12
I TOOK COMFORT in the normalcy and routine of my garden that evening. I lingered a long time at the edge of Loud Lad’s ravine, watching him build a tent out of cattails and Pandowdy’s shed skin. Loud Lad, like Miss Fusspots, looked sharper and more detailed now that I had seen him in the real world; his fingers were long and nimble, the curve of his shoulders sad.
Fruit Bat was still the only grotesque who looked back at me. Despite my having asked him to stay in his grove, he came and sat beside me at the edge of the gorge, his skinny brown legs dangling over the edge. I found I didn’t mind. I considered taking his hands, but just thinking about it was overwhelming. I had enough to worry about right now. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“Besides,” I told him, as if we’d been having a conversation, “the way things are going, I have only to wait for you to drop in on me.”
He did not speak, but his eyes gleamed.
The next morning, I dawdled over washing and oiling my scales. I dreaded facing Princess Glisselda’s lesson; surely Kiggs would have spoken to her about me. When I finally arrived at the south solar, however, she wasn’t there. I sat at the harpsichord and played to comfort myself; the timbre of that instrument is, to me, the musical equivalent of a warm bath.
Today it was cold.
A messenger arrived with a message from the princess, canceling the lesson without explanation. I stared at the note a long time, as if the handwriting could tell me anything about her mood, but I wasn’t even sure she’d written it herself.
Was I being punished for insulting her cousin? It seemed likely, and I deserved it, of course. I spent the rest of the day trying not to think about it. I went about my (sulking) duties to Viridius, drilling the symphonia on the (pouting) songs of state, supervising construction of the (glowering) stage in the great hall, finalizing the line up for the (self-pitying) welcome ceremony, now just two days away. I threw myself (stewing) into work to stave off the (moping) feeling that descended when I stopped.
Evening fell. I made for the north tower and dinner. The quickest route from Viridius’s suite led past the chambers of state: the Queen’s study, the throne room, the council chamber. I always passed quickly; it was the sort of place my father would haunt. This evening, almost as if he’d heard me thinking about him, Papa stepped out of the council chamber and into my path, deep in conversation with the Queen herself.
He saw me—Papa and I have a cat’s-whisker sensitivity to each other—but he pretended he didn’t. I was in no mood for the humiliation of being pointed out to him by the Queen in the belief he hadn’t noticed me, so I ducked down a little side corridor and waited just on the other side of a statue of Queen Belondweg. I was not hidden, exactly, but out of the way enough that I wouldn’t be noticed by anyone who wasn’t looking for me. Other dignitaries streamed out of the council chamber; Dame Okra Carmine, Lady Corongi, and Prince Lucian Kiggs all passed my corridor without looking down it.
A merry voice at my back said, “Who are we spying on?”
I jumped. Princess Glisselda beamed at me. “There’s a secret door out of the council room. I’m evading that withered courgette, Lady Corongi. Has she passed?”
I nodded, shocked to find Princess Glisselda her usual impervious, friendly self. She was practically dancing with delight, her golden curls bouncing around her face. “I’m sorry I had to miss my lesson today, Phina, but we’ve been dreadfully busy. We just had the most exciting council ever, and I looked very clever, largely due to you.”
“That’s . . . that’s wonderful. What’s happened?”
“Two knights came to the castle today!” She could barely contain herself; her hands fluttered about like two excitable small birds. They lit briefly on my left arm, but I managed not to cringe visibly. “They claim to have spotted a rogue dragon, flying around the countryside in its natural shape! Isn’t that awful?”
Awful enough to have her grinning ear to ear. She was a strange little princess.
I found myself fingering my scaly wrist; I hastily crossed my arms. “Prince Rufus’s head went missing,” I half whispered, thinking out loud.
“As if it had been bitten off, yes,” said Princess Glisselda, nodding vigorously.
“Does the council suspect a connection between this dragon and his death?”
“Grandmamma doesn’t like the notion, but it seems unavoidable, does it not?” she said, bouncing on her heels. “We’re breaking for dinner now, but we’ll take the rest of the evening to figure out what to do next.”
I was fingering my wrist again. I clamped my right hand under my armpit. Stop that, hand. You’re banished.
“But I haven’t told you the best part,” said Glisselda, putting a hand to her chest as if she were about to make a speech. “I, myself, addressed the council and told them dragons view us as very interesting cockroaches, and that maybe some of them intended the peace as a ruse! Maybe they secretly plan to burn the cockroaches’ house down!”
I felt my jaw drop. Maybe this was why her governess didn’t tell her anything: give her an inch and she took it all the way to the moon. “H-how did that go over?”
“Everyone was astonished. Lady Corongi stammered something stupid, about the dragons being defeated and demoralized, but that only made her look a dunce. I believe we made the rest of them think!”
“We?” St. Masha’s stone. Everyone would think I was giving the princess mad ideas. I’d made the cockroach analogy, yes, but the house of burning bugs—to say nothing of the peace being a ruse!—was her own extrapolation.
“Well, I didn’t credit you, if that’s what you’re hoping,” she sniffed.
“No, no, that’s fine,” I said hastily. “You never need to credit me!”
Princess Glisselda looked suddenly stern. “I wouldn’t say never. You’re smart. That’s useful. There are people who would appreciate that quality. In fact,” she said, leaning in, “there are people who do, and you do yourself no favors alienating them.”
I stared at her. She meant Kiggs, there was no mistaking it. I gave full courtesy and she smiled again; her elfin face wasn’t made for sternness. She skipped off, leaving me to my thoughts and my regrets.
I mulled over her news on the way to supper. A rogue dragon in the countryside was unprecedented. Whose responsibility was it? I knew the treaty well, but that specific question wasn’t answered anywhere. On the Goreddi side, we would doubtless try to make the dragons deal with it—and yet how could they, without sending dragons in their natural shape to apprehend the rogue? That was unacceptable. But then what?
We relied heavily upon dragon cooperation in the enforcement of the treaty. If even a few of them refused to accept it anymore, what recourse had we but the help of other dragons? Wouldn’t that effectively invite them to battle each other in our skies?
My steps slowed. There wasn’t just the one rogue dragon. My own grandfather, banished General Imlann, had attended the funeral and sent Orma that coin. Could there be illegal, unregistered dragons all around, eschewing the bell and blending into crowds?
Or was there just the one after all? Could the knights have seen Imlann?
Could my own grandfather have killed Prince Rufus?
The idea made my stomach knot; I almost turned away from dinner, but I took a deep breath and willed myself forward. Dining hall gossip was a chance to learn more about the rogue, if more was known.
I crossed the long dining room to the musicians’ table and squeezed onto a bench. The lads were already deep in conversation; they barely noticed I was there. “Twenty years underground—are the old codgers even sane?” said Guntard around a mouthful of blancmange. “They probably saw a heron against the sun and took it for a dragon!”
“They want to stop Comonot’s coming by stirring up trouble, like the Sons,” said a drummer, picking raisins out of his olio. “Can’t blame ’em. Does it just about make the hairs on your neck stand up, dragons walking among us like they was people?”
Everyone turned in unsubtle unison to peer at the saars’ table, where the lowest-ranking members of the dragon embassy took dinner together. There were eight of them tonight, sitting like they had rods up their spines, hardly speaking. Servants shunned that corner; one saarantras returned the serving bowls to the kitchen if they needed a refill. They ate bread and root vegetables and drank only barley water, like abstemious monks or certain austere Samsamese.
A scrawny sackbutist leaned in close. “How do we know they all wear the bell? One could sit among us, at this very table, and we’d have nary an inkling!”
My musicians eyeballed each other suspiciously. I conscientiously followed suit, but curiosity had seized me. I asked, “What happened to the knights in the end? Were they released back into the wild?”
“Banished men, and likely troublemakers?” scoffed Guntard. “They’re locked in the eastern basement, the proper donjon being full of wine casks for some significant state visit coming up.”
“Sweet St. Siucre, which one might that be?” someone asked with a laugh.
“The one where your mother beds a saar and lays an egg. Omelette for all!”
I laughed mechanically along with everyone else.
The conversation turned to the concert schedule, and suddenly all inquiries were directed at me. I’d had an idea, however, and was too preoccupied with it to focus on their questions. I referred everyone to the schedule posted on the rehearsal-room door, handed my trencher to the little dogs under the table, and rose to take my leave.
“Seraphina, wait!” cried Guntard. “Everyone—how were we going to thank Mistress Seraphina for all the work she’s doing?” He blew a pitch whistle while his fellows hastily swallowed their mouthfuls and washed them down with wine.
To the great amusement of the rest of the dining hall, the saarantrai alone excepted, they began to sing:
O Mistress Seraphina,
Why won’t you marry me?
From first I ever seen ya,
I knew you were for me!
It’s not just that you’re sassy,
It’s not just that you’re wise,
It’s that you poke Viridius
In his piggy little eyes!
“Hurrah!” cried all my musicians.
“Boldly taking on Viridius, so we don’t have to!” cried a lone smarty-breeches.
Everyone burst out laughing. I smiled as I waved farewell—a real smile—and kept grinning all the way to the east wing. It had occurred to me that these knights might be able to describe the dragon in enough detail that Orma could identify it as Imlann. Then I would have real, concrete evidence for Lucian Kiggs, more than just a coin, a dragon’s worry, and the vaguest of vague descriptions.
Then perhaps I might work up enough courage to speak to him again. I owed him an apology, at the very least.
A single guard manned the top of the eastern basement steps. I stood a little straighter and wiped the leftover grin off my face; I needed all my serious concentration if I was to pull this off. I tried to make my steps ring out confidently as I approached. “Excuse me,” I said. “Has Captain Kiggs arrived yet?”
The fellow tugged his mustache. “Can’t say I’ve seen ’im, but I’ve just come on duty. He might be downstairs.”
I hoped not, but I’d deal with that if I had to. “Who’s on duty downstairs? John?” John was a good, common name.
His eyes widened a bit. “John Saddlehorn, yes. And Mikey the Fish.”
I nodded as if I knew them both. “Well, I don’t mind asking them myself. If Captain Kiggs shows up, would you please let him know I’m already below?”
“Hold on,” he said. “What’s this about? Who are you?”
I gave him a lightly flabbergasted look. “Seraphina Dombegh, daughter of the eminent lawyer Claude Dombegh, the Crown’s expert on Comonot’s Treaty. Captain Kiggs wanted my insight in questioning the knights. Am I in the wrong place? I had understood they were being held here.”
The guard scratched under his helmet, looking conflicted. I suspected he didn’t have specific orders against letting anyone down, but he still didn’t think he should.
“Come with me, if you like,” I offered. “I have a few questions about the dragon they saw. I hope we can identify it.”
He hesitated, but agreed to accompany me downstairs. Two guards sat outside a stout wooden door, playing kingfish on an upturned barrel; they lowered their cards confusedly at the sight of us. My guard jerked his thumb toward the stairs. “Mikey, take the top. When the captain arrives, tell him Maid Dombegh is already here.”
“What’s this, then?” said the one called John as my guard unlocked the door.
“She’s to question the prisoners. I’ll go in with her; you stay here.”
I didn’t want him there but saw no immediate way to prevent it. “You’re coming in for my protection? Are they very dangerous?”
He laughed. “Maidy, they’re old men. You’re going to have to speak loudly.”
The two knights sat up on their straw pallets, blinking at the light. I gave them half courtesy, keeping close by the door. They weren’t as decrepit as reported. They were gray-haired and bony, but had a certain wiry toughness; if the brightness of their eyes was any indication, they were playing “helpless old men” for everything they could.
“What have you brought us, lad?” asked the stouter one, who was bald and mustachioed. “Do you supply your prisoners with women now, or is this some newfangled way of making us talk?”
He was impugning my virtue. I ought to have been offended, but for some reason the idea tickled me. That could be my next career: instrument of torture! Seducing prisoners, and then revealing my scales! They would confess out of sheer horror.
The guard turned red. “Have some respect!” he blustered through his mustache. “She’s here on behalf of Captain Kiggs and Counselor Dombegh. You will answer her questions properly, or we will find harder quarters for you, Grandpa.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “Would you mind leaving us?”
“Maid Dombegh, you heard what he just said. It wouldn’t be proper!”
“It will be perfectly fine,” I assured him in a soothing voice. “Captain Kiggs will be down any minute now.”
He set the torch in a sconce and left me, grumbling. The room, which served as storage most of the time, contained some small casks; I pulled one up, sat down, and smiled warmly at the old men. “Which of you is which?” I said, realizing I would already know their names if I were here legitimately. To my embarrassment, I recognized the skinnier of the two, the one who hadn’t spoken yet. He had shooed Orma away from me at that disastrous dragon procession five years ago and had helped Maurizio carry me home. I had grown a lot taller since then, and he was old; maybe he didn’t remember me.
“Sir Karal Halfholder,” he said, sitting up straighter. He was dressed like a peasant, tunic, clogs, grubbiness, and all, but his mien was that of a well-bred man. “My brother-in-arms, Sir Cuthberte Pettybone.”
It was Sir Cuthberte who’d taken me for a strumpet. He bowed, saying, “My apologies, Maid Dombegh. I should not have been so boorish.”
Sir Karal attempted to preempt my next question: “We’ll never tell you where our brothers are hiding!”
“You’d have to seduce us first!” Sir Cuthberte twirled his mustache. Sir Karal glared at him, and Cuthberte cried, “She’s smiling! She knows I jest!”
I did know. For some reason, it kept being funny. Old men, hidden for decades with only other old men for company, found me worth flirting with. That was something.
“The Crown knows where your order is,” I said, suspecting that was likely true. “I don’t care about that; I want to know where you saw the dragon.”
“It came right up to our camp!” said Sir Karal. “We said that!”
Oops. I’d have known that if I weren’t lying. I tried to sound impatient: “From which angle? From the north? The village? The wood?” Saints in Heaven, let there be a village and a wood nearby. In Goredd, both were a good bet but not guaranteed.
However, I’d got them thinking, so they didn’t notice my ignorance. “It was dark,” said Sir Karal, scratching the stubble on his skinny chicken neck. “But you’re right, the beast could be staying in the village as a saarantras. That hadn’t occurred to us; we’d been looking to the limestone caves, south.”
My heart sank. If it was dark, they hadn’t seen much. “You’re certain it was a dragon?”
They looked at me disdainfully. “Maidy,” said Sir Karal, “we fought in the wars. I was left punch in a dracomachia unit. I have soared through the sky, dangling by my harpoon from a dragon’s flank while flaming pyria whizzed around me, scanning the ground desperately for a soft place to land when the beast finally caught fire.”
“We all have,” said Sir Cuthberte quietly, clapping his comrade on the shoulder.
“You don’t forget dragons,” snarled Sir Karal. “When I am blind and deaf, senile and stroke-addled, I will still know when I’m in the presence of a dragon.”
Sir Cuthberte smiled weakly. “They radiate heat, and they smell of brimstone.”
“They radiate evil! My soul will know, even if body and mind don’t work!”
His hatred hurt me more than it had any right to. I swallowed and tried to keep my voice pleasant: “Did you get a good look at this particular dragon? We suspect we know who he is, but any confirming detail would help. Distinctive horn or wing damage, for example, or coloration—”
“It was dark,” said Sir Karal flatly.
“It had a perforation in its right wing,” offered Sir Cuthberte. “Closest membrane to its body. Shape of a . . . I don’t know. A rat, I want to say. The way they hunch their backs when they eat.” He demonstrated, realized how silly he looked, and laughed.
I laughed back, and pulled out my charcoal pencil. “Draw it on the wall, please.”
Both knights stared at the pencil, horror writ large on their faces. St. Masha and St. Daan. It was a draconian innovation.
Mercifully, they blamed not me but the peace. “They infiltrate everything, these worms,” cried Sir Karal. “They’ve got our women carrying their blasted devices as casually as smelling oils!”
Sir Cuthberte took it nonetheless and drew a shape upon the wall’s graying plaster. Sir Karal corrected the shape. They squabbled a bit but finally settled on something that did, indeed, look like a rodent eating corn.
“That was his only distinguishing mark?” I asked.
“It was dark,” said Sir Cuthberte. “We were lucky to make out that much.”
“I hope it’s enough.” Long experience with Orma told me the odds weren’t good.
“Whom do you suspect it is?” said Sir Karal, his fists clenched in his lap.
“A dragon called Imlann.”
“General Imlann, who was banished?” asked Sir Cuthberte, looking unexpectedly delighted. The knights both whistled, long and low, producing an interval of rather apropos dissonance.
“Did you know him?”
“He led the Fifth Ard, didn’t he?” Sir Cuthberte asked his fellow.
Sir Karal nodded gravely. “We fought the Fifth twice, but I never grappled the general. Sir James Peascod, at our camp, specialized in identification. He’d be your best bet. I don’t suppose you asked Sir James if he knew this dragon, did you, Cuthberte?”
“Didn’t occur to me.”
“Pity,” sniffed Sir Karal. “Still, how does knowing his name help you catch him?”
I didn’t know, now that he mentioned it, but tried to answer logically: “We can’t catch him without the embassy’s help, and they won’t help us if they don’t believe us. They might be motivated if we had proof it was Imlann.”
Sir Karal turned dangerously red; I could see his pulse at his temple. “That baby-eating worm was in clear violation of the treaty. You’d think that would be enough for them, if they had any honor! Be it known that we upheld our part of that accursed agreement. We didn’t attack it, although we could have!”
Sir Cuthberte snorted. “Who could have? Pender and Foughfaugh? That would have been over in seconds.”
Sir Karal glared venom at Sir Cuthberte. “I tire of this. Where’s Captain Kiggs?”
“Good question,” I said, rising and dusting off my skirts. “I’ll look for him. Thank you for your time, gentle knights.”
Sir Karal rose and bowed. Sir Cuthberte said, “What? No kiss?”
I blew him a kiss, laughing, and left.
Outside, the guards seemed surprised to see me. “Captain Kiggs still hasn’t arrived, Maid Dombegh,” said John, pushing back his helmet.
I smiled, merry with relief that this was over and I’d gotten away with it. I would return to my rooms, contact Orma on the kitten spinet, and see whether he could identify his father from the perforation. “Captain Kiggs must have been detained. No matter—I’m finished here. I’ll go see whether I can find him.”
“You won’t have far to go,” said a voice from halfway up the stairs.
Prince Lucian descended the stairs, and my heart descended into my stomach.