Master of Dragons (22 page)

The monk smiled at
Draconas, then added, “There are those who believe that human life is cheap.
That the life of a human is not worth that of say—a dragon, for example. What
do you think, Draca? Such a great walker as yourself must have an opinion.”

“Some believe that,”
Draconas replied, meeting the monk’s gaze.

“But not you,”
said Brother Leopold.

Draconas paused,
then said steadily, “Once I did. But not anymore. I would not want anything bad
to happen to the people of this neighborhood.”

“Good for you,
child,” said the monk with a nod. “We may all look forward to a quiet evening
at home this night.”

Rosa stood staring
from one to the other in confusion.

“Ah,” said Brother
Leopold, rising. “Here is our good blacksmith, now! Greetings, Master Anton.”

Anton, considerably
astonished, stood stock still in the door. Rosa sidled up to him and nudged him
and he came to himself. Mumbling his greetings, he entered the house. When the
monk resumed his seat, Anton took the opportunity to flash an alarmed and
questioning glance at his wife.

Rosa shook her
head and shrugged helplessly.

Both of them
looked at Draca.

Draconas knew more
than they did. He knew why the monk had come. The monk had made that plain.
Draconas was to spend a quiet evening at home this night. If he did not,
something bad would happen, not only to Rosa and Anton, but to every human
living in this part of the city.

Draconas offered
to go lay the table for supper. The monk sat at his ease, talking with a
bemused Anton about how his work was coming. Rosa followed Draca into the
kitchen to look distractedly at the stew.

Draconas spread
the well-worn cloth and set out the crockery bowls and the horn spoons. As he
placed the human utensils on the table and prepared to eat the human food, he
realized that he had just made his decision. He had declared where he stood in
this war between humans and dragons.

He sided with
humans against his own kind. He felt a deep and abiding sorrow at this, but he
did not regret his decision. His own kind were wrong.

The four of them
sat down to the simple meal. Rosa ladled out the stew into the bowls. Draconas
dipped his spoon into the broth. He was shoving aside a detested carrot to get
at the meat, when Ven came hurtling out of the cave in which he’d hidden
himself for all the years of his life.

Ven came running
straight at Draconas. Grald chased him. The dragon’s claw reached out for Ven,
for his heart . . .

Draconas dropped
the spoon in the bowl, splashing hot broth all over the table and startling
everyone.

“Draca?” asked Rosa
anxiously. “What’s wrong? Are you ill?”

Draconas looked up
to find the monk’s sane eyes fixed on him.

“Nothing is wrong,
Rosa,” said Draconas, after a pause. “I’m sorry. I’ll clean up the mess I made.”

The irony of the
words struck him. All along, it was what he’d been trying to do. Clean up the
mess.

He left the table
to get a cloth. He could not help Ven. He could not save him. Melisande’s son
would have to save himself.

Or rather,
Melisande’s sons. Perhaps he could do something, after all.

Demurely, keeping
his eyes lowered, Draconas went back to the table and began mopping up the
spill.

The monk could
stop his dragon body from leaving this house. The monk could not stop his
dragon mind. Draconas’s colors flared, purple and gold.

“Lysira! Are you
there?” he cried silently, as he kept an eye on the monk.

“Yes, Draconas,”
said the young female immediately.

The monk was
rising to his feet. He had quit smiling.

“You seem to be
deep in thought, little girl,” said the monk.

“Lysira,” said
Draconas, knowing he did not have much time. “Find Marcus. Enter his mind—”

“Enter his mind!
The mind of a human! Draconas, I’m not sure—”

“You can do it.
You must! Tell him . . .”

Brother Leopold
reached out his hand, placed it on Draconas’s head. “You do not look well. I think
now is time for rest.”

Draconas squeezed
out one burst of color before darkness overtook him and he sagged to floor.

“She’s had such a
busy day,” said the monk solicitously. Lifting Draca in his arms, he carried
the unconscious girl to bed.

DRACONAS’S PLAN TO
ALERT MARCUS TO HIS BROTHER’S DANGER was an excellent one. Sadly, Draconas
forgot his own mantra— humans are unpredictable. Even after hundreds of years
among humans, Draconas could have never predicted Evelina.

Marcus woke about
midafternoon from a deep sleep that left him feeling sluggish and thick-headed.
Alarmed to find the day so far advanced, he hastened out to ask if young Thom
had been sent for the king’s men. The patriarch assured Marcus that the young
man had left that morning. Due to the rain, however, the earliest the king’s
men might be expected was sometime tomorrow.

Marcus didn’t like
this news, and he was short with the patriarch, who was humbly apologetic.
Young Thom did not have a horse, nor did he have wings. The road was as long as
God made it and the king’s men would be here when they were here. Marcus knew
he was being unreasonable, but he longed for home.

Since the
patriarch expected all royalty to be unreasonable, no harm was done. The good
old man hinted that a swim in the river might clear Marcus’s head and lift his
spirits, and he offered to provide a change of clothes, although certainly not
the sort of clothes to which the prince was accustomed. Grateful and ashamed of
his bad temper, Marcus accepted. The swim did clear his head and left him
feeling refreshed.

He was glad to
discard the monk’s robes, which had become hateful to him, and put on homespun
breeches and a much-patched woollen shirt. After that, he idled away the
afternoon, refusing to let himself think about anything. He watched the
fishermen return with the day’s catch and further distracted himself by talking
with them about their livelihood. He asked some guarded questions about the
sunken cave, wondering if these men had any idea that they were living in such
close proximity to a vast city hidden inside an enchanted forest.

He found that none
of the fishermen ventured past the fork in the river. The fishing was bad, he
was told, and the waters treacherous. They fished the waters their fathers and
grandfathers had fished before them and saw no reason to go anywhere else.
Their lives were good, with the exception of the occasional flood, and when
that happened they buried their dead and shoveled the mud out of their
dwellings and went back to plying the river when it had returned to its banks.

Marcus also
wondered what had become of Evelina. He asked around for her, and one of the
women told him that Evelina had gone to the river, to an area where the women
did their laundry, and that they were taking good care of her. He was not to
worry about her.

Marcus didn’t. He’d
find a private moment to speak to her tonight. He had to explain to her, as
delicately as possible, that he was not in love with her. Manlike, he assumed
they’d have a logical, rational discussion and that would end the matter.

The village held a
feast in his honor that night, serving up fish and onions and potatoes all
boiled together in an enomous kettle hung over a roaring fire. He saw Evelina,
but did not have a chance to talk to her, for the men and women ate separately,
the women after they had served the men. Evelina had apparently won favor with
the women of the village, for they were making much of her. Someone had given
her a change of clothing, like his own—worn and patched, but clean and
comfortable. She looked fresh-scrubbed and wholesome in her homespun garb, and
when she caught him looking at her, she blushed and smiled. Marcus felt a pang
of uneasiness. The thought came to him suddenly that Evelina might not be all
that logical.

He tried to signal
to her that he wanted to talk, but he could never catch her eye. She seemed to
be willfully ignoring him. The next thing he knew, the sun was sinking into the
river and the fisherfolk were heading to their beds. Evelina walked off with
the patriarch’s daughter. Marcus did not want to make a show of running after
her, especially in view of the men, who were drinking and swapping stories
around the fire. Marcus bid everyone good night and returned, alone, to the
house.

Having slept most
of the day, he was not ready for his bed. He sat by the fire, brooding over
Evelina, Ven, Draconas, the dragon, his father—everything he’d refused to let
himself think about all day. He made up his mind to the fact that he would
never see Ven again, nor could he even dare contact him, for the dragon was
always lurking about, trying to find a way inside. Draconas was dead; Marcus
was certain of that. Dragonkeep would remain hidden beneath its blanket of
illusion as its army marched on to conquer his people.

“Yet if I told
these fishermen that there is a city of living souls not twenty miles from
where they ply their nets, they would bind my arms with rope and take away all
sharp objects,” Marcus muttered. “I’m not even sure my own father will believe
me. It’s all so fantastic—”

A gentle knock
sounded at the door. “It’s Evelina,” said her voice, speaking softly.

Marcus breathed a
sigh. He didn’t want to have this conversation, but he needed to set things
straight, let her down gently.

He opened the
door.

“No one saw me,”
she assured him, slipping in past him. She wore a cloak, with the hood cast
over her head, and she carried a basket on her arm. Placing the basket on the
table, she removed her cloak and hood, and tossed them aside.

“You should close
the door, Marcus. Someone will see the light.”

He hadn’t realized
until she said something that he’d been standing there with the door wide open.
Feeling uncomfortable, he did as she bade him and shut the door. He turned back
to find her removing a stone jar and a mug from the basket.

“I brought you
some wine,” she said.

“Evelina, I want
to talk—”

“And I want to
talk to you, Your Highness,” she said.

She poured wine
into the mug and carried it over to him. She stood before him, holding the wine
in her hands. She had washed her hair; its blond curls fell around her
shoulders. Her eyes were soft and warm in the flickering light.

“I’m sorry I was
so familiar with you last night, Your Highness,” she said. “I realize that I
behaved unseemly and I ask you to forgive me. I know that you were under a
terrible strain when you said all those wonderful words to me when we were
running for our lives from that dreadful place and that you really didn’t mean
them. How could you love me? I’m nobody. Not a princess or a duke’s daughter ...”

“Evelina,” he
began, feeling wretched. “It’s not—”

“Please, drink the
wine, Your Highness,” she continued, holding it out to him. Tears glimmered on
her lashes. “The patriarch’s daughter made this wine and she would be offended
if you did not. I promised her I would tell her how you liked it. You can lie,
if you want. After all, you are a prince and you can do with people what you
like—”

“Evelina,” he
tried a third time.

She thrust the
wine into his hands and then ran to a corner of the room and sobbed as though
her heart would break.

Marcus gulped some
wine. He was completely out of his depth, floundering in water that had been
ankle deep when he waded in, but which was now up to his chin and rising.
Evelina had said the very words to him that he’d been going to say to her—about
how it had all been different when they were in Drag-onkeep and he’d been under
a strain and so on and so forth. When he’d said it, it seemed reasonable and
logical. When she said it, she made him feel like a worm. He didn’t know what
to do now. Anything he said now would only make matters worse. Yet he couldn’t
leave her weeping in a corner.

He drank more
wine. It had a peculiar taste to it, not at all like the wine to which he was
accustomed. And it was far more potent. The warmth spread from his throat to
his belly and his limbs, sweet and pleasant and relaxing. He drank more wine
and then lowered the half-empty mug to the table and walked over to Evelina.

The water was no
longer closing over his head. He was floating on top of it. He had wronged her.
He would apologize. She had been brave and loyal.

“Evelina,” he said
for the fourth time, and she turned around and looked up at him with her blue,
shimmering eyes. He floated on top of those eyes, floated gently along like thistledown.

“I meant every
word!” he gasped. “I love you! I adore you!”

The warmth of the
wine suffused him. He ached and throbbed with it, and he could find relief only
by drowning in the blue water of the river of her eyes. She was in his arms,
her soft flesh in his hands and her sweetness on his tongue, and he was tearing
off his clothes and her clothes and they were lying on the mattress, panting
and heaving and his need was hot and pain-filled and she was willing and
yielding . . .

And then he had to
stop to scratch his leg. He went back to her, but then his arm itched
uncontrollably and he scratched at it and then, suddenly, he was itchy all
over. He tried to ignore the itching, but he couldn’t, and he had to stop what
he was about to do to scratch at himself. Evelina moaned and nuzzled him,
running her hands over his body, and he tried again, but the itching was a
terrible distraction.

She opened her
eyes and looked at him and suddenly pulled away.

“You . . . you’ve
gone all blotchy,” she gasped in dismay.

He scratched at
his head and neck and looked down at his naked body and saw that she spoke
truly. He was covered in large red blotches, about the size of a coin of the
realm, growing larger and spreading rapidly. The blotches burned like fire and
itched like the devil and he could do nothing now but scratch at them. He could
swear he could feel them on the inside of his mouth.