10.10

On the third night after his return from the mysterious cloud world, Dirk Blackpool awaited Zyrdicia's arrival impatiently as soon as night fell. He had thought of little else for the past three days. The hours dragged by slowly. He had expected her soon after sunset. It was getting late. It was insufferable that she would keep him waiting.

He looked out a window in his chambers into the darkness, his hands clasped behind his back. He sighed in irritation. Why is she waiting so long?

He realized with a start that her reflection stared back at him from the window glass. He turned around quickly and found her standing directly behind him. He regained his composure quickly. "Hi," he greeted, kissing her hand without relinquishing it. "How long have you been there?"

"Long enough that if I were an assassin I could have put a half dozen knives between your ribs," she smiled sweetly.

"I think I would have noticed after the first one," he said darkly. "I was beginning to wonder whether you had forgotten about my invitation."

"Of course not. I've been looking forward to seeing you again since you left," she replied softly. And looking forward to finalizing the all-important business with the arcanium, she thought. .

He led her to a leather-covered couch. A bottle of wine had already been uncorked and stood next to two glasses on a table near it. Zyrdicia noticed a neat stack of papers on the corner of the table as well.

"I hope I didn't cause you too much difficulty with your nobles," she commented.

"It proved more difficult for the nobles then it did for me." One count had lost his tongue for daring to protest the prince's failure to attend the scheduled audience. Dirk handed her a glass of wine. "And your Council meeting?"

"As soon as I arrived the tone of the discussion changed from 'How dare she have done this?' to 'Wasn't it a brilliant act deserving of our praise?' They named another holiday in my honor. A waste of my time."

They sat very close together. She could avoid the subject no more. She was impatient to hear him tell her that he would give her what she wanted. She purred, "Have you decided whether you are going to give me an excuse to come see you more often?"

He smiled softly and slipped one arm around her shoulder, running his fingers through her soft hair. He stared into her eyes and after a long pause answered, "I've decided that I shall not lease you the mines."

She sighed. "Hobgoblins or trolls?"

"What ever are you talking about?" he asked, befuddled by the non-sequitur.

"If I'm going to invade your mountains and take over your mines, which would you rather defend against?"

He could not help but laugh at the absurdity. "You wouldn't dare!"

"Of course I would. They will keep your army busy while my Dirt Devils rip open the mountains. It isn't personal, of course." She kissed his cheek. "In fact, while your country is being torn asunder, we can amuse ourselves splendidly."

"Amusing myself with you would be the last thing I would consider, were you to be so foolish." He looked very amused now, though. "Before you go much further with your invasion plan, perhaps you would like to hear my counter-offer?"

She looked surprised. "Oh. Of course."

"Instead of leasing the mines to you, I am willing deed them to you - provisionally," he explained.

Her eyes narrowed. Something was not right. She could sense it.

He ignored her distrustful glance. His eyes fell to her cheek, then her throat. His thumb moved gently along the perfect line of her jaw bone and carotid artery as he cupped her cheek covetously in his hand. Holding her face, gazed at her intensely and continued, "In fact, because I hold you in such high regard, I intend grant you the only toy you do not already possess."

"What toy?" she asked suspiciously.

"Land and a title. The mines are in my province of Dagonia. You may recall its former lord met an unfortunate end when you discovered his involvement with the Blue Thorn."

"Dagonet?"

"Precisely. I will proclaim you Baroness of Dagonia. But I will revoke the title and the deed after the first year if you fail to deliver on your promise of increasing my tax revenue from the mines tenfold. And your tax rate on all foreign trade will be fifty percent."

"Tenfold guarantee, fifty percent split. It's the same deal essentially," Zyrdicia mumbled, trying to find the catch she was sure must be there. There had to be a reason he was not simply agreeing to her original proposal.

"I'm afraid, it will require that you stay here. You cannot administer it in absentia, so there will be no need for 'visits' since you will be here all the time." The faintest hint of a smile escaped as he added, "And there is also the small matter of you swearing an oath of fealty to me."

Zyrdicia stared in shock for an instant then burst out laughing.

The prince frowned, pulling his hand away from her face. This was not the reaction he had expected. He was rarely so generous. "What is so humorous?"

"This game. An oath of fealty," she giggled. "The notion of me obeying anyone about anything. Me protecting peasants--" She lost the thought as she was overcome by laughter. She took a deep breath. "And to think I once said you didn't have a sense of humor."

"I am quite serious," he said sharply, his irritation growing. "And my offer is not subject to further negotiation."

"So is that really all you want?" She was clearly on the verge of another fit of giggling, though she was trying very hard to maintain a serious composure for his benefit.

"I want your return to cause devastation in Camarand - subject to my command, not your whim. Instruction on accessing the monocle's full powers will be a second consideration you will agree to!"

"Do you really think you are going to send me to Dagonia to watch them pull arcanium out of the ground and deal with pigs and peasants until you decide you have need of a spectacle or a magic lesson?" she asked, mirth still radiating from her eyes.

"Of course not. Dagon Castle was razed when my soldiers put down the rebellion. You will stay in Castle Blackpool. The day to day affairs of governing the province needn't bother you at all. I will appoint someone to take care of the pigs and peasants for you." His tone was deceptively charming, though her level of amusement continued to irritate him. The fact of the matter was that he had no intention of actually permitting her to exercise control over the province, beyond extracting the arcanium. Not that he thought there would be anything there to hold her interest. He was certain the province would bore her. She would be too busy helping him lay waste to Camarand to even consider involving herself in it. This scheme was a convenient means of nullifying the Dagonian seat on the baronial council for the day he needed ratification of his ascension to the throne. The province, the baronial seat and her magic would all be firmly under his command.

"What restrictions would there be on what I could do with the province?" she wondered, still trying to suppress her laughter..

"You would have baronial powers as proscribed by law."

"Codified law? Or is the law whatever the handsome monarch says it is?"

"Both. The latter, of course, matters far more to you than the former."

"Could I sell the peasants into slavery in Lyr?"

"No."

"Could I feed them to my dragon?"

"No."

"Could I kill them one by one?"

"Possibly." He sighed in annoyance. "The peasants are none of your concern! You should concern yourself instead with how you will use your destructive skills against my opponents in Camarand!"

"Could I annihilate the province for fun?"

He glared at her. "I would be most displeased."

"Like that would be anything unusual!" she teased.

"Oh, come now. I was very pleased a few nights ago at your residence," he remarked. "Accept my offer and we can continue to be pleased with one another," he added in a seductive tone. He pulled her hand to his lips, then moved confidently to kiss her.

Just before their lips met she turned away, as a thought suddenly occurred to her. "I want to see it on a map!" she announced.

Despite his annoyance at her distraction, he stood up and retrieved the requested item for her, unfolding the large image across her lap. He stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders. He leaned down, brushing against her deliberately, "It's here, just north of Castle Blackpool. Bounded by these mountains and that river."

She studied it closely, ignoring his transparent attempt to recapture her attention. There were a half dozen arcanium mines marked on it. They were distant enough from one another to suggest separate veins of ore. That was a good sign. The river intrigued her. A number of large lakes in the mountains appeared to be the primary source of its water. The river wound southward through Karteia into the Land of Storms, through Baaldorf and Camarand and finally emptied into the sea at the southern edge of the continent. It was Aparans only great river. She remembered that when she flew with the dragon over Camarand when she first arrived on the continent, she had seen that most of the farmland there relied upon the river for irrigation.

Dirk's game was outrageous enough to be deliciously amusing to Zyrdicia, though she had not foreseen the ploy. That he expected that she would actually be bound by any words was ludicrous. She could swear on Zyr, by the Book, or by her dead mother, for all she cared. She would happily say anything he wanted to hear to get the arcanium. The metal meant absolute control over the manufacture of magic items, a value which far exceeded the wealth it would generate . She fully intended to make the prince work for her meaningless acquiescence, though, if only to keep the game interesting.

"Alright. I'll play!" she announced.

"I had no doubt that you would." He reached down for the small pile of documents and pulled out the last page for her to sign. She held her hand out for the rest of the preceding pages, smiling sweetly. He gave them to her, clearly annoyed.

She began reading then looked at him. "Quill?" He produced the desired implement expecting her to use it to sign. Instead she refilled her glass of wine and curled up on the couch, focussing on the document. To his dismay, she began editing it.

She waved the prince away impatiently as he tried again to distract her. When she finished, she handed the papers back to him. "Substantively, it's fine. Do you want to have it redrafted or shall we just initial the changes?"

He did not answer. He was examining what she had done. In every case, she had clarified the terms more accurately to reflect their conversation. He could not begrudge her any of them. Most were ridiculously minor. One, however, caught his eye. "Why did you strike through the tax guarantee?"

"I did not strike through it. I clarified it. You put the sum in kolnas. That is unworkable. I would have to transfer plats into your currency somehow. There aren't enough kolnas circulating in Aparans for that to work. Gold bullion will be more practical for now." She smiled devilishly, "That is, unless you want me minting my own kolnas?"

"I think not," he said sternly. He had no doubt that she would use the activity to express her vanity and put her own face in circulation. He thought about it a moment. Gold was as good as kolnas. It was a trivial difference. He nodded slowly, "I will permit the change."

Having the document redrafted would only mean waiting for her to go through it again, that much was clear. He had not expected her to be so fastidious about her affairs. He was eager to put the matter to rest. When she finally signed off on it, her signature vexed him.

"You cannot only sign with your first name," he smirked. It suddenly occurred to him that he did not even know her last name. That fact struck him as rather strange in light of their recent intimacy. "It is a formal document. It requires your family name."

"That is a custom peculiar to your world."

"As long as we are in my world, you will follow the custom!"

"I can't," she answered stubbornly.

"Why do you still insist on irritating me so? I had thought you would be beyond such infantile impulses now."

"I'm serious. I can't. In Lyr the only people who have family names are unremarkable folk who might otherwise be confused with one another. Needing two names is a sign of meager status. Illustrious citizens always have one name, just like gods."

"You really don't have a family name?"

Zyrdicia shook her head, "Of course not. My given name says more about my lineage in Tenaebran than any supplementary nomenclature ever could."

"But your mother must have had a family!"

Zyrdicia shrugged. "How should I know? She didn't hail from Lyr. Her history has nothing to do with me. I've never thought about it."

The conversation was exasperating to someone whose identity was inextricably bound to notions of bloodline and family title. There was nothing to be done about it. The contract would have to remain as it was. He fixed the document with a wax seal bearing the stamp of his signet ring. It was now legally binding. She was his vassal. A minor ceremony remained, but for all intents and purposes, in his mind, he now owned her.