“I presume we go ahead and deliver it to the boy,” Fahstair Lairmahn, Baron of Lakeland and first councilor of the Kingdom of Delferahk, replied. “Why? Does it contain anything dangerous?”
“Nothing except six of the biggest, nastiest-looking wyverns I’ve seen in a while,” Halahdrom replied. “I went through it pretty carefully, you can be sure, but I didn’t see anything else out of the ordinary about it.”
As the palace’s chief chamberlain, he’d seen his share of bizarre royal gifts over the years, and he’d seldom paid much attention to them, if the truth be told. That was no longer true, however, and he’d looked this one over closely.
“Wyverns?” Lakeland repeated, eyebrows arching. “All the way from Corisande?”
“All the way from Corisande,” Halahdrom confirmed. “According to the cover note, they’re a gift from Earl Anvil Rock for the boy’s birthday. Apparently he was just starting to fly his own wyverns for small game before his father packed him off to us.” The chamberlain chuckled. “Be a few years before he’s ready to fly any of these, though! The damned things are big enough to pick him up and fly away.”
Lakeland shook his head with a bemused smile. Worrying about the gifts someone might send a boy for his eleventh birthday wasn’t something which concerned most first councilors. Of course, most first councilors weren’t in Lakeland’s position. Bishop Executor Dynzail Vahsphar had made it abundantly clear that he was to be kept fully informed about anything which was delivered to Prince Daivyn or any other member of his household. Bishop Mytchail Zhessop, Vahsphar’s intendant, had made it equally clear he intended to hold Lakeland personally responsible for the completeness of those reports.
The whole thing struck the baron as excessive, to say the least. Anybody who tried to poison the boy, for example, was unlikely to do it by sending him sweetmeats from Corisande, and that was the most likely threat he could imagine. Well, the most likely threat from anything anyone might openly send him, at any rate, Lakeland amended a bit more grimly.
Still, Halahdrom might have a point about this particular gift. It seemed evident the boy had to take after his mother, since by all reports Hektor of Corisande had been a tall, powerfully built fellow, and Prince Daivyn was never going to be a large man. Three days short of his eleventh birthday, he was a small, slender boy. Not delicate, just small, with a wiry knit frame that seemed unlikely to ever bulk up with muscle. He was smart, too, almost as smart as that sister of his, and Lakeland suspected that under normal circumstances he probably would have been a lively handful. As it was, he was quiet, often pensive, and he spent a lot of time with his books. Partly that was a natural consequence of the king wyvern’s eye his sister, King Zhames’ guardsmen, and the members of his own household kept on him. Given what had happened to his father and his older brother, that sort of suffocating surveillance was inevitable, but it had to have a depressing effect on a lad’s natural high spirits and sense of mischief. Perhaps that was why neither Lakeland nor Halahdrom had seen any sign of a passion for hunting wyverns in him. It wasn’t as if he’d had any opportunity to pursue the sport since arriving here, after all.
“Did any other gifts arrive with them?” he asked.
“No.” Halahdrom shook his head, then made a face. “Most of them got here a couple of five-days ago, courtesy of that Charisian ‘parole.’ These just arrived today, and I think they must’ve been an afterthought. Either that or somebody figured the Charisians might not pass them through for some reason.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, they’re obviously from Anvil Rock-most of the correspondence is in a secretary’s hand, of course, but he sent along a nice little personal note to the boy in his own handwriting, along with a list of devotional readings he’d like the lad to be studying now that he’s getting older.” The chamberlain shrugged. “We’ve seen enough of his handwriting by now to know it’s really his, and the secretary’s writing matches the last several sets of letters we’ve received, as well. But they didn’t come covered by a Charisian guarantee of safe passage, the way the rest of the birthday gifts did.” He chuckled. “In fact, they came upriver from Sarmouth by messenger-courtesy of a smuggler, unless I miss my guess.”
“That’s interesting.” Lakeland rubbed his nose. “A smuggler, you say?”
“That’s my best guess, at any rate.” Halahdrom shrugged. “I’ve got the fellow waiting outside if you’d like to speak to him directly.”
“That might not be a bad idea,” Lakeland said, and smiled slightly. “If the fellow’s a smuggler-or knows somebody who is, at any rate-we might even be able to get some decent whiskey through that damned blockade!”
Halahdrom chuckled, nodded, and departed. A few moments later, he returned with a tall, brown-haired and brown-eyed man in the decent but nondescript dress of a seaman. If the stranger was worried as he was ushered into the first councilor’s office he hid it well.
“Ahbraim Zhevons, My Lord,” Halahdrom said, speaking rather more formally in the outsider’s presence, and Zhevons bobbed a respectful bow.
“So, Master Zhevons,” Lakeland said, “I understand you’ve come to deliver a birthday gift for Prince Daivyn?”
“Aye, My Lord, I have. Or so Sir Klymynt tells me.” Zhevons shrugged. “Nobody told me the lad was a prince, you understand. Mind, it seemed likely he wasn’t what you might be calling a common lad, given how much somebody was willing to pay to get his present delivered to him. And let me tell you, keeping those damned wyverns-begging your pardon-fed without losing a finger was a harder job than I’d figured on!”
There was a twinkle in the brown eyes, and Lakeland felt his own lips hovering on the brink of a smile.
“So you brought them all the way from Corisande, did you?” he asked.
“Oh, no, My Lord! I, um, made connections in Tarot, as you might say. I’ve just… helped them along the last leg.”
“Smuggler, are you?” The baron allowed his expression to harden slightly. This fellow might or might not be a smuggler and he might or might not have known young Daivyn was a prince. And this struck the first councilor as an unlikely way to get an assassin into the boy’s presence, for that matter. Still…
“That’s a hard word.” Zhevons didn’t sound particularly hurt by it, however. “I’m more of a… free-trader. I specialize in small cargoes for shippers who’d sometimes sooner avoid any unnecessary paperwork, as you might say, true, but my word’s my bond. I always see to any delivery myself, you see, and my rates are reasonable, My Lord.” He smiled charmingly. “ Very reasonable.”
“Somehow I suspect your definition of ‘reasonable’ and mine may differ just a bit,” Lakeland said dryly.
“Oh, I’m sure we could come to an agreement suitable to both of us, always assuming you ever had need of my services, of course.”
“Now that I can believe.” Lakeland leaned back. “I don’t imagine you’d have access to any Chisholmian whiskey, would you, Master Zhevons?”
“No, not personally, I’m afraid. Not since the Grand Inquisitor went and declared his embargo, of course. Still, I’m sure I could lay hands on someone who does. Indirectly, of course.”
“Oh, of course,” Lakeland agreed. “Well, if you do manage it, I think I can safely say you’d find it worth your while to deliver some of it here in Talkyra.”
“I’ll bear that in mind, My Lord. Ah, would it be too much of a disappointment to you if it was to arrive here without Delferahkan tax stamps?” Zhevons smiled winningly when Lakeland looked at him. “It’s not that I’m trying to rob you or your King of any rightful revenue, My Lord; it’s more a matter of principle, so to speak.”
“I see.” Lakeland’s lips quivered. “Very well, Master Zhevons, I’m sure I’ll be able to deal with my disappointment somehow.”
“I’m glad to hear it, My Lord.” Zhevons bowed again, politely, and Lakeland chuckled.
“If you can manage to stay unhanged long enough you’ll die a wealthy man, Master Zhevons.”