“Those uniforms are Feravelan,” I said. A sudden realisation struck me. “This is the border: they must think we’re Citatians. ”
There was a chorus of understanding “ahs”, and we decided that Shardas, Velika and I would go down under a white flag and explain. Marta blushingly gave up the hem of her white shift, which Shardas took from her with grave thanks.
We landed twenty yards from the archers and waited while their commander came over to us. I smiled at him in a friendly way, and introduced myself. I expected surprise and perhaps even recognition: “That Mistress Carlbrun?”
But I got neither. The commander bowed curtly and nodded his head without surprise. He knew who we were, he said, and he was there to enforce the Feravelan border.
“A very noble deed,” Shardas replied. “But are you supposed to be keeping out the Citatians or the Feravelans?”
“We are just trying to return to our homes,” Velika said. She sounded strained.
“Mistress Carlbrun and any other humans with you are free to return to their homes,” the commander said. “But no dragon will be allowed to cross the Feravelan border. Ever again. ”
He handed me a proclamation, signed and sealed by King Caxel, that said just that. All dragons had been banned from Feravel as of a week previously. The day that the war with Citatie had ended.
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“That sneaky little –”
Velika put a claw around my waist and squeezed gently to stop me from saying anything shocking about Caxel. The dragons bowed their heads in acquiescence, Velika heaved me on to her shoulder, and we flew up to meet the others.
“It’s happened, as I feared it might,” was all Shardas said. Marta looked confused, but the dragons groaned.
“What will we do now?” Feniul protectively grasped Ria’s foreclaws in his own. “Shardas, where can we go?”
The smallest of Gala’s hatchlings squeaked in fright, and Amacarin plucked it from the air and put it on his back, his eyes soft with concern.
“We’ll go to the King’s Seat and try to reason with Caxel,” Shardas said, but his voice didn’t hold out much hope.
We backtracked until we were out of the archers’ sight, then flew into Feravel as high up as the hatchlings could manage. This was tiring for the dragons and the humans, for the air was very thin and cold. It was dark by the time we reached the King’s Seat.
What shocked me almost as much as the order from Caxel was the dragons’ lack of surprise. It was all Marta and I could talk of.
“Come, Creel,” Velika said, listening in. “You are a clever girl. Surely you have seen the signs. ”
“Well,” I admitted, “there is Earl Sarryck. ” The earl had been campaigning for dragon extermination since we had met almost two years before. “But he’s just one man. ”
“One man who has the ear of one human king,” Velika said. “A human king whose kingdom was nearly destroyed by dragons. Twice. Even I can hardly blame him for his dislike of our race. ”
“But it was never the dragons’ fault!”
“True, but if we hadn’t been there to be controlled, would either war have come about?”
We travelled the rest of the way in silence.
The New Palace was aglow with torches and we could see archers on the roof. Shardas led the others to a large chapel nearby. He and I knew the flat roof well, and we hid behind the tall square bell towers.
“King Caxel does not have a great deal of faith in his border patrols, does he?” Shardas’s voice was dry.
“What are we going to do?” Marta was twisting her fingers in her loose curls.
“Why don’t we drop you off at the shop?” I put my arm around her. We were the same age, but sometimes I felt like my experiences had put me years ahead of her. “You can go about business as usual. Remember: only the dragons are banned. ”
“You can come home, too,” Marta reminded me. “But you’re not going to, are you?”
I shook my head.
She stepped away from my arm. “Then why do you think I’ll turn coward?”
“You know that’s not what I meant!”
“I know. ” She gave me a small smile. “But it’s what I meant. I’m staying until the bitter end. ”
“Very noble of both of you, but it won’t be necessary,” Shardas said. “It’s time that I had a talk with King Caxel, since my people do find themselves living in his lands. ”
“So you’re just going to walk up to the palace and knock on the doors, and expect them to not shoot you?” I folded my arms, looking stern.
“I’m going to take that chance, yes,” Shardas said.
I flicked a glance at Marta, who nodded. “They’ll be much less likely to shoot you if there are two human girls draped around your neck,” I told him.
For a long time Shardas and I just looked at each other. Then he looked at Marta, then at Velika, then back at me. He settled into a long coil to sleep.
“We’ll go at dawn,” he said as he closed his eyes. “Better not wake His Majesty too early. ”
A Meeting of Kings
A single arrow twanged down to shatter on the cobblestones to the left of Shardas. We heard shouting and scuffling, and I hoped that the archer responsible was being clouted on the head. Marta and I, in our finest riding clothes, stood out like peacocks against Shardas’s golden scales, so the man had to have known that we were there.
We were quickly surrounded: by archers, by guards with halberds, and by a crowd of bystanders. Marta waved at them as though she were in a parade, and a few waved back. There were even some cheers, and one man called out thanks to us for “giving them Citaties whut fer”. When the king’s steward finally made his way out the great front doors and down the steps to meet us, Shardas at last spoke.
“You may tell Caxel that I am come to treat with him on behalf of my people,” Shardas said.
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“His Majesty doesn’t, er, has sent me to say, that is …” the man hedged. He tugged at his livery and turned alternately pink and pale.
“You will tell King Caxel of Feravel that Shardas the Gold, king of the dragons, is here to speak with him,” Shardas said. “I shall wait in the Queen’s Gardens behind the palace. ”
Shardas leaped into the air, soared over the New Palace with hardly a flap of his wings, and settled on the fine lawn of the Queen’s Gardens. He inhaled deeply and so did I: the roses were in bloom and the air was heady with their perfume.
We could hear the scrambling of the guards as they ran over the roof of the palace to get into position on this side. Marta and I dared to slide down off Shardas’s neck, though. There had been too many people in that crowd who had smiled to see the dragon king. If Caxel had Shardas killed now, when it was known that he had come in peace to talk, the public could turn against the human king.
“Ladies, if you will please remove the silk covers from my wings,” Shardas said. “I prefer to meet this man as I am. ”
I winked at Shardas as I started to untie the cords. We had used blue silk to replace the panels that had been ruined during the battle. “And it doesn’t hurt to show off the scars you got ridding Caxel of the Roulaini and then the Citatians, does it?”
“No, Creel, it does not. ” He winked back.
The King of Feravel wisely did not keep the king of the dragons waiting. Caxel appeared only a short time later, his hair still a bit tousled from sleep, but wearing a finely embroidered tunic and polished boots. He was surrounded by a retinue of guards armed with halberds, and lackeys who brought him a chair – a throne, really – and a small table on which they laid a steaming pot of tea, one cup, and a plate of biscuits.
Looking over at Marta with my eyebrows raised, I had to suppress a giggle. An acid remark about how I would also like a cup of tea and a biscuit rested on my tongue but I pressed my lips together. Luka’s father was trying t
o gain the upper hand, which was understandable, but rather futile in the face of a determined dragon.
“Caxel of Feravel,” Shardas said, inclining his head. “I do not believe we’ve been properly introduced. I am called Shardas the Gold, and I am the ruler of all the dragons of this world. ”
Another giggle almost flew out of me at this. A giggle followed by a cheer. There was something so ridiculous about this meeting, about the idea of a human king trying to forbid a dragon from doing exactly as he pleased. And not just one dragon, but a whole flight of them. I also cheered silently for Shardas’s bold statement that he was king of all the dragons in the world. Marta brushed the back of my hand, and I saw that she, too, had shining eyes and an expression of repressed glee on her face.
“You can call yourself whatever you like,” Caxel barked. “But you’ll do it far away from my lands. ”
“Your lands?” Shardas shook his massive, horned head. “Dragons lived in these hills and caves long before there were humans here. Your family were farmers with aspirations of nobility when King Larios Stump-Tail held court in a hollow hill decorated with gems that your greedy eyes would burn to see. ” His great voice was grim but without malice.
“Dragons have brought nothing but death and chaos to Feravel since the time of my many-greats-grandfather, Milun the First,” Caxel roared back.
I gasped with shock. How dare he speak that name in front of Shardas?!
“Ask yourself this,” Shardas replied, perfectly cool. “Did the dragons bring the chaos, or was it humans attempting to meddle with dragons? To control us as though we were oxen? Left to our own, we do no harm to you or your people. ”
“What about the cattle stolen, the sheep and pigs?” Caxel was red in the face and looked near to apoplexy. One of his nervous servants came forward, fluttering, and offered him a handkerchief. Although his brow was beaded in sweat, Caxel waved it away. “Fields and orchards stripped, and the Triunity alone knows how many priceless treasures have been stolen to appease your strange attraction to luxury. ”
I found this rather rich, coming from a well-fed man wearing a robe embroidered with gold bullion and rings flashing with precious stones.
“What’s the good of the crown sending money to some poor priests to install a stained glass window, if you’re going to come along and prise it out of the frame a week later, hey?”
Shardas bowed his head, and I found myself gaping. I normally thought of King Caxel as a bit of a blusterer, proud and stubborn, but I hadn’t really thought of him as clever. I hadn’t known that he was aware of Shardas’s fondness for stained glass, let alone of the connection between Shardas and the window that had gone missing more than a year back.
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“You are a blight on this land,” Caxel went on in the face of Shardas’s silence. “You take and take, and give nothing in return but war. ”
By now Shardas’s head was so low that his nose nearly touched the grass in front of him. I reached out and put my hand on his scaly cheek. I tried summoning words – angry words, glib words, even profane words – but could think of nothing to take away what King Caxel had said, nothing to comfort Shardas.
Because, at least from the human perspective, what Caxel had said was true.
“My people want only to be left alone,” Shardas said at last, his voice low and solemn. “We have plans to raise our own crops and livestock, and perhaps to learn to create our own objects of beauty. ” He cleared his throat, a strange sound for a dragon, and raised his head a little. “Most of the items in our hoards are things that have been lost or abandoned or were given to us in the years before Milun the First. They were not stolen, but if it would make amends, we are prepared to donate them to the human public, that they might be put on view as Theoradus’s hoard has been. I know in the hoards of some of my friends there are tapestries of a style that is no longer made, and priceless antique books that may be of use to you. ”
“How noble of you to give back our own belongings,” Caxel sneered. “And how unsurprising that you claim not to be thieves. ”
Shardas tensed, and for a moment I thought he might attack Caxel, but in the end he only said again: “We want to be left alone. ”
“But you cannot be left alone,” said another voice, before King Caxel could gather himself.
Looking around, I saw Earl Sarryck, followed by Prince Miles and Lady Isla, coming up the path. They joined our little group, Miles and Isla bowing to both King Caxel and to Shardas.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Miles said to Shardas in his grave voice. “But I think part of my father’s problem is that you and your people are just so … big. ”
“Too big,” barked Sarryck. “Too big, too difficult to control, and far too dangerous. ”
The sound of that voice was enough to make my toes curl. I had been almost giddy at this meeting with King Caxel, because Caxel, for all his bullheadedness, could sometimes be made to see reason.
Earl Sarryck, on the other hand, was not a man who could be reasoned with.
“They oughtn’t to be controlled,” Lady Isla protested.
“Then what’s to be done with them?” Caxel asked. “I’ve no interest in an army of dragons, but who knows when another power-hungry alchemist will come along? Before you know it we’ll be in the middle of a Third Dragon War. ”
Sarryck nodded emphatically. “Just my thoughts, Your Majesty. ”
“Mine as well, Father,” Miles said, which made me frown at him. “But I mean this with all due respect, sir,” Miles hastened to add to Shardas. “I just mean that, human nature being what it is, I don’t think there’s any way to keep someone else from trying what Amalia and Krashath did. ”
“One day you will make a fine king,” Sarryck said appraisingly. He gave Shardas a nasty smile. “You’re not wanted here, beast. You have until sundown to leave Feravel, or we’ll begin shooting. All dragons within the borders of this nation are to be exterminated. ”
Recognising the wording of the proclamation we’d seen at the border, I realised who had probably dictated the orders to the king. I glared at Sarryck, willing him to shrivel up and die in the heat of my gaze, but he just glared back.
Miles was shaking his head, though. “That isn’t what I meant, Sarryck. We have no right to ‘exterminate’ thinking creatures. But as long as humans and dragons live cheek-by-jowl, there will be contention. I do think it wise that the dragons withdraw from Feravel, sir. ” He addressed Shardas respectfully. “Isn’t there some other place you could go? Somewhere far away from Feravel and Roulain and Citatie and our muddled politics? A land just for dragons?”
There was a long, long silence. Then Shardas raised his head and looked at King Caxel. Caxel looked away, but Sarryck continued to glare, challenging the gold dragon. Shardas didn’t return his look, but turned to Miles.
“One day you will be a good king,” Shardas said. He extended his foreleg so that Marta and I could scramble up on to his back. He spread his wings, laced with wounds from battles recent and past, and looked at Caxel again.
“My people shall withdraw. ”
He surged into the sky.
Unpicking Stitches
Something’s very, very wrong, Marta,” I said.
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Looking over my shoulder Marta tutted at my work. “Yes, something’s wrong. Those were supposed to be pansies, but they look like … Well, nothing. ”
I looked at the blobby shape I had embroidered into the hem of one of Lady Isla’s gowns. Upside down it might be taken for some sort of purple dog’s head, but Marta was right: it wasn’t a pansy. I picked up my little stitch-ripping knife and started to remove the stitches.
“You know that’s not what I meant, Marta,” I said as I worked.
She put down the bolt of silk she had been carrying and spread it out on the cutting table. “I know, Creel, it’s just that talking about
it will only drive you mad. We haven’t heard from Shardas, and that’s that. ”
If Marta hadn’t been pale and rather trembly when she said this, I would have been angry with her. But she cared about Shardas and the others, too, and was as worried as I was. She just didn’t want to talk about it, and I told myself that I should follow her example.
I tossed aside the gown I was working on and lurched to my feet. “Forgot something,” I muttered as I made my way out of our back room and up the stairs to the living quarters above our shop.
Nearly a month ago, after Shardas had agreed that his people would withdraw from Feravel, he had gathered up the other dragons and then taken me and Marta here, to our shop. Depositing us at the front door before an audience of terrified neighbours, he had thanked us for our help and told us not to worry, that he and Velika would keep in touch. Then they had all flown away.
In the weeks that followed, the news was ever more worrisome. The dragons had withdrawn not only from Feravel but also from Roulain and Citatie. I had received a letter from Luka detailing how Shardas and Velika had appeared at the palace in Pelletie, announced to the newly forming human government that their people were leaving, and flown away with the Citatian dragons in their wake. All of them – eggs and hatchlings too young to fly, carried in slings, and even females so close to laying their eggs that they could hardly waddle – had soared off towards the desert.
The basin of water in my bedchamber remained blank. I sent letters to Luka, begging for information, but he had no more to tell. I even wrote to King Rolian, who responded with a friendly letter telling how the same thing had happened there, but giving me no insight as to where the dragons were going.
My first letter to Rolian had opened a floodgate, however, and the Roulaini king had begun writing me other letters, rather admiring ones. Marta and Alle, our assistant, were teasing me about having a second royal suitor. But only halfheartedly, because they could see how upset I was.
Where had the dragons gone?
After checking the basin in my bedchamber without success, I went to my writing desk and penned another note to Luka. It had been two days since I had sent the last one, and I just couldn’t bear not to write. On top of my anxiety about Shardas and the others, I missed Luka rather badly. I wanted to talk to him about the dragons, and about other things. It had been so pleasant to stay in the cave in Citatie with him, joking over meals and sharing our concerns, and I missed those times. I was also curious about how things were going in Citatie. They had tracked down a cousin of Nason’s to sit on the throne, but Luka worried that “weak minds” seemed to be a family trait. At first I had been anxious to know if the new king would treat the dragons with kindness, but that seemed to be a moot point now.