The Dragons of Argonath (25 page)

"Will I have to testify again?"

"After cross-examination, I think not. We will depose the dragon and then put the other witnesses on the stand."

"Right, the dragon's all ready. He knows this stuff better than I do."

"Then there are the other men who we have as witnesses. No, it's going to work out the same. Your testimony was only part of the case, and even if the defense damages it, the rest of the case is overwhelming. So Glaves faces another guilty verdict quite soon."

"And there will be more trouble."

"I would think so."

"Meanwhile, I have to face these charges?"

"I'm afraid so. As you know, once the wheels have been set in motion, they have to go through the full process."

Lagdalen explained that they should be able to free him right away so he could return to duty. They would also try and speed up any court date. But the 109th were due to ship out soon for Kadein and Axoxo. Relkin might wind up detached from his unit. The dragon might have someone else for dragonboy, probably Curf.

Relkin winced at the thought of Curf working over Bazil's kit. Curf was a long way from being a proficient dragonboy.

Then she left with a few final words of encouragement.

"Look at it this way, Relkin. We have to get you out. We have a whole party arranged in your honor for tomorrow night at the Festival of Shoes."

He waited another hour, and then Eilsa Ranardaughter came in, accompanied by Captain Hollein Kesepton and Aunt Kiri.

Kesepton, Lagdalen's husband, was also in Marneri to give testimony in the Glaves case. He was presently posted to a regiment in Dalhousie, up in Kenor, and was just visiting the city briefly to testify.

Eilsa's distress at the sight of Relkin in a cell brought on something like tears in her eyes. Despite Aunt Kiri, she put her hands through the bars, cradled Relkin's head, and kissed him.

Aunt Kiri was shocked and made a face. Eilsa ignored her.

"Oh, Relkin, what is all this? Why are you in here?"

"It's a political thing, Eilsa. It's the Aubinans. They're trying to discredit my testimony. It doesn't mean anything."

"But it was a legion regulation."

"An obscure one I never heard of."

From behind her Kesepton agreed. "An obscure one hardly anyone's heard of."

Eilsa was still a little teary, but she did not actually cry. Instead her face was rapidly clearing as her practical side rose to the surface. Her mind was going to work on the ramifications of it all.

"This is not going to help matters at home, though."

"Yes," agreed Relkin, "I expect you're right about that."

Relkin had spent two and a half months in the land of the Wattels that spring, searching for sites that he and Eilsa could build their future home on. He had visited with her enormous, extended family. That had been hard going. There was a profound suspicion of the outsider that just didn't go away no matter how polite Relkin was. In fact, it reminded him all too much of the rejection he'd suffered from the Ardu folk in distant Eigo, even after he'd rescued them from slavery. There the prejudice was based on the fact that Relkin lacked a tail. Here it was just that he didn't come from the Wattel Hills. He'd always felt he'd win them over somehow. Except that now he had a lot more problems with the elders of Clan Wattel.

"Wish I'd never seen that gold now." He tried to say this as if he meant it, but it wasn't easy.

"I wish I could laugh about it," Eilsa's exasperation surfaced. "Things are going to be really difficult for us."

"But these charges mean nothing. They haven't proved I did anything wrong. I declared the gold to the customs, and I paid landing taxes on it in Marneri. I filed all the forms."

"Those old heads up there in the hills don't care about whether you're actually guilty. They just want to discredit you and force me to abandon the idea of marrying you."

He dropped his eyes.

"They must think I'm a regular tearaway, huh?"

"Relkin, this isn't the first time you've had serious charges against you. They know all about Trader Dook."

"Well, they didn't hang me for that one. And this one won't mean anything in the end. We'll get messages from our friends in Eigo. They'll back us up."

Eilsa squeezed his hands. "I know they will." She leaned forward and kissed him again, ignoring the snort of indignation behind her back.

"I love you, Relkin, no matter what they say."

Hollein looked studiously up at the ceiling.

At that moment, far away across the sea, the greatest witches met in a small chamber high in the Tower of Swallows, above Andiquant, the Imperial City.

Lessis was brooding, something she had done more frequently since the ambush of the Imperial Progress.

"He struck more quickly than I expected. He came very close to achieving his aim."

Ribela nodded. Lessis had been heavily bandaged for weeks when she returned from the Argonath. She had been uncharacteristically subdued.

"Teress noted some interesting movements within the Imperial family at about the same time. Surveillance of certain persons has been stepped up."

"He has chosen
us
for his initial attack, not the Czardhans. This I didn't expect. They would be easier for his methods, I would have thought."

"He likes a challenge, I expect."

Lessis looked up. "Then, he's damn well going to get one."

Ribela turned professorial. "Waakzaam is of the world builders, but ever he was attracted to the subtle and the devious. He searches for the weaknesses in a society and then works to set civil wars burning in the holes. When chaos has weakened it enough, he appears on the field with an army and takes control. Every fiction is used to shield the truth of this process from the minds of the people. Usually it works because they are so inflamed with petty hatreds and war feelings that they cannot perceive the grander design."

"He failed in his first, brilliant stroke. He must be angry."

"The anger of Waakzaam the Great is not a thing to contemplate easily."

"He will want to be very sure of his second stroke."

Ribela fluttered her long fingers. "We cannot prevent every such stroke. There are political problems enough in the land to provide him with issues and sore places he can inflame."

"Oh, I know. Aubinas!" Lessis very rarely allowed her calm facade to crack, but now her anger was plain to see. "And Arneis! Arneis, which would have been devastated completely if the legions and the clansmen of the hills had not come down and stopped the great invasion in its tracks. Yet now there is no thought of what is owed, only the dream of great wealth from mercantilist trade with the rest of the Argonath."

"The greed of men is a fierce instinct. It will always test the limits of the Imperial system."

"Women are greedy too; it is not a vice restricted to men, Ribela."

Ribela sniffed. "Yes, perhaps this is true. But in Defwode we think that the greed of men is sharper, for it is entwined with the male need to dominate. This is a very deep urge. It is hard to keep men subdued enough so they forget it."

"The men of Defwode are great weavers and poets."

"They are gentle men and worthy of the respect of women."

"They are worthy indeed, sister, but they are not the greatest of warriors, perhaps."

Ribela sniffed again. "Perhaps not, but our men of Defwode are less greedy as well, and this makes them pleasant to live with. An important consideration, sister."

"I agree. The greed shown in Aubinas and Arneis is not pleasant to consider."

"Aubinas is very different from Defwode, that is certain. The grain merchants used their money and influence in Marneri to distort the markets, cornering certain grains at key times of the year. Money and corruption flowed from this to infect Marneri. The landowners fell into debt and were virtually displaced by the grain merchants who have become a class of petty tyrants, each ruling a township of the province."

"The greed of men, as I said. The women of Defwode are correct in fearing it."

"They certainly have a point, sister."

"And the men of Defwode more than make up for their relative absence in the ranks of the fighting men of the legion. They are the heart of the Engineer Corps, and as such they have won many battles for the empire."

"Indeed, sister, they have."

Ribela was mollified. "We have been lucky, but we cannot count on luck to last."

"You're right. We were terribly, terribly lucky that the Broketail dragon was on the trail that day. We were lucky that Relkin was able to come up with some unheard-of magical athleticism."

"A strange phenomenon. He has no knowledge of the secrets, and yet he has powers."

"That boy has changed, Ribela. He still has that spark that we noticed years ago, but now something new is developing within him. I feel something there, but I don't know what it is."

At the mere mention of Relkin's name, Ribela cringed inside. Embarrassment of a profound order rose in her heart. To her shame, she shared a disgustingly intimate secret with that particular dragonboy.

"Processes were taken during his duty in Eigo that may have affected his sanity," she remarked coolly. "Has this been considered?"

"Indeed. But he seemed very levelheaded about it all. I spoke to him. He's still confused about the gods and the role of the High Ones. He spent considerable time among the elf lords, yet he seems to have survived their evil designs."

"He saw things he should never have been exposed to. Cruel, terrible things that could affect anyone's heart."

Lessis heard the passion in Ribela's voice and raised an eyebrow.

"And still we face our greatest threat from this new player. The Dominator, they call him, for he rules twelve whole worlds. Billions of beings have died beneath his heel. The Padmasans are weaker since the loss of Heruta, and they will soon be twisted into knots within his schemes. No one has greater skill in deceit and manipulation."

"Let us try to anticipate his next move. If we put our heads together, perhaps we can prepare a noose with which to hang him."

A special ceremony began the Festival of Shoes, a season of dances and festivals in honor of the young women of the land. In every household new shoes were placed on the feet of the eldest daughter. The honor of placing these shoes went to her father, unless she were old enough to be married. In that case, her husband placed the new shoes on her feet and did up the straps.

In the receiving salon of the great apartment of the Tarcho family in the Tower of Guard, a great party watched and applauded as Hollein Kesepton tied the straps around his wife's ankles. Wine was passed around, and the fiddlers took up their instruments and began to reel out the lovely old dance tunes of Marneri, beginning, of course, with "A Fine Young Man of Marneri." Tommaso, the family patriarch, led the dancing with Lacustra, Lagdalen's mother. Lagdalen was dancing in Hollein's arms. And in the happy throng, Relkin, who'd been released only hours before, found Eilsa and swept her away from Aunt Kiri onto the dance floor. They touched their toes together and kicked out to the side and swung around arm-in-arm in the ancient way.

Faces flushed with excitement, they spun around and around while the fiddlers played on through "La Lilli La Loo" and even the "Kenor Song."

Then Lacustra Tarcho blew the first horn, a sharp piercing note that announced it was time to go in for dinner.

A long table had been set out with the traditional wooden plates that were used only for this festival. The servants brought out the traditional foods, Munkiore—a rissoto with fish and sea vegetables—mashed neeps, and a fish pie done in the old Cunfshon manner, deep and round. These were recipes that went back hundreds of years to the very beginnings of the Argonath revival.

Relkin led Eilsa to the table to sit opposite him, while Tommaso Tarcho, who was determined that Relkin should sit close to him, waved them to seats on either side of himself at the very head of the table. Older members of the family happily displaced themselves, while Aunt Kiri was left stranded far down the table among some country cousins from Seant.

Relkin had to admit, it was the finest Shoe Festival feast he'd ever attended. A plate piled high with Munkiore and mashed neeps was set before him, along with a mug of small beer. At Tommaso's call, silence fell down the length of the long table.

Tommaso said the grace, calling down the blessing of the Great Mother on their meal and their lives and giving their thanks for all they had in life.

"A toast." He raised his mug. Then inclined his face to Relkin and then across the table to Eilsa. "To our gallant young friend, Relkin of Quosh, and to his intended wife, the honorable Eilsa Ranardaughter of Wattel."

"A toast!" went up the cry, and the mugs were raised and drained and refilled. Flushed in the face, Relkin and Eilsa gazed into each other's eyes, and Eilsa smiled with simple happiness. Relkin's troubles with the law seemed far away and quite insignificant.

The meal resumed and conversation picked up. Tommaso wanted to hear all about the recent action in Quosh, which had so shocked the city folk in Marneri.

"Bandits, they said at first, but now I hear it was something else. There's a lot they're not saying."

Relkin glanced down to Lagdalen, but Lagdalen was no longer an associate of the witches and thus not part of "they." Still, he made sure to keep his tongue under control. Lessis had told him that the battle at Quosh had been a secret strike by Padmasa. Certain things were better not discussed.

"Well, there's always a good reason for secrecy in these things, Master Tommaso."

Tommaso nodded in understanding.

"The fighting was fierce, though? We heard that much of the village was destroyed."

"Very fierce fighting, but the villagers came out to save the town, and we were lucky that we had Bazil."

"An invasion, right in the heart of the Blue Stone country," broke in Uncle Iapetor. "You see, Tommaso, we need more frigates to patrol the inshore waters."

This was an old demand of ship captains, who lived in perpetual fear of piracy.