Blood of Dragons. Робин Хобб
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Arich’s body. ‘You can be stripping him while I take care of this one’s face.’ He did not turn as he added, ‘And we must be quick. This is but the first of our tasks tonight. Hest Finbok has some letters to write, notes offering a very profitable association with his family, but one of the most confidential nature. That, I think, will draw our hidden friends out of their lairs and to the edge of the precipice. Just where we want them.’
Day the 26th of the Fish Moon
Year the 7th of the Independent Alliance of Traders
From Ronica Vestrit of the Vestrit Traders, Bingtown
To Whatever Incompetent Bird Keeper is accepting messages in Cassarick
The patron requests this be posted in the Bird Keepers’ Guild Hall
Once might be an accident. Twice might be coincidence. Four times is deliberate spying. You have been tampering with all messages sent to me from Cassarick. Messages sent to me from Malta Vestrit Khuprus have been received with seals damaged or missing, as well as a very recent message sent from Jani Khuprus. It is obvious to us that you are targeting messages moving between the Khuprus and Vestrit Trader families.
It is also obvious that you think us both stupid and ignorant of how the Guild employs birds and bird keepers. You will note that this message reaches you attached to the leg of one of the birds from your cote, birds you are personally responsible for. Although the Guild has refused to name you by name, I know that they now know who is responsible for at least some of the tampering. I have filed a complaint against you specifically, citing the leg-band marks of the birds that have arrived bearing damaged messages for me.
Your days as a bird keeper are numbered. You are a disgrace to the Rain Wild Traders and to the family that bore you. Shame upon you for betraying your oaths of confidentiality and loyalty. Trade cannot prosper where there is spying and deception. People like you do damage to us all.
‘He looks sick,’ the Duke objected.
Chancellor Ellik lowered his eyes silently, humiliated that his duke would publicly disparage the gift he had brought, but he would bow his head and accept it. He had no choice in that, and it pleased the Duke to keep him aware of that.
The private audience room was warm, possibly stifling to some of those in attendance. The Duke had lost so much flesh that he felt cold all the time, even on a fine spring day. Fires crackled in both the large hearths, the stone floors were thickly carpeted and the walls draped with tapestries. Soft, warm robes swaddled the Duke’s thin body. Still, he felt chilled, though sweat stood on the faces of the six guardsmen who attended him. The only others in the room were his Chancellor and the creature he had dragged in with him.
The chained dragon-man, the Elderling that stood before him, did not sweat. He was thin, with sunken eyes and lank hair. Ellik had allowed him only a loincloth, doubtless the better to show off his scaled flesh. A pity it also showed his ribs and how the knobs of his elbows and knees stood out. A bandage was bound to one of his shoulders. Not at all the glorious being that the Duke had anticipated.
‘I am sick.’
The creature’s voice startled him. It was not just that he could speak; his voice was stronger than the Duke would have expected it to be, given his condition. Moreover, he spoke in Chalcedean. It was accented but clear enough.
The Elderling coughed as if to illustrate that he spoke the truth, the light sort of throat-clearing one did when afraid that coughing hard enough to clear the mucus would hurt more than it was worth. The Duke was familiar with that sort of cough. The creature drew the back of one slender blue-scaled hand across his mouth, sighed and then lifted his eyes to meet the Duke’s stare. When he let his hands drop back to his sides, the chains on his wrists rattled. His eyes were human, in this light, but when he had first been brought into the chamber his gaze had seemed lambent like a cat’s, gleaming blue in the candlelight.
‘Silence!’ Ellik spat the word at his creature. ‘Silence and on your knees before the Duke.’ He expressed his frustration with a sharp jerk on the dragon-man’s chain and the creature stumbled forward, falling to his knees and barely catching himself on his hands.
The dragon-man cried out as he slapped the floor and then, with difficulty, straightened so that he was kneeling. He glared hatred at Ellik.
As the Chancellor drew his fist back, the Duke intervened. ‘So. It can talk, can it? Let it speak, Chancellor. It amuses me.’ The Duke could see that this did not please Ellik. All the more reason to hear what the dragon-man would say.
The scaled man cleared his throat but still spoke hoarsely. His courtesy was that of a man on the crumbling edge of sanity. The Duke was familiar with that sort of final clutching at normality. Why did desperate men believe that logic and formality could restore them to a life that had vanished?
‘My name is Selden Vestrit of the Bingtown Traders, fostered by the Khuprus family of the Rain Wild Traders, and Singer to the Dragon Tintaglia. But perhaps you know that?’ The man looked up into the Duke’s face hopefully. When he saw no recognition there, he resumed speaking. ‘Tintaglia chose me to serve her, and I was glad to do so. She gave me a task. The dragon bid me go forth, to see if I could find others of her kind or hear any tales of them. And I went. I journeyed far with a group of Traders. I went for love of the dragon, but they went in the hope of gaining her favour and somehow turning that favour to wealth. But no matter where we went, our search was fruitless. The others wanted to turn back, but I knew I had to go on.’
Once more, his eyes searched the Duke’s impassive face for some sort of sympathy or interest. The Duke allowed his face to betray no interest in the tale. The dragon-singer’s voice was more subdued when he went on. ‘Eventually, my own people betrayed me. The Traders I travelled with dismissed our quest. I think they felt I had betrayed them, had led them on a foolish venture that had used up their money and gained them nothing. They stole everything I had and at the next port, they sold me as a slave. My new “owners” took me far to the south and displayed me at markets and crossroads fairs. But then, when my novelty waned, and I began to get sick, they sold me again. I was shipped north, but pirates took our vessel and I changed hands. I was bought as a freak to be displayed to the curious. Somehow, your Chancellor learned of my existence and brought me here. And now, I have come to you.’
The Duke had known nothing of that. He wondered if Ellik had, but he did not look at his Chancellor. The dragon-man held his attention. He spoke persuasively, this ‘dragon-singer’. His voice was rough, the music gone from it, but the cadence and tone of his words would have been convincing to a less susceptible man. The Duke made no response to him. Desperation broke into his voice on his next words and the Duke wondered if he were younger than he appeared.
‘Those who claimed to own me and sold me were liars! I am not a slave. I have never committed any crime to be punished with slavery, nor ever been a citizen of any place where such a punishment is accepted. If you will not free me on my own word that my imprisonment is unjust, then let me send word to my people. They will buy my freedom back from you.’ He coughed again, harder this time, and pain spasmed across his face with each rough exhalation. He barely managed to remain kneeling upright, and when he wiped his mouth, his lips remained wet with mucus. It was a disgusting display.
The Duke regarded him coldly. ‘Now I know your name, but who you are does not matter to me. It is what you are that brings you here. You are part dragon and that is all I care about.’ He considered his options. ‘How long have you been ill?’
‘No. You are wrong. I am not part dragon. I am a man, changed by a dragon. My mother is from Bingtown, but my father was a Chalcedean,