Dragon Weather (36 page)

“Your wife tried to sell me my mother's brooch,” Arlian replied, forgetting about the dreams.

“Her brooch? She shouldn't have done that. I told her she must never sell it. I gave it to her…” He coughed, cutting off his speech.

“She had nothing else left to sell,” Arlian said.

“But it wasn't ours, not really. I never told her, but I knew you'd come for it someday. I gave it to her for our betrothal so she would never part with it.”

“How could you know I would come?” Arlian demanded, suddenly angry. “Why didn't you
tell
her it was stolen?”

“I couldn't,” Cover said. “I'm a coward. Couldn't stop thinking of you, and your village. I wouldn't work for Lord Dragon after that—that was my first job, and I couldn't stand it. Saw your face everywhere after that—I knew sooner or later justice would catch up with me, that I'd be punished for what we did.”

That explained why Cover remembered Arlian so clearly—if he had never again joined in looting or raiding, the one event would stand out.

“What
did
you do, then?”

“I looked for other work—but I didn't know a trade. And I couldn't get work from any of the lords after that, once I had told Lord Dragon no—the Dragon Society cast me out, marked me as unclean.”

“The Dragon Society?”

“Lord Dragon's friends. The other lords. They wouldn't help anyone he frowned upon.”

“You didn't beg for forgiveness? You never went back to work for him again?”

“Couldn't
find
him. And I didn't want to.” Tears began to well up in Cover's sunken eyes. “I married Stammer, and did what work I could find, but it was never much. We stayed one step ahead of the slavers—and then last year I got sick.”

“And you never tried to find
me,
in all those years, to make amends?” Arlian asked. “You never came to the mine to buy me free? You never tried to return the brooch or any of the rest of it?”

“No,” Cover said weakly. “I didn't dare. And I needed my share of the money to live on.” He held out a trembling hand. “I'm sorry.”

Arlian stepped back toward the ladder and did not reach for the hand.

“So am I,” he said. He gripped the hilt of his sword—but he hesitated, and did not draw the blade.

He could not punish this man—Cover had already punished himself far more effectively than Arlian could. Killing him would be no worse than letting him live.

Arlian was wealthy; if he chose he could take Cover in, feed him, give him a home—the illness might well be caused as much by malnutrition as anything else. Furthermore, the Aritheians knew a great deal of magic, and while they said magic could not heal everything, some diseases could be treated with their herbs and amulets. Perhaps they could cure the wasting disease that was eating Cover alive …

But why should Arlian help? Cover had never done anything to atone for his crimes. He had never sought out Arlian; by his own admission he had never even tried.

No, Arlian owed Cover nothing—neither vengeance nor succor.

But that didn't mean he had no further business here.

“Are you going to kill me?” Cover asked, interrupting his thoughts.

“No,” Arlian said. “I am going to leave you here, unharmed—and unaided. I am going to take my mother's brooch, which is rightfully mine, but there may be something else you can sell me—if not for your own benefit, for your wife's.”

“What is it?”

“I want to find the rest of your party of looters,” Arlian said. “Shamble, and Dagger, and Hide, and Tooth, and Stonehand. And I want to know everything you can tell me about Lord Dragon—is that how he's generally known?”

“I can't … I…”

“I will pay one ducat for each of your former comrades I locate through your information,” Arlian interrupted. “And I will pay
five
ducats for Lord Dragon's true name.”

“I don't
know
his true name!” Cover gasped desperately. “I don't know where they all are anymore—I haven't seen any of them in years.”

“Tell me what you can, then,” Arlian said. “Tell me what you can, and it may be enough.”

30

Cover

Cover had been an eager, if foolish, young man when he hired on with Lord Dragon. The younger son of a farmer of no great wealth, he had sold his birthright to his elder brother and come to Manfort seeking his fortune.

He had, instead, found taverns and gaming and bad companions—and one good one, the girl Stammer, whom he had befriended when others mocked her.

But then the money had run low, and his friend and drinking companion Hide had offered him employment with Lord Dragon. He took the job gladly, and he and the others had followed Lord Dragon out of Manfort to the south and west, and up the slopes of the Smoking Mountain.

The sight of the burned-out ruins and the scattered bodies had changed Cover. The horror of it had settled into his heart. He had looked upon the devastation the dragons had left behind, and at the other looters, and he had realized that his companions were blind to the evil he saw there; they saw only unguarded valuables waiting to be taken.

When he and the others had pulled Arlian from the cellar, Cover had seen it at first as a sign that they were not simply thieves desecrating the dead—they had saved a boy, they had done something good, something to redeem themselves and to balance what they stole.

And then Lord Dragon had sold the boy as a slave, and Cover's hopes of redemption were dashed.

Later, when they were almost back to Manfort, Lord Dragon had told them he had another job for them, in the east—and Cover had refused. He had demanded his share of the profits and returned to his old haunts in the city.

At first everything had been fine—but then the others had completed whatever task they had had in the east and come back to Manfort, and word had begun to spread. Cover never learned just what was said, but he found that his credit had been cut off at the taverns, the odd jobs he had done for spending money were no longer offered, and he was not welcome among people who had been his friends. One of those former friends mentioned that Shamble had spoken a few words of warning; others would not give even that much reason.

Stammer had stayed with him, though. Throughout it all she had remained loyal and true. He had married her, giving her his only remaining thing of value—Sharbeth's brooch—as a betrothal gift.

“Why did you stay in Manfort, if you could find no work here?” Arlian asked.

“Where else would I go?” Cover replied.

Arlian had seen enough of the world that he could easily have listed a dozen places, but he did not bother. “Go on,” he said.

That was really all there was to it. Cover and Stammer had survived as best they could, finding whatever work was available. They had had a daughter, their only child, who had died of a fever when she was three.

And then Cover had begun to sicken, and the last of their money had run out.

The last Cover had heard of Shamble had been four years ago; Shamble had continued to work for Lord Dragon or his wealthy friends, doing whatever unpleasant tasks might need doing.

Stonehand had joined the Duke's personal guard some six years past, and for all Cover knew was still there.

Tooth had disappeared long ago; there had been rumors about involvement with a sorcerer.

Dagger had killed a well-connected man two years after the destruction of Obsidian, and had fled from Manfort; Cover had heard nothing of her since.

And Hide … Hide had saved up proceeds from his work for Lord Dragon, and had opened a fashionable little shop in the Upper City, dealing in baubles and curiosities. Cover and Stammer had never spent much time in the Upper City, and ragged and ill-fed as they were they had not dared venture there in years, but Cover believed the shop was still there.

“And Lord Dragon?” Arlian asked.

“You want his real name,” Cover whispered. “I don't know it.”

“Do you know where I can find him?”

Cover shook his head, which triggered a coughing fit; when he had recovered and taken his hand from his mouth Arlian saw bright blood smeared across the fingers.

“No,” Cover said. “I only knew of him through Hide. I know he goes by several names, and that he's important, very rich—he has the Duke's ear, I think, and knows something of sorcery. It's said he's a master in one of the secret societies—maybe there really
is
a Dragon Society. I meant it as just a turn of phrase, to describe those around him, but perhaps it's the truth.”

Arlian frowned. He had known, from his stop in Westguard, that Lord Dragon had more than casual contact with the Duke of Manfort; this confirmed it. As for the rest …

“Secret societies?”

Cover waved a hand helplessly. “Rumors. There are said to be secret societies throughout the Lands of Man but most particularly here in Manfort. Societies of lords, societies of sorcerers…” He began coughing again.

“A society of whores,” Arlian muttered under his breath. He suddenly understood that the name of the House of Carnal Society might be a joke of sorts, a cruel parody of these supposed secret societies. “And in which society did Lord Dragon claim membership?”

Cover, still coughing, shook his head helplessly.

He didn't know. All he could provide was rumors; Arlian saw that now. “I will pay for Stonehand and Hide,” he said. “Two ducats. The others—we'll see.”

Cover managed to speak again through a foam of bloody spittle. “Thank you,” he said. “Forgive me.”

“Perhaps in time I will,” Arlian said. “For now I will merely withhold judgment.”

He turned and climbed carefully down the ladder.

At the bottom he tucked his hat under one arm as he opened his purse and drew out two ducats, which he handed to Stammer.

“You earned the first that I gave you before,” he said. “Your husband earned these others.”

She stammered, and he held up his hand.

“Go to him,” Arlian said. “He's very ill; I don't think he has much longer.”

She gasped, and hurried to the ladder.

Arlian did not watch her climb; instead he beckoned to Black, and the two men started down the stairs.

“He's dying?” Black asked as they descended. He walked a pace behind, holding the lantern high; the stairwell had no other light.

“He's coughing up blood,” Arlian said. “I never saw a man do that for long and live. Oh, a few drops from a scratched throat, perhaps, but this blood was bright and red…” He shook his head.

“I take it you feel no need to hasten his end, under the circumstances.”

“None whatsoever,” Arlian agreed.

They had reached the third floor landing; they wheeled onto the next flight down, and continued in silence. They had just started down from the second floor to the first when Black spoke again.

“I take it you feel no need to make any attempts at healing him, either.”

Arlian did not answer immediately; in fact, they were on the front stoop, just a step from the street, when he replied.

“I thought about it,” he said, clapping his hat on his head and tugging his collar up to keep out the drizzling rain. “I'm still thinking about it.”

Black grimaced. “And if you did heal him, would you then slay him?”

“No,” Arlian said immediately. “I'm not so vindictive as that. He robbed the dead of my village, but he's been punished for it ever since, by his own conscience, and he has not otherwise wronged me—nor anyone, to my knowledge.” He stepped out into the street and turned toward the Upper City.

“Ah—he's repented?”

“Maybe. He may know what's in his heart; I don't.”

Black looked at the younger man's face. “And do you know what's in
yours,
my lord? You seem troubled—isn't it an easing of your burden to know that you've found this man, and he has suffered for the wrongs he committed? While you toiled away in the mine and drove your wagon across the Desolation and fought through the Dreaming Mountains to Arithei, he was
not
making merry with his ill-gotten gains, but was instead suffering as well. And now, when you are free and rich and able to do as you please, he lies dying on a heap of rags in a Manfort attic. This would seem to me to be a fine display of justice, of Fate working out matters as we would choose, rather than in the perverse and unfair fashion it so often prefers.”

“I suppose,” Arlian agreed unhappily, as they ambled up the sloping street toward the Old Palace. A scavenging dog hurried out of their way, unnoticed.

“Then why do I see you with a face more suited to a merchant assessing losses than one counting profits?”

Arlian stopped walking and turned to look at his companion.

“I don't know,” he said. “Perhaps I
am
assessing losses.”

“Is revenge so sweet, then, that you regret the missed opportunity?”

“No,” Arlian said, resuming his pace. “No, that's not it. I am thinking, rather, of Stammer's loss—
she
had no part in any wrongdoing that I know of.”

“And she's free to leave Cover, should she choose to,” Black pointed out.

“But she loves him. I'm almost tempted to try to help him, just for her sake—but I swore vengeance…”

“A family is a risk, my lord; we all suffer when those we love suffer, whether through their own fault or not, and the entanglements of concern and affection weave everywhere. There's no scheme of justice in all the world so complex that it might untangle
all
the strands that bind the innocent to the guilty, the wronged to the blessed.”

“There should be,” Arlian said.

“But there isn't—unless Fate and the gods are subtler than we know. I've learned to live with that; you should, too.”