Free Dragon Business, The by Kevin J. Anderson

about everything! You were screwed, Dalbry. They’re all corrupt—that’s why I never feel guilty about scamming them. They’re gullible. They’re fat, lazy.”
    “Not to mention vindictive,” Dalbry added. “I suppose you’re right.”
    “Now you’ve really got me interested,” Cullin said. “I know you once had your own fief, but you lost it. If Reeger can make up a story at the drop of a hat about a dragon eating your horse, why are you hesitating now?”
    “Because this is a true story, lad—therefore it’s harder to tell. It’s a tale of machinations and treachery, of how an innocent and good-hearted young man was cheated out of everything he owned.”
    “Ooh,” Cullin said. “I’m all ears.”

    Dalbry was raised as a lord and trained as a knight. From his early years, his father hammered into him a solid sense of honor—not that it did him any good in later life.
    Dalbry’s father was himself a great knight who had fought in six wars and earned just the right amount of praise and respect. When his leg was injured in a great battle and he had to hobble with a walking stick, Dalbry’s father was granted a permanent fief, a manageable domain with thick forests and arable land. He built a cozy castle—words that don’t usually go together. He married a pretty woman who made him happy, and they managed to make the castle into a home.
    Dalbry’s father planted an apricot orchard and tended it. Because the retired knight had a good heart and because the land was blessed, the apricot trees produced a wealth of fruit. All year long Lord Dalbry, his wife, his young son, their servants, and everyone else in his fief ate apricots and more apricots. They stuffed themselves on the fresh fruit before it spoiled, then they ate dried fruit and apricot jam, roast pig with apricots, apricot tarts, apricot bread spread with apricot chutney. Life was good. And the apricots made Lord Dalbry comfortably wealthy.
    The old man died when Dalbry was twelve. After all of the great battles he had survived, the monsters he had killed, and the villains he had slain with his sword, Lord Dalbry had succumbed to an infection in his finger after scratching himself on a rusty nail.
    Thus, young Dalbry found himself in charge of the fief, aided by a freelance regent who offered his services and presented a long scroll of references. In order to “streamline the leadership,” he suggested that Dalbry’s mother be sent to a nunnery, where she wouldn’t interfere with the regent’s advice; she was content enough to do so, for by now the very sight of apricots made her weep.
    Even at the age of twelve, Dalbry was proficient with a sword as well as his letters. His wise father had ingrained in him that a knight should help other people, show mercy whenever possible, and be generous. Though the fief was relatively small, as fiefs went, young Dalbry had not explored it all.
    One day, a bedraggled man came to the cozy castle, claiming that his small village on the far side of Dalbry’s fief had been devastated by a flood, the hovels washed away, the fields ruined, the livestock drowned. The village was in terrible shape and needed to rebuild, and the poor suffering people required help to survive the coming winter.
    Dalbry’s heart was torn by the anguish on the man’s face. The story struck him to the core.
    The freelance regent bent close to advise him. “My Lord, what these people need is money from the treasury. Gold will help them establish their homes, rebuild their paddocks, buy new livestock, and replant their fields. Think of the children!”
    Since he had been raised to think like a knight, Dalbry was generous to a fault. He requisitioned enough gold from the treasury to rebuild the village and sent the bedraggled man away with it. The man thanked him profusely, bowing and weeping. Dalbry thought he saw a glance pass between the freelance regent and the flood victim, but he thought nothing of it. At the time.
    As soon