Dragon's Keep (32 page)

crowd
shouting, "Hang her! Hang the witch!" I
fought the
guard
who had me in his grip, but he was
the stronger and he dragged me step on step to the gallows.

The rope swung in the May breeze and my knees
went all to water as Cook lifted her hands in the air, crying, "Ah, she
was such a pretty thing! Such a love-charm she had over all of us!"

The villagers bustled forward as I struggled
with the guard
and screamed into my gag for
mercy. Sir Magnus raised his arms.
"See how the witch calls upon
the devil!" he shouted to the crowd. Then he held my mothers cross before
him and spewed Latin verses to shield his soul against Satan.

The village folk were all jostling one
another, fighting for a good view of the gallows like rats to a meat bone. Cook
was
knocked over and trodden on,
then
I saw Jossie fall down scream
ing and flailing
against the steps.

Before she was crushed, the guard who held me
reached out to her, and in that moment I leaped from the gallows, landed on my
bleeding feet, and rushed into the crowd.

Screams of "Catch her!" and
"Hold her fast!" resounded as I plunged into the gathering, pushing,
pounding, kicking my way through.

"Grab her!" called the guards,
while the tanner's wife screamed, "Ah! She touched me! Now I'm
cursed!"

Sheb Kottle captured me, but I knocked him
down and rushed right over the top of the old man. Breaking free, I ran along
the curtain wall until
a strong
-armed Benedictine
caught me round the middle.

I screamed and beat against the monk's chest,
but he lifted me so my feet were flailing in the air, and under the cowl I saw
his blue eyes glaring down. He grimaced as he held me up, his strong chin
clamped shut with the labor of it, but I knew the man and suddenly ceased my
struggling.

Kye, older, taller, and
gowned as a holy man.
I drank in his
face. I thought he'd come to protect me from the hanging rope, but Kye turned
and carried me back to the gallows to the cheering of the crowd.

I flailed against him then, but he hauled me
up the steps with ease, and with one arm tight around me Kye threw back his
hood. The crowd gasped.

"You see that I am Kye Godrick!"

"The
dragonslayer!" called a villager.

"He's taken holy orders!" cried
another.

"I have a thing to show the nature of
this woman's blood before justice is done!" Kye shouted.

My bones fluted hollow then, and it seemed an
eastern wind rushed through them. Kye had seen my claw and he meant to prove my
witch-blood now by tearing off my glove.

Blood Proof

S
till
tight in kye's grip,
I clenched my fists. Here was the thing I'd dreaded
most: the day when all Wilde Island would see
my
beast-part and call me devil's spawn. Ah, I feared it more than
the
witch trial or walking on the coals, for I'd had the full of my life to imagine
the horror of that moment.

As I struggled in Kye's arms, Sir Magnus came
to a stand by the gallows, shouting, "Unhand the witch! We'll take no
orders from a bandit in monk's guise!"

"I'll keep the
wench a while," called Kye. "I have all rights. I
fought alongside your king. My ship's crew is here with
me," he said, nodding to the group of brown-clad men who tossed back their
cowls. Not a single head was tonsured.

"I know more about this woman than any
man here," continued Kye. "I say hear me out before the noose is
fitted!"

"Give him his chance to boast,"
agreed Sheriff William, coming to Sir Magnus's side. "He's honored as our
dragonslayer and the poor man missed the witch trial."

I thrashed and screamed into my gag.

"Be still!"
Kye warned. He brought me to his front, wrapping
his strong arms about my chest, and the hold was like a dragon's
grip
.

"On promise to your king," called
Kye, "I returned to Wilde

Island after the war, and hearing his
daughter had been stolen, I

sailed
to Dragon's Keep."

There before all, Kye
told of coming to the isle with his crew,
how
he sought me on Dragon's
Keep
and found all abandoned.
As he spoke my claw pounded, and I curled my fingers inward. Kye was coming to
the moment of showing my dragons mark to all, and I swore to myself, he'd have
to cut the gloves off first.

"And now," he
said, "I have something to show that will give
to all sure proof of this woman's blood!"

I moaned into my gag.

Kye gripped me hard with one hand. I bent my
knees and
shoved my gloved hands between my
legs as he reached into his
monk's robe. Sure he was going for a knife,
I plunged my hands deeper between my thighs. He'd have to pry my legs apart to
reach my hands. But a knife did not appear.

From beneath his monk's robe Kye drew out a
golden rod with a dragon's head atop. The dragon's ruby eyes shone bloodred in
the sun.

"Queen Evaine's scepter!" shouted
Cook.

"God be praised!" called Father
Hugh, crossing himself.

Kye held it aloft. "Here's final
proof," he called, "that Princess Rosalind is of true and royal
Pendragon blood."

I stopped my struggling.
Kye s face shone as he smiled down
at me.
"You see?" he whispered.

Rumblings from the crowd.
"But she was found to be a witch!" called
one disappointed villager, no doubt still wanting to see a hanging.

"Was she?" said Kye as if
surprised. "A storm made me take shelter in a hollow tree on Dragon's
Keep. And there I found a book written by the princess."

How I blushed knowing my love confessions
written on those scales, but Kye went on. "Did
you
know
it
was her brave effort that kept the dragon from attacking here?"

"It's true there've been no
attacks," agreed Cook. I could have kissed her dimpled cheek.

The crowd murmured. Some nodded.

"And if you accuse her of witchcraft
because she healed the
sick," Kye
added, "I ask who among you hasn't said their share
of
healing
charms when the herbs fell short?"

Silence; a few coughs.

"We saw her
dragons
gown!" called another. These villagers were a stubborn
lot.

"Made for modesty
while she lived on Dragon's Keep.
Her gown was threadbare."

The noose was slipping from the wizard's
grip. "Step away from her," ordered Sir Magnus.

Kye
went
on.
"Your princess kept you safe by paying out her
time on the dragon's isle." Kye placed the
scepter in my hand. "Honor her now as your rightful queen."

I held it up. And under the sway of the
golden scepter the crowd cheered. A few at first, then many voices came all in
a

rush
. The sound washed through the foreyard like a great
wave
covering the mage's protests; ah, even
the sheriff and good Father
Hugh
were
cheering.

It was then I called
for Alissandra's release and she climbed
from
the darkened dungeon as the sun will rise, shaking off the night.

_Talon

By
june magnus had been tried,
found guilty, and hanged. He swung from the very
gallows he'd had built for me—for his
young
wife's murder in years past and for my mothers poisoning.
The Fates had
spun this rope to noose his neck alone.

In the following month
on the feast day of Saint Felicity, Kye
and
I were wed in Saint John's chapel and Father Hugh presided
over sacred vows. I'd learned it was the good
father who'd housed
Kye and his men and given them monks' garb—the more
to aid me if my wounds were not yet healed, for soiled and stinking as I was,
Father Hugh still believed me innocent.

On our wedding night I came trembling to our
bed. I feared the moment when I must peel away my gloves. But in this my lover
proved
himself
true beyond any other. He'd seen my
claw before in the company of wolves, he'd read about my shame in my little
book, and he was tender to my fears.

Under the soft rain of
his kisses I took off crown and jewels,
gown
and shift. And like the yarrow moth who frees itself from its death shroud, I
shed my gloves to Kye. He did not turn away,

but
lifted my hand to the candlelight. It was like the
moment
we'd shared long ago in the little
cave beside the sea, when Kye
called the dragon's egg beautiful. He
stared at my claw in wonder. He did not call it beautiful—the man could not
lie—but he
held the mystery of it to him,
not as a separate curse, but as a part
of me, his wife.

In part Merlin's vision had come to pass. I'd
saved Wilde Island from the wizard, but this seemed a small thing. I'd not had
a hand in ending England's civil war, not redeemed our good name, nor restored
the glory of Wilde Island. The tapestry on my wall, aged by the sun, held a
prophecy that was still uncertain. Empress Matilda quit her war with Stephen,
though it was another five years before her son became Henry II, ruler of all England, and he was a married man himself by then, wed to Eleanor of Aquitaine. I wished
them all joy.

In the sway of Merlin's
vision Mother dreamed I'd win honor
for
the Pendragons, ruling England and Wilde Island. But I looked at the starry
vision with another eye. Merlin said I was to
restore
Wilde Island's glory. Would the fairies return to Wilde Is
land
to
play in the meadow grass? Would the spirits sleeping in
the trees rise
up and speak to us again? These would indeed bring
glory—a kind I
understood, and Kye also. For he'd heard the pine trees all whispering this
vision on the night he'd spent on God's Eye.

We held the Midsummer's Eve Fair on Twister's
Hill the following year. As the villagers danced about the bonfires that
roared high and golden on the cliffs, I felt such
a rush of pleasure
that I lifted
little Tess, daughter of Sir Niles Broderick and Jossie,

and
took her dancing near the fire while the villagers
sang. I was full of joy because I'd just learned I was with child.

I'd worried from the day we wed, that I was
like my mother
and could not conceive
without sorcery. But my worries fell away
and my joy grew as I felt a
new life growing in my womb. Only Kye and Ali knew my secret, but I danced with
Tess to celebrate as the sun was setting and the sky blushed pink.

On the high blowing cliffs before twilight it
seemed the russet-colored sky was no more than the last kiss of the day, so I
did not read it as a sign until I heard the pounding of the wings high above
the cliffs.

Seven dragons swooped down from the clouds
and landed in a half circle around the revelers. In the cool midsummer wind the
dragons stood, their golden chests heaving from their long
flight over the sea. I heard a familiar rustling
sound as they folded back their wings, then all stood stiff as great stone
columns, look
ing down at me.

It had been a year since I'd seen the pips
but I recognized them all, who, apart from Ore, had grown nearly as large as
their father, but the other four were strange to me. With our backs to the
cliffs and the dragons stationed all around the crowd, everyone was cut off
from escape. I feared for my people.

The pips might not risk speaking to me in the
presence of their mates. Still, I handed Tess to Ali and stepped forward. Kye,
brave man, came up beside me and together we faced the dragons.

We were on the hill above; the villagers
below cowered on

the
grass, mumbling prayers or covering their mouths to
weep
into their hands. I waited under the
first showing of stars. I should
greet them in DragonTongue, but how
before these people?

My mouth went dry as a barley husk in the
power of the
dragons' gaze, their eyes
bright as enchanters' balls. When Chawl
opened his great jaws and roared
blue fire as he'd done when he bid me farewell that last time by the tomb, my
flesh crawled in the heat.

Then Eetha and Ore stepped through the
blowing grass, doing what must be done, and so quickly, I could not stop them.
With swift and single motion, Eetha tore off my golden gloves.

I screamed, stepping back, but as I tried to
hide my cursed part, Eetha gripped my wrist.

"For your service to us, Briar,"
she said in DragonTongue. Then she licked my talon.

With my hand exposed the dragons all stepped
closer. Ore lifted my hand, "For Kit," she said, her blue eyes
shining,
then
she, too, kissed my claw.

Kye, seeing what the dragons offered by the
kiss, turned, broke his sword upon the stones, and laid it at the dragons'
feet.

It took a mind simpler than mine to
understand what Kye had done.

Cook pointed to the sword and shouted,
"It's come to pass just as the old rhyme said! Look
ye
!
The dragon has given our queen a talon, and the king has broken his
sword!"

Then, with my heart pounding in my breast, I
held up my talon for all to see.