Dragons Empire 3
Countess and Dragon
Natalie Yacobson
Translator Natalie Lilienthal
© Natalie Yacobson, 2021
© Natalie Lilienthal, translation, 2021
ISBN 978-5-0055-8641-4 (т. 3)
ISBN 978-5-0055-4050-8
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
Exposure
The countess was not too worried after the owner of the mysterious castle tactfully and kindly in the midst of the night pointed her a door. So it seemed to me when I looked into the castles window and saw her in a circle of fans. Elegant and beautiful, she flirted at once with everyone and did not even suspect that the Golden Shadow is watching her from the darkness of non-existence. And maybe she suspected. In any case, for one long moment her eyes rushed to the window. She did not see anything other than a snowfall behind the illuminated glass. Did she notice a golden, winged snake that had clung with all its slippery body to the stone wall?
The countess with a crash folded the fan and hit them on the knuckles of their fingers, so the skin turned red. She could not have to pinch herself to check if her sudden imagination was true. She miraculously managed to feel that there is a golden something firmly connected with the restless soul of her dark idol behind the window. If it were not for a noisy company, and not questions that flew on her from all sides, Francesca would undoubtedly rushed to the window to test their assumptions or again to let the spirit into the house. That is how she first called me a light touch to the picture on canvas. Now she tried to establish a mental contact with me, but inexperienced in witchcraft, she did not know how to fasten the subtle binding threads of strangers.
«Did you cut yourself?» said excitedly someone from the guests, turning towards her.
Francesca really squeezed the fan too strong, the ostrich feathers were broken, and the revealed needles scratched her on the nameless finger. She did not even feel pain, but I breathe in air even at such a distance the aroma of her blood. So you inhale the smell of expensive wine before you enjoy a thin bouquet of taste. This feeling made me look again through the glass to determine whether it was on the finger of Francesca that amethyst ring, which Rothbert tried to intimidate me. It was not an amethyst. The most attractive magnet was in the fortress the picture. I needed only this magnificent canvas, but since Francesca felt my presence this evening, I had to fly away.
The estate met me with the usual panorama of the majestic launch. The snow was spinning over the frontons, covered the balconies. Snow flakes melted, touching marble caryatid. The rooms of the palace, intense and cold, did not welcome the owner. Only in one fireplace in the ash, dry branches were preserved, as if someone recently was here. There was neither the time nor the desire to bypass with the ward all the premises from the attic to the basements to discover the tramp who could look for the shelter from the snowfall. Even if someone snuck through the window, it will soon be afraid of the arrival of legal owners and will run away.
Having visited the mill to the next morning, I even found there two shy peasants: a miller and his assistant, who swore, that they used to worked here and asked me as a new owner, allow them to take up former duties again. I decided to allow them to grind the grain of neighboring farmers, because its not to stand without a mill, but put forward one prerequisite. Having finished their day work, in the evening they should leave the mill to their home and not to return to the dawn itself. Of course, such a whim could seem strange, but such a contract guaranteed security to people. With the onset of darkness, my subjects could frighten them too much. Taking advantage of the fact that two men are in the evening alone on the lands of their sovereign the evil spirits could attack them, pushed, and pester until the unfortunate drown in the nearest mill pond.
The imperative tone, which was put forward by the condition, became a guarantee of its observance. I myself examined the mill. There was nothing unusual to the room, not a single hint that this place belongs to evil. Of course, two mercenaries could dissolve rumors about the oddities of their new owner, but I didnt care. I wanted the mill to earn again to rotate the wheel of the wind in former times. Maybe then something unusual will happen here.
I secretly watched the Countess when she ordered to collect a road chest and prepare the carriage. It seemed to me that in the capital she would not only entail the desire to acquire new books, because she could send someone from servants. The first impression could not deceive me. Francesca was too nervous when she sat down in the carriage. The entire way Francesca could not calm down. I corrected the warm raincoat with a white fox. At the entrance to the lively wide road, she put on the face a dark half mask, as if she did not want that her friends could know her by chance met in the way.
On the streets of the capital I had to abide by the double caution and slide behind the crew as an invisible shadow. On too narrow stone streets, each passerby was well noticeable. Of course, the old king invited me to go to the palace at any suitable time, but after a frank conversation in a hunting house, I did not decrease to put a visit to him again.
The crew went along the stone bridge, drove on one of the main streets and stopped in front of the facade of a well-known home. It was there, on the second floor behind a draped window, I with Vincent recently played cards. Here I first felt the hand of the countess, touching the portrait.
Francesca slipped out of the crew. Francesca reached the door hammer, made in the form of an eagle head. The door almost immediately opened. On the threshold rose an servant.
«Conduct me to the baronet and prepare the card,» said Francesca with a clear pure voice. Under the lace, the veil descended from the half mask was impossible to consider even how her lips move, pronouncing words. The forehead, cheekbones and nose were completely closed, only her eyes sparkled from the slots. The servant objected.
«The one you are looking for, does not live here anymore. The house is recently sold.»
«Where can I find the former owner? Speak, do not be shy, Im not an enemy.»
«Sorry, milady, but I dont know anything.»
Francesca shuddered a little when the door slammed before her.
«Unpleasant, of course, my darling, but you are not the first who paid him forward,» shouted after Francesca, a man, who appeared for a long time under the windows of the same house. «It seems that our omniscient predictor is not going to return debts to anyone.»
Francesca did not even pay attention to the insolence, and the one, tapping some melody with his cane on the pavement, also continued to look at the unlit windows of the facade. The darkness over the streets thickened. The countess returned to the carriage and order to the coachman to go through hers favorite route, that is, to the bookshops. I followed her when she moved books in leather bindings behind glass shop windows and for a long time asked the seller. She was satisfied with books standing on the shelves. Then the old merchant with wrinkled hands and face, as if he remembered something, took a lantern and went in search in a storage room, returned and handed her the book in the dark as a fragment of the night, binding. The lady eagerly grabbed it, immediately paid, while not taking off the mask nor gloves.
Approaching the showcase, I could hear the fragments of the conversation.
«Go to the tavern» Crown and Eagle», he happens every evening there,» said the merchant, wiping about the apron, the hands smeared with glue and wax. The light of a single lamp laid in orange shine on a closely pressed bookshelves and a ladder, leaning towards the highest cabinet.
«Are you sure that he is not madman?» Francesca masked with an arrogant tone her interest.
«In the days of his youth, he was a robber in Roshen. I knew him well, milady and tried to return him on the right path. But the person who set foot on the vice path can return to honest life only by surviving a real chilling blood horror.»
«Briefly speaking! Do not say as the novelist! I only need facts,» Francesca demanded, adding a coin to pay.
«Then ask him about everything, he will advise you.»
«Is it really?»
«He is ready to talk about it with everyone, but rarely who believes.»
«And what is the connection between the book and the stories of this unhappy man?» asked Francesca.
«Many books are based on the truth,» the merchant mysteriously answered, «but sometimes only one story, moreover, written so long ago, cannot end the existence of his heroes,» he again crossed his grilling apron and added in a completely different tone. «In the Crown and Eagle you will find at the same time good rooms for overnight.»
«Thanks!» Francesca nodded coldly and went out into the street. When the carriage again was on the road, I stubbornly continued my surveillance.
This time the crew stopped at the building with an elegant sign. While I stayed on the street, the countess boldly went in the institution, ordered the rooms for the night and looked around. At the table with a mug of beer was sitting an elderly man like the most ordinary appearance and physique, but in his unreleased look, something testifies of the memories who can deprive the mind of even the hardening criminal. I have never seen this person before, but, appreciating the muscles in his arms, I could say that he was not bad with a knife and often used it not for the most noble goals, he could strangle someone in the darkness. Of course, I was struck by the fact that the sophisticated Francesca fearlessly headed for such a subject and started the conversation, whose echoes were reaching me.
«What did that stranger looked like who killed your comrades? I want to know!» She demanded.
«So you believe me?» The man looked at her. His hand holding a mug of beer froze a halfway from his mouth.
«Suppose I have reasons to believe,» she nodded.
«You asked how he looked,» her companion whispered. «Yes, since then many years have passed, but I still remember. Such a beautiful arrogant face, I saw him only in the profile, but I could not forget. It was expensive clothes, a velvet raincoat, and something like silhouettes of the dragon embroidered on the camisole. I then thought that he himself was the devil, because there was no wonder that if an evil spirit tempts someone, it becomes very handsome. He so coolly killed my partners Imagine, Madam, he revealed both the throat with such ease, as if he had to do this not for the first time. After that night I went gray. Not every time you have to see how your friends are separated, as if meat carcasses.»
«Would you be able to find out this young man if you saw him again?» In the voice of Frances, insidious notes sounded.
«God forbid,» the taverns frequenter slightly crossed himself, but he was afraid to show himself a coward in the eyes of such proud and undoubtedly noble lady. «His image and so still stands before your eyes. It is only worth covering eyelids, as he is here again in front of me, deadly pale, beautiful, gold-haired and the same young as many years ago. So now it seemed to me that he flashed in the window. Do you believe me?»
Francesca turned to the window but, of course, did not notice anyone.
«So he was very beautiful, pale and gold-haired. Is that all you remember?» She calmly asked. He looked at her as the drowning on his savior and continued feverishly to recall.
«It was dark. In Roshens slums there were no lanterns, but his skin was glowed by itself and the hair was also shone like the sun. And he also had a golden claw instead of one hand. You see, such a paw with long sharp claws. She finished off my friends. Did an erased hand not evidence that he is a devil?»
«In fact,» Francesca nodded and throwing a coin on the table offered. «Order something strong to drink. It is not necessary to talk so often about the gold-haired devil, and he really can hear you and return.»
With these words, she turned around and called the owner of the tavern, so that he spent her upstairs, in apartments. The long raincoat have retired on a narrow wooden staircase like a train.
He could also take the lady in the road raincoat and mask for the devil, if it were not for a ringing coin, after her left-handed on the table.
Now I also remembered this person. That night, when robbers attacked me, he was hiding around the corner, waiting for the injury of prey. Then, I didnt even turn, but I felt behind the presence of a third gangster with a knife, pressed against the wall behind my back. It turns out he managed to consider me and remember. And here, even if I looked at him now I could not know him, because so many years passed. The face that was old, the forehead cut the wrinkles, and under the eyes climbed dark circles. Even if he drank less, no one would believe in such a crazy story about the gold-haired demon, who boldly walks on the backyards of Roshen and manages a bloody trial over the robber. I could enter the warm, weakly lit by the lamps tavern, and make a random witness silence forever, but did not want. After all, he was not a dangerous accusatory in front of me, but only the unfortunate, who, once saw a supernatural being, is now trying to convince unbelievers in his right and slowly, but correctly acquires a reputation of madman.
I flew up to the window. Behind a small glazed window was clearly visible, a newly recently cleaned bedroom. The book seller was right, such clean rooms are far from all the innovations. Francesca rubbed with a towel a mirror on the dressing table and combed her long bright curls. They covered her shoulders and her back, and were too naughty, to make the countess herself without the help of the maid managed to lay them into the hairstyle. She managed to change the road outfit for the long lace shirt. Mask, dress, raincoat, as well as many hairpins were scattered on the couch. Her lordship is not used to do without servants. Only the most valuable acquisition a black binding book was neatly put on the bed over a quilted blanket.
What is such an extraordinary concluded in the printed text on the stitched sheets? Why did Francesca search, almost demand that the seller found exactly this book? Maybe in all its unhealthy hobbies of mysticism lies something more than simple interest. I watched Francesca put the ridge on the table, and the contents of a small ladys handbag were poured nearby. Jewels, bottles with spirits and jars with lipstick scattered on the table top. Francesca took out the folded sheet of paper with torn edges. She turned it out and read. I decided that it was a page taken from some old book. Paper is already yellow, and the text itself almost faded. The countess revealed the book in the stored place and compared its content with her leaflet. So uncertain and timidly you usually collect pieces of puzzle. Francesca took a deep breath, as if she did not find what she was looking for. She reached out to blew a candle and here she saw me in the window. In her eyes expanded from horror, like two lakes, reflected a flexible gold silhouette of a winged snake.