The Fire Dragon (29 page)

“How do you fare, my love?” Verrarc said.

“Far better than the day before, truly.” She smiled at him. “I think me I might eat some of that meal you've so kindly brought me.”

“Good.” He set the tray down on the little table by the bed. “You've got far too thin.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and broke the loaf up, handing her a crust to use as a spoon. She dipped it into the thick sauce and tried a dainty bite.

“Very tempting, truly,” Raena said. “And how was your morning, my love?”

“Strange indeed. You know, I think me you're right when you say young Niffa has great powers on the witchroad.”

“So she does, but what happened? Somewhat did, if you'd call the morning strange.”

“True enough. I went to the Council House to await the others, and whilst I did stand by the door, a dragon did fly over Citadel. Then the beast did stoop and hover like a hawk to speak to Niffa.”

Raena let the crust drop from her fingers.

“A dragon?” she whispered. “What sort of beast?”

“A black one, but a greeny sort of black that glittered and changed in the sun. About the head, though, the color was coppery.”

“Oh ye gods.”

“Is it some terrible omen, do you think?”

Raena shook her head no and took the goblet of water from the tray. She drank before she spoke again. “I fear that dragon, my love.” Her face had gone as pale as death. “From what you tell me, I think me I do know her, and she does hate me.”

“What? Where would you have met such a beast?”

“When I was about my goddess's service.” She leaned back against the pillows. “I be so weary, my love. Leave me, I beg you, and let me rest.”

Verrarc did as she asked, but he wondered, off and on throughout the afternoon, if she were speaking the truth or merely suffering from a sick woman's fancies.

As she flew south, Arzosah was grumbling to herself. She had smelled Raena's scent as she circled over Citadel. As much as she wanted to kill the wretched woman and be done with her, she'd been forced to leave her, safe in some hidden house, no doubt, surrounded by her own kind. It was just like a pack of stupid human beings to run around and screech at the very sight of a dragon! At least these particular villagers hadn't started throwing spears and rocks, but they had bad manners all the same.

Arzosah had been so addled by the noise, in fact, that she'd lost her chance to tell Niffa that her brother was safe and would be home soon. The girl herself had been polite, though it was obvious she hadn't understood a word. I
should have spoken in Deverrian, Arzosah thought. She so hated using the language of humankind that she'd slipped naturally into Elvish instead. Soon, once she reached Cengarn, she would have to lower herself to using Deverrian exclusively—for a while, she reminded herself, only for a while, until Rori and I leave that stinking heap of a town behind.

At moments like these, when she flew free in a balmy sky, with the world below all green and teeming with prey, Arzosah wondered why she was returning at all. After all, Rhodry Maelwaedd had once enslaved her with a dweomer ring. But he let me go free again, she reminded herself— and the enslaving was Evandar's doing anyway. At the thought of Evandar she hissed aloud. How dare he call her faithless, how dare he insult all Wyrmkind? Well, she was showing him, all right. She was keeping her promise to Rhodry, and Evandar could keep his wretched insults! Perhaps she'd even meet Evandar in Cengarn and finally take her revenge upon him.

Yet deep in her heart, Arzosah knew that she was travelling to see Rhodry again and little more. He was the first friend she'd ever had, and compared to friendship, even revenge paled.

Spring brought warmth to Cengarn and hope with it. The winter wheat had sprouted; soon it would be milk-ripe, fit for porridge if not for bread. This first harvest would be a scant one, since the farmers would hold back plenty of seed grain for the next planting, but still, the prospect of food to come raised everyone's spirits. The hope was rewarded, in fact, when just before the harvest an unexpected surplus arrived at Cadmar's dun. On a sunny noontide, Dallandra was studying one of the Jill's books when she heard shouting from the ward below.

“The wyvern! The wyvern! It's the king's men!”

Servants and noble-born alike poured out of the brochs and into the ward, then flooded like snowmelt down to the gates. Up in her tower room, Dallandra leaned dangerously out of the window to watch. Through the town and up the
hill a procession came riding. At its head two heralds, mounted upon white horses, carried staves bound with ribands. Just behind them a lad on a pony held the banner of the Gold Wyvern, and then came a noble lord, whose shield, slung at the saddle peak, bore the same device, proclaiming him one of the king's household men. Behind them rode a squad of forty fighting men of the King's Own on matched bays, and after them creaked and crawled a long procession of wooden carts, loaded to the brim with heaped sacks of… of something.

Dallandra left her book and hurried down to the crowded ward. Over by the well stood a gaggle of boys, Jahdo among them. When she waved to him, he bowed to her so awkwardly that all the other boys laughed. In the doorway of the main broch stood Gwerbret Cadmar, leaning on his stick, with Prince Daralanteriel standing at his right hand and Princess Carra, accompanied by her wolfish dog, just behind him. She was carrying her own baby like a maidservant. Cadmar smiled when he saw Dallandra and waved her over to join him.

“Good morrow, Your Grace,” Dallandra said. “What is all this?”

“Succor from the high king, I'll wager,” Cadmar said. “Our liege is as generous as he should be, eh? You'll remember how I sent him messages at the lifting of the siege.”

“Last autumn? I do, truly.” Mentally she counted out months—it would have taken the courier a long time to ride to Dun Deverry, so far to the south, and of course, it would have been wasted effort for the king to send wagons north in the winter. “This is as soon as his men could have reached us, then.”

“Just that.”

“I see they've brought their own provisions. And thank all the gods for that!”

But in the event, the carts proved to hold far more than the necessary provisions for the king's men. The king had sent seed grain of the best kind of wheat from his own stores. His personal envoy, a Lord Yvaedd, announced this as soon as he'd presented himself to the gwerbret. He was a
smooth-looking man, Yvaedd, with oiled black hair, pale grey eyes, and the soft lilt of Eldidd in his speech.

“The high king sends you this grain as a gift,” Yvaedd said. “Doubtless, Your Grace, you're short up for coin. The farmers will gladly pay for this bounty.”

Cadmar considered him for a moment with narrow eyes.

“My lord,” the aged gwerbret said finally, “I see you hail from the coast lands. Things are different, up here on the border. My farmers are all freemen. Their grandfathers came here willingly with my grandfather when the high king's grandfather declared Arcodd open for settlement. We don't have much coin, either, up here in the north.”

“Ah well, then, some extra labor on your walls—”

“My lord, forgive me for interrupting. I see I haven't expressed myself very well. Every farmer who's my vassal is going to get a sack of this grain the same way I did, as a gift.”

Yvaedd stared, then his eyelids fluttered, and he bowed.

“My apologies, Your Grace. The high king sent me here because he wished to know more about the Northlands. I see that I have much to learn. I promise you that you'll find me a willing pupil.”

Cadmar smiled with a little twist to his mouth. Yvaedd bowed again, rather randomly, to those standing near the gwerbret. Dallandra was suddenly aware of how clean Yvaedd was, and how clean all his men were, too, with their white shirts, heavy with embroidery, their fine grey brigga, and well-polished gear. What had they done? Carried clean clothes with them all this way for the day when they'd meet the gwerbret, or stopped to wash clothes at some river on their way? It had to be one or the other. She noticed them looking around at Cadmar's dun with faint smiles or a wrinkled nose for the pigsties by the far wall. As much as she hated the place herself, their sneers annoyed her.

“Well, now,” Cadmar said briskly. “Please forgive my discourtesy, Lord Yvaedd. Come in and take the hospitality of my hall.”

The very next morning messengers rode out to announce
the king's boon. The heralds left as well, but they headed back south to the duns of Lord Gwinardd, Cadmar's vassal, and Gwerbret Drwmyc, his ally, to take them a royal command to come testify in Cengarn. Apparently Lord Yvaedd wanted to hear the recent war discussed in some detail and from more mouths than the gwerbret's.

“I don't understand,” Dallandra told Rhodry. “Doesn't he believe what Cadmar says?”

“He'll have to pretend to if naught else,” Rhodry said, grinning, “or he'll end up facing me on the combat ground.”

“What?”

“Well, if Cadmar's honor should be insulted, he can't fight to defend it, not at his age and with that twisted leg and all. I've already won a trial by combat, and I'm a silver dagger, so I'd be the man to represent him.”

“Yvaedd wouldn't like that much.”

“True spoken. So His Lordship's being circumspect. Strange reports have reached the king, says he, about strange things.”

“Huh, I'll just wager they have.”

“Our Lordship wants to hear every detail. He brought a scribe, too, to write everything down nice and proper.”

“I see.” All at once she smiled. “You know, I think I'll see if I can call a witness myself. Evandar would be an interesting man for Lord Yvaedd to meet.”

Later that afternoon, when she had a quiet moment to herself, Dallandra sat up in her tower room and let her thoughts reach out to Evandar, but she felt no answering touch of mind on mind.

In the gwerbret's chamber of justice Lord Yvaedd was holding a council of sorts, though he kept to the polite fiction that Gwerbret Cadmar was presiding while he himself merely listened and advised. Under the banners of his rhan the gwerbret sat at an enormous oak table with the golden ceremonial sword of his rank laid crosswise in front of him and a priest of Bel at his right hand. At his left were Prince Daralanteriel and Lord Gwinardd. Although Drwmyc had sent word that he would arrive after his dues and taxes had
come in, Yvaedd had been unwilling to wait so long to open his inquiry. Yvaedd himself was seated off to one side, with his scribe at a table behind him. The scribe kept making notes on untidy bits of pale scraped parchment, the trimmings from sheets cut for book pages and proclamations.

Rhodry himself sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the table with Cadmar's captain and Gwinnard's. Why a lowly silver dagger had been summoned puzzled him, and as the council proceeded, no one spoke to him. Sunlight streamed into the room, lazy flies circled; staying awake turned into a major battle. Once, in fact, Cadmar's captain let out a long hard snore, but Rhodry elbowed him awake before the noble-born noticed.

None of the noble-born had any idea of how to make a coherent story out of the complicated events leading up to last summer's siege. Dar was perhaps the best at it, but Cadmar and Gwinardd kept interrupting him to add details and digressions. Yvaedd, however, seemed to find their talk of false goddesses and sorcerers who could turn themselves into birds interesting enough. Though at first he asked various questions, eventually he merely sat and listened. Toward the end Rhodry wondered if Yvaedd realized how bewildered he looked. He supposed not. Finally, Dar described the Horsekin. He rose from his chair to indicate their enormous height while Gwinardd and Cadmar kept interrupting to talk about their horses and long sabers. Yvaedd could take no more.

“My lords!” Yvaedd rose and bowed to Dar. “And Your Highness. Truly, I mean not the slightest insult, but these Horsekin—I've never heard of such a thing, and here I was born in the west myself.”

“But in Aberwyn. That's all the way down on the sea-coast.” Dar considered for a moment. “Here, my lord. If you started telling your friends at court about the Westfolk, would they believe you?”

“They wouldn't,” Yvaedd said. “I catch your drift, Your Highness—you're certainly quite real, for all their disbelief. My apologies.” He glanced at the scribe. “We will take these Horsekin as described. Make sure you write down every detail. This is troubling news.”

The scribe nodded.

“They take slaves, you say?” Yvaedd turned back to Cadmar.

“Just that,” Cadmar said. “And I fear me they see Deverry as a fine place to catch some new ones.”

“The high king will see the great import in this. Fear not. I'm cursed glad you could hold your own against them, when the time came to face them in the field.”

“Imph,” Gwinardd said. “We never would have managed that without the dragon's help.”

“The dragon?” Yvaedd turned to him. “Does His Grace have an alliance with Aberwyn, then?”

“Not that dragon!” Gwinardd leaned forward, all seriousness. “I don't mean a blazon, I mean a real one. You know, like in the old tales. A scaly sort of beast, black and green, with enormous wings. The enemy mounts couldn't stand the smell of her, and they bolted.”

Yvaedd looked at him with his mouth stuck half-open like the lid of a rusty metal chest. Gwerbret Cadmar sighed, then hauled himself up with the aid of his walking stick.

“It's late,” Cadmar announced. “We've been at this blasted conference all afternoon, and I for one need some ale. I suggest we convene again tomorrow.”

“Very well, Your Grace.” Lord Yvaedd's voice sounded as feeble as a man with a fever in his blood. “I wouldn't mind a tankard myself.”

As the council was dispersing, Lord Yvaedd caught up with Rhodry just outside the door.

“Come walk with me, silver dagger,” the lord said. “I'd like a private word with you, if I may.”

“Of course, my lord.”

They strolled down to the end of the corridor and stood looking out of a small window, framing the view of the town below the dun. Lord Yvaedd considered Rhodry for a moment, then smiled in a way that was doubtless meant to be pleasant.

“I hear from your way of speaking that you hail from Aberwyn,” Yvaedd said.