And yet here he was, wandering around a dress shop in the early morn.
He grabbed a lovely detailed gown of bright pink and held it up for her to see. Dagmar’s horrified expression was priceless.
“You must be joking.”
He was. Overdone gowns would do nothing for her except make her feel uncomfortable. And it was her confidence that he found so enticing.
“What was that message you sent off earlier?” he asked, putting the dress back and continuing to look around.
“To my father.”
“Sure that was wise?”
“If he didn’t hear something soon, he would have come looking for me. It’s best to let him know that I’m not yet at Gestur’s but that I am safe. The alternative is your head looking dazzling hanging from my father’s gates.”
He turned to face her. “Why are we here?”
She didn’t answer him, but smiled at a shop girl who came out from the back.
“Lady Dagmar!”
“Hello, Saamik.”
To Gwenvael’s surprise, the shop girl hugged Dagmar as if they were long-lost cousins.
“You’re looking well,” Dagmar told her.
“Thank you.”
“Are you happy?”
“I am so happy, my lady.” She gripped Dagmar’s hand. “I don’t know how to thank you for this. I have a small house now and a lady who takes care of Geoff during the day.”
“I’m so glad to hear that.” Dagmar stepped closer. “Think we can talk for a bit? In private?”
“Of course. Give me a few minutes.”
The shop girl rushed off and Dagmar smirked at him.
“A shop girl?” he murmured low, once he was closer. “You’re getting your information from a shop girl?”
“The wives and kinswomen of very important men come in here every day. And every day they spend hours getting fitted into new gowns.” She smiled. “Wives know more than men ever think they do, Lord Gwenvael. And their servants know everything.”
Dagmar sipped her tea and listened to Saamik closely.
Saamik had grown up on Reinholdt lands. Her parents and their parents and their parents’s parents had all been born and raised in the same small area. Saamik had been destined for the same life, her future husband already picked out for her. When Dagmar had made the offer to get Saamik an apprenticeship at a dress shop, she never asked for anything. Never made Saamik promise anything for this gift. Instead they simply passed letters. Saamik knew how much Dagmar enjoyed gossip, and Dagmar filled Saamik in on the family and friends she had left behind.
It all worked out well, but Dagmar felt the need now to ask specific questions and she wouldn’t feel comfortable doing that in a letter that could be read by others.
“You were right, my lady.” Saamik stirred milk into her own tea. “Lord Jökull’s troops are expanding. He’s created truces with at least three other warlords to the west.”
“A truce? Not an alliance?”
“No. He’ll get no troops from them, but he won’t be fighting them either.”
“Where is he getting his troops?”
“Hiring them. By the boatload, I understand.”
For once, Dagmar received no pleasure from being right. “I see.”
“Lord Tryggvi,” young Saamik glanced at Gwenvael—again—and explained, “he’s the leader of these lands.” She let out a breath, focused on Dagmar. “His sister says he’s none too happy about all this.”
“Would he be open to becoming allies to The Reinholdt?”
“Perhaps. It’s hard to tell with him. He’s not a pleasant man from what I’ve seen.”
“Who among them are?” Dagmar reached for a sweet biscuit, but her hand found only an empty space on the small table. She gazed at the dragon, amazed. “You had to take the whole plate?”
“I wanted them.”
“Are you a child?”
Saamik stood. “I have more, my lady.” The girl’s warm smile doing nothing but annoy Dagmar, so she felt quite deserved of the several biscuits she took when Saamik held out the tin.
“There’s something else …” Saamik again took her seat. “But it’s only a rumor. I know not if there’s any truth to it.”
“There’s usually a little truth in every rumor, Saamik. You might as well tell me.”
Saamik leaned forward, looking uncomfortable. “They say … well … They say he has a truce with dragons.”
Dagmar snorted. Not because she didn’t believe Saamik, but because her own dragon was so startled that the biscuit he’d been eating flipped from his fingers and pinged him in the forehead.
“I know, I know,” Saamik went on. “It sounds ridiculous. I mean, they’re animals, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” Dagmar readily agreed. “Yes, they are.”
“How does he even communicate with them? They can’t read or write. And I hear they understand our words the same way a dog does.”
“All very true. I’m sure I could easily train one to do my bidding. Although they’re not nearly as bright as my Canute. Their brains are quite slow. So it’s very possible someone like my uncle Jökull can easily bend them to his will.”
“Tragically, I think you’re right, my lady.”
A soft jingle sound from the store had Saamik jumping up. “I’ll be right back. Let me see who this is.”
“Of course.” Dagmar tapped her finger against the table. This was much worse than she thought. Much worse. Saamik had provided a good starting point for Dagmar, but she needed Brother Ragnar’s real knowledge to help her now.
“ ‘Slow brains’?”
“Well,” she answered absently, “we both know the truth of that, now don’t we?”
He was out of his chair so fast, all Dagmar had the chance to do was squeak in surprise and protest before he yanked her out of the chair.
“Train us like dogs, eh?”
She batted at his hands, which seemed a waste of time, but when his fingers caught hold of her on her sides, under her arms, Dagmar let out a strangled giggle and began to fight. It wasn’t pretty.
“Wait. Have we found a weakness on my lady?” he teased, his hands seemingly everywhere.
“No, you have not!”
“I think we have.” His fingers moved up and down her sides, making Dagmar squeal like a child. Although even as a child, she was never one to squeal. Or laugh. Or giggle. A chuckle now and then, but that was the most she could manage on a good day.
It didn’t help that Gwenvael seemed quite entertained at the moment, swinging her around like a tiny kitten while his fingers kept up the pressure.
He suddenly stopped and ordered, “Apologize.”
“Never.”
He began again, whirling her around. They were both laughing, Dagmar trying desperately to get his hands off her when she saw Saamik standing in the doorway. She knew Gwenvael saw her, too, when Dagmar’s feet suddenly landed on the floor with a thump.
“I can come back, my lady,” Saamik said, not even bothering to hide her smile.
“No, no. Don’t be silly.”
“Actually,” Gwenvael cut in. “Five more minutes—ow!”
Bercelak the Great, Consort to the Dragon Queen, Dragonwarrior Supreme of the Old Guard, Supreme Commander of the Dragon Queen’s Armies, and All Around Kicker of Ass of the Dragon Queen’s Royal Brats, landed near the blood-covered battlefield. His youngest son, Éibhear, had accompanied him and hadn’t shut up in hours.
He loved all his offspring. He truly did. But they each had personality traits that wore the edges off his nerves on his best day. This was not one of his best days. Far from it. Running errands for his queen and love was nothing new and normally he didn’t mind.
Yet this particular errand galled him more than any of the others because he knew it was too dangerous a move. But would she listen? Of course not. Instead she followed the dictates of her idiot hatchlings. His idiot hatchlings.
But to involve the Cadwaladrs was foolish. Bercelak had always considered his kin a last resort.
If one wanted to raze an entire city to the ground—followed by one of his cousins saying, “Ohhh … didn’t mean to do all that, now did I?”—then one called in the Cadwaladrs.
Originally Rhiannon had wanted him to put out a call to all his kin, but that was simply too horrifying a prospect because he knew, without one iota of doubt, they’d come. Instead, he promised to secure his more rational sister and brother. They’d been fighting in the west for months with most of their offspring plus quite a few others of the Cadwaladr bloodline. That would be more than enough to protect one human queen and his son’s spawn.
“I don’t understand,” his youngest blathered on. “How am I supposed to become a great warrior if you won’t send me into real battles?”
“You’ll get there eventually. Just stop whining about it.”
“I’m not whining. It’s a fair question. You’re holding me back.”
“Is that what you think?”
“It’s true, isn’t it? Fearghus, Briec, and Gwenvael had all been sent off to fight long before they were in their nineties. Yet here I am, running errands and being treated like I’m newly hatched.”
Éibhear really didn’t understand, did he? He couldn’t compare himself to his older and much more devious brothers. Unlike that lot, Éibhear cared. Not merely about himself, the acceptable selfish attitude of most dragons, but about everyone. He cared if humans were safe, if they were happy. If dragons were happy! When were dragons ever happy—at least in that ridiculous human sense of the word? And why would he care if they were or not?
“I just think it’s unfair you’re not giving me a chance like you gave the others. What makes them so bloody special?”
As Bercelak turned to his son, he sensed the air moving and vibrating behind him. Acting on instinct and more years of what his own father had considered “training” than he cared to think about, Bercelak shoved his son to the side as a dragon’s broadsword—the length of a human soldier’s battle lance, the width of a middle-aged tree trunk—landed in the spot Éibhear had stood.
His son’s silver eyes widened, his gaze locked at where the tip of that mighty blade met Éibhear’s claw prints.
“And that, boy, is the difference between you and your brothers,” Bercelak snapped, fear for his youngest son making his words hard. “They would have seen that blade coming.”
His son flinched at the truth of Bercelak’s words as the sword was yanked from the ground.
Ghleanna the Decimator grinned at Bercelak. “Tsk, tsk, tsk, brother. Seems you haven’t trained your offspring well enough. Father would be horribly disappointed, Bercelak the Black.”
“That’ll keep me up nights,” he shot back.
“Aaaah. My baby brother is still as charming as the day he was hatched.” She slid the blade back in the scabbard tied to her back before throwing herself into Bercelak’s arms. “You old bastard. You never change.”