In the Time of Dragon Moon (21 page)

“A boy,” said Queen Adela. “You have to promise me a boy. An heir.” She looked up, the pupil of her living eye round and dark as an owl's. I stared at her. She could not make me promise that.

“Uma?” she said. “A boy child.”

“Your Majesty, a boy to become Pendragon king, or a girl to become Pendragon queen.”

“A boy. A king!”

“A king,” I repeated just as loudly, promising nothing, only matching the intensity of her shout.

She smiled at me. “Very good,” she said.

• • •

L
ADY
O
LIVIA
LOOKED
up from her book a few hours later when I entered her room. “How is she, Uma?”

“The queen is asleep.” I had paused to listen outside Bianca's door before heading down the hall to her mother's room. I'd heard no sounds from within, but the king might still be in there. “The queen wants you to slide the trundle bed out below hers so you can be near her tonight if she should wake in need of anything.”

Lady Olivia sighed at the news. I didn't look up in case she detected the lie. The queen had made no such demand. I wanted Lady Olivia back upstairs and out of the way as soon as possible so she would not run into King Arden exiting her daughter's room. I kept my eyes on the crumpled dark green gown in the corner on the floor. Threads dangled like webs from the smudged fabric. She had torn off every decorative pearl that once adorned the bodice.

Lady Olivia quietly closed her book. Whatever rage she'd taken out on the gown was long gone. “I will never wear that again,” she said.

“A laundress could wash the ash—”

“Never,” she repeated, standing and kicking it toward me as if it were a dead thing. “Take it if you want it. If you don't, I'll have it burned.”

I had grown more accustomed to Bianca's gowns. But I had only two. The gray one I wore now needed washing; still, I couldn't seem to reach down to rescue the silken green dress that smelled strongly of Lady Olivia's perfume and smoke. I felt like the very richness of her gown would bind me to her proper Englishness, the lacings tie me inside her stiff, emotionless prison. I would lose myself in it.

“Thank you, no, my lady.”

Upstairs, I was too exhausted to clean my worktable or put the mortar and pestle back in Father's trunk. I dragged myself across the room, collapsed on my narrow bed, and wrapped myself in the Euit blanket Lady Tess gave me, missing Jackrun, wishing we hadn't fought, wishing the world were different, that I was different, that no one depended upon me for their freedom and I could go with him.

I thought the worst day I'd spent in Pendragon Castle since my father died was over. Nothing else could drag me any deeper down in despair than I already was.

I was wrong.

Healing

Vazan's Den, Wil
d
e Island

Wolf Moon

Late September 1210

S
OMEONE
HAD
BROKEN
into the Adan's trunk, stolen all the medicines meant for the queen. I didn't discover it until the morning. The thief took everything but the wound kit I'd left in my herb basket. I nearly tripped running down the stairs to find Jackrun.

“He rode out,” his pageboy said.

I cornered the boy, nearly pushing him against the wall. “When did he leave?”

“Last night.”

“Did he say when he'd be back?”

The boy shrugged. “He doesn't tell me nothing.”

Herb basket on my back, I took the wound supplies, the Euit blanket, and father's dragon belt, carrying the few precious things I still had left in my possession from my room.
Trust no one,
Jackrun said. I didn't.

You do not visit a red dragon in her den, but I was desperate. Thick fog rolled in from the sea as I headed out alone, shivering in my cloak, walking the edge of the cliffs. If this was September's chill, what would winter be like here in the north?
You won't be here that long. One way or another, you won't be here.
The thought made me shiver even more. At the bottom of the long, crooked wooden stairs, I stopped to fill a leather sack with sand and grabbed a stick before continuing on. Tracing the bottom of the high cliffs, I paused now and again and sniffed the air below the caves up in the rocky wall. When I caught Vazan's scent, I peeled off my slippers and started climbing up, catching tiny outcroppings with my fingers, finding a handhold here, a toehold there.

The keys to Father's trunk and Herbal clinked against the stone as I worked my way up. Useless to wear them now the Herbal was gone, the trunk empty. The small clinking sound scolded my ears. The noise must have also alerted Vazan. Either that or she caught my scent. A red scaly head poked out above. Silver eyes watched me struggling along the steep cliff with cool disinterest.
If I slip, she will simply let me fall to teach me a lesson for daring to approach her private cave,
I thought. But when I reached the mouth she moved her foreleg back enough for me to crawl inside.

I blew on my freezing fingers, missing the warmer caves I'd known back home, then greeted her in Euit. “We are being in this place together.” I scooted far enough inside to reverence her, bowing with my hands on the stony cave floor, not touching her. She'd never allowed me that, though I wondered if her skin might be warm.

“We are being in this place,” Vazan answered in kind, creeping backward to let me farther in while also blocking the way to the deeper recesses of her cave. Her sharp peppery odor stung my nose, and comingled with the ranker odor of rotting meat, which nearly overpowered me. Still, it worked both ways. I knew she would wash the walls with fire to remove my human smell from her den after I had gone. To lessen my offense, I kept as close to the mouth of the cave as I could without falling out.

“I won't stay long, Vazan. You have been courageous to remain here with me in my trouble.”

“I am here to make sure the queen keeps her promise. The Pendragon soldiers have to go. We do not want the English so close to our mountain. If they stay long enough to overtake our hunting lands, they will lose the protection of our long-held treaty. They will meet our teeth, our claws, and our fire.” She roared a heated jet. I flattened myself against the wall as it flared out the mouth of her cave.

Satisfied, she shook her head, her scales making soft crinkling sounds. She yawned. “Leave, Uma. I am sleeping now.”

“I would not disturb your sleep, rivule, if—”

“You came for thissss.” She reached back, filled her claw, and placed two green piles near my feet. My heart swelled as I fingered the pink root tendrils still clumped with earth, the hand-shaped bapeeta leaves with the precious dots of pollen on the undersides. She had gone to find it after all. “
Tuma-doa
—Thank you. I'm grateful, rivule.”

Vazan flicked out her long tongue, ready for me to go.

I steadied myself and cleared my throat. “I have bad news. I need more—”

“Of that?” she said, pointing to the herbs with one of her talons. “I will not go after any more of it!”

“No, this is enough bapeeta,
tuma-doa.
It's—” I took a breath, afraid to admit what had happened. “I've been robbed, rivule. Someone came in last night while I was attending the queen. I was gone two hours. They used that time to break into the Adan's trunk and take everything inside. The queen's remedies are gone.” I'd gone to sleep not knowing the robbery had already taken place. If I had cleaned the table, put the mortar and pestle back in the trunk, I would have seen it was empty.

“The fertility herbs to get her with child?”

“Yes, even that.”

“Then the army will stay in Devil's Boot. These English will have won.” She flattened her ears against her head. “How could you leave the Adan's medicines unguarded?”

“There was no one but myself to guard them! The herbarium door bolts from the inside. I had no way to lock the door from the outside, and whoever stole the herbs broke the lock on Father's trunk.”

“You searched for them, of course. Where did you look?”

I shifted on my feet. “Where would I search? I'm not allowed to scour private rooms. I cannot ask the king's guard to do it. Tell them my herbs are missing and the queen might turn on me, burn me straightaway.”

“Who would do thissss?”

“Someone wants me to fail. Jackrun thought it might be the fey folk working against me, but we—”

“Why would they work against you?”

“To keep the queen infertile so Jackrun can inherit the throne.”

“Prophecy,” she said, clicking her black talons on the stone floor. “Yessss.”

“I plan to go on fighting, rivule.”

“The herbs you need to win have been snatched,” she reminded. “You are declawed.”

I tugged the herb basket from my back, pulled out the leather sack, and poured a pile of sand on the cave floor.

“What's this, Uma?”

“You were with us when Father's Path Animal led him to the herbs to make the fertility cure, when he found the kea and when he sent me up the tree to pick huzana leaves from the vines.” I smoothed the sand out with my palm and used the stick to etch the thorny kea stems and shape the serrated leaves.

“Why draw this on my floor?”

“To remind you of what the plants look like.”

“Why not show me in the Adan's Herbal?”

My hand froze mid-drawing. I hadn't wanted to tell her that part.

“Uma?”

“It's gone with everything else, rivule.”

Vazan hissed. She enveloped me in so much smoke, I had to rush to the entrance, hang my head out and breathe. She could not feel this loss as acutely as I did. No one could. At the mouth of the cave I hugged my stomach, remembering the years I'd watched Father engrossed in his masterful book, sketching the outlines of each plant and listing their medicinal properties. His life's work was in that Herbal. I thought it would always be near to study at my leisure. I thought I would have it forever.

When the smoke cleared enough for me to come back inside, I faced her again. “We have to harvest the fertility herbs, Vazan. It must be done, but I cannot go myself. I cannot leave the queen.” She said nothing, just blinked at me as if I were an annoying rodent that had stumbled into her den. “You want the soldiers out of Devil's Boot as much as I do, Vazan. We have to keep working toward that. Everyone is depending on us.”

“Ussss? I wasn't asked to cure this queen.”

“I hope you will go south for us and pick the herbs we need, Vazan, for your clan and for mine.”

She clicked her talons again. Sparks flew out this time. “The bapeeta you asked for grew in a crevasse. I had to crawl down the narrow crack. It cost me.”

What did she mean by
cost me
? “Were you hurt, rivule?”

She did not answer. Of course she would not. I'd noticed the unusually pungent scent as soon as I'd entered. I'd ignored it thinking it was because I was inside her den. But what if the putrid odor came from a wound? Afraid for her, I said, “Let me see.”

“There is nothing you can do, Uma.”

She snapped her teeth when I ignored her and crossed to her right side, where there was more space to move between her large body and the cave wall. There was a reason why she'd given that side more room. I only had to look to see the long jagged tear running down her partly folded wing. The overlapping scales should have protected the wing skin beneath like heavy plumage, but they hadn't been thick enough to shield her against the sharp rocks that must have torn her wing in the narrow crevasse. “How in the name of the Holy Ones did you fly home with this torn wing, rivule?”

“I mostly walked,” she said, snapping her teeth again. I felt like snapping mine. It was a terrible injury for her. Dragons had to fly great distances to hunt. An inability to fly would be a death sentence. Large and powerful as she was, she wasn't fast enough to chase a buck or a boar on the ground. I could scream at the injustice of an injury grounding her just when I needed her to fly south. But she'd gotten this way to begin with because I'd sent her to gather the bapeeta.

I needed to examine her more closely. She had never let me touch her. Ever.

I stepped closer and gently traced the edge of the tear. She growled. I kept my hand where it was.

Her dragon skin felt thick and leathery. The layered wing scales were varied shades, from bloodred with yellow edges, to poppy orange to red brown, to a rich vermillion. More beautiful than feathers, they shone like soft, living jewels.

“Do you trust me to help you?”

Her growl grew deeper.

I ignored it. I'd known her all my life. She'd been loyal to my father and borne him on her back year after year. “I can stitch your wing so you can fly again.”

“Flying made the tear worse,” she hissed.

“So you intend to keep to your cave and starve?” Smoke rolled from her nostrils. “The tear won't worsen in flight if it's sutured.” I hurried back to the entrance and pulled the wound kit from my basket. The sea fog illumined the den in soft gray tones. Not enough illumination for what I had to do. “I'll need more light.”

She shot a breath of fire.

“Wait,” I added, dragging everything to the wall near her right side so she wouldn't burn me or my basket. “Now, give me a steady flare, please.”

“You are not the Adan.”

“I'm all you have.”

There was a long silence. The Adan had trained me to thread his needle. He'd let me watch him stitch many kinds of wounds, small and large, deep and shallow, straight and ragged. I would not tell Vazan I had never sutured wounds myself.

I squeezed the needle between my fingers, waiting for more light. Vazan finally gave in and hissed out a low, steady fire so I could work. Her decision ignited a small flame of courage. I threaded the needle. “Open your wing a little and spread it out. Now tilt it upward.” The topmost part of the tear was too high up for me to reach even with her lying on her stomach. “I will have to stand on your back foot.”

“You will not,” she said, her fire going out again.

“I will if you want to be healed.”

She grunted and moved her leg forward, her claws fully extended in silent warning. It was one thing to touch her, another to stand on her back leg using it like a stool, but it had to be done. I steeled myself and stepped up. Her scales were soft, almost silken on the soles of my feet. I poised my needle. “This might hurt.”

Vazan huffed bright, indignant fire over the warning. Her right eye swiveled back to watch me as I poked her skin, drawing out the thread. I wished her eyes couldn't move independently so I could work without an audience. I knew better than to suggest she look away.

Father said,
Be present with what you are doing.
I tried to put away my fears and focus on Vazan's torn wing, my needle. Mother was a gifted weaver. I'd been hopeless at it, all ventures ended in tangled threads. I'd been no better at stitchery. I was in the past again, trapped in fear.
Be present
. I began working stitch by careful stitch. I grew calmer. After a while my hands and fingers began to tingle. The small flame of courage I'd felt earlier burned in my chest, warmth spread down my arms to my fingertips. My hand was steady. My sutures sure. Was this what the Adan meant by being present?

The warm energy thrummed through me as I continued, repairing her wound with neat, even stitches. I was not my father. I was only Uma, but I knew this healing work. I knew it well. Vazan's breaths were slow and steady by the time I salved her wing with fragrant woundwort.

“It will be sore for a while,” I said when I finished at last and climbed down from her leg.

“But I will fly?”

“Yes.”

“Yessss,” she said, scrabbling her claws against the cave floor.

“Not yet,” I warned. “It's too soon!” Vazan ignored me. Her tail slapped my thighs, stinging them as she rushed through the entrance and launched into the air.

I cursed her impetuousness, watching her soar out over the water, anxiously called her name when she disappeared in the thick morning fog. Babak might swim, but if her weak wing failed her and she fell, she could not.
By all that's sacred. Fly out there and drown. That's just what we need!
I heaved a sigh when I could see her again. She caught a few gulls in her jaws before coming back inside, went to her favored spot, and spat her small prizes on the floor. Five dead gulls lay at her feet.

“I told you to wait,” I shouted. “It should be two days at least before you do that again!” It was dangerous to raise your voice to a fire breather. I didn't care. I was her physician and she had to listen to me. She reared back, her silver eyes wide. I pressed myself against the wall, waiting for retribution. And waited.