Page 4 of Deven and the Dragon
“May I have your names and business?” he asked.
“Oh, don’t be an ass, Sam,” George said. “Your cousin Phina sends her reluctant regards. Susan asked us to come, so are you going to let us in or not?”
“It’s my duty as Mrs. Drucker’s secretary to establish the identity of her callers,” Sam said with a sniff. But he conducted them down the hall and opened one of the doors, announcing, “Mr. George Clifton and Mr. Deven Clifton.”
George pushed past him with a grumble, Deven following in his wake. Susan Drucker, an elderly lady of great poise, a magnificent bosom, and a terrifyingly sharp gaze, sat in state in a grand damask-upholstered chair at the end of a low table laid for tea. She was flanked by two others: Councilor Barclay and Councilor Holling. Barclay smirked at Deven in much the same way he had the day before, while Holling simply stared into his cup as if it held some necessary secret. He dyed his hair black, although it’d never been that color even when he was young, and that day it looked more stark than usual against the yellowish tint to his skin. Was he ill? Well, he was old enough, anyway, and it couldn’t happen to a nicer fellow, as they said. Holling had always been a sour, miserly old bastard, and was rumored to have all but killed his wife with his unkindness.
Only one more chair was set across from their hostess, and Sam had to scurry back and forth to retrieve another. Deven and George took their seats as everyone muttered an insincere chorus of good-mornings and how-do-you-dos. Deven fought the urge to run a finger under his collar. Good God, this was even more awkward and awful than he’d expected.
“Well?” George helped himself to a biscuit without bothering with a plate — or an invitation. “We’ve ale to sell and travelers to house, so get to the point, if you would. None of the usual hemming and hawing. If this takes more than ten minutes, I’m leaving.”
“No one sent for you in the first place, George,” Mrs. Drucker said. “The lack of a chair or a cup ought to have been something of a hint.”
“Don’t care for hints,” George said, in a puff of crumbs. Deven rolled his eyes and bit back a sigh. For once he agreed with Mrs. Drucker. He loved his uncle, but the man couldn’t be persuaded to mind his own affairs. In his head, Deven was still seven years old and three feet shorter. How George squared that with his commentary on Deven’s nighttime activities was more than Deven could understand. “What d’you want with my nephew? Do you really think I’d sit at home on my hands while you harangue him about whatever peccadillo you imagine is your business this week?”
“Very well,” said Mrs. Drucker, with poor grace. She shifted in her seat, the rich silk of her gown rustling. “The council’s responsibility is to the town as a whole, which means that at times, some liberties must be taken with the preferences of the individual. In short,” she said more loudly, as George opened his mouth again, “we have chosen Mr. Deven Clifton to do his duty to Ridley and her inhabitants.”
To do what now? Deven blinked. “Am I supposed to understand what that means? Because that doesn’t even rise to the level of a hint, ma’am.”
Mrs. Drucker cleared her throat and glanced at Holling, then quickly away again. “We need something,” she said after a pause. “From the dragon.”
“You need something from the dragon,” Deven repeated, hoping the words would make more sense the second time. They didn’t. “And this somehow has something to do with me?”
“We think you’re the best person to get it. Your particular…talents lend themselves to —”
“Now hang on one bloody minute!” George cried. “Are you accusing my nephew of being a thief? Because you can go jump in the river and —”
“I’ve said nothing of the kind!” Mrs. Drucker thumped her fists on the arms of her chair. “George, if you can’t keep your mouth shut, you can go, and the next time my guests need expensive stabling for their horses, I’ll send them elsewhere!”
George sputtered and protested, but Deven simply took a plate, filled it with biscuits and chocolate, and handed it to him. The sputtering broke off in quiet, sulky crunching. Phina watched George’s diet with care, and he couldn’t resist temptation. Deven wasn’t too good to use it against him.
“This sounds ridiculous, but I’ll listen,” Deven said. “If you get to the point.”
Actually, it sounded like the most interesting thing anyone had talked to him about in ages. What could he possibly have to do with a dragon, and would it be more fun than serving ale? Almost certainly. But it wouldn’t do to let them walk all over him.
Mrs. Drucker nodded and sighed. “Have you heard the stories about dragon scales, Mr. Clifton? About their magical properties?”
“Vaguely. It’s an old tale for children, isn’t it? The boy who saves his mother with a dragon scale?”
“A very old tale, with its roots in reality, we believe,” she said. “A dragon scale, freely given, can be made into a tonic that will cure any human disease, so long as the ill person is pure of heart.”
“Well, that leaves out any of you lot. Who’s sick, then?” George asked, his voice muffled.
“It doesn’t matter,” Mrs. Drucker snapped. “And I resent that comment. We all do our best for the town of Ridley.”
“It does matter,” Deven said. “If you expect me to have anything to do with this, that is.”
Mrs. Drucker pressed her lips together tightly, shaking her head.
“It’s my grandson,” Holling said suddenly, looking up at Deven. His cloudy eyes were large and dark in his thin face. “My little Peter. He’s been sick for months, and it’s worse and worse. The doctors say there’s nothing they can do. He’ll linger another few months or so, but then — then he’ll take a turn for the worse, and —” Holling broke off with something suspiciously like a muffled sob.
A cold, nasty sensation slithered down Deven’s spine. He knew Peter Holling — or he had, before the lad had stopped coming around the stables to pet the horses a couple of months before. Deven had assumed he’d just lost interest in the beasts and moved on to some other obsession, like children did all the time. Peter was a strange kid, no question, talking more to the animals than to other people, but he always spoke to them gently and smiled when they nibbled his fingers.
“I’m sorry,” he managed through a tight throat. The last time he’d seen little Peter he’d been a bit slower than usual, a bit pale. He felt sick himself at the thought of the boy lying right now in his bed, fading away and longing for the summer sunshine. “Truly. But asking a dragon for one of his scales seems like a piss-poor idea, frankly, and how do you even know it would work?”
“My great-aunt was a witch. She left a book, full of recipes and notes. One of them was for making a medicine from a dragon’s scale.” Holling shrugged, the motion listless. “The others have all worked, when we’ve tried them. And she always seemed to know what she was doing. I don’t see why this wouldn’t work too. Ithasto.”
“Because it’s insane,” George put in. “No offense, and if it were something like harvesting stinging nettles under a full moon that was inconvenient but possible we’d all pitch in, but I don’t see you marching up the hill to ask a fire-breathing monster to rip off a bit of himself as a favor.”
