The Book of Fire (18 page)

A
t dinner, after the men had slaked the first rush of their hunger, they talked about the war, or mostly, Hal did, now and then referring to Captain Wender for reinforcement or a clarification of fact. He spoke quietly because the news was bad.

“We’ve been beaten up at every turn. An army without training or proper weapons facing the barons’ mercenary knights and infantry . . .”

“These farmers’ hearts are gallant,” put in Wender. “But most would do better by the plough than by the sword.”

Hal nodded. “Still, if mere numbers would win the day, we’d have a fighting chance. And all’s not lost. We had split the army even before we heard of the Prince’s death. Rainer’s taken part of our force west to raise men and provisioning among the estates not corrupted by Fra Guill on his first tour through the countryside.” Hal made maps on the tabletop, with spoons and platters and lines of bread crumbs. “I sought to draw the rebels southward. When it became clear that this mad priest would go on fighting no matter what the weather, I sent His Majesty west to Köln, where hopefully, he will last the winter. He is not well, and Carl’s death has grieved him sorely. The truth is, we’d be in full retreat but for these recent heavy snows, which have forced even Fra Guill to call a halt.”

“A mercy,” Rose murmured.

“If it was an honest winter, there’d be a mercy in it. But this weather’s as unnatural as the priest himself. It’ll clear and we’ll have a bit of a thaw, just enough to sink every cartwheel hub-deep in mud. Then as soon as we’re good and stuck, it’ll freeze and the hell-priest’ll be on us again.
It’s uncanny. There’s some saying he has the weather in his thrall.”

Rose nodded. “Those rumors have reached even this far.”

“How could such a thing be?” muttered Doritt.

Hal blew out a long sigh. “Well, I’d hate to credit it, but somehow he’s always prepared and we’re always surprised. We could use a few month’s rest, not a few days. Aye, Wender?”

“Aye indeed, milord.” The captain lifted his mug of ale in salute. “Were there food like this to rest with.”

“Or any place left to rest in.” Hal gathered the bread crumbs into a pile as if saving them for later. “Guillemo’s ordered his men to burn any village or farmstead that refuses to pledge to his cause.”

“And join his march,” added Wender. “The roads are filled with refugees, even in this weather. The devil’s own spawn, he is.”

Captain Wender was just as Erde’s dreams had presented him: Köthen’s most favored and loyal man, a tough battle veteran who had followed him unquestioningly into exile. But she thought Wender seemed a bit more at home on the King’s side, which might explain Hal’s easy way with him, and his willingness to trust this former enemy, while not his superior lord.

That lord sat silently now, a bit apart, as if news of the war no longer interested him. He had eaten little—just enough, Erde thought, to keep from making a show of refusing his hostess’ hospitality. Nowhere near enough to sustain him, and certainly not enough to soak up the quantities of drink he was consuming. Raven had at first taken up station across from him, laughing and sipping from his cup in a flirty, familiar way designed to keep it out of his own hands as much as possible. He’d replied briefly, politely to her queries about people and events in the past, the youth they’d obviously shared, but he would not speak of the present, the war, or his situation. Eventually, Raven gave up and left him alone.

Erde wished he wouldn’t drink so much. He reminded her too much of her father. But surely it was more than rage and shame twisting in him. He was like one grief-stricken, like a woman who’s lost an only child, or like
Josef her father, who’d lost a beloved wife. Erde wondered how a mere throne could mean as much, but nonetheless, she thought she understood Baron Köthen better than anyone in the room, and she felt heartsick for him. She did not even ask why. She herself could hardly eat, even though Sir Hal, in his courtly way, had reverted to the habit developed during their travels together, of transferring the tenderest morsels to her own platter.

“And how has the King received young Rainer?” Rose inquired.

Hal shrugged. “In public, merely politely. In private, he has expressed some possibility. Wisely, Rainer has not pressed his claim officially. We let the rumors circulate, but there yet remains the problem of proof. Our best hope is popular acclaim.”

Down the long table, Baron Köthen stirred. “Fine conspirators you are, so beset by moral standards. Can’t you discover a convenient birthmark? Isn’t that the usual ploy?”

Hal eyed him with impatience. “Dolph refuses to believe that Prince Ludolph could have survived the baron’s plotting. After all, a
true
heir—one who actually wants the throne—would be very inconvenient to his purposes.”

Raven propped her chin on her fists. “What if Rainer of Duchen is the lost prince?”

“He isn’t,” Köthen growled.

“But what if he is? Speculate. What would you do?”

Köthen looked cornered. He sipped his wine and seemed to find great interest in the decoration of the cup.

“He’s young, strong, intelligent, probably very able,” Raven pursued. “It seems he’s even charismatic. What if he is, Dolph?”

Köthen refused to meet her bright, insistent stare. He laughed lightly, gestured bravely with his goblet. “Then there would be no further use for me.”

“A strong king needs strong advisers,” Rose countered.

“I can think of several uses for you,” Raven smiled.

And Erde wondered if it was only she who heard, not a fallen lord’s drunken plea for sympathy, but a man’s sober, bitter conviction. That his life was over.

Finally the empty bowls and trenchers were stacked and cleared. Doritt threw more wood on the fire. The women
refilled their cups with heated cider or wine, and everyone—except Köthen—drew nearer. Erde understood that it was finally time to tell her own story. She reached out to the dragon in the barn, for his support and commentary, then gathered N’Doch and Water-as-Sedou beside her.

“Well . . . after Lord Earth rescued Hal and Rainer and myself from Erfurt and brought us back to Deep Moor, he heard the voice of the Summoner ever more strongly, calling him back to the Quest. So we left to follow it.”

“Without even warning us,” Hal complained.

She tipped her head apologetically. “You were so distracted with the war and the idea that Rainer was . . .”

“I know, I know, but the Quest . . .”

“Would you have gone?” asked Rose. “Would you have left the war behind? Would you have deserted your King?”

Hal pursed his lips. “A difficult choice.”

“So, you see? The wise beast saved you that choice.”

“Let the child continue,” demanded Doritt from the fireplace.

Now Erde felt self-conscious, with the entire household watching. She cleared her throat. “Anyway, the Voice did not lead us to the mage we sought, or even to itself. It led us to N’Doch and Lady Water.” She was shamed by the awkward formality that tied her tongue in knots. But soon the tale took hold, telling itself of its own accord. “We were in a place called Africa, so fantastical and strange that I grew at last to believe N’Doch’s assertions that the dragon had transported us not only in location, but in time.”

“2013, no doubt of it,” N’Doch put in. “Eleven hundred years from now. When I laid eyes on these two, I was sure they were some kind of special effect. Took me a real long time to figure it otherwise.”

2013.
Amazed by the thought yet again, Erde translated for him, stumbling over the equivalent of “special effect.” Murmurs and headshakes ran around the table like a ritual response. “And then immediately, we were being pursued . . .”

“There’s always someone after my ass, y’see,” explained N’Doch.

“. . . but N’Doch took us to his grandfather Master Djawara,
a great mage himself, though not the one we searched for.”

“Papa Dja’s no mage, whatever that is, but he’s witchy, all right.” N’Doch beamed his dark smile at Rose. “Like you ladies.”

“Master Djawara sent us to the city and Mistress Lealé, a dreamer and prophetess . . .”

“A scam artist, you mean.”

Erde bit back a pout. Perhaps she should just let N’Doch tell the story. The listeners around the table seemed to enjoy his posturing, his willingness to try for a laugh even with his own dignity at stake. Then she could sit back and translate his exaggerations and embellishments, at least as directly as she could bear to without blushing, or worrying that his boasting was reflecting poorly on her. But the dragon in the barn had an opinion about that.

ALL SIDES OF THIS TALE MUST BE TOLD. IT IS MORE THAN JUST AN ADVENTURE STORY
.

Erde agreed. She saw Hal warming to N’Doch’s colorful description of the escape into the bush, questioning him directly in Frankish and eagerly sharing out his replies. She cleared her throat once more and gently interrupted. “And, remember, there at Mistress Lealé’s, we uncovered the first hints that the Summoner might be the dragons’ elder sister Air, and that the Summons might be a call for help.”

Water-as-Sedou had listened quietly from the start, but now he caught Erde’s eye. Relieved, she let him take over. With Sedou, there was no need to translate or worry that the proper telling of the tale would get sidetracked. And when he spoke, the entire room quietened.

“There is much,” he began in a voice like the tolling of bass bells, “that the dragons did not remember when they were waked from their long sleep, my brother Earth from under the mountain, myself from beneath the sea. So suddenly awake, so engendered by urgency and purpose, yet ignorant of how or why to put it to use. But memory returns.” Sedou wet his lips and surveyed his listeners gravely. “You have heard our sister Air mentioned. But there is yet another: our brother Fire.”

“Four!” Hal exclaimed softly. “Of course there would be.”

“Indeed, Sir Knight. You perceive the symmetry. But the symmetry is incomplete. Our sister Air is nowhere to be found. Were all in balance, there would be no need for dragon to be seeking dragon. We’d be four and already about the task we were awakened to accomplish.”

“You’ve discovered the Task, then?” Hal asked hopefully.

Sedou shook his head. “This knowledge requires a four-way understanding. No one of us is sufficient unto herself.”

“And what of Lord Fire? Do you know his whereabouts?”

Sedou paused, and Erde strained to pick up the brief dragon-to-dragon conference, too fast for her human senses. “We have hints. Worst of all, we . . . that is, some of us suspect him of working against us.”

Hal frowned, made a small sound of protest.

“Hear me out, Sir Knight.”

At this point, the tale caught even Baron Köthen’s attention. His bowed head, bronzed with firelight, lifted and turned ever so slightly in their direction. Erde watched his listening profile and thought she’d never seen anything more beautiful. Except, of course, the dragon Earth. She had not included her dreams in the telling, though the dragon encouraged her to. She could not bear to put the baron through that, to make him relive his humiliation in front of all these eager listeners. So she sat silently and let Sedou unwind the story of their time in Lealé’s mansion, of the fighting in the city outside, and Kenzo Baraga’s treachery. There was little she could add. The dragons knew better how those final bloody minutes had fallen out. N’Doch listened silently as well, curling and uncurling his fists as if amazed to find them on his wrists and still working.

A long silence followed Sedou’s finish, broken only by the snap of flames in the grate.

Then Hal said to Rose, “He was dead when he came to you? Truly?”

Rose tilted her chin at Linden, several places down the table. Linden nodded. All eyes turned to N’Doch, who grinned uncomfortably, though he usually loved an audience.

“Wonderful,” murmured Hal. “Wonderful.”

Captain Wender shook his head. He poured himself a half-mug of ale, then only sipped at it gingerly, as if working
to keep himself from draining it in a single gulp. “You could find yourself an honored place at any hearth in the land with a tale like that.”

“Those that are left standing,” added Hal with a hollow chuckle. “But now, what of the task ahead?”

Sedou sat back. “Our journey has just begun, Sir Knight. Now that our company is rested and recovered, we must be on our way to find our brother Fire, and quickly, for it seems that only he can lead us to our sister Air.”

“Told ya,” N’Doch murmured.

Erde looked at him sidelong. Earth had also said as much when she’d gone to him for comfort in the barn. The urge that drove these dragons was their sole reason for existence. It could be put aside no longer. Their time of peace and safety was at an end.

“We are correct to understand that the dragon Fire is implicated in this treachery?”

Erde had to glance down the table to assure herself that it was indeed Baron Köthen who had spoken. He was toying with his empty wine cup and meeting no one’s eyes. It was as if he’d spoken to himself. Then he looked up at Hal. “He sounds like the sort of dragon you always swore was a slanderous myth invented by fearful churchmen, my knight.”

“I’m sure we’ve misunderstood about Lord Fire,” Hal began.

“Not at all.” Sedou turned to Köthen, a long look down the table, as if noticing him for the first time. “You are right, my lord baron, though there is some difference of opinion about this within our ranks. My brother Earth wishes me to note that he is not yet convinced of Fire’s betrayal.”

“Betrayal? Impossible!” cried Hal. “A misunderstanding, surely! Dragons are all that is good and noble in God’s creation!”

Erde recalled her own shock and disbelief when Lady Water first suggested that Fire might be out to destroy them. N’Doch murmured something filthy and cynical that she refused to translate, and Sedou laughed, a bass rumble felt in the back of the throat, a laugh no true human could have produced. “Would that were true, Sir Knight.”

Köthen filled his wine cup and drained it. “You do persist, Heinrich, in believing in what other men have given up on long ago.”