The Dragon Waiting

by John M. Ford

  "I understand. I saw this done at the Library, to restore a damaged manuscript."

  "Except that this," Quentin said intently, "takes place over a distance, with poorer correspondence, and is considerably more costly to the worker. My Lady Doctor, will you watch Peredur, in case he—"

  “Oh, stop it, Quentin,” Hywel said midlt. “I’m not so old as that.”

  Quentin looked around. "Is that what you told them? Well, he lied to you: he's at least—"

  "Chaudronnier," Hywel said, and Quentin stopped.

  Quentin took a stick of sealing wax from one of the boxes. "Also Louis's own formula. As I ought to know." He held it in the lamp flame. There was a distinct scent of wild cherries.

  "Where's the seal?" Dimitrios said.

  Without answering, Quentin held the soft stick over the paper, letting heavy red drops fall.

  Hywel put the fingertips of his right hand together and pushed them toward the hot wax.

  Cynthia raised her arm to stop him; Gregory touched it, preventing her.

  Hywel's fingers paused a fraction of an inch above the blob of wax. His eyes were shut tight and his forehead was creased.

  Untouched physically, the wax began to deform.

  A man's profile etched itself: an eye, a nose, a chin. Around the edge, little bits of wax sank down in the shapes of letters.

  Hywel's eyes opened. "The ink, now," he said, his voice slightly strained.

  Quentin took the pan of powdered ink from Dimitrios. Tapping it with a finger, he began to dust the black powder onto the paper. The black specks leaped like ants on a hot plate, and they clung, in the hazy outlines of writing. The images darkened, sharpened.

  Cynthia read "'... and should the said Henry die without surviving issue male, the said George shall succeed him in..."'

  Quentin picked up a brass-nozzled flask, pumped a plunger with his thumb. A mist spattered the paper; it smelled of ammonia.

  Hywel relaxed a little. Cynthia put her hand on his wrist, shoved back his sleeve and felt for his pulse.

  Quentin sanded the paper, fanned it. "It's fixing fairly well."

  The document was not sharp, but was readable enough. Dimitrios said "That's clear enough to hang a duke."

  Gregory said "You are not a lawyer."

  Hywel said "Neither is Edward. Hold it up."

  Dimitrios took the right-hand corners, Quentin the left; they stretched the paper vertically.

  Hywel read the document over, more than once. His breathing was slightly labored. Then, abruptly, he reached out and tore the seal from the vellum. The lettering instantly sagged and ran.

  "Now," he said, "we go after the original."

  Cynthia put two fingers against Hywel's throat, touched his forehead. "Tomorrow," she said firmly.

  There was a moment's silence. Then Hywel said "Yes, you're right, tomorrow," and he turned away from them, took a step; all four of the others moved to catch him as he staggered, but he did not fall.

  "The reactive glamour," Hywel said, "is the least exhausting to maintain for a long time, and for our purposes more useful than a straightforward disguise or a distractive glamour." He took his fingertips away from Gregory's cheekbones. "There."

  "I don't see any difference," Cynthia said. There was a towel over her shoulders, and her hair was brushed up.

  "No, you do not. You know us, and expect to see us where we are. If I look in a glass, I'll see myself. It's the people who don't know us—or expect us—whom the suggestion will affect."

  "But how do you know it works at all?"

  "It works. The disadvantage is that one can't know what the other person is seeing. And if a group of people compare what they saw, there can be trouble."

  "I might want that sort of trouble," Dimitrios said, "if I didn't want the group to catch me."

  "True... but then they'd be hunting a magician."

  "Speaking of noticeable things, this stuff smells awful," Cynthia said, as Quentin le Chaudronnier sponged color into her hair, turning it from white to absolute black.

  "The scent mostly fades," Quentin said, "and a little rose essence will take care of the rest."

  "And the smell of dyed hair is hardly rare at this court," Hywel said. "Gregory, would you go behind that door for a moment?"

  Gregory went into the stairwell. Hywel said "Now, Dimitrios, you leave the room, that way." Dimi went out.

  Hywel opened the stairwell door, motioned for Gregory to come back into the room. As he did, Hywel stepped outside, called out, "All right, Dimi, come back, please," and shut the door behind himself.

  Dimitrios came in, looked straight at Gregory and said "Now what?"

  Hywel came back into the room, stood next to Gregory. Dimitrios blinked several times. "I guess I see," he said.

  "It's all in what you expect to see," said Hywel. "Magic or no magic. Keep that in mind when you visit Louis."

  Hywel and Gregory approached the gatehouse of the Chateau d'Angers, its striped flanking towers like two chesspieces drawn up in defense. The last daylight washed the black and white stone with gold.

  "Louis the Good built the place just as Henry and Manuel Com- nenus cut the world from around him. A few of his royal successors have professed to find something ironical in that." Hywel turned to Gregory. They both wore long formal gowns, black, and heavy winter cloaks with full hoods. "Have you ever been to Paris?"

  "I have," Gregory said. "I am sure no amount of irony can compensate its loss."

  Hywel looked over his shoulder at the salmon-colored sky. "You shouldn't have let me sleep so long."

  "It was not my doing, as you know. The Doctor would not allow them to awaken me either."

  "She thinks you're too frail and I'm too old." Hywel sighed. "Maybe I am too old."

  "You have not said how old you are."

  "How long have you been a vampire, Gregory? I asked that once."

  "After a few years of this life, one ceases to count them as years. There becomes only the time between hungers."

  "It is much the same for wizards."

  The gatehouse guards wore silk tabards over armor of lapping steel plates, burnished bright. They seemed very uncomfortably cold. "What is your business?"

  "We are here by request of Queen Margaret," Hywel said slowly.

  The guardsman hesitated. "Let me see your faces." Hywel and Greogry pushed back their hoods, opened their cloaks to show they wore no weapons. The guard blinked steadily as he examined them. "Very well," he said, and turned away. "You may pass."

  A page met them within the entry hall. "Your cloaks, sirs?"

  "There isn't time for that," Gregory said. He put a hand on the boy's forearm. "Take us to Margaret, quickly, and do not announce us. Is that understood?"

  The page looked down at the hand on his arm, then up at the half-hooded face, and his eyes went wide and big-pupiled with fear. "Yes, Your Lordship," he said. "Th-this way."

  Gregory let the boy go. As they followed him, Gregory looked at Hywel, whose shadowed face was smiling.

  A small coach pulled up to the chateau gate, stopped with a clatter and scrape. A man vaulted down from the driver's box; he was powerfully built, a cavalryman by the way he patted the horse in passing. He opened the coach door and knocked down the step, took the hand of the woman who emerged. She wore boots with soft tops; the hem of a red velvet gown was visible below her cloak. Her hair was the color of the winter night sky overhead.

  "Special courier," the man told the gate guard. "For the King."

  The gatekeeper looked from the man to the woman. He said, "Courier from whom... and on whose authority?"

  The woman held out her hand. Something lay in it that shone in the lanternlight. "Give this to Louis," she said, in French with a strong Italian accent.

  The gatekeeper took the ring, held it so it caught the light, saw the six red balls enameled on the boss. He bowed slightly. "If you will wait inside, please?"

  They crossed an open courtyard, over a hundred yards on
a side, pale-bright with moonlight and yellow light spilling from inner- court windows. The gardens were black and white, barren and snow, with precise stands of evergreens trimmed to perfect cones. The skeleton of a hedge maze, iced, shone like filigree silver. From the maze center rose the marble arm of Diana, aiming her bow at the full moon. Sculpture chesspieces the size of human beings stood idle in a midgame.

  They passed through a door flanked by a brooding Odin and imperious Jupiter; Nut arched her body above the portal. Light and warmth spilled out and swallowed them.

  The chateau was full of tapestries and armors and banners and ornate old furnishings; too full, in fact, cluttered, the riot of shapes and heraldic colors clashing like noise. Floors creaked under the load and walls rattled as mice went about their affairs. Even the lights were too bright, too many cressets making too much flicker and smoke.

  As the steward approached to take them in to the King of France As It Was, Dimitrios said quietly and casually, "I wonder how many palaces they stripped to fill this one?"

  Cynthia said "If this is all that's left—" and then the steward appeared, with two armed men to either side. The soldiers had a bored look, and did not seem ready to do anything to anybody. The party threaded through more overfull corridors; half the alcoves in the place seemed to house two or three courtiers conversing in mumbles and snickers.

  A pair of doors, thick wood sheathed with figured bronze panels, opened on a beamed and bannered hall. The remnants of a meal were on a side table; a blue-gowned butler moved about the table with a salver and a silver-handled broom.

  On the other side of the room was a huge fireplace, surrounded by courtiers and children; a little girl fed bits of meat to two sleek white hounds. An ornate chair, with an empty hawk perch and poles for an absent canopy, was half-turned toward the fire. In it sat a man dressed in blue velvet and cloth of gold, showing an elegant profile and imposing gray eyebrows. On his head, at a slight off angle, was a golden circlet with gold lilies.

  He held out the Medici signet. "What does the Duke of Florence send to me?" he said, softly but resonantly.

  In an absolutely level voice, Cynthia said, "The Medici of the Florentine Republic, who never called themselves dukes, have greetings for and a request of Louis, King of France." She paused; the man on the throne nodded slightly. Cynthia said "And where is he?"

  A small clatter came from across the room. The butler had put down his tray and broom and was walking, hands outstretched, toward Dimitrios and Cynthia. He was sharp-eyed, long-fingered, with a strikingly long pointed nose. He applauded, then reached inside his gown and produced a crown like the first man had worn, but set with sapphires and topazes. Four hands from the crowd settled a gilt mantle on his shoulders, and the steward tossed a length of blue velvet over the canopy supports above the throne.

  "Oh, go on, Villon, go on," said Louis XI, and the gray-browed man got out of the chair and doffed the crown. Louis sat down with a rattling sigh and crowned himself. "Milady appreciates my little joke? Villon is an appalling poet, but I think he makes a rather good king." He stroked his nose, peered forward. There were tiny red twinkles in his eyes, both merry and feral. "But we have not met, I think."

  "Doctor Cynthia Ricci, my lord." Dimitrios stirred, and she shoved her boot against his, inconspicuously but hard. "This is my... traveling companion, Hector."

  "Oh? Of course we have heard of you, Doctor. But I had thought..." Louis made a plucking motion at the hair of his temple. "Ah, well, vanitas, mnitatem. How is Ser Lorenzo? And his brother?"

  "Dead, of course," Cynthia said, rather coldly. "And if my lord is done with his testing—"

  "Not quite, Doctor," Louis said pleasantly. He tilted his head to one side. "What say you, fox?"

  A man in a long leather coat, heavy trousers, and riding boots stepped from between two gaudy courtiers. His face was very plain, utterly unmemorable.

  "I remember her, my lord. Though you are correct about her hair—it was white. And I do not know the man."

  "Very well, Reynard. In what context do you remember her?"

  "As a doctor of medicine," said Reynard the spy, late of the Milanese court. "But one that my lord Lorenzo trusted with most secret matters."

  Louis held his head cocked, as if waiting for more details; but Reynard stepped back and could no longer be seen.

  Louis smiled, which was not particularly attractive, twitched his nose. "So then, Doctor. If the Medici are dead, and the Florentine Republic is now... something else, who brings me greetings—and a request?"

  Cynthia looked after Reynard a moment longer, then said "Not every Medici is dead, my lord, and many corporations of the Bank are still active."

  Louis nodded. "Corporations, mais oui. If I were a corporation, I wonder, would my body live on after my soul had departed it? Pardon, Doctor. Proceed."

  "It involves a document... concerning the brother of Edward of England, and this brother's accession to the English crown. The Bank—"

  "Wait," Louis said. "This hall is too drafty for words that might start fires." He pitched his voice up a little. "Gerard." The steward appeared at the King's elbow. "See that there is diplomatic wine in my chambers. And attend to the gentleman's wishes."

  "I stay with the Doctor," Dimitrios said, and was not kicked.

  "My dear fellow," Louis said, levering himself from the throne, "I'm a fifty-four-year-old king, and I haven't taken a woman by force in a very long time." He made a sound half sigh, half groan. "But unlike Edward, I didn't stop too soon for my own good. Come ahead, then, both of you."

  Large, dark eyes stared at Hywel, and a candle was held near his face.

  "What in the Goddess's name," said Margaret of Anjou, "are you doing here, tonight?"

  She stood in the doorway to her room, in a white gown of simple, vaguely Grecian style, her hair ornamented with scarlet cord. Her face was round, her featured even, but there was a darkness around her eyes and her throat was corded and sagging.

  "Madam?" Hywel said. "May we come in?"

  She looked from Hywel to Gregory and back again. "If you've come this far, then one more doorway won't matter. Come in." Margaret turned to a tiring-maid, who stood by with a handful of silk. "You will go."

  "My lady." The maid gave both men a look of sheer bafflement, then went out, still clutching the undergarment. The door closed behind her.

  "Now," Margaret said, "what is this about, and why are you here?"

  "The document," Hywel said, "the exemplification of the Duke of Clarence. It is necessary that we take it to England at once."

  "And you were to have it tonight. In England."

  Carefully, Hywel said, "The document is... in transit?"

  She gestured toward the window. "Is this not the night of the full moon?"

  "Yes, madam."

  "Well, then. It was explained to me by my wise advisors that the full moon at its height would assist in the transfer... there was some analogy of mirrors." She paused, and her voice went icy. "Are you now telling me that I was wrongly advised?"

  Hywel hesitated. Then Gregory, in accented but clear English, said, "Madam, were you told our presence was necessary for the operation?" Hywel passed him an eyeflick and a nod.

  "I had thought that was why he insisted on it, rather than a simple and earthly mode of travel." She looked at Gregory. "But you're here as well... are you now necessary to him?" She stabbed a finger at Hywel, turned to him. "Is that so? It's not enough that you've survived every political death around you... you've decided to escape the physical one as well?"

  Gregory was silent, expressionless. Hywel said "I suppose the half- latent novice has managed to completely reverse his explanations. You see, Your Grace, the moon indeed acts as a mirror—to reflect the sending. Surely this is how he explained it... that the moon would block us, so that I must come here for the document."

  "No. That is not what he said. He was to send the paper, and you would take it to the usurper " She looked back to the window
. "I saw the moon and thought of you, just before you entered."

  "There is a ship waiting, madam. Where is the document?"

  Margaret sat down, still looking at the wide, white moon, blurry through the windowpane. "I was thinking of Suffolk, too... the moon over the Channel, I suppose." She turned back to Hywel. "For a moment, when I saw you in the door, I thought you were William, you had his face...."

  "My lord the Duke of Suffolk is dead, Your Grace."

  "Of course he is," she said firmly. "Dead on an English beach with his poor head hacked off. We had York's head for that, and one of his four unclean sons. I was in Scotland then, when they killed York, but the news flew up to me. And I was happy. I had been Queen of England for a dozen years, and seen countless Englishmen die, but it was in that moment that I understood how much my enemies' deaths could make me happy."

  She fixed Hywel with a stare. "Does this affect your thinking at all? Does it matter to your plot-raddled brain that I count all of you my enemies now, and my last joys on earth are your several deaths?"

  "Only George Plantagenet's death is of interest to me now, madam."

  "You're a perfect liar. Everything interests you that advances your interest. And where is that interest now? Do you think Byzantium will give you miserable, foul-spoken Wales as a payment?"

  "Wales, Your Grace?" Hywel said loudly.

  She ignored him. "I wonder if Wales, or Scotland, will have Edward when he falls, as my father houses Louis. I was the Scots' guest, and I know they would not stand mildly by and let Edward be their king, as my father does. Henry and I had a claim on the wealth of England, and doors were open; but Edward of March won't have that... usurper usurped... he'll sleep on rocks and thistles, and take out his lusts on sheep." She laughed; it was a pleasant laugh, and quite merry.