In the Time of Dragon Moon

  Babak flew up, folded his wings, and dove snout first into the bay with a splash. My jaw dropped. The dragons I knew never let themselves get wet. They could barely tolerate the rain, yet here was Babak diving, bathing. Letting his wings get wet.

  I hugged my knees to my chest, watching two creatures of fire reveling in water. I am more earth element than water, but both played a part in my making. Father hadn’t meant to take a young English wife. The Adan should be celibate. The elders had tried to banish my mother when she first came to our village, but he had fought for her. Water brought them together.

  Mother and Father had gone out to wash in the river the morning after they met saving the life of a mother and her newborn twins. My mother was a practicing midwife back then, a woman with fiery red hair and freckles and strong opinions. She and the Adan had spent a long night of struggle and prayer over the laboring woman. Turning the babies gently; working carefully with the mother hour by hour. They were exhilarated when the twins were born alive and healthy. Delirious with joy, wonder, and weary beyond words, they walked down to the river. That summer morning, they joined together in the water and conceived me.

  Babak lifted Jackrun from the sea, not on his back, but with his claws. He flew up, ten feet, fifteen, then dropped Jackrun with a splash. I smiled, hearing Jackrun’s distant laughter when he surfaced. Tomorrow my work would begin again. Just for now, I would steal my hour of freedom as they were stealing theirs.

  • • •

  THE NEXT DAY, Lady Tess led five of us on horses through the forest toward Lake Eetha, with her youngest child, Kip, strapped securely to her front. In our party were Juliana, the girl with the mermaid costume who had danced with Jackrun at the ball, Queen Adela and Lady Olivia, one of Lady Tess’s friends, a fey woman named Kaprecha, who had decided to join us at the last moment, and myself.

  The queen looked jubilant. Lady Olivia told me the king had gone to her bedchamber last night.

  “Race you, Lady O.,” Queen Adela said with glowing cheeks. They galloped for the next tree-topped hill.

  I wasn’t about to let Her Majesty take a fall. I raced after them, my healer’s basket full of ointments, bandages, and suture supplies thumping against my spine. The others cantered behind us. I could not quite catch up with the queen, who laughed when she reached the top, winning the race with ease. She sat sure and commanding in the saddle when I pulled up next to her, my horse shaking her brown mane. No one had told me what a fine horsewoman she was.

  Lady Tess took the lead again, guiding us through the whispering beeches. The woods were not as lush or as thickly overgrown as my forests back home. I missed the rich soil so riotous with life. We’d tamed small portions of the wild land to grow food, but the untouched places always thrilled me. Mother was the same; she’d explored the woods with Father when she could. The day she showed the Adan an herb she’d used in midwifery, he’d gathered it. Later he drew the contours of the leaves and wrote about it in his Herbal as she looked on. I felt a tug in my chest.

  I could not let Her Majesty see me cry. I slowed my chestnut to be alone. The fey woman, Kaprecha, fell back with her charger and joined me.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.” I swiped my eyes.

  “You were the water lily last night, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Kaprecha swished her long black hair, sparkles flying out in all directions. Mine was a similar shade, but I could swish for the rest of my life and never send a single sparkle flying.

  “The costume suited you.”

  I’d liked it too, but it belonged to the fey. I had to give it back. It wasn’t meant for a life of daily work such as mine. It was made for dancing.

  “Water lilies span two worlds,” she said mysteriously. “They need the earth and a watery pool to grow.”

  What did she mean by that?

  “You spent time with the fox,” she added playfully. “I saw you dancing.”

  I’d stepped on Jackrun’s feet more than once. “I do not know how to dance very well, my lady.”

  “Call me Kaprecha, Uma. I will teach you,” she offered.

  “I doubt I’ll have the time to learn, but thank you.”

  “The queen keeps you busy,” she said in a hushed voice. “Your people and mine have a long history, sharing the islands peacefully together well before the English came.” Again she kept her voice low so the riders up ahead would not hear her.

  I dropped back further still and said nothing to Kaprecha, who was looking to gossip behind the queen’s back. She fell back again alongside me.

  The alliance she spoke of was long ago. The fey had come to terms with the English in their own way. Dragonswood refuge was protected. We weren’t as lucky.

  “You had a name for us in your tongue. Ateeyadain?”

  “Ateeyudune—the magical ones.”

  “Yes, that’s it. We stood together when the prince kicked one of our children. A despicable act. I heard you gasp. You also took offense.”

  I gave a careful nod. So this was Butterfly Woman. The one who’d hissed.

  “He was cruel, unthinking,” Kaprecha whispered, running her long fingers through her horse’s mane. Three will-o’-the-wisps flitted down from the trees like bits of sparkling sunlight, and landed on Kaprecha’s shoulders. “We were proud of how Jackrun handled the situation,” she went on. “The Son of the Prophecy was born to rule.” Kaprecha eyed me sideways, waiting to see my reaction. Even the wisps turned their tiny heads.

  What was I supposed to say? That he would make a better, more just king than Desmond? Of course he would, but Kaprecha must know it was treasonous to say such a thing aloud. The fey might have plotted years ago for Lady Tess to marry Arden, but she’d made her choice and it was done. The Son of the Prophecy was born a duke’s son, not the king’s. Jackrun was powerful in his own right and had his own life to live without the fairies’ interference.

  I did not even dare to nod at her remark this time. I kept my chin in the air, my eyes fixed ahead of us. Juliana laughed at something Queen Adela said. I’d thought her dangerous last night in her sea woman’s costume. I heard something else now; the liquid laugh of innocence, of a woman yet untried.

  “Lady Tess will see that girl weds Jackrun if she has her way,” Kaprecha said.

  The watery girl would drench his fire. “She is completely wrong for him,” I blurted in a half whisper.

  Kaprecha’s brows shot up. “Do you think so?” she asked coyly.

  I watched the horses on the trail ahead, hoping Kaprecha would leave me in peace if I ignored her.

  “Look,” she said, pointing up through the branches. At first I didn’t see what she was pointing at. Then graceful winged movements caught my eye. Our party entered a small meadow. The will-o’-the-wisps vanished, flying back into the wood. By the time we reined our horses in, Jackrun and Babak had winged much farther south. Babak sped over the distant forest, his tail undulating in the air.

  “Jacken! Jacken!” Kip cried, waving his small hands and bouncing up and down. Lady Tess held him in the saddle in case he wriggled out of his straps. Jackrun was much too far away to hear his little brother’s cry.

  “Where is Jackrun going?” Queen Adela asked.

  “To settle a land dispute down south,” Lady Tess said. “My husband cannot be everywhere at once. More and more he relies on Jackrun’s negotiation skills in these matters.”

  Queen Adela turned in her saddle. “You should make people come to you with their troubles, as my husband does.”

  Lady Tess said, “Not everyone has the freedom or the means to travel, Your Majesty. Jackrun can reach them quickly on Babak. Besides, he likes settling disputes. He’s quite good at it,” she added proudly.

  “Really? He used to have a terrible temper when he was a boy.”

  “He was nine years old o
n your last visit, Your Majesty,” the duchess said tersely.

  Queen Adela leaned out and tickled Kip. “You don’t have a bad temper, do you, Kip? You are my little sweetmeat.”

  Kip giggled and squirmed. I dropped my eyes and rubbed my mare’s neck. An infertile woman can attach herself to another woman’s child, dreaming it is her own. Her Majesty was growing fond of Tess’s little boy, perhaps too fond. It was good we were leaving in a few days.

  We trotted across the meadow, the horse hooves crushing all too many wildflowers. Queen Adela rode on the duchess’s left, in the mood for a merry argument. “Jackrun should not be flying off just now,” she said. “I expect him to spend time with my son the prince while we are here.”

  Lady Tess took a moment to answer. “You are right, Your Majesty. The cousins should spend time together. They are the next generation of Pendragons to rule these islands when we are gone.”

  “King Arden reigns over both islands,” corrected Queen Adela. “Your husband does not rule Dragon’s Keep, he merely oversees the property for my husband.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty.” Lady Tess looked like she would relish knocking Adela from her horse, fighting it out. Part of me wished she had the freedom to do it. But she reined her temper in, shot arrows with her eyes, and controlled her tongue.

  “You should arrange an outing of some sort for the cousins while we are here,” Queen Adela said, egging Lady Tess on.

  “An outing,” Lady Tess echoed noncommittally.

  Lady Olivia and Juliana bent their heads toward the others. Kaprecha urged her stallion forward to join the conversation. I held back, catching the hint of honeysuckle in the soft breeze. The glassy air had turned the deep summer blue of Her Majesty’s eyes.

  No dragons flew above. Babak and his rider had long since vanished. No doubt Jackrun had grabbed the chance to put distance between himself and his cousin. The longer he stayed away, the better for them both. If these women had seen the two of them battling in my tower room, they would have known better than to force them on some cousinly outing.

  I felt uneasy for the rest of the ride. My chestnut tossed her mane and pricked her ears, sensing my mood. I spoke softly to reassure her and calm myself at the same time. It didn’t work.

  • • •

  LATE IN THE day I walked with Her Majesty in the walled garden. She bent to sniff a pink rose. “The king will visit me again tonight,” she said with confidence. “Bring my potion up promptly after dinner.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  “That’s Your Majesty,” she corrected. After all the months under Lady Olivia’s tutelage, I was still getting things wrong. Her cheeks were flushed from our long day’s ride, but she didn’t seem at all tired. Pippin raced ahead of us barking, starlings flitted up from the bushes. Queen Adela laughed. “Such a mighty hunter, Pippin!” He wagged his tail and raced back to us, tongue lolling out the side of his little mouth. “That’s my little boy.”

  I drank in the colorful plants, the bushes’ fragrant summer breeze, grateful for Her Majesty’s calm. I’d feared journeying to Dragon’s Keep would worsen her health. I had to admit now, I’d been wrong. The trip had done her nothing but good.

  A couple headed toward us from across the garden. Griffin and Tabitha walking very close together, though not arm in arm. Griffin bowed. Tabitha curtsied. “Your Majesty,” they said in unison. Queen Adela nodded and passed them by, heading for the fountain. “Do you have a lover back home?” she asked.

  “A . . . lover? No, Your Majesty.”

  She raised a brow. “Pity. You are young. It’s good to find love in your youth.” My cheeks grew hot, thinking of Jackrun. “I met King Arden when I was just fifteen. It was high summer, the most beautiful season. The days lasted forever. He taught me how to ride.”

  “You are a fine horsewoman, Your Majesty.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I am.” We stopped to admire the fountain. A butterfly landed on the queen’s sleeve, its patterned monarch wings a tiny version of Kaprecha’s costume at the fairy ball. We both stood very still, watching the tiny bit of life resting on her arm.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Pendragon Summer Castle, Dragon’s Keep

  Egret Moon

  August 1210

  THE QUEEN WAS in good spirits again the next day when I brought in her morning tonic. She drank it to the dregs, gazing out the window at the bright summer morning alongside Lady Olivia. I saw how Her Majesty’s storms had settled, how her mood matched the weather. The bapeeta was working, but that wasn’t all. King Arden had visited her bed two nights in a row. The soft glow coming off her skin made her seem years younger.

  “That will be all, Uma,” she said, indicating the door.

  Lady Olivia eyed me critically as I curtsied in the fashion she’d taught me and backed out of the room.

  Late in the day I heard Jackrun was back from his journey south. I searched the halls, hoping to run into him, and spied him at last in the weapons yard. He fought a bow-legged soldier twice his age, though not as muscled. Both men swung maces, fending off spiked blows with battered shields. Soldiers shouted, hurling cheers and insults in the sweaty, dusty side yard.

  The man nearest to me said, “What is it you want, miss?” I was the only woman there. I left.

  • • •

  THAT EVENING I opened the trapdoor that led to the tower roof above my room. The wide round space with crenellated walls gave me the privacy I needed. I should perform the Moon Dance on Egret Moon’s death night, but I would be too busy helping the queen pack tomorrow. I would have to do it now.

  Turning slowly in my bare feet, arms raised, I greeted the four directions beginning with the sea in the east, the rolling hills along the coastline north and south, and ending with the forested mountain where the dying Egret Moon had fallen in the west. We danced to honor the moon and, some believed, to appease it. There were more deaths at the end of a moon’s cycle than at any other time. Father had never told me why that was, but I had seen it myself in my village. Urette, the youth who worked with Father for a short time, died on the last night of Egret Moon when necks are the most vulnerable; a viper sank its fangs in his neck. And even here among the English it held true. Someone killed the lute player on Murderous Moon, the night Snake Moon died.

  When I turned again, facing the sea, the duke’s sentries had come out to light the torches along the distant curtain wall surrounding the castle grounds. I was jealous of their fire. Up here I couldn’t build the customary bonfire for my dance. Even lighting a torch would draw the watchmen’s eyes, so I had to make do with a candle for the element of fire. I unpacked the pouch of earth from Devil’s Boot, the water bowl I used now that my mother’s bowl was broken. Last, I raised the feather Jackrun brought me for the element of wind, and moved my feet to dance the death of Egret Moon, singing softly in the tongue I missed so much.

  I longed to hear the men and women of my Euit family singing with me. Most of all I wanted to hear Father’s deep voice and Mother’s lilting one. But only the wind sang with me as I moved. The distant sea roared. Later the wolves joined in, howling hungrily for their Moon Month to begin.

  I was still chanting softly, pressing the egret feather against my neck as Father used to do while I orbited the candle, when I heard a door shut and voices after that. I ducked behind a crenellation in the tower wall. Jackrun and Tabitha had come out of the eastern tower, taking the high walkway that linked the towers ten feet below me. I blew out my candle and was about to gather the rest of my sacred objects before Jackrun and Tabitha wandered up and caught me doing things I would rather not explain to any English, when I checked again and saw they were leaning against the wall looking beyond the torchlit curtain wall and out to sea. I stayed where I was, breathing hard, pressing myself against the cold stone and peering down through the open space between the crenellations.

  Torch
light pooled around Tabitha and Jackrun, she in her cloak, and he in a mud-streaked leather jerkin, his rolled-up sleeves exposing the dragon scales on his right arm. He had freed his hair from its usual leather strap. The side breeze blew it across his face as he looked out.

  Tabitha said, “Juliana left earlier than planned. What happened?”

  “Not sure,” Jackrun said.

  “You don’t know why?”

  “I can’t pretend to understand women, Tabby.”

  “I think she didn’t like the attention you were giving Uma at the ball.”

  “I can dance with whomever I please.”

  I gripped my elbows, liking the sound of that.

  “Is that what you said to Juliana?”

  Jackrun drummed the top of the wall. “I’m not a complete clod, little sister.”

  Tabitha laughed aloud. Her laughter carried far enough to alert one of the sentries on the outer curtain wall, who turned and waved at her. She waved back and was quiet for a while, then said, “I thought Juliana would be with us on tomorrow’s picnic. Now I’ll be the only female there.”

  “Does that bother you?”

  “It wouldn’t if he weren’t coming.”

  “He’s the point. It’s all diplomacy. Mother and Father want the family to get along.”

  Tabitha reached up and covered her scales, rubbing them a little as if her neck were sore.

  “Don’t let what Desmond said shame you, Tabby. You’re stronger than that. He has two scale patches himself; one on his arm, the other on his ass.”

  She laughed again, a sadder sound this time, and slowly lowered her hand.

  “Point to his buttocks if he mentions your scales tomorrow,” Jackrun said. “That will shut him up.” I smiled from my hiding place.

  “How do you know about Desmond’s scale patch there?” Tabitha asked. I wondered that myself.