Nanya of the Butterflies (Sun Wolf and Starhawk) by Hambly Barbara

Author:Hambly, Barbara [Hambly, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-07-13T23:00:00+00:00

*

“What do you mean, there’s no dragon?” Starhawk’s straight dark brows pinched down over the broken bridge of her nose. “Chief, everybody saw that dragon. Its tracks were all over those villages.”

“Everybody who’s been in and out of Nanya’s perfume-shop sees blue butterflies flying around their heads,” pointed out the Wolf quietly. Around them, the darkness of the garden was sprinkled with the distant lamplight of the pavilion; the sound of lutes and viols now mingled with the voices of the guests. “The first year you were with the troop, and we were fighting for the King of Mallincore, hundreds of people in Mallincore saw all those empty tents we had set up in our encampment and swore we had five thousand men. And any cattle-thief can fake up a paw to make tracks with.”

The Hawk was silent for a time. Then she said, “You mean, Nanya’s in on it.”

“Yeah.”

“You think she and Martus—?”

“I think she was in his arms the last time he wore that doublet.”

“Well, after five minutes of talking to Caia I can understand that. Especially if Martus thought he was being given a kingdom to rule instead of a job as chief stud with no power attached. They have to be using mercs, to do the dirty work in the villages—”

“They are. I thought those claw-rakes on the cottage walls – besides the fact that they didn’t get the spacing the same from one wall to the next – looked awfully damn clean for claws. And look here.” He led her to the parapet, where the Queen’s garden overlooked – twenty feet below – the kitchen gardens of the lower palace. Cressets burned in iron baskets along the low wall, and by the blaze of the nearest one he unrolled the drawing the Queen had given him.

“The Captain of the Peacock described dragons as snaky and bony. Zarath – Shamash Hadru’s servant – said the same. That thing – and the thing I saw in my dream – looks exactly like the lamp in Nanya’s perfume-shop. That’s probably as close to a real dragon as she’s ever come.”

“And they started in the villages so Lord Darvi wouldn’t think it was some kind of staggering co-incidence when his niece conveniently gets bumped off leaving Gorgeous as King of Ilfagen?”

“Except I think Lord Darvi’s going to be one of the victims when the dragon finally hits the palace here. But the Blackmouths had a lot of power among the land-chiefs. They’d never have stood it, if some jumped-up merc from the Islands just came in and offed the Queen and her uncle. It has to look real, like our pal Moonweasel finding out the name of that poor mark back in Kwest Mralwe, and where he’d been to school. It has to look good.”

“That’s…” She paused, considering.

“Unproven the word you’re looking for?”

“No,” said Starhawk after a moment. “Actually, I think the words I’m looking for are, Pretty damn clever. No wonder the other dragonslayers can’t find the thing’s lair.

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