“Dame Chrissie,” the Regent grumbled. “Unless you have good news about King Fitzwilliam’s return, please retire for the nonce. Our friends at court have led me a merry chase today, and I ache down to the base of my hooves. Which is an accomplishment, as I don’t even have hooves while I am in this form.”
“Fitzwilliam’s time of return has not changed,” I informed him. “But I bring something almost as good. Something to drown your sorrows in.”
Magnus raised an eyebrow in the same way as his nephew as I set out the tankard on the table. Galen then undid the straps holding the demijohn to his back and dispensed a full serving into the cup. The Regent’s nose twitched as he caught the honey-sweet scent. He rubbed his chin, where the stirrings of a copper-red beard were beginning to appear.
“By the Keepers of Equilux! Is that blessed beverage what I think?”
“I was hoping that you would tell me,” I said, trying (and failing) to keep the smugness out of my voice. I handed the container over to him and Magnus immediately took a long gulp, emptying it. “Does it meet your approval?”
Magnus closed his eyes and gasped. “Perhaps it does, perhaps it does. I will need a second serving to determine that.”
“Might there be enough for one more?” Sir Jorvath asked, as he licked his lips.
Galen got out yet another one of the mugs that had come with the mead kit. He filled it and the silver tankard, passing both back along the table. Magnus and Jorvath both licked their lips as they finished the drinks. I stifled my grin. Now was the right time to work a deal.
“Truly superb,” Magnus marveled. Jorvath bobbed his head firmly in agreement. “Is this from your personal stock?”
“It is,” I said. “And I’d like to discuss how I could supply some more of it to you.”
“Ah,” the Regent sighed. “You seek a way to make some coin. Alas, the ‘twelfth’ of the debt incurred by the Order of the Ermine is due by the end of this month. And I cannot help you there. I cannot authorize spending for libations – even those as delicious as this! – for I am a Regent, not a King.”
“Oh, I realize that you can’t spend money for Fitzwilliam’s kingdom. But what about your own kingdom? Could the Dread Lord of the Centaur Realm find a use for mead of this quality?”
Magnus did a double-take. “For mead that tastes this good…what do you have in mind?”
“How much mead will the Centaur Realm need…come next year’s Feast of Equilux?”
“Jorvath,” the Regent ordered. “I need a rough idea on this. You’ve handled the requisitioning of food and drink for the Feast before, haven’t you?”
“Yes…” came the hesitant reply. “But King Angbor preferred to keep mead in stock most of the time, so it’s all sort of mixed together.”
Magnus rubbed his temples as if to stave off a headache. I sympathized. “Then give us your best guess, if you would.”
Jorvath ran his fingers through his beard as he juggled the numbers in his mind. “We do host most of our warriors at that time. And we do a great deal more drinking than just at the feast, for the festivals around Equilux can last several days! And then there’s our normal weekly needs on top of that…so, I’d guess that we go through close to three hundred firkins of mead each festival season.”
“A ‘firkin’ is the standard size of mead casks we purchase, mostly from Andeluvia,” Galen informed me. “It approximates one quarter of a barrel.”
“We’re always interested in finding new sources,” Jorvath added. “We centaurs are creatures of the field and plain, not the woods. Honey is hard for us to come by. The merchants we deal with, both centaur and human, charge us a hundred crowns a firkin!”
That made sense. I’d been charged a full crown for just one drink, and a human-sized cup was half that of a centaur’s typical mug. And so long as I made the centaurs a reasonable deal, they’d jump at it.
“One moment,” I said. “I need to confer with the Court Wizard.”
Magnus had his nose back in the mead tankard, looking for any missed drops. “Of course, of course. Nephew, do try and talk Dame Chrissie into a bargain for us, would you?”
“Of course,” Galen said, with a bow.
I drew the Wizard back to one of the now-empty corners of the Hall. Together we sketched out the math on the backside of some used parchment. I knew how many gallons of honey we could realistically expect from fully producing hives. Even with subtracting for losses from mishaps and hive-destroying mites, we got a solid number.
From there, we added in the costs of expanding the number of hives by roughly a third. Then the rough costs for hiring the local cooper’s guild to make the wooden firkins we’d need. Water could be taken from our member’s demesnes without cost, but we had to add in most everything else, including the starter culture. Galen assured me that for his own personal supply of mead, he’d be happy to handle most of the transport via his magic.
The upshot of it was: by next year, I could easily supply three hundred firkin’s worth of mead. And if I offered a discount to Magnus to seal the deal…
We scratched out the final number. My heart raced as I saw it.
“All right,” I said, as we returned. “Magnus, what if I told you that I could supply three hundred firkins of mead for next year’s Equilux festival…and do it for twenty percent less than what you’re paying now?”
Jorvath coughed. “I’d say that we should accept! Wholeheartedly!”
“We are always short of mead…” Magnus considered. “Yet I cannot squander my kingdom’s finances in the way of King Benedict. I cannot swear to pay out hard-earned coin until you are ready to deliver.”
“I can deal with that,” I insisted.
He blinked. “Dame Chrissie, you continue to astound me. Tell me, can you really perform this marvel? Can you supply me with mead that is fine enough for any centaur’s table?”
“I really can,” I insisted. “With the following condition added.”
“Name it,” Magnus declared. “I shall entertain any reasonable offer.”
“All I need is a promissory note from you. A note that says that you’ll pay the entire amount by the time that I’m to deliver. The entire amount, that is, minus a certain sum of gold, to be paid immediately.”
“How much?”
I grinned. “How much do you and Sir Jorvath have in your pockets right now?”
It was a shame that I wasn’t allowed to bring a camera to the Royal Court. King Fitzwilliam disapproved of it. But right then, I wish I could’ve caught the puzzled looks that the Regent and his second-in-command gave me.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Galen and I arrived back at the Dame’s Tower accompanied by an unfamiliar sound: the jingle of coins in my pocket.
The jingle came from a cloth bag at my waist, to be precise. The cold, bright sound of literal hard cash was so welcome to my ears that I felt a new spring in my step. Destry immediately turned away from where he’d been in conversation with Shaw and Liam as we pushed though the heavy wooden doors.
“Mon Dieu!” the pooka exclaimed. “Such thoughts of avarice that are radiating from you, Dayna! They are so tasty, I fear that I may grow fat on them.”
“Well, there’s good reason for that,” I happily declared.
I walked up and placed the bag on the table. With a flourish, I opened it and took out a healthy handful of the coins. Then I poured them from one hand into the other for good measure. The Andeluvian crowns sparkled and made a unique clink-clank that only gold could make. The very sound of the money made me feel good, even though I was technically still just a hair over flat broke.
“Someone hath struck a good bargain, methinks,” Shaw commented.
“Indeed,” Liam observed. “Perhaps the fortunes of our knightly order are changing?”
I didn’t answer that yet. Instead, I went over to one of the room’s cabinets and retrieved a half-dozen smaller cloth bags. Then I went over to the bright purple rope that hung from a hole cut i
nto the ceiling and gave it a yank. A faint chime sounded, summoning at least one of the Royal Pages to my chambers.
In the meantime, I parceled out three small piles of coins and placed them into separate bags. Then I nudged each bag in the direction of one of my friends. Liam looked puzzled, Galen resigned, and Shaw flat-out upset.
The pooka merely stood off to one side, watching with evident curiosity as I spoke.
“That’s my repayment to each of you,” I explained. “For helping me meet my taxes the day that Herald announced my forced acceptance into the Order of the ‘Weasel’.”
“Dayna,” Galen objected, “this is hardly necessary.”
Liam bobbed his antlers in agreement. “We fayleene have little need for money in the first place. The forest has all we need.”
“Aye,” Shaw sputtered, “‘Twas I who was honor bound to help thee!
As soon as I’d gotten the coins in the bags, I’d known that this was coming. My friends had funded me with no expectation of being paid back. But I had my own words ready for this day.
“You’re wrong,” I said firmly. “All wrong.”
That got them quiet. I counted each item out on my fingers as I spoke.
“First: This is very necessary. Second: I have little need for money too, so long as I have you three as my friends. My family. And third: Yes, you were honor bound to help me. But to me, I am honor bound to pay you back.”
The trio remained silent, but an uneasy look passed between them. They still didn’t like what I’d done. I felt a sudden flare of anger.
“Dammit, this is going to be a happy day for all of us!” I declared, with a pound of my fist on the table. That was more for show than anything else. Though it did send a jolt of pain up through my hand. “Paying off a debt that’s owed…that’s an important thing to me! No less important than the study of magic, the acceptance of one’s friendship, or the winning of one’s honor!”
Another moment of silence passed.
Shaw hung his feathery eagle head. “Thou art right, Dayna. ‘It would be unfair not to let thee attend to thy honor in the way of your kind.”
“And I see now the use you have for returning these counters,” Liam added.
Galen nodded resignedly. “As ever, I am humbled to be in your service. I wish that more centaurs were like you.”
“Thanks, guys,” I said quietly. “I needed to do this.”
My companions watched without comment as I took out the last of my bags. I carefully counted out three more piles of coins and bundled them up as the door to the Dame’s Tower opened. Percival entered, taking note of the nightmarish-looking pooka with wide eyes, and then bowed before me.
“Dame Chrissie. How may I be of service?”
I gathered up the bags and turned to him. For once, he wasn’t delivering me bad news on the run. And I got to act a little like Santa Claus as well.
“I need you to deliver these bags for me,” I instructed. “And I don’t want any objections, is that clear?”
“Oh, I’d never argue with your wishes, milady!”
“I’m going to hold you to your word on that.” I handed over the first bag, which was by far the heaviest. “I need this bag of crowns delivered to the Lord of the Pursuivant. Let him know that this is repayment for his covering my levy for the Spring Tournament.”
“The Lord of the Pursuivant,” Percival murmured, as he stored the info away in his memory.
“The next bag contains forty crowns,” I stated. “Take that to Captain Murr…I mean, whichever anonymous person fixed up Grand Master Mothball. That should be enough to compensate him, or whoever it was, for the service rendered.”
I cast a quick glance up to Galen for confirmation. He nodded in the affirmative.
I set the final bag on the edge of the table so that Percival could reach it. “This bag contains thirty crowns. Give it to your father, as thanks for fixing my chair on the Royal Court.”
Frankly, that was the best thirty crowns I’d ever spent. Percival had recommended his father’s services as a carpenter, and he’d turned The Worst Chair in the Kingdom into something that I could sit upon without trashing my lumbar muscles.
“Oh, one more thing.” I slid five crowns across the table to rest next to the bag. “That’s for you. As thanks for being my personal page, sending me to your father, recommending The Quiet Peasant tavern to Rikka, and just being an all-around good kid.”
Percival blushed bright red. “But…my father and I can’t accept your generosity! We helped you because–”
Shaw let out a low growl. “Page, Dame Chrissie said that she would hold thee to thy word. Break that word at thy peril!”
Percival’s mouth snapped shut. Instead, he gathered up the coins, the bags, and bowed deeply to me.
“I shall deliver these items as you ask, Dame Chrissie,” he said, and his voice sounded as if it threatened to break. “Thank you…for letting me be your page!”
With that, he ran from the room as fast as his skinny legs could take him.
Destry sighed. “The thoughts from you and un jeune homme…they taste like pure cane sugar. Quite nice, yes.”
“That’s enough sweet stuff, then,” I said resignedly. “That can rot your teeth, and I’ve got red meat types of things on my mind now.”
“What might these things be?”
“Let’s start with this one.” I pointed to the chalk board, where I’d written: Destry talks with someone in the dark.
“Ah, that vision of yours,” Destry acknowledged. “The dream wherein you heard me say ‘Safety’, ‘Darkness’ and ‘Turned’. I knew what you meant immediately. You recall what I told you, when I visited the Tuamotus?”
“When you stayed in that little pearling village.”
“Even so. I would stay at the edge of the streetlights within the town square, for I cannot see in the dark. Yet, I also did not want to be seen by those who might glimpse me out of the corner of their eyes, so I kept to alleyways as much as I could.
“On one of those nights, I heard a couple – they were touristes – who were wandering the streets, lost. The woman was worried that the night was unsafe. That was absurd, as I never witnessed any wrongdoing on the island at all. But I felt sorry for them, and spoke to them from the shadows.”
“I’m surprised that they didn’t run away.”
Destry let out a nicker. “I startled them, yes, but I made sure that they only heard my voice. My visage may be frightful, but my voice is kind enough, no?”
I had to give him that point. Whatever else, the pooka had a warm, friendly Gallic kind of voice. As I’d told Esteban once, Destry could’ve doubled for Maurice Chevalier in an old black-and-white movie.
“Alas, I cannot recall the exact words exchanged,” Destry confessed. “But I am sure that the three words you mentioned appeared in our speech. This must be the source of your vision.”
The pooka’s story did sound plausible enough. I’d thought at the time that Destry had been speaking to two or more men, not a couple. And I’d thought that the conversation had taken place inside, not outdoors. But it had seemed damp, and the air of a seaside village fit the bill. Frankly, there were much more important things at hand than interpreting a half-remembered dream from months ago.
“I suppose that makes sense,” I allowed. “Now, did you share anything with Liam or Shaw about the Deliberati?”
A snort came from my two friends’ direction at the sound of their names. I wasn’t sure which did the snorting, but Shaw had his paw clamped firmly over his beak. I scowled at the two, and Liam sighed.
“This should be interesting,” he said.
Okay. This kind of stuff never boded well for anyone. Particularly me.
I crossed my arms. “All right, let’s have it.”
“During my journey across the wilds of Andeluvia,” Destry began, “I crossed a dark forest far to the south and west of here. So distant is this place, that it lies many leagues beyond the borders of the Hinte
r Lands. Deep within this wood, it snows even on the hottest days.”
Galen’s hooves clopped as the centaur turned abruptly to listen.
“Sound like a familiar place?” I asked the Wizard.
“Mayhap.” Galen rubbed his chin. “My people have stories about such a forest. They speak of a woodland that looms dark with peril, and a winter never lets go its icy grip.”
Destry shuddered, making his brushy mane ripple. “It is a most depressing place, I cannot deny that. Yet in that place, I met and spoke with a unicorn. A unicorn most wondrously strange.”
A murmur ran between my friends at that. To me, of course, any unicorn would be ‘wondrously strange’. But if even a trio of heraldic beings found the news interesting, then that made me sit up and pay attention.
“The unicorn was named ‘Master Wayfarer’, and we spoke for some time. It turned out that he was on his usual patrol, a route that led through the heart of this forest.”
“Patrol?” I asked. “What was he on patrol for?”
“Intruders. Or guests, perhaps. Or tribute from the local human tribes.” Another murmur ran through our group, but he continued, overriding it. “Yes, humans. The way he described it, a people most primitif live deep in these woods, either serving or trading with his employers. And these employers he spoke of…were the Deliberati.”
“He must be quite the warrior,” Galen observed, “If the Deliberati count on him for their protection.”
“Aye,” Shaw added, with a squawk. “How I wouldst enjoy meeting such a creature!”
“But what of the place where the Deliberati dwell?” the Wizard asked eagerly. “What was it like?”
“To that, I cannot speak,” Destry replied. “Wayfarer is only the first defense. Beyond him, the Deliberati live in the Everwinter Glade. It lies behind a magical barrier so strong that nothing can penetrate it, neither corporeal nor ethereal.”
“All right,” I said. “You know that we’ve got to go there. Drop the other shoe, will you? Shaw and Liam wouldn’t have to hold their laughter in without something else being the matter.”
The Conspiracy of Unicorns Page 14