To Marry a Dragon

17. Ferrante's Ivory Tower

Ferrante surveyed the scene of carnage with inflamed eyes. Yesterday, in a flurry of activity, he squirreled away books and scrolls from the library under Lukrezia's supervision. Now, he sat in a tiny stuffy space and the letters swam across the pages deliberately making no sense. And they frolicked. Yes, frolicked, because they seemed to multiply whenever he looked away.

His backside ached from the stiff bench. His fingers itched from the ink stains. How he splotched himself he didn't know, because may the life-giving light have mercy on his soul, he didn't write a single word! Not on the margins—which Lukrezia had expressly forbidden—nor on the virginal scrolls she had provided, nor anywhere else.

He groaned... how could he sit here and not do anything when Elvira... while Elvira... Black pits of Doom, at this rate she'd have fifteen blond grandchildren with the fifth bloody Prince of Oest by the time he came up with something.

Enough!

He jumped up, upending a thick folio... froze with his arms outstretched, ready to catch a paper avalanche. One stack tilted with an ominous hiss, but kept upright, until he sighed in relief. Then it sloughed in a slow, malicious motion.

Ferrante knelt with another sigh and gathered the white sheets. Codices of something, footnotes, appendices, cursive, lots of cursive...

He reassembled the runaway stack, pressed it down with the folio, then tiptoes out of the room, mindful of not slamming the door on the sniggering books no matter how much he wanted to.

Pulling his cloak tighter around himself, he walked through the blooming chestnut and apple trees to the lawn he came to loathe during his sessions with the medical faculty. The unpleasant memories turned the green space into the pits of doom. Overwhelmed by the flashbacks, he'd nearly missed Lukrezia, despite the blazing outfit.

She sat with the tight knot of students, twenty or so, spread in a semicircle under the whispering boughs. In the middle of an impassioned speech, her arms waving, she didn't look much older than the students, particularly when she interrupted herself in mid-sentence, spotting him. The class went on with the feverish scribbling. He felt a pang of compassion—his own eyes glazed over trying to keep up to Lukrezia yesterday.

"Please, develop a counterargument to my last statement while I confer with Scholar Rastelli," Lukrezia said before scooting over to the chestnut tree he sheltered under.

"Lukrezia, this is not working," Ferrante started urgently, "I know I must argue against the Guild's contract in front of the commissioners—"

"First, you must prove that the contract has a direct and immediate impact on you—"

Ferrante groaned. "Precisely, and my mind is numb. I am a knight, not a lawyer! I can't remember three sentences. Oh, whom am I kidding! Two sentences!"

Lukrzeia smiled thinly. "Didn't you say that, quote on quote, 'Degrees and instructions are of no consequence in the matters of heart'?"

Ferrante dropped his face into his palms. "I can't eat, I can't drink... All I can do is shape-shift on command, and it is destroying me. One word out of my mouth—and the commissioners would chase me out of Rotdaam as a pretender. Lukrezia, please! You need to help me."

Lukrezia puffed out her cheeks in exasperation. "Ferrante, we've been through this. If I speak on your behalf, it will come across as sour grapes from an acrimonious woman and a former employee. You'll lose. I outlined the possible strategy for you and indexed everything—"

He tuned out the long, meaningless words pouring out of her mouth. The fresh leaves rustled, the bunches of pink and white flowers swayed over his head. It didn't seem right for the day to be so nice when he was so overwhelmed. Desperately, he pleaded again, "Maybe you know someone else—"