Dragon's Keep (8 page)

"Is it, now? Tell me when you've heard
of any attack in foul weather like this."

I tapped the window, thinking.

"There, you see?" Marn was
satisfied and went back to her stitching.

Bad weather may have kept the dragons away,
but it didn't hold the healers back. In the week the first winter snow blanketed
the castle Mother brought a healer from Burnham. Indeed my claw had troubled me
since Demetra's painful cure, but this healer could only guess at my trouble.
Assessing me, he went to work, shearing off a third of my hair, burning it to
ash, mixing it with goose fat and rue and smearing it on my face. I broke out
in pimples. Mother sent him to the dungeon until my face cleared and my hair grew
back again.

Three months he was imprisoned there and I
was glad of it.
All that time I took my
meals in my solar. Kit stayed hidden with
me until my hair grew back and
my skin renewed. In those three
months we
read the lives of the saints, played countless games of
chess, and,
though I'm a clodpole at tapestry, Kit showed me some tricks that even caused
Mother to compliment my work.

As the snow deepened Kit stood at the window,
hand at her throat, looking up at Morgesh Mountain.

"Your
mothers
safe," I told her.

No movement from the window. Kit felt
betrayed but I knew Ali had sent her away to save her.

"Ali loves you." I would have said
more but my words did not help. "Come." I set up the chess pieces.
"I'll win this time; see if I don't."

She sat again. Her
eyes
gleamed.
Like Mother she would not cry in front of me. Kit pursed her lips with
concentration, forgetting her sorrow for the moment as we challenged each
other with our knights.

In early spring when
the snow in forest and valley had melted,
Marn
took us herbing. I wore my new cloak, the best Marn had ever made. I was glad
now she'd taken the time to embroider roses on pockets and hood. The day was
chill and bright, and we wore Marn out as we raced through the hills.

At the top of a steep grade, Marn leaned
over.
"Thimbles, how my back aches."

Kit patted her shoulder.

"Ah, well, I'm old," said Marn.

In the greenwood, Marn showed Kit where to
find wolf's bane, how to pluck holy thistle, and schooled her on the uses of
sticklewort. "Now this herb protects against evil spirits and poison, but
mind, it's not taken by mouth." She pulled it up by the root.
"Sprinkle these leaves on the windowsill and you'll keep wraiths at bay;
place them under the pillow and you'll aid a poor sleepless soul."

I had need of
sticklewort that very week. Aside from my wel
come flying dreams a new dream haunted me. In this one I saw the dragon
devouring the shepherd and woke myself screaming. How that horrid sight still
haunted me. Marn and Kit came bustling in.

"There, there," said Marn. She lit
seven candles to chase away evil. "Now tell us what frightened you
so."

"I dreamed the dragon ..." My mouth
went dry. How could

I tell them what I'd seen that night on Morgesh Mountain? Or speak about the kiss that happened after?

Kit spread sticklewort
along the window and put more leaves
under
my pillow while Marn said her charm to bind the spirits and ward off bad
dreams.
"Three times winding.
Four times
binding. I bind all evil spirits now and cast them
from this room."

Marn moved her hands over me as if tying
invisible
knots,
then crossed herself for good
measure. "Now," she said with a half smile, "that's better,
isn't it, poppet?"

She rubbed oil on my
temples as she began a tale of long-ago days when Wilde Island was a magic
place full of tree spirits and
fairies.
" 'Tis
said Merlin himself spent
a year on God's Eye in the
midst of Lake Ailleann. And didn't he learn his magic there?"

"What sort of magic?" I asked,
yawning.

"Well, the sort that mages know.
How to read the stars and such."
She puffed up then.
"And isn't that a good thing, for he
read
the stars for you, Princess.
And told the world about you six
hundred years ago."

"Oh, don't talk of that," I said.

Marn frowned under her nightcap.
"Thimbles!" she fretted.

Kit
smiled,
a first
for me.

I giggled.

"Ah, so the cure's working now,"
said Marn proudly.

I nodded, covering my smirk with a coverlet.
Kit's smile widened.

Marn turned to Mother s tapestry, finished
now and gifted to me on my fifteenth birthday. There I sat enthroned, Pendragon
scepter in my hand. Below me were the words of Merlin's

prophecy
. And under them was the body of the dragon shot full
with countless arrows like a great green pincushion.

"The Pendragon scepter,"
mused
Marn, still looking at the tapestry.
"Proof of your bloodline.
I'll tell how the evil dragon
stole it from Queen Evaine right in the middle of the May Day
celebration." Her face beamed in the flickering candlelight, for she loved
that story the best of all.

I fell asleep, thinking not on the stolen
scepter, but on the small found treasure of Kit's smile.

_{Diviner Eggs}

Snow and rain gave
way
to
sun,
and
nine more names were added to the Dragonstone. Still Sheriff William reported
more deaths from footpads than from the dragon that spring. Bands of murderers
and thieves were attacking travelers, looting and burning townships all over Wilde Island. Father allocated funds to the sheriffs in every shire to pay extra men to
hunt down the outlaws.

Spring filled the air
with sweet scents. Bram the pigboy celebrated the season by stealing honey
from our hives. Bram's enterprise sorely disturbed our bees,
who
chased him round the garden
and stung him twenty-seven times. I know the number of
the stings for Kit and Marn were mending my gowns the day Bram went for the
hives, and I was the one who tended him.

Bram was as pimpled as a prickly pear. I
treated him with pork fat and thrashed yarrow and swaddled him in bandages,
saying the charm I'd found in Sir Magnus's book.
"Sting,
sting of the bee.
Remove thy sword and set me free."

That same afternoon Bram on some fool's
errand staggered
into Dentsmore, still
swathed like a dead man. This caused Jossie
to swoon into a well. Bram
pulled her out, though he told me later how she screamed as he did so, thinking
he'd come to fetch her to her grave.

Spring warmed to summer. On the day we held
our yearly midsummer fair I went with Kit full of hope, planning to glimpse my
future and test Merlin's prophecy in a diviner's egg.

What a day Kit and I had together under the
near-blind eyes of Marn. We downed steaming roundcakes and drank mugs of cider
as we wandered past the stalls. For a penny you could buy a pretty bit of lace
or gobble down a sweet. We watched jugglers and tumblers, avoiding the far end
of the field where the barber was pulling teeth for a penny. (Screams and
pleading cries to Saint Apollonia came pouring from his booth.)

We cheered along with
Father when Niles Broderick won the
jousting
match, then we sat under the maple tree with our apple tarts. A large gray cat
crept up the lane toward the fair. Darting in and out of the stalls, it soon
stirred up the dogs.

"Be gone, hex cat!" screamed the
miller's wife, jumping up from her bench to slap the cat across its rear. The
cat howled and raced past the acrobats, who tumbled from their human tower.
Sheb Kottles filthy cur chased the cat about,
barking and snarling,
and children ran to their mothers, screaming.
Three beer barrels were knocked over and one burst. Quick to the spigot, dogs
and revelers went belly down, lapping up the brew.

"Get
ye
out of
there!" Bram's mother dragged him from the frothy puddle. Beside me Kit's
eyes were sparkling. When the

barrels
were righted, music resumed, and as the pipers played
"Come Ye to the Greenwood," the townsfolk went back to their stalls.

Niles Broderick, who'd been eyeing Kit from
afar, came up to us and took off his hat. "Will you let your lady's maid
come
dance?" Kit blushed but I made
her go. How well they looked to
gether and how gracefully she moved her
feet in time to his. I watched him swing her round as the sun sank behind the
hills.

After the tables were laid for the Midsummer
feast, Mother quit the festival for home. She hated eggs above all other foods,
and
diviner eggs, served raw as they were,
sorely vexed her innards.
Father bid me sit at the high table near Duke
Newfund, but I wedged myself between Kit and Mam. Duke N. turned up his nose.
Let him sneer. I would choose my best company.

My gut still full from the doings of the day,
I awaited Father Hugh's blessing,
then
picked at the
food. First came the platters of trenchers with venison in cream sauce then
stuffed peacock, fruits, cheeses, and sculptured jellies washed down with apple
beer and elderberry wine. Last
came
the destiny cakes
and diviner eggs.

Stars pricked the night above. Candles
flickered in the summer wind as the chandler's wife, Tess, took the goose eggs
from her basket. Tess was a true diviner. Dressed in a blue gown with a crown
of lavender on her head, she looked every bit the queen of fairies.

"We'd better go now," said Marn.

"I'll stay for the divining," I
said.

Marn downed. "I shouldn't keep you out
so late on the night of the Fairies' high feast."

"There's no reason to fear the fairy
feast." Tess laughed, sweeping back her auburn hair. "Fairies have
not been seen around here for more than six hundred years."

I felt sad hearing this. I'd wanted to
believe the fairies still dwelled in our deeper forest lands where folk rarely
wandered.

"Kit's
egg.
Will
you divine it, Tess?"

"Oh, aye."

Marn strode to the far end of the table, the
more to gossip with her son's wife, Fiona. Kit broke her egg and dropped it in
her bowl. Tess's luminous eyes widened.
"Why, poppet, you shall
break a heart. What do you say to that, my
girl?"

"She does not speak," I said.

"Now that's a pity
with such a pretty face." Tess moved on to
me. She wrapped her fingers round my little bowl and bent low enough
for me to smell her lavender crown.

"Ah, true
love," she said, gazing at my egg, "for the sweet and
thorny rosebush is bound to call the bee."

"What bee?" I asked, thinking of
the prophecy. "Is it Prince Henry you see?"

She swished my bowl about then drew back, her
dark brows tilting.

Looking down, I spied a drop of blood next to
the yolk. "What does it mean?" I asked, a coldness leaping to my
skin.

Tess turned her back, but I grasped her elbow
and pulled her close. "You'll tell me what this means," I whispered
fiercely.

Tess looked about. "Not here.
Anon at Miller's Pond."

I dumped my bloody egg on the ground. Let the
dogs lick it up.

The villagers held a Midsummer game, floating
little candle
boats across Miller's Pond. Niles fashioned boats for us, but I left
Kit
and searched for Tess. On the far side of Miller's Pond I spot—
led her at last in the barley field. She was
walking and speedily. I
bounded after. "Tess! Tell me what you saw
in my egg!"

"I cannot speak now. I have someone to
meet."

"Someone more
important than your own princess?"

Tess began to run.

"You'll tell me
what you saw," I shouted, but she disappeared
into the field, the lavender crown falling from her
hair. The edge of the night sky was scarlet. The windblown barley whispered
,
Red clouds without
the aid of sun.
Traveler beware
.
The dragon comes.

It's nothing but the
last stain of the day,
I thought as I quit the
field.

On the beach the castle musicians played
"Threading the Needle" as the villagers danced in and out like
needles through cloth. I would leave the fair and rush to the chandler's
cottage, where no doubt the woman hid. There I'd shake Tess hard and force her
to spit out the omen. I was turning my foot toward town when Father caught me
up.

"Dance with me," he said, twirling
me around. We danced. Eased our parched throats with mead and danced more. I
could
not escape. From that hour on Father
never let me from his sight.

When we arrived home late that night,
everything was astir
inside the castle.
Servants ran up and down the stairs, Sir Magnus