He had a performance to give.
King Fidel, at his daughter’s request, had agreed to take Lionheart—once more under the name of Leonard the Lightning Tongue—on trial. If he performed well tonight, he might find a place in Oriana, at least for the time being. That was a place he sorely needed if he was going to figure out a way to get that ring. A kind way, of course, nothing sly or underhanded. He wasn’t going to hurt sweet Princess Una, not after she had done so much for him already.
He made his way from the servants’ quarters down a twist of passages to the king’s favorite after-dinner sitting room. The whole build and style of Oriana was so different from the Eldest’s House. The walls were white, for one thing, the moldings much simpler, more discreet. But there was a richness to the simple lines of Oriana that appealed to Lionheart. He came to a hall of portraits, which he had glimpsed earlier that evening when Una led him through the palace.
One of the portraits had caught his eye. He stopped before it again.
It was a small piece in a very old style; a storytelling style intended to convey a certain truth of the tale without specific accuracy to the characters. There were three men with the same face, two of them chained together, the third one crowned. There was a woman in the center of the piece, and she wept beside a gold stone, an altar, on which lay a figure that was like a man and yet, horribly, like the Dragon.
Lionheart shivered when he saw that image. He knew it was the Dragon, knew it as surely as if it had been painted with scales and wings and flames. A bile of hatred rose in his throat.
“I’m going to kill you,” he whispered to the painting.
Don’t forget your dream, whispered the Lady in his head.
“I haven’t forgotten,” he said. “And I’m going to kill him.”
Then he veiled his face in smiles and entered King Fidel’s sitting room.
King Fidel, a middle-aged man with silver in his beard, looked up from a doze when Lionheart walked through the door. “Ah, yes,” he said. “I’d almost forgotten. I asked you to entertain us tonight, didn’t I?”
“Quite so, Your Majesty,” Leonard replied. He bowed and backed into a quiet corner to tune the lute, glancing about the room as he did so. The king remained seated in his comfortable chair near the fire. At his feet sat the crown prince, Felix, a gangly young fellow who pretended to have no interest in a jester but who was obviously curious.
Across the room sat another prince; a visitor, Lionheart had been given to understand. One Aethelbald of Farthestshore. A suitor for the princess’s hand. Lionheart spared him no more than a glance and decided, in that glance, that he didn’t like the man.
He avoided looking at Princess Una, though he knew just where she sat. To his great pleasure, she rose, plopping a fluffy orange cat on the floor as she did so, and stepped over to greet him.
“I told you I’d get you a job, didn’t I?” she whispered. Her smile was sweet. Inconveniently so.
“Don’t count unhatched chickens,” he whispered back. “Your father has declared little need for a full-time Fool, and I may yet find myself out on my ear.”
What a bashful schoolboy he was acting. Look her in the eye and be a man!
“But I should not even have this opportunity were it not for you,” Lionheart continued, smiling back at the girl. “I hope I can properly repay your kindness. He would not have given me a chance but to please you.”
“It does please me,” the princess said. “But make him laugh and you’ll be hired on your own merit.”
“I shall endeavor to oblige, m’lady.”
“Una,” King Fidel said around his pipe, “come sit by me and let the jester play.”
Una obeyed. Lionheart quickly finished his tuning, stepped into the middle of the room, and struck a harsh minor chord. Then he was singing, a foolish jester’s ditty he had written during his travels. It was grand to play it for an audience who understood the language. His voice was not beautiful, but he sang with enthusiasm and an expressive face, and soon had the princess, her brother, and her father laughing out loud. Even the quiet prince in the corner chuckled as Lionheart swept to a grandiose final chord.
“Excellent,” King Fidel declared when the chord had faded away. “Sir Jester, we are glad indeed to have you among us. If you are half as skilled mopping floors as you are at spinning stories, we may just find ourselves at an agreement.”