The woman spoke. He heard her clearly enough, and lost interest just as quickly. She was saying emotional, womanly things about how good the boy was and how the dragon creature had loved him. He listened with half his attention, until she said something that pulled him back.
"I have something to tell you about Elya."
With that he placed the voice. Princess Mena, she who had ridden in on that dragon creature, slipped off, and spoken so casually to the queen.
"You can't tell anybody. You have to promise. I mean it. Promise."
Silence for a moment. Delivegu had half a mind to step out from behind the curtain and point out that the boy was unconscious. If you wait for a response, you might be there awhile, Princess.
"Okay. Since you promise…" A few more words slipped by without taking shape, and then, "You can't even tell your mother."
Delivegu perked up.
"She wouldn't understand. She-well, it's not easy bearing her responsibilities. It makes one hard, skeptical, always looking for the ill that hides beneath any good. Sometimes I think that the more you look, the more you find. The more you look, the more you create the things you most fear."
The princess said something else under her breath. She must have looked down and cursed into her hand, not liking the direction of her own words. Delivegu was already calculating the value of what he had heard. A bit of criticism spoken to an unconscious boy? Value: naught. Give us something more, he thought.
"This is only for you to know," Mena said. "Elya has laid eggs. Four of them. Oh, you would so love to hold them. And you will. Once you're better, you'll come to my quarters and I'll show you them."
That was the chance event that brought Delivegu to the queen's offices and had him standing before Rhrenna, so pleased with himself that he felt no need to rush to answer her. He would not be describing the circumstances of the encounter in detail, nor discussing the rather troublesome time he had had escaping the royal quarters later that night. He would, however, offer information he would claim to have gleaned from his ever-reliable "sources." It would be easy enough to lay the information on one of Mena's maids, someone who might have chanced upon the eggs, and might have told someone else, who might have told… that sort of thing.
"For what reason do you want an audience with the queen?" Rhrenna asked, repeating the question for a third time. She kept her voice clipped and her gray Meinish eyes cold, but Delivegu knew better.
His smile was an unwavering crescent, and his talent for talking through it long practiced. "Rhrenna, now that I'm a man in high standing I feel inclined to boldness. When, my darling, will you consent to get to know me better? Privately, I mean. Just you and me. Wine perhaps. Good food and a place of comfort to retire to? That sort of thing."
Rhrenna studied him a moment before answering. "Don't you mean that question for the queen?"
"Ah-" He had not expected that. It set him back a moment, wondering if the fact that she asked it indicated the queen had spoken to her about it, or that she intuited the queen would be receptive. "Ah… what man could fail to find her highness a great beauty? I'm no different. But the queen would have no interest in me, certainly." Though the sentence was declarative, he left it dangling, loose ended, and rather sounding like a question. Rhrenna's answer was franker than he wished for.
"You don't stand a chance," she said. "Enjoy your lecherous thoughts of her in private, Delivegu. That's the only way you'll find satisfaction. I mean no insult, though. I'm of the opinion that no man except Aaden-when he becomes a man-will ever get near the queen's heart."
"And what of you, then? Would you ever try me?"
"Try you?" Rhrenna laughed. "Oh, you're a charmer, Delivegu. Try you…" She spun away and resumed perusing the papers on her desk.
Well, that didn't go that well, he thought. He was preparing a witty remark, something to brush her off and indicate no acknowledged harm to his sensualist's casual demeanor, when she continued.
"Yes, I imagine I would try you," she admitted. Her eyes rose to meet his. "I think you smell rather good."
Never had the mention of his bodily odor been such an invigorating kick in the groin. She did not let him linger on it at present, though. "Again," she said, her voice resuming its official curtness, "for what reason do you wish an audience with the queen? If you don't answer me now, you'll have to leave."
She likes changing gears, this one. Fine. I won't complain. In fact, Delivegu felt like purring, such was the pleasure of his position. "Once again, I have intelligence for her," he said, "news that she may find very, very interesting. I have word that something important is about to… hatch. Four things, in fact. Four things that someone has kept hidden from her."
C HAPTER
It was a delicate instrument, thin and artful, a slight curve in the handle, with one end weighted and shaped into a handgrip. The tip ended in a blackened needle point. Dariel knew what it was from the moment he laid eyes on it. He had spent the last few days studying crude maps of Ushen Brae's coastline, in exercising his body and explaining nautical concepts and terms to Tunnel and Skylene and the others who were to be his crew, but this last thing marked the final stage of preparation. After this, his mission began.
"So… you're serious about this? You want to tattoo me?"
Looking over the device, Mor narrowed her eyes. "Without markings you stand out like a freak among the People."
Dariel, head cocked, prepared to take exception to this.
Mor looked at him straight-faced, no trace of humor on her feline features. "Like a freak, I say. Or a degenerate. Others who see you will think you a child who has done nothing in his life. Unworthy. Without signs of belonging, nothing you say would change their opinion. Besides, that plain face of yours will forever announce your Akaran blood. It could be the death of you among the People."
"How about just drawing some spots or something? Stylus and ink. That sort of thing."
"It's been explained to you already, I'm sure. Should the divine children question you, any 'stylus and ink' work would be readily discovered. No, your fate has brought you here-just as mine brought me here. The tattoos must be real."
"Why do I think you'll enjoy doing it?" Dariel asked, smiling wryly.
"Because it hurts, you mean?" she asked, playfully innocent in a way Dariel had never seen before. "Dariel Akaran, when I wish to cause you pain, it won't be with this. I'll find a real tool for it. Believe me."
I don't doubt you, Dariel thought. I don't doubt you at all. I still have the marks from our first meeting, remember? As she spoke on, he had to tell himself to lower the edges of his grin. He should not be so pleased about this. The tattooing was going to hurt, and it was going to be permanent. What would Corinn think when she saw him again? If she ever saw him again… She would never understand or approve of something like this. It would seem an act of surrender, of lessening himself and his stature as an Acacian prince. She would expect him to command them all to do his bidding. The thought nearly made him laugh. He had, of course, commanded many people in various roles-both as an Akaran and as a Sea Isle raider-but this was different, perhaps in a way that Corinn would never understand.
Increasingly, the Known World seemed far, far away, not just in leagues but in its hold on his thoughts. Sitting and talking with Tunnel and Skylene and some of the others, caught up in the horror and largeness that was Ushen Brae, Dariel had to wrest his focus back to his homeland again and again. It was in danger, he knew, of attack from the Auldek. He remained vague on how great that threat was, but he tried to remember it and to think of Corinn and Mena and Wren and all his companions from his raiding days and the common people he had come to know and care for while working on his rebuilding projects. They mattered. And he had to get back to them.