Polo Shawcross: Dragon Soldier Read online

  I remembered Half Aunt Suzy’s story about the night that Azrael and Young Perry were conceived in Port Azrael. Azrael had always wanted to go there but wasn’t allowed that far alone, even with bodyguards. However now he’d been to Malion in the kingdom next door, I was sure he could get permission to visit. Port Azrael was only a few hours ride from Peterhaven and in the same kingdom. Even if he wasn’t given permission, the Crown Prince would be eighteen too and allowed to make at least some of his own choices. I rifled through the other mail.

  There was another letter from Mother. I read it then checked the current date. There was a knock at my door.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “It’s me,” said Azrael. “With extras.”

  “Come in,” I said. The extras turned out to be Fenric and Ross. Everyone found a seat, we said helloes and I waved the letter. “Mother and Father are on their way from Peterhaven!” I said, “They might even be here already.” I groaned. “They’re going to find out I was expelled.”

  “Technically,” said Azrael, “you weren’t expelled, you were asked to leave.” Fenric and Ross grinned.

  “That’s going to count for a lot with them,” I said, “they were so proud I went on to higher education.”

  “No reason you can’t continue,” said Fenric.

  “The Military Guild won’t let me inside the bloody gate,” I said.

  “There’s more to life than the army,” said Ross, and Fenric nodded.

  “Exactly,” he said, “and you didn’t want to join it anyway.”

  “Weren’t you thinking about Estate Management at the Harvesters?” said Azrael. “You could transfer I think?” He looked at the other two, who nodded.

  “Even expelled?” I said. “Or whatever I am?”

  “You finished two terms,” said Ross, “in good standing. You said they gave you the paperwork. They can’t take that away from you.”

  ****

  I’d assumed they could but the others were right. Even without leaving Malion I had a choice. There were branches of nearly every guild. Except the Temple Guild, which said cities were too distracting so had their guild schools off in private estates. I reflected that I hadn’t been a temple-goer since leaving my parents’ influence. My scepticism had taken some hard knocks especially since I’d changed shape myself, and started seeing ghosts, or one in particular, who said he was a being-not-in-body.

  One could say Cree was a hallucination, that the others who saw him were likewise seeing things in some group delusion, but there was no explanation for being able to change shape. None at all.

  As Cree said, when Man created Dragon he created real magic. From a viewpoint of complete disbelief in the spiritual, sure of rationality in all things, I’d moved on, to a realisation that there was weird in the world. Of course the realisation didn’t last as I kept forgetting, would assume everything was rational, then Cree would appear and make a fool of me.

  “I had some lad come up to me,” Azrael said, “out in the street, scared Fenric and the others, but turned out he only wanted to ask if I knew you. Did you really keep knives in both boots?” I laughed.

  “Hang on,” I said, suddenly thoughtful, “that’s quite a handy notion. Do you remember when Fenric had a knife even though your mother’s guards searched him? Must ask him how he did that. So I’m famous in Malion. Oh well.”

  “I think you’re notorious in Malion, too.” The notorious Lord of Starshore. I confess I rather liked that idea.

  ****

  With Fenric also vouching for my good character, permission was forthcoming from King Lewis for me to train at the palace garrison, so I was getting my strength and speed back. The soldiers kept me up with the gossip circulating across the river at the guild. I went riding, worked out and tried to stay out of trouble.

  Never having killed anyone before, I wasn’t sure how to feel. I didn’t feel bad. I was glad to be alive. I didn’t feel good that they died, but if you attack someone who’s fighting for their life, it’s the price you pay. I tried to remember what I did to annoy Indigo, then remembered him jumping me in the citadel baths. I hadn’t even known who he was. His attack wasn’t even over me personally, but over Azrael arriving at Court and Indigo’s cosy little world breaking up. I supposed I knew how that felt, what with Mother sending me to Peterhaven, and now with the fight and my expulsion from the guild.

  Although everyone said it wasn’t an expulsion, my life still felt awry, as if I was dislocated from normal people. However I hadn’t felt the need to take it out on others. No fights or wild drinking since they all attacked me. I wondered about the boys I killed and the ones I hurt. It was likely that the latter would end up unfit for the guild, except Indigo. He suffered two black eyes and a badly swollen nose but made a full recovery.

  The polis finally asked to interview me. I told them the truth. They told me not to leave Malion until they gave permission. I wasn’t worried but - as I could be stuck there for a while - starting at a new guild was something to do. I pored over the brochures and wondered at possible units.

  Thanks to having already been accepted into the Military Guild, I would be accepted anywhere, except at the Craft Guild, which I thought was basket-weaving and pottery but turned out to be doctoring of all kinds, and had extra exams. Weaving had its own guild and pottery was part of the Makers Guild, people who took raw materials and transmuted them. Though not foodstuffs, that was the Harvesters. There were others. I could go to whichever I liked providing I hadn’t brought a guild into disrepute. The Military Guild said they were happy to affirm I hadn’t done that.

  There was a quick decision to be made. I picked the Harvesters Guild, for courses to suit those who made their living from the land and its produce. I had seen the summary accounts for my Duchy of Starshore, the incredible amounts of coin that the duchy produced and paid out, and felt as if I were drowning trying to assimilate it all. Along with understanding the paperwork, I could tell if my accountants were cheating me.

  In a few months, because I was stupid enough to try to pick up a dragon, I was going to be a duke and able to override the steward’s orders, and I knew nothing about estate management. The people deserved at least someone who understood how the place worked. The idea of being duke soon was very hard to take in. I had trouble remembering that I was Lord of Starshore.

  Just because of that dragon, and because the king happened to be my mother’s second cousin or thereabouts. I still hadn’t worked our relationship out exactly, but Grandmama told me my great-great-great-or thereabouts grandfather, Montague Casterton was grandfather to Theo’s mother. That was just one of the family connections. That side got confusing rapidly, with about three Montague Casterton’s within a couple of generations.

  Saraia’s family were related to me too, as one of Montague’s grandsons was Saraia’s father, the current king. At least that’s what Grandmama told me in a letter, though she said she might not have it exactly right. What mattered, she said, was not so much shared blood, but that thanks to having been good friends, they’d stayed in touch over generations. No matter, it all seemed very arbitrary. Like someone had rolled dice and my life was the result.

  By the end of that week, nearly the end of the holidays, I was thinking maybe I was getting the hang of rehab and was feeling better physically, though mentally I may have been lacking something. I pretended to be fine. When I saw guild pupils around, if they smiled and waved so did I. If they glowered, I glowered back.

  Several times in the pits, men, with slight frowns belying their smiles, reminded me in a spar I wasn’t to actually kill my opponents. I wasn’t hitting above the shoulders but looking back, it was a matter of time.

  ****

  Chapter 9 – Love For Sale

  The last weekend, Mother and Father turned up and we were reacquainted, Father and I with some discomfort. With Mother, it was as if she only stepped out for a moment but had missed me.

  It was quite hard to look her in the eyes at first, a
s after catching her with Fenric we’d not really seen each other, her being banned from the infirmary for throwing a book at me. Father was still apparently sober. Mother kept looking adoringly at him. Uncle Rob, my great uncle, was recovered, a miracle, praise be to Thet.

  I looked at Father closely. He was looking well. It was unnatural. He’d lost weight off his belly, tightened up the rest, his colour looked healthy for the first time in maybe ten years. When other people were talking he kept interjecting with glad religious cries like, “Praise be to Thet!” or “Galaia preserve us!” or even “Maia bless this table,” so you knew he had the god-bothering bug.

  Most people forgot about Maia, responsible for the living creatures on the World. They tended to let Galaia take the credit, even though among the things that lived she was only responsible for the plant life, “her green skin”, as the Book of Thet noted. Maia was Galaia’s sister and married Quain, Galaia’s widower. The gods were at least as incestuous as Mother’s family. When I said that aloud, Father said,

  “Quain’s spear!” Father’s sudden piety was soon irritating me as much as his drunkenness used to.

  As for Mother, I was going to scream if she told me one more time how Father had Won Her Back. The story involved red roses, him on his knees, and a Touching Speech.

  “Tess,” Father told her, “I can’t love you more than anyone else, not any more. I’ve discovered my faith.” For some reason this appealed to my mother’s romantic notions and they were quite blissfully happy, back together for good.

  Mother told me that last quite firmly. I had the idea I wasn’t forgiven all those lectures I’d given her on alcoholism and co-dependency.

  “I always said, Mother,” I told her in a smug tone, “that Father wasn’t going to stop drinking while he was with you.” She snarled but I had her, it was the truth.

  My parents took rooms down the hall, raising my stress levels. I went from being ascetic to a complete stop-out, suddenly deciding parties were compulsory to attend, anything to get away from my parents, though I did take them both to a ball at the palace and introduced them to the King of Highcliff.

  To my surprise, they got on well with Lewis, and Father not drinking was the king’s idea of conversational heaven, a man who knew his cavalry manoeuvres. For his part, Father laid off most of the religious claptrap and was charming.

  Unsure what I would stick with as study, I started with some first year subjects in the Estate Management degree, including ‘Estate Accounting’, ‘Principles of Large Animal Husbandry’, and ‘Raising Healthy Poultry’, the latter two of which I thought I probably could pass with my eyes closed. I expected to be bored almost to death but it would get me out of the inn while Mother and Father were there, and once I did those foundation subjects there were more interesting ones in the next term.

  Father was very calm and happy, which to me was so unnatural it was like some changeling had moved into his body. He didn’t say horrible things. He wasn’t even bothered by me being banned from the guild. I found myself rather liking him, except for the god-bothering. Along with Mother being gaga over Father instead of constantly critical, my parents in Malion brought more problems. They thought I was still fifteen, when I would be eighteen soon, and was about to be made a duke of the realm. I had looked after myself without their help for years.

  “Of course I know you’re nearly eighteen, dear,” Mother said when I brought it up. “Speaking of which, we think you should go back to Starshore, be a resident ruler. Your father and I saw some lovely places when we were there.”

  Father looked at her in surprise. I only saw it because I was looking at both of them. Mother was sleek and earnest, dark hair tucked behind each ear and the opal in each eye catching the morning light. I shook my head, sending my hair swinging. Father’s only criticism of me had been to tell me to get a haircut, so of course I hadn’t. Although otherwise I tied it back, whenever forced to spend time in their company I let it down.

  “I don’t want to go to Starshore to live yet,” I said, “I want to stay here. I’m not thinking a full degree at the Harvesters, only enough for me to feel more confident as duke. Subjects that will help me understand what I’m doing. However, I’ll be going to the duchy for my investiture this summer. Providing the king can still make it.”

  “Which place were you thinking?” Father said to Mother. She looked back at him, annoyed. He wasn’t deflected. I thought, not for the first time, this isn’t my real father. “If you’re about to make me move house again, Tess,” he went on, quite calmly, “I’ve a right to know where.”

  “Did I say I was thinking of moving?” she said, looking petulant.

  “No,” said Father, “but I can see the signs. You want Polo to give you some new farm.”

  “I was thinking that little estate-to-lease we saw in the hills,” she said. Mother hadn’t been replaced by a doppelganger. She was getting annoyed. She began to pout more. “You said you liked it, Evan,” she said, “the one with the duck pond.” Ooh, I thought, here we go, first names instead of darling or ‘my love’.

  “I said I liked it, Tess,” said Father, matching her tone, “not that I wanted to live there.” I repressed a smile.

  “Not now, Evan,” said Mother. I saw Father blink. Then he shed all his calmness. Not completely but enough.

  “Yes now,” he said, though he still didn’t shout. It was enough. Mother turned on him, her mouth open in actual shock. I tried not to laugh. Father was doing well. If he wasn’t my father then, whoever he was, I was proud of him. “Tess,” he was saying, “if you’re not interested in even discussing our family while the whole family’s here, then you do whatever it is will make you happy. Because it’s not being with me or your son. I’m sure Polo would be grateful if you got out of his hair.”

  I tried not to look like he’d read my mind. “Polo,” said Father, sounding calmer, “I’d like to live in Port Azrael.” He shrugged and smiled. “If a small house or apartment comes up, maybe something near the harbour, think of me. Your mother apparently prefers the sticks.” I nodded and didn’t even correct him, that she was his wife and I didn’t choose her to be my blood.

  “Polo,” said Mother, “I’ve decided I don’t want to live with your father again, ever. Nor do I want to speak to him again. Ever.” Father smirked. I kept my face neutral, or tried to.

  “You can both have places,” I said quickly, hoping to avert full-scale hostilities. “And you don’t need to rent. My treat. The duchy can afford it. I’ll write to the steward, Master Thomas, and say what you’re looking for. Of course, that would mean you staying in Starshore, at ducal expense, while you’re househunting. There’s a steady demand, Master Thomas says, from current tenants and those moving into the duchy, so it’s not fair to keep him waiting.” I congratulated myself on my brilliant and cunning plan. They could go off to Starshore and leave me alone. I had money to throw at them. This would work.

  To my horror, instead of looking pleased or even interested, they were looking doubtful. Breaking the habit of many years, I asked Thet, father of the gods, in charge of higher education, and with his daughter Galaia, responsible for good parenting, to give me a break. “At least think about it,” I said aloud, not holding out much hope.

  “I will need servants,” said Mother, suddenly sitting up straight and not looking at Father, “seeing your father is leaving me.” I nodded. During my time at Court, I’d learned some things. With parents in particular, it was good to focus on the actual question or problem, not the emotive claptrap they surrounded it with.

  “Servants,” I said, “no problem. At least a night maid, a cook, a day housekeeper? And of course a decent budget to pay for any extras, in case laundry has to go out or you need a gardener.” She nodded.

  “Thank you,” she said, “at least one of the men I’ve devoted my life to cares about me.” I bit my tongue. The gods were on my side, I’d be a fool to argue with Mother.

  “I’m going to pick up women,” said Fa
ther, looking and sounding cheerful, “now that your mother is leaving me. Can I have a servant? I’d appreciate someone to change the sheets. Get the washing done. Make sure I get food. Like your mother, but not someone I have to have sex with.”

  I was taking a hit on a pipe of mindweed and trying not to laugh, nearly coughed. I was also keeping one eye on Mother, especially in relation to things she could throw. Mother frowned.

  “Why are you looking at me like that, Polo?” she said. “You’re quite cross-eyed.” I remembered she wasn’t going to speak to Father ever again. There was only me to take things out on. Somehow I had to be the perfect son.

  “You can both have what you need,” I said in my best grown-up voice, “I’ll write to Master Thomas. I was going to offer you an allowance too. Say a gold a month?” I paused. “Each.”

  That seemed to take the puff right out of Mother, and Father was grinning from ear-to-ear. Two golds a month wouldn’t dent my own reserves. Thanks to my duchy and Grandmama Daeva I had much more than that as untouched income squirreled away earning interest. At least I was being very sensible, my parents could be proud of that.

  As Mother and Father went to Starshore, I breathed a sigh of relief, then breathed another when I heard that they’d picked out the properties they wanted. Master Thomas, as I had begged him to, took pity on me and allowed their tenancies, with the duchy responsible for household expenses and rent.

  Master Thomas also allowed the extra expenses that I applied for afterwards, to keep my parents under watch while they were in Starshore. As I explained, unusual though that request might seem, it was like having delinquent children whose behaviour would reflect badly on me.

  Father was being a model citizen, but it would be the duke’s father lying drunk in that gutter if he started drinking again, not good for my image at all.