Deven and the Dragon - Eliot Grayson Page 0,67

that read, ‘For Peter.’

Deven knocked on the door of the cottage he had been told belonged to Peter’s parents, and waited. Councilman Holling would have been the logical person to receive the scale, maybe, since he’d asked for it, but Deven couldn’t bear to hand something so dearly won, and so dearly given, to a man he disliked so much. To Peter’s parents, then, he had decided to go.

At last he heard footsteps, and then a young woman with very red cheeks and a dusty apron wrapped around her dress flung the door open.

“Yes? Are you looking for James?”

Her husband, Deven presumed. “No, ma’am, you, I believe. Or your husband, actually, or both of you. Either of you. Are you Peter’s mother?”

She frowned at him suspiciously. “I’m Mrs. Holling, yes. Who are you?”

“Deven Clifton, Mrs. Holling. Your — father-in-law, he must be? Councilman Holling. He’d asked me to procure something to make a medicine for Peter. My aunt and uncle own the Jolly Tankard, if you know it?” She nodded. “Peter was always about the stables, petting the horses, so I’ve seen him a bit. I’m sure Councilman Holling must have told you about asking me to help, though he may not have mentioned me by name. I’m here to give it to you. The cure.”

Mrs. Holling’s frown had cleared up as Deven explained his relationship to Peter, but it appeared again at that. “Mr. Clifton, I haven’t the foggiest what you’re on about. Peter’s visiting my parents in Tatwillow, has been for months. My dad broke his leg and needed someone to fetch and carry for him a bit, and Peter’s a helpful lad. I mean, Peter had the scarlet fever a while back, but that new doctor in town cured him with having him eat moldy bread, of all things. I mean, I suppose it’s no more odd than a roast mouse for the whooping cough, but it seemed so unlikely, but once Peter ate it, it was like night and day…”

She kept talking about mold and mice and who knew what, but Deven didn’t listen. It washed over him, a hum of noise.

Peter had recovered from his bout with scarlet fever long before Deven’s meeting with the council; Peter had been absent from the stables because he was in the village of Tatwillow, a few miles south along the river.

Peter wasn’t dying, and Holling had lied.

Crimson rage washed over Deven’s vision, obliterating the image that had come to him all at once: Holling, sitting in Mrs. Drucker’s parlor, his skin yellowed and ashy and his body frail.

“Is your father-in-law ill himself?” he demanded, and Mrs. Holling stuttered to a stop, her mouth still hanging open. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Sorry to interrupt you. Just — is he? Gravely ill?”

“Well…yes, I’m afraid so,” Mrs. Holling said, sounding more or less indifferent. Perhaps he was as dreadful to his daughter-in-law as he’d been to his late wife. “All the doctors have given up. The new one, you know, Dr. Kincaid, he says too many years of too much gin, although I can’t speak to that, of course.” Her pinched lips told a different story.

“Of course not,” Deven said, his own lips numb. He was numb all over. Numb, yet somehow shaking with fury. “Thank you,” he added belatedly, forcing himself to be polite to this pleasant woman, who didn’t deserve Deven’s second-hand anger. “And — when Peter comes home, will you tell him to stop by the inn, and visit the horses if he likes? He was always welcome. We have a new stable hand, he’s close to Peter’s age. Harry. He’s a nice lad. Tell Peter my aunt will always have a bit of fudge for him, when he stops in.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Holling said slowly, and looked hard at Deven for a moment. “Oh! I know who you are now. It took me a bit.” She smiled suddenly, a dimple appearing in her round cheek and making her look very much like her son. “I’ve heard about you. But I think what I’ve heard must be a load of nonsense. Thanks for being so kind to Peter. He loves animals, that one. Always trying to pet the badger that lives out back.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ll tell him.”

Deven nodded. “I hope your father feels better soon. Your actual father, not your father-in-law,” he added.

Mrs. Holling let out a little laugh. “Thanks for that, as well. Oh, bother, there’s the baby.” A tiny wail echoed from somewhere