Servant of the Dragon by Drake David Page A

just talking, "A lot of people on Ornifal don't like having a government that does what's right instead of what it's been bribed to do. With a man like Tadai or Royhas either one to lead them, that sort of people would be a danger."
    Cashel nodded. "And you don't want to kill them," he said; not asking and certainly not suggesting, but just getting the facts straight in his mind.
    "I'm not willing to do that," Garric said simply. "I think it'd be bad policy anyway, but the truth is that I just won't do it. Kill a man because it's awkward having him around."
    He forced a laugh to change the subject. "I think we've got a meal ready," he said, sliding the last of the bacon off the grill. "Let's eat!'
    * * *
    Sharina squatted to eat, the point of her shoulder braced against Cashel beside her. The fire had sunk to winking coals. The wood had aged on the damp ground, rotting to punk that burned sullenly rather than with a clean, hot flame; it had been good enough for the porridge and bacon, but it burned away too quickly to keep the hearth warm on a winter night.
    "Lerdoc, Count of Blaise, has begun wearing a diadem in public," Garric said as he daubed up porridge on the willow spoon Sharina had trimmed while her brother was cooking. "He hasn't formally changed his title to king; he's probably wondering what I'm going to do. I'm wondering too."
    He grinned. Garric sounded tired but he wasn't as bitterly worn as he'd seemed every time Sharina saw him during the past two weeks.
    "Lerdoc may be hoping that his diadem will convince the Earl of Sandrakkan to take an overt step," Liane said. Cashel had upturned a large pot as a seat for her; Liane had never learned to squat, and she probably wasn't used to sitting crosslegged on the ground for any length of time either.
    "And he may be right about that," Garric agreed. "Earl Wildulf has called a muster of the Sandrakkan militia for the twentieth of next month. Our agents think he's checking to see how many of his nobles show up with their troops before he decides whether to proclaim himself King Wildulf the First. That's what his granduncle did... the year before he died at the Stone Wall."
    Sharina liked the porridge, though the flavor had surprised her. This was the first time since she'd arrived in Valles that she'd had a meal like what most of the people here ate. It was subtly different from what she was used to. The meal, leeks and chives were the same as she'd used in Barca's Hamlet more times than she could remember, but the cheese Cashel had stirred in came from goat's milk instead of ewe's.
    "Carus faced the same sort of problems when he was crowned King of the Isles," Garric went on with a wry smile. "Usurpers, rebels, secessions—on Haft and all over the Isles. Carus met his problems with a sword in his hand and an army none of them could equal... until the day a wizard sank him and his army to the bottom of the sea."
    Tenoctris watched Garric with sharp attention. Earlier in the evening she'd gone to a corner of the long building to work a spell. Sharina had seen red wizardlight flickering between the old woman's cupped palms, but she hadn't asked the purpose or the result.
    "I don't have an army that good," Garric said. "Besides, I don't particularly want to wind up drowned."
    He smiled again, though Liane beside him winced at the words. Since Garric began wearing the medal of King Carus, he'd gained a sense of black humor. He'd once told Sharina that you needed laughter on a battlefield worse than you did anywhere else, so you'd better be able to laugh at what you found there.
    "I've thought of taking the army to Sandrakkan, then Blaise," Garric went on musingly. "Not attacking Wildulf and Lerdoc, just arriving on their doorsteps with enough strength to make them think again about declaring their islands independent."
    "That may work while your troops are on Sandrakkan," Liane said. From her tone, she and Garric had held this discussion in the past. "But when they leave