Dragonlord of the Savage Empire se-2 Page 5

  “Lower me into the well-” Lenardo began. “No, my lord,” said Arkus and Helmuth with one breath.

  “The walls are collapsing. Someone must go down for them.”

  “We’ll hold the walls,” said Arkus. “Josa-” The young woman hurried to his side, taking his hands and saying fearfully, “But heavy earth-”

  “We don’t have to move it,” Arkus replied, “just make it stay in place. My lord, tell us where to concentrate. Someone small should go down there.”

  “I’ll go, sir,” said one of Arkus’ soldiers, a compactly built young man with muscular shoulders.

  In moments, although it seemed to take forever, the men laid a beam across the top of the well so that the soldier could be lowered without hitting the walls.

  Arkus and Josa, facing each other with hands joined, concentrated on keeping more dirt from falling on the children.

  The injured girl was brought up, and Sandor had her asleep and healing before the soldier reached the bottom of the well again. He had to dig the others out. One by one, he slung the rope about the boys and sent them up while he freed Julia.

  She had calmed down, her confidence in Lenardo overpowering. But I’m not doing anything, he thought. If only I had Adept powers. Dust drifted down from the side of the well, and he said, “The side opposite. This side’s already fallen. Hold that side!”

  Arkus and Josa paled, but the wall held. With agonizing slowness the soldier freed Julia, started to put the sling on her”No,” Lenardo called. “Both of you-the walls could go at any moment.”

  The hauling on the rope began again, backs bent with a will, but tired now, Arkus and Josa on the brink of collapse, the well wall threateningLenardo grabbed the rope, adding his weight, instantly raising blisters in the uncalloused area of his hands between thumb and forefinger but not caring, needing to help.

  The rope moved too slowly. The wall started to cave in. As guilt and fear ate at Lenardo, he Read Julia’s panicked litany: III love you, Father. I’ll be good. Help me, oh, help me, Father! Don’t leave me again! Father!//

  Chapter Three

  The rope came up bit by bit. Then eager hands pulled Julia and the soldier over the brink as a cheer went up. Divested of ropes, Julia leaped into Lenardo’s arms as Arkus and Josa let go, staggering and leaning heavily on each other. The wall fell with a crash, and dust flew up from the mouth to settle over everyone.

  In the next few hours, operating purely by rote, Lenardo Read the children and the rescuers, made sure that everyone with injury or strain was healed, distributed rewards to all who had helped in the rescue, and finally bathed the grime off himself in the cold water of the bathhouse. His order that everyone bathe at least twice a week had caused grumbling, but in the heat of summer it was being obeyed. They’d have to get the warm and hot baths functioning by winter. His people might think his insistence on bathing some personal quirk, but they did not understand how cleanliness could disrupt the spread of disease.

  By the time Lenardo walked home, Cook had made Julia presentable, and he was beginning to think that he could face her. Home was now a large and beautiful town house that had been looted but not burned-the only choice, Helmuth had insisted, for the Lord of the Land. The place was still empty. Lenardo refused to set carpenters to building him furniture when they were needed to repair other buildings before winter.

  His footsteps rang on the mosaic floor in the huge entrance hall. Eventually this might become an all-purpose audience room like Aradia’s great hall. By the gods, I’m starting to think like a lord. The title still seemed implausible, and as her teacher, he had instructed Julia to call him Master Lenardo.

  She was waiting in his room, which was furnished with a bed, two chairs, and a table, none of which matched. Julia sat on the window ledge, looking out into the courtyard. She did not turn at Lenardo’s entrance, but he could feel her terrible tension as she tried to Read his mood.

  “Julia,” he said, “we must talk.”

  //Can’t we-//

  “No. We will discuss this like nonReaders, because you have caused several nonReaders to be badly hurt.”

  “Nobody was hurt bad,” Julia protested, turning to face him and pulling her knees up to her chin, balancing on the sill. “Candida just got her arm broke. It’ll be all right in a couple of days. When I got my arm broke, it took weeks to heal. Old Drakonius, he never healed nobody. You’re lots nicer.”

  Ignoring her attempt to placate him, Lenardo said, “Candida’s injury is the point, not that Sandor could heal her. He could not have healed her if she had died. Furthermore, Arkus and Josa were also hurt.”

  “Huh?”

  “They expended far more energy than they could afford. Both have collapsed in exhaustion. If I had not Read when Josa’s heart went into spasms, Sandor might not have noticed soon enough. She could have died.”

  “Everybody dies,” Julia said coldly, but Lenardo Read that her words were a defense against a world in which ordinary people were considered dispensable.

  “People should not die because those in power are careless,” Lenardo began.

  “Arkus’d be awful sad if Josa died,” Julia interrupted. “They’re funny, you know? She loves him and he loves her, and neither don’t know it. Isn’t that funny?”

  “No, it is not funny. Neither is it your business. How can I stop you from Reading people’s private thoughts?”

  “They’re always thinking about each other. How can I help knowing?”

  “The same way I did not know until you told me-an even worse breach of Reader’s Honor. Sometimes one finds out a nonReader’s secret by accident. But to reveal it-” He let her feel the revulsion a Reader knew at such conduct and felt her cringe. Then he added, “Tell me why you went into the well.”

  “There’s gold down there,” she said eagerly. “More than twenty gold coins. I would’ve given it to you.”

  “You are lying. You wanted it for youself. Why? What do you lack?”

  “Money for when I grow up. Mama always said she couldn’t keep man nor money. She said if she’d kept all the money men gave her, she wouldn’t need no one to take care of her.”

  “And why did you involve other children?” Lenardo pursued, ignoring the empty feeling her words produced in him.

  “I couldn’t get it alone. They’d each have got a gold piece. Then they’d have owed me more favors.”

  “You risked their lives and yours.”

  “I didn’t know the well would fall in.”

  “No, you won’t have the skill to Read such stresses for years. Why can’t you learn to obey? I wish you could be sent to an Academy. They’d teach you some discipline.”

  Julia climbed down from the window and stood, shielding her thoughts as best she could. “I need to learn to rule, not obey. If you don’t want me, Lord Wulfston will take me.”

  “What?” Then he remembered a recent letter from Wulfston: “So you have found an apprentice. Congratulations. If you should find any more Readers, I can certainly use someone with even a portion of your skills.”

  “You’ve been Reading my letters!”

  “Well, you wanted me to practice.” Defiant pride.

  He stared at her helplessly. “What am I to do with you? Spank you? Helmuth, Josa, Cook-they’ve all punished you. What good has it done?”

  Defiance melted as her eyes grew liquid. “You never punish me. You’re the only one that’s got the right, Father. Don’t you care about me?”

  He suddenly remembered that she had called him “Father” in her panic that afternoon. “I’m not your father,” he said bluntly, not knowing how to approach the real problem.

  “But you must be,” Julia insisted. “There’s nobody else like us, nobody that can talk in their minds. I feel it. You’re the only one like me. You bought me from Mama. I thought you loved me because I was like you, but then you gave me to everybody else-and-and-” Angrily, she struck away the tears that rolled down her cheeks. “My mother was right. Men don’
t care nothing about their children, except great lords for the pride of it or the fear. I’ve got your powers. You had to claim me, but you don’t want me. You don’t love me. You just want me to stop using my powers so I won’t use them against yo«!”

  Lenardo was astonished. How could he handle this savage child? His only weapon was truth.

  Kneeling before Julia, he took her hands. “Julia, you and I are not the only Readers in the world. I’m not your father, but if I were, I would certainly never have abandoned you. You’re too young to understand that you’re insecure because you never had anyone to rely on, not even your mother. Child, I will give you things you can trust in: your own abilities, the Readers’ Honor, other Readers. But what you need right now is one person you can trust, and under the circumstances, that has to be me.”

  The wide brown eyes searched his.

  “I’m going to open my mind to you, Julia. Read me.”

  Hesitantly, her thoughts met his. //You’re not my father?//

  //No. I never left the Aventine Empire before last spring.//

  Because his memories were totally open to her, she caught a trace of the pain of his branding. //They hurt you,// she said, sliding her hand up his arm to rest over the dragon’s head. Ill hate them!//

  //No, child, you mustn’t hate people you don’t know. I have many friends in the empire, Readers like us. You can trust any Reader, Julia, if you yourself are trustworthy.//

  Ill don’t want other people, just you.//

  //You have me. I promise, I’ll take care of you. Trust me, Julia.// Stubbornness intruded, born of many disappointments. //Have I ever lied to you or broken a promise?//

  //No, but you took me when you didn’t want me.//

  //I do want you. Can’t you Read that?//

  //Yes.// But she also felt walled off from him.

  //Julia, I cannot give you every minute of my day. I have too much work. I’m the only Reader-// It suddenly occurred to him, //Child, would you like to help me?// In the empire, children were given Reading responsibilities within the Academies from the day they entered. There was no Academy for Julia, but the whole city could become her Academy.

  //You’ll let me work with you? All the time?//

  //Not all the time but certainly a great deal more time, if you will work seriously. No tricks, and no spying on people’s secret thoughts.//

  Tears spilled again, but they were tears of joy. She flung her arms around his neck. Ill promise! I’ll be good. Oh, Master Lenardo, I want to be with you. I love you!//

  He let her hold on to him for a moment and then gently removed her arms.

  “Don’t push me away,” she pleaded.

  “You don’t have to touch, Julia.” //Between Readers it’s the same whether we’re touching or not.//

  //If it’s the same, then I’d rather touch.//

  He smiled, brushing her tears away and recalling that Torio had never formed a Reader’s aversion to touching. We assumed he needed that reassurance because of his blindness, and we didn’t force him as we did the other boys. Taking Julia’s hand, he said, “Very well… for now. I’m far behind in today’s work. Come along and see if you can learn to Read where the drainpipes have broken.”

  “Master Lenardo?” Julia’s thoughts were guarded, and he did not seek to break her shield. “You could be my father. You could adopt me.”

  “I will take the matter under consideration.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Oh.” She was silent for a moment and then said, “I’ll prove worthy. You’ll see.”

  His first impulse was to discourage such ideas. Then he recalled who he was and where he was. If Julia could be taught honesty and responsibility, one day she would make a far better leader than he was. I may need an heir, and where else am I going to find one?

  By the time autumn approached, Lenardo’s lands were in good shape, the storage bams were full, and a large section of Zendi was in livable condition. They had, however, very little to trade for goods they did not produce.

  Lenardo’s land had little forest. His first inclination had been to allow people to hunt freely, but Helmuth warned him, “They’ll kill off your game in one season, my lord. It would take years to replenish. You must appoint huntsmen to kill a proper limit and distribute the meat.”

  Wulfston, on the other hand, had large forests and little farmland. Along the coast, his people fished, and Lenardo sought for something to trade this year, when he could not afford to give up grain. “Trade your abilities,” Wulfston wrote to him. “Come Read the iron deposits in the Western Hills and mark them for mining. Then negotiate with Aradia and me for a trade route across your land between my mines and her iron works.” It was all so obvious to Wulfston and Aradia, raised to rule.

  Lenardo’s wider concerns were interrupted one day by Arkus. “My lord, I was your enemy, and you gave me the chance to become your friend.”

  “You have proved a good friend, Arkus. What is disturbing you?”

  “My lord, it’s Helmuth.”

  “Helmuth? But it was Helmuth who first suggested that I put you in charge of the troops from Zendi.”

  “I know, my lord. He’s been most fair with me, but he is your chief adviser, while I am still commander of a fifty-man troop.”

  Lenardo was sorely tempted to Read exactly what was going on in Arkus’ head. “Has Helmuth refused you a promotion? No one’s been thinking in military terms since-”

  “No, it isn’t that. It’s Josa.” He blushed. “Where she comes from, what she’s used to. I’d want to, anyway. I mean-”

  “You want to get married,” Lenardo finally interpreted.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Then what is the problem? Does Josa want to marry you?”

  “I think so, but I must ask Helmuth’s permission. Josa’s father entrusted her to him, to arrange a good marriage for her.”

  “Would you make her a good husband?”

  Arkus sighed. “I’m a soldier, my lord. I don’t know how to be anything else, and in peacetime there’s no advancement.”

  Lenardo chuckled. “Arkus, you have spent the past three months rebuilding a city, and there is more to be done-years of work. Go find Helmuth and ask his permission. I’m sure he would be happy to have his niece marry the chief architect of Zendi.”

  Helmuth, coming to collect Julia for a lesson, was indeed pleased with Lenardo’s appointment, but it was Julia who with childish bluntness told him, “What a good idea. Make it a big public ceremony, Master Lenardo. That way he can’t ever forget what he owes you.”

  Lenardo agreed. “It is time for a party, isn’t it? Everyone has worked hard all summer. We should hold a festival.”

  “Oh, yes,” the girl said in normal childish excitement at the prospect of a party. But immediately his little savage began to scheme. “We must invite your Adept allies, Aradia and Wulfston and Lilith. That way everyone will see that you have powerful friends, and the Adepts will all be beholden to you.”

  Helmuth smothered a grin. “The child is right, my lord. I was about to suggest the same thing, although I would not have stated the motive so openly.”

  Lenardo said, “It was in my mind, too, although I was conscious only of wanting to invite my friends. I will write the invitations today.”

  The next day, Arkus formally asked Helmuth for Josa’s hand, and the wedding became part of the festival plans. Julia quickly found out, for the news spread at once, and she spent hours each day Reading for the workmen still repairing the city. She had, quite effectively, cut Lenardo’s work load in half. It seemed wrong to place such a burden on an eight-year-old child, but for Julia Reading was not work but play, satisfying her avid curiosity. She was developing a sensitivity Lenardo had seen only once before in so young a child, in Torio.

  Moreover, she was determined to win Lenardo’s favor, disciplining herself to be on time, clean, obedient, and-most difficult for her-honest. That a
fternoon, she bounced into Lenardo’s room for her Reading lesson, curls flying, to plop down on “his bed and tell him of her excitement about the wedding.

  “I never knew nobody-anybody-who really got married. Only rich people, to other rich people, with dowries and things. Will you find me a rich husband, Master Lenardo?”

  “No, Julia. Not if you live up to your potential. Readers do not marry.”

  He held his breath, but she didn’t ask why. instead, in mock dismay, she said, “Oh. I thought you didn’t want to adopt me because you wanted me to grow up and marry you.”

  He let the teasing pass, gratefully, and hoped that he could persuade Aradia to explain to Julia the necessity for both Adepts and Readers to be virgin-sworn. The girl should know before she was old enough to feel the stirrings of womanhood. With her streetwise ways, he feared that Julia would recognize and act on such feelings only too easily.

  Lenardo knew well that Readers were not immune to fleshly temptations. In the Aventine Empire, young Readers were strictly watched during adolescence. He himself had nearly yielded to nature’s promptings. No, he had yielded, not understanding the power the pretty innkeeper’s daughter held over male desire.

  She had not understood, either, he now knew. She had been just a girl in her first bloom, enjoying the newly wakened stirrings of sexuality. Lenardo, then age twelve, had wanted her without truly understanding what he wanted. If Master Clement had not caught them in the first stage of passionate kisses and clumsy fumblingLenardo’s own willpower had had nothing to do with saving him that day. It was the horror he had Read in Master Clement’s mind, much more than his punishment, that had made him understand what danger lurked within a Reader’s normal human sensuality. Ever after he had avoided temptation, and eventually his adolescent fantasies had died away. He had helped to guide boys at the Adigia Academy through their own volatile years, but how was he to guide and protect a girl?

  He would have to have Aradia’s help, he decided as he went to the bathhouse. It was now in working order, ready for the influx of guests, but Lenardo admitted that if he had not had good reason for repairing the bathhouse, he would have invented one. The relaxing luxury of a proper bath was one sensory pleasure he had always savored.