Realm of Dragons

Renard shrugged. “Tell me anyway. Maybe I’ll change a few things. You know what liars singers get to be.”

“Aye,” the sailor said. He took another swig of the beer Renard had bought him. “Gods, this is awful stuff. Now, where was I?”

“The story.”

“Oh, yes. Well, I was crewing on a treasure ship, wasn’t I, going out the long way because King Ravin has to be paid by his colonies out west, out on Sarras.”

The mention of the Southern king was enough to keep Renard’s interest. “And then what?”

“Caught the edge of one of the tides, didn’t we?” the sailor said. “Went too close to the mouth of the river’s estuary in the wrong tide, and got ourselves sucked onto the rocks.” The look of horror on his face as he thought about it was enough to make Renard believe him. Why anyone would chance going near the powerful pull of the Slate, he didn’t know.

“I barely got off,” the man said. “Me and a few of the others. Obviously, the captain’s dead by that point, and some of the lads are stupid enough to go to the local lord, say what we have, say that they’ll show him where, for a price.”

“And you know that how?” Renard said.

“Because one of them came to me after, looking frightened, like he’d done the stupidest thing in his life. Maybe he had, because I’ve not seen him since. From what he said, they took Lord Carrick down to the spot where we washed up, and he had his men pick it clean; took the treasure back to his grand house in the city. Then he had those who knew about it killed. My friend barely got away.”

He was probably dead now, Renard mused. So, probably, would the sailor be in a few days. Lord Carrick was not rumored to be a kind or gentle lord. The inn sat on his lands, and there were plenty who came through who had their complaints about him. Quietly, if they had sense. Of course, that was what made this prospect so appealing.

“What kind of treasure was on this ship?” Renard asked.

“Why? Planning to go and ask his lordship for some of it?”

Renard forced a laugh at that. “Ha, maybe, or maybe I just need the details for my song. What was it? Statues? Art? Gold bars?”

“Coin,” the sailor said, and Renard heaved a silent sigh of relief. If it had been any of the things he’d mentioned, they would have been far too heavy to carry. “Southern pieces mostly, but a few things stamped with the colonies’ marks. My friend said they had a clerk count every piece into a book when they took it.” He shook his head. “Probably killed him too.”

Renard could see why the man was drinking so much. Probably he knew what was coming for him. Probably he thought he might as well see out his last days blind drunk.

“Well,” he said, “as stories go, it needs a little work. For a better ending, we really need a cunning but handsome thief to sweep in and take it all from under his lordship’s nose.”

“Ah, now that would be a thing,” the sailor said. “But that don’t happen in real life. Thieves mostly rob other poor folk, who can’t fight back, not rich bastards who can hire guards.”

“True enough,” Renard said. “Still, it’s a nice thought. Same again?”

“Sure,” the sailor said.

Renard found himself wondering if he should keep going with this. Was this something he wanted to push forward with? Did he want to risk annoying Yselle more than usual with this? His purse gave him the answer to that. He needed the coin.

Renard stood and went toward the bar. Yselle was there, and Renard couldn’t decide if she was in one of the moods where she cared about his existence or not.

“You’re doing a lot of talking to that sailor,” she observed.

“Well, I’m a very friendly person,” Renard pointed out, with his most charming smile.

“Oh, stop that, you think I don’t know when you’re lying to me?” Yselle said.

“Would I lie to one so beautiful?” Renard asked.

“Almost constantly,” the barmaid retorted. “It’s just as well you’re pretty, or I’d have thrown you out on your ear months ago.”

“Pretty?” Renard affected wounded pride. “I am dashing, and handsome, but not—”

“Pretty,” Yselle said firmly. “Pretty as a maiden, though we both know you’re not that. Now, did you want something?”

“Tell me about Lord Carrick,” Renard said.

Yselle shrugged. “What’s to tell? You know all the stories, probably better than I do with that lute of yours. You know that he’s hard on the peasants, takes his share and more of their crops, and hangs any who complain. You know he has more serfs than most, and treats them worse. What else do you want?”

Renard considered. “Someone who knows the layout of his home would be useful.”

Yselle frowned at that. “No, Renard. That would be stupid.”

“Not knowing the layout would be stupid,” Renard countered. “This is just being prepared.”

“You know what I mean,” Yselle said. “Doing what you’re thinking of doing would be a special kind of stupid, even by your standards.”

“Well, a man should always try for self-betterment,” Renard said. He slid a few more coins across the bar and raised an eyebrow. “Who, Yselle?”

She hesitated for a long moment and then sighed. “There’s one of his former guards lives not far from here. Didn’t leave on good terms. He comes in sometimes, and since Lord Carrick doesn’t look after those who no longer work for him, he’s probably poor enough to bribe.”

“He’ll do,” Renard said.

“Seriously though, you should think again about this. This is a dangerous man.”

Renard shrugged. “That’s what makes it fun.”

He said that because Yselle probably wouldn’t understand the real reasons. She wouldn’t get that fun didn’t come into it, only the thought of everything a man like Lord Carrick could get away with, just because he’d been a big enough thug to amass a fortune. Steal a gold piece, and you could have your fingers cut off. Steal a whole chunk of land, and you got to be the one doing the cutting.

If men like Renard didn’t bring lords like this Carrick down to size, who would? If they got to treat those on their lands like dirt with no comeback, what was to stop them from doing it for all time? If they could just kill men and take treasure, how did that make them any better than…

…well, than him? That was always the problem with that kind of philosophizing: sooner or later it showed you head on what kind of man you were. Still, Renard thought, at least there was the gold, and it was an awful, awful lot of gold.

Probably even enough to be worth all the risks.

CHAPTER NINE

King Godwin stretched as he arrived in the great hall, shifting the weight of the deer he carried. The noonday light was too bright for his eyes as he strode forward, because there’d been enough drinking on this hunt, and in the feasting before. He threw the creature down onto a table, hearing the wood creak as it landed. Across the hall, his wife looked up from working with Lenore and her maids on their dresses for the coming festivities.

“There, Aethe, my love!” he called out. “I told you that I would make up for yesterday’s feasting. We’ve bagged this, and boar, and pheasant!”

“And what good is it lying on our hall’s tables, making a mess?” Aethe asked with a tolerant sigh. She gestured to a couple of servants, who quickly went to take the deer away to the kitchens.

“Ah, you’ve no heart,” King Godwin said. He went to her, sweeping her up in his arms and kissing her. To him, she was still as beautiful as she had been when they’d first met; not the all-consuming passion that it had been with his first wife, but something pure, and simple, and needed.

“And you’ve no head, sometimes,” Aethe replied. She took him across to the spot where their thrones waited, carved in the basalt of the volcanoes that littered the land, most thankfully long dormant.

“How go the preparations?” King Godwin asked. “Is everything in order?”