Dragonswood

  All through the hurried tour, I thought of Garth. Could he hear our pounding feet overhead? With so many kitchens here, wouldn’t they give their prisoners more than stale bread or day-old porridge? Was he cold in his dark cell?

  Before a servant showed us our rooms, I spied one promising stone stairwell leading down to the castle underbelly. The sentry guarding the door gave me some small hope it might be the dungeon stair.

  At last our party broke up to be escorted to our separate rooms. Servants hefted my trunk into the solar I was to share with my lady’s maid, Aisling. The second-story window was on the back side of the castle overlooking the sea. We were high up, but not so high that I couldn’t hear the waves pounding the cliffs below. Door shut, Aisling heaved a sigh, then waved her hand, removing the glamour from my chin. Half fey like myself, she’d mastered glamour spells just as Tanya had. In the dull white window light she cupped my jaw. “It’s still swollen and bruised. With all your stitches showing, you’ll not be tempted to stray.” Saying this, she pulled a vial and sponge from her bag.

  “You would knock me out?” I asked, alarmed.

  “I would give you rest while we wait for your formal introduction to the prince. The pain keeps you awake, am I right?”

  “It does hurt, mistress. If you leave it here I will take a dose if I need to.”

  “Two drops at most, Tess,” she cautioned. “Onadon will have my head if you sleep through your first court occasion.”

  Due to my unsightly wound, Aisling did not see the need to lock the door. Her mistake. Once she was gone, I slipped outside and took the corridor for the dungeon stair.

  PART FOUR

  Human, Dragon, and Fairy

  Chapter Thirty-two

  IN THE SHADOWS, I decanted the sticky fluid, added three drops to the sponge just to be sure, then creeping up behind, clapped it over the sentry’s nose and mouth. I heard a grunt, felt his heavy weight fall against me as I lowered him into a seat by the stair. He slumped over, head and arms hanging down, but I had no time to straighten him.

  The turnkey below gave a muffled cry when I tiptoed behind him and shoved the damp sponge over his face. He fell hard against the wall, struggling before he went down. Saints. What would I have done without the potion? For the first time I was glad I’d cut my chin.

  Swiping the keys, I went down the hall, peering cell to cell. My heart pounded, thinking I would see Garth soon. I’d rehearsed my speech while I was still half drugged and in pain aboard the Malarkey. Words fled now. So far none of the prisoners down the first long hall proved to be Garth, but in the last cell round the second corner, I spied a man lying facedown in the straw. He was up against a shadowed wall. Too dark to see who it was, but he was the only prisoner left. It must be he.

  The fourth key opened the heavy timber door with a loud click. Praying under my breath, I looked about. A woman moaned from another cell in the corridor. A rat scuttled by. But no sound came from the turnkey. He still dreamed down the hall. I slipped inside, closing the door just enough to touch the wall behind me and no more, then went to the sleeping man all worried and whispering, “Garth? Is it you? Did they… hurt you?” Gently, I turned him over, cradling his head. A toothless old man squinted up at me.

  “Angel?” he said. His face was ravaged. Fleas played about his hair and beard. Yellowing curds seeped from the corners of his eyes. I was repulsed, but since the man was fevered, I carefully placed his head back on the straw.

  “I am no angel.”

  He pointed at my stitches. “Who cut you, dear?”

  He was far older than my grandfather, but his eyes sparkled like a boy’s. “No one, sir, I fell.”

  “Down Jacob’s ladder.” He spoke gibberish in his fever. I felt sorry for him, but I was in a hurry. Another castle guard might be downstairs at any moment, see the turnkey sleeping at his post, and discover the keys missing. I had only the potion sponge and my knife strapped to my belt to defend me.

  “I am looking for a friend. Garth or Bash, some call him.”

  “Bash,” he laughed, and coughed. “Clever dragons.”

  “Do you know where he is, old man?”

  “He came here. Then he didn’t. Do you have him?”

  “Have him?” Did he think I carried the man about in my pocket? “Is Bash in a cell somewhere?”

  “In a cell?” He looked surprised. “Sackmoore. Bastard.” He raised a shaking fist, coughed some more.

  “You said Bash came to visit you, so he was jailed here awhile. Where could they have taken him?”

  “Oh, high up.”

  “The tower, you mean? There are four in the castle and four in the guard wall. Which one has a cell?”

  “I come with you now, Angel.”

  Beelzebub! I couldn’t be encumbered with an old man when I had to reach the tower. Already he was sitting up on the straw, the muscles in his skinny arms twitching as he struggled to stand.

  “Sir, I cannot take you. I will try and come back for you if I can.”

  “I am Soothsayer Osric. Old Osric, they call me, but not much longer.” He laughed at his own joke, then wheezed from laughing. “Help me, Angel.” His hand was out. I took it. He trembled violently.

  Three breaths in and out, and he was gone, dead in my arms.

  I laid him on the straw and sat awhile, stunned. I was still in a daze and weeping when I locked the dead man in. Hitching the keys back onto the sleeping turnkey’s belt, I stumbled upstairs. God have mercy on the soothsayer’s soul. I wiped my hands on my gown, the feel of death too fresh on them. Near the topmost stair, I peered out. Two knights marched up to the sleeping sentry.

  “Will you look at the fellow?” He kicked the man’s boot.

  “Drunk on the job. Hey, Rufus!” The second knight shook him. “What a clodpole! Come on and take his other arm.” They dragged their friend down the hall. Another guard would be posted there soon enough. I slipped out the door while I had time, hurrying past a kitchen scullion with a dish tray littered with half-eaten food.

  Which tower held my thief? I darted up and down stairways, lurking in the dark and listening. I was about to approach the fourth set of spiraled steps. Around the corner I spied an armed guard at the base of the stairs.

  The door above was partway open. And I heard voices from within. I flattened myself against the wall and decanted five drops onto the sponge. He was a large man and would need full strength. I’m nearly out. If I’m wrong and this isn’t the right tower, I’ll have wasted these drops. Still, I crept up. The man was looking right at me. “Sir,” I whispered. “I’ve lost my way. Can you help me find my room?”

  “I cannot leave my post, mistress.” He was frowning at my stitches. My richly embroidered gown and rose-colored cloak told him I was nobility, but my swollen chin gave him pause.

  “Oh,” I said in a startled whisper, “is that a mouse there?”

  I pointed into the shadows. As he bent down to look, I shoved the sponge over his face. He was strong enough to fight the potion longer than the rest had; I barely managed to hold it to his nose and mouth. At last he crumpled to the floor and I eased him up against the wall by the bottom stair.

  Up the steps the door was ajar. Through the narrow door slit I saw Prince Arden with his arms crossed, frowning down at the prisoner on a low stool.

  Even from behind, I knew the seated man was Garth. I’d seen him in chair, saddle, and by a campfire. I’d known him running with his hounds, grooming his horses, leaning back to look at the stars from the branches of a pine tree, hunched with concentration whittling a doll, carrying Alice through a storm, and even sparring with a dragon. A woman will know a man from all sides after that.

  All these thoughts washed over me in a flood as I hovered at the door. The first chance I got, I had to make my move. The dusty tower was filled with player’s costumes and giant masks close to five feet tall. The kind players carried on poles. A straw-stuffed serpent hung from the rafters.

  Prince Arden leaned over
his prisoner. “Damnation! You know it goes against my mind. But as long as you insist on this, you’ll stay here in the tower.”

  He turned his back on Garth. I used the moment to dart inside and duck behind a black-horned devil’s mask leaning up against the wall. To my right, a giant mask of God stood by a tall wardrobe, his curly hair and shining beard made of gold-painted rope. I heaved a quiet breath and stuffed the sponge and potion vial back into my waist pouch.

  My hiding place was full of dusty cobwebs. I brushed them aside. Through the devil’s eye slits, I saw three candles burning in glass jars on the small table. Golden light glazed Garth’s face in profile. No torture marks, and his hands and feet aren’t bound. He could burst out the unlocked door and run if he had a mind to, though no doubt he assumed the guard downstairs was armed. He had no way of knowing the man was in a stupor.

  Garth sat silent and very still. Above him, Prince Arden loosened his collar. Telltale greenish dragon scales peeked out from under the cloth, evidence of his dragon’s blood passed down from Queen Rosalind. I gaped behind the mask.

  Where was the younger brother Prince Bion right now? The dragonlord thought Bion a better match for me. Not that I planned to follow through with his marriage plans any more than I planned to obey Onadon’s. Still, if the younger prince had agreed to have the fey party come here, why hadn’t he bothered to greet us in the courtyard?

  “So you refuse to confess what you know and choose the tower still?” the prince asked.

  Garth answered, “Where else should I go, Ardy?”

  Ardy? How forward Garth is to call our future king by a nickname! He jerked his head, indicating the door. “Shut the door completely that we might speak in private,” he said.

  Prince Arden’s clenched jaw mounded into two small, royal molehills. Storming past my mask and throwing back the door, which clanged against the wall, he shouted down the stairwell, “Get up, man, and stand guard as you ought. I’m closing the door. Do not let anyone disturb us!” The prince slammed the door, breathing heavily as if coming in from battle. Striding back, he slapped a leather costume sewn in the shape of a naked woman—an Eve costume, I guessed.

  On the stool, Garth sat strangely calm.

  Prince Arden took in some air at the barred window, then leaned his shoulders against the bars, the wind from without blowing his hair forward across his cheeks. He was as dark as Garth was sun-browned.

  “Say what you have to say now, brother. No one else is listening.”

  Brother? I pressed my hand over my mouth to suppress a cry, my cut chin stinging fiercely. Had I heard him right? Garth is Bion Pendragon? The thought dizzied me. I lowered my head to keep from blacking out.

  When I looked up again, the two men faced each other, one man in princely garb, the other in green.

  “I see you let a woman do your mending for a change,” Prince Arden remarked smugly, eyeing my needlework on the prisoner’s sleeve.

  “Never mind about that.” Garth rolled up the sleeve I’d fixed the stormy night in Margaretton. Something green and shining. My eyes fixed on his left arm, where dragon scales ran from just above his wrist to his elbow. In the candle glow the man’s scales seemed to move like rippling water.

  Seeing them, the full force of it hit me. I’d stayed with Prince Bion in the huntsman’s lodge—ridden Kingsway Road traveling as his wife! God’s teeth! How was I to conceive of it, understand it, swallow it?

  The brothers were close enough for me to notice similarities in their look and coloring. I knew now Garth, or rather Bion’s dark skin had none to do with too much sun as I’d once supposed, but was passed down from King Kye, whose mother was Persian.

  Prince Arden said, “Come on. Door’s shut like you asked. Tell me where you hid the stolen treasure.”

  Garth who is Bion sighed. “You cannot steal something that is already yours, Ardy.”

  “You know what I mean, Bash.”

  “I’ll return all of it as soon as you’re crowned.”

  “Now! I order you!”

  “When it’s safe.”

  “Safe from what?”

  “Sackmoore.”

  “He’s done his best to hold the kingdom together while I was gone. He doesn’t deserve your disloyalty.”

  “He deserves every bit of it,” said Bion. “Do you want to know why I hid our treasure?”

  “Of course I do.”

  I peered through the devil’s eyes, waiting. I already knew Bion hadn’t strictly broken the law, stealing treasure from his own strong room. Still, why had he done it?

  “I’m sure Sackmoore told you I stole it as a means to gain the king’s crown myself.”

  Arden was silent.

  Bion studied his face. “This isn’t England, brother. I’ve not been acting as rightful king while my older brother was away. King Richard the Lionheart has his hands full back at home with his younger brother, John, but you shouldn’t worry over me. I waited for your return. I’m glad you’ll be king here.”

  “So you say.”

  “I do say.”

  “Then why hide the treasure? Tell me that.”

  “I caught Sackmoore using our treasury to fund soldiers.”

  “The king’s regent had every right to pay our knights.”

  “Maybe, but was he supposed to raise his own army? One loyal only to himself?”

  “Rubbish.”

  “Nevertheless, I stole the treasure for you.”

  “For me?” Arden slapped Bion’s chest. “You always treated me like a lackwit. Now you ask me to believe you—”

  “Ardy, listen! Sackmoore’s been after the throne from the start, if not through battle, then through his daughter.”

  “You’re mad, Bash!”

  Bion saw the candles guttering. Crossing the room, he scooted the table with the jarred candles out of the wind. “Lord Sackmoore saw how it was between you and Lady Adela. All of us could see your growing affection.”

  I winced. Prince Arden and… the witch hunter were lovers? I’d had enough of a shock already learning Garth was Bion, now this. It was beyond me. How could anyone love that monstrous fiend?

  Prince Arden blushed at the mention of Adela. Even in the dim candlelight I saw his cheeks darken. “Make your point, brother.”

  “Lady Adela’s kidnapping was planned.”

  “What?”

  “Lord Sackmoore wants his daughter crowned.”

  Prince Arden snorted. “I can see that, Bion. I’m no fool.”

  “But you don’t know he hired cutthroats to abduct Lady Adela.”

  “That’s a lie. Witches abducted her. Everyone knows—”

  Bion put up his hand. “He paid cutthroats to take her, brother. He did it to break it off between you two. To assure his daughter’s place on the throne, he ordered them to maim Lady Adela’s face, destroy her beauty, so you’d find her repugnant and—”

  Prince Arden flew at Bion. Crashing to the floor, they rolled over and over, their hands about each other’s throats. I gasped as they tumbled toward me.

  “Take it back, you bastard!”

  “It’s true.”

  “Take it back!”

  “No.”

  Struggling, they rolled over again. God came crashing down on top of them. Bion bucked the mask off with his head. Sitting on Arden’s chest, he pressed his brother’s arms against the floor. Arden kicked up with his feet, overturning Bion. I saw his fist fly, heard the horrible crack as Arden punched Bion’s jaw.

  I bit my fingers to keep from screaming, my own jaw aching as if I’d been punched, so many memories of it, too many memories. It was all I could do not to leap out from behind the mask and stop the fight. Arden saved me from giving myself away by jumping up and staggering out, slamming the door behind him with a bang.

  “You’ll be back,” Bion said to the ceiling, feeling his sore jaw with his hand. Suddenly I too wanted to flee. To breathe and think and wonder and curse and think again, but before I could escape, keys rattled
outside the tower door.

  We were both locked inside.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  BION LAY MOTIONLESS a long while as if his brother still held him down. I stayed hidden, unsure of what to do next. It had been full dark a long time when he arose at last and went to the small table. Squatting on his haunches, he studied the flames in the glass jars, a worry line creasing his forehead. He reached into one of the jars and dipped three fingers in the pooling wax near the flame. Bringing hand to lips, he blew till the waxen fingertips hardened, turning white. A child’s game? One I used to play anyway when the blacksmith wasn’t looking. But there was more.

  Bion closed his eyes as if in prayer or thought, then peeled the wax from his fingers and cupped them in his hand. They rocked like tiny cradles on his open palm as he crossed to the window and gave a low whistle. He stood black against the blacker night, peering out as if studying the ocean stretching far beyond the castle cliffs, or as if he awaited something. Waiting, yes, waiting as it turned out, for a will-o’-the-wisp answered his whistle and flitted through the bars. Amazed I bit my tongue to keep from gasping and giving myself away. (Sharp pain that last time kept me from clamping my hand over mouth and stitched chin.)

  Bion held out his hand. “Take these to Onadon,” he said. The bright will-o’-the-wisp gathered them in her tiny arms, flitted about the tower room, then straight through the devil’s eyes.

  “Tess?” was all she said—all the tiny tattler had to say for me to be discovered.

  Prince Bion was over in a flash, pulling the heavy devil’s face aside. “Tess?”

  The wisp flew out the window with her prize while Bion stared at me, stumbling over his words. “What are you doing? How did you… Who cut your chin?” The last he said in anger as if he’d pound the one who’d cut me.

  “My lord.” I stood, covering the bottom half of my face and whispering into my hand. “I slipped and fell on the ice.”

  “It’s quite a war wound, but there’s no need to whisper. My brother has the guard stand at the base of the stars. There’s little room for a man-at-arms at the top of this stairwell.”