In the Time of Dragon Moon

  I strapped the leather sheath of my father’s herbing knife to my upper arm. The bell-shaped sleeves hid it well. Prince Desmond would never touch me again. The weight of the knife handle, the sharpness of the blade would keep me company from now on.

  My stomach was queasy, sick from the fight, raw with hunger. No one had bothered to tell me where I was supposed to dine while we were here on Dragon’s Keep, if I was expected to eat in the Great Hall, or in the kitchen with the servants as I often did back on Wilde Island. I headed down the stairs.

  Two servants bearing trays full of dishes stopped to gawk at me in the hallway on their way to the kitchen. I paused outside the kitchen door, unsure now if I should go in. Jackrun came around the corner, heading back toward my herbarium stairs.

  He’d thrown a chain mail vest over his tunic, strapped a sword to his side. Fighting gear. Was he going to challenge the prince? He peered down at my bruised neck. “Did he do that to you?” he whispered fiercely. “I could smash him flat.”

  “No. The mortar struck me there when the table fell.”

  He tilted his head and brushed his fingers across my neck, gently tracing them under the swollen place. I held my breath until he dropped his hand again.

  “I came by last night with the key,” he whispered.

  My heart pounded in my ears, nearly drumming his whispers away. “I thought you might have. I was called to the queen’s room.”

  “So we missed each other.” He stepped back, his hand strangling the sword hilt. “Now you’ve been hurt because of me.”

  “Not because of you.” My eyes stung. Leave now, I told myself, before you burst into tears in front of him.

  “If I’d known that bastard was after you, I’d have—” He snapped his mouth shut as a scullery maid came out the kitchen door. We both tensed until she passed us, water sloshing in her washbucket.

  “This isn’t the place to talk,” he said. His eyes were piercing as he drew close to me again. Hearing footsteps, he glanced back.

  “Are you ready?” a red-haired man of an age to Jackrun asked, hurrying up to us. He smiled and bowed. “I’m Griffin. You must be the lovely queen’s physician.” He took my hand and kissed it. His scabbard clanked against his chain mail vest as he bowed.

  Flustered, I drew my hand away. Jackrun clapped his friend on the back. “Please excuse Griff, Uma, he is only part human on his mother’s side and comes from a long line of fey folk.”

  “A proud line,” interrupted Griff, “and it’s in your blood too.” He turned back to me. “My father taught me how to treat a lady. You don’t mind, do you?”

  I was at a loss for words.

  “Leave her be, Griffin.”

  Griffin’s freckles gathered in a tighter bunch as he grinned. “The weapons master waits. We’re late for the practice yard already.”

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  “I see,” Griffin said, glancing at the two of us. “Excuse me, my lady.” He bowed again and left.

  “Uma,” Jackrun said. Drawing something from his pocket, he put his hand over mine. Warm skin. Cold metal. The key. He searched my face, the gold flecks in his green eyes like fires lit in small encampments in the trees. “I’ll make it up to you. Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.”

  The words You already fought for me caught halfway up my throat. Jackrun closed my fingers around the key, turned heel, and headed down the hall. Just before he disappeared, he looked back. “Come to the masked ball tomorrow night.”

  “I have no costume.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said, and was gone.

  In the kitchen, Cook passed me a hunk of barley bread and cheese and promised future meals that I could take to my room if I came to the kitchen after the serving was done in the Great Hall.

  • • •

  OUTSIDE, AROUND THE corner past the stables, I followed the sound of cheering and found Tabitha in a small crowd, watching the men in the weapons yard.

  Jackrun fought his knight in one ring, Griff in the other. Swords bashed and clanked in the fierce competition. In Devil’s Boot, our warriors were proficient hunters, using bows and arrows or poisoned darts. We were not a people of the sword.

  I followed Jackrun’s quick, skilled movements. He’d rolled his sleeves up, and the sunlight played fire on his dragon scales. A few onlookers grunted as the opponent hit Jackrun broadside; applauded when Jackrun recovered, and made a similar strike a moment later.

  Young Tabitha fixed her eyes on Griff—a man her brother’s age and she just fourteen—but a lady can look.

  I bit the sharp cheese, watching Jackrun. A lady can look.

  Chapter Eleven

  Pendragon Summer Castle, Dragon’s Keep

  Egret Moon

  August 1210

  I WAS OUT gathering fresh rushes mid-morning the next day when I heard the jingling sound of bridles. A fairy cavalcade had crossed the wide stone bridge and was coming up the road. I stepped aside with my bundle and watched transfixed as the riders paraded toward me in their shimmering clothes.

  I’d never seen fey folk growing up in Devil’s Boot. None of my mother’s tales prepared me for the pageantry I saw now. The very air sparkled around them. They were wind and water, air and light.

  The fairies were long and lean and easy in their saddles. Some were as pale as the English; others as dark as or darker than my people. The tallest rider wore a king’s crown and a robe of dazzling white. He gazed down at me from his black charger. I shivered under his stark look until he passed.

  A dozen or so children rode ponies decorated with flowers in the long procession. Tiny will-o’-the-wisps no larger than dragonflies flitted playfully around the children, their winged bodies flashing in the sunlight. Last came the wagoners driving painted carts stacked high with goods battened down with heavy, colorful tarpaulins. The stacks swayed to and fro as I turned and followed the carts down the road toward the castle.

  • • •

  AT DUSK, I learned what the fey folk had brought us in their painted carts; costumes for the masked ball. The king and queen had the first pick. Both were trying on masks, their colorful cloaks brighter than Lady Tess’s paintings of dragons and fairies on the chamber walls. They were parading back and forth in the queen’s chamber when I came in and stood by Lady Olivia with Her Majesty’s tonic.

  “You look like a peacock,” Queen Adela said to her husband, clapping her hands.

  “A proud cock I am too,” he laughed, turning and strutting in the feathered headdress.

  I’d watched Father painting the thin yellow beak of his Egret Moon mask when I was eight. Everyone had to make new masks the year after the English soldiers came and burned the Moon Month masks and regalia in our huts before moving us south. Father had let me touch the long white egret feathers on his dance robe. I sang with Mother and everyone that year, watching the men dance in all new costumes, honoring the death of the old moon, the birth of the new. I felt the song in me now, wanting to rise up my throat.

  “How do I look, Lady Olivia?” the queen asked, twirling in a petaled cloak.

  “Like a living garden, Your Majesty.”

  “Like summer itself,” added the king, grabbing her and kissing her.

  “She’ll have him in her bed after the ball,” Lady Olivia said to me under her breath. “Your remedy has a chance tonight.”

  • • •

  BACK UPSTAIRS, A soft dusky light fought its way through the iron grating, barely reaching the floor. I lit a taper to help the light along, turned and found a costume on my bed. Who had brought it up?

  The half facemask was cut in the shape of a water lily. Two eye slits hid neatly in the bright white petals. The gown’s skirts were earth brown at the hem, a shimmering watery blue above. The wide silky sleeves moved like flowing water when I touched it. What would it look like on
?

  I opened the wardrobe and paused. The jagged crack running down the mirror cut me in two. The split image I saw startled me: Uma of Devil’s Boot, Uma of the Pendragon court. I spread my feet apart, trying to span my two worlds. My heart felt wedged in the crack between them both.

  I recognized my mother in my large eyes, my shapely lips, my strong, slim figure. Mother. I saw how people shunned you when I was young. You were so strong. I watched you weaving the most beautiful patterns, slowly gaining the trust of the other women. I wasn’t that strong. After the king’s soldiers burned our village and pushed us south when I was seven, after I learned how many times the English conquerors attacked our tribe, and drove us off our land, I wanted to bury myself from shame at my Englishness.

  Did you understand why I became mi tupelli to serve Father? That I felt I’d die if I did not belong completely to my tribe? There is so much I want to say to you now. I’m sorry I hurt you. So sorry. I hope; my finger traced the curve of my jaw on the cold glass. Holy Ones, I hope I’ll see you again.

  I did not close the wardrobe door on my reflection, not yet. I’d opened it to try my costume on. What would I see then? I pulled off my gown, slid the silky costume over my head, and turned, feeling the swish of cloth against my skin. It was softer than Bianca’s gowns, and lighter, I could move in it, dance in it. The gown flowed with me. Like wearing water, I thought, turning slowly, tilting my head this way and that, lowering myself and rising in the pattern of the Moon Dance. I stopped. We hadn’t been allowed to do the Moon Dances when I was seven, the months when the soldiers were with us. We didn’t begin again until after Mount Uther rumbled and smoked, scaring the English away.

  Here I was, admiring my costume when for all I knew the elders back home were forbidden to wear theirs, forbidden to dance. “And what are you doing about it?” I asked my cracked reflection.

  This, I thought, removing the costume to shrug on my well-worn gown. This, I thought, strapping the pouch of sacred earth taken from Devil’s Boot to my belt. This, I thought, heading down the stairs for the king’s rooms.

  “What is it, Uma?” King Arden asked when I came in and curtsied. A plump tailor was circling the king, measuring and making small adjustments to his plush purple costume.

  “Your Majesty, I have come to ask you for a favor.”

  “How much longer do I have to hold out my arm?” he barked at the tailor.

  “Just a moment longer, Your Majesty.” Sweat ran down the back of the poor man’s neck.

  “Out with it, Uma.”

  “Please, Your Majesty. I’ve come to ask if you will bring your troops home from Devil’s Boot.”

  “Why should I do that?”

  “I promise you I’ll see my mission through, Your Majesty. If you set my people—”

  “Enough, man!” he said to the tailor. “Help me take this thing off.”

  The two men struggled a moment entangled as two cats in yarn. “Now leave us,” said the king. The man scurried out with the costume, minus the mask. The king studied his chessboard a moment before he looked up at me again.

  “That’s an ugly bruise. What happened to your neck?”

  “I . . . fell, Your Majesty.”

  He’d left his window ajar. Wolves howled in the woods beyond the castle. Egret Moon would die in four nights’ time. In September, Wolf Moon would be born, a time when wolves came into their power—already the packs were restless.

  “I will do all the queen asks of me, Your Majesty,” I said. “My people should not have to suffer while I’m here.”

  “Who said they were suffering?”

  “There was bloodshed when the soldiers took us, Your Majesty. I don’t know what’s happened since I left, what sort of restrictions have been laid upon my tribe, but—”

  “A king should be surrounded by his offspring,” he said gruffly. “My wife wants assurance you will help her have more children.”

  “Holding my people captive does not help with that, Your Majesty.”

  “You have continued your father’s work to make her fertile?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty, that’s what I was hired to do as her physician.”

  “That is what your father was hired to do, Uma, and he failed.” He rubbed his thumb along the onyx bishop.

  I could almost feel that rough thumb pressing against my own bruised neck as he moved the bishop slowly, square to square. “Tell me, Uma. Is she fertile?”

  My heart thumped. “The Adan’s medicines are powerful, Your Majesty. She has been taking them long enough now to be able to conceive,” I said carefully.

  “Good. You may leave me now.”

  He’d dismissed me without answering what I’d come for. “Sire, the soldiers. Can you order them home please?”

  “You still have family down there?” he asked.

  “My mother, Your Majesty.”

  The king gazed at his chessboard a moment. “My wife arranged to keep our men down there until she has a child. I agree with her. You say you’re committed to seeing this through. I know the army’s occupation keeps you focused, Uma.”

  He flung the words so casually at me. I’d seen delegations come to Pendragon Castle to argue behind closed doors as I’d passed down the halls with the queen’s medicines. Some men left the king’s rooms smiling, signed scrolls in hand. But I was an Euit woman. I had nothing to bargain with, no way to make offers or counteroffers, no idea how to tempt, lie, or wheedle to get what I needed.

  I backed out of the room, through the door, under the sentries’ crossed pikes, away from any hope of freeing my people until the queen had her child, if she ever did.

  Chapter Twelve

  Castle Green, Dragon’s Keep

  Egret Moon

  August 1210

  AT THE MASKED ball, I scanned the crowded Great Hall for the queen. The room was riotous with movement, color, and sound. The tables overflowing with food and ale had been shoved against the walls to allow for dancing. Three giant candelabras swung to and fro overhead as the revelers twirled each other around. Some dancers spilled out onto the terrace above the castle green. This ball was nothing like the courtly dancing I’d seen at Pendragon Castle back on Wilde Island, where couples lined up facing one another and moved with prim, orderly steps.

  I saw Lady Olivia across the room. She was dressed in black and wore a silver eye mask. I knew her by the way she held her chin like royalty, though she was only the queen’s companion. She gestured to me. Her formality set against everyone else’s noisy abandon made me smile. Somehow through my water lily costume, she had known me too. I wondered what had given me away.

  “There.” She pointed to the royal couple dancing near a garlanded column.

  “It’s madness in here,” I said over the music. “Is Her Majesty all right?”

  “She is fine and more than fine. For now,” she added.

  “For now,” I said, knowing what she meant. The noise, the crowd, the wild costumes could stir her mind to sudden storm. I had a sealed cap of honeyed bapeeta in my waist pouch to calm the queen at any moment tonight if needed.

  “Do you know how to conduct yourself at a ball?” Lady Olivia asked.

  “I watched one back on Wilde Island.”

  “Observing is not the same as attending.” I’d grown used to her etiquette lessons, but still I felt myself wilting as she laid down the rules for my evening. “You understand?” she said.

  “Yes, my lady.”

  I looked around the crowded room. Where was Jackrun? What costume had he chosen? Would I be able to spot him as easily as I’d spotted Lady Olivia?

  Elbowing my way out to the wide terrace above the castle green, I stopped with a gasp. The masked ball indoors was tame compared to the one out here: Lady Olivia’s courtly manners thrown to the wolves, literally—wild wolves, hinds, and boars roved among the dancers. My
nose caught the musky scent of fur. I was feeling for my knife when a half man, half horned bull danced past, his lady draped in gray webs and wearing a spider mask. The man’s giant bull’s head and furry torso seemed far too real.

  Two giant snakes, coiled together in dance, bumped my shoulder and sent me reeling into a tall fey man who swept me in his arms and twirled me round and round before he let me go and bowed, the tips of his coiled ram horns sharp as pikes.

  I’d had enough of the terrace. I raced downstairs, my feet seeking solid earth. A band of fey musicians played on the outdoor stage. The lawn glowed with hundreds of torches set on poles. Castle servants and fey children wove in and out with trays of food and drink. Will-o’-the-wisps flitted over my head as I searched the crowd; some flew toward the castle, others swirled over the fairy musicians who had paused on stage to refresh themselves. A half horse, half man sitting by stacked drums held his mug between his hooves.

  Amid the whistling, growling, and high-pitched laughter, I heard Prince Desmond shouting, “How dare you!” A large wine stain soaked the front of his costume. A fey child crawled about on hands and knees trying to retrieve the chalices rolling helter-skelter on the lawn. The fey boy must have crashed into him with his tray.

  “Sorry, sorry,” the boy was saying.

  “Sorry,” Prince Desmond mimicked, kicking him hard in the rear. The crowd gasped as the boot sent the boy flying forward, landing flat on his face inches from the tray.

  “It was an accident,” a fey man snapped.

  “The boy didn’t mean to,” said a woman guised as a monarch butterfly at my side.

  I heard fierce whispers, a deep feral growl that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Costumed creatures in the crowd seemed to grow larger, wilder all around me. There was far too much magic here.