Chapter Five

They were met at the gate by Henry. "I've got rooms ready for you, if you'd like to settle in and refresh before supper."

Tallant laughed. "You mean it's not standard practice to bathe naked in the middle of the southern courtyard?"

Henry lifted his eyes to the sky. "I'm afraid Lord Cecil has picked up more than a few uncouth habits from his friends, one of them being a general lack of modesty."

"I can fix—oof—" Tallant held a hand to his stomach and shot Milton a wounded look.

Milton just glared at him, and hissed, "Behave."

"Yes, mother," Tallant replied.

Henry rolled his eyes and snorted briefly in amusement. "This way, lads." Leading them across the main yard and into the castle, he went up a set of stairs to the right of the great hall, then down the hall to a single room of moderate size.

"A room," Milton said, shaking his head. "Far cry from when I was growing up, and I slept either in the great hall or the stable."

Henry chuckled. "Aye, those were the days. It was a devil of a time trying to pin you down."

Milton laughed. "I was good at being elusive. Only Cecil and Irene could ever find me."

"Only because one or both was usually with you," Henry said dryly. "There's a bathing tub just there. Let me know if you require anything else."

Tallant shook his head. "We should be fine, thank you. Please let us know if we can help with anything." Henry nodded, and closed the door, leaving them alone. Tallant looked around the room. A single window, currently open to let in light, the tapestry that normally covered it rolled up and set beneath the window. Two beds, one on each side, with chests at the foot of each and a small table alongside the head of each. Someone had fetched their belongings from downstairs and set them atop the chests.

The room was simple, plain, but far more than Tallant had expected. Like Milton, he'd simply assumed they'd bed down in the great hall or the stable. Castle life was not glamorous, or even easy. A private room was a luxury. More than willing to enjoy the luxury while it lasted, Tallant strode to the large wooden tub filled with water and knelt beside it. Calling up his magic, he heated the water until it was nicely steaming.

Standing, he pulled off his gear, tossing weapons on the bed and the rest to the floor. The armor was quickly joined by his clothes, and the he slid into the tub with a groan. "I swear I have never met a man as enamored of bathing as you," Milton said, stripping off his own armor.

Tallant shrugged. "You did not see the baths I left behind. They are the only thing I miss about my homeland."

Milton shook his head. "I'm going to take our things for cleaning. Don't sit in there too long; I have no desire to bathe in the courtyard."

"Yes, yes," Tallant said, waving him off and sinking deeper into the water. For several minutes, he did nothing but sit, more than happy to be lazy after the days of hard travel, the dragon, and the upheaval of their arrival. He really could not wait to crawl into bed and stay there for a long time.

Eventually, he stood up and fetched soap, then began to scrub himself top to bottom. The soap was rough, abrasive, but it rid him of all the stench of travel and dragon that had lingered and left him the cleanest he had in weeks—

The door banged open and he turned to make some jest to Milton, and stopped short to see Cecil. He smiled, slow and taunting and maybe a little bit flirty. It was completely the wrong time and place, but he could not resist teasing, pushing, just a little bit. "Were you looking for Milton, or did you want a closer look at my tattoos?" He spread his arms, facing Cecil directly, putting every last bit of himself on display. Cecil was not the only one who lacked modesty.

"I didn't know you were back," Cecil blurted, and threw down the extra blankets he'd obviously been bringing to them. His voice was strained, as he obviously tried not to let his eyes go where they shouldn't. He whirled away, fleeing, slamming the door shut behind him hard enough that Tallant was surprised the castle didn't shake.

Tallant shouldn't be amused, he really shouldn't—but as tough and hardened as Cecil was, it was rather adorable how easily flustered he was by being attracted to someone. Of course, it probably wasn't laughing matter to Cecil. Tallant's amusement died. Furious and hurt where Milton was concerned, Cecil did not need the further complications of being attracted to his estranged brother's sworn brother. Never mind that Cecil was married to the woman Milton loved.

Whether Cecil proved to be just a dalliance, or Tallant's fate, it was not the time for either. So he really needed to knock it off with the childish behavior and focus on the important matters. If Cecil was his destiny, that would come to pass in its own time. He'd already waited this long, he could wait a little longer.

So far as what he should be worrying about, he suspected he was the only real magic user on the premises. Magic had never had a strong presence in this kingdom. It had flared up briefly, when the Great Sorcerers had come and erected the wards that kept out the dragons and made the country safe. Once people felt safe again, though, interest in magic had waned.

The duke's castle was shockingly remote, but again—this was an isolated country, and entire self-sufficient. With the re-emergence of the dragons, too, there would be less time to reach out to the broader world. Never mind Marden was apparently so mad he had to be locked away. Milton had always said Marden never seemed quite right, but they hadn't imagined things had gotten this bad.

Given half a chance, Tallant didn't doubt that Irene would fix matters. But first the wards, dragons, and missing women would have to be addressed. He was ill-equipped to help with the dragons and missing women, but he could do something about the words, hopefully.

Henry would be his best source of information, or at least on where to get the information he needed, such as why Marden had not kept at least one mage on hand, in case of a problem such as this. The Great Sorcerers were long gone, and very little known about them, but anything was better than nothing. Well, he would take of the matter as best he could. Barring further incidents, he would have someone take him to the place where the wards had fallen in the morning.

He looked up as the door opened again.

"Our things should be clean and ready for us in the morning," Milton said. "Dinner is about ready."

Tallant nodded and finished rinsing off, drying off as he moved to the bed, where someone had thoughtfully laid clean clothes. Pulling on brown trousers and a matching under tunic, then a rich blue and green tunic, he sat down to pull on his boots. "Your brother came by while you were gone. He fled when he saw me naked."

Milton rolled his eyes, and did not reply. Snickering, Tallant stood up and strapped his weapons back into place. "I shall leave you to your bath, and see you downstairs." Waving, he left, closing the door and then quickly heading downstairs.

The smell of food made his stomach growl, and Tallant kept to the edge, where he could observe without getting in the way. Earlier, the hall had been empty of all but the long table nearest the great fireplace. Now, the tables and benches stacked neatly against one wall had been brought out and arranged in three long columns, broken up into three rows, of tables and benches.

"Bit of beer, my lord?" a servant girl asked shyly, approaching him with a tray.

Tallant smiled at her, making the girl flush. "No lord am I, but thank you, milady."

Giggling, the girl departed, handing out beer to the other people beginning to filter in. There were not nearly as many people as there should have been, Tallant saw. The castle should be teeming with life, near to bursting with people and activity. Instead, the group that slowly gathered barely filled a third of the tables.

No wonder Cecil's eyes held so much sadness. Tallant looked at the others in the room—priests, servants, a small smattering of soldiers, even fewer nobles, and a handful of foreigners who no doubt thought it wiser to stay in the castle than to wander out of it to get home.

What little they had seen of the rest of the country had not seemed alarmed. Tallant supposed it was because the dragons simply had not gotten that far. No doubt that was due primarily to the efforts of Cecil and his thieves.

A lull in the chatter drew his attention, and Tallant turned to see that Cecil and his friends had arrived. Tallant could not take his eyes off Cecil. He truly was beautiful—the hard edge, the braided hair, the confidence of a warrior and those sad, sad eyes. Clearly he'd washed again, but this time he had dressed in finery, though it was toned down.

His tunic was handsome, jet black trimmed in silver—and across the chest, embroidered in brown, green, and red, was an apple tree. His friends were also dressed in black, but their tunics bore only the dragon and sword symbol.

Spotting Henry, Tallant motioned to him. A few minutes later, Henry excused himself from the men he was speaking to and joined Tallant. "How can I help you, Master Tallant?"

"Merely satisfy my curiosity," Tallant replied. "What is the significance of the apple tree crest?"

"Ah," Henry said. "That is Her Grace's personal seal. It has some special meaning to the two of them, but they have never shared it with anyone else."

"I see," Tallant said.

"You're to sit at the high table," Henry said. "If you'll come—ah, good evening, Master Milton. Right this way then." Tallant turned to nod briefly at Milton, who looked as sharp as his brother, dressed in deep red trimmed in black. But Milton did not grab him the way Cecil did. Milton had always been his brother, his friend, even if both their lives would have been easier if they'd been lovers.

They followed as Henry led them to the high table and indicated their seats, before taking his own. The seats in the center were obviously for the duke and duchess—but one was vacant, save for a sword belt holding a single long sword hung over the back of it. Beside him, Milton made a rough, choking sound. Tallant turned to him and said, "We'll find her, alive, and set everything to rights."

Milton nodded, but said nothing.

In the other seat, Cecil sat speaking quietly with the eldest of his thieves until a bell rang, and everyone lapsed into silence. Tallant listened solemnly as first the priests spoke, and then Cecil, speaking for Mary, for Lily, about the women still missing.

He was an impressive speaker, but that did not really surprise Tallant—Milton was good at it too, when he had sufficient motivation to bother. It really was amusing how alike they were. After Milton left, their lives could not have been more different—one venturing off, one remaining behind—and yet they still had turned out so much the same.

"For those that do not already know," Cecil continued, "my brother Milton has returned to us this day. He and his friend, Master Tallant, have pledged their services to our cause. Make them welcome. I admonish you again not to relinquish hope. We have fought long and hard against the dragons, and we will defeat them. We'll not let this latest tragedy stop us. Thirteen women are still missing; we need to be strong if we are to find them. Now eat, relax, and prepare to face the morrow."

Of the imprisoned councilman, of his own imprisonment, Cecil made no mention. No one else brought it up, either. Tallant supposed that was for the best. He looked down the table at Cecil, and said, "So tell us about the missing women."

Cecil took a swallow of his wine, obviously avoiding Tallant's gaze as long as he could, but finally said, "It started a few weeks ago. The women, minus a special few, are not allowed to go beyond the castle walls without an escort, and only during certain times—and to certain places."

"But some of them snuck out," Tallant guessed.

"Lily and Mary," Cecil replied. "They wanted berries, because it was Lily's birthday and she wanted her mother to make her a berry cake. Mary came home screaming and crying in the late afternoon, saying that a monster had taken Lily and tried to take her too. We never could figure out what she meant by monster. A couple of days later, we woke up to find that Mary had been taken from her bed in the night. Ever since, every few days, another women is snatched from her bed. It doesn't matter what we do, or how we try to protect them. Then Irene—" He broke off, and drained his wine. "Irene went missing the same damned way. I'd wanted to protect her, but I had other duties that night.

"We have no idea who or what is behind it. At first, we suspected dragons—but no dragon takes girls from their beds. That means the culprit must be human, but everyone here is adversely affected in some way by at least one of the missing women, and we all feel the collective loss."

One of the twins leaned forward. "They thought it was us at first, 'cause so many other things kept going missing, and who but thieves would steal? But it ain't us. We don't steal from friends, and we don't steal people. Now the missing objects are turning up with the dead girls, who even knows what's going on."

Milton frowned. "What do you mean?"

"When we found Lily dead," Cecil replied, "she was holding something of mine. I used to carve things, mostly for Irene's dollhouse when we were growing up. Furniture, decorations, even an entire forest of trees that we covered in gold and silver leaf, with glass 'jewels' for the fruits."

"I remember that," Milton said with a smile, looking happy and sad all at once. He laughed, "Dollhouse hardly does you justice. It was a replica of the castle and surrounding land. Those trees were the forest. His Grace used to admire it, said he wished he could walk through forests of silver and gold and jewels."

Cecil nodded. "Lily was holding a branch of one of those trees when we found her body. That's why they locked me up for the murder. But those toys were packed away years ago. The whole castle. There was just no more time to play and fuss with it, not when we had stopped being children a long time ago. But Irene kept a couple of the trees. When they went missing, we just assumed some of the children had run off with them again. They had a way of vanishing and reappearing.

"But other things went missing too—trinkets, jewelry, little things like that. We didn't really noticed at first, because no one is going to tell me if they lost little things, personal items, and like I said—half the time, we assume the children are playing with stuff. The thefts were going on for months, we think, before we made the connection and noticed the vast numbers of missing items. We still do not know who is responsible."

Milton frowned. "What about His Grace?"

"What about him?" Cecil asked sourly. "He's locked up in the tower. His food is given to him through a hole in the bottom of the door. Irene visits him occasionally, but it always left her in tears. Henry holds the only key to the room. The only other way out is through a window too small for his Grace's corpulence. I do not see what he had to do with any of this, except that dealing with him on top of the mess he left for us is just one more burden."

"He fell mad shortly before the wards broke?"

"Right around that time, but to be honest I do not recall if it was before or after. Those were bad times." Cecil motioned for more wine, then drained half the cup.

"I see," Tallant said quietly, turning that bit of knowledge over in his mind. More than ever, he needed to see the break in the wards. "Speaking of the wards, would it be possible for me to get someone to take me out that way? Or simply give me directions."

"I'll take you," Cecil said. "I have to go out that way, anyway."

"Why?" Milton asked.

"That's near to where both bodies were found," Cecil replied, and finished his wine, motioning for a refill.

He had, Tallant noticed, barely touched his food. Frowning, Tallant searched for a subject change that might improve Cecil's mood, but could only come up with one feeble idea. "What was it you cut out of the dragon earlier?"

"Oh," Cecil said, as if suddenly remember something. From his waist he pulled a pouch, pulling the strings loose to open it and tipping out a cloth-wrapped bundle a little smaller than his fist. Unwrapping the cloth, he tipped the object into his hand.

"A firestone," Milton said, sounding astonished. "I don't believe it. How did even know where precisely to look? It's not easy simply to hack into a dragon's throat and cut it out without doing damage to it, I remember that much."

Cecil set the firestone on the table. "Books," he said. "They're in the library. I went in there one day with Henry to see if we could find anything at all to help us combat the dragons, even though the castle registries listed no such books. They were sitting on the table plain as day. No idea where they came from. They gave suggestions for fighting the dragons, for what to do with the corpses, how to dig out the firestones, and a great deal more."

"I see," Milton said idly, but Tallant knew that slight undertone to his voice. He cast Milton a look, and got the barest nod in return—he would explain everything to Tallant later. Tallant turned his attention back to the firestone. It was handsome, and resembled nothing so much as solidified flame. In dragons, firestones were used to light the liquid in their fire sacks. Only the firestone, or some other form of extreme heat, could make the liquid flammable.

In a dragon, the stone was always warm, and could be heated to the necessary temperatures. Perversely enough, humans often used the firestones to ward against fire. They could be used in jewelry, to enhance magic or ward against flames. If anyone was fool enough to build a fire hot enough to melt the stone—something that required magic—the resultant glaze could be placed on a chosen surface that would then be repellant to fire.

Tallant itched to pick it up, examine it. He sensed, however, that doing so would only annoy Cecil. "So what do you plan to do with it?"

"I haven't decided yet," Cecil replied, and tucked the stone away again. Then he picked up his wine and drained it again.

"Cecil, haven't you had enough—" Milton broke off at the furious look Cecil shot him.

"Do not think," Cecil said in low, angry tones, "that civility is any indication that I've changed my mind where you are concerned. Twelve years does not mean you can simply show up and be a part of my life as easily as that."

Standing up, Cecil strode off, ignoring the sudden silence, then the whispers, that followed in his wake. Milton tossed back his own wine then, and Tallant had never wanted to smack someone as badly as he wanted to smack Cecil right then.

"He has missed you," one of the twins said. "He'd kill us for saying so, but neither he nor Lady Irene ever stopped hoping you'd come back. He just tries to pretend he stopped. But, even now, he's probably sneaking off to the apple tree."

Tallant frowned. "Apple tree? As in, something to do with the tattoo on his arm?"

"The very same. He and Lady Irene have never explained, but even a halfwit could figure out that the tree is somehow tied to Milton."

"Where is this tree?" Tallant asked, and wondered why Henry had not told him there was a real tree involved, not merely a figurative one. "What are your names?" he asked belatedly, realizing they never had gotten the names of any of the brigands.

The other twin quirked a brow, looking amused. "I'm Lory, my brother is Kory. Then you've got Dane, Miner, and Rusty. As to Lord Cecil," he said with a snigger, "you'll find him behind in the garden behind the chapel."

Rising, resting a hand on Milton's shoulder to indicate he should remain, Tallant went to go find Cecil.