The Blood of a Dragon

Chapter Twenty-Six

“You know,” Dumery remarked between bites of Pancha’s baked pudding, “my father’s a wealthy man.”

“Oh?” Kensher said, not particularly interested. Kinner looked up from his plate, but said nothing.

Dumery nodded. “He’d pay well to buy me an apprenticeship, enough to cover all the costs with some left over.”

Kensher shook his head. “No apprenticeship,” he said. “I told you that. We have plenty of money as it is, and if we need more we just raise our prices; we don’t need your father’s gold.” He scooped up another heaping spoonful.

Dumery looked down to hide his annoyance. He had thought he had a chance, that he would at least be able to put up an argument, but how could he counter that flat refusal?

He looked up again and glanced down the dinner table, taking in all the faces.

Most of them, he knew, didn’t understand Ethsharitic, so they had no idea what he and Kensher had just said. For all Dumery could tell, most of them might not even know that hewanted an apprenticeship.

And did all of them want to stay here and learn the family business? Maybe he could replace one, somehow.

He caught a glimpse of Wuller of Srigmor, the shepherd who had married Seldis of Aldagmor, the eldest granddaughter.That was a possibility-Wuller had married into the family, and there were still five other granddaughters, presumably all unmarried and probably not spoken for yet. There were not a lot of eligible suitors up here in the mountains.

There was Shatha, and Tarissa, and Kirsha, and Shanra, and Kinthera. Shanra and Kinthera were a few years older than Dumery was-not that that really mattered.

None of them particularly appealed to him, though. Seldis was pretty-but she was already married, andmuch too old.

And besides, he didn’t really want to commit himself to marryinganyone yet.

Of course, he could lie andsay that he wanted to marry Shanra; nobody would expect him to make good on that until he was sixteen, at the earliest, by which time he ought to know all there was to know about raising dragons for their blood.

But the knowledge wouldn’t do him much good if he angered the owners of the only dragon farm in the World.

And besides, he didn’t like the idea of lying about it. It wouldn’t be proper to get an apprenticeship that way. And in all likelihood his lies wouldn’t be believed in any case; these people weren’t stupid, and they knew what he wanted, since he had foolishly admitted it already. They wouldn’t accept him into the family just to give him an apprenticeship, and they would know that was thereal reason he wanted to marry in.

Besides, there was no guarantee that Shanra or any of the others would be interested in marryinghim, now, was there?

No, marrying into the family was not going to be his answer. At least, not in and of itself.

If he could find some way to stay, then in fact he really might eventually marry one of the girls. After all, if he stayed here for a few years he wouldn’t see anyother girls, and sooner or later, he supposed, he would want to get married.

But that argument wasn’t going to convince Kensher to let him stay, he was sure.

“And you really don’t care if I tell all the wizards back in Ethshar that you people are running a farm here, and not hunting dragons in the wild?” he asked.

Kinner blinked, Pancha flinched, and Kensher sighed.

“Not much,” Kensher said. “The hunting story is a convenient fiction, and we’re happy with it, but it’s not really essential. We’d stay in business without it; we might need to negotiate a little with the Wizard’s Guild, that’s all.” He put down his spoon. “Look, Dumery,” he said, “give it up. We don’t need an apprentice here, and if we did, it wouldn’t be a rich, spoiled city boy who was stupid enough to follow me home the way you did. And particularly not one who makes threats about revealing secrets.”

Pancha flinched again. “Kenshi,” she said, “don’t be so harsh. It took courage and resourcefulness for him to come all the way up here by himself.”

“Doesn’t mean it was smart,” Kensher said. “And resourceful or not, we donot need an apprentice!”

Kinner made a noise of agreement, and even Pancha couldn’t argue with that.

Dumery often didn’t know when to quit, but this time it finally sank in that he wasn’t getting anywhere, and he finished his pudding in silence.

When he was done he sat staring at the empty plate, and inspiration struck. He looked up.

Pancha was clearing away the empty dishes, and Kinner had gone off somewhere with some of his younger grandchildren, but Kensher was still at the table, leaning back comfortably.

“What if I bought a dragon?” Dumery asked.

Kensher let out his breath in a whoosh, then leaned forward, startled.

“What?” he demanded.

“What if I bought a dragon?” Dumery repeated. “Or two, actually. They wouldn’t have to be good ones; a couple of hatchlings you’d cull anyway would do just fine.”

“We don’t sell dragons,” Kensher said, eyeing him suspiciously.

“You sell their blood,” Dumery said. “What’s the difference?”

“Plenty,” Kensher said. “A bottle of blood never bit anyone’s arm off.”

“All right, so it’s not the same,” Dumery admitted. “Will you sell me a pair anyway?”

“A pair, is it? You mean you don’t just want any two dragons, you want a male and a female?”

“Well, yes,” Dumery admitted, “that is what I had in mind.”

Kensher stared at him for a moment, then leaned back in his chair and said, “Boy, you’re amazing. You must think I’m as dumb as you are! You want me to sell you a breeding pair so you can set yourself up your own little dragon farm and go into business in competition with us?”

That was, in fact, exactly what Dumery wanted, but it seemed impolitic to say so just now. Instead he sat silently frustrated, staring at Kensher.

“I have got to admit, Dumery, you are the stubbornest, most persistent lad I have ever met in my life,” Kensher said, his tone almost admiring. “Even the dragons aren’t as determined as you. But it doesn’t matter. We arenot going to set you up in the dragon-farming business, either here or in competition with us. We’re going to send you home to your family, and hope you have the sense not to go and cause pointless trouble by telling everybody where we live and what we do. Is that clear enough?”

Dumery reluctantly nodded. “It’s clear,” he said.

And in fact itwas clear that the descendants of Sergeant Thar wouldn’t help him intentionally.

Perhaps, though, they might be made to provide assistance without knowing it.

As he carried his empty plate to the scullery Dumery was planning just how that might work.

It would involve lying and stealing and a good bit of danger, but he thought he could manage it.

Just a little while ago he had been reluctant to lie to Kensher and his family about wanting to marry Shanra, and here he was considering not just lying, but robbing them as well.

Well, he was desperate. And this new scheme was much more likely to succeed, anyway, and it would be over much sooner, one way or the other.

There was a chance it would get him killed, but he refused to worry about that. It might work.

And if it worked, it would be well worth the risk.