In The Lair of the Draca (Book 2)

In the Lair of the Draca (Book 2) Chapter 54: Domestication, Destination

"They hear something!" Azee tugged at Franek's blouse hem.

"Hush!" Franek made a shushhing gesture. "Do you want her to hear us?"

"But she is bathing--"

"Dragura could be doing anything! She might have said she was bathing as an excuse to keep her ear to the floor. Your naivety would put a toddler to shame!"

Azee's cheeks blazed in embarrassment. "Be that as it may," she responded (in a quieter voice), "but I know Ma. I know her and all of the others. At least, better than I used to. And I'm telling you that they heard something! Or perhaps saw something that spooked them, because when the potatoes were boiling everything was still. 'Twasn't til you lifted them from the sieve that Ma started panting and doing that thing she does: Ai Ai, Ai Ai!"

"So, perhaps they heard something. Or saw. Doesn't make much of a difference." Franek shrugged and transferred the skin-less potatoes into a bowl in preparation to be mashed. "You'd do well not to make such a big to-do about things, Azee. Wainrak is gone, and she'll never be coming back. Were Dragura not so suspicious of our activities in the first place, she might still be here with us..." Reaching for a potato masher, Franek let the sentence trail away and fought the rising lump in her throat.

Oh, sweet, precious Wainrak!

Franek had known intuitively right before Dragura's special 'dinner' that things would not bode well for Wainrak, who had already suffered terribly at the hands of their Mistress. Franek, Azee, and the rest of Dragura's handmaidens had gone stiffly and quietly about their chores, hardly daring to raise their eyes and look at one another. What could they say? What could they do? And what would happen to Wainrak if she did not provide the answers Dragura was seeking?

Only Azee and Franek were privy to the secret program in which Dragura's 'offspring' were being civilized, but both crept around the spacious Fortress in private terror that Wainrak would be browbeaten into revealing the carefully-guarded details. Azee had walked to and from each bedchamber like a ghost, clutching a broom and dustpan with white-knuckled fists, and Franek had poured her energy into maintaining the kitchen, intending to ambush Wainrak with questions and demands the very instant Dragura excused her back to her station.

As it turned out, Franek never had the chance.

It had been two days. Wainrak had simply disappeared. She had neither come down from the great corkscrew-staircase nor shown up at her proper station in the kitchen-- but there had been unusual activity in the moat beneath the Fortress bridge on the night Wainrak had been invited to Dinner. It was the same kind of activity which occurred when tripe (or bodies) had been shoved over the turrets and into the water.

There would be no time for mourning, and none dared approach their Mistress with any questions. Instead, Franek had quietly taken over Wainrak's spot in the kitchen-- her cooking had much to be desired-- and Azee had, in turn, began to cover for Franek. To the womens' collective relief, Dragura seemed to be satisfied, for she did not approach the other girls with any more inquiries.

And life in the dark gloom of what was the Dragon Queen's home went on: handmaidens swept, polished, rearranged, and dusted. Franek cooked; Azee spirited here and there with a perpetual frown that reached even her attractive granite eyes.

And together, the two of them immersed themselves in the task of training the Draca. They worked at nighttime under cover of blackness, bringing with them heavy baskets of food and bleached ptarmigan bones as praise for commands obeyed. Azee and Franek worked wordlessly, using only the clipped instructions and terse hand movements that they had developed for the five Draca that had proved to be the most promising of the bunch, and it was these five that they spent the most time with.