Here's a glimpse of Raul and Guy DuBarree, who stole Cherai's heart, all from the first chapter of *Dream a Deadly Dream*, available here from Amazon.
Excerpt
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
The up-turned wooden crate made for a hard seat, but the hard-packed dirt drew heat from him. Raul didn’t know which part he hated most: the irons on his wrists or the ceiling so low he couldn’t stand straight or the unrelenting cold. Little daylight penetrated the thick cellar walls.
They’d thrown him down here two nights ago. The mayor had roughed him up, as was his right. Raul had quite satisfactorily tupped the man’s wife. Ten minutes later, and Raul would have been gone, heading back to his holey blanket in the hayloft. Ten minutes earlier—. He whistled. The cellar wasn’t so bad. He could be dead.
When the mayor had first snatched him away from his wife, who kissed as delightfully after as before, instinct had drawn up the wind that shaped in Raul’s hand as easily as breath. He’d started to fly it out when he remembered Cherai. Where was she? If they had her and he used power for his own escape—well, she would be dead. Vaermonde outlawed power, and the friend of a wielder could expect the same lethal treatment in a rough village on a backroad of the realm. Even if they merely hurt her, Colonel DuBarrée would skin him alive. Twice dead.
By the time he realized she was gone, wisely enacting Lady Caution, he was in the cellar.
Raul could have brought the house down and won his freedom. He might could have. Sometimes Air wouldn’t come to him.
He looked around the cellar, faintly lit by sun through the cracks. No breakfast, and only soup and a heel of bread at noon, delivered by the innkeeper rather than his wife or daughter. Were they going to starve him to death?
Cherai had warned him, but he’d seen the lingering look from the mayor’s wife, his third with the other two buried years ago. When she brushed her ample bosom against him as she took cider to her husband, Raul forsook caution. He sneaked out the tavern; she sneaked out next, with never a word needed to make the tryst.
Now he sat shackled and unfed and wondering how long he had to endure the cellar before someone pointed out that tupping wasn’t an official crime in Vaermonde.
Stomping on the floor above awoke his hopes. The mayor shuffled. The innkeeper clomped. The women were light of step. If he could convince whoever came to give him a slit bit of iron, he’d pick the locks and be off, just a day behind Cherai. Away from the village, she’d dawdle to give him time to catch up. This wasn’t the first time he’d been delayed. As Lady Caution, she kept their careful hoard of coins. He could even abandon his pack.
The cellar door opened. Light shafted down. The light brightened, a lantern adding to the sunlight. Ears told the hefty innkeeper came down with a firmer tread following.
Screwing up his eyes, Raul stood, unwilling to be on his arse. His shackles clanked. His head came close to a floorbeam as he tried to see who came down the steps. Another man, taller, slimmer, booted rather than peasant-clogged. Then Raul’s eyes adjusted to the new light, and he saw the uniform of a king’s dragoon. His hopes soared.
Col. DuBarrée braced a gloved hand on the stair frame and scowled at Raul. “Yes. I know this man. He’ll have to be freed.”
“Jayce won’t hear of it,” and Raul realized the innkeeper had brought the officer. “He wants him flogged.”
“Take off the shackles.”
“Big pardon, Colonel, but Jayse is our headman. He won’t like it. His word’s law in Feuton.”
“I gave you an order.” That curt voice threatened violence for any disobedience. Raul’s negligent stance became less act and more reality as he anticipated his freedom.
“Yessir, but—.”
“The man works for me.” His left hand pushed forward his swordhilt, as if relishing the wielding of it. The pouring light gleamed on the steel.
Raul eyed steel and man warily. Ruthlessness, not patronage, had fueled the colonel’s meteroric rise in rank.
His cold voice cut as sharply as any blade. “Get those chains off. Or will you disobey a king’s officer?”
“Sir.” The innkeeper set down the lantern and produced a simple key. The key rattled in the lock then clicked. As the manacles dropped, the man braved an excuse. “We didn’t know he was your man, Colonel. He don’t look like a dragoon or any kind of king’s guard. Begging your pardon, but we never would have treated him so rough. What work can he do for a regimental officer? He’s a rogue that travels the roads. He lies and cheats and—.”
“The king has eyes everywhere.”
“In palaces and grubby alleys,” Raul chimed in. “On main roads and forest tracks.”
“Shut up,” DuBarrée said, without heat. “This arrest will be recorded in the capitol, innkeeper.”
The man stuttered. “He deserved arrest, sir.”
“What crime did he commit?”
When the silence lengthened, Raul said, “Slept with the mayor’s wife.”
DuBarrée’s mouth twitched. “My captains can’t be locked up for that, either. Vaermonde doesn’t recognize that as a crime unless the lady cries foul. I don’t hear her crying foul.”
He stepped aside for Raul to go up. The innkeeper, coming last, spoke in a much reduced voice. “It was a mistake to arrest him. We’re good subjects of the king. We’re loyal. No one says aught against him, no matter what he trumped up to get the queen executed.”
The colonel stopped and looked down. “Don’t say that much, innkeeper. I know this was her home province, but that’s enough for the Iron Gloves.”
The lantern shook, scattering light. “No, sir. I won’t say no more. We’re sorry, sir.”
“Enough, innkeeper. I understand you didn’t know. The error is now rectified. No one needs to be punished.”
No one waited in the kitchen above. Raul wondered where the innkeeper’s family was. From DuBarrée’s few words, he knew where the mayor’s wife was. That disappointed him a little; a lot, when he gave it second thought. But then, he hadn’t bothered to ask her name.
The air was fresh after the musty cellar. Raul breathed deeply.
The dragoons had taken over the common house near the forge. Lights gleamed from the tavern, and laughter and singing spilled out. DuBarrée turned in the opposite direction, and Raul matched his strides. He expected a reprimand. He deserved one for getting caught.
The colonel started with a simple question. “Where’s Cherai?”
“Gone.”
“Gone where?”
“On ahead.”
“You know this for fact?”
“That’s what we agreed. One of us goes on; the other catches up when he’s clear of trouble.”
“When you’re clear of trouble. I don’t see Cherai stepping into it. It’s you, fighting or gambling. Bedding the headman’s wife, that’s a new one.”
“Not so new. Getting caught at it is new. What I need never comes up in our talks. And my interest don’t stray to Cherai because she’s yours.”
DuBarrée’s head whipped around. His eyes had narrowed to moonlit slits. For the first time in all their encounters, Raul had truly surprised this man experienced in the cruelties of both war and court life.
“I never told you that Cherai is mine.”
“You didn’t have to. What’s a comtesse to a dragoon officer?” Then he wished the words unspoken as the sharpness returned to the man’s face.
“In a rose garden I met a young lady as alluring and as thorny as a rose.” Then his mouth compressed, and the hawkish look returned. “Does Cherai know of our arrangement? No? Keep it that way.”
“I remember your threat.” They walked a few paces more. Raul realized DuBarrée headed him toward the road. “How did you know I was in that cellar? I’d say that mayor didn’t advertise where he’d stashed me.”
“I asked the blacksmith. I always ask the blacksmith. As makers of locks, they know who’s been shackled.”
“You expected me to get into trouble?”
“What did the innkeeper call you? Rogue. Liar. Cheat. Thief.”
“He didn’t say ‘thief’.”
“And I know the man I pay good coin to.”
Rau shot his cuff and looked at the swirling tattoo on his inner forearm. “So, the seeker didn’t work. You just asked the blacksmith.”
DuBarrée undid four buttons on his jacket. He withdrew a metal seal scribed with the same swirl. He touched a corner of the metal. Raul’s tattoo burned while greenish light flashed along the lines, centering itself in the design.
Raul jerked his sleeve back down to cover the light. “That’s powerful magic.”
“And I can find you easily. Just as well, if your weirding breaks out.”
Words that Raul didn’t want to hear.
They walked beyond the cluster of cottages and outbuildings. No one roamed the harvested fields and orchards. Cows and oxen had settled down in the pastures. Laughter drifted on the wind; the dragoons were drinking up the village’s supply of hard cider. The other cottages were closed up tight, shuttered against the regiment. Stabled horses nickered then quieted.
Raul didn’t counter DuBarrée’s comment about the weirding. A Rhoghieri’s power was benign, but no one in Vaermonde cared. Reclusive Rho or bloody wyre, beneficient wizard or baleful sorcerer, didn’t matter. He’s seen only one escape, a Fire Rhoghiera, adept enough to transform into her element and burn out the very flames set to burn her then blaze her way to freedom. Few were that strong. He wasn’t. And if the villagers had discovered exactly what they had chained in the cellar, the colonel would have found a dead man. Who would he have sent then to look after his precious Comtesse Muirée?
“Anything you need back there?”
“Cloak. Blanket. Pack.”
He reached into another inner pocket and produced a small pouch. Coins clinked when Raul caught it. “Buy what you need in the next village, Rho. This one’s seen enough of you.”
“I expected you to tear a strip off me.”
“Just find her. Keep with her from now on. You’re paid to protect her.”
DuBarrée’s troop was never more than a day’s ride from them. How did that king’s officer manage that? He kept his regiment roving around Vaermonde’s backroads with never a base. Raul knew better than to ask. “If Cherai discovers how close a watch you keep on her—.”
“She won’t. She might have, in the first months, if she had ever retraced her road. But she dared not stay more than one night, and you kept her on the move after that. How are your reserves?”
Here was a chance to get a little ahead with coins. “Running low,” he lied. “We got winter coming up. I planned to settle us in Vagraens near the Tebraire border. A good large town, easy to get lost in. She’ll be safe.” Close to his old haunts, he didn’t add. Close to the safety of the Haven that had banished him if anyone suspected Cherai was the missing countess and they had to flee. In winter, DuBarrée couldn’t keep that close of a watch on them.
“No. Not Vagraens. Keep her away from the border. Go south, near Lillunde.”
“People know us in the south.”
“They know your habits, you mean.”
“They know us. They know more about Cherai than I like. And they will remember. Or do you want rumors that the missing comtesse Muirée is sheltering near Lillunde. That will bring out the troops. We’ll go to Isterre Province.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it. Best place, believe me. We’ve rarely ventured there.”
“And if someone recognizes her? She’ll head straight into the Weirded Lands.”
“She ain’t left Vaermonde’s borders yet, colonel. She won’t then, especially not into the marshes. She’s got a regular spook about the Weirded Lands. This marsh between Feuton and Marsden, it’s just a finger of the main one, but she don’t like it.”
“And you believe she headed on to Marsden when she had to pass the marsh alone.”
“She will. She agreed with my plan. She don’t like to backtrack and raise questions any more than I do or you want. I’ll catch up to her, just like I said.”
DuBarrée didn’t respond. He dug into that inner pocket and produced another small pouch.
Raul caught it, hefted it. “This is a little light for winter.”
“You find Cherai, and you’ll get more.”
Knowing argument was useless, he pocketed it. He had won the only point that mattered: wintering in Isterre. “If Cherai ever discovers I’m working for you, she won’t like it. She’ll never accept me again.”
“She won’t explode. She’ll flee. That’s what she always does.”
“Know her that well, do you?” He thought they’d only had one summer together, at court. Could a man learn a woman’s willfulness in that short a time?
“Worried about losing your sinecure?” The mockery riled Raul until DuBarrée added more darkly, “You should be worried what I’ll do to you if you let her find out. I don’t want her alone on the road.”
“I don’t know why you let her be on the road at all. It’s a rough life for a woman, rougher for a comtesse. She’s adapted, but she still don’t suit it.”
“Her life’s in danger. I might can save her from outright murder, but not from any trial on trumped-up charges. And if the Iron Gloves get her into their bloody tower, I can’t help her at all. Once they starts their tortures, she’ll admit to anything. She holds the key to her father’s assassination. Until we discover why that happened and why a hunt for her was immediately launched, Cherai the comtesse Muirée is not safe. Cherai the bard she must remain. To keep her out of the Inquisition’s hands, Rho, no more arrests for you. No more attracting attention that will get a king’s authority looking at her. The writ has been renewed early. I’ve got a seeker of the Inquisition posted in my troop; all of the regiments have. Keep her safe.”
“You can’t keep her hidden forever. Three years is a long time, Colonel. And there are more dangers on the road than a king’s authority.”
“I pay you to keep her safe. Or do you plan to renege on your contract with the duc?”
“I’m still Orlesse’s man. He still playing ducks and drakes with the king?”
“None of your business, Rho. Your business is keeping Cherai safe and hidden.”
The curt words put Raul in his place, lackey of a dragoon officer who was knave to a duc. A weak card in any hand. “What’s to do next?”
“You catch up to her. I”ll take the troop to Marsden. You find her and keep her off the main road for the next fortnight, until my patrol passes to the next desmesne. Hear me?”
“I do.”
The colonel strode away.
Raul watched, wondering not for the first time whose man DuBarrée was: king’s or duc’s? His loyalty divided, he walked a blade’s edge, in as much danger were he found out as the comtesse, suspected of hiring assassins so she could inherit.
In the three years since Raul had put his bloody thumbprint to Duc Orlesse’s contract, he’d gleaned little about DuBarrée. Born in a far north desmesne, he somehow owed loyalty to a southern peer, the most powerful in Vaermonde. Dragoon officer, rising rapidly up the ranks, and swearing blood oath to protect king and kingdom: how did the colonel reconcile his divided loyalties?
Maybe Orlesse had promised DuBarrée money or an additional desmesne once his niece the princess Aisdeinne rose to monarch—but that was a probably, not a given, and DuBarrée wasn’t a man who swore allegiance on a hope rather than a given. Maybe the alliance was blood-based?
Raul shook his head and set a ground-eating pace along the road.
Only once had he and Cherai ventured into the far north, DuBarrée’s home province, when the king’s dragoons had inundated the roads. That was not long after they met, and he’d pretended a need to evade the increased patrols. With its steep ridges and steeper mountains that created a natural barrier to other lands, the northern region lacked easy access to the merchant and artisan goods. Raul hadn’t minded the rough places they’d stayed, but even with a year on the road, Cherai had hesitated at some of the taverns. The DuBarrée manor itself, honey-colored stones washed with strong rains, centered an estate that looked well managed. The village lacked the size needed to raise a cohort if the colonel were called upon for the king’s army.
So, Guy DuBarrée and Orlesse kept the runaway comtesse safe from the king’s Inquisitors. Political reward or a hidden blood alliance? Raul remembered that unexpected softening of the colonel’s harsh features. Maybe more had happened than that rose garden? Maybe the predatory DuBarrée had had his heart stolen.
Too many strings tangled the snarl, and Raul didn’t know which one to pull to untangle them all.
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