When Dealing with Dragons

  Yolande Kleinn

  Published by Yolande Kleinn, 2023.

  Copyright 2023 Yolande Kleinn

  ISBN 978-1-946316-32-5

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  When Dealing with Dragons | by Yolande Kleinn

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  Further Reading: An Intimate Charade

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  When Dealing with Dragons

  by Yolande Kleinn

  With three older sisters—not to mention his mother and father who remain hale and reliable in their shared rule—Prince Ercole Calistro has no fear of ever inheriting the kingdom of Danna.

  A small army of nieces and nephews further ensures he is safe from the unwanted weight of the crown. Ercole would be grateful for them for these purely selfish reasons, but he's also desperately fond of his family. He has no wish for children of his own, no matter how staunchly his father tries to convince him he will change his mind one day. He loves the little ones running constantly rampant around the keep, but there is a vast difference between this protective adoration and a desire to raise his own brood. Hell, even if he did want children—a difficult prospect to imagine—one cannot sire offspring alone.

  And Ercole has never felt the slightest desire to invite a woman into his bed.

  Today, there are more pressing topics than a stubborn prince's refusal to court a wife. Ercole makes a daily habit of attending the Royal Council, an effort far beyond his duties as a prince barely within the line of succession. Even his sisters don't attend so often, though the eldest comes close, and would probably be present every day if she didn't have additional responsibilities.

  It's not that Ercole has anything to prove. It's simply that he knows these things matter. Honor, duty, family.

  There is little else he can do to answer these callings, so he remains as involved as procedure and ceremony allow. He's ventured beyond the kingdom's borders only twice in his life, both times under Danna's banner, with noisy fanfare and a full military entourage. Ercole has taken well to diplomacy. He hopes he will be sent on more such missions. But for now, he sits at his mother's right hand, while both ruling monarchs—King Ivo and Queen Linea Calistro—command the room.

  The council's business has concluded, as far as Ercole knows, so he startles when Ivo announces, "I've sent an official summons to the Regent of Vos Cosmas, requesting the services of Sir Marion Rook. It's my hope that he can help with the crisis in Haldale."

  Ercole blinks in surprise. Yes, something needs to be done to help the farmers and herdsmen who make their home at the base of Mount Meridee. But he can't imagine how the services of a single man—even the most decorated and infamous knight of a neighboring kingdom—can resolve the ongoing problem. It's fortunate that the peace between their two nations, carefully negotiated by Ercole's own hand, holds solid enough to allow such an exchange. But that doesn't explain his parents' reasoning.

  "Help how?" he asks, when no one else joins in his confusion.

  "By slaying the dragon, of course," Linea answers, as though it is the most reasonable and obvious thing in the world.

  Ice floods through Ercole's veins at this pronouncement, but he waits until the council session has ended without contributing another word. The city officials, royal alchemists, court advisors, and military generals all slip out of the room as their business concludes. Ivo and Linea are always the last to depart, meeting their personal guards in the hall outside, but today they linger even after the rest are gone. They sit in beams of sunlight that slant down from high clerestory windows above the chamber, watching him with mild curiosity. Ercole rises slowly from his seat, fighting to contain a shaky rage that will do him no favors in arguing his case.

  He needs to remain calm. Reason alone will serve him here.

  "You can't send a knight to kill the dragon."

  Both queen and king remain seated, peering up at him with their own distinct expressions. Linea looks soft and a little pitying, as though she anticipated Ercole's protest and does not relish the thought of disappointing him. Ivo looks sincerely perplexed, clearly not understanding why Ercole has chosen to argue with their judgment.

  "Why not?" Ivo asks.

  "Because it's cruel!" Ercole's voice threatens to rise into a shout. He reins himself in, makes himself look away from his father. His gaze drifts across the contours of the richly appointed council chambers. The long, sturdy table with its gold and green draperies running beneath shining decanters of wine. The blue and gray patterned stonework of walls that rise to a staggeringly tall vaulted ceiling. The glitter of sunlight through dozens of high windows, each one crafted into an intricate mosaic of colored glass.

  A scrape of chair legs over the stone floor is enough to drag Ercole's attention back to his father, as Ivo stands from his place and steps past Linea. Ivo's hand is big and warm—obviously meant to offer reassurance—as it settles on Ercole's shoulder.

  Ivo is not, at a glance, an imposing man. He is tall but slim, his physical strength built through endless and difficult training, his thick beard a conscious choice to make himself appear more daunting to potential opponents. But even he looks rugged and sturdy next to Ercole, who has inherited his father's limited height in dramatic unity with Linea's willowy frame.

  There are those within the court who gossip that Her Highness comes from elvish stock. Or perhaps had a grandmother among the fae. All baseless rumors as far as Ercole can tell. In any case, the comparison does him little good. Where Queen Linea Calistro carries herself with infinite elegance and grace, Ercole has managed to turn his inheritance into a clumsy disaster of lanky limbs. He's learned better poise in recent years, but it still feels like a constant challenge, making people take him seriously when he has little hope of winning a physical fight.

  Now, with his father's hand on his shoulder and his mother watching him with quiet worry, Ercole is more aware than ever of his perpetual fear that he will never measure up.

  "Son," Ivo says with gruff caution, "where is this coming from?"

  Ercole bristles at the patronizing edge of his father's question. It's a marvel, really, how his family can simultaneously entrust him with incredible responsibilities—he negotiated the peace treaty that has allowed Danna to summon another kingdom's knight in the first place—and yet persist in treating him like a child instead of a grown man. Ercole has grown up in luxury, but also in smothering solitude. Keeping him safe so often meant cutting him off from the actual world. And while he has gone to great lengths acquainting himself with life outside the castle walls whenever possible, it's as though the very people who insist on keeping him contained refuse to believe he knows what he's talking about.

  "You can't commission a knight to kill the dragon." Ercole forces these frustrations aside for the moment, keeping his voice level by force of will. "Even if a single warrior could achieve such a victory alone, it wouldn't be just. The dragon hasn't hurt anybody."

  "Hasn't it?" Linea counters, turning in her seat to watch the exchange with eyes that flash a perfect green to match Ercole's own. "This dragon has stolen so much livestock that our citizens at the foot of the mountain won't survive the winter without aid from surrounding villages. We will see that they receive the help they need, but the harm is real, and it shows no sign of stopping."

  "Besides." Ivo lets go and drops his hand to his side when Ercole locks him with a sharp glare, but he does not so much as stumble in continuing his argument. "Not to quibble, but the dragon did burn down several of Haldale's tallest buildings, including the courthouse."

  "Because someone tried to shoot it!" Ercole bursts, too exasperated to contain his ire at this last point of contention. He listened to the herald's official report. No one died in the fires. The worst injury was a broken wrist, a consequence of too many people scrambling down a flight of stairs at once.

  Dragons are rare. There are some parts of the world where they've been absent so long that the people of those kingdoms consider the great, magnificent beasts to be little more than legend. The kingdom of Danna should be treasuring, studying, protecting the resident of Mount Meridee.

  Not hiring someone to hunt it for sport.

  "Ercole." Linea rises at last, a voluminous swath of green skirts swishing against the smooth floor. "Enough. We've been months without a solution to this problem. Would you have us evacuate the entire village from their land and homes?"

  "Yes."

  The sympathetic look she gives him makes Ercole even angrier than Ivo's condescension. And he knows, in that single devastated instant, that he has lost his appeal.

  *

  The knight arrives two weeks later, and he is not what Ercole expects.

  From the stories about this proud and powerful warrior—and there were plenty circulating through Castle Calistro even before people learned the most lauded knight errant of Vos Cosmas would be coming to Danna—Ercole anticipated a man of daunting stature. He expected elegant armor, an arsenal of weapons, a massive steed , a vast entourage worthy of his reputation.

  But Sir Marion Rook arrives alone, riding a tired and unremarkable horse. He carries only what fits in two saddle bags and a heavy traveling pack, plus a single sword at his hip. The sword is well made, but it hardly seems enough. Rook's armor is light and simple, scuffed with years of damage that even the most skillful metalsmith clearly can't buff and shine away. He wears no helm, and his boots are caked with mud.

  Despite a still-smoldering rage at the purpose behind Rook's summons, Ercole is present to join the official greeting in the castle courtyard. He stands at the very end of a lineup that includes the entire royal family, and watches in quiet fascination as Rook alights from his horse without bothering to hand anyone the reins.

  His movements are surprisingly graceful for such a stocky build. He follows the line of royals, from queen to king to eldest princess—offering a customary bow and greeting for each.

  With so many sisters, nieces, nephews before him in precedence, Ercole has ample time to study the new arrival while he awaits his turn. Rook is older than he expected—forty or fifty by the look of him, which is surely older than most men in his profession hope to survive. He seems out of place amid the finery of an extravagant court and intricate architecture, though he moves with the easy confidence of a man who refuses to be bothered by this fact. His skin is deeply tanned, and his closely trimmed beard glints silver in the high morning sun. A vivid white sickle-blade of a scar stretches from temple to jaw on one side of his face, and a subtler scar at his throat twines up from beneath his burnished and battered gorget.

  When he at last reaches the end of the line, a smile twitches at the corner of his mouth, and Ercole can't decide if Rook is laughing at him. Clever energy shines in the deep umber of Rook's eyes, and it's disconcerting the way he seems to size Ercole up with a glance.

  All of this passes so quickly as to go unremarked by anyone else in line. Ercole's own expression doesn't change. He is here because ceremony demands his presence. He has no intention of offering this man a warm welcome. Better to stand impassive and accept the ceremonial greeting without reply.

  It's only after the royal lineup has dispersed, Rook returning unhurriedly to his horse, that Ercole begins to wonder if he has misjudged the man. Rook's horse has remained docile and patient through the entire ritual, and she nuzzles her human with whuffling affection when he takes her reins in hand. Ercole is too far away to decipher the words he croons in answer, but there is no mistaking the affection in that tone, or the soft kindness that touches his dark eyes.

  Perhaps Rook doesn't yet know why he's been summoned. Surely a man capable of handling his horse with such care—of smiling at such a simple creature with those infinitely kind eyes—won't be capable of harming a dragon whose only crime is existing at the edge of settled territory.

  The official audience and announcement will wait until morning, after Rook has time to recover and rest from his long journey.

  Ercole does not intend to spy on Castle Calistro's newly arrived guest. But curiosity twists and rumbles inside him, and he finds himself watching Rook from the shadowed corner of his favored parapet. The stable yard is directly below, and the outer wall of the keep beyond that, and Ercole can't explain even to himself why he is so fascinated with a complete stranger. He has this stretch of wall utterly to himself, no guardsmen in sight.

  It's not an especially good hiding place, visible from both the ground below and from further walkways and parapets above. But it provides solitude enough. He comes here to think, and to be alone, and aside from Rook—dressed down to tunic and trousers now, no armor in sight—who is far too busy brushing down his horse to bother glancing up and catching Ercole watching in any case, no one will notice or interrupt him here.

  Almost no one, he has to concede, as familiar footsteps tramp heavily toward him along the stone rampart.

  "Go away," he says, to the one person he can trust not to compulsively obey his every command.

  "Only if you tell me why you've been in such a foul mood," counters Dane Quist, captain of the Queen's Guard and youngest military advisor to ever serve the Calistro line. He sounds as cheerful and flippant as ever, and when he reaches Ercole's side, his towering bulk is enough to block out the sun. "What are you doing out here, anyway? Shouldn't you be on the training field at this hour?"

  Ercole huffs a dismissive sound and folds his arms over the stonework of the wall before him, leaning forward in what he hopes looks more like an idle pose than a fit of pique.

  Dane remains quiet just long enough to lull Ercole into a false sense of security, before murmuring in a wry tone, "I suppose he's handsome enough, if you favor the brutish ogre sort."

  "He's not an ogre," Ercole protests, immediate and instinctive, and only registers a moment later that he could have—should have—pretended not to know who Dane was talking about. That he is still staring down at Marion Rook in the yard below. Too late to save face, but he still mutters a belated, "And I do not find him handsome."

  "Don't you?" Dane counters, smooth voice turning the question into something light and teasing.

  Ercole glares at him, long and hard, but when he returns his attention to knight and horse, something has shifted. New feeling twists in Ercole's stomach, anxiety and anticipation and something else entirely, and he realizes Dane is right. He finds Marion Rook handsome, and desperately fascinating, and suddenly he is praying more fervently than ever that Rook will refuse the court's commission.

  *

  Rook doesn't refuse the quest.

  Ercole watches the morning's pomp and ceremony from a gallery at the edge of the throne room, unwilling to attend a function whose entire purpose he finds abhorrent. He can't stay away entirely though, vested as he is in the outcome of the audience. Nor can he make any public protest against the express commands of king and queen. He hasn't admitted even to Dane how angry he is at the measures his parents are taking. Confidante or no, Dane Quist's first loyalty is to the crown, and Ercole refuses to put his closest friend in such an untenable position.

  Decorum says he should be seated with his royal siblings, at the foot of the dais atop which their parents' golden thrones stand side-by-side. But Ercole has been forgiven for worse transgressions than this willful absence, and he holds his breath as he awaits Sir Marion Rook's answer.

  "I accept this undertaking on behalf of the Kingdom of Danna," Rook says, in a deep and sand-rough voice that carries confidently over the waiting crowd. "Thank you, my lady. My lord."

  There is not so much as a flicker of hesitation on his rugged face. And with the solidity of his answer, Ercole's fascination evaporates in a relentless sweep that leaves him somehow both cold and furious at once.

  So much for hoping the kindness in Rook's eyes would prove true enough to stay his hand.

  Ercole storms unnoticed from his shadowy vantage, without bothering to wait through the rest of the courtly ordeal. Foolish of him, to feel betrayed. Why should he be surprised that a complete stranger has let him down?

  Why does he feel not just disappointment, but pain?

  He keeps to his chambers through most of the day, not wanting anyone to ask him what's wrong. But there's only so long he can tolerate pacing an endless loop of his solitary rooms, no matter how vast the space. Eventually he takes himself entirely out of the keep, slipping past castle guards to reach the grassy hills beyond the walls. Clouds have swept across the previously blue sky, leaving the world awash in gloomy gray.

  There is no one to interrupt his sullen mood on this side of the castle. There is only the rising hillside and the familiar cliff's edge, the break of a massive lakeshore below. Danna's capital city sprawls outward on the far side of the keep, but here in the long shadow of towers and ramparts, Ercole can storm along to his raging heart's content.

  He is so caught up in the deepening whirlwind of anger in his chest that he doesn't notice the sky darkening or the wind gusting harder off the lake.

  He also fails to notice that he is no longer alone, right up to the moment he collides headlong with a broad chest beneath a loose gray tunic.

  Ercole stumbles back, startled simultaneously by the man blocking his path and by the first drops of rain to scatter down from the sky. He overcompensates and nearly falls, but a strong hand grips him by the elbow, holding on just long enough to steady him before pulling away. Even that much of a touch without permission is enough for Ercole to have someone punished, but he's never been so arbitrary. He's grateful not to have landed on his backside in the grass. Even once he raises his eyes and discovers who he collided with, he can't bring himself to be so petty.

 

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