Dragon's Keep

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Book
Information
:

Genre:
fantasy

Author:
Janet Lee Carey

Name:
Dragon's Keep

======================

…have a great time
reading the book...and if you like the book...go BUY it!!!!

For SIX HUNDRED
YEARS Pendragon kings and queens ruled Wilde
Island
, though none in England recognized their lineage. King
Arthur's younger sister, Evaine, was the first queen of
the isle. Ban
ished from England in AD 520, she lived and died in exile. And if
there is no record of her birth
or lineage in history or legend, the
blame rests with her father, King Uther.

The night he learned
his youngest child had ridden to the wild-
wood to wed and bed the outlaw
Kaydon Mallory, King Uther spat
upon a candle. In the dark he swore never to speak
Evaines name
again. And though
Queen Ygraine wept and pleaded with him,
Uther
would not be moved. Eschewing jail or burning (she was his
daughter,
after all), he cursed Evaine and
banished her.

That night as
Ygraine wept and King Uther paced the halls,
Evaine packed her chests for the
long voyage. In went all her gowns, jewels, her crown, and the royal Pendragon
scepter, taken from her
fathers strong room. With these things she planned to
rule her own
kingdom without the
blessing of her father.

She heard Merlin
slip into her room, knowing he'd passed the
guards invisibly and entered
without a key, but she kept packing.

"A storm
comes," said Merlin.

"It does not
matter," said Evaine. "I set sail with Kaydon at
dawn."

Merlin eyed the
chests now spilling over with castle bounty. "You
take more than Kaydon with you
. "

Ignoring the remark,
Evaine peered out the window and heard
an owl's cry in the trees. She shivered. Not for
the owl or for her good
man waiting in the woods, but for the fearsome journey
ahead. None
had
ever returned from Wilde Island once they'd been sent to rot there.

"You shall
live," said Merlin. "And the child within you
.
"

Evaine turned to
face the wizard. "Have you read my destiny in
the stars?"

"Not your
destiny, Evaine, but one that will come long after
. "

"What shall
her name be?"

Merlin shook his
head. "Names are not written in the stars, but
destinies. The signs all point to
the twenty-first queen of Wilde Island."
He stepped to the window and
peered into the night. "Three things the
stars say of this queen. She
shall redeem the name Pendragon. End war
with the wave of her hand. And
restore the glory of Wilde Island."

He tilted his head.
"And yet I see darkly in the stars . . . a beast."

Evaine heard Merlin
breathing hard, as if the starry vision had
him by the throat. So there was
a dark side to this prophecy. Well, she
didn't want to hear it. It was enough to know her
offspring would endure centuries of banishment. "The twenty-first
queen?" said Evaine,
a slow heat rising up her spine. "Do you think this
vision pleases me? By the gods, Merlin! This prophecy could take six hundred
years!"

Wormwood & Poppy

Queen's Knife

Wilde
Island
ad
1145

_M
other
pulled out her knife.
We
were alone in her solar.

"It's time," she said. "Give
me your hand."

I drew back. "It's not yet Sunday
eve."

"We're together, Rosalind, and the
door's well locked." tomorrow.

"Tonight."
Then softening her voice she said, "Come, Rosie,
take off your gloves."

Her blade flashed in the
firelight and sent a russet glow across
the
room. She was ready for the ritual. I dreaded it.

"Take yours off
first."

Mother placed her knife on the table and
bared her hands.
Queen Gweneth's fingers
were finely tapered as candles, her skin milky as the moon. It was a shame for
her to wear golden gloves,
but she'd donned them at my birth to protect
me, and worn them ever since.

"Now you, Rosie."

I bit my lip as she removed my right glove.
Pretty hand that never saw the sun; the skin was soft and creamy not unlike her
own. Mother kissed it. Then taking my other hand in hers, she peeled away the left
glove. None but Mother and
myself
knew what hid
underneath.

My throat tightened as we looked at my fourth
finger.
The horny flesh.
Blue-green
and scaly as a lizard's hide.
Claw of the beast with a
black curving talon at the end.

I rubbed the scar at the base of my claw. A
wound I'd made
myself
the night of Nell's witch
burning. With her cunning craft Nell had lured folk into the woods and fed them
to the dragon. Of this she was
accused
, and too she
had a devil's mark on her back. I'd seen the mark myself before they burned
her—it was nothing compared to mine.

With Cook's sharp knife I'd stolen to my room
to try to cut off my cursed part. The wound was deep and the blood had drenched
my kirtle before Mother caught me.

The queen was peering at my claw now, working
her face to hold back a sickened sneer, but with all her trying, her lip still
tightened. "The sorrow of it," she whispered.
"That
it should be your wedding finger."

"No man would marry me unless he was a
leper."

"Rosie. Don't say such things."

"Then say it isn't true."

Mother pulled out her silver vial, sipped the
poppy potion,
and closed her eyes. The fire
crackled. When the lines around her

eyes
and mouth grew smooth she capped the bottle and set
her jaw.
"Now."

I hid my hand behind my back. "It will
hurt."

"I'll cut with care." Tugging my
wrist close, she used her knife to peel the black talon as a fletcher sharpens
an arrow.

Curled bits of hard
black nail fell to the floor. Sparks flew and
a trail of smoke rose as she trimmed the nail. It
was a wonder we'd
shaken our heads at.
For what kind of talon hides a spark?

Scrape. Scrape. I closed my eyes and smelled
the odor of ground bone and, stranger still, a scent of rusted metal. The
stench filled me with shame.

I waited for her to
finish, taking slow breaths to calm myself.
Then
I felt a sharp prick.

"Too close to the quick!" I drew
back and blinked away the tears.

"Done," said Mother, sweeping the
broken bits of nail into her hand and tossing them in the fire.

Gently now, she slid my golden gloves back on
and put her cool hand on my cheek. "This secret is heavy between us,"
she said. "But don't cry, Rosie. I'll find a way to cure you. I swear it
on my life."

The Sacred Finger Bone

QUEEN
gweneth told me the story
of my birth
once, and has
never spoken of it since.

All her life she'd
known she was to bear the twenty-first Pendragon
queen named in Merlins prophecy. But from her wedding day her body had turned
against her. Six years she tried to conceive; still her womb was empty as a cockleshell.
Neither prayer, nor fasting, nor herbs had quickened it. Then in her seventh
year of marriage a holy pilgrim brought Saint Monica's finger bone to Mother.
Monica, patron saint of mothers, blessed her womb at last. The
saints
small bone did great service to her and Mother
esteems it still.

I thought long on Monica's blessing and once
asked Mother why a saint would give her a child with a devil's mark.

Mother's eyes went dark as burningstone.
"Never," she said, "speak that way of a saint!"

She herded me to chapel
and told Father Hugh I was to kneel on the prayer stool till evensong. I had no
chance to ask her if my
"mar,"
as Mother called it, were some punishment for Monica's

finger
bone. Did the saint wish it
back? Was that why she'd given
me a beast
finger in exchange for Mother's treasure?

I was not to ask. So I held the tale of
Monica and my birth in my mind from that day on—a cold tale, for I was a
winter's child.

On the twelfth night of the
new year
1131, a blizzard swept over Wilde Island, and outside the castle walls Queen Gweneth heard a death wraith keening. The queen
thought the howl-song
was for her when the
labor pains came on strong enough to make her bite the cloth. But Midwife
Glossen eased her mind. "All will
be well," she said, rubbing
the queen's round belly with minted
goose
fat. "I've sent the king to unseal every jar and loosen every
knot.
You'll have a babe as soon as soon."

All night Mother gripped the bedposts,
screaming when the pains were on her.

An hour before dawn, she pushed one last time
and I came into the world.

"A girl,"
said the midwife.

Mother wept with joy.
"Praise God.
Merlin's prophecy is ful
filled." But she saw the midwife's eyes grow wide
with terror.

"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Let me see her now."

"I
must.
. .
wrap her first." With trembling hands Glossen bound me in swaddling cloth.
She passed me to my mother and backed toward the door.

Mother touched my little face, so new,
then
kissed my lips, which she said were pink as a rosebud.
"Rosalind," she whispered. "Rosalind. Beautiful rose."

She reached to pull the swaddling cloth away.