King's Dragon: Chronicles of the Dragon-Bound: Book 2 Page 7

  She nodded in acknowledgment, and he saw one corner of her perfect lips turn up slightly. “Excuse me. I’m looking for a copy of Rosimund’s Lament. Would you know where that would be?” Her soft voice was as enticing as her appearance.

  Dax looked into her dark eyes. Their color was hard to make out in the library’s soft light. He shook his head. “Sadly, madam, I am new here, and I have only browsed a small section of the library’s history collection.”

  She returned his stare with a bold look of her own. After a moment, she looked down. Picking up the book Dax had laid on the table, she glanced at the title. “Ah. Dorral’s Subjugation of the Ugori,” she noted. “Not exactly light reading.”

  She handed the book to Dax. As he reached to take it, his fingers encountered hers on the bottom of the book. An almost electric thrill ran up his arm. Her touch lingered against his fingers for several counts before she drew her hand away with a sly smile.

  “No,” Dax replied, trying to focus his thoughts, “it is not pleasure reading, that’s for sure.” He smiled and gave a deferential nod of a bow. “If I may, madam, I am Gard Daxdendraig, Deputy Ambassador Carmodi’s new advisor.”

  “Oh, yes. I have heard of you.” She smiled, and Dax’s heart gave a flutter. “I am Lady Aylssandra. I hadn’t realized you would be in the library today, but I am glad we met.”

  Suddenly all the warmth of his attraction turned to cold suspicion, but he kept the pleasant expression frozen on his face. She did not know he would be in the library? His dragon-bound senses screamed, “A lie!” She had planned to find him here. Lady Aylssandra, Prince Ruprek’s mistress, was up to something.

  Aylssandra’s smile broadened but never reached her eyes. “I haven’t the time today, but perhaps we could discuss the history of this kingdom when we meet again.” She arched her eyebrows questioningly.

  “I would enjoy speaking with you again, Your Ladyship,” Dax replied smoothly, nodding as she turned away to leave. Yes, he would enjoy any chance to get more information. Lady Aylssandra definitely would bear watching.

  #

  When he returned to their rooms, Scarlet was there changing clothes. Scarlet looked up when Dax entered. “Ah, there you are,” he said. “There are several good sword fighters in the lancers. I actually worked up a sweat. Did you find what you were looking for in the library?”

  “More than I was looking for in fact,” Dax responded.

  “By the way”—Scarlet turned to look at him—“you’ll never guess who I met between sparring matches this afternoon.”

  Dax looked at him archly. “It wasn’t Lady Aylssandra, was it?”

  Scarlet looked shocked. “Now there’s no way you could have known that!” He shook his head. “You are scary sometimes.”

  “No, I wouldn’t have even thought of her, except she paid me a visit in the library.” Dax sat down in a chair and pulled off his left boot. “She also lied to me when she said she didn’t know I would be there.”

  Scarlet looked up him with amusement playing across his face. “So you immediately suspected her of subverting the kingdom.”

  “Not quite.” Dax took off his other boot, but he did not smile in return. “She’s playing some kind of game. If she made a point to look us both up this afternoon, I would wager this is not the last we see of her.”

  Scarlet nodded. “She didn’t say much to me, but she fancies me.” He looked at Dax and smiled. “She gave me one of those looks.” Dax raised his eyebrows and tilted his head. “Well, she did,” Scarlet added.

  “I respect your experience with ‘those looks.’” Dax nodded thoughtfully. “I suggest we share information about all our contacts with her.”

  “You don’t need to tell me the rest.”

  The left corner of Dax’s mouth twitched up in amusement. “And that would be?”

  “Be cautious around her.” Scarlet rubbed his ear and grimaced. “Yeah, if she’s Prince Ruprek’s special friend, we had better keep her at arm’s length until we finish this job.”

  They had not even started their job, and matters had already become more complicated than Dax had anticipated. “If West Landly gets word of her . . .” Dax sighed and shook his head. That would definitely make the negotiations challenging.

  #

  The next evening they finally had dinner with Deputy Ambassador Carmodi and three of his aides who would go to West Landly with them. The room where they ate was small but well-appointed. By now Dax recognized that the rooms where he and Scarlet had been staying were in what amounted to the servants’ quarters in the great, rambling complex of Frohliem City’s palace.

  Once the supper dishes were cleared, they got down to business. Carmodi passed out a stack of papers. “Here are the basic issues we will need to address when we talk with our friends in West Landly,” he said, once all had a copy. “The king has listed his most important goals, and after talking with my father, the ambassador, I have added a few more points we will need to have settled. I’ve already conducted two preliminary discussions about financial issues and such with the ambassador from West Landly, but those appear to be fairly straightforward.”

  Carmodi flipped back several pages. “I think our main difficulty will be with the sovereignty issue—page five, gentlemen.” He laid the papers aside and leaned back in his chair while the others found the reference. He undid the lowest button on his stylish evening vest. “Besides the more mundane elements that will be settled in the treaty, our king has placed a priority on decisions about who rules what, the specifics of primogenitor and inheritance issues, and several other points that must be covered in a prenuptial agreement.”

  Carmodi had just begun outlining the king’s concerns when a man in an elaborately styled jacket entered the room unannounced. “Excuse me, Ras,” he said, “but be sure to include the clause that we must winter in West Landly. I am told winters there are much gentler than winters here in Frohliem City.”

  “Ah, Prince Ruprek.” Carmodi rose from the table along with the others. “We were just getting down to business now that our advisor from Iron Moor has arrived. Won’t you join us? It’s your marriage we are discussing after all.”

  The prince was a small, soft-looking man with a short goatee. He wore his hair styled to disguise the breadth of his fleshy face. He waved a hand to the group, but never made eye contact. “Yes, yes. Good to see our friends from the North and all that. However, I have an engagement tonight at the Double Tuck table, and I can’t be late. Do carry on without me, but be sure I have full conjugal rights to the charming Queen Dari or whatever her name is.” He tittered and left the room with another limp wave of his hand.

  Out in the hall, Lady Aylssandra waited. Ruprek joined her and offered her his arm. “Come, my dear.” He bowed formally to the woman. “The cards are calling, and I have a feeling they are leaning my way this evening.”

  Once the couple departed, they all sat down again. Carmodi sighed. “Well, if you hadn’t met him before, that was Price Ruprek. We will have to do the formal introductions some other time.”

  The aides to Ambassador Carmodi snickered between themselves, and Dax caught the word conjugal. Dax looked at Carmodi, but the man just sat there looking at his notes. Dax finally cleared his throat and interrupted the aides. “Excuse me, gentlemen. We have serious work to do concerning the future of this kingdom. I would suggest we keep all comments about the prince on a professional level. We will not make our job easier with gossip.”

  “Quite right you are.” Carmodi roused himself and glared at the aides. “We are not here to judge the rightness or wrongness of this match. We are supposed to make it happen for the good of both kingdoms.”

  The meeting lasted more than two hours. Carmodi went over the lists of terms, conditions, and possible outcomes. They had to organize the catalog of items into a proposal ready for the West Landlians. Dax brought up the idea of trying to create an additional list of possible fallback positions and counterproposals to be ready for any seriou
s bargaining that might be necessary.

  “I agree,” Carmodi nodded, “but I don’t think we can get into that yet this evening. We have quite enough work ahead, but the hour is getting late, and I feel the need for some rest.” The deputy ambassador stood up and smiled. “Now, gentlemen, I bid you good evening.”

  #

  Back in their rooms Scarlet tossed his dress jacket at a chair and missed. He made a face but made no move to pick it up. “This political stuff is hard work. My head feels like I just went seven rounds in the practice ring.”

  “And you accomplished much less,” Dax added.

  “So what do you make of all this?”

  Dax lowered his voice. Although he had seen no evidence of any network of hidden passageways like those he had roamed inside the walls of the castle in Tazzelton, he did not want to take a chance on being overheard. “I think I have to know more about Prince Ruprek before I will be satisfied that we can do any serious planning.” He sighed. “And Lady Aylssandra is definitely a wild card here. What role is she playing in all this?”

  Scarlet matched Dax’s lowered voice and whispered, “I’m not sure what role she’s playing, but when I saw her in the grand hallway yesterday, I got the distinct impression she did want to play.” He nodded knowingly at Dax. “If you take my meaning.”

  Shifting in his seat, Dax leaned close to Scarlet. “That was my impression too. She’s one we have to keep an eye on. How would you like to do me a favor and ask her some questions? I would ask her myself, but being dragon-bound, I don’t dissemble as well as you.”

  Scarlet’s mouth quirked up in a half smile. “I like to watch you try, though,” he chuckled. “So, what do you want me to ask her?”

  “She reminds me of someone I knew before.” Dax did not elaborate, but an image of Mathilde smiling at him after she had offered him a drink of poisoned milk years ago flickered in his memory. “With those high cheekbones and blue eyes, she could be from Thara. That’s something I would like to know.”

  “Sure, I could do that,” Scarlet agreed.

  “One thing.” Dax raised a finger for emphasis. “Just be sure to ask her when I’m close enough to hear. Whatever her answer, I will be able to tell whether or not it’s the truth. That could tell us a lot.”

  “So what’s on the schedule tomorrow?”

  Dax sat down on his bed and pulled at his right boot. “We will meet with Carmodi and company on a daily basis.” He grunted and wrested the boot off his foot. “In three days, the prince is having a reception in honor of the negotiations.” He set the boot beside the foot of the bed and started on the other boot. “Depending on who is there, we should get a chance to gather some firsthand information.”

  “I can’t wait to see the prince again.” Scarlet’s sarcasm would have made his meaning obvious even if Dax had not been dragon-bound.

  “I wouldn’t let him talk you into a game of Double Tuck if I were you.” Dax set his last boot beside the bed.

  “I don’t know.” Scarlet tilted his head to one side and arched his eyebrows. “Maybe a game of cards would show us where his skills really lie.”

  “I’m thinking it’s more important to learn what we can about Lady Aylssandra,” Dax added, and Scarlet nodded in agreement.

  #

  The gathering the prince hosted three days later was bigger than Dax had expected. He had anticipated a small group of Ruprek’s friends, sycophants, and assorted toadies, but that evening, a fair selection of the Frohliem City social elite filled the ballroom. Even the king and queen put in an appearance at the start of the evening. There was warm applause when the royal couple made their entrance. Calls of “Speech! Speech!” rang out from the crowd.

  King Kankasi finally nodded and stepped up on the small dais where the musicians sat. Dax had glimpsed Kankasi several days earlier. He was closer this time, and he studied the man. The king was a small man with thinning gray hair worn short above a square face. He was not wearing the crown of East Landly tonight. Only a gold circlet around his forehead marked his royal status. That and the elaborately embroidered robe he wore. The king nodded, smiling. He held up his hand, and the group fell silent. The king cleared his throat. “Thank you all for that warm reception.” Kankasi did not have a stentorian voice, but everyone’s attention was focused on the words of their king. Kankasi smiled and continued. “This evening I would like you all to reflect on the idea that we are what we make ourselves. When we are born—after long labor from our mothers, who carried us as a burden for many months—when we are born, we come out of the mother’s womb with a bucket. A bucket into which we get to choose what experiences and learning we gather . . .”

  A man standing beside Dax muttered under his breath to his companion. “Not the bucket speech again,” he moaned. “How many times do we have to hear this?” The woman shushed him and looked back at the king. They both appeared to be paying rapt attention.

  After prattling on for several more minutes, King Kankasi finally ended his speech with what had to be a moral, but the thrust of the story was long lost in a thicket of rambling. Kankasi waved and nodded to the crowd before he stepped down off the dais. The group applauded, and the king gave another brief nod of acknowledgment. Turning to his wife, Queen Layna, he offered her his arm, and they set off to join a receiving line.

  Dax had no desire to shake the king’s hand. He went in the other direction toward the refreshments. A large man dressed in a kilt stood with a drink near the table. Dax nodded to the man. “De tenno, sashkat. Fenict a’shet?”

  The man replied with a jumble of syllables, and Dax held up his hand. “I’m sorry, but that is the only Urgo I know.” He gave the man what he hoped was a disarming smile. Dax held out his hand. “I’m Gard Daxdendraig, but please call me Dax.”

  “Well, even a proper greeting is a damned sight more than anyone else knows in this crazy pisspot of a capital.” The man took Dax’s hand in a crushing grip. “Markadamous,” he stated. “Little good it will do you to know that.” Markadamous smiled and released Dax’s hand. He took a long pull at his drink. “This is what I get for learning Common tongue as a babe. They make me attend the palace fancies to eat the fresh dog turds and drink the donkey piss they serve.” He had almost no trace of the usual Ugori twang, but the clarity of his thought would have cut through even the thickest accent. Dax liked the man immediately.

  “You’re from the Ugori regiment currently serving with the lancers here in Frohliem City,” Dax observed.

  “Aye, and waiting impatiently until we can get out of this hot, wet lowland area and back to the good, clean mountains.” Markadamous set down his empty glass and took a fresh one. He looked Dax up and down. “You’re not one of the usual court dandies. You have the look of a hard man about ye.”

  “I’m from Iron Moor,” Dax explained. “The king hired me and my companion as advisors to the deputy ambassador.”

  “Ah!” He smiled. “You’re the ones who are going to get the prince a bonny new bobble to play with.”

  Since the man had obviously heard of their mission, Dax nodded. “We are to negotiate a proposed marriage, yes.”

  Markadamous clapped Dax on the back with a big hand. “Well, I wish you luck, my good man.” He leaned closer, and Dax could smell ale on the man’s breath. “’Cause you’re going to need one big-assed piece of it to get people in West Landly to accept the little twerp.”

  That was the only comment Markadamous made about the prince, but the two talked a while longer, swapping war stories. Markadamous finished his drink and took another. He offered a toast toward Dax before he took his first sip. “When Lootus Tootus ordered me to come tonight, I had no idea I would actually meet someone worth talking to.”

  Big and burly as the man was, he had started to slur his words a little. Dax was amused at the “Lootus Tootus” reference to Lieutenant Tutus, the lancers’ officer in charge of the Ugori contingent. Even in the short time Dax had been in the capital, he had heard stories about the
lancers’ difficulties controlling the spirited men and women from the northern hill country.

  “So,” Markadamous continued, “since I have to be here, I aim to get drunk on the king’s ale and get thrown out early.” He picked up another drink and gave Dax a big wink. “Wouldn’t do not to sully the Ugori’s already bad reputation a little more, now would it?”

  #

  Later in the evening, Deputy Ambassador Ras Carmodi introduced Dax to his father, Venjet Carmodi, ambassador to West Landly. The ambassador was elderly, perhaps in his eighties. He had the barest fringe of white hair around the crown of his head, and his hair continued in a carefully trimmed line down his cheeks to his chin. His features had once been sharp, but now sagging, crinkled skin softened the lines of his face. Despite a frail-looking body, the senior Carmodi’s eyes were bright, and his mind was sharp.

  When Dax addressed him as Ambassador Carmodi, the man waved that title off and took a drink of white wine from his glass. “We’re working on the same project.” He smiled at Dax. “If you call me Ven, I’ll call you Dax.”

  Within minutes Dax knew he was dealing with a man who had polished his skills over many years. Ambassador Carmodi made good conversation, and his comments were never disparaging or negative in any way. Dax could not imagine the man ever offending anyone. The ambassador quizzed Dax about his opinions on their negotiating priorities and drew out Dax’s thoughts on the West Landly response to the idea of creating a unified kingdom. Conversation with the ambassador flowed effortlessly, but Dax recognized it as a skilled interrogation.

  Finally the ambassador sighed wistfully. “Ah, friend Dax, I wish I was some years younger. I would enjoy taking on this task to reunite the two kingdoms.”

  Curious, Dax asked, “What is your opinion of Queen Dara?”

  “Now that gets right to the heart of it, doesn’t it?” The ambassador smiled and paused to take a small sip of white wine while he thought. “I think she will have a strong influence on the couple’s undertakings,” he said carefully.