Dragon’s Empire – 3. Countess and Dragon. Natalie Yacobson

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 tavern’s 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 Roshen’s 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 didn’t 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 lady’s 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.

      «How is it possible?» Only she was able to whisper, but the winged something had already disappeared. Francesca ran up to the windowsill, but it was already empty there.

      So simply, the countess could not retreat, she saw the whole golden guest, looked at the snake, but heard a charm, human voice, who wished only «good night, countess, because calm can not last very long.» After all the sounds dropped in a night emptiness, Francesca seemed to hear them so far. Switching out of the bedroom, she found the side narrow ladder and went into the attic, and from there rose to the roof. Tile slid under the barefoot feet, but Francesca did not want to go back to the heat and peace. She was waiting for that – that’s somewhere at the level of dark sloping roofs again flashed flexible, golden silhouette, but it did not appear. Only the gray sea of urban homes stretched around, and the wind walked over it and cleaned lonely stars on the blue sky.

      Francesca wanted to call someone, say someone’s name, but never decided. She turned back, almost stumbled on the ladder, forgotten by a chimney-sweep. The low roof’s slope hung over the windows of the upper floors, and it would be easy to hide not only a flexible flying creature, but even a child. Francesca, of course, did not calculate it. She last turned on the sleeping city and went down to the room, not even worrying that someone from the waking guests could see her without a mask.

      Then I opened the window of not busy room and slept there until the morning. Nobody even paid attention to the draught, escaping from the slots of the locked door. The owner never came to disturb my dream,