employ in the last year.
It is with great regret that we ask this and hope that you will not take it amiss. My master directs me to say that we have the greatest confidence in the integrity of the Cassarick Bird Keepers and look forward to putting this allegation to rest.
The favour of a swift response is requested.
CHAPTER ONE
The Duke and The Captive
‘There has been no word, Imperial One.’ The messenger on his knees before the Duke fought to keep his voice steady.
The Duke, cushioned and propped on his throne, watched him, waiting for the moment he would break. The best a bearer of bad tidings could expect was a flogging. But delayed bad news merited death.
The man kept his eyes down, staring doggedly at the floor. So. This messenger had been flogged before. He knew he would survive it and he accepted it.
The Duke made a small gesture with his finger. Large movements took so much energy. But his chancellor had learned to watch for small motions and to respond quickly to them. He, in turn, made a more eloquent motion to the guard, and the messenger was removed. The boots of the guards thudded and the lighter sandals of the messenger pattered between them as they hurried him off. No one ventured a word. The Chancellor turned back to him and bowed low, his forehead touching his knees. Slowly he knelt, and then was bold enough to look at the Duke’s sandals.
‘I am grieved that you had to be subjected to such an unsatisfactory message.’
Silence held in the audience chamber. It was a large room with walls of rough stone that reminded all who entered that once it had been part of a fortress. The arched ceiling overhead had been painted a midnight blue with the stars of a midsummer night frozen forever there. Tall slits of windows looked out over a vista of sprawling city.
No point in this city was taller than the Duke’s hilltop citadel. Once the fortress had stood upon this peak, and within its walls a circle of black standing stones under the open sky had been a place of great magic. Tales told of how those stones had been toppled, their evil magic vanquished. Those same stones, the ancient runes on them obscured and defaced, now lay splayed out in a circle around his throne, flush to the grey flagged floor that had been laid around them. The black stones pointed to the five corners of the known world. It was said that beneath each stone there was a square pit into which the sorcerous enemies of ancient Chalced had been confined to die. The throne in the centre reminded all that he sat where, of old, all had feared to tread.
The Duke moved his lips, and a page sprang to his feet and darted forward, a bowl of cool water in his hands. The boy knelt and offered it to the Chancellor. The Chancellor, in turn, advanced on his knees, to lift the bowl to the Duke’s lips.
He tipped his head and drank. When he lifted his face another attendant had appeared, offering the Chancellor a soft cloth that he might dry the Duke’s face and chin.
Afterwards, he allowed the Chancellor to retreat. Thirst sated, he spoke.
‘There is no other word from our emissaries in the Rain Wilds?’
The Chancellor hunched lower. His robes of heavy maroon silk puddled around him. His scalp showed through his thinning hair. ‘No, most illustrious one. I am shamed and saddened to tell you that they have not sent us any fresh tidings.’
‘There is no shipment of dragon flesh on its way?’ He knew the answer but forced Ellik to speak it aloud.
The Chancellor’s face nearly touched the floor. ‘Radiant lord, we have no word of any shipment, I am humiliated and abashed to tell you.’
The Duke considered the situation. It was too great an effort to open his eyes all the way. Hard to speak loud enough to make his voice carry. His rich rings of heavy gold set with massive jewels hung loose on his bony fingers and weighted down his hands. The lush robes of his majesty could not cloak his gauntness. He was wasting away, dying even as they stared at him, waiting. He must give a response. He must not be seen as weak.
He spoke softly. ‘Motivate them. Send more emissaries, to every possible contact we have. Send them special gifts. Encourage them to be ruthless.’ With an effort he lifted his head and his voice. ‘Need I remind you, any of you, that if I die you will be buried with me?’
His words should have rung against the stones. Instead, he heard what his followers heard; the shrill outrage of a dying old man. Intolerable that one such as he might die without an heir-son! He should not have to speak for himself; his heir-son should be standing before him, shouting at the nobles and forcing them to swift obedience. Instead he had to whisper threats at them, hissing like a toothless old snake.
How had it come to this? He had always had sons, and to spare. Too many sons, but some had been too ambitious for his liking. Some he had sent to war, and some he had sent to the torture chamber for insolence. A few he had poisoned discreetly. If he had known that a disease would sweep away not only his chosen heir but his last three sons, he might have kept a few in reserve. But he had not. And now he was down to one useless daughter, a woman of near thirty with no children of her own and a mannish way of thinking and moving. A thrice-widowed woman with the ill luck never to have borne a child. A woman who read books and wrote poetry. Useless to him, if not dangerous as a witch. And he had no vigour left in his body to get a woman with child.
Intolerable. He could not die son-less, his name to become dust in the world’s mouth. The dragon cure must be brought to him, the rich dragon blood that would restore his youth and manhood. Then he would get himself a dozen heirs and keep them safely locked away from all mishap.
Dragon’s blood. So simple a cure, and yet none seemed able to supply it to him.
‘Should my lord die, my sorrow would be so great that only interment with you would bring me any peace, most gracious one.’ The Chancellor’s ingratiating words suddenly seemed a cruel mockery.
‘Oh, be silent. Your flattery annoys me. What good is your empty loyalty? Where are the dragon parts that would save me? Bring me those, and not your idle praise. Does no man here serve me willingly?” It demanded strength he could not spare, but this time his shout rang out. As his gaze swept them, not a one dared to meet his eyes. They cowered and for a time, he let them recall their hostage sons, not glimpsed by any of them for many months. He let them wonder for several long moments if their heirs survived before he asked in a conversational tone, “Is there any word from the other force we sent, to follow the rumours that dragons were seen in the desert?’
The Chancellor remained as he was, trapped in a frozen agony of conflicting orders.
Do you seethe within, Ellik? he wondered. Do you remember that once you rode at my stirrup as we charged into battle? Look at what the warlord and his sword arm have become: the doddering old man and the cringing servant. If you would but bring me what I need, all would be as it once was. Why do you fail me? Do you have ambitions of your own? Must I kill you?
He stared at his chancellor but Ellik’s eyes remained cast down. When he judged that the man was close to breaking, he snapped at him, ‘Answer!’
Ellik lifted his eyes and the Duke saw the fury contained behind his subservient grey gaze. They had ridden together too long, fought side by side too often for them to be completely successful at concealing their thoughts from one another. Ellik knew the Duke’s every ploy.
