Veiled Rose (32 page)

T
HE
N
EAR
W
ORLD

O
F ALL THE KENNEL BOYS
working for the Duke of Shippening in Capaneus City, one was most likely to be plucked from his regular duties and transferred to the serving staff should a position need filling. This had something to do with his appearance (which was pleasant in a boyish sort of way), much to do with his manners (which were better than the duke’s), and something to do with his knowledge of a household servant’s tasks, unusual in one who worked with dogs.

The first time he had volunteered to wait at table, the head butler had laughed a bitter sort of laugh. The head butler was a man of some taste and culture, well aware that his master the duke wouldn’t have cared two straws whether a dog-boy served his ale or not. To what a state the Duchy of Shippening had fallen! No better than the days when barbarian thanes had roared drunkenly at table and thrown bones to the hounds underfoot.

But the lad had insisted on giving a demonstration of his abilities, and the butler was pleased to note that, though stiff and unnatural in his movements, he did indeed know the basic requirements of the work.

Thus Lionheart did not spend his entire life exercising the duke’s hounds and cleaning out their kennels. Some evenings, he stood with his back to the wall in the duke’s fine dining hall, assisting guests as needed.

One fine evening, Lionheart cleaned himself up after a day in the kennels, bending over a tiny basin and working without the aid of a mirror. His quarters, which he shared with three other men of the same occupation, were located behind the stables and beside the kennels, where the baying of the duke’s hunting hounds could wake the dead at any hour of the day or night. It was not the ideal situation for sprucing up in preparation for housework. Not that the duke would notice if a serving boy’s cravat was crooked. But the butler would.

Lionheart slicked down his hair with water and comb (which was intended for use on the hounds’ coats, but he was in no position to complain). Pennies. That was all this job was worth . . . pennies. Barely enough to live on. So this was freedom, then. This was a life without expectations or restraints.

But a man must eat. To eat, he must work. To work, he must not be too proud. Especially when he was a dark-skinned foreigner in exile. Ultimately, this job at the kennels paid better than other work available in Capaneus City—he wasn’t starved. But he would need money if he was to travel, if he was to learn.

If he was to discover how dragons may be slain.

Lionheart paused in the task of taming his hair, pressing his fingers into his scalp. He’d like to push that thought right out of his head. How could he hope to discover that secret? Trapped here, no better than a kenneled hound himself, working day in and day out just to feed himself. Already months had flown by, faster than he would have thought possible, and he had traveled no farther than Capaneus.

The Duchy of Shippening was separated from Southlands by the Chiara Bay and a thin isthmus. Lionheart had walked that isthmus, escaping the barriers of the Dragon’s prison, and entered freedom. At least, the sort of freedom that is to be found in a city like Capaneus. The freedom to be mugged within moments of foolishly showing one’s purse. The freedom to be beaten and left in a gutter. The freedom to crawl from the gutter again and beg for work wherever one could find it, thanking the Lights Above for the menial position of kennel boy for the duke.

Lionheart found himself more captive than ever: captive to his duty, equally captive to his inability to fulfill it.

Tell me what you want.

He didn’t know what he wanted, but it wasn’t this.

“Look out now, chappies.” One of the kennel boys who shared the tiny room with Leo sprawled on his pallet bunk, lazily chewing a straw. He rolled over suddenly, spat out the straw, and pointed out the door. Leo turned to look where he indicated. “The duke’s Fool has got out. Look at ’im! Strangest joke of a fellow you ever did see.”

Lionheart had to agree. One rarely saw the poor Fool outside the duke’s house. But there he was, wandering around the side of the stables and approaching the kennel, taking hesitant steps. His neck was long for his body, and it craned about as he looked here and there.

“Think he’s gone and lost hisself?” asked one of the other kennel boys, just returned from running a pack and reeking of sweat and slobber. He wiped a dirty hand down his face, shaking his head. “He ain’t supposed to leave the house, is he?”

“Well, go fetch him back, then,” said the first boy.

“I ain’t goin’ near him! He’s madder than a sack of starved ship rats.”

“All the more reason to not let him near the dogs.”

“
You
go catch him!”

Lionheart put up both hands. “It’s all right, fellows. I’ll get him.”

He stepped from their shack of a room out into the yard. “Loons of a feather,” one kennel boy said, and the other nodded and tapped his forehead.

Lionheart eyed the duke’s Fool. Having rounded that side of the stables, the poor man had caught sight of the dog kennels, and these apparently frightened him. In any case, he’d pressed his back against the stable wall and closed his eyes, and his lips moved soundlessly. He certainly appeared mad, but Lionheart didn’t, in that moment, fear him. Perhaps he should have. But since he’d stared down the Dragon’s burning throat, one simple madman held little terror for him.

This Fool was a strange person, though. He was abnormally thin, too thin, really, to continue living. His jester’s garb of brilliant colors sagged on his frame; yet his wrists, though tiny and more delicate than a woman’s, were not emaciated and bony. He was an albino, whiter than snow, and rather beautiful in a way.

It was a wonder to see the man so near. Years ago, when Lionheart was a boy, the Duke of Shippening had sent this very same Fool to the Eldest’s House to perform. What a marvel he’d been then, so merry in his brilliant colors, so strange with his white face and white hair. One would never have thought that he could be sad or frightened . . . though, in retrospect, Lionheart realized that he’d been quite mad. As a child, Lionheart had seen only the fun, heard only the laughter, and marveled at the feats and skills the madman had demonstrated.

Lionheart’s fingers itched with remembrance of his own juggling days. Once upon a time, he’d thought to become a jester himself. He’d planned to run away from home, from the crown, from Southlands, and take up the merry life of a performer.

Well, he’d certainly run away now. But things never turned out like one envisioned as a child.

The Fool appeared unaware of Lionheart’s approach. He continued murmuring to himself, and Lionheart realized as he neared that the Fool was speaking words, although not in a language Lionheart knew. Upon the few occasions he’d served at the duke’s table, Lionheart had seen the Fool perform. But then his voice had been animated, and his eyes bright and lively as he bounded about the room. Now the voice was low, soft, and full of heartache.

“Els jine aesda-o soran!”

It wasn’t gibberish. Lionheart thought that, with different ears, he might understand what the Fool said, even without knowledge of the language. It was more like music than language anyway. Like a wood thrush’s song.

“Aaade-o Ilmaan!”

Lionheart licked his lips. The poor Fool, his face turned a little away, looked so distressed in his madness. Lionheart wondered what he could say to comfort him. This must be how his insanity took him sometimes, these wild words, this incomprehensible fear.

Something gleamed about the Fool’s throat, an iron ring such as criminals wore when chained to a post. A necklace, maybe, but a strange one with that jester’s motley.

Suddenly the Fool no longer spoke gibberish. Lionheart, who was now fairly near, distinctly heard him say in the same singsong voice, but in a language he knew, “If I but knew my fault!”

And here the Fool’s eyes opened. They were very large and very wet, like clearest water. Shining but without color. They focused on Lionheart. There were never such sad eyes before in all the world.

“I blessed your name, O you who sit enthroned beyond the Highlands.”

“Um,” said Lionheart. “Are you supposed to be out here, old chap?”

The Fool stopped singing but did not shift those sorrowful eyes from Lionheart’s face. At last he said in a voice as liquid as his eyes, “She has you in her hand.”

Lionheart blinked. “Come again?”

“The Lady.”

“What lady?”

“The Lady of Dreams.” The Fool clenched fists with fingers abnormally long. Now that Lionheart really looked at them, he saw that each finger sported an extra joint. What a hideous mutation! “I pity you more than I pity myself.”

“Um,” said Lionheart again. He was uncertain of the approach one should take when addressing a madman. Was he likely to turn aggressive at any moment? He appeared docile, but those were the ones to watch for, weren’t they? “I don’t think you’re supposed to be out here.” He wondered if he dared take the poor Fool by the arm.

“No,” said the Fool softly. “I’m not supposed to be out here in the world beyond. It is very hot. I will burn.”

“Which means you should come back inside,” Lionheart agreed. “You will sunburn with that fair skin of yours, won’t you? Come.” He beckoned gently. The madman gazed long at Lionheart’s hand, then bowed his head and moved as directed, back around the corner of the stables. He started muttering to himself again in that strange tongue that, though beautiful, gave Lionheart the shivers. Lionheart tried to cover it up with soothing sounds such as, “There, there,” which were entirely inadequate.

Suddenly the madman turned to Lionheart and said, “What has she promised you?”

“What do you mean?” Lionheart asked.

“The Lady. Death’s sister. What has she promised to give you?”

Lionheart tried to smile but found it difficult. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let’s get you inside—”

“What do you want more than anything in the world?”

It was impossible to brush off the compelling tone of the Fool’s voice or to disregard the expression on his almost luminous face. Lionheart gulped and bowed his head to avoid that gaze. And suddenly he found himself saying what he had never intended to speak aloud.

“I want . . . freedom. But there is no freedom,” he added quickly. He was trapped here in a menial job. He was free of all boundaries and expectations but remained captive. He could not even fulfill his task.

He could not kill the Dragon.

“I cannot give you freedom,” said the Fool. “But neither can the Lady, though she will tell you that she can.”

Lionheart smiled at the madman, meeting his gaze again. Poor, sad fellow! “I don’t expect you or any lady to give me anything. I just want you to come back inside.”

“If you will break my chains, I will grant you a wish.”

The Fool grabbed Lionheart’s hands with his long, many-jointed fingers. Lionheart felt how strong they were and, simultaneously, how weak. He was scared but tried not to show it. After all, the worst thing one could do with a madman was demonstrate fear, right? Rather like with dogs. Make them believe you are in charge, even if they’re the ones with the teeth.

“It’s not wise to go around granting people’s wishes,” Lionheart said, continuing to smile stiffly. “They might wish for something unhealthy.”

“They always do.”

“Besides, you have no chains.” Lionheart’s voice was calming despite its slight tremble. “Come, my friend.”

“Do you not see my chains?”

The Fool reached up and grabbed the iron collar around his neck. It was not a chain; Lionheart could see the latch where it snapped together, and could see how easily it could be undone. The Fool could have plucked it off in an instant. Instead, he grimaced, hissing between his teeth, and dropped the collar, flexing his long fingers as though in pain. “Iron,” he said. “Iron chains!”

Lionheart wished very much that he’d stayed away and let someone else deal with this creature. He wasn’t as funny as one might expect from a jester. “Let’s get you inside,” he said again and firmly took the Fool’s arm. His fingers wrapped all the way around the tiny bone, but Lionheart was surprised to feel strength in that arm. The Fool offered no protest as Lionheart led him back to the duke’s house. “You have a performance tonight at supper, yes?”

“And tomorrow, another,” said the Fool. “And tomorrow’s morrow. And after and after and after.”

The duke’s house, despite the best efforts of the well-meaning butler, was in a constant state of disarray, suited to the duke himself. Lionheart brought the Fool to a back door but could convince no one to take him and put him where he belonged. Thus Lionheart found himself obliged to drag the poor idiot around the house with him for the next hour as he finished his own arrangements for that night’s banquet. The duke was hosting a merchant from the Far East with the same courtesy (or lack thereof) with which he would have hosted a count of Beauclair, an earl of Milden, or a mere farmer of Parumvir. Social niceties meant nothing to the Duke of Shippening; just so long as he remained firmly at the top of the pecking order, he cared not who dined with him.