A Dragon In the Palace Page 2

  “Once again, lad, there’s nothing to worry about. I have no doubt that after you’ve talked with the inquisitors we will be speaking again. Mistress Iliana has asked me to take over part of your tuition, to see if your gifts lie in my sphere and I believe I will grant her request.”

  He stopped as if he expected me to say something. It came to me then that he was expecting gratitude.

  He was a powerful mage and must be good at what he did. Mistress Iliana respected his powers and she was in a far better position to judge such things. Our conversations had served another purpose than simply judging my health. Master Lucas had been assessing me as a potential apprentice or at least pupil. Perhaps that explained his manner. Perhaps that was what he had been hiding. I doubted it. A man in his position would not really need to waste too much time considering the feelings of some country bumpkin who just happened to have wandered into the Palace.

  “I would be grateful for anything that you could teach me, sir,” I said. “I am sure I have much to learn.”

  “You have the right attitude at least. Mages always have much to learn. The process never stops and it’s best to get into the habit of acknowledging that as young as possible. It reassures me that if nothing else you will be a diligent pupil.”

  He was flattering me and I could not understand why. I still had no real idea the way the world I had fallen into worked.

  “Get some rest, lad. Tell the inquisitors what they want to know and fear nothing. For you have nothing to fear, have you?”

  He turned when he got to the door and gave me a nod of his head and a final assessing look. Then he went out and I heard the lock click behind him.

  No sooner was he gone than Red gave a mocking screech and scampered back over to me, snuggled down under my arm and began to nuzzle at my chest. It took me a few moments to realise that he was looking for the wraithstone amulet. He had obviously decided that it was a toy and that it belonged to him.

  I took it out and dangled it before his nose. Every time he went to snap his jaws around it I jerked it upwards. He screeched in protest and began to chase after it. Soon, he was tugging at it, wings beating against my face, completely ignorant of the depth of shadow that lurked within the pure white stone.

  I pushed all thoughts of the Inquisition and Master Lucas from my mind and I wondered what Lady Alysia was doing right now. I wondered if she was thinking of me as much as I was thinking of her.

  Chapter Two

  A servant entered bearing food and a pitcher of water. As he had done every day for the past four days, he asked if I needed anything else and I assured him that I did not. He walked around the room, lit the lantern, inspected the windows and left.

  It struck me that, as with Master Lucas, his four times daily visits were a good way of checking up on me. I wondered where he stayed. The bell on the bedside table summoned him in heartbeats if I needed anything so he must be close by.

  The room was hot and the drapes and shutters were closed. There were lots of strange noises, the shouts of street vendors in the distance, the tolling of temple bells, the blowing of horns, the cawing of gulls, the bellowing of the guard sergeants at some infraction of discipline.

  The air tasted odd, warm and moist and at night there was the rhythmic flashing of the Lighthouse. It flickered constantly bright, then dark then bright then dark.

  Even under normal circumstances, it would have been difficult to sleep, and these were not normal circumstances. I was young. I was full of energy and I felt confined. I could tell Red felt the same way. He fluttered around the room, lashed his tail, begged for food and attention.

  Pellets of excrement piled up in corners and added to the odour of the chamber. I don’t think the servants appreciated this when they came to clean but it was not their job to complain. I had already had a taste of the sort of discipline the nobility imposed on their underlings during my tenure as one.

  Sir Vorster had felt it perfectly permissible to break my nose for a perceived slight. I ground my teeth when I thought about him. One of my dearest ambitions was to repay that blow.

  I told myself I probably should not mention that to the inquisitors the next day. I tried to picture them in my mind but all I conjured up were images of cowled men brandishing implements of torture, and building bonfires for the burning of wizards.

  I considered trying to work some magic but Mistress Iliana had impressed on me the folly of that. My reluctance also had something to do with facing the question on the morrow. The churchmen might be able to smell the magic on me. I need give no more fuel to their prejudices. I felt certain those would be quite strong enough as things stood.

  How had it come to this? A few weeks back my biggest worry had been finding stray goats on my father’s hardscrabble land. Now I had to answer questions put to me by those even the nobility had cause to fear. The Inquisition made even my mistress nervous and I had seen her confront a small army of monsters alone without dismay.

  I tossed and turned as the thoughts chased themselves around in my head. I worried about meeting this Inquisitor Franco unrested and that just made it even more difficult to keep my eyes closed.

  Eventually I gave up the fight and walked over to the windows. The shutters were locked. Up till that time I had thought it just another inconvenience but it occurred to me that perhaps they were not just meant to keep me in but others out.

  I had helped kill an assassin and thwarted his mission. The Crimson Brotherhood might want revenge for that. They had come upon our caravan disguised as monks. Perhaps some of them stalked the palace even now, dressed as servants or courtiers.

  I was glad I had been allowed to keep my father’s dagger. It glinted on the cabinet beside the bed, and I walked over to it. Red stayed beside the windows, scratching at the shutters as if he hoped to burrow through them. I picked up the blade and inspected it. It was still sharp enough to shave with, if I had needed to.

  I wondered what Da was doing now. Sleeping most like, alongside my mother while my sisters rested in the loft and my brother Sadec lay beside the fire. I missed them all and wished I was with them.

  And yet some part of me was glad I was here too, in a palace in a great city. I had talked with magicians. I had a pet dragonling. I had cast a spell. I wanted to tell my family that, to impress them with tales of my adventures. Maybe someday I would learn the magic that would let me raise a carpet into the air, or cross the distance between here and our farm in a few strides. Wouldn’t that be something?

  Of course, that was if I was not burned at the stake first.

  Red gave up on his escape plan and fluttered over to join me. He settled on my knee. Slowly his head went down, and small snores started. Perhaps it was my imagination but occasionally when he breathed I smelled brimstone. I had better not mention that to the inquisitors either.

  Sometime during the long night I drifted off and before I knew it morning ambushed me.

  It was not a servant who came for me. The door opened and a bird-like young man in the golden robes of a priest entered. He had an elder sign and a solar disk on his chest. Behind him were two soldiers, grim-faced and somewhat embarrassed looking.

  “Good morning,” said the young man. His features were almost as dark as my own and he had a thick accent I could not place. He did not look or sound like he belonged to the Sunlander nobility. His fingers were ink-stained. When he came closer I noticed he smelled of incense and something else. “I am Frater Jonas. I have come to escort you to your interview.”

  “My name is Raif.” I bowed as Lady Alysia had once shown me, to one of slightly higher status and he smiled as if he understood. I looked at the soldiers. “I will not run away.”

  “I did not think you would. I am still a stranger in the Palace and needed someone to show me to your chamber.”

  It was a fast, glib response but I suspected there might be some truth in it. “It’s just as well someone knows. I have not been out of this room since I got here.”

 
“Let us see what we can do to change that, shall we?” Jonas indicated the doorway with a courtly gesture, as if he had just paid me a visit to ask me for a stroll. I shrugged and indicated that he should go first. He bowed again, as if I were doing him a supreme politeness and made his way through the doorway.

  Soon we were ambling along a darkened corridor with the soldiers in tow and he said, “This palace is an interesting place. It was once a Solari Basilica.”

  “A what?” I said, wondering if he was putting me in my place, letting me know how superior his learning was. He did not look as if he was more than a few years older than me, if that.

  “They were the administrative centres of the ancient Solari Empire, places where the Imperial Governors dwelt. We have a number of them in Siderea.”

  That explained his accent. I found myself interested in spite of myself. “I have never met anyone from Siderea before. Do they all sound like you?”

  He tilted his head to one side, a curious gesture, at once predatory and birdlike. There was a moment of silence and I wondered if somehow I had insulted him. At last he said, “Not everybody. Just the peasants.”

  He sounded both aggressive and embarrassed, as if daring me to say something. I thought of Sir Vorster and the way he had so casually broken my nose. It seemed Frater Jonas might have encountered similar such prejudice. “Do many peasants join the priesthood in Siderea?”

  “No. Our local priest saw possibilities in me. He taught me my letters and recommended me to the Church and a position was found for me in a charity school and later within my order. I ended up being sent here to assist Frater Franco. This is my first posting.”

  I felt a certain amount of sympathy for him and wondered if I was supposed to. Perhaps the whole story had been invented purely to give us some common ground. Something about Jonas’s manner and his accent told me this was not the case. Nonetheless I felt wary around him. He was sharp and clever and a member of the Inquisition, no matter how humble his origins.

  “You’ve come a very long way.” I said, without realising the ambiguity in my words.

  “In more ways than one. But you are still the first sorcerer I have spoken with.”

  I laughed at that. “And you are the first inquisitor I have talked to.”

  “I am not an inquisitor, I am an inquisitor’s clerk.” I was starting to feel a little more relaxed. So far things had not proven quite as terrifying as I expected and Jonas was hardly awe-inspiring. I told myself to be careful. Perhaps this was all a ruse, to lull me into a false sense of security.

  “I am not a sorcerer. I am a servant.”

  “I thought you were an apprentice.”

  “I might be that too.”

  “Might?” I caught the interest in his voice and I wondered if I had already been lured into saying too much.

  “It’s early days yet,” I said. We emerged from the corridor into a bright courtyard in which orange trees bloomed. I paused for a moment while my eyes adjusted to the light. The morning heat pressed down on me.

  Red took the opportunity to flap into the branches. He began batting at the oranges, much to the consternation of one of the gardeners who waved a hoe at him.

  Remembering what Master Lucas had said, I called for the dragonling to come back. He must have sensed my panic for he left off impaling an orange in his claws and soared over to me. He landed on my shoulder, and his talons bit into the cloth of my tunic. I hoped I was not going to have to pay for any repairs. The material looked expensive.

  “Your pet is very well trained,” said Frater Jonas. “Have you had him long?”

  In the sunlight I saw his face much more clearly and he was even less frightening. He still had spots and his hair gleamed oily and black. It flopped down over his forehead, and he constantly had to smooth it away. He also looked genuinely interested, a boy talking to another boy about a pet he would have liked himself. I wondered how much of this was acting.

  “Just a few weeks. I found him with Ruth.” As soon as the words, left my mouth I felt I had said too much. Glancing around I saw a couple of familiar figures lounging around in the shadows on the far side of the courtyard. One was medium height, blonde, chubby, ruddy-faced and innocent looking. The other was red-haired, tall, very broad and quite obviously an outlander. He raised his hand and waved to me, grinning all the while.

  I waved back vigorously. As I hoped it distracted Jonas from my mention of the girl. “You know those two?”

  “They are friends of mine, soldiers in the service of the Duke.” I did not mention their names. It would be easy enough for Jonas to find them out but I was not going to make it easier for him.

  “You met them on your travels?” He sounded as if he was ticking something off on a mental checklist. I suspected he already knew who Jay and Ghoran were.

  “It would have been difficult for me to have met them anywhere else. I spent my whole life on a farm outside of Khorba until I signed on with Mistress Iliana.”

  “You are from Khorba?” Once again, I had the feeling he was confirming something he already knew.

  “Yes. I am surprised you have heard of it. It’s deep in the middle of nowhere.” I wanted to show him I was suspicious. I was not sure what I thought I would gain from that but sometimes there’s not a lot of thinking attached to these decisions.

  “It has come up in conversation,” he said blandly.

  “In discussions of Lady Alysia’s trip from Tarnheim, you mean?”

  He nodded and then looked embarrassed himself. Perhaps he felt the conversation was slipping from his control. I certainly felt it was slipping from mine.

  “One of your friends is a Northlander.”

  “Ghoran? Yes.”

  “He follows the Old Ones?”

  “I’ve never heard him mention it.”

  Jonas paused and took a deep breath. He smoothed down his robe with his fine-boned hands, glanced at Ghoran and then at me. “There is no need for hostility. I am not your enemy.”

  There was a testiness to his tone that let me know that I was well on my way to changing that. I did not like being threatened but I did not see what was to be gained by antagonising someone in a position of power over me. “I do not think you are. I am just nervous. I have never been summoned by the Inquisition before, never been in a palace before, never even been in a town this big, if truth be told.”

  His conspiratorial grin showed very white teeth. “That makes two of us. Aside from the Inquisition part, of course.”

  “Of course,” I said. In that moment things changed. We had a shared experience of sorts, and I felt certain that he was not simply conjuring it up for his own purposes. There was a basic human bond there that could be built on. “How long have you been in Solsburg?”

  He looked at the orange tree, as if he was finding an answer there. “Just under a moon. It is very different from where I come from. We’re beside the sea here for one thing.”

  “Siderea is a nation famous for its sailors.”

  “What you rarely hear mentioned is the hot desert interior, or the mountains. Bits of it are not unlike your Bleak Lands. Not a particularly easy place for people to live.”

  We started across the courtyard. By now, Red had noticed Ghoran and was gliding towards him. He suspected he would find food there and that was something he was always on the hunt for.

  “The bits you come from?”

  Ghoran waved a bit of sausage at him. Red landed on his arm. Jay produced a small sausage as well, then decided against giving it to Red and began to munch on it himself. The sight made me smile.

  “The same. My father was a serf on one of the great estates. I am lucky to have got where I have. It was not much of a life. Old by the time you’ve seen thirty summers.”

  I thought of Da and his illness and his troubles with our liege lord’s rent and taxes. “It seems things are much the same wherever the Sunlanders settle.”

  As soon as the words left my mouth I realised they were a mistake. It
was not wise to criticise the conquerors of Umbrea and half of our world. It could even be taken as a criticism of the Church if one was so inclined. After all, the Sunlanders were the Holy Sun’s chosen people. According to them, if nobody else.

  I half-expected Jonas to charge me with heresy on the spot, but he merely nodded agreement. “It’s the same most everywhere. Still, the Sunlanders are better than the Old Ones. At least they are human.”

  Even I was not stupid enough to disagree with that. We reached the edge of the courtyard and I turned and extended my arm, and called to Red once again. Much to my surprise he sprang into the air and flew towards me at once. He landed on my shoulder and wagged his tail happily, then opened his mouth and gave a meaty belch.

  After that, we passed into another courtyard, then down a flight of circular stairs into the dungeons where Jonas’s master, the Inquisitor, waited.

  Chapter Three

  Frater Franco was an imposing man. His hair was steel grey. His beard was neatly trimmed. His eyes were a wintery blue. His thin lips compressed even further when Jonas and I entered. The young Siderean stood taller immediately, and his face went blank and bland and respectful.

  “You took your time,” said Franco. His voice was clipped and his accent sounded much the same as every other Sunlander noble’s I had encountered. I wondered whether he came from Siderea or Umbrea.

  “I rose late, sir,” I said.

  Franco tilted his head to one side and said, “I was not talking to you, boy. I was talking to my clerk.”

  Jonas said, “Yes, Frater. I am sorry, Frater. It took me some time to locate the subject’s chambers, Frater.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Franco gestured curtly to a stool in front of a desk. He sat down himself on a chair behind a table on which papers were piled high. Light slanted down from a barred cellar window to illuminate it. A single elder sign hung from the wall.