How happy the story was, how much we would love each other, how great was our power when the usurper Stephen was overthrown and Henry and I were crowned the rightful king and queen of England. Mother’s tale ended in the old song.
Lady, come ye over.
Over the sea.
And bring your heart with you.
And marry me.
I will be lonely and never be free.
Until you come over.
Over the sea.
Meek to her love, I took on her fairy-dream and followed Mother to the feast.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Demon Fire
AT SUNSET WE ARRIVED and were escorted to the beach. It was my intent to ignore the captain’s trophy as best I could, but as the fates would twist it, Mother wedged me between Lord Godrick and his son at the high table facing the shore.
All the tables, absconded from the castle for the occasion, were set in a half circle on the beach facing the dead beast. It was the wish of king and queen to hold a royal banquet within sight of the creature that had lorded over Wilde Island all these years. And the people loved them well for it.
Across the sea the sun dozed, unfurling crimson veils from sky to water. A pink wave washed up to touch the dragon carcass, and the damp wind blew the dragon’s death-stink to my table. I felt distemper in my liver, but neither the knights and their good ladies nor the villagers seemed to mind the fumes. All were making merry with the blackmanger, stuffed quail, suckling pigs, and wine. Cook had outdone herself, as if for a saint’s day feast. Every villager had his joy’s portion while the minstrels strolled about the tables strumming lutes and blowing pipes.
I watched Lady Parsons deftly attacking the quail on her tray. She cut the meat, her pale gloves moving swiftly as clouds in a high wind. Though hunger hollowed me after my long day of riding, I picked at my quail, nibbled on a wing, and ordered wine. The cupbearer filled my goblet. I downed it swift and held it out to him again. Sir Magnus nudged Mother, who looked hard on me. I ignored her, the wine flowing like a warming fire through my flesh.
The bonfires grew stronger with the coming of the dark. Trouble slipped away from me with the goodsomeness of wine. Thus, I had begun to reel upon the bench when Lord Godrick stood to give his speech.
“Good fellows,” he began, the claw at his side fairly touching my cheek. “I am a modest lord of some acquaintance with Empress Matilda.”
The crowd cheered.
“A man of ships and swords, and if it be known, a man who fought in the great Crusades.”
More cheering. I tried to lean away from Lord Godrick’s middle and ended nearly cheek to cheek with his son, Kye. Father smiled. I belched and blushed.
“. . . but never was a battle sweeter than when my son slit this monster here!”
Another shout from the people.
“No sooner had the dragon swooped down than I had my sword drawn. I scored blood, gashing her thigh, but she grabbed me in her cruel talons. Then Kye was to the demon’s heart and here!” He drew his sword, thrust it in the candlelight, and knocked over his goblet. “And here!” He thrust again. “He slashed her with his sword! You see the creature there?” He pointed to the dragon. “She’d measure longer than my vessel if you counted in her tail. I say she had me in her death-grip. My ribs were fairly crushed. I couldn’t breathe for the pain. The dragon’s teeth were dagger sharp, and when she opened her foul jaws I smelled her putrid breath.”
The miller stood and gave a cheer. I nearly swooned as Lord Godrick’s dragon’s claw dangled near my cheek, the black talon glinting in the fire.
“More wine!” I called, but the cupbearer was lost in reverie.
“That’s when my good son, Kye, shouted, ‘Meet your death!’ He slit the dragon’s throat.” Lord Godrick slashed the air with his sword. “And with a mighty gash he vanquished her!”
“Hooray!” shouted the villagers.
“My only regret,” said Lord Godrick, “is that Kye’s dear mother, whom I married while on crusade in Palestine, wasn’t here to see her son become a true dragonslayer!”
“Kye! Kye!” shouted the villagers. They clapped and called his name until he stood beside me.
“Show us the sword!” shouted the miller. Kye drew his weapon and waved it above his head. Father came to his feet and raised his goblet. “Let it be known,” he shouted above the crowd, “that this day in April will be Kye Godrick’s feast day here on Wilde Island, from now until the end of time!”
“Hear, hear!” shouted all. Horns and goblets were lifted to the heroes. I held mine up, though it was empty.
Kye sat again. His troubled eyes wandered along the dragon’s spine, where seagulls were now landing. “I bested it,” he said under his breath, “and now there are no more.”
I turned and looked at him. His dark face swam before me. His head was tipped, and I saw a kindness there about his eyes. I understood the words he spoke under his breath. It was good to have the fearsome dragon dead at last, but there was a sorrow in it, for there were no more dragons now, maybe no more in all the world. The dragon’s creature-time was over and they’d not be seen again.
The minstrels played their lutes. Kurt the jester strode out and did a little dance. He sang a knotty-pated tune and shook his bone rattle till all were laughing.
Sheb Kottle, brave with ale, and stumbling in his boots, wended his way down the beach. Spreading out his arms wide, he turned widdershins before the dragon. The village children joined him, arms outstretched and spinning. “She’s dead, she’s dead,” they chanted till they fell on their faces laughing.
Full of little more than wine and ready for bed, I stood and swayed, but Mother waved her gloved hand and bid me sit.
Now the children were up again, crowding near the dragon, playing their clapping game. “Bright fire. Dragon’s fire. Broken sword. One black talon ends the war!”
“Merlin’s prophecy,” said Kye beside me, but I’d known the rhyme only as a children’s game.
The children tossed sand on the carcass and completed the chant. “Turn them into mincemeat! Bake them in the flame! Cut them up! Spit them out! Start the war again!”
Kye looked vexed. “Why add those words?” he said. “They’re not a part of the prophecy.”
“Hush, son,” warned his father. “Let them have their fun.”
Sheb pushed the waifs aside, climbed upon a broad stone near the dragon’s mouth, and launched into a speech. “Sal Con-roy!” he shouted. “Went down the dragon’s throat when I was just a lad. And my dear mother with her.”
He wept and Keith the miller came to take him from the stone.
“No! Let me speak!” Sheb cried, pushing Keith away. “And in the next year, Cal the goatboy,” he called, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
I crossed my legs, uncrossed them, crossed them again, my belly churning.
“And Sir Harmond,” cried Sheb, “who rode out with his dragonslayers. Then Meg Dillon was et, and after that . . .”
I listened long as one by one Sheb listed those who had died in the dragon’s mouth. I’d seen those names on the Dragonstone. Sheb was nigh on sixty years old, and he had fair memory for a drunkard.
As Sheb went on with his blood-list, Brock the tanner ran up to the dragon and kicked her in the teeth. “This is for Coppersmith, et on Midsummer’s Eve!” he cried. “And this”—he kicked again—“is for Lord Broderick and his slayers!”
The villagers howled, but I bit my lip. Never had I seen such foul doings with a carcass.
Kye leaped up, shouting, “Get away from the beast!” I stood beside him, swaying, but Brock went on.
“Ah, see whose teeth are spoilt now?” cried Brock, leaning over the great head. “You’re nothing but a fat old turd, are ye,” he screamed, tugging on the skin ruffles that sprouted like two fans behind the dragon’s ears. “A crawly thing with curling claws!” he shouted. “And you stink like a privy!” Then Brock dropped his breeches and wagged his bottom at the beast.
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“Maynard the baker,” called Sheb. Just then the bare-bottomed Brock turned and pissed upon the carcass.
“Enough!” Kye rushed from the table, dove at Brock, and knocked him on his back. Quick he pulled up the simpkin’s breeches, saying loudly, “Think, man, there are ladies here!”
Brock reared up, howling like a cur, and boxed Kye’s ear. Now they rolled in the sand, the villagers laying money on the winner.
“Stop this, Father!” I called.
Lord Godrick laughed. “Never you mind. My boy will beat the lackwit flat!”
Kate the miller’s wife skirted Kye and Brock’s battle. Toddling down the beach, she danced about, poured beer over the dragon’s snout, and spat in her open eye. I cringed. Then Kate ran round and round the dragon, tossing seaweed over her head. “Ah,” she teased, “she needs a scarf!” Kate cleared a table with the help of other villagers, and pulled the cloth from it. The children twirled about singing, “Dragon’s dead! Dragon’s dead!” as Kate flung the tablecloth over the beast’s head.
This was beyond my heart. Kye was too entwined with Brock to intervene. I quit the feast and ran for the dragon.
“Rosalind!” called Mother as I lunged for the cloth.
“Come back!” shouted Father.
I had the corner of the tablecloth in my hand and was about to pull it off the she-dragon’s head when Sir Magnus marched down the beach and gripped my arm, ordering, “Back to your table!” I screamed and fought the mage but the cloth slipped from my grip and he forced me up the beach.
The villagers broke out in a merry brawl then, screaming and tossing their feast bones at one another across the tables. But if a war was to be fought, it was not ours to wage.
Sure as the sudden warmth of air I felt across my cheek and the red clouds unfurling in the night, another dragon came.
Thundering down like the riders of the apocalypse, the dragon tore from the sky, roaring fire. It lit the town and trees behind us and encircled us with towering flames on all three sides.
People screamed and leaped up, overturning tables, platters and goblets crashing down. Some townsfolk ran toward the wall of fire, others toward the sea, but all were pressed back by water or flames.
Sir Magnus left me on the beach, where I stood rooted to the ground as a sapling until Kye took my arm, dragged me to an overturned table, and pulled me down behind. There we hid, the air above us churning with the mighty dragon’s wings and the flames behind burning maple trees and cottages.
“Stay down.” Kye put a protective arm around me.
I drew close to him and felt his strength. “Tell your father to hide the claw,” I whispered. “If the dragon should smell it on him . . .” Kye called to Lord Godrick, who pitched his claw behind us. It landed in the wall of fire.
The great golden-breasted dragon swooped low. Catching the tablecloth in his sharp talons, he pulled it from the she-dragon’s head and tossed it to the sand. Then landing beside the body, the dragon brushed the seaweed from her face, and with his bright red tongue, kissed her.
“Her mate!” whispered Kye in awe. “And here I thought there were no more dragons in the world.”
The beast lifted his great head and let out a cry to deafen Heaven. “Charsha!” he roared. I covered my ears, but the roar rattled my skull and shook my bones. Kye tightened his hold on me. I leaned in close to him as the dragon howled his beloved’s name.
Blue fire spilled from the beast’s jaws and rose in great silken sheets to the stars. Villagers joined him in his screaming, the fear of their own impending deaths sharpening their voices to a painful pitch.
I felt the fire at my back and saw the color of it reflected in the sea. All was fire and fury, till the dragon ceased his cry. Then raising his great foreclaw, he gashed his lady’s belly open.
My breath caught in my throat and Mother screamed as five eggs tumbled to the sand. Each egg was large enough for a child to curl up in. And all were blue-speckled as a robin’s lay. My gut twisted as the she-dragon’s blood pooled round the eggs.
It was half dark when I’d collided with the shell in Demetra’s cave, but I knew by the size and color that the eggs on the sand were the very image of the egg Mother had sucked to spark her barren womb. Behind the tables where we hid, our eyes met. The truth of what she’d done showed in her stricken glance. How the world tumbled over inside me then.
While the dragon was occupied with his eggs, some villagers dared stand and look about for an opening in the wall of fire. The beast roared, “Be still!” His voice was loud and grinding as a millstone, and they scurried behind the tables again.
Children about me whimpered, and the women moaned as the dragon gathered his eggs and laid them on the tablecloth. With clumsy claws he knotted the cloth about the eggs. I saw how tenderly he covered them, like a father to his babe’s bunting.
Grasping the knot, the dragon lifted his brood, flew them to Sam Denkle’s fishing boat, and laid them in the rocking vessel. Waves pounded on the shore, fire blazed behind, but all else went still as the dragon pulled the boat away from the docks and dropped the anchor in the sea.
Back he flew to lift the she-dragon, and as he did so, Kye brought his lips to my ear. “He came for her,” he whispered. “As a man would for his lady.”
I shivered.
One foreclaw round her throat and the other on her forearm, the dragon pumped his wings to lift his lady’s corpse. But his mate was the size of him, and the work of his wings could not lift her.
As the dragon struggled to take her, a passel of villagers raced for the harbor boats to make a swift escape. The beast turned from his labors and shot out flames, lighting the docks afire. The villagers screamed as the fire spread to the fishing boats and to the larger vessels. Townsfolk scattered this way and that, while on the sea the flames hissed, sending up great clouds of steam as they touched the water.
Grunting with effort, the dragon tried again to lift his lady. He beat his wings, straining against her weight. Then dropping her, he raised his head and roared.
He set his lover’s form on fire. Her flames rose up yellow as the daffodils dancing in the wind. Kye’s face glowed with the shining as his eyes took in the sight.
Long did she burn, and long did her mate watch as the wind swirled around, lifting the flames higher. Smoke tumbled in waves above the dragon’s head, blanketing the stars. The sharp smell filled my nostrils. The dragon stood completely still till her very bones tumbled in upon themselves. Then slow, he turned to us.
In his splendor he was large as Lord Godrick’s vessel fore to aft, which was now ablaze in the harbor. Standing on legs the broad of oak trees, he stepped toward us. Caught between the fire and the shore, we were sure to be the dragon’s meat.
The great beast thrust out his foreclaw and one by one knocked those still standing by the tables facedown onto the sand. They fell like threshed wheat to the sickle.
He towered over us, snout twitching and nostrils smoking; his blue-green scales glinted in the light of the bonfire. Some villagers in complete despair raced down to the water, and plunged in.
The dragon let them go, knowing they would drown. Leaning over, he swished his tail and growled, “Wretched crawling things! Snoutless brood of beasts! Flat-toothed limp-limbed vermin. Lacking talons, you sharpen swords to do your killing! Bereft of your own fire, you stoop to use a tinderbox!” He breathed flames over our backs till I thought my gown would catch fire. “Who saved your wretched race?” he roared. “And what have you given us but war?” He flashed out a claw and drew Brock high above our heads. Tearing off his shirt as Cook would pluck a goose, the dragon set him alight and ate him.
Brock’s wife howled, and I bit my wrist to keep from screaming. The dragon licked his jowls, pacing back and forth as we lay like scattered leaves at his feet.
Across the shore a fierce wind blew, stripping the cloth from the dragon eggs. Waves pounded the shore. One washed over Sam Denkle’s boat and swept an egg to sea.
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nbsp; “The eggs!” I screamed.
Spewing fire, the dragon flew to the little fishing vessel. He plunged his legs in the black water and skimmed along the surface, all the while screaming to the pitch of the storm. Then flying up, he checked his dripping claws. Empty.
With a final roar he flew toward us again and set the last of our harbor ships alight. Kye gripped me harder as we watched his father’s vessel burn.
Soaring over us one last time, the dragon’s great wings pumped a fierce hot wind across our backs. Then he sped out to sea, and pulled up the boat’s anchor. Lashing the rope about his leg, he flew above the black water, towing his eggs homeward to Dragon’s Keep.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Shell
HALF OF DENTSMORE was destroyed and most all the boats in her harbor, including Lord Godrick’s ship. Four castle knights were dead, as was the tanner, Brock. Seven more were drowned from seeking safety in the sea, so twelve were dead in all. More surely would have died if the dragon hadn’t left to save his eggs from the storm.
Others were injured, with broken bones and burns. The villagers buried the dead, then after a goodly time of mourning, they began to rebuild their cottages and fishing boats.
None blamed Kye or his father for the attack. For years we’d thought there was only one dragon flying hither and thither over Wilde Island, coming down to snatch the sheep or sup on villagers. It may be the knights who sailed to Dragon’s Keep had seen the both of them, but they died before they could tell us there were two.
After the killing of the female and her burning to a bony ash, there was but one dragon now to be sure, but he tended four speckled eggs.
Cook said, “Ye’d best pray the boat was tipped over and all four eggs spilt in the sea.” She worried her apron with her hands. “It’s our only hope for a bit of peace in future,” she said.