Dragon’s Empire – 3. Countess and Dragon

«Okay, I will visit all our neighbors to recognize the news?» said Vincent. «By the way, do you not allow me to borrow one of those beautiful hats that are folded in the dressing room. You still got used to walking with a uncoated head, and I don’t like cold.»

«Soon you will begin to claim my castle,» I said as a joke.

«In no case. I hate winter and frost. There is an eternal winter around the castle, it is better to enjoy such a luxury for yourself,» Vincent seriously objected and at the end of the gloomy tirade received the long-awaited permission to choose in the dressing room what he likes.

Before leaving, he was delayed to report:

«All the same, this beauty is too stupid and unbalanced, even if she tried to enlighten someone about our problems, then her statement would be accepted for a book story which she herself had invented.

He marked simply all experienced by us with an expression «problems» – only Vincent was capable of such optimism. He corrected in front of a mirror a hat with magnificent feathers, playfully spent his fingers on plume of the hat and bowed politely, just as after our first conversation in the tower, from which there was no stone for a long time. It was necessary to be more careful, and not to let such an intriguer, like Vincent even on the threshold, but I could not do anything with me. He reminded me of the past, was the only living being on Earth, which I remembered me as I was before my fatal transformation, even before the day, when I first woke up in the dungeon, which became the workshop of the sorcerer.

Of course, I did not want to take a boarder, I have Percy, who was arbitrarily volunteered to help me in all matters. I could not entrust Vincent a single order. So, he simply settled on me with the rights of a poor relative or a classmate. I didn’t know how he wanted to introduce himself to others.

Having decided not to let him down for a long time, I also picked up the first hat, the cloak and went on feet to the castle of the countess. It was necessary to look after Vincent so that he did not make new troubles. After long flights and lightning overcoming spaces, it was pleasant to feel the solid soil under my feet. Probably, just as nice and unusually you went on feet after a long sailing.

Francesca did not have to go far, the coach picked her up almost at the entrance of the cave. Of course, I did not wait for gratitude for my foresight. Most likely, if I decided to visit her openly again, I would run into new reproaches, charges and curses. Fortunately, I did not need directly declare my visit. For a long time, walking on the wide range of cities, I discovered the opportunity quietly to fly to the highest windows and without the knowledge of the owners to follow what they were doing at leisure. This way to apply courtesy visits I really liked. Lightning and silent movements and almost silent breathing did not give out my presence, but I could learn a lot of interesting things, while observing incognito. Only Vincent once managed to calculate that I was followed him, and then thanks to the lost hat, and not his own foresight.

At the foot of the hill at which the count’s fortress rose, I stopped. This dark monolith with a multitude of towers appeared unshakably calm, but inside the warm halls, furnished in the last fashion, reigned real turmoil. The interested servants and maids whispered in the corridors, the last gossip turned out to have all new and very incredible details. The cooks were busy in the kitchen, hoping that the tired, sick mistress at the insistence of the doctor will try at least a broth – this decoction, similar to the soup now prescribed by doctors from all diseases. But the countess refused to eat and drink. Her strange disease could be reduced to the grave and a more stronger man, but Francesca was still full of power. What helped her stay on the feet, melancholy, thirst for revenge or impending madness?

It was unlikely that she could lose the mind from such a smallness as her little adventure in the stormy sea. Looking at the window, I saw that Francesca in a black mourning dress sat in a chair and sorted by fingers an agate rosary. Her face was frozen and impenetrable as a very elegant plaster mask. There were doctors and a priest near her chair. Vincent was in the room too and sometimes inserted his witty replicas into the conversation. Light in the room was very small, and all bright things, even the tapestries are replaced with a more gloomy, an iron binding is inserted into the window: whether to dull the flow of light, or so that no one uninvited to penetrate the fortress through the window. It must be, after seeing the gold scales on the skins of the dragon, even the weakest light hurt the eyes of Francesca. She painfully pushed, looking at the candle. Their in the room was only a few, one in the candlestick on the table and three more in the wall brake. Doctors had to strain all their eyesight to get the necessary bottles of ointments from their aid kits. It was quite difficult to do, without disassembled the labels, such a number of herbs and minerals, crushed into powder, pill, balms and various tinctures were not even by the court doctor, to whom I was somehow advised to contact Florian.

The priest proposed the countess a spiritual assistance and a prayer in blue velvet binding, but she pulled firmly a thick book with the tips of the fingers, as if she was afraid of burning. It is unlikely that someone noticed that she painfully frowned, only I caught the vibration of pain, which the countess felt. Only an hour spent in my castle did their job. Francesca could not force herself to pray. She was afraid of the deserved punishment. My castle was for her exactly a ghost world, where she was allowed only once.

«Rest and decoctions of the doctors will certainly return your health,» Vincent said, he ignored all those present, referring to the countess alone, but she seemed to not notice him and other people who were around her.

Vincent was right. She was very pale, even her bright scarlet lips became pale pink almost white.

«We are so glad that you escaped from the devil, child?» inserted his word the priest. «The very devil who attacked…» He eloquently pointed with his hand in the one way, where the ashes of the burned village were left behind the deaf walls of the castle.

Francesca did not even respond. She looked at one point and did not want to talk to anyone.

«You need to be glad that the Savior appeared on time,» said Vincent, but no one caught a note of irony in his voice. «By the way, you are very lucky that he managed to save you.»