Thraxas and the Ice Dragon - By Martin Scott Page 0,19

I'm starting to think it's a good thing I'm wearing a powerful spell protection necklace. Kublinos's idea that I'm somehow trying attach myself to Lisutaris is so ridiculous I barely know how to answer.

"You're forever whispering in her ear, trying to worm your way into her affections. No doubt you persuaded her to move with you to Arichdamis's house so you can carry on your deceitful campaign unhindered." He leans towards me. "I'm warning you Thraxas, I've got plenty of spells just waiting to be used on any shameless adventurer with his eyes on Lisutaris's fortune."

There's no telling how this might end, but we're interrupted by the arrival of a servant. Apparently I'm wanted downstairs. I depart immediately, grateful for the interruption. There I find another servant, a young man wearing a fancy tunic with an unnecessary amount of gold braid.

"Thraxas? Baroness Demelzos wishes to see you."

This takes me by surprise. I'd have guessed she'd happily live out her life without ever seeing me again. I shrug, and follow the servant into the narrow streets that separate the Baronial dwellings of Elath. Every few steps we pass by some richly attired group of aristocrats. Rarely can so many lords and Barons have been crammed together in such a small space. The servant stops in front of a smart carriage, with two horses in front and dark curtains on the windows. The servant checks the street to make sure no one's looking at us.

"In there," he says.

The door opens. I step inside. It's a plush carriage, upholstered in purple with silver trimmings. Inside is Baroness Demelzos.

"Please shut the door."

I do as she says, then take a seat opposite her. We sit in silence for a few minutes.

"Nice carriage," I say, eventually.

She looks irritated. "You have no manners, have you?"

"Not many."

"You never did have."

I raise an eyebrow. "Have we met?"

"You mean before you mistook me for a serving wench in Orosis?"

Baroness Demelzos looks more irritated. I'm starting to wonder if she just got me here so she could have someone to be irritated at.

"Why were you so appallingly rude? And drunk?"

"I'd just come off an eight-day stint in a boat with no sails. Before that I'd been chased out my city by Orcs. I felt I deserved a beer or two."

"You always did drink too much. Even as a young man you had a problem." Baroness Demelzos leans over slightly and fixes me with an unfriendly stare. "I never expected you to treasure my memory, Thraxas, but I didn't think you'd completely forget me."

I look at her blankly. "Who are you?"

"I'm Demmy, the barmaid you had an affair with after you won the tournament." She sits back heavily. "I expect you forgot about me within a week."

This is all quite a shock. I did have a brief liaison with a barmaid while I was in Samsarina. That was more than twenty years ago. "You're Demmy? Well dammit, how was I meant to recognise you?"

"I haven't changed that much," said Demelzos. She eyes my waistline. "Unlike you."

"But you were a barmaid. I wasn't expecting you to become a Baroness. How did that happen?"

"My father left his job in the mine and went up north to prospect for queenstone. He made the richest strike anyone ever saw. Two years after you left Samsarina I was the wealthiest young woman in the country. Soon after that I was a member of aristocracy. The Barons are an exclusive class, but a young woman with enough money is tempting for anyone."

The Baroness is wearing a queenstone necklace, and even inside the carriage, with the curtains drawn, the blue stones sparkle. It's a very precious material, only found in Samsarina as far as I know.

"So what's it like being married to Baron Mabados?"

"Better than being a barmaid. How did life treat you?"

"Twenty years soldiering, then I ended up living in a tavern in the bad part of town."

Demelzos was an attractive barmaid, as I recall, and she hasn't lost much in the way of looks. Her long brown hair hangs freely over her shoulders, in the style of the local noblewomen, with two slender braids looping round to meet at the nape of her neck where they're joined by a silver clasp. Though the weather is becoming milder, she hasn't abandoned her fur cape, which is luxurious, even by the normal standards of fur capes. Her shoes, while neither as extravagant nor as high-heeled as those worn by the fashionable women of Turai, are stitched with gold thread.