The Dragon of Despair (37 page)

SOMEHOW TORIOVICO HAD THOUGHT
that being married would mean the end of being alone, but he was married now, had been for several moons past, and now he knew. Marriage wasn’t an end to loneliness. Right now it seemed to be a door wide open into more loneliness.

He should have known that no other person could end the loneliness. That was his to bear, one and the same with the title he bore.

Healed One.

Toriovico thought it rather amusing that the title he had borne these five years assured all his subjects that he was healed, whole, one, while he himself knew just how empty and fragmented he was.

Toriovico knew that anyone who saw him saw him first as the Healed One, only after as an individual. His natural hair color was an unremarkable brown, but tradition required that the Healed One tint it to represent each season. Currently, it was a dark green. His eyes were a blue-green blend that his cosmetic artists loved to enhance appropriately. Today, of course, they shone like emeralds. His strong, lithe body, flexible as a reed from years of study as a dancer, was routinely swathed in heavy robes that made him look remarkably solid, less a man than a monolith.

Toriovico had lived for twenty-seven years, but he had lived within the isolation of the Healed One for only the past five.

Before that he had been part of something larger, like a kitten tumbling about with the rest of its litter. In Toriovico’s case that litter had consisted mostly of sisters. He’d had six older sisters, still did, but now that he was the Healed One he didn’t see them very often.

He’d had a brother, too, an older brother. Not the oldest of them all. That place belonged to one of the many sisters. Vanviko was the third born, but from the start he had been special. He was the one who had been destined to be the Healed One after their father died.

Toriovico sometimes wondered if Vanviko had ever felt this same piercing loneliness. He doubted it. Unlike Toriovico, Vanviko had been isolated from birth, proud of his privilege, of the special lessons he attended, of his place in his father’s shadow—literally, for custom dictated that this was where the Healed One’s heir stood during ceremonies.

Although he had been the Healed One for five years, as of yet Toriovico had no one to stand in his shadow. He had been unmarried when his elevation had come. Indeed, he had even been encouraged
not
to marry, since his father lived, his brother lived, and his brother’s wife was expecting. Why rush to create children?

Toriovico wondered if his new wife, Melina, was capable of bearing children. He was certain that she could. Hadn’t she already borne five healthy children? Wasn’t she a wonderful woman?

He felt reassured, but still some part of him wondered. It was very important that there be an heir to the Healed One. Sometimes it was easier not to wonder. Sometimes it was easier to remember.

Even when that remembering was painful.

Toriovico recalled the day his brother had died as clearly as if it had just happened, rather than being an event years gone. A minstrel had come to Thendulla Lypella, filling every ear that would listen with tales of the wonderful mountain sheep he had seen on his journey to Dragon’s Breath. The minstrel sang eloquently of how its horns shone like gold and hooves sparkled as if cut from solid diamonds.

Winter had been slow to depart, storm-filled, and damply cold. Vanviko had been glad to have an excuse to leave the confines of Thendulla Lypella and the endless cycle of ceremony. The occurrence of such a miraculous beast needed to be investigated.

Even then Toriovico had his own interests and had not cared for the idea of a midwinter hunt. Thus he had avoided the avalanche that had wiped all but three members of the hunting party from the mountainside.

Vanviko was not one of those who staggered back into Dragon’s Breath. For days there had been hope that he and some of his companions still lived, perhaps trapped in a cave or hollow in the snow. After a week’s digging, searchers brought the bodies home. All of them, even Vanviko’s.

The mountain sheep the hunting party had been pursuing had escaped. Some of the rescuers said it had stood on a nearby mountain crest as they went about their ugly work, bleating with laughter. Most dismissed this as the hallucinations of their tortured minds.

Vanviko’s death had been a great tragedy for all the kingdom of New Kelvin, but for no one more than Toriovico. From his quiet artistic seclusion, he found himself promoted to the place in his father’s shadow. He barely knew the most common rituals. Now he had to learn them all and as quickly as possible.

The Healed One had not been young when his eldest son had died. However, he took to the task of educating his new heir with the energy of a much younger man. His burden burned him out like a candle with too long a wick. He died when Toriovico was twenty-two and Toriovico stepped from the shadow into the light, in the difference between one breath and one never taken becoming the ruler of a kingdom.

But before that final breath had been taken, Toriovico’s father had sent all his advisors, doctors, nurses, even his grieving wife, from the room. In rasping whispers he made Toriovico swear never to speak a word of what he would now hear except to his own son, and never then but on his own deathbed. Then the Healed One told his heir the truth, the truth that transformed everything Toriovico knew into a lie.

STILLED IN SUMMER
, with trade thriving and vigorous, differed from the town that it had been in early winter. By contrast, the town in winter had been a dead place. Then the majority of the goods that had come across the river had been consigned to warehouses, awaiting the snow-packed roads of later winter to be hauled away.

Stilled in summer was a busy place, full of noisy bustle and shoving people. In it Elise Archer saw a shadow of what her father envisioned for the Archer Grant should he establish a trading station along the Barren River.

Brightly curtained stalls lined the crowded streets, the merchants within selling goods from both Hawk Haven and New Kelvin. Their customers wore the costumes of both nations, the bright robes of the New Kelvinese contrasting with the open-necked shirts and practical smocks worn by the residents of Hawk Haven.

Minstrels set up impromptu pitches wherever they could, often in association with a food vendor who profited from those who dallied to watch the performance. A juggler clad in long robes and face paint—though Elise would have sworn he was of Hawk Haven rather than New Kelvin—was pulling quite a fine crowd.

Viewing this colorful chaos, Elise felt a twinge of nostalgia for her family’s land as she had left it, completely foolish since the change of which Baron Archer dreamed had not yet come, nor might it ever.

They were leading their horses now, all but Derian, who was driving their baggage wagon while Doc had charge of Derian’s mare, Roanne.

The wagon had been the only way they could think to get Grateful Peace and Citrine into New Kelvin unseen. It would not have done for their party to set out with two comrades who vanished and were replaced by two similar yet different ones on the other side of the river, so the man and the girl traveled rather uncomfortably secreted in an ingenious smuggling hold within the wagon’s cargo. Duchess Kestrel’s prestige promised to get them through customs with the most cursory of inspections.

The trip from the Norwood estate to Stilled had been stretched out over two days rather than exhaust the animals with one very long push. Jostled from all sides as they worked their way through the crowded streets, Elise wondered rather woefully if it might take them as long just to get to the Long Trail Winding, their chosen inn.

A scream and a shout jerked her from her musing. Grasping Cream Delight’s bridle tightly, Elise turned to find Firekeeper, her blade pressed against the throat of a man easily two heads taller than herself, but frozen with fear nonetheless.

The surrounding crowd dropped back from them, leaving a wide border as if this was simply another entertainment. Indeed, on the fringes of the group Elise glimpsed an opportunistic sweets seller trotting over to offer her goods to the bystanders.

Firekeeper looked wild-eyed and a trace anxious. She hadn’t wanted to come into the town by daylight—wanting to join Blind Seer, who would be staying outside and crossing the river on his own. Elise and Derian had insisted, warning Firekeeper that she must begin to accustom herself to large groups of people and that she must cross with them so that all the customs formalities could be handled appropriately.

Now Elise hoped that she wouldn’t regret her insistence.

Edlin, nearest to Firekeeper, grabbed the reins of grey Patience, the horse that came closest to being Firekeeper’s own.

“I say!” he said. “What’s going on?”

“This,” Firekeeper said, gesturing at the man she still held, “was taking things from the saddlebags. I not think you want.”

“I say not!” Edlin replied. “Good going!”

Firekeeper’s prisoner looked as if he was about to protest, but a glimpse of the wolf-woman’s dark eyes as she glowered up at him and his resistance melted.

“I did!” he squealed. “But you can’t let her kill me for taking a few little things? Not since you’ll have them back.”

“No?” Firekeeper asked with a soft growl.

Elise tossed Cream Delight’s reins to Wendee and hurried back. Events were starting to get out of hand. Firekeeper had been taught not to kill humans—at least not without cause—but she had a wolf’s territoriality. Stealing, therefore, might well seem just cause.

“What’s the law on the matter, Lord Kestrel?” Elise said to Edlin.

“What?” Edlin said. “I say, let me think. Just a moment. Trade tables, not law in my head right now.”

The thief, realizing who he had been foolish enough to rob, gave a low moan.

“We don’t usually kill minor thieves,” Edlin said at last. Then he brightened, remembering something else. “But the penalties for assaulting one of the ruling house can get rather nasty. Grandmother, you know, had to assert her prerogatives.”

“Spare me, young lord!” the thief wailed. “Mercy to a poor starving man!”

Edlin, who wasn’t nearly as stupid as he sounded, Elise knew, looked at the thief. The man might be thin, but there was a wiry strength to him.

“Good meat on you for all that,” Edlin commented doubtfully.

“Really, lord. I am perishing hungry,” the thief quavered. “I lost my job on the waterfront and haven’t eaten for two days.”

Edlin looked as if he might be softening, and Elise thought the mood of the crowd was shifting slightly in favor of clemency.

Firekeeper, however, was having none of this. She sniffed at the man’s lips.

“Lies,” she commented coolly. “Beef pasty. Spiced. Too much garlic. Ale, too.”

The crowd murmured with one astonished voice. Edlin beamed.

“I say, really?” he asked.

When Firekeeper nodded, Edlin turned to the thief.

“My sister,” Edlin clarified. “Adopted, what? Lady Blysse, you know.”

The thief, who hadn’t looked particularly happy before this, now looked completely terrified. Firekeeper was also getting increasingly edgy.

“His pockets?” she suggested.

“Right-oh,” Edlin agreed.

Under the view of numerous witnesses, Edlin removed an choice array of small goods, most of which, to the thief’s evident dismay, had come from Edlin’s own saddlebags.

“My tortoiseshell comb!” Edlin exclaimed. “I say, Grandmother gave that to me last Lynx Moon, wouldn’t want to lose it. My soap! My spare handkerchiefs. Agneta put my initials on them. She’s not very good with her needle yet, but she means well.”

The crowd’s mood had shifted from tense to positively delighted. Edlin had assumed the air of a conjurer’s straight man and Firekeeper had put away her knife, though she kept a firm grip on the thief’s arm.

“Now, this is interesting,” Edlin said, trying another of the thief’s pockets. “This purse isn’t mine, but I’d bet my left eyebrow it isn’t yours either, what?”

The thief could hardly protest. The item in question was a rather dainty drawstring affair, embroidered with flowers. Its strap had been cut through. Edlin discovered a second and third purse on the thief before he finished, along with a small fortune in loose trade tokens.

“I say, you were having a good day,” Edlin said. “Let this be a lesson to you, what? Don’t get greedy. Now,” he said, restoring his own property to his saddlebags, “I think you and these things should go to the local law. Anyone care to point the way?”

“I will, Lord Kestrel!” came the prompt response from several different throats.

With more judgment than Elise had expected, Edlin selected a steady-looking young fellow and thanked the others with a winning smile.

“We’ll just trot along there,” he said, turning to Elise. “Me and Lady Blysse and this fine fellow. Meet you at the Long Trail Winding, what?”

Elise agreed. Edlin dispersed the crowd with a wave of his hand.

“Off to your business, good people. Let this be a lesson to you as well. Watch your pockets in a crowd. Think of what an ass I’d have felt when I went to comb my hair this evening. Would have cursed my valet’s forgetfulness for no good reason at all!”