Dragon’s Empire – 3. Countess and Dragon

«It is a pity that you were not when the letter came, otherwise the reception would be arranged in the palace… the first one for many years. You probably already know that His Majesty has long been in the mourning, and with him, of course, the whole court. The royal will is law for everyone. If the monarch fell into melancholy, then it is imposed on the other in a natural order. So, at least, it was up to that hunt when we met with you and, honestly, I really wanted to see you again.

Selvin cut his monologue and waited with hope for an answer, but I kept silence. The fire quietly cracked, absorbing the remains of the twigs, but only flared up stronger, although food capable of supporting the burning was almost over.

«After all, I didn’t come with empty hands,» Selvin took out some scroll and handed me, as if trying to prove it that his visit was not so useless. There are documents on the village to the north of your possessions. It and several farms that can be rented will give a good income.»

And whose were these lands before me?» I didn’t even unfold a scroll, although I already realized that such document is a great mercy from the side of the monarch, only here he provided the service not to the one who was in need of it, but to a stranger.

«These lands belonged to the crown,» Selvin replied. «They are pretty fertile, such an area will not give a bad income to the host, and the repair of the estate, too, if you do not mind, write down at the expense of the treasury.»

«What a care is it,» I admired, but Selvin did not notice sarcasm in my voice.

«The king is waiting for your appearance every day and… every night,» he said, clearly remembering our collision in a hunting house. «It is inconvenient to me to talk, but he is fascinated by you, and the court is jealous, so you must be careful when you appear among them. From jealousy, they are capable of everything, even of crimes. Many have never seen you, but they already dismiss unpleasant and terrible rumors. I am also your debtor and will be alert to provide you with safety at the court.»

«Selvin!» I turned to him by name, without titles and other rules of courtesy. «You must understand that I am not going to come to the court, nor today, neither tomorrow, no in a month.»

«But the king…»

«Listen!» I took him by my arms and led closer to the fireplace, so that in the reflections of the fire he could well consider my traits. He did not take away his hot live hands, although he felt the ice cold of my skin and, probably, he realized that this was a handshake of death.

«You are far from stupid and quite capable of understanding that I am not a common man,» I continued quietly. «Take care of your suzerain. Say to him that the most terrible danger, which only can be is coming from me. Communication with me has the worst consequences. It is dangerous. You are afraid that they can kill me but how? I will not be harmed with a spear, a knife, a sword, or even with a poisoned arrow. But if I wish or in the whims of fate, I can destroy many. Your king sees the deceased son in me. So let him send his father’s guard to someone from living, and not on whose fate are darkness and loneliness. If I need your service, I myself am not ashamed to come, but it is necessary to fear in advance that someone like me is going to let me your doors.»

«You say that you are… Cursed? «Selvin could not find a word for a long time and the phrase itself flew away from his tongue. «But this is not the case?» He immediately asked me with a hope.

«Who knows,» I replied indefinitely, and immediately turned away to send my energy to fire, which had almost no food left, at the expense of which it could burn.

The awkward pause was delayed. Selvin, having exhausted the stock of his eloquence, urgently tried to reveal the reason to extend his visit. He looked around a poor living room, heavy, dusty curtains, soft furniture set with faded upholstery, vases with dried bouquets. Dry flowers with the lightest touch could crumble in small curvy. Selvin’s gaze ran through a darkened portrait and pictures, which got me together with the house, and lingered on a small old tapestry with a hunting scene.

«Still, you have shown yourself as a hero that day,» Selvin remembered the predators who arranged the hunters the trap and an unexpected salvation. «Those who you saved, now and call you – the lord of the wolves. The rest, who heard the story, gave you this nickname in absentia, without requiring any confirmation of such power.»

Selvin spoke simply and with admiration. No tricks about why wolves scared me or how I managed to keep their fierce attack with the whole pair of words. He was not going to get out someone else’s secret and took the uniqueness of his savior as proper.

Young Viscount learned to perceive my secrecy, as an integral. Therefore, he was still alive, healthy and not scared, but only a little confused. Already in his behavior, it was possible to understand that received as a present possessions and other grace is just one way to lure me to the court. Does the king lack his own concerns? Why does he call in a fragile maze of urban mansions the fire-breathing snake?

«I see, it is useless to warn,» I stated with a sad smile. «Well, perhaps, one day I will appear before your jealous courtiers, and God forbid that I come to them in such a kind, as now, and not in another.

«What do you have in mind?» Selvin was amazed.

The holy simplicity, I grinned about myself, how he is it far from the suspicious Francesca.

«Very often, the evil fate pursues those to whom I feel sympathy,» I remembered with the sadness the gnomes, especially Dominic, even more painful there was a reminder of the prudent Claude and the naive, but uniquely charming Florian. All of them were destroyed because of me.

«Do you want to extend our acquaintance?» I asked the confused Selvin. «Well, I do not mind.»

«Excellent, you will not regret,» he was delighted. «Today we will have to bring bricklayers, painters, carpenters. We must bring the house to the appropriate look.»

He wanted to add that if I would be a little bit more agreeable, and I would be waiting for the future of the royal heir. I did not fit to be the landowner in debts. He got used to the court luxury and was confident that anyone who was forced to live in the house with the flowing roof, without servants, undoubtedly is a debtor. If only he did not stand in advance with the royal treasurer pay for these non-existent debts.

Selvin has already escaped to give orders to his escort, and I choking a deaf hysterical laughter. Yes, I could enrich any of the rulers of nearby countries. From the very tiny, not even faceted stone from my treasury would not be abandoned any of the richest and powerful kings. Selwin’s ignorance excused his naivety.

I considered Selvin unobtrusive only until the work was boiled in the estate. The workers imported a new, fashionable furnishings. The walls were re-crossed by expensive wood. The dressmakers filmed the measurements for the curtains. I was tired of the incessant crash of driving around, the knocking of hammers and disputes about what will be more beautiful to stand, I moved to the mill. It was warm and nice there.

Left alone, I thought about Vincent. Where is this poor fellow now? Probably, he is in some wretched hut, because his house is sold, and the debts are not paid. Only in the evening he can get out of his shelter to go to visit those who have enough stupidity to invite him. A poor Vincent! He would dance from happiness, if any childless king suddenly thought to adopt him. Again it outdated so that all the honors got to the one who did not appreciate them at all, and not the one who was dreaming about them.

Not that I am very sorry for Vincent. He brought himself all the time in trouble and did it quite skillfully without any assistance. Clear fraud is not a mean with which you can succeed. Now I remembered Vincent, because I felt his presence nearby. I just could not understand what he was doing in the village.

From the roof of the mill, an excellent panorama opened, but someone removed a ladder. Unlike people, I did not need a ladder to climb the attic. Probably, the miller noticed it. My hearing was very sensitive, I heard the hammer strikes in the forge, snoring the horses, crying baby in the cradle and warlike screams. Everything that happens in the village was almost tangible to me. I strained and listened. What happens there? Someone takes out a weapon from the forge. The village is preparing the uprising. The rumors and suspicions have done their job. What is the honor to kill the dragon while he is in human guise. Whether I am a man, I would be offended. After all, this village belongs to me according to papers from the king, I am a friend of the king himself, and these stupid people want to kill me with pitchforks and knives. Well, if they wish to see the dragon, they will see it, although I swore not to turn without special need.

From above, it was possible to observe the crowd, which moved to the mill.

Only pride prevented me to return to the gloomy, immense world, where I will be taken as equal. Pride and suddenly broken rage. How can these people be so arrogant and believe that they will overcome the stronger magic creature. Threatening to me, they just repeated the mistake of past generations.

Vincent, obviously, has managed to be returned before the crowd moved to the mill. Undoubtedly, he already learned about the fact that the king favors me, and got angry to such an extent that he rushed headlong into another dangerous enterprise. The result of it I could now watch with a better place.

The crowd was poorly armed and poorly organized. When they approached the pond, I was sitting on the roof in the same unchanged position, as an idol frozen in front of the pagan altar and an empty not expressing look at the armed crowd. Let them know that it is easier to move a whole fortress from the spot than to make me move at least a finger. It was worth to whisper only one word, and the arrow turned back. A sharp steel tip unmistakably found the heart of a unlucky shot.

A similar witchcraft maneuver even more exited the crowd. If earlier they had nothing but their own conclusions, now they have received proof that the sorcerer next to them really exists, and is not a fruit of someone well-developed imagination. I myself provided them with this testimony of my secret power and was not long waiting for their reaction. Hostile cries have become even louder. Vincent was worth only to throw a spark near the powder cord, and it wakes himself. The main thing against me was that for the sake of such an event you can throw all the work for a couple of days and plunder the rich possession of the feudal. In addition, in the opinion of many, the murder would be easy, because it does not manage to see the dragon every day, to catch him at the moment of weakness. As soon as they set fire to the mill, I’ll fly, leaving them alone with a conscience and a wall of fire.

In a moment, I saw everything on miles around, knew how many knives were hidden under rude capes. I wonder what amazement will distort their features when the real, golden dragon appears?

I slightly covered eyelids and the face distorted by rage merged into a solid range of white spots, but suddenly in the thick of the crowd flashed a family face of Francesca. So after all, the countess came to look at the massacre, because they were rarely far from the city, or opposite she tried to stop them. Even if she tried, it is unlikely that they will stop, not often the fate itself is found the pretext to kill the owner of the village, besides, if he also turns out to be a real dragon.

The door of the mill could not even knock out with the help of a rudely homemade battering ram, because I ran a protective spell on it. The spell to stop the fire flew out of the head, and the walls of the mill were flamed too quickly. I darted with one throw from the roof, the raincoat was shot at my back, like a sail and in just a moment I managed to take the kind that would manage to scare anyone. The first moment brought an amazement. The peasants did not assume that they would see someday something similar. As it could happen, because of the moment back, they saw just a favorite of the king, a silent aristocrat, who is unlikely to be able to confront to many alone, and suddenly he disappeared, and in front of them over a burning mill, a sparkling dragon was flying. Francesca also raised her eyes to the sky, no doubt, she learned me alone. She could not be misleading the dragon, who got down the fire on the crowd.

Already flying out, I knocked Francesca down with the edge of my wing. Golden steel scratched her easily vulnerable human flesh and broke clothes. She lied on the ground for a long time in a torn dress with disheveled gold curls and repeated something in a whisper, just one word as if it was a spell.

It was worth listening to distinguish her incessant whisper, more like a desperate cry.

«Edwin! Edwin!» came to me before all the sounds were dissolved in the heavenly melody.

«How could they?» Selvin was already in renovated living room and never ceased to be outraged by such betrayal. «If I just knew before? I would manage to support discipline, set guards.

He stopped near the fireplace and helplessly lowered firmly compressed fists.

«Forgive me, Edwin. If I knew that the village was full of madmen, I would have done everything to erect the barrier between them and you.»

«I warned you that the misfortunes pursue me,» I quite reasonably noticed. «Not so long ago, a former servant was trying to arrange a plot against me, before that there were other unpleasant cases. It is better to stay away from such a friend as I.

«Yes, it looks like a conspiracy,» Selvin’s eyebrows met on the nose, he thought about something feverishly, and then he smiled lightweight and happily. «I know a great solution. Do not think that I am superstitious, but in Viniena there is a beautiful cathedral. It is worth only to go there and nothing will remain from the evil eye or evil conspiracy.»

«No,» I objected so hastily, which scared him. «In no case. Now I can not go to the capital, I risk to face there with old enemies,» I began to compose on the move, so that the lies cover the cruel truth. I could not push him that with one sound of church bells, I will have bleeding ears. A rumor enjoying the music of fairies is too susceptible to the monotonous ringing of the metal and the chorus of chants.

«What are you afraid if His Majesty will send his people with you? «Selvin decided to encourage me and if I need to settle all problems for me. How to refuse him?

«I’m not afraid of anything,» I tried to object, as mildly as possible. «I just don’t want to put in an awkward position myself and others. Let’s go back to the question of the village. You said that those of her inhabitants who wanted to attack me for some reason decided that I was on the mill while I had already managed to leave there.»

It is necessary to hide so much and not blush. Selvin, taking such an explanation for a clean coin, nodded.

«They were convinced that they saw you on the roof, so the mill was set on fire, but their own clothes were burned too. Many burned alive, others got strong burns.»

«And with them there was a woman? The countess from the neighboring estate, I do not remember exactly what her name is? – I started carefully to interrogate.

«Yes,» Selvin answered. «It seems that she tried to stop them and but suffered herself.

«You will learn about everything so quickly.»

«I used to get acquainted with all the news, but these will try to save in secret. We don’t need a noise around your estate.»

I barely kept myself from telling him «Thank you» for the foresight. I allowed him to be located like at home, in the mansion, which was returned a luxurious look in so a short time, and I myself headed to bring the next night visit my charming neighbor.

As usual I did not knock at the gate. The habit of sneaking in the window and secretly observed the events was for me unchanged. Easy to calculate, in which hall there is a countess, I discovered there and one guest. It was Vincent. Despite the cold evening, he refused a hot tea, but willingly drank a glass of wine and began to spread about the latest news.

«This event is a real event,» he almost joyfully said, pretending that he did not notice the fatigue of the countess. «For the first time, I managed to learn something intriguing. The rebels accused the rich feudal in witchcraft, they drove him to the roof of the mill and threatened with fire, and suddenly he turned into a dragon. So the accusations are not so unfounded.

Vincent finished his monologue in the tone of the investigator and did not even notice that his only listener was silent and didn’t even nod to him.

«This story is worthy of getting to the pages of one of your books,» Vincent nodded towards the bookcases.

«No, you can hardly convey all the horror that eyewitnesses experienced,» she objected. Today you caught me scared and depressed, but this fright will not last long. Tomorrow you will return here, preferably in the late afternoon and take your cards with you. I need to ask you many things.»

«How do you order, Milady,» Vincent agreed. He drank, looking at the dark corners, where the candelabra’s light fell. It seemed to him that someone watches him, but he could not understand: the truth was it or an unpleasant feeling.

«See you tomorrow, dear countess,» he said softly and with a grin, crossing the threshold, but Francesca no longer heard him.

I did not want to show me at servants and maids, which, noticing such an invasion, could raise a cry. Penetrating into the bedroom, I began to wait until the countess remain alone. Soon, holding a candlestick in her hand, she crossed the threshold, closed the door. The peaceful radiance of one candle was illuminated the room. Francesca pulled the latch, turned around and noticing me was frozen without movements like an ice statue. How she was pale! It seemed that the scarlet dress with the waves of black lace, was on the mannequin, and not on a living woman.

I also sat down in a deep chair and stared in her eyes. Must be, Francesca thought that I was a ghost haunting her.

She backed up, but the back came across the door, which he just locked. A painful meeting with a wooden barrier led her to feelings.

«You didn’t have the right to appear here,» she finally spoke quickly and desperately. «You could not cross the threshold without invitation! You are an evil spirit!»

«So read the prayer to expel me!» I proposed indifferently, but the steel was ranked in the voice. It means that she herself invited me once, believed that no evil spirit had the right to enter the house without an invitation of the owner. An old one, having nothing with the reality of superstition, but the blonde countess believed everything that she read in the books. She knew the words of prayers and began to pronounce them, quickly, uncertain, expecting that I was about to disappear, but I did not turn into a smoke, did not fly out as a black cloud through the window and Francesca was silent. She did not want to show her cowardice, she approached me. I stand up to meet her, the etiquette did not allow to sit in the presence of the lady. A hand with a candle rose to my face. A tiny light almost rushed my cheeks, giving Francesca an opportunity to consider and remember every line.

As if observing some kind of gloomy ritual, the countess touched with her fingertips first to my cold skin, and then to the velvet binding of the book lying on the table. Feeling the ice fatal touch, she breathed quietly:

«Not alive!» Francesca dropped the candle and repeated again. «You’re not like all the living people, you had to die many years ago, but something happened and thanks to this you live, moving, breathing, charming naive people.

«You are far from naive!» I pointed to the book, where she had read about me me. The book, lying on the table, revealed the lines of the ancient, forgotten language. «Do you know some letters or the whole alphabet and can you read it?»

Francesca did not answer, but only pressed the palm to the neck, then to the heart. It beat often and strongly, like a bird in a cage.

«You are still alive,» she said. «When I read about you for the first time, you wandered somewhere nearby. But it is impossible, such simply can not be.»

She was amazed of acquired knowledge.

«Yes, I live, you yourself touched me to make sure that my heart, Francesca, it doesn’t beat, the first flight turned it into a stone.»

I waved the cloak. The wind rose from the light wave pulled out the pages from the book and they rushed to the floor with the rustle.

«From the very beginning I understood that you exposed me.»

– This predictor of fate, asking for a visit, is for sure your spy, otherwise you could…

I immediately understood who she had in mind, and hastily objected:

«Vincent is not my hound. He is an enemy and he is very dangerous, remember it. If it were not for his dexterity, he would also have been an ash for a long time.

«And who would you be now, if the sorcerer did not pull you out of the burning castle to make his student?»

«An ash!» I calmly and honestly replied, and from this answer she frown. «In the same rush, what sooner or later you will become, my beautiful countess, while in front of me is an eternity.»

«Eternity without joy, without a friend, without a companion. Eternity in the darkness,» Francesca tried to blame, but the voice fell into tears.

«What’s so bad in this,» I objected. «Your fortress will rot, your books will turn into dust, and my people will exist in teasing proximity to your dilapidated world, subject to disease and old age. Recently, you sought forbidden: feasts, treasures and secrets of my possessions. Is not it?»

I was silent, the wind picked up the torn pages, circled them under the ceiling and removed in the opened window. They disappeared forever together with the confession of the prince’s prisoner. Disappeared a distorted story about my atrocities. Francesca did not know what to answer how to call for help all her braveness to continue to throw charges. She wanted to raise the candle from the floor and again to light it, but did not dare.

«Clear pretense!» Francesca whispered, with despair, but so quiet that it was almost impossible to hear it, but I heard and unexpectedly felt irritation.

«And what did you expected, that even the devil will like your sophisticated manners, right, but false speech and the talent of the ingenious tracker?» The question was malicious and painfully cut a hearing. «No, Francesca. In fact, everything is much more prosaic. I came here to pick up my property. That is, almost mine,» I immediately corrected. «Anyway, a picture, according to a pure chance, that fell into your collection is written by one of the masters of my world, and therefore should return in the empire. The sooner, the better,» and if you can immediately, I added to myself, remembering that I was too late. You can never postpone tomorrow, otherwise you will never fulfill the conceived. I just wanted to play a day or two in a cat and a mouse with titled lady, and this couple of days dragged on more than a week.

«The painter!» Finally, exclaimed Francesca, as if this word was the key to all existing secrets. «He was the same as you.»

«Well, not quite like that,» I noticed with the knowledge of the case. «There are even in our world lords and servants. Camille was a conventional servant, even worse, almost a slave of his insidious Mr.»

«Yes, he accidentally mentioned that freedom was now very valuable for him,» Francesca nodded thoughtfully.

«Camille does nothing by chance, and he gave the picture exactly you, for sure, with a special intent.»

«He managed to run away from you. Well, I am glad for him,» Francesca has found strength to smile. «Now it’s clear to me why he wanted to destroy the picture.» Why do you need to keep an image of the owner, who probably very brutally addressed him. But he loved you very much, it feels in every stroke laid on canvas. Otherwise he could not draw with such inspiration.»

«This is a pretty ill manifestation of love – to create an eternal reminder about experienced sufferings,» I said and thought that this was really the most sophisticated torture – to capture the moment when several months have separated me from the carefree past, and the long road to the future was dark and thorny. How did Camille attracted the prince on the verge of dishonor? Why was it possible to transfer all mysticism with such an impression of reality, as on this, undoubtedly the best of his canvases? Cleanliness and innocence, the memories of which are still preserved in the picture, was already unattainable, and the dark satellite behind my back was just revealed his black wings.