“Hot for it, aren’t you, Devil-jaws?” Zehava crooned low in his throat. He rode at a steady pace, his cloak blowing back from his shoulders, and stopped half a measure in front of the rocky spire. Striated sandstone in a dozen shades of amber and garnet rose like the Flametower at Zehava’s castle of Stronghold. The dragon clung to the stone with claws thick as a man’s wrist, balance easily kept despite the repeated lashings of the gold-and-black patterned tail. The two rulers of the Desert sized each other up. On the surface it was a ludicrously unequal contest: the massive, dagger-toothed dragon against one man on horseback. But Zehava had an advantage that had made him the champion in such encounters nine times before, more than any man living and part of the family legend. Zehava understood dragons.
This one burned to fill his dozen or more females, but he was growing old and knew it. There were battle scars on the dark golden hide, and one talon hung at an unnatural angle, damaged in some earlier combat. As the great wings unfurled threateningly, showing the velvety black undersides, badly healed tears were visible as well as crooked wingbones that had not remeshed properly after breaking. This might be the dragon’s last mating, and Zehava suspected that the beast knew it.
Nevertheless, he was capable of giving the prince a good long battle. But Zehava understood something else about dragons. Though notoriously cunning, they were entirely single-minded. This one wanted to mate. His fighting style would thus be direct and unsubtle, without the tricks a dragon used once mating was over for another three years. He had already been inhaling the stench of his own sexuality for days during the preliminaries—the sand-dance and the cliff-dance that had attracted his females to him. His brain was drugged now and his fighting wits would be dulled, for his one purpose was to seed his females and this made him at once more vicious and more vulnerable. Though Zehava had a healthy respect for those talons and teeth, he could also grin in his anticipation of a tenth triumph. He was going to out-think this grandsire dragon, and have a rousing good time doing it.
Fifty measures distant, in a fortress that had been carved out of solid rock by successive generations of Zehava’s family, Princess Milar sat with her sister Lady Andrade. The two were silent for the present; the entrance of a servant into the solar with cool drinks and fruit had interrupted a stormy passage between the twin sisters on the subject of Prince Rohan.
When the servant had bowed and departed, Lady Andrade flicked her long blonde braid back over her shoulder and glared at her sister. “Stop fussing the boy! Things are brewing in Roelstra’s court that Zehava can’t hope to understand, but Rohan will!”
“Are you calling my husband a fool?” Milar snapped.
“Save your theatrics, Mila. He’s a brilliant soldier and a fine man, but if you think the coming conflict will be one of arms, think again. The Storm God alone knows what Roelstra’s planning, but it won’t be something to march an army against.” She reached over and plucked a bunch of grapes from a bowl, subjecting their ruby gloss to a critical inspection. “You may think your princedom too rich and powerful to be threatened. But the High Prince is constitutionally incapable of abiding anyone richer than he. And Zehava hasn’t been exactly subtle about his wealth. I heard about the birthday present he sent Roelstra.”
“It was entirely in keeping with—”
“With Zehava’s conceit! Two horses or even four, nicely caparisoned, would have been fine. But twenty! And all in silver! He’s flaunting his riches, Mila, and that’s dangerous—like this imbecile dragon hunt today. He’s killed nine of the monsters, why does he need a tenth?”
Princess Milar wore an expression before which scores of highborns had quailed; her face was none the less lovely for its icy hauteur. “It’s his duty to rid the Desert of dragons. It also demonstrates the cunning and strength which are so important in war. That’s politics.”
“That’s stupidity. Better he should have sent Rohan out to kill this dragon, so his
heir’s
cunning and strength are made clear.” Andrade popped a grape into her mouth and split the skin with her teeth, drawing off the sweet juices before spitting out the remains into a silver bowl provided for the purpose.
“Rohan has no heart for fighting dragons,” Milar admitted unhappily.
“But he’s warrior enough with heart enough,” Andrade pointed out. “Dressing in common trooper’s uniform that last campaign against the Merida when you’d forbidden him to leave Stronghold—”
“We’ve never worried about his spirit. But you know he spends too much time at his books and talking with the most unlikely people. I’ve defended him in the past, but now I’m beginning to agree with Zehava. Rohan ought to learn how to be the kind of prince his forefathers were.”
“That’s precisely what he doesn’t need to learn! Building a princedom is fine work for a soldier, and Zehava’s done very well. He consolidated what his grandfather began, strengthened his hold on what his father grabbed from the Merida, and enlarged the whole through his own efforts. Actually,” Andrade said in thoughtful tones, “one can’t blame him for wanting to show off. He’s worked wonders, especially against the Merida.”
“If I required a history lesson, I would send for my bard,” Milar snapped.
Andrade ignored her remark. “Zehava’s problem is that he’s run out of things to do. All he can think of is to spend money on you and Tobin and this pile of rock we’re sitting in—and to waste his time killing dragons. Believe me, sister dear, Roelstra can think of many occupations for his own time, and none of them healthy as far as you’re concerned.”
“I fail to see—”
“You usually do,” Andrade interrupted. “Let Rohan read his books and talk with the ambassadors—yes, and even with the servants of the ambassadors! He’ll learn things that Zehava could never teach him.”
“Why don’t you go back to your duties in that moldy old keep of yours, and leave the work of the world to the people who can do it?”
“What do you think I do in my moldy old keep—knit?” Andrade snorted and picked out another fat grape. “While I’m training silly boys and girls to be good
faradh’im,
I listen to them. And what I hear these days isn’t pleasant, Mila.” She began ticking off points on her long, slender fingers, each one circled by a gold or silver ring with a different gemstone. The rings were linked by tiny chains across the backs of her palms to the bracelets of her office as Lady of Goddess Keep. “One, Roelstra doesn’t plan to make war against anyone, so Zehava’s show of strength and skill in hunting dragons counts for nothing. Two, the High Prince has agents in every court—including yours.”
“Impossible!” Milar scoffed.
“Your wine steward has a nasty look about him, and I wouldn’t vouch for your assistant stablemaster, either. Three, the High Prince has seventeen daughters, some of them legitimate off poor, dead Lallante. All of them need husbands. Where will Roelstra find eligible men for them? I’ll tell you where: from the most important courts, even for the bastard girls.”
The princess sat up straight on the blue velvet lounge. “Do you mean an offer might come for Rohan?”
“Good for you!” Andrade exclaimed in a voice that dripped sarcasm. “Yes, an offer will be made. Can you think of a more eligible young man than your son? He’s rich, of the noblest blood, he’ll rule this wasteland someday—which, though not a recommendation in itself, does imply a certain amount of power. And he’s not all that difficult to look at.”
“My son is the handsomest young man on the continent!” Milar defended. “He’s perfectly beautiful and I—”
“And a perfect virgin?”
Milar shrugged. “Zehava says you can tell a woman from a maiden just by the way she walks, but I’ve never heard of a similar test for boys. But what does it matter? It’s the prince’s bride who should come virgin to the marriage bed, not the prince himself.”
“I only wanted to know if he’s heart-whole. He’s not the type to spread every pair of female thighs he can find just for the fun of it. Rohan’s the romantic kind, poor thing.” She mused on this for a moment, then sighed. “In any case, an offer will be made regarding one of the legitimate princesses, because a bastard would be an insult to your house, and—”
“But that’s wonderful!” Milar’s blue eyes shone beneath the sunsilk of her hair. “The honor of it—and the dowry! We must be sure to ask for Feruche Castle. Rohan couldn’t do better than a daughter of the High Prince!”
“Mila, think. You’ll be allied to Roelstra by marriage—”
“I
have
thought! He would hardly attack his daughter’s husband!”
“Listen to me! Rohan and his princess will have sons who will one day rule the Desert. What would be more natural than for the grandson of the High Prince to annex his holdings to his beloved grandsire’s?”
“Never! The Treaty of Linse gives the Desert to Zehava’s family for as long as the sands spawn fire.”
“Very pretty. A direct quote, I take it? But the Desert will continue to belong to Zehava’s family through Rohan. It will also belong to Roelstra’s, through the daughter he sends as Rohan’s bride. The High Prince is only forty-five this year, Mila. Let me conjure a vision for you.”
The princess’ eyes went wide. “No! Andrade, you mustn’t! Not here!”
“With words only, sister. Say Rohan marries this girl, whichever one it is. I can never keep them all straight. Say they have a child within two years. Roelstra will be forty-seven. Say he lives to be eighty. It’s not unlikely. His grandfather was ninety-three when he died—”
“And his father barely twenty-eight.”
“Pathetic age. I’ve always had my suspicions about that bottle of bad brandy said to have caused his death. But where was I? Ah, yes. Zehava is sixty this year and doesn’t come of a long-lived clan. Oh, don’t go all teary-eyed on me, Mila. He’ll probably prove me a liar just for spite and live to be a hundred and thirty-five. But say something happens to him before the grandsons are grown. Rohan becomes prince. Say further that something happens to Rohan—and believe me, my dear, when his sons are past the usual childhood illnesses, Rohan will be expendable. This leaves us the widowed princess, her sons of ten or twelve winters—and Roelstra hale and hearty, not even the age Zehava is right now.”
“A ridiculous fantasy!” Milar exclaimed, but shadows were in her eyes.
“If you like. Another conjuring with words. Rohan really becomes unnecessary once he’s fathered a son or two on this girl. With him out of the way and Zehava as caretaker for the boys until they come of age, Roelstra could let your husband die in his bed and
still
do anything he likes once the grandson inherits.”
Lady Andrade applied herself to the grapes and waited for her twin to absorb the implications. Truly, Andrade had no idea why she bothered with this lovely lackwit sister of hers. Milar had inherited all the looks in the family, leaving Andrade to get by on the brains and energy. What was delicate gold in Milar was ruddy in Andrade; the temper for which both women were well-known was a flashfire rage in Milar, but carefully calculated in Andrade. Milar was perfectly happy being wife to a rather remarkable man (Andrade could admit Zehava’s virtues in private), mother to his children, and running his fortress. Andrade would never have been content with that life. She might have married a man through whom she could have controlled vast stretches of the continent, but as Lady of Goddess Keep she ruled more lands indirectly than even Roelstra. Her
faradh’im,
commonly called Sunrunners, were everywhere, and through them she influenced or downright controlled every prince and lord between the Dark and Sunrise Waters.
She supposed she bothered with Milar because of Rohan. He took after neither of his parents in personality—nor did he resemble Andrade, so it was not herself in masculine guise she saw in him. He was unique, and she valued him for that. Milar loved the boy devotedly, and Zehava was just as fond of Rohan, though puzzled by him. Andrade alone understood him and had glimpsed what he might become.
“I see your point, Andri,” Milar was saying slowly. “I wish you had explained it all clearly to begin with. We’ll simply have to reject the High Prince’s offer when it comes.”
Lady Andrade sighed. “How?” she asked succinctly, wondering if her sister was entirely the fool she sometimes acted.
The princess’ face, scarcely lined even after nearly thirty years in the harshness of the Desert, wrinkled now in alarm. “An open refusal would be a horrible insult! Roelstra would be down on us like a dragon on a yearling!” She fretted silently for a moment, then smiled. “Zehava can win any battle. If Roelstra dares attack, he’ll slink back to Castle Crag in total defeat!”
“You
idiot!
” Andrade snarled, totally out of patience. “Have you heard nothing of what I’ve said? Didn’t you listen to points four, five, and six?”
“I didn’t listen because you didn’t tell me!” Milar flared. “How can you expect me to make a decision when you withhold information?”
“Sorry,” Andrade muttered. “Very well then, point four—Prince Chale of Ossetia is in Roelstra’s camp with a trade agreement they will make public at the Rialla this year. Five, Lord Daar of Gilad Seahold needs a wife and wants a princess. Point six—and for the same reasons—that piece of offal, Prince Vissarion of Grib, is also on Roelstra’s side. Do you seriously think Zehava can stand against all of them in addition to the allies Roelstra openly admits to? They’ve all seen what you and Zehava have built here. The Desert will never be a garden, but you’ve made parts of it into nearly that. This keep, Chaynal’s Radzyn, Tiglath and Tuath and Whitecliff Manor—all the work done by Zehava’s ancestors is finally bearing fruit. Don’t you think they’d all love an excuse to pluck the tree bare? An insult to a High Prince’s daughter would give them a fine reason to avenge her honor, especially if some of them are married or betrothed to her sisters.” She stopped, seeing by her twin’s stricken face that Milar at last understood the gravity of her position—or, more to the point, Rohan’s.