The Dragon of Despair (19 page)

“Queen Elexa wished to join us, but her cough is troubling her and the physician refused permission. However, she had certain things she insisted that I say to you, Elise, and I promise to do so at the appropriate time.”

Elise nodded, thoroughly confused, and sipped her tea.

“As my letter noted,” the king said, “the matter at hand is the marriage of Melina to the Healed One of New Kelvin. Do you have any questions about that matter?”

“I don’t think so, Sire,” Elise said, “unless there have been new developments.”

“None,” Tedric said, “unless the burgeoning of rumor could be considered a development. As we feared, the populace widely believes that Melina has made herself queen and the fear that a sorceress is queen in our neighboring land is spreading, especially in the towns and cities, where the people trust more to their societies and guilds than they do to the landholders who rule over them.”

“My father and mother,” Elise hastened to assure him, “are doing their best, both with our own people and the freeholders near by.”

“I have no doubt of that,” the king said. “Aurella and Ivon have always been faithful servants to the Crown. I only hope that their diligence will not be turned against them.”

“Your Majesty?” Elise asked.

“He means,” Sapphire said, the tense note in her voice not for Elise, but for the subject, “that there are those who will believe that the need to spread reassurance is in itself proof that there is something to fear.”

Elise nodded. “Like a child who fears a spook in the cupboard, nothing but a candle held within to chase away all the shadows will do any good.”

“And even then,” Shad said, the laughter in his voice suggesting he knew the situation all too well, “there is the fear that the spook returns when the candle is withdrawn.”

King Tedric set down his cup—having taken advantage of the interlude to drain nearly an entire cupful of his medicinal brew—and continued:

“Sapphire, tell Elise some of the rumors. I wish to know if she has heard any we have not.”

Sapphire nodded and it was proof of her strong will that she did not protest reporting on such a personally unpleasant subject.

“Happily, King Tedric’s informers are not reluctant to bring ugly news,” she said, the corner of her mouth twisting in a wry expression that was meant to be a grin. “Most of the rumors we have heard involve Melina’s plans to reign here through me. Distance has not diminished the reputed power of her sorcery. Where she was once merely a harridan who used her powers to demand docile obedience from her spouse and children, now it is said she is capable of wonders.

“Take any marvel performed by an Old World sorcerer from the days of colonization and Melina has been witnessed performing it. Usually the witness is a friend of a friend of the trader who sells to a friend of the teller’s favorite innkeeper, but that hasn’t reduced interest—or belief—in the tales.

“When folk believe a sorceress can summon lightning from the sky or cause plague among the cattle, then it seems little enough to believe that she still rules a daughter who she ruled for the first twenty-odd years of her life.”

Shad cut in, not so much interrupting as taking up the thread.

“To make matters worse, Sapphire’s pregnancy has made her less able to show herself to the populace. Indeed, she wanted to do so, but the healers would not consider themselves responsible for the consequences. I have done my best in her place, but…”

He shrugged. “I am an outlander, the son of an alien king. For every one who has forgiven me my heritage and who tries to forget the years of war between Hawk Haven and Bright Bay, there are three who think me a conqueror who is merely waiting to make conquest through inheritance.

“I can only do so much, but I am bound. If I ride about the countryside, making myself known to the people, then it is said that I am sizing up the land for my own greedy interests—or, worse, given the current situation, that I am avoiding Sapphire lest she swallow my will as her mother has her own, making both of us her foils.”

Elise frowned. “I doubt this is any comfort, but most of these rumors are far worse than any I or Ninette heard at my parents’ home or along our road here. However, have you heard the tale about increased trade between Waterland and New Kelvin because of Melina?”

“We have heard some,” King Tedric said, “but share your story with us.”

So Elise told them Steward Dayle’s story about the giant spiders who spun New Kelvin’s treasured silk and how they fed upon human blood, how New Kelvin now desired greater wealth and so was prepared to make trade concessions to their slaveholding neighbors to acquire fodder for these spiders.

“Of course I told her,” Elise concluded, “that New Kelvinese silk comes from caterpillars, not from spiders, and that the caterpillars eat exotic plants, not blood, but I don’t know if even Dayle believed me.”

Shad laughed harshly.

“Still, that’s better than the version of the tale we have heard,” he said. “What we’ve heard is that the New Kelvinese want the slaves in order that Melina might sacrifice them to some dark end.”

King Tedric raised a hand to halt further discussion.

“What this does tell us is that there is increased trade between New Kelvin and Waterland. That in itself is interesting. New Kelvin has always feared Waterland’s greed would extend to taking over the farm, rather than buying the cattle. Thus, she has done much of her trade through us, rather than give Waterland too great a foothold. However, there have always been such signal differences between those lands that direct trade was restricted.”

“Signal differences?” Sapphire asked with a sigh. “Father Tedric, I must admit—again—my ignorance. I know they are different, but we trade with both, how could they not trade with each other?”

King Tedric started to answer, began to cough, and when the coughing was under control said in a slightly weaker voice than previously.

“Elise, answer Sapphire for me. You have always loved foreign lands.”

Blushing slightly, Elise turned to Sapphire, fearing that Sapphire would be offended. Indeed, once she would have been, but apparently several moonspans as crown princess had proven to Sapphire how little she knew and how much she needed advisors. All Elise saw on either of the heirs apparent’s faces was studious interest.

Still, she stammered as she began, unused to being an authority.

“Everyone knows…I mean, you know that New Kelvin is ruled by those who practice, or believe they practice…The thaumaturges, that is…”

Sapphire leaned forward and put a hand on her arm.

“Relax, Elise. Yes, we know that New Kelvin is ruled by people who call themselves thaumaturges and are dedicated to restoring magic. We know that Waterland is ruled by an oligarchy of its wealthiest citizens, and that they have very complicated ways of assessing who is the richest and such. What we don’t know is why these things would put them at odds.”

Shad nodded. “That’s it in a nutshell.”

Elise closed her eyes, trying to find words for something she herself understood almost more intuitively than rationally.

“It’s a question of values,” she said at last. “New Kelvin values old ways and old things because those things come from before the Plague—they call it the Burning Death—caused the Old Countries to withdraw from the New World. Their Healed One is supposed to be a descendant of the last of their Old Country mages, one who survived the Plague and, though weakened, helped them preserve their lore until his death.

“Waterland doesn’t value much that’s old. Maybe it’s because so much of their land is at sea level and is subjected to storms and hurricanes. Maybe it’s just that most old things aren’t worth as much as new. However, they do respect old things that are worth something because of their artistry or materials. New Kelvin just has to have hoards of such things.”

Shad interjected, “More than anywhere else, probably, because most countries destroyed the relics of the original settlers, either out of malice or out of fear that they might hold magical powers. So New Kelvin doesn’t just have industries—like their glassworks and silk—that Waterland would like to have. They’d love a chance to plunder the New Kelvinese treasuries. There are those in many lands who would welcome that—especially if the Waterlanders melted everything down for raw materials.”

Elise nodded. “That’s how I see it. After last winter’s events, I’m not certain the New Kelvinese even know how to use what potentially magical things they still have. It seems that their own original settlers were treated much as our own were. Colonials with magical talent were trained across the sea and bound against telling how to train others in their lore. When the Plague came and the rulers retreated to the Old Country, they took their magical things with them. This doesn’t change that the New Kelvinese have lots of old things left, however. And far from making them a less tempting target for Waterland’s greedy oligarchs, it makes them more tempting.”

“Because,” Sapphire said, “they need not fear they’ll stumble on too much dangerous magic.”

“That’s right,” Elise said. A thought came to her. “You know, the ban against teaching magic here in the New World seems to have been followed by several different Old World nations. Our founders had it, so did the New Kelvinese’s, the Waterlanders’ and the Stoneholders’. I wonder if they made some sort of compact to keep our ancestors in ignorance?”

“It makes sense,” Shad said. “I haven’t sailed much beyond the Isles, but those who have—mostly meeting small settlements south down the coast, there isn’t much north—report that similar beliefs are held, and a similar aversion to magic. New Kelvin’s attitude may not be unique, but it’s very rare.”

“The Isles,” King Tedric said, changing the subject with those two words. “Have you heard any rumors about them?”

Elise shook her head. “But then the Archer Grant is well inland.”

“I thought traffic along the Barren River might have brought some news,” the king said.

“Father has heard nothing important from the Isles,” Shad offered, “and he would tell you, you know.”

“I know,” King Tedric assured him. “I trust Allister as I trust myself—and maybe more so. He is young and strong whereas I am old and suspicious. So maybe Valora is lying low and licking her wounds. Your defeat,” his nod included all three of those present, “of the pirates last winter may have robbed her of a good part of her army.”

Sapphire crooked her arms behind her head and stretched.

“I certainly hope so. May I suggest that we take a recess? I am growing stiff and hungry. The rest of you must be too.”

The king concurred. “Elise will, of course, remain for lunch and perhaps for dinner as well. Yes, that would be best. Send a message to the Archer manse and tell them not to expect you. Have your maid bring your dinner gown and plan to remain.”

Elise agreed. Hearing that she had a small amount of time before the meal and sensing that the young married couple wanted some time to themselves, she excused herself to go off to the gardens and visit Holly Gardener.

She spent a happy half hour there, nearly ruining her taste for lunch with strawberries and fresh cream, made richer by the news that Firekeeper and Derian had been through back in mid–Horse Moon before heading west so that Firekeeper might visit her wolves and Derian keep his vow to place markers on the graves of Prince Barden’s expedition.

Before the meeting resumed after lunch, Elise took an opportunity to visit Queen Elexa. Elise was pleased to see that while Elexa was frail, she seemed no more in danger than she had a score of times before.

“It is simply that,” the queen said, “when you are my age and have my history of ill health, the doctors grow more and more careful with every illness.”

They chatted until a messenger came, saying that Elise was needed by the king.

As Elise rose to go, Queen Elexa motioned her close and, under the cover of their parting embrace, said, “Don’t let Tedric talk you into anything you think unwise, child. There are things in this world just as important as international politics.”

When Elise, surprised, would have asked for clarification, the queen waved her away.

“They’re waiting, dear, and Tedric has promised to be fair with you.”

More mystified than ever, Elise left, wondering what else there was to discuss. Certainly, as Grandmother Rosene had said, there were others who could advise the king about New Kelvin. She had just about concluded that King Tedric wanted her to become a tutor to Sapphire and Shad, and that Queen Elexa didn’t think it was right to so demean the heir to a barony, when King Tedric opened the discussion.

“I suppose you have heard about young Citrine?”

Elise nodded. “I know what Queen Elexa told my mother in a letter, that Citrine’s spirit was badly wounded by the time she spent among the pirates at Smuggler’s Light, and that, despite best attempts to heal her, Citrine has become worse, rather than better.”

“So much,” the king said, “is fairly common knowledge. You know that Citrine was given by her mother to Baron Waln Endbrook of the Isles…”

“Formerly of the Isles,” Sapphire hissed, and there was angry satisfaction in her voice. “Queen Valora has disowned him.”

“As an assurance that Melina would not act against either him or the Isles,” the king continued as if he had not heard. “As you know, Melina violated that assurance. It is likely that she planned to do so from the start. Certain things reported by Grateful Peace, once of the Dragon Speaker’s Three, make clear she had laid the foundations for her treachery well in advance.

“Baron Endbrook did not know this, of course, and in a rather crude attempt to remind Melina of the hold he had over her, he sent her two of Citrine’s fingers. We now know that he cut them from the child without offering her anything to dull the pain, nor did he see that she was given any treatment other than what was needed to make certain that she did not die from contamination of the wound.

“The injury itself would have been horrible to a child of eight. What aggravated it was Citrine’s gradual realization that her mother must know what had been done to her and did nothing to avenge it. To make matters even worse…”