try to go after her. You just don't understand passion.”

A wave of pain washed over Manfredo's square-chinned face. “Don't talk about things you know nothing about,” he rasped.

Florian raised a brow. Then his mouth set, as if he realized what he'd said to a man who had so recently given his own longtime lover the final mercy.

“Your pardon,” he said, lowering your head. “I spoke without thinking. The captain's right to have his doubts about me, I suppose.”

Manfredo frowned, but said gruffly, “Pardon granted.”

“You can't leave us!” said Wouter, with more emphasis than was usual for him. “We're just about to march against Conde Ojonegro.”

Word of Melodía's bizarre arrest, imprisonment, and escape had been the second body blow Jaume in as many days. The first came when, instead of the expected command to march the Army of Correction back to La Merced to be dissolved, orders came bearing Felipe's seal to turn the army's attention to the fief near the border with Francia, whose lord had been defying the throne in a complicated matter involving ownership of several choice fiefs.

Jaume shook his head. “You don't need me for that. It's not as if I did such a marvelous job in the campaign against Terraroja.”

“Don't sell yourself short,” said Machtigern.

“You can't leave your appointed post in command of the army,” Manfredo said severely. “That would be a dereliction.”

Jaume smiled thinly. “I thought I was the Constable,” he said, “commander of all Imperial Armies. I could put you in charge of the army, if I chose.”

But Manfredo shook his curly red locks. “You're also Marshal. The Emperor put you in command of the Army of Correction. You must remain at your post. You can send out Companions, or whomever you choose, to search for the Princess. But at that, only so that she might be returned to La Merced for trial.”

“Jaume's not going to drag his lover back to captivity in chains,” Florian said. “Nor send anyone else to do it. He shouldn't either. This whole thing stinks of a setup. You know her better than anybody, Jaumet. You've known her since she was a child. Would she plot against her father, for any reason whatever?”

“Never,” Jaume said.

He scanned the faces of his beloved comrades. “This comes as no surprise to you, I belatedly see.”

“Rumors of the upheavals in La Merced reached camp two days ago,” Ayaks admitted. “We kept them from you as best we could.”

“Thank you, I suppose. But now I do know. And—I must go to her.”

“What will you do for her?” Machtigern asked. “What could you do?”

“Help her. Shelter her. Bring her here, I suppose.”

“You can't do that,” Manfredo said gravely. “She's a fugitive from justice.”

“I know what lies behind all this,” said Machtigern. “Falk.”

The normally taciturn knight all but spat the name of his fellow Alemán.

“Who killed Duval in duel and took his place in command of the Imperial Guard? Who killed the Emperor's own kinfolk while trying to arrest them, had his infernal white pet of a tyrant bite the head of Prime Minister Mondragón on the plaza before the Pope's own Palace? Who arrested your own beloved Melodía on charges of plotting against her own father, which everyone in the Empire knows for a trumped-up travesty? Why not lead us Companions straight back to La Merced and deal with that damned rebel goblin, Captain?”

Ayaks laid a hand on Machtigern's wide shoulder. “You have said something there, my friend. Nor should we neglect this mysterious confessor of His Majesty's, this Fray Jerónimo. I'd bet he's the one behind all this insanity!”

“Not a good idea, brothers,” said Florian. “Jaume leaving his post plus marching the army on La Merced? That would equal plain treason against the Fangèd Throne, if not in his uncle's loving eyes, then in those of too many powerful figures for even Felipe to disregard. And his Holiness Pío's only looking for an opportunity to yank our Charter.”

Jaume stared at him. “You? Mad Florian, advising caution?”

Florian shrugged. “I can't let myself become too predictable. But the idea of taking the Order back to La Merced races past rash. It's just foolish. Still, I agree you've got to do something, Captain.”

“If you abandon the army, what will become of it?” Manfredo asked. “It will ravage the countryside worse than ever. And probably wind up destroyed, which, while small loss in terms of the villains who'd actually do the dying, would deal a terrible blow to Imperial arms and prestige.”

Jaume knew the former law student had a point. But unaccustomed anger bubbled up inside him. “And if I abandon Melodía? What kind of man would that make me?”

“One who follows the law he's sworn to uphold,” Manfredo said. “What can you do to help Melodía, if you won't take her back to stand trial? Go into exile with her? That'll be your only recourse, if you violate the Empire's Law.”

“Have you forsaken Beauty then, Manfredo?” Jaume said in cold fury. “Have you lost faith with the Lady we all serve, and gone back to worship Torrey and the rigidity of His Law?”

Even in the spitting torchlight Jaume could see the color fall out of Manfredo's face. The Taliano turned and walked into the night.

Jaume deflated. He realized his wrong at once. He longed to call after his friend—his Companion. To apologize for letting his temper seize control of his tongue.

But the hellbrew of passion that had driven him since he read his uncle's oddly bloodless letter had deserted him abruptly. Now he felt little but cold clamminess inside, and bewilderment at the dizzy wheeling of events in the normally placid court. Duval and Mondragón were Felipe's friends, he thought, and as loyal as I am. And who could believe Melodía, of all people, of wishing her own father harm?

But one man in particular, he knew, must have believed those things. —
I cannot shape that thought now
.

He sagged. Then, feeling a strong grip on his shoulder, turned.

“Whatever you decide,” Florian said, “we're behind you. Us Knights-Brother, and most likely the Ordinaries as well. Even that dry stick Manfredo. You are our Captain-General, and our friend.”

Jaume squeezed his eyes shut. He felt tears weight down his lower lids.

“I suppose I can only do what I have all along,” he said, opening his eyes and forcing a smile. “My duty to my uncle and the throne.”

“And Melodía?” Machtigern asked.

“I can only hope for the best for my true love. She's smart, stronger and more resourceful than she knows.”

But inside he asked himself:
Have I made the worst of choices? And could it be,
once again
?

Chapter 3

Trono Colmillado
, Fangèd Throne—
Throne of the Emperor of Nuevaropa in La Majestad, supposedly fashioned from the skull of an unprecedently huge and terrible monster, an imperial tyrant (
Tyrannosaurus imperator
), heroically killed by Manuel Delgao, progenitor of the Imperial line. Since no confirmed reports of the existence of such a monster have ever been discovered (although it is duly listed in
T
HE
B
OOK OF
T
RUE
N
AMES
), the Fangèd Throne is widely presumed to be a sculpted fake, if a glorious one, and the Creators to have an arch sense of humor.

—THE BOOK OF TRUE NAMES

“People are scared by the news of a Grey Angel Emergence in Providence, your Majesty,” Duke Falk von Hornberg, new head of the Imperial bodyguard, the Scarlet Tyrants, told his master as he walked beside him across the Palace yard in the dim dawn light spilling over the western walls. “Many voices are calling for immediate war, in the La Merced streets as well as at court.”

“Well,” said Felipe, Emperor of Nuevaropa, as he hopped one-legged, trying to pull his right boot off without stopping, “we can't rush into this. I'm getting pressure from the family not to do anything too rash, you know. They truly believe we've held on to power since the Empire's inception by not exercising any of it. Shortsighted, but there you have it.”

But he didn't sound too displeased at Falk's report. Which suited Falk fine.

“There,” His Majesty said in satisfaction. He tossed the boot to a servant, who was already carrying its mate. Felipe did not mind walking barefoot, a fact of which Falk approved. “Any word how Melodía's doing? Or where she is?”

He skinned his hunting-jerkin of thin springer-leather off over his head, baring a chest and paunch covered in fine ginger fur.

Falk set his jaw. “Majesty, there are underground ways that run between the dinosaur stables and the Great Hall for your morning audience. I really must insist you not expose yourself to danger in this way.”

“Oh, pshaw. I'm only Emperor. Not truly important. Although we may yet change that, am I right? But I'm damned if I'll skulk like a thief in my own home.”

The Firefly Palace, Palacio de las Luciérnagas in the regional tongue and main language of the Empire itself, wasn't strictly speaking his home. It was actually owned by Prince Heriberto, the local ruler. But he rented it out to Felipe, who in turn preferred it to the official Imperial residence in the capital, La Majestad.