In the Time of Dragon Moon (5 page)

Pendragon Summer Castle, Dragon's Keep

Egret Moon

August 1210

I
PULLED
F
ATHER
'
S
belt from the trunk. The red dragon's wings seemed to move as it slowly uncoiled. His belt was longer and thicker than mine. Made for a man. I rubbed my thumb across the horned owl engraving on the buckle, Father's Path Animal.

Jackrun complimented me on the beach.
You must be a very gifted healer to have risen so high in your profession.
He didn't know my story. I was doing a forbidden thing. I was an untried female. I'd never been allowed to mix cures or treat the sick while Father was alive.

I looped the Adan's belt above my own, cinched it in to feel the pressure of it against my waist. Mother wove the red dragons with love; Father had worn them when he followed the visions the Holy Ones gave him to the places where the healing plants grew. He'd worn this belt when we harvested the herbs for his greatest remedy, Kuyawan
—
beloved child.

But what powers did I have? The Holy Ones hadn't blessed me with visions. My Path Animal had never guided me to healing herbs.

I locked the trunk. A servant came in and dropped the bedding on my straw mattress. She eyed me warily, and stayed just long enough to flit the dust cloth around here and there before she bolted for the door.

“Wait,” I said, putting out my hand. “Give me the room key, please. I need it.”

The girl screwed up her face. “I weren't told to do that, miss,” she said, and flew down the stairs, probably frightened by the sight of the first Euit woman she had ever seen.

Sir Geoffrey had offered help:
If you should need anything 
. . . But he would have no authority to get me a room key. I would have to work it out somehow if I did not want to sit up with my back pressed against the door, knife in hand all night long, waiting for Prince Desmond.

They'd left me no firewood to seethe the queen's morning tonic. I would fetch my own wood; breathe fresh air before I was forced to stay inside for the night.

Downstairs, I used my Euit training to move unseen through the torchlit halls, whispering the chant,
havuela
—become—to help me blend in with my surroundings. I found it much harder to blend indoors than out, but I'd been forced to learn how among the English who lived their lives in stone boxes. That and silent feet took me beyond the courtyard gate, out into the clean-scented summer night.

I circled the corner of the castle and crossed the dirt road to walk in the long grass, the sea to my right, the harbor to my back, the woods two hundred yards or so ahead. I was in no hurry. I felt myself expanding under the scattered stars. It was good to be outside. I was reveling in my stolen freedom, when the sound of distant pounding feet made me turn.

A man in courtier's clothing raced from the castle, flying across the road and down the steps to the beach. Not wanting to be caught out alone, I stood very still as he ran along the sand. He stopped suddenly, thirty strides or so downhill from me, leaned toward the brambles, and roared fire.

We should all balance the four sacred elements of earth, wind, water, and fire in our being.
But no man breathes fire. Yet my eyes did not lie. His flames lit the brambles, the ignited wood burst into a brilliant golden blaze. I watched transfixed, saw his face in the glowing light.

Jackrun.
My fingers curled to fists as he shouted flames in sharp, bright javelins. I heard the rage in his roar. Terror blazed through me. And something else. Exhilaration at his unleashed power.

A few birds flew upward, crying out, to escape. One slower than the rest caught fire and beat its flaming wings before it fell.

Sparks popped and flew up like tossed jewels over Jackrun's dark head. He hurled hunks of sand to put the fire out and kicked up more with his boots, moving like a fighting man who'd thrown off his weapons in favor of his hands and feet. It was then he looked up toward the bluff and saw me.

I could have become a part of the blowing grass tickling my arms, night's darkness, but I didn't. I clung to a slender stalk of pampas grass as he made his way up the bluff with long forceful strides.

“What are you doing here, Uma?” he demanded. Smoke puffed from his nose and mouth.

“You breathe fire,” I said, still only half believing what I'd seen.

He wiped his brow. His eyes were the colors of green earth and flame.

“Listen.” He grabbed my shoulders, shook me once, then dropped his hands again. “You cannot tell anyone what you saw.” His face was all passion and anger. Heat wafted off his skin. He'd been kind when he helped me carry Father's trunk. Now I wondered who he was.

“Surely others know?”

Silence.

“Your family?”

He stood very still, his arms crossed, but the silent yes I saw in him made him grip his upper arms tighter.

“Your uncle, the king, and his wife, the queen?”

“No,” he said, firmly, “not them.”

His eyes fell on my double-belted waist. I'd put on Father's belt—missing Mother, missing Father, feeling alone on this strange new island full of English—and forgotten to take it off. “If you have been given this power,” I said, “why hide it?”

Jackrun began pacing the bluff, keeping his path small, as if the grass caged him. “Just give me your promise.”

Never trust the English,
Father said. I could not make promises so easily anymore. I needed to gather information as sure coin to use if I needed it. “I know some warriors in my tribe who would love to have such power.”

He barked a short, bitter laugh. “You don't know what you're saying, Uma.” His feet moved, his arms, his hands. “I have to get back,” he added, glancing toward the castle.

“And I have firewood to gather,” I said.
You are the fox. They are the hounds
.
You must learn to survive.

“I'll give you a hand,” he said. We headed down the hill. Summer stars winked above, a treasury of diamonds. On the beach I slipped off my shoes and felt the sand between my toes as Jackrun rolled up his sleeves, fell to his knees, and dug a hole with his bare hands to bury the dead bird he'd burned. When he was done, he patted the small mound with care as if he were tucking in a child.

He stood tall again, brushing off his hands. Green dragon scales covered his right forearm, each diamond-shaped scale the size of a coin.

“I nearly burned Desmond tonight over that,” he said, looking down at his scaly arm. “Not my scales, but my sister's. He insulted Tabitha. He called her neck scales repulsive in the middle of the feast, loud enough for everyone to hear. She ran from the table in tears.” He swiped a hand through his hair, a swift, hard pass as a man skins an animal with a sharp blade. “He's the same callous bastard he's always been.”

I tasted the words
callous bastard,
liking the sound. The callous bastard had shed the blood of my people, the callous bastard whipped me and my father, the callous bastard slobbered on my neck, reached up the front of my dress.

Jackrun was on the move again, this time walking to the shore. Water hissed up to our feet, touched his boots and my bare toes. I pointed across the sea at the dragon flying under the stars, black as a torn piece of night. It might be Jackrun's dragon, Babak, or Lord Kahlil. Too far away to tell. Dragons combine earth, wind, and fire in their bodies. They have a power like the sun. Jackrun had this same life force in him.

“You are the only one who can do what they do with fire.”

Jackrun's mouth tightened. He hooked his thumb around the jeweled dagger at his belt.

“You don't understand. It's dangerous. I'm dangerous.”

“You didn't harm Prince Desmond tonight,” I said. “You ran outside before you burned him.”

“He deserved to burn.” His body was rigid. He glared down at me. I kept his gaze.

“Yes. He does.”
Had I spoken the words out loud?
For a moment his fire had released me.

“Uma Quarteney.” Jackrun's gaze softened. Then he crouched to fill his hands with seawater and rinse his face. Water ran down his cheeks and chin, his wrists and arm scales. He looked calmer when he stood again. “You remind me of someone,” he said. “Someone I lost years ago.”

I waited for him to explain, taking in his thoughtful mouth, the weight of sorrow around it. But he never told me who he was thinking of. We circled the beach, gathering firewood. Jackrun broke a longer branch across his knee with a loud crack.

“You still haven't given me an answer, Uma.”

I paused, cradling my driftwood. Time in the water had made the wood's surface smooth as skin. What would Jackrun's scales feel like? Thick and leathery? Rough as bark? “I'll keep what I saw to myself if you will do something for me.”

He gave a wary sigh as he faced me. “Of course there is a price. What is it?”

“I need the key to my tower room. The servant would not let me have it.”

Jackrun's shoulders eased. He stepped closer, stretching his hand over mine a moment like a hovering bird, then took my branches and added them to his stack to carry for me.

“Key it is,” he said.

Pendragon Summer Castle, Dragon's Keep

Egret Moon

August 1210

J
ACKRUN
'
S
MOTHER
,
THE
duchess Tess Pendragon, waylaid us in the castle hall, parting us as soon as we came in as a tiny island parts a river. She asked Jackrun to step into the family presence chamber with her and called a servant to carry my firewood upstairs. As soon as the gangly boy stacked the wood and left the tower, I shoved the wardrobe in front of the door—one way to keep Prince Desmond out until I had the key—then opened the windows and cleaned the room by torchlight, chasing dust and shadows until I sat alone exhausted on the bed.

The ropes below the straw mattress creaked under my weight. I knew I should rise, set out the four sacred elements, offer myself to Creator, and pray to the Holy Ones. Father would have done that, grateful to arrive safely on a new island without accident or injury. But I was too tired. I felt a strange rocking motion in my body as if I were still aboard the ship. I decided to rest a little and wait for Jackrun and the key.

Jackrun came to me in my dreams. Not breathing fire or riding his dragon. He had filled a bowl with seawater. I looked inside and saw a bright orange starfish. In the dream I asked how he'd found the power to pull a star down from the sky and he laughed.

Thunderous pounding outside the tower door woke me hours later with a start. I raced across the room thinking it was Jackrun. Lady Olivia's muffled voiced called, “Uma! For God's sake, open up!”

The heavy wardrobe scraped against the floor as I pushed it aside. Lady Olivia shivered in her long robe at the top of the stairs. “The queen!” she said. “She is in a bad way. Crying in her bed. Shouting at people who are not there.”

“I'll mix the calming cure.”

“No time. Bring what you need and make it in her bedchamber. Come on!”

I unlocked the trunk. Jackrun hadn't come with the room key. I might miss him if I left, but I couldn't think of that now. I gathered the medicines, locked the trunk, and followed Lady Olivia to the queen's bedchamber.

The red curtains had been drawn back on Her Majesty's bed. She was writhing as we entered; twisting the sheets and covers into thick cloth snakes. “Let me go, you filthy witches,” she was crying. “Untie me!”

Lady Olivia approached the bed. “She relives the night the witches tormented her and put out her eye when she was a girl. I tried to wake her, but it is not a dream. It is more like some fit. Your Majesty,” she said, sitting by her, “your physician is here.”

“My eye!” she screamed, pushing Lady Olivia away. “Get away from me! Please don't put out my eye!” Her scream sent ice up my spine. Lady Olivia forced a hand over Queen Adela's mouth. However late it was, someone was bound to hear us if we couldn't quiet her. I shook as I mixed the sleeping remedy and the bapeeta in honey. Mother had told me the story of how the queen lost her eye on All Hallows' Eve, but it was one thing to know a tale, another thing to be drawn into the agony as if it were happening here and now, to hear the pitiful, frightened cries of the victim as she relived it.

On the bed, Lady Olivia was doing her best to muffle the screams. “Ouch,” she cried, cradling her hand. “She bit me!”

Someone pounded on the door. “Your Majesty? Are you all right?” Lady Olivia flew to answer the knock as I spooned the honeyed cure into the queen's mouth.

“No,” the queen said, tears wetting the side of her face below her living eye. Still she swallowed the mixture.

“A nightmare,” Lady Olivia was saying to the person on the far side of the door. “Her physician is attending her. We will call you if we need any assistance.”

Queen Adela breathed fast as a frightened bird, but she took a second spoonful. I'd made sure to add extra honey to entice her. “Now we wait,” I said.

Lady Olivia sat again and began a lullaby my mother used to sing to me. For a brief moment I thought I smelled the scent of my mother's hair.

I stepped back, overcome, as I watched this woman's way of healing, a way to calm fears, ease pain with song. This was not Father's way, and so not mine. Shaken by the childhood feelings the song unleashed, I told myself to do what the Adan would do and went about recapping the honey, cleaning the medicinal spoon as I waited for the cure to take effect.

The queen rested her head on her companion's shoulder, her face ashen under her wildly tangled hair. The room began to quiet.
Ona loneaih,
I thought in Euit,
be you well
. I heard Her Majesty whimper as a young child would do after a bout of crying. Then she let out a sudden, violent snort and pushed Lady Olivia off the bed onto the floor.

I jumped back as Queen Adela leaped onto her feet with tremendous energy that seemed almost inspired.

“You can't have her,” she shouted to the ceiling.“She's mine!”

“What has happened?” asked Lady Olivia, stepping back, afraid now to come near her.

“Another memory,” I guessed. “The medicine hasn't taken hold yet.”

The queen screamed, “Get away from my witch pyre, dragon!” She raised her leg as if mounting a horse, and rode off in her mind, her body jiggling up and down in an imagined gallop. “Bring back that witch. Witches have to burn! Tanya has to burn! Riders, go after that thief of a dragon and bring the witch back to me!”

The queen's body tottered and I was afraid she would fall. “Help me with her,” I said.

Lady Olivia moaned and crumpled to the queen's bed, gathering the blankets to herself and hiding her face in them. I'd never seen her so affected by the queen's distress.

“Your Majesty,” I said, speaking softly. “This is only a dream.” My eyes were drawn to a painting on the bedside wall of a dragon breathing fire as he flew over the trees. If this painting brought on Her Majesty's current nightmare . . . I took it down and turned it to face the wall.

“Bring Tanya back, you thief!” the queen cried.

I inched up to her right side, put my arms about her, and held her. Until at last her body quieted to a series of trembles so strong I felt the quaking in my own.

She cried a little. “Where is—?” She shuddered, turning her head to me. “I am so tired, Uma,” she whispered.

She gripped my double-belted waist as I led her back toward her bed.

Lady Olivia still hugged the blankets, shaking. It took some coaxing on my part to get her to release them. “I am sorry, Uma,” she said, her breath catching as we tucked Her Majesty in. “I . . .” She looked like a stunned woman pulled out of the wreckage.

“It's all right. You were overcome.” I felt the same, but I did not say so. The Adan was never shaken. He was reserved, proud. The queen relied on me to treat her as competently as my father would. It unnerved me to be so undone.

“I'm thirsty,” the queen said, sitting up. “What are you doing here, Uma?” she asked as Lady Olivia fetched her cup.

“You were having trouble sleeping, Your Majesty.”

“I see,” she said, yawning. “Well, I can sleep now.” She drank to the dregs and lay down again, her dark hair spreading out like wet seaweed around her head.

We watched her eyes close, her face serene now in the candlelight.

Lady Olivia sighed and glanced up. “It is over, I think. Thank you, Uma.”

“We both worked together.”

She shook her head. “It was you and your potent medicine put her back to sleep,” she whispered.

“My father's medicine.”

“You must learn to take a compliment, Uma. He is not here. You are the one who serves Her Majesty now.”

And I'm the one she will burn if I fail,
I thought, looking down at the queen. The queen's eyelids fluttered, pale as moths. I remembered Father's warning:
If we both die here, who will free our tribe?
Already the Adan was in the grave. Did I have the skills to give Her Highness the child she wanted? What if the elders back home were right? What if a woman did not have the ability to become a true healer? I didn't move, sat poised as rock hoping Lady Olivia could not read my fear as I broke into a cold sweat.