Jr recisely one step into his wife’s solar, Pol was accosted by a child who climbed him like a tree and demanded a lengthy list of indulgences at the top of her lungs. Making sure a thick carpet was under him, Pol collapsed onto it, howling for mercy.
“Jihan!” Meiglan clapped her hands sharply. “Stop that at once!”
“He did it on purpose,” Jihan asserted, immobilizing the paternal right arm through the simple expedient of sitting on it. “Please, Papa, please can we go to the lake? And ride our new ponies and will you be our dragon and I’ll even let Rislyn win this time, please?”
Pol eyed his offspring with the mixture of exasperation and affection that usually meant Jihan got whatever she wanted. “If you want to play dragons, then don’t break my wing!”
Instant cooperation. Pol levered himself up from the rug and secured Jihan under one arm. He grabbed Rislyn up in the other and growled. Shrieks became giggles as he tickled; they attacked; he eventually surrendered; Meiglan watched the entire performance with a resigned sigh.
At last order was restored. Pol gave his wife a belated good-morning kiss and shook his head at her offer of breakfast.
“Not today, I’m afraid. My steward awaits. By the way, Jihan, if you’re set on a swim, why don’t you take my squires with you? I won’t need them this morning, and they could do with some fun.”
“Do I have to? Kierun never says anything and Dannar makes me sick.”
“Jihan!” exclaimed Meiglan.
“Well, it’s true, Mama. Do I have to ask them?”
Pol kept a straight face. “It’s a princess’ duty to get along with her father’s squires.”
“Oh, all right. May I be excused now, Mama?”
“Fold your napkin,” Meiglan instructed, “and change out of your new dress before you ruin it—“ But Jihan was already out the door. “Pol, I despair of that child! She simply must learn some manners. I won’t have her disgracing us by being so ungovernable.”
“Don’t worry,” he soothed. “She has Rislyn’s gentle example, doesn’t she, little one?” He smiled at his other daughter. Like Jihan, she was small for her age, but almost frail where her sister was quick and wiry. No one who knew the truth of Pol’s ancestry ever said it aloud, but it had not gone unnoticed that Rislyn’s eyes were as limpid a green as Roelstra’s, while Jihan’s were Rohan’s startling blue. It was convenient that Pol’s own eyes were a changeable combination of both. But the real distinction between the twins was signaled by the fact that Jihan swam like a fish and Rislyn paled at the sight of water. She had inherited Pol’s Sunrunner gifts; Jihan was pure diarmadhi.
“Shall we really ride our new ponies today, Papa?” Rislyn asked hesitantly.
“We shall,” he confirmed. “Give me a kiss, ladies, I’m off to my daily ordeal. Pity your poor prince, who has to work so hard on such a lovely day!”
The morning beckoned to him through the hallway windows as he strode resolutely to his office. Infinitely more pleasant to conduct business in the open air—but also unconducive to getting any real work done. Except for pruning the roses, redesigning a flowerbed, or coaxing a shy herb to grow. He ordered himself to attend to the affairs of his princedom—and stopped to look wistfully out at the gardens anyway.
Pride of ownership sang in him. Much as he loved Stronghold, it had belonged to his family for generations. Dragon’s Rest was his creation. Every stone of it, every tree and fountain and carpet and tapestry and tile. Here, the generations would be counted from him.
Footsteps down the corrider alerted him to the arrival oi his steward. Suppressing a sigh, he greeted the man and invited him into his office. By noon he’d heard the reports submitted by his masters of horse, hawk, and guard; de- cided the inheritance of eleven disputed farms; discussed the number of wolves to be hunted that winter (enough to decrease the threat to herds but not enough to overpopulate mountain elk and deer); chosen an official gift for his father-by-marriage’s birthday; signed multiple copies of documents needed to authorize various shipments to various princedoms; and settled how many people would be needed from the surrounding countryside to help with the harvest. A tidy morning’s work—but he hadn’t taken a breath of air outside since waking.
Before his marriage, he’d done pretty much as he liked. He ate when he was hungry, slept when he was tired, and took care of his princedom in between building Dragon’s Rest. Rialt had done most of the work Pol loathed, the kind that involved sitting at a desk with piles of parchments. But for the past few years Rialt had been regent of Waes. Halian had forfeited the city and all its revenues—a mere slap on the wrist for Chiana’s raising an army, sorcerer-inspired or not. Charged with making Waes a model of profit and efficiency, Rialt had succeeded admirably; his administrative talents were perfectly suited to the task. Still, in losing him, Pol had lost his own comparative freedom and gained long days at this damned desk.
His stomach started growling halfway through a review of the upcoming law court. The steward politely pretended not to notice. Pol drank some water. The growl became a gurgle. He coughed to hide the sound. When a second cup of water sloshed inside him like wine in a half-empty barrel, he gave up and grinned.
“My brain is fascinated by the prospect of deciding who has the better claim to which plow-elk, but my stomach has other ideas. Shall we continue later?”
“As you wish, my lord,” the steward said. “If it’s convenient, the winemaster begs a few words sometime today.”
“Fine.” Pol hid his eagerness; consultation with Master Irul might include a long walk through the vineyards— precisely what he needed.
The steward shuffled parchments and ceremoniously bowed himself out. Pol sighed for the old days, when Rialt had run palace and princedom by consulting him and then writing appropriate orders. All Pol ever had to do then was read, sign, seal—and return to his horses, his gardens, his crops, or his architects.
He would have been entirely happy with only those things to occupy him. Uninterrupted enjoyment of the gentle arts of peace was just what Rohan had wanted to accomplish. Rich crops and fat cattle were impossible in the Desert; Dragon’s Rest was as much Rohan’s dream as Pol’s. Long, tranquil seasons of growth and plenty, the simple life of a farmer—
Pol heard his breath exhale in an absurdly wistful sigh and burst out laughing. Some simple farmer it was who held conversations with a dragon.
Not that that art was anywhere near perfected. Yet. But Pol now communicated easily with Azhdeen, in a strange combination of emotion and Sunrunner conjurings. He thought of the dragon as his, just as Elisel was Sioned’s. But the dragons saw it the other way around.
Three years ago, Riyan had learned to “speak” with Sadalian, a young green-bronze sire—and not by choice. The dragon had simply landed in front of him one afternoon outside Skybowl and established contact in a swirl of brilliant colors. This summer Morwenna’s trepidation had succumbed to a dainty little blue-gray female she named Elidi. It was six years this spring since Hollis had approached her dragon, though she couldn’t explain what process had led to the selection. “I just knew,” Hollis had said. “Abisel isn’t the biggest sire or the most beautiful—but there’s something about him...” The bemusement in her smile made Maarken and Ruala nod with perfect understanding; they had picked their dragons the same way. Friendships with seven dragons out of the hundreds that flew Desert skies was promising, but the exclusivity of such contact frustrated Pol. Dragons were intrigued by their humans, always treated them with care—and never deigned to speak with any others. When Maarken tried to discover the reason for this, Pavisel reacted with a snort, a toss of her black head, and a scornful conjure of other dragons tripping over their own wings.
“I think she’s saying the others are too stupid,” Maarken reported. “But you know something else? I think they’re jealous. We belong to them—one person, one dragon. They don’t object to talks between other humans and other dragons, but...” And he gave that bewildered shrug that was fast becoming characteristic of someone who talked with a dragon.
It gnawed at Pol sometimes that the one person who should have been able to was incapable of it. Of them all, Rohan should know communion with a dragon.
“Ah, but I have my dragons, Pol,” he smiled when Pol complained about how unfair it was. “Hundreds of them— every dragon that ever flew across the Long Sand. I belong to all of them.”
Pol met his new winemaster in the lower garden. Sioned had coaxed and cajoled and finally pried Master Irul loose from the vineyards at Catha Freehold this summer. Dragon’s Rest had potential that she was determined to see—or perhaps “taste” was the more appropriate term—fulfilled. Having spent the summer inspecting every aspect of the winemaking from the trellises to the shape of the bottles, the master now gave Pol his succinct verdict:
“Pig swill.”
Pol blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Grapes left too long on the vine. First fermentation vats a disaster. Too much resin in the wood. Aging barrels all wrong. Porous, bad design, aftertaste like rotted wood.”
“That’s quite a condemnation,” Pol said, amused.
Irul shrugged. He was a short, burly, sun-weathered man who took two steps to Pol’s one as they walked the vineyards. “Drinkable, I suppose. To anyone lacking a tongue. Dump it. Serve it to unwanted guests.” Stopping beside a row of vines, he plucked a single fat grape. A slight pressure of thick fingers split the skin. Irul sniffed, then licked his fingers. “Juice, skin, no pulp, just enough sugar. We harvest tomorrow. There might be enough decent wine for the next Rialla.”
“So my mother hopes.”
“Best nose in the princedoms—except mine.” Irul rubbed a leaf between his fingers. “Good climate, this. Cool mornings, hot afternoons. I’ve cost you a fortune in new vats, but worth it.”
“I’ll hold you to that, Master Irul. And I expect something worth drinking by next summer. The lighter wines should be ready by then, yes?”
“Perhaps,” he conceded with a grunt.
Pol thanked him and continued up the hill. From the cool shade of the woods crowning the rise, he could see most of the valley, but not the shimmering lake to the north or the sheep kept penned there for the dragons’ refreshment. Pol lazed back on his elbows to observe his little world, smiling.
Irul was dictating harvest orders to the farmers; down the valley, the master of horse supervised saddle-breaking. The tall, skinny figure of the cook proceeded in state to the vegetable garden, trailed by a small troop of kitchen servants whom he set to picking produce for dinner. The chief steward crossed the garden on his daily inspection, and stopped to argue with the head groundskeeper—also a daily occurrence. The chamberlain ran out of the Princes Hall, waving her arms madly at the men washing the windows; the guardmaster set up archery practice in a newly shorn wheatfield; and from the wooden village hall that also served as a schoolhouse, dozens of children were being shooed back inside after their games.
Pol laughed softly at all this industrious activity that enabled their prince to lounge in idle repose. Despite the time he put in on management and governance, he had no illusions about who really ruled Dragon’s Rest. He was surrounded by despots who did all the work for him—the secret to being a successful prince, according to his father.
“Find people who know what they’re doing, and let them do it. It leaves one free to think great thoughts—which is frequently best done with one’s eyes closed.”
Aware that his lids were indeed drooping, Pol pushed himself to his feet. He had a game of dragons to play—and a warning to give Jihan not to break the chamberlain’s heart by riding this pony across the flawless polished floor of the Princes Hall.
“I know Gemma and I have outstayed our welcome—“ Tilal began, and Pol laughed.
“According to whom? Not me, and not Meggie.”
“According to my daughter!” Tilal grinned and kicked at the pebbled pathway of the water garden. “I know—she’s sixteen, not six. As she informs me at least once a day. But I still can’t help thinking of her—“
“As your little girl?” Pol suggested.
“Go on, laugh—but remember this when your own hatch-lings try their wings!”
Pol couldn’t imagine Dragon’s Rest without Jihan and Rislyn, and said so. Tilal’s turn to laugh.
“Now you’ve got some idea of how I feel. First Rihani went off to become a squire, and now Sioneva’s going to be here with you—Sorin’s only nine, but in a few years he’ll be fostered, too. I tell you, Pol, it’s depressing.”
“Then let’s change the subject. How long will it take Kolya to rebuild his fishing boats? The storms on Lake Kadar this winter were pretty vicious, judging by the wood you skinned me out of this year.”
“Actually, I keep telling myself that’s the main reason I’m staying on. Laric’s helping with a new design so Kolya can get as many boats as possible from your timber. Goddess knows you were stingy enough with it!”
They continued trading affectionate accusations as they left the water garden for the front lawns. Tilal and Gemma could stay all winter if they liked; Pol enjoyed filling Dragon’s Rest with his friends and family. Sioneva, another in the ranks of Sioned’s namesakes, would be living here for the odd year or so under Meiglan’s care. The custom of fostering young highborn boys to other courts had expanded recently to include their sisters—Meggie’s idea, for she had grown up totally ignorant of anything outside her home manor of Gracine and her father’s Castle Pine. Her object was to give the girls wider experience—but Pol embraced the plan because the exchange of sons and daughters forged alliances. What she did through kind concern that others would not suffer her agonies of inadequacy, he approved for political reasons.
“Any quiver of dragons yet, azhrtf” Tilal asked suddenly.
Pol arched a brow. “I note the distinction between azhri and azhreil”
“Only one Dragon Prince. Back when I was his squire, I learned to recognize the signs in him, but I never did figure out how he did it.”
“One of life’s mysteries.”
“Like the ones Andry’s weaving around the Goddess?” Tilal made a face. “Tell me, Pol, wasn’t it nicer when she was simply here, and we could chat with her without all these ritual mumblings?”
This was a sore point, but Pol kept hold of his temper. “Doubtless Andry uses what words he sees fit. I’m no more qualified to advise him in such things than he is to make recommendations about Princemarch.”
“That will come.” The Kierstian green eyes were dark with warning. “I’ve noticed a few signs, myself. Like people wearing little medallions carved with that sunburst crest.”
“Charming,” he rasped.
“And there’s not a damned thing we can do, is there?”
“Except trust to people’s sense.”
“When Sunrunner physicians are more and more sought after? They aren’t any better trained and they use the same remedies—with the same rate of success. But a Sunrunner has a direct link to the Goddess,” Tilal finished angrily.
“I really don’t want to discuss this, Tilal.”
“No, nobody does. That’s the problem. We complain in private—and let Andry do as he likes. I knew him when he was little, Pol. What happened to him? Power? Is that the explanation?”
“Among other things.” He greeted the arrival of his daughters with relief. But taking them to the paddocks, lifting them to their new ponies, watching them put the animals through their paces—both girls were splendid riders even at seven years old—served as only a minor distraction. He kept remembering a conversation he’d had with his parents this summer.
“It’s my fault,” Rohan sighed when Sioned stormed into the Tapestry Room with news that Pirro of Fessenden had dismissed his court physician in favor of a Sunrunner. “If I hadn’t set up the school in Gilad to rival Goddess Keep...”
In 728, a young famdhi trained but not perfected in medical arts had failed to cure a Giladan master weaver. Had Andry paid the death-price according to Giladan law, the whole unfortunate business could have been forgotten. But he had insisted that the woman had been acting as a Sunrunner, under no jurisdiction but that of the Lord of Goddess Keep.
Cabar of Gilad had been furious. Rohan had been forced to decide between essentially equal claims. He chose neither, citing ancient law that Goddess Keep was held of the High Prince; thus ultimate authority over Sunrunners was his. Andry’s rage was beyond repairing. Cabar had been placated—barely—by establishment in Gilad of a school for physicians, whose training until then had been unregulated. Sunrunners received basic medical education, but could not be expected to see to the needs of the whole continent. Physicians took on apprentices, as in any other trade, but there were vast differences in skills and methods. Rohan had hoped to remedy this by creating a school where learning could be shared, new techniques devised, and training standardized to provide a higher degree of competence.
In large part, it worked. Medical care improved. Those who lacked apprentice fees paid for the education with a year’s service to an established master and a tax on earnings for the first three years of practice. Tobin had forbidden Rohan to pay all expenses himself; such blatant use of dragon wealth was unwise and, practically speaking, the school must be self-supporting.
At first the older physicians balked. But then they began to receive assistants who, already well trained, worked for room and board and moreover knew the very latest treatments. It became a matter of prestige to have such an assistant—as long as he or she decently deferred in public to the opinions of the senior physician—and to boast that one had been sought out for training that not even the Giladan school could provide.
Then Andry decreed that the eighth faradhi ring would signify a Master Physician. Sunrunners who had earned it prior to this rule had three choices: qualify for it, give it up, or break with Goddess Keep. Very few had the courage for the last.
“It is not your fault!” Sioned fumed that summer morning. “Competition was never the idea, damn it! This is Andry’s doing. All these rituals and—and incantations!—they use Sunrunner’s Fire to light a sickroom candle!”
Rohan shrugged. “Which of us, when we’re ill, won’t try almost anything to recover? If a few rituals could have eased the pain in my back tooth last year, I might’ve called in a Sunrunner physician myself.” He grinned at his furious wife. “Instead, my Sunrunner witch insisted I have the damned thing pulled.”
“And you howled like a wounded dragon, too. Disgusting.”
Pol gestured impatiently. “But what Andry’s doing is a fake. The cures are the same and they either work or they don’t—but people think they’re more effective because of the show that goes along with them.”
“Appearances can be most effective,” Rohan murmured.
“I’ve indulged in a few manipulations myself from time to time.”
“That’s different,” Sioned snapped.
“Why? Because I’m a dear, sweet, charming, nice man?” He laughed, but Pol heard a bitter undertone. “Or because you happen to agree with what I do, but not with Andry?”
“Superstition is wrong,” Pol said flatly.
“And it’s not just the medicine,” Sioned agreed. “It’s all Sunrunner things. I talk every so often with a friend at Goddess Keep—“
“Who obliges you with information on the sly,” Pol interpreted.
“Of course. I’m told of ceremonies and a great deal of formality—even when no envoys or ambassadors are there to impress.”
“Which they seem to be more and more often.” Pol frowned. “Does your friend let you know who sends ranking representatives to Andry these days?”
“As faithfully as Andry’s eyes and ears at Stronghold advise him of our doings. Although I flatter myself that what Andry knows of us is only what we wish him to know. More or less.”
“Mother!”
Rohan laughed again at Pol’s shock. “The game dictates that we all spy on each other. The zest of playing is making sure you control information. How can you have ruled this long without realizing so simple a truth? Your dealings with fellow princes demand accuracy in what you know about them and inaccuracy in what they think they know about you.”
“It shouldn’t be like that,” Pol said stubbornly.
“Of course it shouldn’t. We all ought to be honest with each other—in an ideal world. But do you trust, say, Velden of Grib?”
“Not past spitting distance,” Pol admitted. “But it’s demeaning to live like this.”
“I have two answers for you,” Rohan replied more seriously. “The first is that I agree. It’s a waste of time, energy, and resources to worry about managing information. What to believe, what to make others believe—it’s not my pride that twinges, it’s my conscience. And yet—how else do you think I’ve managed to keep peace all these years? With your mother’s invaluable help, of course,” he added, nodding to Sioned.
“Nice to know I’m appreciated. Pol, when I married your father, Sunrunners were cast into politics as never before. Andrade wanted me to represent the faradhi point of view, and advance her notions of how the world should be run.”
“But you didn’t,” Rohan said softly, and smiled.
“I was a vast disappointment to her,” she acknowledged, not sounding at all unhappy about it. “But when Andrade chose us against Roelstra, a partnership of Sunrunners and High Prince was established—“
“Which might exist today if Andry and I hadn’t started loathing each other,” Pol finished.
“It’s far more complex than personal feelings.” Rohan sighed. “We’ve gone back to what used to be before our marriage—a network of Sunrunners reporting exclusively to Goddess Keep. But this Goddess Keep behaves much as if it, too, were a seat of government.” He brooded over this for a moment. “Andry’s an able man. If he’d stayed in the Desert to rule a small holding, or even married a girl with a large one, I doubt he would’ve been content. Limited scope.”
“Yes,” Sioned drawled, “One can hardly weave mysteries when one is worried about the goats.”
“What about your other answer?” Pol prompted.
“What? Oh. My first being that I find spying an exercise in irritation, the second is that it’s a necessary part of civilized life.”
Even Sioned stared at him. “You’ll have to explain that one.”
He gave them a patient look. “If I am a barbarian, I make war. That kind of information is easy. How many horses and swords does my enemy have? Will he use them against me before I can use mine against him? Very simple. Very direct.”
Pol sat forward, intrigued. “But if what you’re trying to do is live in peace so the crops can grow—“
“—you need much more complex information.”
“My clever azhrei,” Sioned observed sardonically. “So intricate spying is one of the privileges of civilization, is it? Such a comfort to know I’m contributing to ongoing enlightenment.”
“But Andry isn’t, and that’s just the point,” Pol said.
“He’s creating mysteries around things that aren’t mysterious at all.”
“Not to you, perhaps,” Rohan answered. “But I’ve lived with a Sunrunner most of my life and I don’t even pretend to comprehend what it is she does. People believe what those powerful enough to affect belief demonstrate is believable. Convoluted, but it’s the idea that counts,” he smiled.
“But what Andry’s doing is wrong!” Pol insisted.
“Anything that promotes superstition instead of truth is wrong. Yet how do you explain the way you talk to your dragon? How do you make Sunrunner skills comprehensible? Your mother hasn’t been able to make it clear to me in almost forty years, and I’ve even got the—what’s Andry calling it now? The ‘halfling gift.’ What amazes me is that all this hasn’t appeared before now.”
“Andrade would never have allowed it,” Sioned told him. “None of the other rulers of Goddess Keep would have, either. But Andry’s cultivating it.”
“An apt description, Mother,” Pol remarked. “Seeing as how what he spreads on it to make it grow stinks to the high Veresch.”
“Papa! Papa, come be the dragon!”
He abandoned memories of a conversation that had yielded no solution. Pol liked solutions. He had limitless faith in his parents’ ability to provide them—one way or another. But where Andry was concerned, Tila! was right: everyone complained in private, but no one did anything. What was there to do?
He forgot his impatience with his cousin and his nagging wish that Rohan would do something, anything, about Andry, and dutifully donned a sweeping cloak for his performance. He had been vanquished three times—twice by Jihan, once by Rislyn—and was filthy from head to heels when their tutor arrived to collect them for afternoon lessons. Catallen had been sent by Miyon, and everyone knew he was a spy. Pol instinctively put Rohan’s principles into practice: he chatted with the tutor every so often, dropping half-truths here and there to keep Miyon contented—so he wouldn’t send someone Pol might not recognize as being in his father-by-marriage’s pay.
Tilal had called out encouragement and tactics based on many similar games with Walvis or Rohan himself as the dragon. Now, as the children accompanied Catallen back to the palace, the older prince grinned at the younger.
“Not bad. Nice flourish to the wings, but I’d work on the death flutter. Go relax, Pol. You look frayed around the edges—like a cloth that’s mopped up one too many spills.”
“After my hellions mopped up the paddock with me, you mean?” He laughed and went to his chambers to wash, reflecting that a wrung-out rag was exactly what he felt like after a Rialla, no matter what his triumphs. Maneuvering the other princes into doing what he wanted while making sure they thought it was all their own idea; scrupulous attention to their privileges and personal conceits; the jaw-grinding he had to hide when what was perfectly obvious to him remained perfectly obscure to them—no wonder his father had turned the bulk of the work over to him. He cleaned up messes and polished self-images and soaked up any spills of ill-feeling among the princes, and sent them home convinced that they alone were responsible for all this peace and good will.
At times he longed to tell them exactly what he thought of them—and to show them the path he had chosen and tell them to start marching. But he suspected that if they allowed him to do such a thing, he would have even more contempt for them than he did eow.
Not all of them, of course. In fact, he liked most of the men he worked with. Tilal, Volog, Arlis—not surprisingly, they were his mother’s kin and in theory his own as well. Laric of Firon and his father, Chadric of Dorval, were two others he liked and respected; they really were kin to him through Rohan.
But he hadn’t his father’s patience with the others. Cabar, Velden, Halian, Pirro, especially Miyon and even at times Kostas of Syr, Tilal’s brother—the difficulties they often presented were annoyances that Rohan saw as creative opportunities. He listened, considered, consulted, and suggested solutions agreeable to all. Pol’s impulses were either to tell them to stop bothering him or to settle the whole thing himself with a single command.
“You’re too direct,” Sioned had lectured. “You don’t think things all the way through. You want to act too fast.”
“And who’d I learn that from, Mother mine?” he’d countered, grinning, and she’d had the grace to blush.
At times he despaired of ever being half the prince his father was. Then again, Rohan had had nearly forty years of practice; Pol, only a little over ten. Well, he was learning. He’d watched his father carefully at the past six Riall’im, trying to adapt Rohan’s style and methods to his own character. He’d done very good work this summer, work to be proud of. He was learning his father’s techniques; eventually he’d learn Rohan’s patience as well.
Pol stood obediently still as his squires scrutinized him. He never cared what he wore. His father had the knack of impressive personal adornment—probably because at first glance he was physically rather unprepossessing—and had been known to take a whole afternoon dressing for a banquet. Pol put on his back whatever was handed to him. That he was always elegantly clothed was a tribute to a succession of servants and squires much more concerned with their prince’s appearance than he was. Rialt had trained Edrel, who had trained Amiel, who had recently laid down the law to Dannar and Kierun. Privately, Pol suspected Amiel of having given them an instructional treatise. It amused him endlessly.
He’d had the pleasure of knighting Amiel at this year’s Rialla, and giving him the black elkhoof cup rimmed in gold that was Princemarch’s gift to a new-made knight. The choice of the Giladan heir to join Edrel of River Ussh as his squire in 729 had been a frankly political one. After Edrel’s knighting in 735, Amiel stayed on for two years’ further training in statecraft.
Though politics had brought him to Dragon’s Rest, he also found a wife. People were shocked when Cabar’s heir threw himself away on a nobody. Granted, Princess Meiglan had fostered her for a year, which was how the unsuitable attachment had begun, but Nyr was barely highborn and came from someplace in Fessenden no one had ever heard of. Amiel married his bronze-haired lady in a double ritual with Edrel and his Chosen—even more shocking, for though fast friends, one was a prince, the other a mere younger son.
This younger son had won one of the finest prizes in the princedoms. Norian of Grib was blithe, blonde, and as besotted with Edrel as he was with her. That she should waste herself on him was the talk of the Rialla. Her father, Prince Velden, threatened to forbid the marriage. Norian announced publicly that she would wed Edrel or no one. Pol chose a more private moment to hint that the young man would one day rule an important holding in Princemarch; this had almost reconciled Velden to the match. Thus Pol discovered the fun of being powerful enough to make a future for a deserving friend.
He liked arranging things. It was his mother’s opinion that in this he took after Andrade. But, unlike her, he would never have maneuvered anyone into so important a Choice for political aims. People met, fell in love, married, had children. That was life, from cottage to castle. For highborns with wealth, property, and titles to pass along, the process often overwhelmed the personal. Fosterings were politics enough for Pol, and he frankly distrusted people who married for anything but love.
His selection of two new squires this year had nothing to do with politics at all. One of them, in fact, he accepted out of curiosity. Kierun was the son of Allun of Lower Pyrme, a man Pol wryly admired for being committed to his own square measures and absolutely nothing else. He had attended only two Riatt’im in his life: one to find a wife and the other to deliver his heir to Pol. Otherwise he never set foot off his own property. Allun intended a more active part for Kierun in the affairs of the continent, however, and to this end gave the boy into Pol’s care. Kierun was black-haired, gray-eyed, barely twelve, and unable to believe he was squire to the next High Prince. He had lived in a state of perpetual wonderment since the Rialla and barely dared to breathe.
Pol’s second squire was a choice of pure affection. Dannar of Castle Crag was Ostvel and Alasen’s son. Though a year Kierua’s junior, he was perfectly relaxed around Pol. They knew each other very well. From his mother, Dannar inherited the Kierstian green eyes—like Sioned’s and Tilal’s—and his red hair came from that side of the family as well. But his features and strong build were Ostvel’s. Except for the difference in coloring, Dannar and his much older half-brother Riyan looked quite a bit alike.
The pair conducted their inspection as if the fate of princedoms hung on the color and cut of Pol’s tunic. Amiel must have been incredibly stern with them. Pol sighed and kept his impatience to himself, knowing Kierun would look like a startled kitten if he said anything. The child was completely overawed and it made him nervous.
“It wants something, my lord,” Dannar said at last. “What do you think, Kier? Something black, to offset the boots?”
“A belt?” the other boy ventured.
“Exactly! Remind me to add it to Prince Amiel’s list.”
Pol laughed so hard he had to sit down.
The belt was produced—a bit tight in its usual notch, due to lavish Rialla meals—and an onyx earring for good measure. Finally Pol was pronounced presentable. As the squires accompanied him down the hall to the stairs, he asked about their morning swim.
Dannar shrugged. “Jinan got mad when I dunked her, my lord.”
“Princess Jinan!” Kierun exclaimed, shocked out of his usual shyness.
Pol grinned. “So she’s made that clear, has she? Let me tell you something, Kierun. Jihan is a miserable little brat, as Dannar knows very well. Next time she pesters you, you have my permission to remind her that though she may be a princess, one day you will be Lord of Lower Pyrme with two fine castles, four rich manors, and four hundred square measures of the best farmland on the continent.”
“Oh, she won’t let on she’s impressed by that, my lord,” Dannar told him. “Kier, just let her know that when you grow up, your wife will be much prettier than she is. Worked for me.”
Pol heroically kept a straight face. It was more difficult to keep the suspicious quiver from his voice as he said, “You’d better go get ready to serve. And by the way, tell that madman in the kitchen that if he so much as thinks a dessert in my direction, I’ll have him trussed up and thrown in with the sheep to feed the dragons.”
Kierun cast a startled look at Dannar, whose grin reassured him. The boys ran off to their duties—leaving Pol free to laugh himself out of breath.
“Meiglan, won’t you play for us this evening? Please?” Gemma’s smile was warmly cajoling, and Pol leaned over to whisper, “For me?”
She rose from his side to a smattering of excited applause. There were just friends here, she told herself as she approached the fenath, people she knew, not the hordes of strangers her father had ordered her to play for at Castle Pine.
Miyon had tricked her at the Rialla, offering her up for public view at a banquet by presenting her with a new instrument. She had trembled all the way down the long white floor of the Princes Hall. As the first notes echoed through the huge chamber, his sleek malicious smile had practically paralyzed her. Out of tune. Purposely out of tune, at her father’s order, so that she must test strings and twist pegs until she thought she’d die of humiliation.
But tonight she would play for friends in the gentle intimacy of the Tapestry Room. None but kind, fond people here, people she knew and liked—even if she would never understand them, never be like them.
The new fenath was a spectacular instrument—carved, inlaid, jeweled, each of its fifty strings having pearl-headed anchor- and tuning-pegs. Even the little wooden hammers were decorated, a different gem sparkling from each so that while she played, the motions of her hands traced colors through the air.
Meigian slid the hammers between her curled fingers and flexed her wrists. The first song she played was one she had heard Gemma humming yesterday; the princess smiled in delight. As Meiglan glanced through the strings at her audience, she savored the joy of bringing such pleasure. It had never been so at her childhood home of Gracine Manor, nor during the two years she had lived with Miyon. Back then she played only for herself, mercifully losing all consciousness of where and who she was in the ripple of the strings.
Pol had changed all that. She could not fade into the music when he was here to listen and sometimes add his rich voice to the songs her fenath wove. When she played for him alone, she knew only the movements of her hands and the glow in his blue-green eyes—so different from the self-absorption of her girlhood music. Gradually she had acquired the courage to play for small groups in private. The best times were when Lord Ostvel was here to accompany her with his lute and his voice that so perfectly blended with Pol’s. But though it was difficult to play at the Rialla—it reminded her of her father’s demands—she always did. She could deny Pol nothing and he was so proud of her music.
Tilal asked for a Syrene ballad remembered from his youth at River Run. She put the sticks down, rubbed her fingers back to suppleness, then plucked the strings with a rapidity that always startled onlookers. The width of the fenath had defeated her before she’d learned how to sway lightly back and forth, moving her feet only a little. Rohan had once told her she looked like a flower floating on a breeze and watching her was almost as lovely as listening to her.
It was a distinguished company of listeners tonight. Laric and Lisiel of Firon had lingered after the Rialla to await the birth of their second child, conceived last winter before a visit to Graypearl. Not sure of her pregnancy until early spring, they had hoped she would be able to travel after the Rialla. But thirty-eight was a risky age for childbearing. So they stayed at Dragon’s Rest while her brother, Yarin of Snowcoves, tended their princedom from his holding.
Edrel and Norian had also delayed departure, intending to escort Laric and Lisiel as far as Edrel’s home of River Ussh after the birth. It was thus almost exclusively a family party—Laric and Tilal were Pol’s kin, Edrel had been his squire, and Norian was distantly related to Gemma. Meiglan, who had no family but her father and a few half-brothers she’d never met, was constantly amazed by the complex web of kinships that had Rohan, Sioned, and Pol at its center.
Kierst, Isel, Dorval, Syr, Firon, Ossetia—six of thirteen princedoms were tied by blood to Pol. His father was High Prince; his cousin, Lord of Goddess Keep. Other relations or close friends were important ath’rim. Between them, Rohan and Pol directly controlled or strongly influenced most of the continent. But Meiglan didn’t let herself think too often about the power she’d married. She’d learned to hide her nervousness and behave like other highborn ladies. Sionell was her idol and mentor for many things she was too shy to ask anyone else about. Kostas’ wife, Danladi, was another model for behavior—and much easier to emulate, being nearly as quiet and self-effacing as Meiglan herself. But Meiglan was never sure if she truly succeeded at imper- sonating a great lady or if people merely acted as if she did because of Pol.
Yet this summer something astonishing had happened. Sioned—who wore her two kinds of power, princely and Sunrunner, with authority that Meiglan never dared dream of attaining—had asked, “Meggie, what’s your opinion?”
At face value it was a request for information. But Sioned had never used her nickname before. Though that was startling enough, the real shock had been that Sioned—vibrant, brilliant, beautiful even at sixty—Sioned had paid her the ultimate compliment of asking her thoughts without first saying that her thoughts were valuable. Among these powerful people, compliments were in fact thinly veiled sarcasm; everyone expected everyone else to have wits and to use them. Praise for one’s person was eagerly sought and smugly received, but intelligence was expected, and compliments on it usually implied its lack.
Because of that one question, Meiglan had begun to believe that she might become the kind of princess Pol needed. Someone poised and self-assured and clever. Someone like Sionell.
Thinking of her friend, Meiglan plucked a song Sionell had taught her. They were friends—despite the awkward revelations that had occurred when Meiglan asked Pol if it would be proper to ask Sionell to stand with her at their marriage.
“She’s been so kind to me, and—I don’t have anybody but my father to be with me, and I so much want a friend there as well—but if it’s not suitable—“
He looked dismayed for a moment, then smiled and shrugged. “I’m sure she’d be glad to stand with you, Meggie.”
His expression was such that she had not asked. That evening she found out from her servant that Sionell had been in love with Pol since childhood.
“It’s been over a long time,” Thanys reported. “Since before she married Lord Tallain, they say. But don’t distinguish her, my lady. She could be a threat to you.”
Never. Absurd. Still, looking back over certain things which had been incomprehensible at the time, there had been an unspoken tension between Pol and Sionell, as if things had been said that could never be forgotten. Or forgiven.
Meiglan attributed it all to some mystery in the past that she had no right to ask about. She had no right to jealousy, either; Pol so obviously loved her. Everyone remarked on it, even loathsome Princess Chiana in that nasty-sweet way of hers: “My dear, I declare that if you took a fancy to a certain star in the night sky, he’d pull it down for you to wear around your pretty throat.” Pol and Sionell shared the affection of lifelong friends. The two families saw each other often at Dragon’s Rest and Stronghold. Letters were frequent. Sionell had Named her second son Meig. She was one of the few people Meiglan trusted.
On Pol’s love Meiglan’s life was built. She saw him smiling at her and decided to play a familiar song, hoping Edrel would nudge him into singing it.
The lyric was about the faradhi who had married a Prince of Kierst. It had been a great scandal at the time, for no highborn had ever wed a trained Sunrunner. Their marriage at a Rialla was ostensibly the song’s subject, but everyone knew it was really about Rohan and Sioned.
Pol laughed as she began, and, sure enough, Edrel coaxed him to sing. He rose and walked toward her, his clear, firm voice carrying the melody while her fingers danced over the fenath. Ostvel was strongly suspected of having written the words, but he always denied all responsibility.
Faradh’im whispered on the light, and merchants gossiped at the Fair,
And Princes frowned in warning dire at Kierst’s colossal dare: A Sunrunner, with rings of gold and rings of silver shining,
Kierst’s Princess she would surely be, her powers his entwining. It’s said it happened with a look, a touch of fated hands— But I attest Gunrunner’s Fire, as hot as Desert sands.
The voices rose like Storm God’s wind—the High Prince—
Meiglan faltered as Pol stopped singing. He turned to the windows, his body tense and his eyes lit with excitement. Meiglan hid her trembling as best she could. She knew what that look meant.
“Hear me well, daughter. I don’t give a damn how much dragons frighten you. Don’t ever show it or say so aloud— not to him, not to your dearest friend, not to your most trusted servant, not even to yourself when you’re alone!”
Meiglan stood still, hoping no one would look at her, or that her frozen stance would be taken for surprise. The trumpeting of the dragons echoed and shuddered through the room, rattling crystal goblets like glass bones. Pol had explained their habits, their differing calls, their brilliant colors, their intelligence. She had stood at his side to watch and listen, ridden with him headlong down the valley to greet them while he laughed with the joy of being nearly airborne himself on a golden stallion. She said and did all the right things. No one ever guessed that she feared dragons to the depths of her soul.
Startled silence gave way to excited shouts; stillness became a riotous scramble toward the windows.
“You see?” Tilal laughed at Gemma. “We’ve been watching for them in vain for two days, but he knew they were here even before they called out!”
Jihan and Rislyn darted to the windows where their father lifted them up to see the dragons. Meiglan stayed where she was and tried to recover her senses.
“Look!” Rislyn cried. “Is that Azhdeen, Papa?”
She could never reveal her fear. Who could she tell? None of these people would understand, and certainly not Pol. His laughter rang out as if greeting old friends—which, to him, they were. Especially his own dragon, Azhdeen. Pol would be disappointed by her fear, hurt that she had lied to him for so long.
“Can we ride out to see them tonight, my lord?” This from Sioneva, her new fosterling—descended from the royalty of five princedoms—what could Meiglan possibly teach this girl about being a princess?
“We’ll go up to the lake tomorrow and watch them,” Pol replied.
“Why don’t you take your sketchbook along, darling?” Gemma said. “I know Dani would love to see a drawing of so many dragons.”
Gemma had grown up with Danladi, second-youngest of Roelstra’s daughters, and the two were as close as sisters. Meiglan thought of her own dearest friend, almost a sister, but she could never let Sionell know her fear either. Sionell loved dragons as much as Pol did. They shared so many things: a Desert childhood, the same friends and family, a love for dragons, a quickness of mind and toughness of spirit—and neither of them would ever comprehend her terror.
“I assume you’re going to have a little chat with Azhdeen?” Lark asked Pol, his amusement tinged with envy.
“If he’s in an expansive mood—and finds sheep to his taste! He’s like a cat, that one, picking over the best until one tempts his appetite.”
Thanys sidled up to Meiglan and took her elbow, guiding her unobtrusively away from the fenath. She gave the servant a grateful look for the prompting and the support. The others must never guess at the sick weakness in her limbs. Thanys always looked out for her, always protected her—a trusted servant who knew what the sound and sight of dragons did to her. But Thanys had been the one who had brought the sorcerer Mireva to Stronghold in Meiglan’s suite. How could she trust Thanys?
She gathered her courage and approached Pol. He turned from the twilight view of dragons in flight and smiled down at her. “I’m sorry, sweet. We’ve crowded you out. Here, come stand by the window. Aren’t they magnificent?”
She nodded, lying to him with the gesture. There were so many dragons that the soft blue of the day-fading sky was shadowed by wings like dark clouds descending. The people around her pressed close; she could barely breathe for the crush and the fear.
“ ...not even to yourself when you’re alone!” That was the real irony. She was never and always alone. She was both surrounded by people and encased in solitude. Like a winter-iced pine, she lived in a forest and was separated from it by a thin layer of crystal that allowed others to see but never to touch her. Except for Pol, except for his warmth like the heart of the sun itself, nothing and no one touched her. Not even her children. She lived in fear of shattering, of watching the icy glass splinter around her to leave her naked and trembling with cold.
Everyone rode to the lake the next day except Lisiel, big with child, and Meiglan, who kept her company. Pol left them in his wife’s chambers, placidly sewing baby clothes and listening to Catallen, who also had bardic pretensions, read his latest work. Personally, Pol had no use for poetry unless he could sing it, but it was incumbent upon a prince to have a bard in residence; that was why Miyon had known he could not refuse Catallen’s services.
It was a relief to see Meiglan pleasantly occupied while he went chasing dragons. She was a gallant darling to hide it, but he knew how they frightened her. Lisiel provided the perfect excuse for her to stay home. He need not worry about her and she need not wear her nerves raw pretending to be unafraid.
So he rode out with a clear conscience. The horse beneath him was nearly as eager as he. Azhenel—“dragon horse” —was the finest of the golden breed at Dragon’s Rest. The name had come from an incident four years ago, when the yearling escaped the paddock and galloped up the valley to the lake. Amazingly, the dragons’ meal had not included the colt. Perhaps it was because they had already dined on fat sheep, or perhaps it was as the awed Master of Horse said—that a mysterious affinity for dragons allowed the colt to gambol about among them with perfect unconcern. Pol arrived to find him actually playing with immature dragons five times his size, for all the world like children from neighboring farms come together for a holiday.
When dragons came each year on their migrations, Azhenel called out in welcome instead of fretting with the high, nervous whinny of more skittish stablemates. Horses could be trained not to fear dragons, but Azhenel was the only one in Pol’s experience—or anybody else’s—that genuinely liked them. Chay often ascribed human characteristics to horses, but even he was taken aback by Azhenel’s behavior.
“Damned animal’s making fun of us,” he growled the first time he saw the young stallion, well-grown and with a cascade of snowy white mane and tail, cavort with dragons. “Look at him! As if those talons weren’t half as long as his legs!” Then, eyeing Pol with amusement sparkling in his gray eyes: “Have you learned how to talk to horses, too? Whispered a word or two in his ear that as long as they’re well-fed, they won’t be interested in him?”
In his more whimsical moments Pol sometimes thought that, Azhenel was the one who’d learned how to talk, and his conversations were with dragons. Certainly when they reached the lake and he dismounted to let the stallion greet his winged friends, Azhenei delighted in nudging dragons with his nose, whinnying, flicking his tail playfully in their faces, and gently nipping his favorites. The older dragons reacted with genial grunts. The hatchlings fluttered and called out in bewilderment at this strange, hooved, unwinged thing, nearly their own size, that invited them to play. But soon they were chasing Azhenel, screeching gleefully as they flew to catch up with him.
“That’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen,” Tilal breathed. “You’d think they’d rip him to shreds!”
Gemma stared with wide brown eyes. “And you say he’s been doing this all his life?”
Pol nodded. “I’ve known a few cats who thought they were people, but this is the only horse I ever heard of who thinks he’s a dragon!”
“Why is that, my lord?” Dannar asked. He was off his own horse and standing beside Rislyn’s pony, a gentling hand on the little mare’s neck as she danced nervously in the presence of dragons.
“Because Papa’s azhrei, just like Grandsir,” Jihan responded. “Kierun, you don’t have to hold my reins. Thank you very much, but I can handle a horse.”
The squire turned crimson and started to back away.
“Stay put, Kierun,” Pol ordered. “Jihan, your new pony hasn’t seen dragons before and might bolt. A few broken bones would probably benefit your temper, but I don’t feel like explaining to your mother how you got them.”
Laric slid from his saddle and joined Pol. “Good Goddess, there’s enough of them to drink the lake dry. And the sheep must be half gone.”
“There’s not much to eat in the Desert,” Sioneva said. “They must have been hungry, poor darlings.”
Tilal glanced sidelong at his daughter, brows arching. “Azhwis,” was all he said, but those who understood bits of the old language began to laugh.
“My girls, too,” Pol grinned at him. “Daughters of dragons, all of them!’
“I swear to you, the first thing she said may have been ‘mama,’ but the second was ‘Take me to see dragons’!”
“Is that Azhdeen, Pol?” Laric asked all at once.
His heart skipped with excitement as the huge sire called out, paced in elegant state to the water’s edge, and with a single wingstroke leaped into the air. Horses neighed as the dragon sailed across the lake and landed with breathtaking precision a few lengths from Pol.
Azhdeen was gorgeous and knew it. His blue-gray hide was marked by the fewest battle scars of any sire there— sign of his supremacy—and rippled with the strength of massive muscles. He rose up on hind legs and spread his wings to show their silver undersides. It was his usual greeting to Pol, who went forward and lifted his own arms wide as if to embrace the dragon. His dragon.
Into the space between them swirled a riot of color. Pol expanded his own colors to meet and merge with those of the dragon. Instantly he was surrounded, absorbed, engulfed —ecstatic.
Emotions first—pleasure at seeing Pol; satisfaction at thirst assuaged and plump sheep devoured; smugness at the number and quality of females who’d chosen him for mating at Rivenrock; pride in his many new offspring. Curiosity about Pol’s own mate and hatchlings; amazement tinged with scornful superiority that the little females had grown no bigger and there were no new ones despite the fact that this was a mating year.
Pol laughed and apologized for his lack, reveling in Azhdeen’s matter-of-fact arrogance. You great lumbering beautiful beast, he thought, knowing the words were meaningless to the dragon but that the affection would be clear as crystal, / have only one mate and you spread your favors among scores! Of course you have more hatchlings than I do!
Azhdeen settled into an easy crouch on the shore, his tail lashing softly in cool water. This was the sign Pol had been waiting for. He would now be allowed to approach the dragon. He never lost the wonder of it, of walking slowly toward that huge head with its large, dark, shrewd eyes and jawful of dagger-sharp teeth. Once, Azhdeen had batted playfully at him with what was for him a gentle hand. Pol had toppled, nearly unconscious. Since then the dragon had restrained himself from touching the puny, fragile human.
But Pol could touch the dragon. He stood beside Azhdeen’s lowered head and scratched the smooth hide between the eyes, careful to avoid the bony spines streaking back from the brow. He ran the flats of his palms down the dragon’s face to the ridges of the nostrils, tickling the sensitive skin there. Azhdeen hummed low in his throat with pleasure. Pol rubbed along the closed jaw to the dragon’s eyes, and lids drifted lazily shut as he luxuriated in the petting.
Glutton, Pol accused fondly, scratching Azhdeen’s throat. When he was close to the dragon this way, it was easy to think of him as a kind of gigantic, furless, winged cat: the predator that purred. Dragons had no enemy but man. It had been nearly forty years since the last Hatching Hunt, but only nine since Pol’s half-brother Ruval had slaughtered two adult dragons near Elktrap Manor. He had used sorcery to pull the mighty creatures down from the sky and then dealt them a slow, agonizing death. Memory caused Pol’s colors to darken, and Azhdeen opened one eye in surprise.
A picture appeared in the air, accompanied by the emotional equivalent of a loud demand: How did you know? Conjured before Pol was a strange sight: dragons floating on the sea. Not living dragons, but stiff, motionless, with uplifted wings frozen in place. Like sails, Pol thought, tracing with his gaze the raised necks with their sightless heads dipping to the rise and fall of the waves. Ships, of course, built of wood and not dragon bones and hide, but Azhdeen couldn’t know that. He evidently thought dragons had been killed and somehow made to float on water with spread wings. Perhaps he had seen ships with wary watchers on the prows carved in the shape of dragon heads; sails naturally reminded him of wings. So to him it was an obvious conclusion.
Pol wove his colors into the picture, altering it to reflect what he knew was the reality. Wings became sails; bones changed to masts and rigging. The contours of dragon bodies he amended to wooden keels. He had never seen such a vessel himself, but his years as a squire at Graypearl had familiarized him with ships. Me elaborated on the picture, adding people on the decks and in the dragon’s nest from which they watched for land when sailing far from shore.
It’s nothing more than that, he told Azhdeen, conveying reassurance.
The reaction felled him. The dagon threw back his head with a roar that brought whines from other dragons and terrified screams from the horses. Pol was knocked off his feet and out of the intricate weave of color. His wits spun and for a time he could barely see. When he could stand again, Azhdeen was rearing back on his hind legs, wings unfurled, bellowing his rage.
Pol again offered his colors to the dragon. What is it? What have I done? Azhdeen glared. Again the picture formed. Believe! was the emotion whirling on sunlight.
Then the colors vanished brutally. Pol gasped with the loss, his head nearly splitting in two. The dragon leaped into the air and circled the lake before coming to rest on the opposite shore, where he snapped at those around him and cuffed a few who didn’t move out of his way fast enough.
Pol had never seen the like. He stood stunned and incredulous, unable to think what he had done wrong.
“Papa?”
He looked down. He might have expected Jihan to be the one tugging at his hand. Instead it was Rislyn—green eyes huge with worry but unafraid. He grasped her small fingers gently.
“It’s all right, hatchling,” he said. “I was unwise enough to contradict my hfgh and mighty friend over there, and he took exception to it.”
She squeezed his hand, relieved. But he could not reassure himself that he understood the cause of Azhdeen’s fury. Never had he known such violence in the dragon. Never had Azhdeen been other than gentle in ending their contact.
Azhenel trotted up, ears laid back; he had been frightened by the dragon, too. As Pol mounted to ride back to the palace, he reflected that it was just as well it was a short way. He was going to have the great-great-grandsire of all headaches for the next two days.