King's Dragon

  “What do you say, Liath?” he asked, so softly but with all his will of iron pressing onto her, all the force of him, all the cold cold winter months. That was what his eyes were like: the pale blue of ice, splintered with cold sunlight, dazzling, but as bleak as the winter winds cutting across fields of ice and snow.

  She tried to pull her gaze away, but she could not. He would never give her up. Never. Why even try? She found the city, standing fast in her memory. There, in the treasure-house, she had locked away her heart and her soul.

  No. Fire fluttered, banners rising from the seven walls ringing the city. No. But she had no voice. He had taken her voice.

  There, like a beacon, she heard the jingle of horse’s harness as one of the Eagles’ horses shifted, waiting. Waiting for her.

  “No,” she said, almost a croak, getting the word out.

  “You see,” said Hugh, not letting go of her, not breaking his hard gaze from her, “that she does not consent to go with you.”

  There was silence.

  Terror seized Liath. They would turn and ride away, leaving her here, forever in Hugh’s grip.

  “No,” she said, louder. And again, “No!” She tried to pull her head out of his grip, but she could not shake it. “No. I don’t want to stay with you. Let me go!” But her voice was so weak.

  “What did she say?” demanded Wolfhere. A horse moved, hooves clopping, but Liath could not tell whether it moved toward her or away. Please, Lord, not away!

  “She says she doesn’t want to stay with you, that she wants you to let her go,” said Hugh steadily but not without triumph.

  “No, she didn’t,” said Hanna suddenly, her voice carrying clearly across the yard. “She doesn’t want to stay with him. He’s twisting her words.”

  “Frater,” said Wolfhere in a deceptively gentle voice, “I suggest you let the girl stand alone and speak.”

  Hugh did not let go of Liath immediately. But slowly his grip slackened and then, his face white with anger, he let her go and took one step back from the wagon.

  With no warning, Hanna snatched the book from Liath’s grasp.

  “Get away!” snapped Hugh, grabbing for her.

  Hanna leaped back and bolted to stand in safety between the two younger Eagles “She’s been ill,” she cried, appealing to Wolfhere. “She’s not well enough to travel. I’ll have to help her out of the wagon.” Yet she hesitated, not knowing what to do with the book.

  But hope burned like fire in Liath now, a banked fire come to life, scouring despair out of her. She struggled to her knees, inched over to the side of the wagon. Caught herself on the side, swung over, and staggered, almost falling. But with sheer dogged stubbornness she held herself up. She did not look at Hugh. That was too dangerous by far. She caught her breath, first. Tried to calm the fire. She was burning hot but, slowly, that subsided. At last she looked at Hanna, for strength.

  Hanna gazed back at her, clear-eyed, guileless, and smiled, nodding encouragement. In her arms, clasped like a precious child, she held the book. Liath took in a breath and lifted her gaze to meet Wolfhere’s squarely. The old man had moved his mount forward and she saw that his eyes were a peculiar, penetrating shade of gray.

  “I want to go with you.” Her voice gained in strength with each word. “I want to be an Eagle.” She ducked her head down, waiting for Hugh to hit her.

  But the hawk-faced woman had already dismounted and crossed the stand between Liath and Hugh. She was, indeed, almost as tall as Hugh, and she wore a sword at her hip and a knife at her belt.

  “So be it,” said Wolfhere. He took two coins from his pouch. They were as yellow as the sun and at this moment twice as welcome. He handed them to the marshal. “Let you witness this transaction, Marshal Liudolf, and pay this gold to Frater Hugh, in recompense for the young person here.”

  “I witness this transaction,” said Liudolf, “and I take these nomias and transfer them into the keeping of Frater Hugh, in recompense for this young person, Liath, daughter of Bernard.”

  “I won’t take it,” said Hugh. “I protest this theft. I deny any payment has ever taken place. I tell you now, Wolfhere, that I will bring this matter before King Henry.”

  “You are welcome to do so,” replied Wolfhere. “Nevertheless, the girl comes with me. These are not your men, I believe, to fight this sort of battle, and if any of us are harmed, you yourself would be brought before King Henry to answer for the crime. Whatever benefices you have received, such as the abbacy, would certainly be revoked.”

  “This is not ended!” said Hugh. And then, in a lower voice, “You are not free of me, Liath.”

  Liath dared not look at him. She kept her gaze fixed on the fine burnished Eagle’s badge that clasped the woman’s cloak at her right shoulder: an Eagle, rising on the wind, with an arrow clasped in its beak and a scroll held in one talon.

  If she did not look at Hugh then, free of him or not, she was at least for the moment safe from him. If she could ever be safe from him.

  “Marshal,” said Wolfhere, “I request that you receive this gold and hold it as witness, and witness as well Frater Hugh’s refusal of it.”

  “I so witness,” said Marshal Liudolf.

  “I so witness,” said the younger Eagles.

  For a long drawn-out while no one moved, as if the stalemate, having been reached, could not be resolved. Only the song of birds in the trees, and the distant shout of a farmer at plowing, pressing his ox forward, disturbed their silence. The smell of cooking beans wafted out from the cookhouse. The wood of the wagon felt chary under Liath’s hand.

  “This is not ended,” said Hugh finally. He moved and she flinched, but he was walking away, walking to his bay, mounting, giving the signal.

  She let go of the wagon just in time to avoid getting a splinter as it jerked forward and, just in time, grabbed Hanna’s sack out of the back. Hugh did not even seem to notice. Without another word, without any acknowledgment of what he was leaving behind, he rode south, the wagon and his tiny retinue following.

  Liath dropped the bag and slumped to the ground.

  “Do you need aid?” asked the hawk-nosed woman curiously.

  Da’s four books were gone with Hugh, but their texts remained in the city of memory, together with everything else Da had taught her. And Hanna had the other one. “No,” she whispered. “No. I just need to rest a moment.” She looked up to meet the woman’s steady, measuring stare, then broke away from it to look up at Wolfhere. He studied her calmly.

  Why? But she could not say it out loud.

  “Before you leave, Marshal Liudolf,” said Wolfhere into the silence, “I will write a manumission for her. We do not admit the unfree into the Eagles. I need another witness besides yourself.”

  “I will witness, sir,” said Mistress Birta suddenly, stepping forward. “I am a freewoman, born of a freewoman.”

  “Ah,” said Wolfhere. “You are Mistress Birta, if I recollect rightly.”

  She flushed with surprise and pleasure. “I am, sir.”

  “And this, I believe,” he added, transferring his keen gaze to Hanna, “is your daughter, Hanna.”

  “Yes, sir, she is.”

  “Is it your wish that she might be invested into the king’s service as well?”

  Mistress Birta flushed so deeply, and looked so entirely discomposed, that Liath forgot her own fears and hopes for an instant to wonder about Mistress Birta’s secret dreams. “Sir, you must know that for my daughter to become an Eagle would be the greatest honor for my house.”

  Wolfhere did not smile. Rather, he nodded gravely, acknowledging the truth of her words. “Let us not keep Marshal Liudolf any longer than need be. We will write and seal the manumission now. Then I have business in Freelas. Since I can see that the girl looks exhausted and is too unwell to travel, I propose that I ride north alone, leaving the girl here for a tenday. If that will suit you, Mistress Birta. Manfred and Hathui will stay as well, in case the frater chooses to attempt something r
ash. Is that well?”

  Birta nodded her head. It was the first time Liath had seen her at a loss for words.

  Wolfhere dismounted. Manfred swung down and took the reins of the old man’s horse, and the reins of Hathui’s horse as well, and led the animals away to the stables.

  “Hanna,” said Mistress Birta, recovering quickly, as any good innkeeper must, “help him with the horses.” Hanna nodded and hurried after the young man.

  Liath tried to stand but could not. In an instant, Hathui had an arm around her. “I’ll help her inside,” said the young Eagle.

  “Upstairs,” said Mistress Birta. “In bed, with a bit of dinner in her. She needs to rest.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” said Wolfhere genially, “I see I can trust you to take best care of her. Marshal Liudolf, shall we finish our business?”

  Liudolf’s reply was lost to Liath as she entered the warm confines of the inn common room. She barely made it up the stairs, even with Hathui’s support, and when she collapsed onto the bed, she simply laid her head down, shut her eyes, and let herself be overcome with the exhaustion of hope fulfilled.

  She was free of Hugh. She still had the book. She was an Eagle. All that she needed now was to get her strength back. She could scarcely believe it was true. She slept.

  3

  LATER Mistress Birta brought her a bowl of bean soup and good dark bread. Hunger brought her fully awake and she wolfed down her food. She hadn’t realized she was famished. Mistress Birta retreated as Wolfhere entered the little attic room. He sat on the edge of the pallet and held out a simple brass ring engraved with the seal of the King’s Eagles. He smelled of rain and of damp wool. She took the ring gingerly, and while she held it, not sure what to do, she heard the patter of rain on the roof. Cloudy light slanted through the closed shutters. She had slept most of the day. “This ring represents the seal of our bargain,” said Wolfhere mildly, “that you will offer your name and lineage to the Eagles as payment for your service with them.”

  She was afraid to look at him. “My name is Liath,” she said, but her voice sounded false to her own ears. “My father’s name was Bernard.”

  Wolfhere sighed heavily, whether disappointed or sad she could not tell. “Liath, you must either trust me or else it is of no use that I have freed you and brought you into the Eagles. I knew your mother. I have been looking for you and your father for eight years now.”

  Like a rabbit frozen in the sight of a wolf, she stared at the ring. Outside, the rain slacked off, fading to intermittent drips.

  “Had I found you sooner,” he added sternly, “then perhaps your father would not now be dead.” He lifted a hand, and she flinched away from him. “Ai, Lady!” he swore under his breath. “Now listen you to me, young woman. Listen and heed me well. I will not compel you to enter the king’s service as an Eagle. You are free, whatever you choose next, and you may go your own way if you so choose.”

  “Where else can I go?” she asked bitterly, “but back to Hugh? And I’ll never go back to him.”

  “I will not compel you,” he repeated. “But neither will I take you into the Eagles unless you trust me with your full name and lineage. Which will it be?” He took the ring out of her hand and weighed it, such a light thing as it was, in his palm. “To ride with the Eagles, you must give your trust wholly to your comrades. Otherwise it is worth nothing. If you do not trust me in this small a thing, then you are too dangerous, to weak a link, for us to trust you in our turn.”

  “Names are not small things.”

  “That is true.” He bent his head, acknowledging her point. “That is why we ask for them.”

  “Why did you free me?”

  “Because I knew Anne.” She started. It was so strange, almost frightening, to hear that name from any voice except her father’s. Wolfhere smiled wryly. “I knew you as well, when you were still a babe.” “I don’t remember you!”

  “Nevertheless,” he replied, as calm as ever, “Anne asked me to watch over you, should anything ever happen to her.”

  She wanted to trust him, but after Hugh she dared not trust anyone. As he studied her, looking more patient than amused, she studied him in return. Advanced in age he certainly was, but vigorous still and with the natural authority that comes to any man who has lived long years and survived hardship. An old scar traced a line down his neck, missing the throat vein by a finger’s-breadth. He sat with the steady imperturbability of a man equally used to the councils of kings and the gossip of farmers in a local inn. It would be so easy to just give in to his request, but that was not what he asked of her. What he asked was infinitely harder.

  Maybe, just maybe, it was safe to open the first, the lowest, gate in the city of memory. Maybe she could learn to trust him, to trust the other Eagles, as comrades. Her hands shook as she took the ring out of his open palm. “Liathano is my true name,” she said, her voice scarcely more than a murmur. “I am the daughter of Anne and Bernard. I know nothing more of my lineage.”

  So was it done. She was shaking so hard she could barely slip the ring onto her finger, the seal of their bargain. He stood up at once, and though he was not a particularly tall man, he was, without question, imposing. “Welcome, Liath,” he said somberly, “into the Eagles. You will find your service hard, but I do not think you will ever regret choosing it. When I return from Freelas, we ride south.”

  So he left her. “We ride south.” This morning, those words had filled her with despair. Now those same words held all the world of possibility in them.

  She lay down, but although she was still exhausted, she could not sleep. The straw ticking stuck her in new places every time she shifted on the pallet. The rain had started to pound again, a new shower, and the damp air brought the scent of mold creeping out from the wood. She sneezed.

  A scratch came at the door and Hanna peeked in. She, too, wore a ring, symbol of her new status. “I thought you would want to know,” she whispered, sitting on the bed next to Liath, “that it’s back in the hiding place. You’re free, Liath.”

  Free.

  Liath was too tired to reply, so she simply laid her head against Hanna’s arm.

  Where was Hugh now? Getting farther away with each step, please the Lady. And yet was Wolfhere any better or just another one who wanted to imprison her in a cage of his own making? How had he known her mother? Had he known Anne was a sorcerer? Why had he sought and how had he found Liath over such a long trail, pursued for so many years? Why had Da never spoken of such a man, and why did she herself not remember him, from those old dim memories of the fine cottage and the bright garden?

  Yet what was it Da always said? “No use regretting that you’re going to get wet, Liath, once you’ve closed the door behind you on a rainy day.”

  The rain, and Hanna’s warmth, lulled her to sleep.

  VII

  LEAVETAKING

  1

  ALAIN never found Lackling’s body, although for days after, when he got a chance and deemed it safe, he went up and searched through the ruins for any sign of newly turned earth.

  But he did not truly expect to find anything. The morning after that horrible night, by design he strayed past Lady Sabella’s livestock train out beyond the palisade and took up a station where he might observe the shrouded cage and its mysterious occupant. With his oddly keen hearing, which he still had not grown used to, he overheard the keepers of the shrouded cage speaking among themselves.

  “Not much meat left on the carcass but, aye, that will satisfy the beast for now, thank the Lady.”

  He only stopped looking after Lady Sabella’s entourage packed up and left, a grand procession winding its way southwest on the road that led toward the lands controlled by the duke of Varingia. That night, Lavastine called all his people together into the great hall and stood before them. Chatelaine Dhuoda and the clerics waited behind him, but to Alain’s eyes they looked as mystified as the rest.

  Lavastine looked pale and listless. He stood without moving for a l
ong time, staring into the air as if he saw something there none of the others could see. It was so unlike him, a man made decisive by long habit and a tendency to impatience, that Alain felt a sick sour feeling growing in his stomach—a feeling of dread. The hounds whined, crouching at their master’s feet. Rage and Sorrow, as was their wont, sat panting and watching at Alain’s heels; they remained, since the night of the sacrifice, remarkably subdued.

  This, too, was marked. Most everyone in Lavas Holding now treated Alain with a skittish deference tinged with disgust, like a man who is afraid to spit on a leprous beggar lest he turn out to be a saint in disguise.

  “We will leave,” said Lavastine suddenly. “We will arm ourselves with weapons and supplies and leave on St. Isidora’s Day. We will celebrate the Feast of St. Sormas at the hall of Lady Aldegund, wife to my cousin Lord Geoffrey. There they will be given a choice: join Sabella’s rebellion, or lose their lands.”

  Everyone spoke at once, a rushing murmur.

  “But that’s barely twenty days!” exclaimed Cook indignantly. “To outfit all that, and do the spring sowing? There won’t be time to do either right.”

  Others agreed, but Lavastine only stood and stared and eventually all the folk quieted, waiting for him to go on.

  “After that,” continued Lavastine in that same monotone voice, as if he had heard no objections, “we will ride on and join up with Lady Sabella and her army. We ride against Henry, unlawful king of Wendar and Varre.” He lifted a hand imperiously. “So do I speak. Let none question me.”

  At first Alain could only sit stunned. Cook was right, of course; she usually was. It was a mistake to march out before the spring sowing had been completed. But after a time, like a puppy worrying at his boot, a kind of terrible helpless anger began to gnaw at him. He slipped a hand inside the slit neck of his outer tunic and felt down the leather string until he touched the rose. Its petals brushed his skin, and which was warmer, skin or rose petals, he could not tell.