1/1/1348
In the window seat in the corner of the room the group had basically taken over as a meeting-space, Callas and Strawberries had their heads together, talking.
Galvin was across the room, repairing the fletching on several of his arrows. Riyor settled on the bench beside him and gestured at the two women with his mug of tea. "You know, those two worry me. What do you suppose they're up to? Sending us off on another hare-brained mission, you think?"
Galvin shook his head. "Worse. Girl stuff."
"Girl stuff? What sort of girl stuff?"
Galvin frowned and clipped off a piece of spare feather, patching it in to a bare spot. "Something about a dress. Don't ask me."
"*Callas*? Dress? I've never seen her in anything but armor or trousers. Strawberries, yes, but Callas, ah, has never struck me as worrying about that sort of thing."
Galvin's response was a shrug. "Never got much of a chance."
"Guess that's true."
"Don't worry about it. You'll see tonight. Speaking of--" He raised his voice. "Gavião, Callas and I are going down into Madrid tonight. Do you think you need to come?"
Gavião turns. "It depends on what you'll be doing."
"Dancing, down at some flamenco clubs."
Gavião raised an eyebrow. "You won't be well-armed, then. I'd better come along, just in case anything happens. Besides," he muttered under his breath, "when else am I going to see Galvin do the flamenco?"
"I heard that!"
*******
"Will you hold *still*, girl?" Strawberries held Callas' chin in one hand and a brush in the other. "I can't do this if you're wiggling."
"It tickles!" Callas composed herself.
"Look at one of the candles, it'll help. Open your mouth a little, that'll help, too...there." Strawberries' practiced hand brushed color in a thin line around her eyes.
Tamsin leaned over to inspect her work. "You're putting it on too lightly."
Strawberries rolled her eyes and blew a lock of red hair out of her face. "Tamsin, love, your sense of fashion is three millennia out of date. They never really got into the heavy eye makeup up here, anyway. That seems to be peculiar to the hot countries, for some reason. I'll never understand why. Between that and gilding the skin..." Her eyes took on a dreamy look. "Mmmm, but it does look lovely when they're wearing nothing but a loincloth and gilding... Ah, sorry, distracted for a moment there. Callas, open your mouth a little more." She switched brushes, dipping the new brush into another pot. "Just a little of this, I think." She brushed carmine on Callas' lips, as lightly as she'd promised. "There. You're done."
Callas looked in the mirror, examining Strawberries' work. The person who looked back looked older, with interesting shadows above her eyes. "You do lovely work."
"I do, don't I?" Strawberries tapped kohl off a brush and stretched. "The canvas isn't half-bad, either, if you must know. Now, shoo, go show off to the boys and go dancing. And try to remember you're in a skirt! If you move like you're in armor, you'll get all tangled up."
Callas grinned. "I *have* worn dresses before. Just not in the last couple of years. My mother made sure I knew how to wear them."
"Just making sure. Go!"
Callas walked into the common room, looking around for Galvin. Around her, the others took a collective breath. A low whistle came from table where Gaius, Aiden, and Galvin were looking at maps. She bit her lip and smoothed the skirt of her dress, suddenly self-conscious.
Tamsin and Strawberries came in behind her, Strawberries leaning against the doorframe with a satisfied look on her face while Tamsin walked over to a chair by the fire. For a moment, nobody spoke.
Galvin broke the silence. "You look lovely."
She was wearing a dark green dress in a soft, heavy fabric, fitted tightly through the bodice and flaring out over her hips. The neck was low, embroidered with silver thread in patterns only a few would know were traditional Order of Epona designs--Celtic horses in a complicated pattern of knots. Her only jewelry was the silver bracelet around her left wrist. Her hair was loose, falling across her shoulders to her hips.
The last of her adolescent awkwardness seemed to have fallen away, and more than ever, she carried a kind of dignity with her. It was always easy to forget she was female, with her habit of wearing men's work clothes, and it was a shock to almost everyone in the room that under their noses she'd grown from girlhood into womanhood. As she turned and smiled at Galvin, Arnie leaned over and said softly to Tamsin, "You know, chop her off at the knees, give her a bit of a beard, and she'd be pretty cute."
Tamsin had a melancholy smile on her face as she watched Callas cross the room. "She does clean up well, doesn't she? And she's in love, which makes all of us shine." She sighed, her eyes distant, remembering.
Galvin rose from his seat and took Callas' hand. He was wearing a new doublet and breeches, and his hair was tied back from his face. He pulled her into his arms, hugging her fiercely, murmuring something into her ear that made her blush. She spun away from him, laughing, and said to Gavião, "Ready to go?"
Gavião was wearing an outfit in dark blue and black that none of the group had ever seen before, but looked as if it had been tailored for him. He still carried Excalibur, but the clothing was cut in such a way to accommodate the sword. He nodded. "Lead the way, my lady."
*******
The most popular flamenco clubs in Madrid were located within three blocks of each other on the same street. They walked into the first, and miraculously, a small table on the edge of the dance floor opened up as the three walked in. They lost no time claiming it for their own. After a few minutes, a waitress brought them mugs of wine, and the band that had been warming up started playing in earnest.
Galvin and Callas elected to sit out the first couple of tunes. Callas was sipping her wine when she heard, from the table behind her, a mention of the name Armand. Could it be..?
She half-turned, and glanced behind her. Four women, all dressed for dancing, sat giggling together. Callas could just barely make out what three of them were saying, but one had a particularly piercing soprano that cut right through the music. "I tell you, he'll be here tonight. Armand always makes this his first stop of the evening. And tonight, I *will* dance with him."
The others added what appeared to be encouragement. Callas leaned over to Galvin. "I'm fairly sure we'll know who Armand is when we see him. But we may have competition for his time."
"We'll figure something out." Galvin listened as the guitars struck up the distinctive chords of a farruca dance. "Ah, one that I know. Shall we?"
Callas and Galvin joined the several couples already out on the dance floor, and Gavião leaned back in his seat, keeping one eye on the pair and one on the crowd. They were initially a trifle awkward and out of practice, but soon both remembered the steps. Galvin's natural grace lent itself well to the flamenco, and the pair of them were well-matched dancers.
There was a disturbance near the door, out of which a man of medium height with dark blond hair strode. A table cleared away and he seated himself, watching the dance floor, a half-smile on his face. The soprano at the next table over squealed, "it's him!"
Gavião winced and rubbed his ear. Him who? Callas had mentioned that they were wanting to find a dragon named Armand who was somewhat famous down at the flamenco clubs; possibly this person was one and the same. He made a note of it and kept watching.
Several lively dances later, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned in his chair. A dusky woman in a dress that left very little to the imagination bent over slightly, emphasizing her cleavage. "Good sir, would you dance the next song with me?" Her eyes dropped a bit, and she said with a sensual smile, "I do love a man with a big...sword."
Gavião opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Callas and Galvin sitting down at the table. Callas smiled at Gavaio. "We can look after ourselves for a few minutes. You should go!"
"Very well, senorita. A dance it is." He rose from the table and slid an arm around the dark woman, escorting her out to the floor. The two exchanged a few bits of conversation and then began dancing a lively farruca.
Callas watched them, blinking a bit. "I had no idea that Gavião could dance! Oh, my." She'd pulled her chair around next to Galvin's and learned against him, recovering from dancing several songs in a row. "Such hidden talents that man has."
"Dancing's like swordwork, really. Once you learn to parry when they thrust, it's all a matter of technique." Galvin tightened his arm around her briefly.
"Still, I just never...thought of Gavião like that. I suppose because he's always so serious, I assume he's like that all the time. We've all had too little time for fun in the past year." She watched Gavião spinning his partner effortlessly, the picture of masculine grace. "Maybe we should bring everyone out dancing sometime soon. I'm sure everyone could use the break."
Gavião danced two songs with his pretty partner, and then came back to the table, watching the swaying of his partner's hips as she sashayed into the crowd. Callas smiled at him. "Very nice. I had no idea you could dance, Gavião."
"They teach us the courtly--and not-so-courtly...arts in knight training. We used to have to spar to music, in fact. They would speed up the music as we went along, to make it harder."
The music changed, this time to a zambra. Callas kissed Galvin and walked out onto the dance floor as almost every woman in the club did the same. This was one that her mother had taught her, one of the dances that was done only by women. She flew in the patterns that came back to her more clearly the more time she spent dancing. She'd almost forgotten how much fun this could be, which was a shame. Now she was over her initial self-consciousness at actually wearing a dress for the first time in years, she was quite enjoying herself.
As the dance finished, she began to walk off the dance floor, intending to have some wine and sit out the next song. She felt a polite hand on her shoulder and turned to see who had touched her. She looked into the eyes of a man a bit taller than her, blond, dressed in a traditionally-cut jacket and shirt.
"My lady, would you do me the honor of a dance?" He smiled at her, and she felt the warmth of his presence. She glanced over at Galvin, who nodded slightly at her.
"I will, thank you." The music swung into an alegrias, the slowest and most dignified of the flamenco dances. Callas spent a few seconds sorting out her feet and remembering the dance, which was one that she'd not often done. Her dance partner guided her through the first steps, after which she found herself remembering quite clearly.
The man she was on the floor with proved himself to be a dancer with a smoldering presence that showed himself even in the refined steps of the alegrias. That presence and sensuality would be entirely dangerous in the tango, she thought.
As they turned together, she asked her partner, "Might I know your name, sir?"
"Mine is Armand. And yours?"
"Callas."
"Ah, the new Headmistress of Epona." Callas blinked, startled enough to lose a beat of the dance, but picked it up again with an extra half-step. "Don't look so surprised. You are a woman of some reknown. Though the stories entirely fail to mention that you're a raving beauty, for some reason."
Callas laughed. "I'm not, really. Just for tonight." Another turn and spin. "Actually, I had rather hoped that I would run into you tonight, if you're the Armand that I've been told of. I'm not sure you could be anyone else, dancing like you do."
"Ah, truly? And what would the Headmistress of a whole Order want with a flamenco dancer?"
"A flamenco dancer who happens to speak for an entire tribe of gold dragons. I have come to ask for something of a favor."
Armand looked at her steadily, even as they both continued in the steps of the dance. "I would give much to learn who told you that."
"I'll tell you, if you will do me the favor of having a drink with I and my friends, and hearing our request, sir."
"So formal! You wound my soul, my lady. Please, call me Armand. Yes, then, I will do that much, for that knowledge. And afterwards, you must dance with me once more."
"And break the hearts of all of the women in the club? How could I be so cruel?"
"It is I who would be the cruel one, not you. If I were not cruel, I would not have them all eating out of my hand."
"Fair enough. All right, then."
The dance drew to a close, and Callas led Armand back to the table. They found an empty chair and Armand sat backwards in it, crossing his arms across the top of the chair back. "Galvin, Gavião, this is Armand, who leads the gold dragon cohort. Armand, this is Gavião, my Knight Protector and Commander of the Knights Templar, and Galvin, my second."
"Ah, good to meet you. It is always a pleasure to meet those you've heard so many stories about. Both of heroism, and..." his gaze lingered on Gavião, "...other things. I hear the Baroness al Mariatas remembers you with great fondness, still." Gavião frowned, but said nothing.
"We have a proposition for you, Armand. There is an army coming towards Madrid. We need the help of your people to stop it."
"I have heard of this army, but why do you need us in particular?"
"They have five hundred white dragons with them. If they reach the city, we're lost; we can't fight off that kind of air assault. Madrid will be sacked and lost, and everything it contains destroyed. The gold dragons can stop them in the air, give us the space we need to fight off the ground troops."
"And why should we help? I would be grieved to lose my favorite city, but there are others. Albeit none with the sort of nightlife Madrid has, but one makes do."
Callas spread her hands and put them on the tabletop. "Name your price. If we can pay it, we will."
Armand looked thoughtful. "My price? Well. Let me think." He sipped his wine, his gaze distant. "You have heard of the plague that has started to kill the magic-bearing races in Europe?"
"Of course. But it doesn't affect reptiles, so you and your people are safe."
"For the moment. But it's changed, and will continue changing. The first part of my price is an oath from you that if the plague begins to affect dragons, you will stop all other work you're doing and create a cure for us."
"It's a fair price. And the rest?"
"A million in gold or equivalent, paid to the family of each gold dragon who falls."
Callas glanced at Galvin and Gavião. "I think we can agree to both those conditions. What do you two think?"
Both of the men nodded. "It's fair, and we can pay," said Gavião.
"I will warn you, we are not allied permanently. Any further help after this will be negotiated on its own merits. But in return for these two things, we will kill or drive back into France all of the white dragons who are coming this way. And believe me, doing so will be more pleasure than not. White dragons are all worthless, stupid, snivelly things." His calm tone belied the way the chair was creaking alarmingly under his tight grip. Callas opened her mouth to argue with this statement but thought better of it. Better to not mention that not all white dragons were stupid or worthless.
"We have a deal, then. Should you do are we've agreed, I swear by the Unspoken Name of the Goddess Epona that I will stop all work that we're doing on a plague cure until we find a cure for dragonkind. And a million gold for the families of each that falls. Do you two second me?"
"I do," said Galvin.
Gavião nodded. "I, as well."
"Very well, then. So, tell me now, who told you who I was? I am most curious."
Callas smiled at Armand. "I believe you would know her as Strawberries."
"Ah, yes, I am familiar. We have long been...friends. Of one sort or another. I have not seen her in several years. How is she?"
She closed her eyes for a moment before she answered. "As well as can be. On her own side, as usual."
"Typical of her. Ah, this is a particularly fine tango. Will you join me, Callas?" She nodded and stood up, resting a hand briefly on Galvin's shoulder and looking into his eyes.
As they made their way to the middle of the dance floor, Armand murmured, "I will do you one last favor, Lady Callas. I will make your young man over there ragingly jealous, just for you."
"And how, exactly, is that a favor?"
"He is French, is he not? The French are most hot-blooded when they are jealous. I will give you a dance to remember, and he will give you a night to remember. And I will have had the pleasure of dancing twice in one evening with the lovely Epona Headmistress. See, it is, as you say, fair all round." He grinned, his white teeth flashing.
"Armand, you are a most terrible flatterer."
"Ah, I speak nothing but the truth. But look, we have come to our place."
And then, there was nothing but the tango. Callas took one moment to reflect that, yes, she'd been right--his presence *was* a most dangerous thing in the tango, the most overtly sensual of the flamenco dances. And then she stopped thinking for several long minutes.
When the dance was done, Armand deposited Callas back in her chair, kissed her hand, and disappeared into the crowd. She turned and looked at Galvin and Gavião.
Galvin's eyes were smoldering, though he would have appeared to most observers to be quite calm. And, oddly enough, Gavião's hand was straying quite near Excalibur's hilt. Callas blinked. "It was only a dance. I had to agree to it to get him to talk to us."
Galvin sat still, not saying a word. Gavião said, "That looked like considerably more than a dance, Callas."
"You have not watched much tango, then." She rose and walked behind Galvin's chair. She slid her arms around his shoulders and put her cheek next to his. "Love...I do what I must. But I swear, I will always return to you. And I promise that if we need to speak to Armand again, we will do it away from the dance floor. All right?" She slid around him, resting her forehead against his. And then she kissed him, pouring into it every scrap of the sensuality of the tango she'd just danced.
Gavião glanced away from the pair, giving them a moment of privacy. As he did so, he caught sight of Armand, standing near the exit, watching them. As he met Gavião's eyes, he gave him a half-smile and a small bow, and then turned and walked out the door.
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