Medan did not love Laurana as a woman, Gerard had come to realize. He loved her as the embodiment of all that was beautiful in his adopted homeland.
Gerard was amazed, entranced, and astounded upon his first entrance into Marshal Medan’s dwelling. His amazement increased when the marshal told him, proudly, that he had supervised the design of the house and had laid out the garden entirely to his own liking.
Elves would not have lived happily in the marshal’s house, which was too ordered and structured for their tastes. He disliked the elven practice of using living trees as walls and trailing vines for curtains, nor did he want green grasses for his roof. Elves enjoy the murmur and whispers of living walls around them in the night. Medan preferred his walls to allow him to sleep. His house was built of rough-hewn stone. He took care not to cut living trees, an act the elves considered a grievous crime.
Ivy and morning glories clung to the surfaces of the rock walls.
The house itself was practically hidden by a profusion of flowers.
Gerard could not believe that such beauty could live in the soul of this man, an avowed follower of the precepts of darkness.
Gerard had moved into the house yesterday afternoon. Acting on Medan’s orders, the healers of the Neraka Knights had pooled their dwindling energies to restore the Solamnic to almost complete health. His wounds had knit with astonishing rapidity.
Gerard smiled to himself, imagining their ire if they knew they were expending their limited energies to heal the enemy.
He occupied one wing, a wing that had been vacant until now, for the marshal had not permitted his aides to live in his dwelling, ever since the last man Medan had retained had been discovered urinating in the fish pond. Medan had transferred the man to the very farthest outpost on the elven border, an outpost built on the edge of the desolate wasteland known as the Plains of Dust. He hoped the man’s brain exploded from the heat.
Gerard’s quarters were comfortable, if small. His duties thus far—after two days on the job—had been light. Marshal Medan was an early riser. He took his breakfast in the garden on sunny days, dined on the porch that overlooked the garden on days when it rained. Gerard was on hand to stand behind the marshal’s chair, pour the marshal’s tea, and commiserate with the marshal’s concerns over those he considered his most implacable foes: aphids, spider mites, and bagworms. He handled Medan’s correspondence, introduced and screened visitors and carried orders from the marshal’s dwelling to the detested headquarters building. Here he was looked upon with envy and jealousy by the other knights, who had made crude remarks about the “upstart,” the “toady,” the “ass-licker.”
Gerard was ill-at-ease and tense, at first. So much had happened so suddenly. Five days ago, he had been a guest in Laurana’s house. Now he was a prisoner of the Knights of Neraka, permitted to remain alive so long as Medan considered Gerard might be useful to him.
Gerard resolved to stay with the marshal only as long as it took to find out the identity of the person who was spying on the queen mother. When this was accomplished, he would pass the information on to Laurana and attempt to escape. After he had made this decision, he relaxed and felt better.
After Medan’s supper, Gerard was dispatched to headquarters again to receive the daily reports and the prisoner list—the record of those who had escaped and who were now wanted criminals. Gerard would also be given any dispatches that had arrived for the marshal from other parts of the continent. Usually, few came, Medan told him. The marshal had no interest in other parts of the continent and those parts had very little interest in him. This evening there was a dispatch, carried in the clawed hands of Beryl’s draconian messenger.
Gerard had heard of the draconians—the spawn born years ago of the magically corrupted eggs of good dragons. He had never seen one, however. He decided, on viewing this one—a large Baaz—that he could have gone all his life without seeing one and never missed it.
The draconian stood on two legs like a man, but his body was covered with scales. His hands were large, scaly, the fingers ending in sharp claws. His face was that of a lizard or a snake, with sharp fangs that he revealed in a gaping grin, and a long, lolling tongue. His—short, stubby wings, sprouting from his back, were constantly in gentle motion, fanning the air around him.
The draconian was waiting for Gerard inside the headquarters building. Gerard saw this creature the moment he entered, and for the life of him he could not help hesitating, pausing in the doorway, overcome by revulsion. The other Knights, lounging around the room, watched him with knowing smirks that broadened to smug grins when they saw his discomfiture.
Angry with himself, Gerard entered the headquarters building with firm strides. He marched past the draconian, who had risen to his feet with a scrape of his claws on the floor.
The officer in charge handed over the daily reports. Gerard took them and started to leave. The officer stopped him.
“That’s for the marshal, too.” He jerked a thumb at the draconian, who lifted his head with a leer. “Groul, here, has a dispatch for the marshal.”
Gerard steeled himself. With an air of nonchalance, which he hoped didn’t look as phony as it felt, he approached the foul creature.
“I am the marshal’s aide. Give me the letter.”
Groul snapped his teeth together with a disconcerting click and held up the scroll case but did not relinquish it to Gerard.
“My orders are to deliver it to the marshal in person,” Groul stated.
Gerard had expected the reptile to be barely sentient, to speak gibberish or, at the best, a corrupt form of Common. He had not expected to find the creature so articulate and, therefore, intelligent. Gerard was forced to readjust his thinking about how to deal with the creature.
“I will give the dispatch to the marshal,” Gerard replied.
“There have been several attempts on the marshal’s life. As a consequence, he does not permit strangers to enter his presence. You have my word of honor that I will deliver it directly into his hands.”
“Honor! This is what I think of your honor.” Groul’s tongue slid out of his mouth, then slurped back, splashing Gerard with saliva. The draconian moved closer to Gerard, clawed feet scraping across the floor. “Listen, Knight,” he hissed, “I am sent by the exalted Berylinthranox. She has ordered me to hand this dispatch to Marshal Medan and to wait for his reply. The matter is one of utmost urgency. I will do as I am ordered. Take me to the marshal.”
Gerard could have done as the draconian demanded and saved himself what was probably going to be a world of trouble.
He had two reasons for not doing so. First, he fully intended to read the dispatch from the dragon before handing it. over to Medan, and that would be difficult to manage with the dispatch clutched firmly in the draconian’s claws. The second reason was more subtle. Gerard found this reason incomprehensible, but he felt oddly guided by it. He did not like the thought of the loathsome creature entering the marshal’s beautiful house, his clawed feet ripping holes in the ground, tearing up the flower beds, trampling the plants, smashing furniture with his tail, leering and poking, sneering and slavering.
Groul held the scroll in his right hand. The creature wore his sword on his left hip. That meant the draco was right-handed, or so Gerard hoped, though there was always the possibility the creatures were ambidextrous. Resolving to himself that if he lived through this, he would take up a study of the draconian race, Gerard drew his sword with an overdone flourish and jumped at the draconian.
Startled, Groul reacted instinctively, dropping the scroll case to the floor and reaching with his right hand for his sword.