“There is no shipment of dragon flesh on its way?” He knew the answers but forced Ellik to speak them aloud.

The chancellor’s face nearly touched the floor. “Radiant lord, we have no word of any shipment. I am humiliated and abashed to tell you.”

The Duke considered the situation. It was too great an effort to open his eyes all the way. Hard to speak loud enough to make his voice carry. His rich rings of heavy gold set with massive jewels hung loose on his bony fingers and weighted down his hands. The lush robes of his majesty could not cloak his gauntness. He was wasting away, dying even as they stared at him, waiting. He must give a response. He must not be seen as weak.

He spoke softly. “Motivate them. Send more emissaries to every possible contact we have. Send them special gifts. Encourage them to be ruthless.” With an effort he lifted his head and his voice. “Need I remind you, any of you, that if I die you will be buried with me?”

His words should have rung against the stones. Instead, he heard what his followers heard: the shrill outrage of a dying old man. Intolerable that one such as he might die without an heir-son! He should not have to speak for himself; his heir-son should be standing before him, shouting at the nobles and forcing them to swift obedience. Instead he had to whisper threats at them, hissing like a toothless old snake.

How had it come to this? He had always had sons, and to spare. Too many sons, but some had been too ambitious for his liking. Some he had sent to war, and some he had sent to the torture chamber for insolence. A few he had poisoned discreetly. If he had known that a disease would sweep away not only his chosen heir but his last three sons, he might have kept a few in reserve. But he had not. And now he was down to one useless daughter, a woman of near thirty with no children of her own and a mannish way of thinking and moving. A thrice-widowed woman with the ill luck never to have borne a child. A woman who read books and wrote poetry. Useless to him, if not dangerous as a witch. And he had no vigor left in his body to get a woman with child.