“Silent Lady shield us,” Rose Red whispered, then hastened down the hall, one hand pressed against the wall to guide her in that awful half-light, her burned hand clutched to her chest as though she could somehow still her racing heart. Not Daylily too! Not her master’s beautiful betrothed! He’d already lost his mother today . . . she could not allow him to lose his lady! She must find her. How could she have been such an idiot as to allow Daylily to accompany her here? She should have shown more will and stood up to her, should have disobeyed orders for the lady’s sake. It wasn’t in Rose Red’s nature to disobey, but what excuse was that now? She should have known the poison would affect even the baron’s daughter! For all her beauty, for all her strength, she was only mortal.
The breakfast room was empty, but the far door stood open. Rose Red went through it, paused a moment in the passage beyond, uncertain which direction Daylily would have taken. Then her heart sank to her stomach, and she thought she would be sick.
For she knew exactly where Daylily had gone.
She could not help it. Her pace slowed despite all her efforts to hurry. Fear grabbed her by the shoulders and struggled to hold her back. “I’m doin’ what he wants,” she told herself. “I shouldn’t go; it’s just what he wants me to do! I should go back, care for the others, give her up for lost. Leo will understand. Or if he don’t . . .”
Even as she tried to convince herself, she knew she would not succeed. Though everything in her spirit warned her away, Rose Red continued doggedly forward until she came at last to that narrow pass where she had found Daylily and Foxbrush (was that only minutes ago? It felt like hours, or days) standing before a door that led to a servants’ stair.
The door she had shut with such force.
The door that was now open again.
It gaped like jaws, and there was no stairway spiraling up. Instead, a tunnel lay beyond the door, a tunnel leading down, down, into darkness. As Rose Red stood in that doorway, her hands clutching the frame, she thought she heard a trickle of water, a stream, deep inside.
It was the mouth of the mountain monster’s cave. Here, in the Eldest’s House. A stench like death rose up to meet her.
“Silent Lady,” she whispered. “Silent Lady!”
She bowed her head and shuddered as she drew another long breath of that stench. Never, in all her life, had she been more alone than she was now, standing at Death’s own door.
How long Rose Red stood no one could have said. But the only observer in that household, watching from the darkest shadows, knew full well what she would eventually do, no matter how long it took her to reach the decision. He knew; and when she passed through the doorway and vanished into the darkness of that cave, he smiled. Fire gleamed in his mouth.
1
THE NEAR WORLD
OF ALL THE KENNEL BOYS working for the Duke of Shippening in Capaneus City, one was most likely to be plucked from his regular duties and transferred to the serving staff should a position need filling. This had something to do with his appearance (which was pleasant in a boyish sort of way), much to do with his manners (which were better than the duke’s), and something to do with his knowledge of a household servant’s tasks, unusual in one who worked with dogs.
The first time he had volunteered to wait at table, the head butler had laughed a bitter sort of laugh. The head butler was a man of some taste and culture, well aware that his master the duke wouldn’t have cared two straws whether a dog-boy served his ale or not. To what a state the Duchy of Shippening had fallen! No better than the days when barbarian thanes had roared drunkenly at table and thrown bones to the hounds underfoot.
But the lad had insisted on giving a demonstration of his abilities, and the butler was pleased to note that, though stiff and unnatural in his movements, he did indeed know the basic requirements of the work.
Thus Lionheart did not spend his entire life exercising the duke’s hounds and cleaning out their kennels. Some evenings, he stood with his back to the wall in the duke’s fine dining hall, assisting guests as needed.
One fine evening, Lionheart cleaned himself up after a day in the kennels, bending over a tiny basin and working without the aid of a mirror. His quarters, which he shared with three other men of the same occupation, were located behind the stables and beside the kennels, where the baying of the duke’s hunting hounds could wake the dead at any hour of the day or night. It was not the ideal situation for sprucing up in preparation for housework. Not that the duke would notice if a serving boy’s cravat was crooked. But the butler would.
Lionheart slicked down his hair with water and comb (which was intended for use on the hounds’ coats, but he was in no position to complain). Pennies. That was all this job was worth . . . pennies. Barely enough to live on. So this was freedom, then. This was a life without expectations or restraints.
But a man must eat. To eat, he must work. To work, he must not be too proud. Especially when he was a dark-skinned foreigner in exile. Ultimately, this job at the kennels paid better than other work available in Capaneus City—he wasn’t starved. But he would need money if he was to travel, if he was to learn.
If he was to discover how dragons may be slain.