Robin Hobb - Blood of Dragons

‘Selden. Selden. It’s time to be awake. You need to eat and drink.’

He opened his eyes. Full daylight was streaming into the room. The potted roses on the balcony had leafed out, and the wind that wandered into the room was mild. As if in answer to spring, Chassim had discarded her pale shroud. He had never realized her hair was so long. She had left it loose, and it cascaded past her shoulders. The simple robe she wore was a pale pink, sashed with white. There were little rosebud slippers on her small feet. She was crouched by his couch, patting his hand to awaken him. A laden tray waited on the low table beside him.

‘You look like Spring herself,’ he said sleepily, and she blushed as pink as her gown.

‘You need to wake up and eat.’

He lifted his head and the room spun. He set it down again. ‘Is it today? Already?’

‘I’m afraid so. I want you to eat and then rest again before they come for you.’

He lifted his arm and looked at it. Both his arms were swathed from wrist to elbow in neat white wrappings. But he knew what they looked like underneath. Black and blue bruising covered them. ‘One of the healers spoke of making a cut at my neck. The others argued, saying they might not be able to stem the flow of blood afterward.’

She rose abruptly and went to the balcony to stare out of the window. ‘You should eat,’ she said hopelessly. In the distance, trumpets blared.

‘Chassim. I fear I won’t come back to you this time. Or that if I do, I may never awake again.’

‘I fear the same,’ she answered in a thick voice. ‘And as you see, I have prepared myself.’ She gestured at her garments and then at the open window. ‘I’ve made my little plan. After they take you, I will wait on the balcony. If they are angry when they come to my door, I will jump then, before they can seize me. If they bring you back to me, but I fear you cannot wake again—’

‘Take me with you,’ he said quietly. ‘The worst fate I can imagine is to wake in this room and find you gone.’

She nodded slowly. ‘As you wish,’ she said in a very small voice. She pulled herself up straighter and said, ‘But for now, you should eat.’

‘I don’t want to feel that depraved old man’s mouth on my throat.’

She had started across the room toward him. At his words she shut her eyes tightly and turned her face from him, sickened. She drew a deep shuddering breath. ‘Just eat something,’ she suggested.

‘There’s no point. If I’m going to take my own life, I’d sooner do it before they cut my throat and he sucks my blood again.’

‘Selden—’

‘Unless you’d like to dine with me. Shall we have a final meal together, Chassim?’

She came to his bedside, lifted the tray and took it to a low table on the balcony. ‘Do you mind sitting on the floor?’ she asked him. Her voice had become very calm. ‘If we are interrupted, if they chance to come early—’

‘We can still escape. An excellent idea.’

He lifted his head and this time the world did not spin. She came back to help him stand, letting him take his time. They crossed the room slowly, his legs wobbling with every step. His arms and wrists ached abominably. He was grateful to sink down on the floor beside the food. Chassim hastened to bring him cushions to lean against, and a coverlet to wrap about him. Spring was in the air, but he still shivered. ‘It feels good to be alive,’ he told her.

She smiled and shook her head at him. ‘You make no sense. And yet you do. Selden Vestrit fostered by Khuprus, you are the first man I’ve ever talked with. Do you know that?’

With difficulty, he tugged a cushion closer. ‘That doesn’t seem possible. You had brothers, you told me. Your father. Three husbands. You must have known other men.’

She shook her head. ‘My status meant that males were kept at a distance from the time I was a child. I sat at dinners, there were polite exchanges. My suitors courted my father, not me. And when I was given over to my husbands, they had no interest in conversing with me. I was not even an object for pleasure; they had much more skilled women at their disposal for that. I was for making a child that would mingle my lineage with theirs. That was all.’

‘And they all died.’

She had mentioned some of her history to him, but he had never prodded at what she had told him. She met his gaze. ‘The first one died accidentally,’ she said. She poured wine for both of them, and then lifted the lid off a fat bowl. The aroma of a rich beef soup rose from it. She ladled out servings for each of them. ‘Do you think I am hateful?’ she asked him.

‘You have not seemed so to me,’ he replied. ‘There were nights when I dreamed of killing my captors. Times when I lunged against my chains and would have done death on any of the gawkers that I could have reached. So what is the difference between us?’

She smiled at him. ‘That I was more efficient than you were?’ she offered. She lifted a fold of cloth to reveal a warm loaf. When she uncovered the little dish next to it, she said, ‘Look how yellow the butter is! They must have put the cows out onto new pasture.’

Trumpets sounded again, more urgently. They both turned to look out over the city. In the distance, other horns blared a response. Selden turned his head sharply. ‘What is that?’ he asked her.

She shrugged. ‘A diplomatic visit, most likely. The guards at the city gate will blow an alarm that announces the arrival. Then the horns sound again as the visitors pass each checkpoint in the city.’ She sipped her wine. ‘It is nothing to do with us, my friend.’

The winds had favoured them. Sintara knew that Tintaglia had not expected to arrive at the city before noon. They had come from the direction of the dry lands, and as they came to gentler territory, more than one herd had scattered in terror as they overflew them. One shepherd had dared to shout and shake his fist at them. The herdsmen they saw spurred their horses and fled, leaving their cattle to fend for themselves.

We will feast later! IceFyre promised them.

For now, fly steady and strong. We want no warning of our coming to precede us , Mercor reminded them all.

That had all been settled back in Kelsingra. IceFyre had battled humans before, and had very definite ideas of how they must proceed. There would be no trumpeting to one another, and the path that they had followed to Chalced had taken them over the deserted lands, away from eyes that might send messengers ahead to the city. Men on horses, dragons had learned long ago, could not outrun a dragon, but they could and would continue to travel by night, with no need to kill and eat and sleep. The old black dragon had been very intent on surprising Chalced, and attacking them with as little warning or challenge as they had given him.

So now they flew, swift and straight, making no kills, regardless of how easy the prey that was offered. The scattered huts and farmhouses grew more common, and soon they were flying over the outskirts of the great city. Ahead of them loomed the city walls, and high above it, on a hill within the fortified city, stood the towers and ramparts of the Duke of Chalced’s stronghold. It was more fortress than palace, and as they approached it, Sintara knew a moment of unsettling doubt. This was a bad place, a very bad place, and her inability to summon up the specific memory that told her that only made it appear more ominous. IceFyre had been insistent that the entire city must be completely annihilated. That was the only point on which Mercor had directly opposed him.

‘My memories may not be as extensive as yours, but this I do recall. Stirring an entire city of humans is like lying down to sleep on a hill of dagger ants. They are tiny, but they will attack endlessly, summoning their fellows from other hills if they must. To be rid of them, you have only to kill the queen in the central mound. Tintaglia has spoken of being well treated by the folk that live in the Icy Islands, and along the Black Stone Coast. The Six Duchies, she called it, and said that whenever she visited there, she was offered gifts of fattened cattle and a safe place to sleep. Will destroying Chalced threaten that?’