He smiled broadly. “Waiting for you, Dragon Speaker.” Then he yanked open the door and motioned me inside before I could ask him what, in the name of sense, he meant.
The business of the dragon legion continued inside the headquarters, unchecked by the early onset of night. A hard-faced woman, flanked by two warriors with drawn swords, sat at a table dispensing coins to a line of bedraggled drovers and carters. Other men wearing the black and red of the Twelve Families were carrying piles of blankets and crates of supplies out to distribute in the encampment. The local populace might be eating their horses or selling their children to buy half-rotted turnips, but those of the Ridemark would eat their fill and sleep warm if there were stores to be had anywhere.
Alfrigg and the quartermaster were still huddled over their accounts, but to my relief MacEachern was nowhere to be seen. Two empty wine flasks and a third only three-quarters full stood in the midst of the ledgers and papers, which was usually a sign that Alfrigg was in control of the negotiations. The red flask of uziat stood ready at his elbow.
“Master Alfrigg,” I said, bowing when my employer looked up. “I have the information you desire. The Rider Zengal was most helpful. I would venture to say the Riders have no needs we cannot accommodate reasonably. We should be able to send Tarwyl and Jeddile down here tomorrow to begin taking measurements.”
Davyn laid his notes on the table in front of Alfrigg and withdrew while the merchant perused the close-written pages. “Unusual materials? Special designs?”
“It’s all there, sir. Very little different from your estimates.”
“Excellent!” He seemed to have forgotten his earlier aggravations in the flush of success. “Tell this gentleman the same, and that if he’ll agree to our last set of figures, we’ll make our first delivery one month from this day.”
I told the quartermaster what Alfrigg had said, as if he were truly unable to understand the words himself. Agree, I thought, so we can be out of here. Now that I’d had a chance to ask my questions, I wanted nothing but to get safely back to my room in Camarthan, where I could consider what I’d been told. But to my dismay the quartermaster read too much into my words and decided that he should hold out for a lower price, so we entered into two more hours of haggling. Now that the interpreter had returned, the signs and nods and pointing they’d used while I was in the valley would no longer suffice. Every word had to go through me.
Back and forth the two men went with the details of their contract, each point to be argued, considered, restated, and argued again: how many, how much, what day, what hour, what conditions ... until I wanted to scream at them to agree or be damned. The noise in the room grew louder as more day laborers came in to collect their pay. A group of officers argued loudly about plans for a mock battle and contingencies for worsening weather.
Two servants stoked the fire in the massive hearth, so that the room grew stifling. A red-faced Alfrigg, already sweating from the wine and the intensity of his financial sparring, loosened his thick outer tunic. “You’d think we were in the belly of one of these dragons.”
I did not respond. A mistake. Irritated at having lost the last point in his engagement with the squint-eyed quartermaster, he took out his frustration on me. “What kind of high and mighty fool stands there in a heavy cloak? We’ve got several more points to discuss before we’re done, so you might as well resign yourself to dealing with us lowly peasants. Take off the cloak and put your mind on our business.”
It was true that sweat was running down my face, and my garments were drenched underneath the wool cloak, but I dared not remove my cloak lest my failure to remove my gloves be noted. “I would prefer not, sir,” I said. “How shall I answer the gentleman’s last query?”
From the bundle strapped to the back of a hollow-eyed woman in the paymaster’s line, the strident, unceasing squall of an infant raked the senses like glass on steel. Everyone was shouting to be heard over the din, and in the midst of all of it, the shutters began to rattle. Smoke billowed back down the chimney until it became hard to see. A number of people, including myself, began coughing. This was not the wind.
The rumbling grew louder and the ground shook, sending a crate of metal cups crashing onto the stone floor, and toppling the wine flasks that stood in the midst of the contract papers. Fearing we would have to start all over again, I reached out with my clumsy hands to sweep the papers aside before they were drenched with the dark red wine. But at the same moment, the dragons skimming the rooftop screamed out their hate. Distracted and nervous, I staggered against the table, forced to close my eyes and try to block out the fire that seared my mind, tore at my lungs, and set my skin blazing, lest I cry out as I had on the path into Cor Neuill.
Two strong hands clamped my wrists to the table. My heart stopped. My eyes flew open in horror-struck certainty of exposure.
But it was only a puzzled Alfrigg, staring into my face with genuine concern as he held down my hands. “Aidan, lad, are you ill?” I would have sworn that the cacophony fell into absolute silence just as he said my name. No one in the room could have missed it. “You look like death.”
“No,” I stammered, cursing the moment’s lapse when I’d told him my true given name. “I’m fine. Why are you—”
“You’ve laid your gloves in the wine. Take your hands out of them or you’re going to drip all over everything.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“Don’t be a fool, boy. Take your hands out of the gloves.”
Of all the ridiculous images that fate could contrive to illustrate mortal danger... There was I, surrounded by my enemies, leaning over the table with my gloves soaking in a puddle of wine, determined not to show my hands lest I be returned to horror and lose my reason. Across from me was the uncomprehending Udema, equally determined that my hands would indeed come out, lest I mar his contracts and cause him to lose face. And there was no possible way to tell him of all he might lose if I did as he asked and was recognized.
“Alfrigg, please,” I said softly, but his iron grip did not relax.
“We wouldn’t want to risk losing all our work. This miser is on the verge of signing.” He spoke through clenched teeth, his face flushed with more than the heat of the room.
With every passing moment another eye turned our way. I had to end it quickly. Only the quartermaster was close enough to see, and for a brief moment I thought the gods had decreed that everything would turn out all right, for Davyn poked his head in front of the squint-eyed clansman, saying, “Excuse me, Excellency. I will clean up this mess.”
The Elhim distracted the quartermaster just long enough for me to yank my wretched hands from the gloves. I drew them immediately into my cloak, but not quickly enough, for the leather merchant’s jaw dropped, his irritation replaced in an instant by curiosity and pity. Alfrigg was a good and kind man.
“Vanir’s fires, Aidan, lad. What have you done to your hands?” Alfrigg’s voice was not designed for intimate conversation. “Here, let me see.” He drew my arm into the light.
“Alfrigg, please don’t,” I whispered, but it was already too late.
The quartermaster shoved the Elhim aside. “Aidan? Was that the name? ‘Aidan’ who has something wrong with his hands?” He peered into my face. “Osmund, summon the high commander instantly. Tell him we’ve discovered something most intriguing about one of our guests.” He slid around the table toward Alfrigg, who held my left wrist in his powerful grip and stood gaping at my misshapen fingers. A smile blossomed on the pinched face of the quartermaster as he gazed on the work of his clan brother. “Derk, Vrond,” he shouted. “Bind these two!”