The Blood of a Dragon

Chapter Eight

Faléa had begun wondering around mid-afternoon just what Dumery was doing that was keeping him so long. Was he still at Westgate Market? Had he found something to do, some apprenticeship or other prospect, that appealed to him?

Had he, perhaps, wandered off to some other part of the city?

If he’d found an apprenticeship, that was fine-if it was something completely inappropriate Doran could refuse to cooperate, and that would put an end to it, and if it was anything halfway respectable then the problem of Dumery’s future was solved.

If he hadn’t found an apprenticeship, that didn’t matter; he had plenty of time left before his thirteenth birthday.

She did wonder, though, what was keeping him.

The wondering turned gradually to worry as the sun set, and supper was cooked and served and eaten, and still Dumery didn’t return.

This wasn’t the first time Dumery had missed a meal, of course, or even the fiftieth, but still, Faléa worried.

Doran, of course, hadn’t even noticed the boy’s absence. He was involved with the accounts from theSea Stallion ’s latest run out to Tintallion of the Isle-Faléa knew that there were apparently some discrepancies, and that this was important, so she didn’t force her worries about their youngest son on her husband.

Doran the Younger and Derath and Dessa all made the predictable snide adolescent remarks about their brother’s absence, naturally, and Faléa hushed them half-heartedly.

Their father paid no attention.

After dinner Faléa and Derath cleaned the table and kitchen, while Dessa swept and Doran the Younger hauled water in from the courtyard well. The elder Doran finally found the flaw in the records about an hour after dinner, as Dessa was settling to bed, and spent the next twenty minutes loudly arguing with himself as to whether he should have his agent whipped for theft, or merely fired, or whether he should forgive her this one last time-a keg of good Morrian brandy was missing and unaccounted for.

“Why not ask her what happened to it?” Faléa suggested. “It might be an honest mistake.”

“Ha!” Doran bellowed. “Honest? Her?”

“It might be.” While she had her husband’s attention, she added, “By the way, have you seen Dumery? He wasn’t at supper.”

“I’ll ask her, all right,” he said. “I’ll ask her first thing in the morning, with a guardsman at my side.” He snorted.

“Have you seen Dumery?” Faléa insisted.

“What? No, I haven’t seen the boy. Ask his brothers.”

Faléa did ask them, catching them just before they retired for the night. Both of them insisted that they hadn’t seen Dumery since breakfast.

“You’re sure?” she asked.

They took offense at that, unsurprisingly, and she could get nothing more out of them. She let them go on to bed.

Ordinarily, she would have gone to bed herself not long after, but this time she didn’t. She sat up, waiting, instead.

She got out her sewing basket and did the mending. That kept her hands busy, but didn’t really distract her thoughts from all the terrible things that might have happened to her youngest child.

There were slavers over on New Canal Street, and prowling the streets. There were drunken sailors starting brawls all along the waterfront.

Dumery had gone to Westgate Market; that was near Wall Street and the Hundred-Foot Field. There were thieves in the Field, and maybe worse. Slavers never dared enter the Field itself, but they patrolled Wall Street, collecting strays.

There were stories about evil magicians kidnapping people from the Hundred-Foot Field for various nefarious purposes-as sacrifices to demons or rogue gods, as food for monsters, as a source of ingredients for strange and terrible spells. Young innocents were supposed to be especially prized-virgin’s blood, hair, and tears were reputed to be necessary ingredients in several spells.

That was usually presumed to meanfemale virgins, but perhaps boys had their own uses.

And there were stories about other people than magicians finding uses for boys. She had never heard such stories about Westgate, but over in Camptown there were rumored to be all-male brothels.

Any number of horrible things could have happened to Dumery. Her needle jerked through the cloth she held as she considered just how dangerous her native city actually could be.

Around midnight Doran put away the account books and looked around for Faléa.

He found her waiting in the parlor, staring at the front hallway, her sewing done and heaped on the floor; he remembered suddenly that Dumery was missing.

He snorted under his breath. That damned troublesome boy. The little fool was probably playing some stupid prank, Doran told himself, or else he was staying with friends and had forgotten to tell anyone.

Telling Faléa that wouldn’t do any good, though. She knew it as well as he did, but still, she worried.

Nothing wrong with that, Doran thought. A mother had every right to worry about her youngest. And Dumery was a bright lad, a promising lad-Doran was proud of him. He would have been even prouder had the boy not been so pigheaded and prone to wild fancies and foolhardy adventures.

Still, Dumery would turn up, safe and sound, he was sure. He always had.

Doran waved a good night to his wife and went to bed.

Faléa waved back, half-heartedly, and sat.

An hour later, her head still full of thoughts of her Dumery captured by slavers, or set upon by thieves, or run off on reckless adventures, Faléa joined her husband in bed.