Page 55 of Red Dragon
“That’s right.”
Captain Radmarik stood on the deck, his half-chewed hunk of sugar cane in the corner of his mouth like a pipe, and he lifted a hand when he saw them. He didn’t appear perturbed by their approach.
“That is a less, ah, stately vessel than I imagined a princess sailing on,” Teyla observed, her gaze snagging on a harpoon loaded in a rear launcher. The tip hadn’t been cleaned, and what looked like dried blubber and possibly a piece of intestines dangled from it.
“A princess or the archaeologist cousin of a princess?” Syla asked.
“I do usually get slightly more refined transportation when I travel. I don’t mind roughing it though. It’s mostly because so many of my trips have been with Relvin, andheinsists on a degree of opulence, that I’m used to it.”
“Traveling with him must be a joy.”
“I read and ignore his frequent pompous utterances.”
“Wise.”
“When you immerse yourself in a quality book, you can ignore almost everything.”
“I’ve found that to be true. Do you prefer a fictional story? Or a historical tome?” For recreational reading, Syla usually chose biographies and real historical accountings, but she’d been known to enjoy a mystery or collection of myths and legends. She itched to find time to read the book she’d snagged from the library basement on her great-great grandmother, certain from the title that it would offer a more fascinating interpretation of the queen’s past than she’d found in other texts.
“Historicalandfiction,” Teyla said. “Ideally with romance, though the more torrid the love story, the less likely the history included is to be accurate. I enjoy borrowing books from thelibrary, taking notes to mark all the inaccuracies, and then leaving my additions between the pages for future readers.”
“You don’t think other people are reading for pleasure and don’t care about the inaccuracies?”
“Don’t care?” Teyla gave her a scandalized look. “Everyone should care. Even if they don’t, they should be educated.”
“You don’t send letters of corrections to the authors, do you?”
“Only the authors who are still alive.”
“Well, that’s good. It would be awkward for the sexton to try to deliver the others.”
“That’s my belief too.”
Fel gave them a long look over his shoulder—what, was this a strange conversation?—before leading them up the gangplank onto theStriking Falcon.
“This is how women bond,” Syla informed him. “Not by fighting dragons but by discussing books they’ve read.”
She again noticed the newspaper he was carrying. He hadn’t yet shown her an article, so maybe he had picked it up for his reading pleasure. Either that, or the articles were so awful that he was waiting until they had time to discuss them in depth.
“If this adventure proves as challenging as I suspect from the little you’ve told me,” Fel said as they walked onto the deck, “you might get to bondbothways.”
“Won’t that be a delight?” Syla murmured.
“I brought my sword.” Teyla patted the scabbard tied to her back, a perkiness to her eyes suggesting she found the notion much more appealing than Syla did. Her first real battle might cure her of that perk.
“Welcome back, Your Highness.” Captain Radmarik removed his sugar cane and offered it to her, the moist, macerated end not any more appealing than it had been the first time he’d tried to entice her to chew on it. Syla trusted thiswas a new piece, but she couldn’t be certain. The cane appeared immensely fibrous.
Syla lifted a hand to decline the offering. “Thank you for agreeing to let us sail with you again.”
“I’d say it was my pleasure, but it was more my wife’s insistence.”
“Is she here?” Syla peered about, curious to meet someone from the Freeborn Faction. Arealmember.
Vorik had claimed to be a part of the faction when he’d first been trying to gain her trust, but that had been a lie. Was it strange that she still wanted to spend time with him?
“Nah, we had a brief encounter—brief butwondrous—” Radmarik’s eyes rolled back in his head, but, thankfully, he didn’t go into detail, “—when I returned to Harvest Island. But, after the fall of the sky shield there, she left to attend a meeting with her people.Ileft because stormers were showing up on ships in the harbor as well as on dragons. The Freeborn Faction are meeting to decide whether to give assistance to yourpeople or not. You clearly need it. But… even though my wife’s allies oppose the tactics of the rest of the stormers, they’ve never yet raised weapons toward the tribes, preferring peaceful interactions not only with the Kingdom but with their own kind. Aside from a touch of spying, of course. I don’t get filled in on everything going on with the faction, but I gathered from my wife’s comments after the battle that she was pleased that I’d survived and wanted to know who’s going to end up in charge of the Kingdom.” Radmarik looked frankly at Syla. “I relayed thatyousaid you might be interested in establishing peaceful interactions with them and allowing those willing to follow Kingdom laws to come to the islands, but she pointed out that you becoming the ruler is anything but assured.”
“That’s… unfortunately accurate.”
