In the Time of Dragon Moon

  “Oweee!” Kip cried. Tears rolled down his pink cheeks. I looked at the red spot. It didn’t surprise me that the bee had stung his neck. Egrets are slender-necked, and necks are vulnerable in Egret Moon. But I was glad to see the swelling had already stopped. This wasn’t the kind of dangerous reaction little Melo had back in Devil’s Boot, just an ordinary sting.

  “Poor little Kip,” the queen crooned. “It must hurt terribly.”

  “He will be all right soon, Your Majesty,” Tabitha said. “You’re a brave boy, aren’t you, Kip?” Her little brother was still sobbing.

  Queen Adela flicked my shoulder. “Run and fetch an ointment for him, Uma.”

  She considered my medicines hers, and rarely shared them. A little surprised, I left the garden. In my chamber I unlocked Father’s trunk, thankful I had a key to protect the medicines inside. I still had no door key. Had Jackrun tried to bring it up last night while I was with the queen? I found the corked ointment jar and pulled it out. Kip wouldn’t need the breathing cure I’d used on Melo.

  I locked the trunk, remembering Melo’s soft cheek, still wet with tears as he sucked in breath after breath. Four males and one female had been born to the women who’d used my father’s medicine. Both sexes were needed to ensure our small tribe’s survival. The Adan had planned to treat more women with Kuyawan, hoping they would have girls. Now I used all our precious Kuyawan to help one woman—the one woman who’d ordered the army down to hold my people captive.

  It was deeply wrong.

  Kip was in the queen’s lap when I returned. He sniffed a little as he ate sweetmeats from her hand. “He looks much better already, Your Majesty.”

  Queen Adela smiled up at me, her face radiant with joy. I had never seen such a look from her before. This is what she has been missing, I thought. Her son is grown. It’s been years since she had her own child on her lap. I pulled the stopper from the jar.

  “Careful with him now, Uma,” she warned.

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” She watched like a doting mother as I salved the pinkish swollen spot on Kip’s neck.

  “Bee!” he said, whimpering.

  Queen Adela wrapped her arm around him. “It is all right, Kip. My physician will help that nasty sting go away. And when you are better, we will play catch again.”

  I joined Tabitha in the shade of a cherry tree. “Thank you for helping Kip,” she said.

  “It was my pleasure.” The queen is very taken with him, I thought to say before deciding not to. “Your chain of fire was beautiful last night.”

  She smiled. I was sad to see thick lace wrapped around her neck hiding her dragon scales.

  “You don’t need to wear that,” I said softly. Tabitha fingered it a moment, blushed, and dropped her hand. I wondered how long it would take for Desmond’s caustic remarks to fade, how long she would continue to keep her scales covered.

  “Have you seen Jackrun this morning?” I still needed that key.

  “He’s usually out fighting in the practice yard this time of the morning.”

  I nodded, liking the sound of that. “But,” she went on, “he left before dawn with Babak to invite the island fairies to the masked ball we are having in honor of the king’s visit tomorrow night. Do you dance?” she asked, giving a graceful swirl, her lavender skirts flaring out.

  “Not your courtly dances,” I admitted.

  “But others? Euit dances? Maybe you can teach me some?” I thought of our men in their impressive clothes and headdresses, of how proud Father looked as Mother helped him into his colorful costume for the ceremonies, the complicated Moon Dance steps our men did in the center of our circle, and the wilder courtship dances where our warriors truly shone.

  “The dances are very . . . bold.”

  “Good,” she said. I liked her for that.

  She gave me a smile I didn’t know how to receive. When I was small, I’d tried to play with the other girls. Their mothers tugged them away. Later those same mothers let me in their huts when I trailed behind my father. The women were warmer. Still, I’d wondered if their smiles were genuine or if they only welcomed me to please the Adan.

  • • •

  AN HOUR LATER I was peering through the iron grille of my tower window, watching Jackrun and Babak soar high above the earth. I traced the fox mark below my collarbone. Fox is an earth animal, and I am mostly earth, but a person needs to balance all four sacred elements to be whole. I needed more wind, more sky. I clutched the bars, and felt a deep tug inside watching the freedom Jackrun had every day of his life and likely took for granted. One day I would ride a dragon higher than this tower. Feel wings draw me up.

  I pulled off my slippers, unlatched the grillwork, swinging it open and hooking it to the wall. The narrow ledge outside the window was less than three feet wide. I studied it a moment, then threw my leg over the sill and climbed out.

  Laughter drifted up from the garden far below as I stood pressing my back against the rough stone wall. Falling from this height would kill me. But my feet were sure. I inched farther to the left so I could not be viewed by those in the garden below. Back in Devil’s Boot, I’d learned to scramble along the cliffs with Father to pick precious herbs caught in the cracks. These walls were stone as cliffs are stone, and the ledge was more generous than some of the dangerous places I’d explored. The river that ran along the back side of the castle into the dark forest beyond gleamed bright silver in the sun.

  “Uma?” A woman’s voice called from inside my tower room. I braced myself against the wall.

  “We were made to climb the steps for nothing,” another whined. “Where’s that healer got to?”

  Two female servants entering my herbarium without permission. I gritted my teeth.

  “You’ll have to go back downstairs and say we couldn’t find her.”

  “Not me, I won’t.”

  “Maybe she’ll be back. Look, there’s her shoes. She can’t have gone far barefoot.”

  “She might have another pair. Look how sandy they are!”

  I crept back toward the window.

  “Ou! It stinks in here!” Rustling sounds.

  “What do you suppose this is?”

  “Witch potions. Look now. This packet is full of dirt. You think she doses the queen with dirt?” They laughed.

  Do not touch my medicines! I pressed my back harder against the wall to keep from jumping in through the window.

  “You go look for the queen’s physician. I’ll stay here in case she comes back.”

  “Lazy slug!”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then I’ll stay.”

  “Stay with her smelly potions, then, and you can stink like an Euit.”

  There were more noises from within as if the two were struggling. Then the door slammed. Am I alone again? Have they both gone? I dared not go in through the window if one of them was still inside. I waited, then heard scraping noises in the tower room. The woman must be moving a chair. Was she about to stand on it and meddle with the herbs I’d hung from the rafters this morning? I peered in, saw her on the chair reaching up. Her back was to me.

  Leaping to the floor with a thump, I pulled her down, and covered her mouth to stopper her scream. The woman was three times my weight, short, and balding. Her mud-brown eyes were wide as she screamed into my hand.

  “You do not enter my room without asking. I am the queen’s physician. No one touches my medicines. Do you understand?”

  The woman nodded, her fat tears wetting my thumb. I did not like frightening her, but she was toying with herbs that could not be replaced without a three-week journey south on horseback all the way to Devil’s Boot once I was back on Wilde Island.

  “I will remove my hand if you promise not to scream.”

  Another nod.

  I released her and wiped my hand on a rag. “Now tell me why
you are here.”

  The woman sniffed. She held her chin up, trying to look down at me, but she was too short. “Prince Desmond wants to see you for his headache. I’ll never come back here,” she added. “No one can make me.” Her muddy eyes were all anger as she backed out the door. I saw her give the sign against the devil before she thudded down the steps.

  I closed my door again, huffing. I couldn’t ignore the royal request even if his headache was a fabrication to lure me to his room. The Adan-duxma said: Adans heal the wicked and the righteous alike. My father never lost his focus when he’d mixed the queen’s cures, despite her brutality. I needed the competence to mix this cure without bile rising in my throat, but I couldn’t calm myself.

  I set out my mother’s pinch pot bowl filled with water, my father’s leather pouch of sacred earth. Breathed in the light breeze whispering from the still open window, lit a candle, and leaned into the power of the four sacred elements for balance, hoping that would be enough.

  The small evicta seeds were night black in the pale onyx mortar. I’d used evicta for the queen’s pain, and once or twice to treat Bianca’s headaches back in Pendragon Castle. But the king’s guard hadn’t let Father use the painkiller on the spit boy with the severed hand. What was Prince Desmond’s trivial little headache compared to that boy’s wretched pain? I felt my anger boiling up again and glanced over the four elements for help. You can do this. A true Adan heals the wicked and the righteous alike.

  Head down, I chanted evicta’s name to release its potent power, crushing the small seeds with Father’s heavy stone pestle. The door opened and shut again with a thunk. I knew who it was before looking up.

  Too late to stop him. The prince was already in my herbarium.

  Chapter Ten

  Pendragon Summer Castle, Dragon’s Keep

  Egret Moon

  August 1210

  HOW LONG DOES it take to answer a summons?” he said, coming toward me.

  “I was only just told you have a headache, Your Royal Highness. I am mixing your medicine now.”

  He pressed up close to me at the table. “What is that stuff?”

  “Seeds that will cure your head pain,” I said, crushing them harder, wishing I could do to him what I was doing to the seeds.

  “I like it when you lean over like that.” He was eyeing my low-cut gown. I straightened up, quickly. The prince grabbed my wrist and removed the pestle from my hand. He dropped the pestle by the mortar with a thud, crushing me against the worktable. “Do you remember when I found you in Devil’s Boot, Uma?”

  My eyes were on his chin. I did not look up. “Yes, Your Highness.”

  “Your father made you dress like a boy. He worked you like a slave. I saved you from that.”

  Saved me? You abducted us!

  “I thought you would want to thank me for the favor,” he said, running his free hand up to my chin. He pinched my jaw, forced my head back, and pressed his thick lips against mine. I tasted the fried fish and ale he’d just downed for breakfast. I shouldn’t move. You do not cross the king’s son; still, I pushed him off.

  “You should know better than to push me away, Uma!”

  Thumping sounds came from the window behind us as something large flew past. The sound vanished as quickly as it had come.

  Think. Make some excuse. “Your Royal Highness, I cannot allow myself to be with you in that way.”

  “Why not? What’s the matter with you?”

  I was slowly inching back. “I cannot give myself to another.”

  He grabbed the stone pestle. “Come here or feel this on the back of your head.”

  I ran. He lunged at me, swinging the heavy pestle. I ducked, but not low enough. The stone pestle cracked against the side of my head. I reeled from the pain. He pushed me to the floor, straddled me, and held my arms down against the planks.

  “Well now,” he said, smiling. His dark hair fell about his plump face as he leered down. Head throbbing, I struggled under his bulk. Lights flitted around us. Don’t pass out! Breathe. I couldn’t suck in enough breath under his heavy weight. He shifted, uncoiling himself like a snake, and slid down, lying on top of me as if my body were his bed. I screamed. He clamped his hand over my mouth.

  I squirmed under him, tried to kick him off. He was too strong, too heavy. Grab the table leg, overturn it on him. My outstretched fingers were inches from it. I strained, desperate to reach it.

  The prince was breathing hard as he slid his cold hand up my leg and tugged at my small clothes. Thumping noises again. Babak’s head appeared just outside the window. On dragonback, Jackrun peered down at us and recoiled, seeing Desmond stretched on top of me with his hand over my mouth. He dove through the window, rolled to a stand, and loped toward us, agile as a mountain lion.

  “Get away from her!” He grabbed Desmond’s arms and pulled him off of me. I curled up on my side, clutched my stomach, and tried to catch my breath as they rolled on the floor, straining and grunting. There was a sickening smack as Desmond punched Jackrun in the mouth. They tumbled past me and rammed into the worktable, knocking it over. The stone mortar flew off and struck my neck. I gasped at the shock of pain as black seeds spilled around me. Mother’s water dish broke by my shoulder. The candle landed in the rushes, setting them alight.

  Desmond drew out his knife, slashed Jackrun’s upper arm. Jackrun screamed into his clamped teeth, forced Desmond on his side, roared fire behind his back.

  “Jackrun,” I shouted. He was about to set Prince Desmond’s hair and clothes on fire. Jackrun looked up.

  Sir Geoffrey burst into the room. “What’s this?” He pulled the two apart, stomped out the burning rushes with his boot, and picked up the broken candle. “You very nearly set the whole room on fire.”

  Shaking, I came to my feet, one hand on the overturned table for support, one hand on my swelling neck where the mortar had struck it, a worse pain than the lump already forming on my head.

  “I was protecting Uma,” Jackrun said, clutching his bleeding arm.

  “Protecting her from what?” Desmond said. “We were doing fine until you interfered.” Jackrun’s body went rigid. He swayed on his feet as if he was about to spring on Prince Desmond and throw him to the floor again.

  Desmond swung around on Sir Geoffrey. “And who sent you?” he asked, cleaning the blood from his knife on one of my linen cloths in three swift motions. “Did I call for your help?”

  “Your Royal Highness—”

  “I can handle my own battles, you meddlesome bastard. Breathe a word of this, and I’ll tell what I know about you, and you’ll be hanged for your own filthy sins!”

  Sir Geoffrey’s cheeks flushed dark.

  I glanced at Jackrun. Filthy sins? What did Prince Desmond know about Sir Geoffrey—enough to make him blush? The prince sheathed the knife and left.

  Jackrun kicked aside the blackened rushes. I was glad for the candle in Sir Geoffrey’s hand. The rising smoke from Jackrun’s fire was rank, but it told no tales.

  Jackrun’s lip was bleeding, but the slashed arm worried me more. “Your arm is badly cut.” I went to him.

  He drew back. “It’s nothing. It’s not deep.”

  Sir Geoffrey’s eyes moved from me to Jackrun. “How did this start?”

  Jackrun licked the red droplets from his split lip. “Desmond was . . . he was on top of her. He nearly—” His hand was on his dagger as he searched for words.

  Sir Geoffrey’s face hardened. He had caught me with Prince Desmond before. What was he thinking now? I felt too sick, too raw to explain, but the man glared at me. “I didn’t ask him to my room,” I said finally under my breath. “I was preparing a cure for Prince Desmond’s headache when he came up on his own. Please don’t tell Lady Olivia.”

  Sir Geoffrey nodded sternly toward the door. “Best for you to leave now, Jackrun.”

 
A shadow flicked across the room. Babak had circled the tower again to look inside.

  Jackrun said, “I’ll send a servant to help clean up this mess, Uma.”

  “No, please don’t , Jackrun.” I didn’t want anyone else up here. My heart felt like a wadded rag. I needed to be alone.

  Jackrun glanced back once as he headed for the stairs. His split lip was already beginning to swell. I saw the question in his look. Are you all right? I could still feel the wintery place where Prince Desmond had run his cold fingers up my leg. I answered with my eyes. You came just in time.

  • • •

  AS SOON AS they left, I shoved the wardrobe in front of the door, spat in the fireplace. Disgust still poisoned my mouth as I stripped off my gown to my small clothes and bathed every place Prince Desmond touched me, swiping my lips with the damp cloth to annihilate his kiss, and washing all the places he’d run his hand along my leg. I shuddered, remembering how close he’d come to overtaking me completely. Last, I bathed my injured head and the swollen place on my neck. The linen strip was pink with blood when I pulled it from my head. Every touch in those places made my flesh sting.

  I breathed against the throbbing in my head and neck. The Adan’s trunk had cures for my pain. There was still some evicta in an unopened pouch along with the seeds strewn across the floor during the fight. All I had to do was crush some, put it in my mouth with a little bit of honey.

  I shook, fighting the temptation. The Adan didn’t use the herbs on himself. The evicta was for my patients, not for me. I gathered the pieces of the broken bowl Mother made for me when I was thirteen, wanting her here. Needing her here. My eyes stung as I wrapped the broken bits, and tucked them in the trunk. I retrieved what evicta I could still use on the queen, every seed precious, and threw the burned rushes out the window.

  I changed into my other gown. The blue velvet matched Bianca’s eyes, not mine. The pearls adorning the neckline were pale as her skin. An English gown for an English maid.

  If I had married Ayo, I’d be wearing the long blouses and colorfully patterned woven skirts of an Euit woman. Would I have felt more at home in them than I did in Bianca’s gown after dressing as a boy so many years? I wrapped my dragon belt around my waist. The gown’s wide sleeves had bothered me when I’d tried to work; now they gave me an idea.