Justice and Juniors (A Cat Among Dragons Book 2)

by Alma Boykin

  As planned, the gathering broke up an hour before the evening meal would be served at the Palace. Rada personally thanked each guest for coming and apologized for the humble setting. The Azdhagi graciously accepted her apologies and thanked her for calling their attention to the season. By now Ni Drako could read the undercurrents well enough to sense her guests’ pleasure and appreciation of the afternoon. She wondered what had so upset Lord Reeschlee but wasn’t surprised that he had his tail in a twist. He usually did, and wouldn’t be happy unless he’d been invited to dine alone with the King-Emperor and was permitted to wave the invitation at the entire court.

  Brska helped the other servants pack and divide up some of the leftovers. Lord Mammal had told the servants that they could have half of any food remaining, and with her brother’s permission Brska nipped one of the savory vegetable balls. She’d never tasted spices quite like the cook had used, but she liked whatever they were.

  Lord Seekae and his companion were the last guests to leave. Always rather unconventional, he’d brought one of his mates rather than a mistress. After the formal phrases were done, he pointed to where Brska and the others waited. “Lord Ni Drako, the young female who you accompanied so well. How many year-turns has she?”

  “She has over twenty, your grace.” The gray-brown reptile looked skeptical, and Rada explained, “She was severely injured as a small junior and so remained small.”

  Seekae, one of the older upper-rank nobles, frowned thoughtfully at her choice of wording. “Injured or... abused, Ni Drako?”

  “Abused, your grace.”

  “Hmm. It is past time that enforcement of the junior abuse laws was really taken seriously,” he commented to the air. “I’ll mention it to my sister. May the moons light your path,” and Seekae led his junior mate between a pair of coinleaf trees and out of sight.

  When Rada gave Zabet the full report that evening, the True-dragon’s eyes glowed. «That’s great! You remember who his sister is, don’t you?» The mammal didn’t pay that much attention to the complicated pedigrees in court and had to admit ignorance. «Rada, Seekae is the prince-imperial’s brother-by-mating!»

  “Ah, yes. That is good news.” That was very, very good news for the juniors of Singing Pines and Burnt Mountain, if she could just play it right. As the mammal idly stroked the fur on her tail and wondered how to use Lord Seekae’s initiative, Cheeker appeared. His neck-spines twitched with excitement and he could hardly keep his tail still. “Yes Cheeker?”

  The stocky quadruped smiled broadly. “Lord Mammal, the males who attacked Lady Zabet have been identified.”

  Rada set down her tea. “And they are?” she prompted, frowning.

  He hesitated for an instant. “They and the person who paid them are being dealt with as we speak, Lord Mammal.” He shut his muzzle firmly.

  “Cheeker, if you know who did it, tell me so I can go to his Imperial Majesty.”

  To her surprise he shook his head in refusal, a mannerism her servants seemed to pick up from her. “Lord Mammal, with the greatest of respect, the matter has been taken care of. There’s really no need to involve the authorities.”

  «I’ll go along with that,» Zabet announced. «As long as the perpetrator gets his or her just desserts, I’m not concerned with who does it. Plus it’s better if we,» she jabbed Rada with the tip of her tail, «keep our talons clean.»

  “Well, you were the offended party,” Rada admitted. “All right, Cheeker. I don’t want to know who or how.” Now he looked a bit hesitant and she started worrying again. “There’s something else?”

  “Um, yes, my lord. One of House Daeshlee’s servants who helped with the viewing? Ah, he wants to speak with you about Brska.”

  The mammal put two plus two together. “Are his intentions honorable?” She’d hate to give up her body servant, but she knew that Cheeker would vet any potential suitors very, very well. And Rada’s guards and Zabet had taught Brska self-defense.

  “Yes, Lord Mammal,” her majordomo assured her. “And if you are willing, he’d like to join your staff. Apparently he has very distant kin at Singing Pines, and House Daeshlee has more than enough servants.”

  “I’m willing, but have you asked Brska?” The reptile’s brother looked a bit stunned at the notion. “I won’t force her into anything she’s not happy with and you had better not pressure her, either.”

  A whistling snort informed the mammal that any pressure Cheeker tried would fail abysmally. Brska carried a sheaf of stationery into the public room, bowed, and set it on Rada’s worktable, then chattered irritably at her brother before stalking into Rada’s personal quarters.

  «You’ve been told,» Zabet snickered privately. The mammal thought it was a good thing just then that Brska didn’t speak, or Cheeker’s aural vents would have been scorched before his sister finished. Apparently Cheeker felt the same way, because he silently bowed and saw himself out.

  The next afternoon the Lord Defender found her boss propped up in the window seat, gloating. «You missed the excitement this morning,» she informed her Pet.

  “I had quite enough on the drill range, thank you. A blast rifle’s surge suppressor failed and we damn near lost the range master and trooper both.” Rada took off her weapons belt and hung it beside her desk.

  «It seems that most of Lord Reeschlee’s servants fell ill overnight, and all the Palace staff had other matters to attend to this morning.» Zabet’s whiskers fluttered and her tail curled with satisfaction as her ears tipped forward contentedly. «And as if Lord Reeschlee didn’t have enough frustrations, apparently he still has not paid the performers from his last musical evening and they accosted him just before sunrise.»

  “Oh dear.”

  «Yes indeed. No less than four of the, ahem, ladies of court appeared to let me know.» Rada never figured out how Zabet could smirk without lips, but she definitely smirked.

  Commander Rada Lord Ni Drako decided that she didn’t need or want to know any more. It would be better for everyone, especially her!

  8: Revenge: Slow but Sweet

  Drakon IV - 785 AGR (3685AD)

  Rada Lord Ni Drako and “his concubine” were eating their morning meal in the public room of the Lord Defender’s quarters when the serenade began. Rada had ordered the windows opened to catch the soft spring breeze and they listened to the usual morning bustle from the courtyard below. «Have you heard anything more about the prince’s elopement?» Zabet asked, ears tipping towards her pet mammal. With her leg in a splint, the True-dragon couldn’t go to her usual social events, putting her out of the gossip loop, and irritating her almost beyond measure.

  Rada shook her head. “Nothing. I’m staying very far out of it, just in case his Imperial Majesty decides that he needs to get upset over the matter.” She finished the broth that had been served with the morning noodles. As she reached for the tea, her ears swiveled and rhythmic chanting, like a marching cadence, caught her attention. That’s odd. The wind is from the wrong direction for me to hear the parade ground, Rada thought to herself. Zabet also stopped to listen. The sound grew louder and Rada could start distinguishing words.

  «Oh my.» The True-dragon filled in a hanging rhyme, her sapphire blue eyes dancing with bawdy humor as Rada turned first red, then white. «Now that’s something I haven’t tried yet. Can mammals even do that?»

  The mammal in question spluttered, finally managing, “This one can’t. I’m going to have someone’s hide!” She slammed her teacup down and started to get to her feet, intending to go and bawl out whoever was marching her troops past her window.

  «No you’re not and you know why,» Zabet warned, waving a talon at her friend. «You know very well that this is a compliment.» It was indeed, and Rada also knew that she should pretend that she had not heard a word of the graphic description of the Lord Defender’s sexual prowess. The humanoid ground her teeth, her fur standing on end and her ears flat against her skull. Zabet laughed at her friend’s discomfort. «Maybe what you shou
ld do if the Traders ever corner you is start singing “The Barmaid’s Charms.” If their response is anything like yours, they’ll drop dead of embarrassment before the third verse!» The reptile snickered aloud, whiskers dancing. Rada’s body-servant, Brska, came in to see what the fuss was about. She heard another verse rising from the soldiers in the courtyard and the small Azdhag’s eyes bulged as she tried to suppress her reaction. She spun around and darted into the sleeping area and Rada soon heard the strange noises that served Brska for laughter.

  “Someday I’m going to get even with you, you do realize?” The mammal warned her business partner.

  «Promises, promises,» Zabet retorted. Now Rada did stand up and she limped over to the window to look outside. Two squads of well-armed and armored quadrupedal reptiles marched in formation under the watchful gaze of the Defenders’ senior noncoms. The mammal’s experienced eyes spotted two people out of formation, but not by much. Everyone’s kit appeared squared away, no straps flopped, and she couldn’t hear the telltale clink of a loose blast rifle bandolier. Judging by their equipment and the colors they carried, the squads were two of six that had rotated in to the Palace-Capitol for training and reassignment from the western parts of the continent. The soldiers came to a halt, pivoted, and closed into a single column before marching out of the large courtyard and back towards the military wing of the Palace.

  Within an hour, even those who had not heard the growling serenade knew the basic story, often with imaginative elaborations that would have sent Lord Ni Drako fleeing the planet from embarrassment if she’d heard them. To say that the Azdhagi were earthy was rather like saying that the Deadwrack Sea had a few minor storms. Embarrassment simply did not occur to the reptiles. Fear of punishment or retribution and a desire not to get caught if they were having an affair with someone they shouldn’t have been seeing were quite common, but not embarrassment as Lord Ni Drako experienced it. Zabet thought that her Pet’s reaction was not exactly healthy, but after a century or two had given up trying to cure Rada. Oddly (to Zabet), the mammal had no difficulties with other people when they had consensual sex and didn’t blink at some of the more unusual forms of recreational fornication, although she winced a time or two. Only insinuations and comments about her own personal life caused the Wanderer-hybrid to cringe and flush crimson.

  Lord Ni Drako pretended to ignore the fuss. In his richly decorated chambers in the wing of the Palace reserved for mid- to upper-ranked nobles, Lord Reeschlee did not. Two sixts before that morning, Lord Ni Drako had upstaged Reeschlee’s most recent social event and the reptile was still fuming. Especially since Ni Drako pretended not to know how much the Great Lords had appreciated the flower viewing! The dark brown and pale green Azdhag paced his chambers, his tail rigid with irritation. Reeschlee’s copper-tipped neck spines trembled from his anger at the gossip his servant had relayed. Bad enough that the fur-bearer groomed favor with the Great Lords! Bad enough that the soldiers made their approval of the blasted alien so obvious! But now a rumor circulated that Reeschlee had hired the six toughs who had attacked Ni Drako’s concubine and broken her leg. He had, but the point was that no one should have suspected. The servant had nervously informed his lord that Great Lord Seekae had been overheard sniffing that, “Only a teerak scuttles off without leaving his mark.”

  Oh, that damned mammal irritated him. And that he allowed her to irritate him made Reeschlee even madder. He paced again, the sound of his talons on the stones of his quarters muted by the ornate leather foot covers he wore against the spring chill. He would have to be as subtle as the Lord Defender; that was obvious. The female showed her new status on the social ramp by not acknowledging it and Reeschlee gave her points for style. It never paid to underestimate an enemy. He’d made that mistake once with Ni Drako. It wouldn’t happen again. After another tour of his quarters, the simmering reptile flopped onto a padded bench to consider his next move in the elaborate strategy game that was life in the Imperial Court.

  Rada had left for the barracks and training grounds when someone tapped on the Lord Defender’s chamber door. Cheeker, Lord Ni Drako’s civilian chief-of-staff and majordomo, opened the wood and brass panel to admit a purple-robed Azdhag female. “Healer Tass,” he bowed a little to the medical specialist. “Lady Zabet is this way,” and he led her into the Lord Defender’s sleeping quarters. The Healer sniffed the True-dragon carefully to make certain that the other reptile’s cuts and abrasions had healed clean. Then she removed the splint and let Zabet walk a little.

  “How does it feel?”

  The True-dragon crossed into the public room and back. Stiff and weak compared to the other leg, Healer Tass.

  The female Azdhag felt and stretched the True-dragon’s hind limb, and then backed away. “That is to be expected, Lady Zabet. Start with gentle stretches and then work the leg. But be careful,” and she waved a forefoot talon. “No hind limb jumps for another six days, and watch your footing for another sixt after that.”

  Zabet assured the Healer that she would be careful. As the female left, Cheeker passed her a small card, “as a token of the Lord Defender’s gratitude.” Tass protested, Cheeker insisted, and as she left the card vanished into a pouch sewn into the Healer’s robe. In the convoluted protocol of the Palace, one did not pay the servants and Imperial staff. Rada received an allowance from the Crown, most of which returned to the Imperial Household as she replaced worn robes or entertained other nobles. It also paid for extras such as her concubine’s meals, cosmetics, and medical care. Zabet and Rada could have paid their own special expenses, but that was not how things were done. So Cheeker gave the Healer a small gift that just happened to be what an Azdhagi Healer in private practice would have charged, plus a little extra. Both Zabet and Rada thought the entire game was ridiculous and by now both played it like masters.

  While Zabet reveled in her regained freedom by making an appointment to have her talons decorated, a far more serious meeting took place in the Crown Prince’s suite. Prince Imperial Tzee-li listened avidly to his brother-in-law, Great Lord Seekae, as the older noble recounted the details of the flower viewing and especially the musical entertainment. “I thought that perhaps the Lord Defender exaggerated the age of his little musician, so I made inquiries,” Seekae said after a sip of golden cloud tea. “He spoke the truth: the female has twenty year turns and more. Not only did she fail to grow properly, but she cannot speak.”

  Tzee-li rubbed under his muzzle with a steel-tipped talon. “Did you learn the cause for her deformity?”

  “Yes, Imperial Highness. Her dam’s mate, who was not her sire, used her brutally when she was four and five year-turns. When the male would not allow Ni Drako to apprentice the juniors, the Lord Defender invoked his right as daimyo and took the juniors as personal servants.” Seekae watched as the younger male thought through the tale.

  “Juniors?”

  Seekae gestured affirmatively. “Two siblings, Highness: the female called Brska and her older brother Cheeker. They remain in the daimyo’s household.”

  The Crown Prince rolled the delicate spring tea over his tongue and considered his in-law’s account. “I am intrigued by the story, Seekae. Most intrigued.”

  When Rada returned to her quarters late that afternoon, she’d planned on a quick wash followed by supper and a quiet evening spent reading or sleeping. Instead she found Cheeker trying to calm a panicked Brska as Zabet directed another servant to set out the floral dress and suitable breeches for Rada. “What’s all this?” the mammal demanded, taking in the flurry of reptilian activity.

  «His Imperial Highness wants you and Brska to entertain him after the evening meal» Zabet informed her pet. «Someone is coming with food and with a little something for Brska if she can’t calm down. Your clothes are ready,» and Zabet pointed with her tail. «Now get cleaned up!»

  Instead the mammal knelt beside the frantic Azdhag. “Shhh, shhh, easy, be easy,” she soothed, waving Cheeker away. Brska tried to wrap herself around
Ni Drako’s legs as she had two decades before, peeping like a terrified junior. “Easy little one, no one will hurt you. You’re fine.” Brska trembled, cowering against Rada and radiating abject terror. The mammal reluctantly eased into Brska’s mind with her Gift, taking the edge off her raw fear. It was very difficult; Azdhagi minds were much harder for Rada to sense or touch than were mammalian or draconic. Slowly Brska calmed down and Rada left her to Zabet’s care while the Wanderer washed and changed clothes. She ate lightly, coaxing Brska with tidbits from her and Zabet’s supper. «What set her off?» The mammal silently asked her boss.

  «After Tzee-li’s messenger left, one of the Palace servants came in and told Cheeker in Brska’s hearing that what the prince really wanted was to see if Brska and Cheeker were ready to return to their dam’s mate.» Zabet’s whiskers stiffened in rage. «I ran him out and told Brska that he was full of it, but she had stopped hearing me and had begun screaming. Cheeker at least got her quiet before you arrived.»

  “Since Zhaet is currently answering to the Lords of Hell for his treatment of Cheeker and Brska, I highly doubt that is anything at all like what His Highness said,” Rada growled, her tail thrashing back and forth with anger. “I always thought that timber cutting incident was just a little too neat.” But she’d not looked too closely into the “unfortunate accident” that had rid Drakon IV of a waste of good air.