Dragon Prince 03 - Sunrunner's Fire

by Melanie Rawn

  “Always. Send him in, Edrel.” Turning to his son after the boy gave another deep bow and left, Rohan sighed, “Do something about that, will you?”

  Pol only grinned and rose to welcome Tallain.

  The responsibilities of the most important holding in the northern Desert suited Tallain—as did marriage and family life. Rohan saw much of the father in the son, the way Eltanin had looked for the tragically few years of his marriage to Antalya of Waes. She was evident in their son’s face, as well, her sweet smile and self-possessed calm which in Tallain was a serene charm quite unlike Pol’s occasional fire.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” Tallain said. “But there are a couple of things I think you ought to know about.”

  “Sit down. We’ve all been on our feet all night.” Rohan suppressed a sigh, thinking that whatever Tallain felt couldn’t wait until later was bound to be irksome in one way or another.

  After pouring himself a cup of wine, Tallain seated himself and began. “Andry spoke to Tobin on sunlight just a little while ago. He’ll be here in three or four days.”

  “And went to his mother rather than any of the other faradh’im present because she lacks the training to talk back to him,” Rohan said, nodding. “Clever lad. Go on.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but you must be right,” Tallain mused. “He could just as easily have spoken to Riyan.”

  “But not my mother,” Pol put in.

  “Well, no. They don’t talk much, do they? At any rate, he also says there’s a girl at Faolain Riverport who ought to be told about Sorin before she learns it from common talk. It seems she’s owed the courtesy.”

  Rohan’s brows shot up. “Sorin had a young lady? First I’ve heard of it.”

  “Andry’s the only one he told. Not even Riyan knew about her. I suppose that until he’d made formal Choice, it wasn’t something he wanted known except by his brother. There wasn’t anything between them. But she ought to learn it privately.”

  “But who is she?” Pol asked.

  “Daughter of the chief architect. It seems Sorin was hesitating because the Desert is a hell of a place to bring an unsuspecting bride.”

  Rohan smiled. “I remember thinking the same thing myself thirty years ago. You were wise to pick a wife who knew exactly what she was getting, Tallain.”

  “I was luckier than I deserved, my lord.” Tallain’s brown eyes sparked and softened as he glanced out a window to where Feruche and Sionell were. Rohan noted the look. Pity, he thought yet again, that Pol hadn’t had the sense to make both himself and Sionell happy. But she was entirely content with Tallain, for which grace he thanked the Goddess. Sionell deserved to be loved.

  “I hope I’m half as lucky,” Pol said warmly. “I keep wondering how I’m going to break it to whoever I marry that she’ll be spending a goodly portion of her time in the Desert!”

  Tallain grinned at him. “Young ladies pale at the very thought, do they?”

  “All they see is Dragon’s Rest,” Pol sighed. “I don’t dare mention the other! But you say Sorin’s lady didn’t much like the idea?”

  “Who knows if it even got that far? Anyway, Riyan will get word to her through the Faolain Riverport Sunrunner, and Tobin says she’ll write to the girl within the next few days.”

  “Very good. And now the more difficult matter, Tallain?” Rohan asked.

  The young man grunted. “There’s no fooling you, is there? A courier rode in a little while ago with a note from Miyon of Cunaxa. He wants a conference regarding trade and has several interesting proposals. He also wants a swift answer, so I came down here to ask what reply you want sent.”

  “How interesting?” Pol leaned forward, blue-green eyes narrowed with suspicion.

  “Very. For instance, he suggests a yearly port fee for trade through Tiglath, the same for what goes past Feruche. His initial figure is fairly substantial, but it’s still less than I make fining the shipments they try to slip by me.”

  “I see,” Rohan said softly. “And what do you think?”

  Tallain shrugged. “You must do what you believe is right, my lord, as always. I trust you to see to my advantage as well as your own. But there would be a benefit in setting a yearly fee for as much as they can ship from Tiglath. I wouldn’t have to play this ridiculous game of spying on Cunaxan shipments. It’s highly undignified. I’m willing to give up a little profit for a little peace.”

  Rohan flicked a glance at his son. But Pol had never had any experience of greedy, self-serving vassals who said one thing, thought another, and did a third. Pol found Tallain’s words perfectly natural as well as logical.

  Pol thought the look was to prompt his comments. “Relations among all three princedoms would improve, you know. We wouldn’t have all this squabbling over fines on illegal trade. It is, as you say, undignified.”

  “Exactly. And I’d save the wages of six or eight inspectors, too.” Tallain chuckled. “Ah, they call us lords and princes, when all we really are is glorified merchants!”

  “Speak for yourself,” Pol shot back, grinning. “I happen to be a glorified farmer!”

  Rohan laughed with them, but as he was agreeing to the conference he was also thinking about the other factor probably involved. Ruval and Marron had escaped north from the vicinity of Elktrap Manor; Miyon was a possible ally in any attempt against himself and Pol. It was conceivable that this trade negotiation in advance of the Rialla was a second move in that challenge. If so, Ruval and Marron might be—no, would be—part of Miyon’s suite.

  Might be, could be, would be—so much of a prince’s life was based on conjecture and speculation. No wonder Pol accused him of not acting.

  “However,” Rohan finished, “I won’t have Miyon at Stronghold. Invite him to Tiglath. And keep a sharp eye on him. Riyan can go with you and act as Sunrunner to keep us apprised of what’s going on.” Riyan also knew what the brothers looked like. Rohan would speak to him about his suspicions, but not to Tallain. The young lord would have enough to do without seeking spies as well.

  Tallain nodded slowly, his eyes lighting. “Perhaps I can fool him into thinking we can make a private deal, and learn what’s behind all this sweet friendship. I don’t believe any more than you do that all he wants is an agreement prior to the Rialla. But I hadn’t thought before of sounding him out in private at Tiglath.” Turning to Pol, he added, “I was your father’s squire for eight years, like Tilal and Walvis before me. And not one of us has ever been about to outthink him!”

  “Neither have I,” Pol grumbled, shooting a teasing glance at his father. “He does it just to annoy us, you know.”

  “I always suspected as much.”

  Rohan sipped his wine and looked innocent, unwilling to show that Tallain’s interpretation was one he had not hit upon. From his aunt Andrade he had picked up the trick of taking credit for more cleverness than he possessed. And very useful it could be, too.

  “Go away now, children,” he said, waving them from the room. “All this thinking has worn a hole in my brain. I’m growing old, and the younger generation exhausts me.”

  Snorting, Pol got to his feet and accompanied Tallain to the door. “Mother said something about coming down this evening to dine with you. Shall I tell her you’re too feeble to do her justice?”

  “If you did,” Rohan said serenely, “she wouldn’t believe you.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tiglath: 20 Spring

  It had happened as Tobin had said it would; for the first time in a hundred years, the Desert bloomed.

  Rain, soaking into the parched land all winter, had washed away the work of countless storms that constantly resculpted the dunes and piled layers of sand atop the seeds and spores that had lain dormant since the last floods. Deposited there long ago by winds and dragons and migrating birds, the sleeping life swelled with water, quivered in the sun’s warmth as the sand sluiced away. More recent arrivals washed down gulleys and were caught by rocks or in little pools. These mudd
y cauldrons were the first to bloom.

  Scrub that flowered seasonally with miniscule dry blossoms burst into luxuriance. Cacti and succulents drank in water, put forth new growth and wildly beautiful flowers. The Desert that in living memory had never worn any colors but gold and brown and sun-bleached white slowly bedecked itself in a motley of blues and reds and oranges on a background of startling green.

  And it spread, gradually and then with increasing speed, up from the canyons and ravines across the dunes: veils of dusky, hesitant green that thickened into blankets of flowers. All across the Long Sand incredible color unfurled, rippling over the curves and hollows like a velvet quilt across a sleeping body, moving gently with every breath.

  Always before, any flowers that appeared in the Desert withered within a few days. But roots and stalks had stored up the glut of water, and the colors not only lived, they increased with new blossoms. Scents sweet and spicy and pungent and heady obliterated the dry, thin smell of wasteland air. And with these came other movement, tiny winged creatures attracted by the fragrance of flowers. Insects by the millions came to the feast, some wearing as many colors as the flowers. Their humming underscored the usual silence, slowly overtaking it—until the birds came. And then there was not only color and scent and sound in the Desert, but music.

  Sionell of Tiglath, absently working a lapful of flowers into a chain, saw her present companion as very like this brilliant spring: beautiful to begin with, but wearing unfamiliar finery. She wondered which would be the first to cast it off—the Desert, or Meiglan.

  Occasionally she suspected that the girl was thinking the same thing.

  Her history was simple enough. Born at Gracine Manor to the first of Miyon’s several mistresses, she had spent the first fifteen winters of her life despised by the mother who had counted on a son. Miyon had ignored them both. At Lady Adilia’s death two years ago, Meiglan had been brought to Castle Pine, given a personal servant, pretty clothes, and a strict education according to Miyon’s idea of the perfect prince’s daughter.

  “Not a happy schooling, either, from what I was able to learn from her servant,” Rialt had told Sionell. “Whatever she does, and however hard she tries, Miyon finds fault.”

  As if everyone at Tiglath hadn’t guessed that by now. Yet Meiglan was part of her father’s entourage on this little visit to Tiglath. Miyon no longer ignored her—but why exactly he had decided to bring her with him gnawed at Sionell’s curiosity.

  Meiglan was a succession of contradictions. At nearly eighteen, her face was still as sweetly wistful as a little girl’s, but her body’s perfect curves were those of a woman grown. She was a blonde, with delicate white skin and masses of pale hair that floated down her back like a golden cloud, but her eyes were the deep brown of fallen leaves. In that dark gaze was a watchfulness that combined an adult’s shrewd calculation of the moods and whims of others—and a child’s wariness of their power to hurt her.

  She sat near Sionell now on a grassy knoll that last spring had been a sand dune, frail hands also weaving chains from the flowers brought by Maarken’s five-year-old twins. The children raced about, Rohannon a little awkward on long legs he couldn’t quite get securely under him, plucking up blossoms to dump in the ladies’ laps. Sionell had suggested the outing to get Meiglan out of her room for a morning—the girl had hidden there all day, every day, for the six she had been at Tiglath, emerging only at dinner. And small wonder. Miyon no longer ignored her, but his attention was no blessing.

  Sionell gave a sudden start as Chayla rained an armful of pollen-heavy goldbeard all over her. She grabbed for the child, tickling until they were breathless and had rolled halfway down the hill. When she climbed back up, retrieving scattered flowers along the way, she caught Meiglan looking at her with an expression bordering on tears.

  Poor little one, Sionell thought. Her throat ached with pity for this child, growing up alone with a mother who loathed her and now trapped at Castle Pine with a father whose contempt was expressed in mocking endearments—“precious jewel,” “sweetest treasure,” “perfect golden rose.” If he had brought Meiglan with him simply to infuriate his hostess, he had accomplished his aim.

  But there must be something else, Sionell fretted. The girl wasn’t stupid—there was intelligence enough behind her cowed silences. Perhaps she had some part to play in the negotiations that was so obscure only Rohan’s devious mind would discern it.

  Miyon, however, seemed intent on creating the impression that his daughter was a moron. Only last evening he had commented, “Her mother didn’t have the wit to come in out of a sandstorm—but Meiglan doesn’t have a wit in her head.” Then, smiling a smile that made Sionell want to slap him, he added, “But a beautiful woman doesn’t need a brain, does she, my precious flower?”

  Meiglan wasn’t stupid. And no one could be as innocent as she appeared to be. She must know many useful things about her father and his court. With a mental shrug, Sionell decided that at least she could draw her out about Miyon’s other bastards, rumored to number at least three. So, gathering the blossoms Chayla had scattered, she started chatting about her own extended kin-network. Though she was related by blood to none but her parents and brother, the position of squire to the High Prince held by her father and later her husband included them and her in the vast tangle of highborns that embraced six princedoms. She spoke casually of Kostas’ young son Daniv and Tilal’s boy Rihani, both of whom would be ruling princes one day; Alasen’s little Dannar with his head of flaming red hair, and Volog’s grandson Saumer, Named for his old enemy of Isel. It was utterly lost on Meiglan that all the offspring mentioned were boys. She merely nodded and looked impressed, and volunteered nothing about any siblings she might or might not have who could one day inherit Cunaxa. Sionell couldn’t decide if this was due to cunning, orders from Miyon to keep silent, or simple shyness. Perhaps, she thought, a combination of all three.

  It irritated her to suspect Meiglan of anything—and the fact that she could come up with no specific reasons for her suspiciousness irked her all the more. The girl looked so utterly guileless, innocent as a raindrop in the sun. It almost made Sionell feel unclean to mistrust her.

  And perhaps that was exactly how she was meant to feel.

  Still, after seeing Meiglan turn white as ice in response to Miyon’s barbed superlatives at dinner that night, Sionell had had enough.

  “I’ve never seen a servant treated like this!” she fumed as she and Tallain got ready for bed. “He says he brought her along to see something of the world—but she’s really here to provide an outlet for his temper!”

  “Which he doesn’t dare inflict on the rest of us,” Tallain replied. “It sounds as if she’s made a friend in you, though.”

  “I don’t think she knows what it is to have a friend.” She unbound her hair and angrily began brushing it.

  Tallain smiled. Taking the brush from her fingers, he smoothed the thick, dark red waves of her hair, his touch caressing and proud. “I understand your irritation, Sionell. But don’t scrape your head bald over it. Meiglan probably doesn’t see him here as much as she does at Castle Pine, so he has less opportunity to devil her. That alone must be Goddess blessing to the poor girl.”

  She closed her eyes, sighing with the pleasure of his hands. “I keep waiting for her to smile a little. This morning we went out picking flowers—nobody can resist Chayla and Rohannon at play. But she was all stiff and withdrawn. It’s pathetic, Tallain. She’s little more than a child herself.”

  “Mmm. When one looks at her face, yes. Perhaps.”

  Sionell met his gaze in the dressing table mirror. “Which means?”

  “There’s a woman’s body on that child. Not a man here hasn’t noticed it.”

  Her brows arched. “Yourself included?”

  “Of course,” he replied blithely. “But I prefer women who are women.”

  “Prettily said, my lord.”

  “It also has the merit of being the truth—not a
thing I’ve heard much of these last six days.”

  She turned to face him. “Have you discovered Miyon’s real reason for being here?”

  “Nothing I can put my finger on.” He shrugged, tapping the back of the brush against his palm. “It’s as if he’s waiting until lack of agreement makes it necessary for him to visit Stronghold for direct talks with Rohan and Pol. But what he wants from them isn’t clear at all.”

  “He knows you’re authorized to negotiate in their names,” she mused. “So we’re correct, and this business of yearly fees isn’t his real aim at all. I wonder what he wants.”

  “What he’s always wanted: Tiglath itself. We toured the warehouses the other day and his eyes were positively glowing with greed.”

  “Has he some scheme in mind to take the city from us?”

  “To do that, he’d have to get rid of Rohan. He has no right to the Desert and everyone knows it. He hasn’t the armies to concoct a military victory that would win our land by right of war. Not even Miyon is fool enough to try it.”

  “On his own, no. But you’re forgetting his probable allies. Roelstra’s grandsons.”

  Tallain nodded, admiration in his face that he never spoke of aloud—which was an even greater compliment than if he had congratulated her on her wits. He expected her to be clever; telling her she was would be insulting.

  “You’re right. I had forgotten. But that still doesn’t tell me why he wants to be at Stronghold.”

  “Betrayal from within?” she mused. “He’s got an armed escort. Some of them are probably Merida. It may be hundreds of years since they started their filthy trade, but I doubt their talents for assassination have wilted.”

  Tallain shook his head. “Any challenge has to be public. And for that they need Pol alive. That was Rohan’s reasoning in the matter of the pretender nine years ago. He wanted Masul denounced in public so Pol’s right would be in no doubt.” He shrugged again and resumed brushing her hair. “It didn’t quite work out that way, of course. But depend on it, no son of Ianthe’s could be stupid. It wouldn’t be enough simply to kill Pol and seize Princemarch.”