Keeper of the Dream (2 page)

But it was at times like these, Arianna thought as she watched the town burn, that it was easy to despair.

Behind them, the door crashed open beneath a heavy fist. Their cousin, Madog, stood beneath the arched entrance, his peaked helmet brushing against the curved stones, his big hand curled around a longbow. He looked huge in his quilted leather gambeson with its thick layers of rag padding.

“The high-and-mighty bastards have sent a messenger demanding our surrender,” he reported, a sneer curling the thick lips beneath his drooping mustache. “They’ve promised the villeins and cotters will be released—unharmed they say, though we know how the maggots do lie.” He snorted. “All freemen are to be ransomed, of course. And they want an answer within the hour.”

Ceidro’s face grew even paler, but he said nothing. Madog waited, the tense flexing of the hand that gripped his longbow his only movement.
Of course we will never surrender,
Arianna thought. But it was Ceidro’s place to answer the insulting challenge.

Above the moans of the rising wind, Arianna could hear the blare of trumpets and the shouts and pounding feet of the men being summoned to defend the battlements. “Tell the Norman cur we will never surrender,” she prompted her brother. “Not as long as there is a man or woman in this castle left alive to draw breath. Am I not right, Ceidro?”

Ceidro started as if awakening from a trance. “Aye …” His lips thinned into a tense grimace. “Tell him we’d rather burn in hell. Or better yet, simply cut off his messenger’s head and toss it back to him over the ramparts.”

Madog showed his teeth in a wide grin and turned to go. But Ceidro stopped him. “Wait, there’s something else. I …” He flicked his tongue across his upper lip. “How do you reckon they got to us so fast? I thought Father’s army was supposed to be between here and the English border.”

Madog shrugged his hulking shoulders. “They came up the coast by boat. And they’ve brought a lot of equipment with ‘em—catapults, sappers, scaling ladders, and the like. ’Tis my thought they aim to put us under siege.” He flashed another white-toothed grin. “But we’ll be all right, if we hold them off long enough for your da an’ your brothers to whip King Henry’s puny army.”

Ceidro’s head jerked in a nod and Arianna suddenly felt safe here, deep within the keep. The freestanding tower was made of stone and mortar and around it wrapped a tall shell wall. The whole of this keep stood within the heart of the bailey atop a motte—an enormous and steeply-sided man-made mound. And all of
this
was surrounded by a wide stone curtain wall that fairly bristled
with battlements of arrow loops, merlons, crenels, and hoardings.

Surely, Arianna told herself, the only way such a fortress could be taken would be through guile or starvation. And there was a six-month supply of salt beef, wheat, and ale in the storerooms below.

“Aye, we’ll be all right,” Ceidro said, echoing her thoughts. “As long as we hang on.”

Once more Madog turned to go, but then he hesitated. “Did ye happen to catch sight of the banner yon Normans are flyin’?”

Ceidro’s glance flicked back to the open window. “It’s dark and I—”

“ ’Tis a black dragon on a red field.”

“Black dragon …” Arianna repeated in a harsh whisper.

The Black Dragon … Sir Raine the Bastard … from the Holy Land to Ireland, mothers invoked his image to frighten their children into obedience and young squires spoke his name with awe. He was the base-born result of a union between the powerful Earl of Chester and a castle whore. A knight-errant, without land, he supported himself by ransoming prisoners taken in tournaments and wars, and sold himself and his army to the highest bidder. Ruthless in battle and merciless in victory, he was said to have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for a supernatural prowess with the sword and the lance.

He was said to be invincible.

Ceidro stared at the thick iron-banded door long after it had closed behind Madog’s broad back. In the lengthening silence Arianna could hear the hiss of the coals in the brazier and the persistent groan of the wind. She hoped it would storm tonight. She hoped a summer gale would whip in from the sea and the skies would dump rain so that the Black Dragon—whose body at least must be human, even if his soul was the devil’s—would be wet and miserable.

Arianna watched her brother pace the room, from the great curtained lord’s bed to the glowing bronze brazier and back again. His shadow loomed then receded on the blue and gold-spangled walls. Of all her madly brave and reckless brothers, Ceidro was the gentle one. His temperament wasn’t suited to war; he couldn’t even bring himself to slit the throat of a wounded stag. He would be no match for the Black Dragon and he knew it. She pitied him for the uncertainty and fear he must be feeling.

“Cross of Christ!” Ceidro exploded. He kicked a stool, sending it skidding across the floor to bang against the footboard of the great bed. “How am I supposed to keep this castle with only a handful of men?”

Arianna spoke his name softly. “Father wouldn’t have put Rhuddlan in your hands if he didn’t have faith in you.”

He paused before her, stroking her cheek. “Poor little sister. You should be safe at home, not caught up in this mess with me. I shouldn’t have asked you to come …” His voice trailed off. They were both remembering that she had come to help with the lying-in for his first child, and that she had stayed to comfort him after the birth had gone so horribly and tragically wrong.

“You know how I relish a chance to fight the cursed Normans.” Wrapping her arms around his waist, she held him tight, knowing she received more comfort than she gave. “The Black Dragon has never taken on the House of Gwynedd before. Come the morrow, he’ll be sorry for it. He’ll be feeling like a honey thief caught in a swarm of bees.”

Ceidro emitted a shaky laugh. “Aye, you’re right.” He pulled away from her. “And now I had better go see to my defenses, such as they are. Arianna …”He hesitated. “If the castle should fall—”

“It won’t fall.”

“But if it does, I might be too busy to look after you.
Or I might …” He didn’t finish, but Arianna knew what he meant. He might be dead.

“I can take care of myself,” she said, though in truth she could already taste fear in her mouth, like the aftermath of a bitter draught.

Ceidro’s eyes crinkled with genuine amusement. “Aye, that you can. In a close fight you’re probably more lethal than I am.” They shared a smile, both remembering all the trouble Arianna had brought on herself while growing up by trying to mimic the daring feats and athletic skills of her nine brothers.

Then Arianna’s face grew serious. “I know what my duty is, Ceidro. I will never forget my duty.” She was Prince Owain of Gwynedd’s daughter. She would not beggar her family by allowing herself to be captured and ransomed. She would not shame them by letting herself be raped.

Brother and sister stared at one another a moment longer, each lost in thought. Then Arianna flashed a sudden grin and punched her brother on the arm hard enough to make him wince. “Now go see to your army, my lord. Before the battle is won without you.”

Though she kept her smile in place until her brother was out the door, Arianna didn’t feel nearly so brave now that she was alone. She found herself going again and again to the window, but except for sputtering and intermittent flames swirling up against the black sky, it had grown too dark to see anything. In between trips to the window, her gaze kept falling on the golden mazer. She told herself it was only tension and fear that made her feel as if the useless bowl was beckoning her. She didn’t want to know the future anyway, not if it was going to be bad. She didn’t want to know, didn’t want to …

The bowl, when she touched it, felt warm against her palms. For a moment she thought it glowed with a strange, pulsating light, but in the next instant she decided it must be an illusion—a draft causing the flames of the
torches in the brackets on the wall to sputter and flicker, bouncing off the bowl’s shiny surface. And yet not wanting to, she lifted the bowl and looked … and knew this time the vision would come.

She made one final, desperate effort to resist, turning her head aside. But the force of the vision, so ancient and so powerful, was too strong for her. She looked down, down into the bowl’s glimmering depths …

And the water swirled and eddied, darkening into a pool of blood.

The bloody pool whirled faster, sucking her in. She clenched the bowl with a white-knuckled grip. A blinding mist rose up from the vortex of the spinning liquid, searing her eyes with its brightness. A final mewl of protest pushed through her lips, as the clang of sword against sword battered her ears … and death screams carried on a howling wind. She smelled the tang of hot metal, the acrid sweat of fear….

A mailed knight burst out of the swirling mists. His horse reared, pawing the air, and for a moment he was silhouetted, large and menacing, against a slate sky. He raised his mighty lance and a gust of wind snapped at the pennon, unfurling it against leaden clouds—a black dragon on a bloodred field. With a cry of triumph he whirled and charged.

The hooves of his black steed shook the ground. Closer he came, close enough for her to see the fury in his flint-gray eyes, the set of ruthless determination on his hard mouth. He lowered his lance, pointing it at her heart, and her mouth opened on a silent scream, as if she could already feel the sharp tip piercing her.

Thunder cracked in her ears. A lightning bolt slashed across the lowering clouds, striking the burnished spearpoint, and in the second before the steel tip impaled her, shattering the vision into a thousand shards of light….

The smell of sweet rosemary filled her nose and something
tickled her cheek. She opened her eyes and saw straw and the three bronze clawed feet of the brazier. For a moment she felt drugged and bemused, and she pushed herself to her knees, swaying dizzily. She waited for the room to stop spinning, then groped for a stool, dragging herself to her feet. White-hot flashes of pain sizzled across her eyes and vomit rose in her throat. She barely made it into the garderobe before she was violently sick.

She retched and heaved until she thought she would pass out again. She had always felt slightly dizzy and nauseated after one of her visions, but it had never been this bad. The image of the charging knight kept flashing across her mind in staccato bursts, like sparks from a blacksmith’s anvil. Groaning, she pressed her fingers against her throbbing temples and stumbled to the bed.

The painted walls with their floral motif spun and whirled. Vines, petals, tendrils curled and undulated, reaching out for her. She shut her eyes on a moan, then immediately opened them again to stare at the blue sendal canopy overhead. The marten-fur coverlet felt cool against her fevered skin. Her stomach clenched and for a moment she thought she would be sick again.

Slowly the nausea receded, but the fierce hammering in her head remained. After a moment, when she was sure she could stand without fainting, she arose on quaking legs to prepare a quick poultice of peony root mixed with rose oil. She soaked a linen rag in the mixture and pressed it against her head. The pounding subsided to a dull ache.

She lay back on the bed. Below in the bailey the watch man’s horn was answered by the trumpeter of the guard. All was well, or as well as things could be with an enemy army camped outside the gate. Yet she was afraid to shut her eyes, afraid the image of the knight would return.

That vision … it had been unlike any that had come before. The others had been of distant, shadowy figures reflected in pools of water, some so vague she had been unable afterward to interpret what she had seen. But this
one … she had been
in
this one. She had smelled the hot metal, heard the pounding hooves, and felt the lance tip piercing … oh God, but it had seemed so real. She had
been
there.

Turning her head, she stared at the tall wax candle beside the bed. It was supposed to burn all night, to keep away evil spirits. She almost laughed at the irony. Imagine the Black Dragon, that limb of hell, being kept at bay by the light of a solitary candle. Still, though the candle’s flame stabbed at her eyes, she did not draw the curtains around the bed.

The wind, which had been buffeting the keep all night, suddenly ceased. The promised storm had blown itself out, which was a pity, for the God-cursed Normans would not get wet after all. She wondered if she should tell her brother about the vision, but it would avail him nothing and only add to his anxiety. Besides, the threat presented by the charging knight was to her, not Ceidro. She pressed her hand to her heart, as if she could feel the lance point piercing her.

Her legs jerked and she twisted onto her side, burying her face in the bolster. But behind her clenched lids she saw a knight in black armor charging with lowered lance. And a long time later, after she finally slept, she dreamt of a black dragon with gray eyes.

Arianna awoke to the sickly light of a cloudy dawn and the wail of a bagpipe. The mournful notes drifted from the great hall below, where the men broke their fast and sang of past glories.

For a moment she couldn’t think where she was, and she sat up with a start, making herself dizzy. She pressed her fingertips against her closed lids, and then realized it was not a headache that caused the dull throbbing echo within her skull. It came from outside the keep, an incessant rumble like distant thunder. The enemy had started
the siege. They were pounding the curtain wall with rocks and boulders hurled from their war machines.

Arianna had slept fully dressed on top of the bedcovers, but she hurried now to change out of her rich noblewoman’s clothes. She had borrowed a tunic and boots from a dairy maid yesterday, for if by some ill fate the Normans did manage to storm the castle, she would do better to pass as a villein girl. As the Prince of Gwynedd’s daughter she was worth triple her weight in silver pennies as ransom.

She kept on her fine, pleated linen chainse, but over that she donned the loose, rough tunic, and on her feet she pulled a pair of gray felt boots. She laced the dun-colored tunic tightly around her neck to hide her torque, then cinched it around the waist with a plain leather belt. Using her fingers, she unplaited her dark brown hair and combed it loose about her face.