Mistress of Dragons (15 page)

“Melisande?
Is everything all right?”

Melisande
shook her head, and Bellona was by her side in a moment.

“You’re
chilled, shivering.” Bellona drew Melisande into her arms. “What is it? Tell
me.”

“Oh,
Bellona,” said Melisande, holding fast to her lover. “We are to begin the death
watch tomorrow!”

Bellona
whispered a swift prayer, tightened her grip. “I will take charge of everything
in the monastery. You do what you must do and give no care or thought to
anything else.”

Bellona
hesitated. “Thirty years have passed since the last death watch. Few here are
old enough to remember what needs to be done. Has she told you?”

“Yes,”
said Melisande. “I was going to tell you, but I thought I would wait until
after the Coupling Night. I didn’t know it would happen this soon.”

“I
have time to talk now.”

“But
I must be at prayer—”

“Hang
the prayers, Melisande,” said Bellona roughly. “Your voice will not be missed.
Lucretta will take great pleasure in leading them in your absence.”

“And
make snide remarks about me later,” said Melisande with a faint smile.

“She
would not dare,” said Bellona in low tones. “Not about the new Mistress.”

Melisande
shivered. She pressed closer against Bellona.

The
fragrance of the honeysuckle was sweet in the warm night. They could hear borne
on the still air the murmur of prayer on one side of the compound and the
sounds of high-pitched laughter on the other. The two sides of life, thought
Melisande, the spiritual and the physical. And over both is raised the hand of
death.

“When
did you last eat? Or sleep?” Bellona demanded.

“I
can’t remember. Don’t scold me,” Melisande said wearily. “You don’t know what
it’s like. I hold onto her hand, trying to hold onto her, but she slips a
little farther away from me every moment. She is our mother, Bellona. The only
mother most of us have ever known ...”

“I
know, dear one. I know. But it is her time. We all must come to it.”

“Spoken
like a warrior,” Melisande said bitterly.

“That
is true, dearest one. We warriors give ourselves to death and perhaps that
makes it easier for us to accept. A warrior’s death is quick and clean, or so
we pray. This lingering, wasting death must be terrible to see. I wish you were
not alone with her, Melisande. You’ve been closeted with her for days now. You
do not eat. You do not sleep. You are half-sick from fatigue. Can’t you
persuade her to allow some of the other sisters to share this sorrowful task?”

Melisande
shook her head. “Only the High Priestess may oversee the death of the Mistress.
Thus it will be when it is my time.”

She
leaned her head against Bellona’s strong shoulder, let her eyes close for just
a moment. “Though I can’t understand why it should be this way, Bellona. It
would be different if she taught me things—how to perform the ritual, for
instance, or gave me instruction on dragon lore, passed on to me her wisdom.
She does not, however. I don’t understand ...”

Her
voice died away. She sank into the darkness, into the honeysuckle sweetness of
the night and Bellona’s embrace.

A
voice calling for Bellona roused Melisande. “What?” she gasped, starting
suddenly awake, sleep-drowned, and fuddled. “What is it? What is wrong?”

Bellona
cursed. Standing up, she walking out of the shadows of the trees so that she
could be seen. “I am here, Nzangia. What do you want?”

Halting,
the warrior saluted, her fist to her chest. Melisande recognized Bellona’s
second-in-command, a young woman of twenty years, tall, raw-boned, awkward in
everything except fighting.

“I
am sorry to disturb you, Commander, but you asked to be kept informed—”

“Well,
then, what is it?” Bellona snapped.

“The
strangers at the pass are still there.”

Bellona
frowned, displeased. “Your last report said that they departed.”

“We
thought so, Commander, for we saw no sign of them for a fortnight, but we were
wrong, apparently. One of the scouts spotted one this morning. I rode back to
tell you.”

“How
do you know it was the same?”

“They
are easy to distinguish, Commander, with their black robes and bald pates.”

“What
are you talking about?” Melisande asked, now wide awake and tense. “Strangers
near the pass? For a fortnight? And I am only hearing about it now?”

“The
Mistress asked me to say nothing to you,” said Bellona. “We reported this to
her at once, of course. She said they were probably wayward travelers lost in
the mountains. But no lost traveler hangs about for over a week.”

“And
these are strange travelers,” said Nzangia. “There is something sinister about
them, fey. I don’t like it.”

“I
don’t either. I want to think about this, Nzangia. You are dismissed. I will
have orders in the morning.”

The
warrior saluted and departed. Bellona sat back down on the bench, hunched over,
her arms on her knees, her chin in her hands, staring unseeing into the night.

Melisande
waited patiently for an explanation, but none came.

“Are
you going to tell me what is going on?” she asked at last.

Bellona
stirred, shook her head. “I’m not sure I should. The Mistress said I was not to
worry you.”

“It
is too late for that,” said Melisande dryly. “You will worry me far more if you
say nothing.”

“It
is not important, really. Except”—Bellona frowned— “it is very odd—”

“Bellona!”
Melisande exclaimed, exasperated. “Tell me!”

“A
week ago, the border patrols reported seeing a party of men riding near the
pass. There were eight in all. Five were cloaked and hooded, so that it was
difficult to tell anything about them, but three were very strange looking.
They wore black robes and their hair had been tonsured.”

“Like
the old paintings of the monks who once lived in this monastery,” said
Melisande. “What did they do?”

“They
stared at the pass and stared at it and stared at it some more, all the while
pointing and talking. They investigated the area around it and then left, or so
we thought.”

“They
did not try to cross there or anywhere else?”

“No,
and that in itself is odd. It was almost as if they knew that trying to break
through the enchantment would be futile.”

“And
now they are back.”

“Yes,
and they shouldn’t be. The enchantment works by filling the mind with lethargy.
A person eager to enter the pass through the mountains suddenly realizes that
it is not worth the effort. He has no care for what lies beyond. He forgets why
he was ever interested in the first place. And so he departs and never gives
the matter another thought.”

“But
these did give the matter more thought.”

“Yes,”
said Bellona. “And not only that...”

She
rose abruptly to her feet, walked a pace or two, stood with her back to
Melisande, staring up at the stars, as if seeking guidance.

“What
is it?” asked Melisande, a catch of fear in her voice.

“These
strange people aren’t the only ones to take an unusual interest in the border.
I wasn’t going to tell you now. I was going to wait...” She paused, irresolute,
then turned to face Melisande. “A dragon made the attempt. Not the green dragon
we saw and drove away. Another.”

“Impossible,”
said Melisande crisply. “I would have seen it in the Eye. The Mistress would
have seen it. . .”

“You
have been occupied with other matters,” said Bellona, looking gently on her
lover. “And so has the Mistress.”

Melisande
reached out, grabbed hold of Bellona’s hand. “I would have seen it, I tell you!”

“But
you didn’t, Melisande,” said Bellona softly. She brushed back the tendrils of
fair hair that straggled down the careworn and sorrow-softened face. “I don’t
know why or what went wrong. A dragon did try to cross. The enchantment kept
the beast out. A border patrol saw the lights and heard the blast of the angry
magic. They hastened to the site and found scorch marks on the rocks and a rock
slide and smears of blood.”

“Some
person ...” said Melisande stubbornly.

“The
enchantment doesn’t react violently to people. Only to dragons. Dear Melisande.”
Bellona put her arms around her, drew her close. “You didn’t fail! Never think
that.”

“But
I did! I should have seen . . . Without our prayers, the dragon might have won
its way through ...”

Tears
welled up in her eyes and burned in her throat. She never cried. Not in front
of Bellona. Not in front of anyone. Angrily Melisande blinked the tears from
her eyes, pressed her lips together until she had mastered the painful swelling
in her throat. She drew back from Bellona’s embrace, put aside her lover’s
caressing hands.

“You
must ride to the pass,” said Melisande. “I want you to personally investigate
this.”

“But
the death watch—”

“The
Mistress’s quarters are cordoned off. No one may enter or even come near until
she . . . she has passed.”

“Except
you.”

“Except
me. Nzangia is like your right arm, Bellona. You’ve told me that often enough.
You can leave everything in her charge. There is nothing to do here except give
the guards their orders. It’s not like anyone would dare disobey.”

Bellona
remained irresolute. “The men are still here—”

“They
will be gone by morning. You can escort them out and then depart. You must see
to our defenses, Bellona. The Mistress has assured us that we could repel
invaders if we needed to, but it has never been tested. I would feel better if
you went there yourself, made certain that all is well. There is nothing you
can do here. We can only wait.”

“I
will go on one condition,” said Bellona. Taking hold of Melisande’s hands, she
brought them to her lips, kissed them. “That you spend this night in our bed.”

“Bellona,
I must say prayers for the success of the coupling,” said Melisande.

“Bah!”
Bellona snorted. “Either the battering rams will thrust through the gates or
they will go limp and fail and if that happens I doubt if the prayers of the
likes of Lucretta are going to stiffen their resolve.”

“Bellona!”
Melisande exclaimed, shocked, but before she could continue the reproof, the
ludicrous side of praying over fornication struck her and she started to laugh.
Horrified, she clapped her hands over mouth.

“There,
see what you made me do.”

“Forget
the prayers. Come with me,” pressed Bellona, kissing her lover’s cheek and her
neck.

“No,
I mustn’t,” said Melisande, sighing and relaxing beneath the warm caresses.

The
two held fast to each other, Bellona rubbing her cheek in the soft, fair, and
fragrant hair, Melisande giving in to strong arms and the gentle touch.

“Melisande,”
said Bellona softly.

“What?”
Melisande murmured, half in a dream.

“You
were asleep. Standing up. While I was holding you.”

“No!
Was I?” Melisande blinked and shook herself.

Bellona
regarded her sternly. “You have to get some sleep, Melisande. You go on ahead.
I’ll take a last look around. And I’ll tell Lucretta that you are not well.”

“Don’t
be long,” said Melisande, yielding.

“I
won’t,” said Bellona with a kiss.

Bellona
made her rounds, saw that all was well. The soldiers were in good spirits.
Coupling Night was a sacred tradition for soldiers and sisters. Every woman
there owed her birth to one such night in the past. Still, the soldiers did not
look upon it with quite the same reverence as the sisters. Each month they made
bets on the “bulls,” staking a share of their food rations on which would plow
his furrow more than once and which would be lucky to plow at all.

They
told the same crude jokes and stories that had been told for three hundred
years on these nights and added some new ones, sharing them all gleefully with
Bellona when she made the rounds. She laughed, but did not linger, as she might
have done, to join them in their fun.

Hopeful
that another Coupling Night would pass without incident, Bellona went to the
nave, gave her message to Lucretta, who screwed up her mouth in disapproval and
sniffed.

Bellona
had one more stop to make before she went to her quarters.

“All
well within?” she asked the guards at the door of the Mistress’s chamber.

“Yes,
Commander,” replied one. “All is quiet.”

Bellona
looked at the windows that were always dark, their heavy curtains always drawn.
The Mistress might die in there alone and no one would know it. Yet, perhaps
she was not so near death as they all feared. Melisande had a great deal to
learn before she was ready to take over as Mistress of Dragons. The current
Mistress had not yet begun to teach her.

Bellona
was still uncertain about whether or not to travel to the pass. Looking at the
dark windows, she made up her mind. The journey was about thirty miles. A day’s
ride with a change of horses en route. A day there, to inspect the defenses and
find out more details about who it was who had tried to enter. A day’s ride
back. If the Mistress died, there would be little for Bellona to do, except to
keep the sad news from spreading out into the kingdom until the sisters were
ready to announce it. And the last death watch had lasted weeks, or so Bellona
recalled hearing.

Her
mind made up, Bellona returned to her quarters. The hall was dark. The barracks
quiet. Accustomed to coming and going at all hours, Bellona found her way
easily in the moonlit dimness, entered the room quietly.

Melisande
lay on the bed. She had not undressed. She had not removed her robes or her
sandals, nor unbound her long flaxen hair. A band of silver moonlight slant
through the slit window and fell across her face, which looked worn and
sorrowful, even in sleep—the haven for the troubled. Sweat glistened on her
face and neck. The room was stifling.