The Dragons of Argonath (23 page)

"So what if we did!" he burst out at last.

"So you must tell us more. The Ardu are a people quite unlike our own, they are the only tailed humans there have ever been."

"What?"

"You must tell us everything about Lumbee, Relkin."

"You don't have the right to ask this, we were in love."

Selera and Bell pushed themselves back and looked at each other. Selera nodded, Bell's eyebrow rose.

"Actually, Relkin," said Selera with a friendly smile. "That makes it even more important that we question you. If a no-tail man can fall in love with a tailed female and vice versa, then there are many potential complications if, and when, the Ardu come into more permanent contact with the outside world."

"In short," said Bell, "it is essential for the continued existence of the Ardu people. Unless we can prepare the peoples that live around them to treat them with respect and not to react with atavistic hatreds, the Ardu face a bleak future. They will be exterminated."

"Oh," said Relkin, his mind reeling at the implications of this. Trust Bell to know how to pluck his strings.

"They will be seen as freaks, anti-god, the incarnation of demons, and they will be destroyed. We must protect them."

Glumly he settled in for a long inquisition about things that he felt were innately personal to himself and Lumbee, and nobody else's damn business at all. It was excruciating, and time and again he wanted to jump up and run out of that room and never come back.

When it was over late in the afternoon, he was led out blindfolded from the hidden Office of Unusual Insight and left in the anteroom to the Imperial administration offices. When the blindfold was removed, Bell was standing there.

"I'm sorry, Relkin, that we have to question you so exactingly. I think it is unfair in its way to you and your lovely Lumbee, but the basic point remains. We are enjoined to care for all living things on the world, and this will help us to care for the Ardu."

Relkin tore out of the offices, skipped down from the upper floors, and left the tower by the main entrance, making his way quickly to the Dragon House. Inside the looming mass of the house of wyverns, he was met with the familiar steamy atmosphere, redolent of dragons, sweat, and Old Sugustus.

He found Bazil in the plunge pool, cavorting with Vlok and Chektor. Romping beasts with a combined weight in excess of eight tons was rather more than anyone human-size could be expected to handle, so the pool chamber was devoid of people. Relkin left Bazil to the fun. Since the leatherback had healed quickly following his wounding at Quosh, there seemed little danger of his tearing the stitches, and a bit of roughhousing might do him some good. He was also going through some interrogation, but his was about the events of some years before in Ourdh.

They were going to be called to testify again in the same old case against Porteous Glaves, onetime commander of the Eighth Regiment in which they had served. Bazil had been scathing.

"This dragon told them all they need to know three years ago. And also before that. How many times they need to hear same thing?"

It was foolishness, human foolishness that was all, and all designed to make a wyvern dragon fret. It was also guaranteed to make his dragonboy worry. Both of them had given their testimony in the earlier trials of Porteous Glaves, and yet now there was another trial.

Relkin had been grilled by the high barristers of the Marneri court before, and he remembered it as being an unpleasant experience. Now they'd both have to go through it again. And this was on top of all these days under the scrutiny of Bell and Selera. Damned right it didn't seem fair.

In particular it annoyed him because the unit was busy preparing for the trip to Kadein and then on to Axoxo.

There were a lot of important little details in the matter of kit and supplies that needed his attention. Being tied up in court hearings was going to leave him dependent on the kindness of others, and that made him uncomfortable. It didn't pay to have to depend on other dragonboys too much.

Relkin turned in to the stall he shared with Bazil and found a message scroll from Kenor waiting on his cot. Relkin's heart leapt, and he tore it open. What news?

At the top of the message were the arms of Clan Wattel, and his eyes leapt to the message in mixed dread and hope.

The dread evaporated. Eilsa was riding to Marneri on quick stages and would be there in the next couple of days. The scroll had been posted in the north and had come through the frontier lands of the River Bur.

Eilsa was coming! They would get one more chance to be alone, or almost alone, before he set off for Axoxo. Of course there were always chaperones. Eilsa was unwed, despite great pressures from the clan. She would bear the heir to the clan leadership, and so all her movements were tightly monitored. Clan Wattel had a veneer of respect for the Great Mother and the witches of Cunfshon, but basically the clan still harked back to the old gods of Veronath, Such folk did not give as much respect to women's freedom as did the folk of Cunfshon and the citizens of the Argonath.

Still, Eilsa was coming! They would have to celebrate… a night out at one of the city's best restaurants… A party for her with his other friends in the city, Lagdalen, and Captain Hollein Kesepton.

And somehow, somewhere, they would snatch a few moments alone and consume one another in kisses, hot, stolen kisses hidden from the eyes of the wretched aunties sent to keep Eilsa chaste. They did not care for this outland orphan, a dragonboy in the legions with not an acre of land to his name. Oh, but Eilsa did!

In a trice Relkin's concerns had faded, pushed aside by a warm feeling of joy. Since that first moment when they had met after his return, Relkin's love for Eilsa had rekindled and burned more fiercely than ever. She had waited for him, she had turned down the offered hands of three young men within the clan, men of good family, with lands and many flocks of sheep. She had stayed true to him.

He wished he could say the same of himself, but in Eigo he had fallen not once, but twice, and in circumstances so strange that he had never been able to tell Eilsa about it. He had imagined that somehow, he could tell her so that she would understand that these affairs, far away, were virtually in another life. But, in fact, he had never mentioned them. He realized he could never tell her without wounding their love, perhaps fatally. He could not describe to her Ferla, the lovely, magical demon of the grotto of Mot Pulk's world. Nor could he tell her of Lumbee, the Ardu girl with whom he'd made the great journey into the interior, into the ancient lands of terror, ruled by huge animals of elemental ferocity.

No, Relkin knew there was no way he could marshal the words to tell his love about these things, and so he was left with guilt—and perhaps a glimmer of wisdom.

Relkin looked up at the dome of the court for the thousandth time. It was cool and white and restful, but Relkin did not feel rested after looking there. The high court of the city of Marneri was in session. Relkin was in the chair of testimony that day and had already been questioned for two hours by the barrister for the prosecution, Master Bushell.

Bushell had carefully led him through his testimony. It concerned a vital moment in the campaign in Ourdh, several years before. Relkin described how he had gone with Captain Hollein Kesepton and a band of volunteers, including some dragons, to find and destroy the demon in Dzu. On the way they had taken the ship
Nutbrown
, which had been seized by deserting troops from the Kadein Legion. After a fight of a few minutes duration, the Kadeini had fled, realizing that dragons were aboard. In the captain's cabin they had found Porteous Glaves and his personal guard, Dandrax. They had brought them out on deck and cuffed them. It was common knowledge at the time that Glaves, then the commander of the Marneri Eighth Regiment, Second Legion, had deserted from the legion force still holding out in the city of Ourdh during its epic siege. The deserters' assault on the
Nutbrown
led by Glaves and Captain Rokensak of the Kadein Legion had been witnessed by many others. Relkin described the Glaves he remembered, sitting on a bench, jaw slack, eyes staring, stunned by the sudden reverses he had encountered.

Further questioning by Bushell brought forth the information that Dandrax had informed Hollein Kesepton, within Relkin's hearing, that indeed, yes, Rokensak and his men had committed piracy and taken the ship
Nutbrown
by force and killed Captain Peek and Shipmate Doon.

Bushell had already painted for the court a harrowing portrait of the siege and the whole campaign in Ourdh. Great battles, epic marches, and the dreadful siege of the great capital city had all been described. Now he concluded Relkin's testimony and sat down on the prosecution bench.

The attorney for the defense, William Gentello, arose. Gentello was a famous litigator with enormous presence and a loud voice. He strolled up to the testimony chair, where Relkin sat within a rail of worn and polished wood.

"Dragoneer Relkin," began Gentello, as if he were reading the name off a list. "You are from the 109th Marneri Dragons, an excellent unit, I am told."

It was not a question, Relkin looked blankly at him. The rules had been hammered into him through his previous round of trials, in the matter of the death of Trader Dook. One only spoke when asked a question.

Gentello continued to orate, using an arm as if he were conducting some unseen orchestra. He described the 109th in glowing terms and mentioned that they had been on the field at Salpalangum and again at Sprian's Ridge, the two greatest battles of their era.

"So, Dragoneer Relkin, it would be fair to say that you and your dragon have been held up as good examples to the youth of the nation?"

Relkin looked up to the judge, Tuva of the Tarcho. She made no comment.

"I don't know. Not by me."

Gentello rocked back and gave Relkin a careful look, pantomiming for the jury.

"Not by you, eh? You know something you haven't shared with us, don't you?"

Relkin felt uncomfortable. There had been dicey situations in his past, things that could easily be exploited to darken him. Was Gentello going to rake up everything that had happened since he joined the legion? But no, the advocate moved on.

"So, Dragoneer, you were there on the deck of the
Nut-brown
, and you saw that Commander Glaves had been ill-used. He was in shock, it might be fair to say."

Gentello nodded broadly to the jury, who stared back at him stonily.

"Maybe. Maybe he was just frightened."

"You, of course, you were not frightened. You are a hardy man of war, are you not?"

"At that point there was nothing to be frightened of. The Kadeini had swum for it; we had possession of the ship."

"Weren't you all on your way to Dzu, a most desperate venture?"

"Yes. Everyone was afraid of that, of course."

"So there was a general feeling of fear."

"Well, I suppose you could call it that."

"So, Dragoneer, you had been made aware of the scurrilous rumors that had been broadcast concerning my client, the right honorable Porteous Glaves, of Aubinas. That he had deserted from his post and that he had turned pirate?"

"I had heard that, yes."

"So when you saw Porteous Glaves onboard the
Nut-brown
, you saw him as dazed and frightened."

"Yes."

"Which would have conformed to your beliefs, your prejudices formed by the vicious rumors that had been perpetrated against my client."

"What?"

"Because, after all, Dragoneer Relkin, your mind was made up. You had heard the rumors and assumed that they were true."

"Dandrax confirmed the rumors, in my hearing."

Lawyer Gentello flashed Relkin a look of annoyance.

"Ah, the scoundrel Dandrax, who planted the blame on my client. You venture his name into our discussion."

"Ahem," broke in the judge. Gentello looked up, Relkin looked sideways. Judge Tuva pursed her lips for a moment.

"Advocate Gentello, we are not here for a discussion. Please ask direct questions and cease this beating around the bush."

Gentello wished to protest more, but was gaveled to silence.

"So, Dragoneer Relkin, where were we? Ah, yes, you found my client, the accused, Porteous Glaves, to be dazed and frightened. He said nothing when asked direct questions?"

"Not in my hearing."

"Now, Dragoneer Relkin, was there anyone else in Dzu at the time of this venture, who might also be sitting in this court?"

Barrister Bushell objected. The judge ruled Gentello's line of questioning allowable for the moment.

"This had better lead to something worthwhile, Advocate," she said.

"Yes, of course." Gentello loaded his words with oily assurance.

"Now, Dragoneer, would you point to that person and announce her name if you know it."

Relkin pointed to Lagdalen of the Tarcho, who was at the prosecution bench.

"So the very person who is prosecuting this trial was also in Dzu. What was her role?"

Relkin hesitated. This was difficult territory.

"I don't really know, and I don't know if I could say it if I did know."

Gentello reacted as if he had struck gold.

"What is this? Explain yourself."

Bushell objected again and asked to approach the judge's bar. There he pointed out that Lagdalen had been an assistant in the Office of Unusual Insight during the mission to Ourdh. That entire aspect of the case would have to be kept secret. Testimony would have to be given in camera.

Judge Tuva nodded. She had been warned of this eventuality.

"Advocate, you will have to pursue this line of questioning in camera with only the jury and myself present. You invoke an official secret."

"Ah, secrets!" Gentello was triumphant. "That will not be the last time we shall hear the word 'secrets' before this case is done."

"Would you like to go on with something else and hold this line for later, perhaps tomorrow morning?" said the judge.

"I would like to ask these questions in the full light of day with the eyes and ears of the citizenry opened to them. Not in a secret court ruled by witches!"