Fortune's Fool - Mercedes Lackey [6]
But this was his cue to her. It was time for them to find a place in private to talk.
Her heart leaped with excitement. This could only mean he had a task for her that she must carry out in secret.
And that almost certainly meant a spying trip to Dry Land.
Chapter 2
“Sasha Feliks Pavel Pieterovich, Prince of Led Belarus, you are a fool.” King Pieter Ivan Alexandrovitch glared at his youngest son, who looked back at him with a winsome smile.
“Thank you, Father,” he replied. “It is nice to know I am doing my job.”
Both men burst into laughter, quickly joined by the other four of King Pieter’s sons. The six of them were gathered beside the biggest fireplace in the private quarters of the King’s family. This was a smaller stone fortification inside a stone fortification, an actual building separate from the rest of the granite crag that was the Palace of Led Belarus.
Nevertheless, despite that this place looked like a prison from the outside—since it had began as a fortress, there was no gentle, winding path to it—on the inside it was warm and welcoming. This was thanks in no small part to the fact that some long-ago King had decided he was fed up with living in a cave, and had created entirely new inside walls, floors, and ceilings of warm, light-colored wood. The floor was polished and shining, the walls looked surprisingly festive with their ancient weapons and hunting trophies; bright embroidered cloths covered every flat surface, and benches with cushions beckoned an invitation to come and sit. Even the ceilings were cheerful, with every inch of every beam carved and fancifully painted.
Sasha grinned. King Pieter looked like a bear, sounded like a bear, and people tended to dismiss him as one of those fellows who had become King only because his father had been King.
But Pieter was as shrewd as they came, as his father and grandfather before him had been. And being the Fool was, indeed, Sasha’s “job.”
Sasha plopped himself down on the hearthstone, put on a simpleton’s expression, and grinned up at his father and brothers.
Led Belarus was a Kingdom that had no Godmother, nor a Wizard or Sorcerer, but King Pieter’s grandfather, the then-Prince Rurik, had surveyed this situation, pondered it when his own father had still been alive, and had decided to do something about it.
He’d lured a Godmother into teaching him.
It hadn’t been easy. First he’d had to get some dragon blood so he could understand the speech of the beasts and birds. Fortunately, he had been able to make a bargain with a Great Wyrm laired up in the nearby Cassian Mountains. That bargain still held, in fact. There was a herd of very fine cattle that, in effect, belonged to the Wyrm Lukasha now, but was tended by the Royal Herdsmen. Every other day, Lukasha helped himself to one; when the herd grew too thin, another lot was driven up to replace it. In return, Lukasha came to a secret meeting place three times a year to be bled. Dragon’s Blood was potent stuff, with many magical uses, and the Kings of Led Belarus were able to barter many favors from those magicians they trusted for a small vial of it. This more than made up for the cost of a few hundred head of cattle a year.
But of course, having a ready supply on hand meant that from then on, the entire Royal Family of Led Belarus could speak and understand the beasts of the field and the birds of the air.
Now to be honest, the gift was something of a nuisance, so far as Sasha was concerned. For the most part, the beasts of the field and the birds of the air didn’t have a great deal to say. You had to learn how to ignore them, like the background chatter of old gossips; when he’d first drunk the