Page 51 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“Prompted by our visit to Lis­bon?”

“Partly.”

“You took a lot of chances when you fenced with Raul. That’s not your usual style.”

“It is time I started to take chances again,” Gabriel said. He ges­tured to­ward the gui­tar.

Mikel nod­ded in ap­proval. “More than time.” He let si­lence hang in the air for a long mo­ment. “Ko­dra led us to Dupont, so we have a new string to pull on. We’ll get them all sooner rather than later.” Mikel piv­oted to­ward the door be­fore say­ing over his shoul­der, “Don’t fo­cus on Ko­dra too much. He was a pawn.”

Gabriel waited for Mikel to leave be­fore he sat on the stool and picked up the gui­tar, not even both­er­ing to put his shoes back on. He in­tended to fo­cus ev­ery­thing he had on Ko­dra so he could tear out what he had hid­den in the dark­est cor­ners of his mind and cleanse it with the mu­sic.

Chap­ter 14

On Mon­day morn­ing, Gabriel stood in front of a mir­ror in the pri­vate an­techam­ber that con­nected with the Salón del Dragón, brac­ing him­self for his meet­ing with what Luis’s po­lit­i­cal ad­viser, Fran­cisco Var­gas, had dubbed the Lily Ca­bal. Gabriel ran one palm over his al­ready-smooth hair to make sure it was se­cure in its neat pony­tail. Maybe he should cut it short for his new role as a gov­ern­men­tal en­voy.

Not yet.

He made a minute ad­just­ment to the lapel ver­sion of his Medalla de Honor, a small gold disk em­bossed with an enam­eled blue-green Cal­e­van dragon hold­ing a sword in one claw and a crown in the other. Fran­cisco had strongly rec­om­mended that he wear it to re­mind the no­bles that they were deal­ing with not just a royal duke but a hero. Gabriel gri­maced at his re­flec­tion as he stopped his hand half­way up to touch­ing his ear­lobe.

His cus­tom-tai­lored char­coal suit, white shirt, and teal-and-gold-striped tie had also been cho­sen to con­vey a mes­sage of se­ri­ous power.

He barely rec­og­nized the man who stared back at him.

A door opened be­hind him, and he turned to see Fran­cisco walk into the room through an en­trance hid­den in the pan­el­ing.

“The del­e­ga­tion is in the salón and have been served cof­fee and crois­sants. But let’s give them a minute more to wait.” Fran­cisco smiled in a way that ap­peared smooth and benev­o­lent on the sur­face, un­til you no­ticed the cal­cu­lat­ing gleam in his eyes.

“So they know how busy and im­por­tant I am,” Gabriel said with a wry look.

The gleam van­ished. “Re­mem­ber that you do them an honor by meet­ing with them,” the older man said.

Gabriel squared his shoul­ders. Maybe with prac­tice, he would find a pur­pose in deal­ing with the pol­i­tics sur­round­ing his un­cle and cousin. Right now, he just wanted this meet­ing to be over.

“I think they’ve had enough time to con­tem­plate all the drag­ons glar­ing at them,” Gabriel said.

Even the choice of meet­ing room had been care­fully cal­i­brated. The Salón del Dragón was in the old­est part of the palace, so the walls were heavy gray stone and the win­dows small and deep-set. A bas-re­lief dragon head with a spiky crown snarled from the square stone set over the vast fire­place. The an­tique rug that cov­ered the smooth stone of the floor was wo­ven with fierce-look­ing Cal­e­van drag­ons. There was not a lily in sight, a sub­tle re­minder that the king’s power had noth­ing to do with flow­ers.

Fran­cisco pulled open the door to the salón and walked through as Gabriel took a deep breath and fol­lowed him.

“Señores, I be­lieve you all know Don Gabriel, el Duque de Bencalor,” Fran­cisco said be­fore giv­ing a tiny bow and de­part­ing.

Gabriel strode for­ward, the heels of his wingtips loud on the stone floor be­fore he stepped onto the rug. He greeted el Duque de Narro first be­cause his was the old­est duke­dom, and he was the se­nior mem­ber of the del­e­ga­tion. For a brief mo­ment, Quinn flashed into his mind with her amused scorn for the starchy eti­quette of hered­i­tary no­bil­ity.

Oddly, that made it less te­dious to work his way through greet­ing the other four men, fin­ish­ing with the youngest, Ed­uardo, el Mar­qués de Riva. He and Riva had gone to the same school for a few years, al­though Ed­uardo was a year older than Gabriel. Riva was also el Duque de Narro’s son and heir. His bow to Gabriel teetered on the edge of too brief to be re­spect­ful.

“I did not know you were in­ter­ested in po­lit­i­cal af­fairs,” el mar­qués said. “Are you not a mu­si­cian?”

“I serve my un­cle in any way that he re­quires,” Gabriel re­sponded with a smooth smile, even as he winced in­wardly.

He made them stand for a minute longer to re­mind them that he out­ranked all of them de­spite his younger age. Then he waved to the two for­est green vel­vet so­fas that sat fac­ing each other. “Please, be com­fort­able,” he said as he seated him­self on the carved wooden chair po­si­tioned to com­mand the whole seat­ing area. Drag­ons graced its arms and legs, of course.

“We had hoped to speak with el Rey Luis,” Don Pe­dro, el Mar­qués de Huarte, be­gan. “But we are hon­ored by the at­ten­tion of a man of your stature.”

Now their dis­ap­point­ment was out in the open. Gabriel nod­ded with a small smile of false sym­pa­thy. “The king read your pro­posal with in­ter­est but is un­able to dis­cuss it with you at this time. Since I am a duke my­self, I may be bet­ter able to un­der­stand your con­cerns any­way.”

The skep­ti­cal ex­pres­sion on Don Pe­dro’s face showed that they weren’t go­ing to buy into his in­ter­ests align­ing with theirs. It had been worth a shot.

Gabriel con­tin­ued. “Of course Su Ma­jes­tad al­ways has the good of all Cal­eva fore­most in his mind, so tell me how your pro­posal will ben­e­fit our beloved coun­try.”

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