The Sorceress of Belmair

anxious to enjoy her company.”

The duke bowed. “It should be but a few days, Majesty,” he said, and backed from the king’s presence.

When his niece, however, learned that she was not going to the king this night she grew furious. “He wanted me tonight! What if he changes his mind while you dawdle and fuss over the bits and pieces of your agreement?”

“You, yourself, have said that he is eager for you. He will wait, and you will not seem so much like a loose woman,” the duke told her. “The proprieties will be observed.”

“You are right, Brother,” Margisia spoke up. “Now tell us exactly what you have obtained for our Sapphira.” And when he had, she was ecstatic, and turned to her daughter. “Thank your uncle, my child! He has done well for you. And when the king is finished with your company you will have a wealthy man to wed and a large dower. Far larger than we might have provided for you.”

“I mean to be his queen,” Sapphira said in a hard voice. “Do you think that I do this thing lightly, without thought, Uncle? I will make him love me, and he will never want me to leave him, nor will he think of Fflergant’s daughter, Cinnia, ever again. I will be queen of Belmair within a year. I swear it!”

“If it should come to that I will negotiate a marriage agreement for you,” the duke told her drily. “But for now I have preserved your reputation and your value as best as I might, Niece.” Tullio of Beldane doubted Sapphira would obtain her way in the matter but it would be impossible to convince her otherwise. She would learn by hard experience.

“I must go to him now,” Sapphira said.

“Nay. Not until the agreement has been written and signed,” the duke told her. “Remember, you are not some farmer’s daughter to be taken by the lord of the land. You are my niece. You have value. An apartment must be prepared here in the castle especially for you. Your wardrobe must be filled with gowns of the finest silk. The dower portion he has promised must be with my goldsmith. Only then can you go to the king. I will see you treated honorably,” the duke told the girl.

Sapphira pouted, but she nodded reluctantly. “I know you are doing what is best for me, Uncle. I am just anxious to be in the king’s arms.”

And while Sapphira dreamed of her lover, Dillon found himself both reluctant and eager for the girl. “She looks so much like Cinnia,” he told the dragon.

“She is not Cinnia,” Nidhug said in disapproving tones.

“You do not favor my taking a mistress,” he said.

The dragon sighed softly. “I know you are faithful in your heart to Cinnia,” she said. “And I know that you are passionate. How can you not be, given your parents? It could not be expected that you would eschew pleasures forever, Majesty.”

“But you do not like the lady Sapphira,” Dillon replied.

“Nay, I do not. It is not simply that she looks so like my mistress. There is a darkness in her. We have all sensed it. And I know that your mother would not be pleased with your choice. Either of Dreng’s granddaughters would have been a more suitable choice.”

“Dreng seeks to make one of his granddaughters my queen,” Dillon said.

“True, but he would have jumped at the opportunity to put one of them in your bed without a crown. He is an ambitious man or he should not have put those two girls in your path, my lord. I personally favored Panya,” Nidhug said.

“Why?” Dillon asked her, amused.

“She is intelligent, and would be able to converse with you on all manner of subjects. All Sapphira can offer you is her body.”

“It is a most luscious body,” Dillon noted.

“She will bore you to death, my lord,” the dragon said.

Dillon laughed. “I have no interest in carrying on a serious conversation with her, Nidhug. I want only to enjoy her body, and sate the months of pent-up lust.”

“Thus speaks your cold faerie heart,” Nidhug murmured.

“It is my nature,” he responded. “My heart belongs only to Cinnia. My cock, however, must be entertained, else it shrivel up and die.”

Nidhug tittered but then she grew serious again. “This girl means to be your queen. She is Belmairan from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. Like most of the others she believes Cinnia is despoiled and cannot be queen again even if she were to be found and returned to you. Sapphira wants to be your wife. She believes by climbing into your bed she can accomplish that goal.”

“She cannot,” Dillon said.

“I know that!” Nidhug answered him. “But she does not. Tell Duke Tullio you have changed your mind, my lord, I beg of you. Find another female for your bed. One who will understand her place is but temporary. Sapphira gives herself to you because she truly believes she can overcome your reluctance to let Cinnia go.”

“You are Belmair’s Great Dragon,” Dillon told her. “You hold the ancestral memories of all the previous dragons. Is there any law written in Belmair that says women taken by the Yafir are unclean, and cannot return to their families?”

“There is such a law, my lord,” the dragon said. “It was enacted long ago because the Belmairans did not want to mix their blood with the blood of the Yafir. But laws can be amended, changed or even dispensed with, as you know.”

“Then we shall dispense with this law as soon as possible. It has outlived any usefulness it once possessed. While the Yafir may have retained their magic, their blood is now so mixed with the Belmairans that they have become a different race.”

“The dukes will fight you on this,” Nidhug said.

“Alban will stand with me,” Dillon replied confidently.

“Dreng will not, and with Sapphira in your bed it is unlikely that Tullio will, either,” the dragon told him.

“I shall do this before the girl becomes my mistress,” Dillon told the dragon. “Then we shall see just how ambitious that duke really is. It is my feeling that he does not approve of what Sapphira does although he has negotiated with me in good faith in order to protect his niece as best he can. I think he will stand with me in hopes of dissuading her from her course. And if he does Sapphira may choose not to come to my bed.”

“She will come anyway,” Nidhug said dourly. “The girl is ambitious, and believes she can win your heart.”

“Cinnia has my heart,” Dillon said, “and Sapphira cannot have what I no longer have. I will have my beloved back if I have to wait a hundred years.”

“To be loved like that…” Nidhug said a trifle enviously.

Dillon smiled. “My uncle loves you,” he murmured. “And you, my beautiful, scaly friend, love him. It is a most interesting pairing.”

“It is an impossible pairing,” Nidhug replied, “and I am foolish, like all females in love. But I cannot help myself. I adore him in his faerie form, and when he takes my dragon form he is equally magnificent.” She sighed. “I miss him.”

“He will return as soon as we have some word from the Merfolk,” Dillon reassured her. “He is clever to remain in his mother’s forest for now. It allays my grandmother’s suspicions that her son has given his fickle faerie heart to a dragon.”

Nidhug could not refrain the chuckle that issued forth from her throat. “Ilona of the Forest Faeries is a most formidable creature,” she admitted.

“She is indeed,” Dillon replied with a smile. “My mother grows more like her than she would want to know.”

Using his magic Dillon brought the three dukes to his castle the following day. They met in a small paneled counsel chamber with Nidhug in attendance. “I am removing from Belmair’s laws the one that forbids the return of women taken by the Yafir.”

“Never!” shouted Duke Dreng jumping up, his face puce with outrage.

“The blood of Yafir and Belmairan is so mixed now that the law is foolish,” Dillon said. “I want peace with the Yafir. This is the first step I will take to make that peace a reality.”