Leverre’s face darkened.
“Gentlemen, please,” dal Sason said with a wheeze.
“I am part of a command structure, and I have orders to follow,” Leverre said.
“If you need to return to the city,” dal Sason said, “there’s no point in wasting time. You should leave as soon as you feel ready.”
“I’m ready now,” Leverre said, rising to his feet.
Guillot might have found Leverre’s thoughtless devotion to duty tedious—his willingness to set off on another journey after dark—but he had to acknowledge that there had been a time when he behaved the same way.
“I’ll see to having your horse readied while you pack,” he said, getting to his feet.
Leverre nodded in appreciation. “I’d like to take that odd little cup you found with me. Proof that we went into the cavern, if it’s needed. There’s also a slim chance we might be able to learn something from it.”
“Like what?” Guillot said, surprised at Leverre’s interest.
“I, well, that’s what we’d be finding out. As you said, we can’t leave anything out.”
“It’s a piece of Telastrian steel. It looks like a small cup, the type one might use with a flask. Other than the dragon being partial to a tipple, what do you think it’s going to tell us that we don’t already know?”
Leverre sighed. “I’m grasping at anything and everything. You should be too.”
“All the same,” Guillot said, his suspicions raised. “I think I’ll hold on to it for the time being.” Leverre had already admitted that the Spurriers had been looking for something magical when they first went to the cavern. Surely the little cup could not be it? It had been discarded on the cavern floor. Gill couldn’t see anything interesting about it. Given that it had not earned a place on the gold pile, the dragon didn’t seem to place any value on it either.
Leverre chewed his lip for a moment, then nodded. “If that’s what you wish. I’ll gather my things.”
Guillot watched him walk away for a moment, wondering at his interest in an unremarkable object, before heading out to the stables to have Leverre’s horse saddled.
CHAPTER 33
Solène returned to the archive as soon as she had finished her morning requirements at the Priory. She gathered a few volumes and folios at random, then sat and stared at them, willing them to make sense. Some passages were close enough to the modern script for her to eventually understand, but it was slow going, and there were large sections she couldn’t make any sense of. At first, she thought this might be due to her lack of formal education, but it quickly became clear this was not the case—the old books were written in a different script to the one in modern usage.
After a while she went for a wander amongst the shelves, trying to clear her head, and hoping for inspiration. She had not gone far when she heard the doors boom open. Peeking out from behind a shelf, she saw the Prince Bishop walking toward her in his usual purposeful way, his pale blue-and-gold robes billowing out behind him.
“Solène,” he said, his voice echoing down the cavernous groin-vault roof. “Come and join me, there’s something we need to discuss.”
She nodded, surprised to see him back so soon, and walked up the central aisle toward him. “Is there a problem?” she asked, concerned by the solemn expression on his face.
“Please, sit.” He pulled out a chair for her. “I’ve some bad news,” he said. “I understand you were very fond of Guillot dal Villerauvais. Sadly he, and some of your Brothers and Sisters, were killed in their effort to stop the dragon.”
“I thought he was supposed to be some type of special dragonslayer?” she said. Few people had ever shown her kindness without expecting anything in return for it. She was deflated by the thought that he had been killed.
“He was,” the Prince Bishop said. “At least we thought he was. The Chevaliers of the Silver Circle were renowned dragonslayers in their time, but it seems whatever skill or attributes they had were not passed down to the present day. We had no way of knowing. We all hoped he would be able to deliver the kingdom from this danger, and considering the beast was attacking his lands, Gill wanted to do something about it. We thought he was our best chance. Now the gauntlet has been passed to us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Who else can stop a beast like this but the Order?” the Prince Bishop said.
“I thought you said several members of the Order were already killed trying to slay it?”
“They were, but they weren’t you,” the Prince Bishop said.
“You want me to slay a dragon?” Solène said, shocked at the idea.
“I feel that given a little more time, and the resources available in this library, you will be more than up to the task. Obviously you need to re-target your studies to locate material that will be of use.”
“I don’t know,” Solène said. “This sounds too much for me.” She started to feel light-headed. “A dragon? How am I supposed to survive that? I nearly killed myself completing the Order’s tests.”
“Calm down, Solène,” the Prince Bishop said. “I’ve already lost more people than I care to. I’m not going to send you into anything that you won’t be fully prepared for. It’ll mean some hard work and late nights because we don’t have much time, but when you go, you will be ready. You’ll have the support of the entire Order. If the dragon gets to a large city like Mirabay, the death and destruction it could wreak is unthinkable. Everyone needs your help to stop this beast. One way or the other, we will be going out to face it, and I’d very much like to have you with us.”
She studied his face. He seemed to be sincere, but she had encountered many men who had seemed sincere and had proven to be anything but. Still, if the Order must go out to face the dragon, what choice did she have? She was one of them, and if she expected the benefits, she should be prepared to share the burdens.
“I’ll do what I can,” she said. “I’ll start to look for anything that might help.”
“Thank you,” the Prince Bishop said. “That’s all I can ask.”
She didn’t have the heart to tell him that she hadn’t worked out how to read anything in that huge library yet. Instead, she smiled and nodded.
The Prince Bishop left in a hurry. In the time Solène had known him, it seemed he was always in a hurry. When he was gone, and she was once more in peace in the cavernous archive, she considered the alteration in her task. What the Prince Bishop proposed both thrilled and terrified her. She had never been a person of importance before, and now she had the most powerful man in the kingdom asking for her help. That she was expected to help slay a beast that had just killed the finest swordsman in the realm was less appealing.
She hadn’t known Guillot well, but in their short acquaintance, he had done as much for her as any person she had ever encountered. More. He had walked into a furious mob and saved her from an unimaginably terrible death, and though life had made him bitter, he had never been anything but kind to her. There weren’t enough men like him in the world, and now there was one less. She had long since stopped grieving for things that were lost to her, but she could not shake the sadness that gripped her when she thought of Gill reluctantly riding to do his duty, with each step of his horse carrying him toward his death.
No one else had done half so much for her. Dal Drezony and the Prince Bishop were doing their best to win her over, but only because she had something they wanted. From the start, Solène had realised that the Prince Bishop’s benevolence to her would only last as long as he found her useful.