The Dinosaur Lords (36 page)

Above them the Councilors were twittering at each other. “They’ll be carrying us off to the slave markets next,” Longeau declared. “It’s a scandal.”

“Indeed it is,” Violette said, pitching her voice to carry.

Rob looked up to see her smiling down on him. Now her expression suggested the benign regard of a Black River boarcroc who’d just spied a plump fatty calf.

“Ah yes,” she said. “And here sit our costly mercenaries, swilling our wine and preparing to gorge their gullets on the produce of our Garden. One might ask what they’re doing to protect us?”

“What we came to do, madame,” Karyl answered calmly, setting down his mug and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Teaching your people to defend themselves.”

“Teaching?” demanded Longeau, his voice throbbing with outrage. It throbbed a bit too much to be genuine, as Rob, a master of the spurious, was quick to detect. “
Teaching?
When marauders pillage almost within sight of our city towers?”

A tall, bulk-bodied man with dark hair cut square above a sagging oblong face, Longeau was another so-called town lord. His barony, Rob gathered, lay near the border with Casta
ñ
a and the Spa
ñ
ol frontier.

Rob smelled honeysuckle again, and hot bread and warm spices. Jeannette was back, serving them a fresh-baked loaf in a basket and plates of roast-nosehorn slices with vegetables cooked in savory sauce. She smiled at Rob again before vanishing into the kitchen.

“In fairness,” said Cuget, a middle-sized man who had a head round as a catapult ball and lank yellow hair, “you should do something to stop them.”

“You overestimate what the two of us can do,” Karyl said.

“You could fight for us!” Longeau said.

“I noticed you weren’t present at the training grounds today, lord,” Karyl said. He looked around a suddenly silent room. “In fact I don’t recall seeing any of you. Except for young Lucas the painter.”

Red-faced, Longeau mumbled something about his health and pressing engagements.

“You’ve begun training our defense forces?” asked Bogardus. He knew the answer, of course. But he wanted to make sure the rest of the Garden heard it.

“Yes,” Karyl said. He knew the game, and was willing enough to play along.

“And they will be ready to protect us soon?”

“They need time to train, but yes.”

Bogardus smiled broadly. “Splendid. Then let us dine, and drink, and listen to music, and speak of beautiful things.”

Not all the Councilors looked best pleased at that. But Violette gave a pretty little shrug and turned to chat with Longeau. The other Councilors returned to their meals, conversing in less strident tones and not looking at the two hired champions.

Rob emptied his cup. “This won’t end well,” he said to Karyl.

“It’s a mercenary job,” Karyl said. “They don’t end well. You should know that by now.”

“You’re a regular Sister Sunshine, you are.”

Karyl ignored him.

Honeysuckle scent seemed to fill Rob’s head. Jeannette had leaned down to refill his mug. He raised a brow and took the opportunity to look down the conveniently sagging front of her gown.

“When you’re done here,” she whispered, “meet me in the garden where we first met.”

She was gone.
Elusive as a butterfly, she is,
Rob thought, picking up his mug and sipping reflectively.

Still, doomed though the job may be, the evening could well be looking up.

*   *   *

It was their third dance.

Elbows interlinked, Melod
í
a and Duke Falk paced the stately steps of a pavane. Two lively dances in a row had preceded it, a galliard and a vuelta. During the latter, Falk had put both big hands around her waist and hoisted her in the air as if she were Montserrat. That took her by surprise. He was a husky lad, to be sure. But at 176 centimeters, she wasn’t small, and her slender frame was well muscled.

His broken arm had healed quickly. At least, he showed no sign it still pained him.

Melod
í
a’s sides and forehead ran with sweat. She was glad she hadn’t worn a mask.

Faces fanciful and fantastic were turned to watch them dance. Do
ñ
a Carlota stood by a wall, radiating disapproval through her black domino. Melod
í
a knew she’d hear all about this later.

Uncharacteristically, her ladies-in-waiting ignored the swarm of swains, mostly Falk’s hangers-on, that buzzed around them like mosquitoes. Instead they stood, stared, and talked sidewise at one another.

That’s not a good sign,
Melod
í
a thought. And:
Let them. Let them all scorch their eyeballs on me dancing with Jaume’s rival!

“Those two,” Falk said, nodding his beautiful block of a head as he raised a knee and pointed a toe. “The nosehorn and the tyrant. They stare at you more avidly than all the rest. Do they desire you?”

She laughed. It must have sounded a bit wild. She felt him recoil slightly.

“Yes. But not the way you’re thinking. And that’s not just a tyrant. See? Red and gold? That’s an imperial tyrant.”

“Like the one slain by the esteemed progenitor of your line.”

He certainly
talks
like an Alem
á
n,
she thought. “That’s what the official story says. Although I doubt there was ever any such thing.”

“But the Fang
è
d Throne is made from its skull!”

“I’m pretty sure the Fang
è
d Throne is made out of plaster, actually,” she said. “Anyway, it’s at best a major faux pas for anybody not the Emperor, his bodyguards, or his family to wear the gold and scarlet. His
immediate
family. That upstart tyrant there is none other than my cousin Gonzalo. He doesn’t lust after my cinnamon-skinned young body, at least so far as I know. He lusts to recruit me to his sordid little schemes to discredit my father.”

“What of the other?”

“The nosehorn? That’s his brother Benedicto. He follows Gonzalo’s lead, is all. I don’t think he’s stupid, as such. But he’s slow, and that makes him fear he
is
stupid. So he’s afraid to think for himself.”

It had come to her to ask what bloody business it was of his. What with Falk not just a relative stranger, but her father’s recent enemy. But she blurted the truth anyway. It felt good to get out.

Anyway, if I’m ever going to take my proper place in politics, as Father’s successor in Los Almendros if nothing else, I have to accept that yesterday’s enemy can become today’s close ally.

And a mischievous voice at the back of her head asked,
How close?

The pavane ended. After a pause to allow the dancing pairs to break from the line again, the band struck up another
gallarda
. Once more Melod
í
a found herself face-to-face—or face-to–broad chest—with the Northerner. It took some deftness to keep from pecking Melod
í
a with his beaked mask; off to their right, servants raced to disentangle a matador who’d gotten his fangs caught in the spikes of a hornface’s frill. Falk handled the task with the aplomb with which he seemed to handle everything physical.

Including me,
she thought as he swept her up again and turned her effortlessly in the air. She felt herself responding to his nearness, his strength, his smell. His overwhelming
maleness.

Her lovemaking with Jaume had been wonderful as always, despite its heartbreaking aftermath. But after so long a drought, it had only roused her appetite. The effort it took to refrain from answering Jaume’s daily letters—for principle!—made her hunger worse.

Again: lift, twirl, set down. Her breasts brushed his chest. His thick muscles were so different from Jaume’s lean ones. A thrill ran down her belly to her groin.

She looked up. His eyes burned like lamps behind the midnight mask.
He wants me,
she thought
. And what do I owe Jaume? We have no pact of exclusivity. And besides,
he
left
me,
on a mission I begged him not to go on.

Her lips fell open.

Someone’s shoulder jostled her from behind. “Your pardon, your Grace!” a male voice stammered from behind.

Melod
í
a spun to see a tall, weedy figure dressed in a jeweled strider-leather loincloth, body paint, and glitter. Eyes showed white inside a false bocaterrible face.

“Oh, and Highness! Ten thousand pardons!” Belatedly Melod
í
a recognized a local shipping magnate, a great gaming crony of Heriberto’s. Occasionally they drew her father into their evenings of cards and weichi, although Felipe had little appetite for gambling. She didn’t know his name.

The dance ended. The moment ended. With a last cryptic smile, Melod
í
a spun away from Falk and lost herself quickly in the gorgeous crowd.

*   *   *

“Highness.”

Hurrying up the back stairs to the Imperial apartments, Melod
í
a stopped and turned back. Her heart sped up. It wasn’t with anticipation.

Duke Falk’s bulk blocked the narrow stairwell behind her. Melod
í
a felt anger, and a touch of apprehension. Honored guest he might be, friend of her father even, but he didn’t belong here.

“Your Grace, have you lost your way?” she asked haughtily.

He had discarded his heraldic mask. His black hair was tousled in the candlelight. His cheeks were flushed. He smelled strongly of wine.

“I’ve found you,” he said, “so I’ve come the right way.”

She tried to freeze him with a glare. When he failed to freeze, she hesitated, uncertain how to proceed. She wondered how she had ever found him attractive before. He seemed coarse as a dray beast now, drunk and sweating in the cramped stairwell.

Despite his size and state, he was fast. Melod
í
a found him right beside her on the narrow way. His body pressed her back against the cool stone wall. His nearness failed to excite her as it had before.

This can’t be real,
she thought. She was scared. She wanted to duck under his arm and race up the steps. She knew she should.

But I am the Imperial Princess, and heir to a duchy in my own right. I am a Delgao. It isn’t right to flee the likes of him in my own home!

“Don’t run away so fast, Alteza.” He put a hand to the wall over her shoulder as if to support himself.

“I’m not running. I’m going to my private apartments, your Grace. Good night.”

“You really want to stay,” he said, and leaned in close. “You want me. Don’t lie.”

She dodged past him. She couldn’t pretend any longer that disbelief or outrage would get her out of this. She ran.

He caught her arm. She tried to jerk free, wishing she had ignored her due
ñ
a’s demands and worn her dagger tonight—a noblewoman’s prerogative as much as any nobleman’s. She opened her mouth to scream for the Scarlet Tyrants, knowing they couldn’t hear her over the music and the merriment.

“My lady.”

The words, in a feminine voice with a hint of accent, came soft and deferential. Yet they rang quite loudly in the narrow stair. Falk’s hand jerked away from Melod
í
a’s arm as if her skin had gone white-hot.

Both looked down the stairs. Melod
í
a’s maidservant, Pilar, stood below, in a loose white blouse and dark-green velvet skirt.

Falk’s face reddened. His chest swelled as he drew breath for a bull-hornface bellow of rage.

He deflated. His massive shoulders sagged. He stepped back against the curving wall.

Smiling, eyes coyly downcast, Pilar trotted past. Melod
í
a stood waiting, her heart still pounding. When Pilar reached the step right below her, Melod
í
a turned and marched regally up the stairs. Her maidservant followed.

A warm rush of gratitude flooded in over Melod
í
a’s fear.
I have sorely underestimated this woman,
she thought.

*   *   *

Rob found her sitting on a stone bench. Candles set in stone lanterns cast a faint and fitful light. Terror-moths fluttered around them with no fliers to afflict them now.

“I thought you’d never come,” Jeannette said matter-of-factly. Standing, she reached behind her shoulders to do something to her gown. It promptly fell away.

She was naked beneath.

Rob felt his eyebrows rise.

“What of my reputation, then?” he started to say. But she grabbed him behind the neck, reeled him in, and muffled his mouth with hers.

Chapter
30

Bella, Belle,
Lady Li
—Countess of the Creators:
Li
☲
(Fire)—The Middle Daughter. Represents Beauty (and its inevitable withering), the arts, truth, lust, passion and obsession, time, and Fire. Also cats. Known for her passion. Aspect: a beautiful red-haired young woman in an orange gown garlanded with white flowers, holding a flame in her right palm and a mirror with a crossbar in her left hand. Sacred Animal: cat (depicted as an orange tabby tom). Colors: red and orange. Symbol: Beauty’s Mirror (a circle on a handle with crosspiece).