Dragon's Keep (16 page)

"I thought I might give you shade,"
he said, "but I see you want exposure." He quit the garden for the
castle.

"Wait," I
whispered, and the look of his blue
eyes
lingered in
the air as if he were haunting me behind the bluebells.
In the
wind his voice still asked,
Don't
you like the feel of daffodils?

I was alone, well hid
behind my walls. Keeping my eye to the
door, I stripped off my right glove, ran my fingers
along the bobbing lilies, tickled my palm with the daffodils, and felt the
sweet
ness of the roses in first bloom.
Kye's gaze and his laugh must have stirred
a madness
in me or I would not have been so bold. But with my right hand free, I flew
about the yard, arms outstretched and fluttering like the yarrow moths.

Before sunrise the next morning I rode up to
Twister's Hill. At the top I halted Rollo and gazed out to sea. A stone flew
past me and arced over the cliff. I gripped my reins and looked behind.
"What fool tosses a stone so near his princess!"

"The simpkin Kye."

Kye rode out from the shadowy willow, whose
greenery was still dark to the day. "Come," he called. "There's
something you must see."

"Is one of your sailors ill? Shall I
bring herbs?" Kye did not reply but kicked his horse and galloped down the
hill.

"I take it you have good purpose for
this ride?" I shouted as I rode in his wake.

Kye took a narrow path at the edge of the
woods that ran
alongside Kingsway, but
passed the turnoff for the harbor and for
Dentsmore.

"Tell me where you're taking me."

"I take you
nowhere, Princess," he called back. "It's you who
follows me."

All honor and dignity schooled me to quit the
ride then, but I warred against my better mind and followed him. We came to
Witch's Hollow. From my saddle I could see foxgloves and wild iris all
dew-covered in the green grass. But the ground of Witch's Hollow had been
watered with blood and the seeming innocence of the grass made the place twice
deadly.

I was grateful when Kye turned his back on
the meadow and rode toward Lake Ailleann. Cautious, I urged Rollo on. Near the
shore Kye stopped and gazed out over the water to the isle of God's Eye, where
it's said Merlin once took his year of silence. "It's there I'll go,"
he said more to himself than to me.

"God's Eye is forbidden."

"Why?" asked
Kye.

"My father, the king, protects it."
Then thinking what Cook said once I added, "Some say Merlin's ghost walks
there."

"All
the more reason to go."
Kye gave his horse a kick and
galloped through the long grass. I followed, more
confused than ever. In half an hour's time we reached the beach. Kye dismounted,
tied his sorrel mare to the upturned roots of a bleached log, and looked out to
sea.

The rising sun spilled a golden road across
the water. Kye stood silent while the surf pounded and a choir of blackbirds
sang in the cord grass. I leaned forward in my
saddle. "Why have
you brought me here?"

"You know we sail in four days'
time?"

"
Aye,
and my
father makes ready to follow you to war."

Kye gripped his hilt. "War calls."

"Does it call to you?"

"To my father."

"And to mine," I said, downing from
my horse.

We stood beside a pile of driftwood, the sun
and salt wind having bleached the wood bone white. Kye kicked a stone. "Before
I go to war . . ." He looked at me, his eyes moist with sea
wind,
then
turned away.
I thought in my deeper self that Kye was
caught in love's sorrow, and my
heart beat in answer to it. If this
dark
sea-bound boy should love me . . . Wouldn't I give my king
dom for that?

"There's something you must see,"
Kye said at last.

"What have you?"

Kye would not say.

"If you brought me here to tease—"

"Come. This is for your eyes
alone."

"Why? Are my eyes better than
another's?"

Kye's jaw tightened.
"I saw the way you looked at the dead
she-dragon."

"As
I did you."

This seemed to startle him. He stepped back,
crossed his arms, and glared at Morgesh Mountain, the peak washed pink in
morning light.

I could not seem to speak with him. Every
word was an offense, every silence
a harm
.

I touched Kit's silver pin. "Show me
what you want me to see."

Kye led me up the beach
to a small cave, where he crouched
low
and entered.

"You've not found a corpse?" I
asked before going in. "No. Don't be afraid, Rose."

I entered the damp cave. There on the tawny
sand lay the thing Kye could not speak of.

The broken shell of a
dragon's egg.
It was but half the
shell, empty of its pip, the outside blue speckled, and what I could see of the
inside was milky white. And broken in this way, it stirred my memory to the
half shell crammed with bones I'd seen in Demetra's cave.

"I found the shell washed ashore last
night and brought it
here," said Kye.
Then like a father to a cradle, he knelt down be
side the shell and ran
his hand along a jagged crack. "There's no telling what would become of
this if my father should see." He looked up. "Do you . . . like
it?" he whispered.

A thrill raced up my back. "It is the
blue of cornflowers."

"Or robin's eggs," he added.

Or your eyes,
I nearly said, but I bit my tongue.

Kye motioned to me. "Come round here and
see this."

I crossed the sand,
stepping soft as a cat, and knelt beside Kye.
Such a sharpness cut into my heart as I looked on. There, etched on the
white shell, was the pale green outline of the dragon pip. The sea had torn the
pip from the shell and nothing was left now but the etching of her curled form.
I saw in the outline how the
tip of the
pip's tail came to her mouth, as if she'd thought to suckle
it. The sea
had left three blue-green scales behind. Stuck to the
shell, they were the size and shape of rose petals.

Outside the waves crashed. Kye leaned
forward. "See the wing shadows?" he whispered, tracing the wing
outlines on the shell.

I felt an aching in my throat as I looked on.
Ah, how that shadow troubled me, the poor pip dead now in the stirring water.

"Rosalind?" Kye touched my cheek
with the back of his hand.

I tipped my head back. But his lips did not
brush mine.

He stepped outside the cave and I followed.
Kye crossed his arms and leaned against the rock wall. A gull flew past,
casting a shadow across his brow. "Since coming to Wilde Island, I've heard talk of a prophecy about you."

"Ah," I said, disappointed.
"Merlin saw my fate writ in the stars."

"I'd not heard of it before."

"You wouldn't have. Our side of the
family was erased from history when they were banished. But before Arthur's
younger sister,
Evaine,
was sent here to Wilde Island, Merlin promised her there would be one to reclaim her family name."

"Merlin read much in the stars,"
whispered Kye, "but this." His eyes met mine and for a breath I was
lost in the cloudless sky of each.

A wave hissed up near his boots. Kye crouched
and drew a spiral in the sand. "I'm confused by this prophecy as I've been
about another."

"Another?"

Kye glanced up. "Merlin saw it in the
stars. A day when the dragon wars would end and there would be peace between
men and dragons." "Like the childish rhyme?"

"Aye, only they butchered his
words."

"It will never happen."

"Merlin spoke truth. I've been his pupil
all my life."

"How can you be his pupil when he's been
dead six hundred years?

"I've studied the prophets from east to
west. Merlin's teaching never failed me."

"It may be Merlin misconstrued the stars
this once."

Kye stood and held my shoulders but his touch
was gentle. "Why did you warn the dragon about his lost egg, Rose? Why
should you care if all his brood was drowned at sea?"

"I ... I warned him to save us. If I
hadn't called
to
him about the eggs we would all have died that
night.
"

Silence.
I felt Kye's breath wash across
my forehead in warm
waves.

"And . . . that was all?"

"Aye.
That was all."

He dropped his hands to his sides, brushed
past me, and marched down the beach.

"Don't go," I called, but Kye
mounted his horse with a grunt. "I thought you would be truthful," he
said. "I see that I was wrong." He turned his mount and sped off.

I stumbled back to the
little cave. A surge of anger empowered

me
. Godlike, I used great strength to roll a large stone
before the entrance until the dragon shell was well entombed.

Let
it rest
where no
one else would see it, touch the blue of it, nor trace the pip's outline inside
the shell. Burial done, I mounted Rollo and rode homeward. Salt wind slapped
against my cheek in the place where Kye had touched me.

If
Wol
ves Should Come

Two
days
before
sailing off to war, my father, having grown tired of Cook's eel
pie, called for a hunt. Knowing Lord Godrick and his son would join the hunting
party, I wrapped Marn's cloak about my shoulders and hid in the chapel. There I
prayed for strength. I must look to the future of our island and set my heart
on Henry.

I was deep in prayer for Kye and Fathers
future battle,
humbly addressing Saint
George, protector of soldiers, when Fa
ther came mouse-silent up the
aisle.

"Rollo is saddled," he whispered.

"I'm praying," I said, not looking
up.

"I've taught you how to hunt, and by the
saints, Rose, the trumpet's about to sound." He crossed himself for
raising his voice in God's house.

"I'll not have you seem disobedient as
Lord Godrick's son," he added.

This intrigued me. "How has he disobeyed?"

"He went to God's Eye without my
permission and spent the night alone there."

"Has he returned?"

"Aye.
He's come back with his head
full of visions. If he were
my son, I'd
show him the whip!" He crossed himself again for shouting a second time in
chapel.

"Come,
Rosie," he said more softly. "Hunt one last time with
me before I leave."

"Don't go."

He wrapped his arms around me. "I go to
win you a kingdom, Rosie, so you can marry Henry."

"And if I should love another?"

Father pulled back. "Do you love
another?"

"No," I said, standing suddenly.

"Then join us. Let's show Lord Godrick
how a Wilde Island princess handles a horse!"

Thus challenged, I ended my prayers, and went
to the stable yard. Mother arrived soon after, crimson cloaked and regal on her
chestnut mare. Lady Broderick and her son, Niles, rode up beside her. Duke
Headley joined the castle knights, and Lord Godrick came with Kye.

Kye was brown-capped and brown-caped, like
the muddy ground about us, but his eyes were like a clear sky after much rain.
I made excuse to check my saddle and turned my back to him. Still I felt the
power of his glance warming my shoulder.

Trumpets sounded. The hounds were loosed and
we were off. The hunting party galloped up the grassy hill. Hooves pounded,
dirt and grass flew, people shouted. With all the noise

we
made, it's a wonder we didn't frighten all the
animals off the island. Once surrounded by tall redwood trees, I rode behind Father,
whose image changed from man to ghost as he raced into the clutching fog. The
dogs ahead of us all howled. "They've picked up the scent!" called
Father, and he galloped through the mist.

I urged Rollo onward, but my horse
slowed,
the fog about us
thick
as porridge. Rollo was as fine a horse as ever cantered up a
trail, but
fog had always put him past his mettle, and he would not quicken in the midst
of it.

Down the trail behind me I heard Lord Godrick
boast, "Hunting a stag
be
little sport when I
have downed a dragon!" Not wishing to meet Kye, who was riding abreast of
his father, I peered about and, seeing a small trail, turned from the broader
path. I rode there until the fog breathed gray about me. Rollo and I seemed the
only stirring creatures in the wood.

I'd left the sound of hunters' calls, the
howling dogs, and in the cold embrace of fog, I trailed on for an hour. As I
passed under the swaying trees, an eastern wind sang in my ears. Marn used to
say, "When the wind is in the east, 'tis neither good for man nor
beast." I shook the warning off and rode on. The path
narrowed. So deep and gray the forest was, it
seemed as if I rode
my steed at the bottom of the sea. And the moaning
wind all round was like the swirling of the water.

Lost, hungry, cold, and
pushing against fear, I kept on
going,
sure my small path would meet the main trail once
again. My heart lifted when at last I heard the howling of the hounds. Turning
left where the path forked, I headed for the sound.