paternal discipline. “It’s good to see them having fun.”
“Well, no more dragons today, at any rate,” Ostvel ordered, and scooped his son into one arm. “Come along, Tilal. You’ll want to spend some time getting the grass stains out of my cloak, I’m sure.”
“But I have to serve at the high table tonight,” the boy began with a hopeful glance up at Rohan.
“And so you shall,” Ostvel agreed. “The cloak will be waiting for you.”
Rohan turned from the windows, keeping his smile in place to hide the child-hunger that rose in him. His sons should be down there, laughing and growing and playing dragons. His sons. . . . His eye lit on the reports and he made a quick decision. “I’m not going to play prince tonight, Walvis. I want a bath, my dinner, and my wife—in that order.”
The young man grinned at him. “So now my lady takes third place to being clean and fed?”
“Unless she wants a dirty, bad-tempered husband, she does!” Walvis went downstairs with the orders, and the household system Camigwen had created went smoothly into action. By the time Rohan was soaking in a tub, a copious supper for two was being prepared for delivery to their graces’ airy chambers. Like most persons for whom such establishments are formed, Rohan was unaware of its workings. He only knew that the few orders he ever had to give were carried out promptly, quietly, and with a minimum of fuss—and none of the former chamberlain’s hand-wringing.
Alone in the blue-and-white tiled bathroom, Rohan’s thoughts returned to his interrupted musings on the past. Acquiring the dranath had afforded him a sight of someone he had not thought to encounter again: Princess Ianthe. Roelstra had been unable to resist the price Rohan had offered for the drug, and a detachment of troops had been dispatched to Feruche from the Veresch. Rohan and Farid had met the group halfway between Ianthe’s castle and Skybowl, and bags of gold had been exchanged for bags of dranath. Ianthe had watched from the saddle of a splendid white mare, lovelier than ever and unashamedly—even triumphantly—pregnant. She still had no legal husband, but Rohan suspected that the beautiful young man riding at her side was the baby’s father. Certainly his charms were sufficient to send lust raging through chaster hearts than Ianthe’s. Rohan said nothing to her and met her gaze only once—and what he saw in her eyes had chilled him to his marrow.
How had he paid for this treasure of dranath that had saved dragon lives? How had he insured their survival and distributed even more of the drug to other princedoms without asking payment? Rohan luxuriated in cool bath water and shook his head in wry amusement, remembering his stark astonishment when Farid had casually shown him the gold.
For fifteen years, the athri of Skybowl had been melting dragon shells collected from long-abandoned caves in the hills. He had done it in secret and under Zehava’s orders, his people loyal to their last breath as they brought forth the gold that had enabled Zehava to consolidate his power in the Desert. Everyone had always marveled at Skybowl’s prosperity, that rough holding without decent farmland or grazing, and Rohan had finally discovered the source of Farid’s complacency during good harvests and bad. Dragon gold. Zehava had forbidden the athri to tell Rohan of its existence, for he had wanted his son to become strong in his own right without having the prop of unlimited wealth from the very start of his reign.
“But why?” Rohan fumed as Farid told him this. “I, myself, found gold dust in a dragon’s cave years ago. I never had the time to pursue this discovery before now. Why keep it from me?”
Farid shrugged. “Do you remember when he tossed you into the lake when you were a little boy?”
“And now you’re pulling me out—just like before!”
“I would have told you eventually, once you’d found your feet as a prince. Your father didn’t want things to be easy for you.”
“Easy?” Rohan echoed in amazement. “With the Merida and Roelstra and the dragons—not to mention all those damned princesses—easy?”
Farid had laughed, and after a moment Rohan’s sense of humor triumphed over his outrage. Part of his mirth had been caused by the wonderful joke he would play on Roelstra, for instead of beggaring himself and his vassals or making odious concessions to the High Prince, there was unlimited gold to fill his coffers even after the grotesque sum paid