In the Time of Dragon Moon (7 page)

“Then I'll stay.”

“Stay with her smelly potions, then, and you can stink like an Euit.”

There were more noises from within as if the two were struggling. Then the door slammed.
Am I alone again? Have they both gone?
I dared not go in through the window if one of them was still inside. I waited, then heard scraping noises in the tower room. The woman must be moving a chair. Was she about to stand on it and meddle with the herbs I'd hung from the rafters this morning? I peered in, saw her on the chair reaching up. Her back was to me.

Leaping to the floor with a thump, I pulled her down, and covered her mouth to stopper her scream. The woman was three times my weight, short, and balding. Her mud-brown eyes were wide as she screamed into my hand.

“You do not enter my room without asking. I am the queen's physician. No one touches my medicines. Do you understand?”

The woman nodded, her fat tears wetting my thumb. I did not like frightening her, but she was toying with herbs that could not be replaced without a three-week journey south on horseback all the way to Devil's Boot once I was back on Wilde Island.

“I will remove my hand if you promise not to scream.”

Another nod.

I released her and wiped my hand on a rag. “Now tell me why you are here.”

The woman sniffed. She held her chin up, trying to look down at me, but she was too short. “Prince Desmond wants to see you for his headache. I'll never come back here,” she added. “No one can make me.” Her muddy eyes were all anger as she backed out the door. I saw her give the sign against the devil before she thudded down the steps.

I closed my door again, huffing. I couldn't ignore the royal request even if his headache was a fabrication to lure me to his room. The
Adan-duxma
said:
Adans heal the wicked and the righteous alike.
My father never lost his focus when he'd mixed the queen's cures, despite her brutality. I needed the competence to mix this cure without bile rising in my throat, but I couldn't calm myself.

I set out my mother's pinch pot bowl filled with water, my father's leather pouch of sacred earth. Breathed in the light breeze whispering from the still open window, lit a candle, and leaned into the power of the four sacred elements for balance, hoping that would be enough.

The small evicta seeds were night black in the pale onyx mortar. I'd used evicta for the queen's pain, and once or twice to treat Bianca's headaches back in Pendragon Castle. But the king's guard hadn't let Father use the painkiller on the spit boy with the severed hand. What was Prince Desmond's trivial little headache compared to that boy's wretched pain? I felt my anger boiling up again and glanced over the four elements for help.
You can do this.
A true Adan heals the wicked and the righteous alike.

Head down, I chanted evicta's name to release its potent power, crushing the small seeds with Father's heavy stone pestle. The door opened and shut again with a thunk. I knew who it was before looking up.

Too late to stop him. The prince was already in my herbarium.

Pendragon Summer Castle, Dragon's Keep

Egret Moon

August 1210

H
OW
LONG
DOES
it take to answer a summons?” he said, coming toward me.

“I was only just told you have a headache, Your Royal Highness. I am mixing your medicine now.”

He pressed up close to me at the table. “What is that stuff?”

“Seeds that will cure your head pain,” I said, crushing them harder, wishing I could do to him what I was doing to the seeds.

“I like it when you lean over like that.” He was eyeing my low-cut gown. I straightened up, quickly. The prince grabbed my wrist and removed the pestle from my hand. He dropped the pestle by the mortar with a thud, crushing me against the worktable. “Do you remember when I found you in Devil's Boot, Uma?”

My eyes were on his chin. I did not look up. “Yes, Your Highness.”

“Your father made you dress like a boy. He worked you like a slave. I saved you from that.”

Saved me? You abducted us!

“I thought you would want to thank me for the favor,” he said, running his free hand up to my chin. He pinched my jaw, forced my head back, and pressed his thick lips against mine. I tasted the fried fish and ale he'd just downed for breakfast. I shouldn't move. You do not cross the king's son; still, I pushed him off.

“You should know better than to push me away, Uma!”

Thumping sounds came from the window behind us as something large flew past. The sound vanished as quickly as it had come.

Think. Make some excuse.
“Your Royal Highness, I cannot allow myself to be with you in that way.”

“Why not? What's the matter with you?”

I was slowly inching back. “I cannot give myself to another.”

He grabbed the stone pestle. “Come here or feel this on the back of your head.”

I ran. He lunged at me, swinging the heavy pestle. I ducked, but not low enough. The stone pestle cracked against the side of my head. I reeled from the pain. He pushed me to the floor, straddled me, and held my arms down against the planks.

“Well now,” he said, smiling. His dark hair fell about his plump face as he leered down. Head throbbing, I struggled under his bulk. Lights flitted around us.
Don't pass out!
Breathe.
I couldn't suck in enough breath under his heavy weight. He shifted, uncoiling himself like a snake, and slid down, lying on top of me as if my body were his bed. I screamed. He clamped his hand over my mouth.

I squirmed under him, tried to kick him off. He was too strong, too heavy.
Grab the table leg, overturn it on him.
My outstretched fingers were inches from it. I strained, desperate to reach it.

The prince was breathing hard as he slid his cold hand up my leg and tugged at my small clothes. Thumping noises again. Babak's head appeared just outside the window. On dragonback, Jackrun peered down at us and recoiled, seeing Desmond stretched on top of me with his hand over my mouth. He dove through the window, rolled to a stand, and loped toward us, agile as a mountain lion.

“Get away from her!” He grabbed Desmond's arms and pulled him off of me. I curled up on my side, clutched my stomach, and tried to catch my breath as they rolled on the floor, straining and grunting. There was a sickening smack as Desmond punched Jackrun in the mouth. They tumbled past me and rammed into the worktable, knocking it over. The stone mortar flew off and struck my neck. I gasped at the shock of pain as black seeds spilled around me. Mother's water dish broke by my shoulder. The candle landed in the rushes, setting them alight.

Desmond drew out his knife, slashed Jackrun's upper arm. Jackrun screamed into his clamped teeth, forced Desmond on his side, roared fire behind his back.

“Jackrun,” I shouted. He was about to set Prince Desmond's hair and clothes on fire. Jackrun looked up.

Sir Geoffrey burst into the room. “What's this?” He pulled the two apart, stomped out the burning rushes with his boot, and picked up the broken candle. “You very nearly set the whole room on fire.”

Shaking, I came to my feet, one hand on the overturned table for support, one hand on my swelling neck where the mortar had struck it, a worse pain than the lump already forming on my head.

“I was protecting Uma,” Jackrun said, clutching his bleeding arm.

“Protecting her from what?” Desmond said. “We were doing fine until you interfered.” Jackrun's body went rigid. He swayed on his feet as if he was about to spring on Prince Desmond and throw him to the floor again.

Desmond swung around on Sir Geoffrey. “And who sent you?” he asked, cleaning the blood from his knife on one of my linen cloths in three swift motions. “Did I call for your help?”

“Your Royal Highness—”

“I can handle my own battles, you meddlesome bastard. Breathe a word of this, and I'll tell what I know about you, and you'll be hanged for your own filthy sins!”

Sir Geoffrey's cheeks flushed dark.

I glanced at Jackrun.
Filthy sins?
What did Prince Desmond know about Sir Geoffrey—enough to make him blush? The prince sheathed the knife and left.

Jackrun kicked aside the blackened rushes. I was glad for the candle in Sir Geoffrey's hand. The rising smoke from Jackrun's fire was rank, but it told no tales.

Jackrun's lip was bleeding, but the slashed arm worried me more. “Your arm is badly cut.” I went to him.

He drew back. “It's nothing. It's not deep.”

Sir Geoffrey's eyes moved from me to Jackrun. “How did this start?”

Jackrun licked the red droplets from his split lip. “Desmond was . . . he was on top of her. He nearly—” His hand was on his dagger as he searched for words.

Sir Geoffrey's face hardened. He had caught me with Prince Desmond before. What was he thinking now? I felt too sick, too raw to explain, but the man glared at me. “I didn't ask him to my room,” I said finally under my breath. “I was preparing a cure for Prince Desmond's headache when he came up on his own. Please don't tell Lady Olivia.”

Sir Geoffrey nodded sternly toward the door. “Best for you to leave now, Jackrun.”

A shadow flicked across the room. Babak had circled the tower again to look inside.

Jackrun said, “I'll send a servant to help clean up this mess, Uma.”

“No, please don't , Jackrun.” I didn't want anyone else up here. My heart felt like a wadded rag. I needed to be alone.

Jackrun glanced back once as he headed for the stairs. His split lip was already beginning to swell. I saw the question in his look.
Are you all right?
I could still feel the wintery place where Prince Desmond had run his cold fingers up my leg. I answered with my eyes.
You came just in time.

• • •

A
S
SOON
AS
they left, I shoved the wardrobe in front of the door, spat in the fireplace. Disgust still poisoned my mouth as I stripped off my gown to my small clothes and bathed every place Prince Desmond touched me, swiping my lips with the damp cloth to annihilate his kiss, and washing all the places he'd run his hand along my leg. I shuddered, remembering how close he'd come to overtaking me completely. Last, I bathed my injured head and the swollen place on my neck. The linen strip was pink with blood when I pulled it from my head. Every touch in those places made my flesh sting.

I breathed against the throbbing in my head and neck. The Adan's trunk had cures for my pain. There was still some evicta in an unopened pouch along with the seeds strewn across the floor during the fight. All I had to do was crush some, put it in my mouth with a little bit of honey.

I shook, fighting the temptation. The Adan didn't use the herbs on himself. The evicta was for my patients, not for me. I gathered the pieces of the broken bowl Mother made for me when I was thirteen, wanting her here. Needing her here. My eyes stung as I wrapped the broken bits, and tucked them in the trunk. I retrieved what evicta I could still use on the queen, every seed precious, and threw the burned rushes out the window.

I changed into my other gown. The blue velvet matched Bianca's eyes, not mine. The pearls adorning the neckline were pale as her skin. An English gown for an English maid.

If I had married Ayo, I'd be wearing the long blouses and colorfully patterned woven skirts of an Euit woman. Would I have felt more at home in them than I did in Bianca's gown after dressing as a boy so many years? I wrapped my dragon belt around my waist. The gown's wide sleeves had bothered me when I'd tried to work; now they gave me an idea.

I strapped the leather sheath of my father's herbing knife to my upper arm. The bell-shaped sleeves hid it well. Prince Desmond would never touch me again. The weight of the knife handle, the sharpness of the blade would keep me company from now on.

My stomach was queasy, sick from the fight, raw with hunger. No one had bothered to tell me where I was supposed to dine while we were here on Dragon's Keep, if I was expected to eat in the Great Hall, or in the kitchen with the servants as I often did back on Wilde Island. I headed down the stairs.

Two servants bearing trays full of dishes stopped to gawk at me in the hallway on their way to the kitchen. I paused outside the kitchen door, unsure now if I should go in. Jackrun came around the corner, heading back toward my herbarium stairs.

He'd thrown a chain mail vest over his tunic, strapped a sword to his side. Fighting gear. Was he going to challenge the prince? He peered down at my bruised neck. “Did he do that to you?” he whispered fiercely. “I could smash him flat.”

“No. The mortar struck me there when the table fell.”

He tilted his head and brushed his fingers across my neck, gently tracing them under the swollen place. I held my breath until he dropped his hand again.

“I came by last night with the key,” he whispered.

My heart pounded in my ears, nearly drumming his whispers away. “I thought you might have. I was called to the queen's room.”

“So we missed each other.” He stepped back, his hand strangling the sword hilt. “Now you've been hurt because of me.”

“Not because of you.” My eyes stung.
Leave now,
I told myself,
before you burst into tears in front of him.

“If I'd known that bastard was after you, I'd have—” He snapped his mouth shut as a scullery maid came out the kitchen door. We both tensed until she passed us, water sloshing in her washbucket.

“This isn't the place to talk,” he said. His eyes were piercing as he drew close to me again. Hearing footsteps, he glanced back.

“Are you ready?” a red-haired man of an age to Jackrun asked, hurrying up to us. He smiled and bowed. “I'm Griffin. You must be the lovely queen's physician.” He took my hand and kissed it. His scabbard clanked against his chain mail vest as he bowed.

Flustered, I drew my hand away. Jackrun clapped his friend on the back. “Please excuse Griff, Uma, he is only part human on his mother's side and comes from a long line of fey folk.”

“A proud line,” interrupted Griff, “and it's in your blood too.” He turned back to me. “My father taught me how to treat a lady. You don't mind, do you?”

I was at a loss for words.

“Leave her be, Griffin.”

Griffin's freckles gathered in a tighter bunch as he grinned. “The weapons master waits. We're late for the practice yard already.”

“I'll meet you there.”

“I see,” Griffin said, glancing at the two of us. “Excuse me, my lady.” He bowed again and left.

“Uma,” Jackrun said. Drawing something from his pocket, he put his hand over mine. Warm skin. Cold metal. The key. He searched my face, the gold flecks in his green eyes like fires lit in small encampments in the trees. “I'll make it up to you. Tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it.”

The words
You already fought for me
caught halfway up my throat. Jackrun closed my fingers around the key, turned heel, and headed down the hall. Just before he disappeared, he looked back. “Come to the masked ball tomorrow night.”

“I have no costume.”

“Don't worry about that,” he said, and was gone.

In the kitchen, Cook passed me a hunk of barley bread and cheese and promised future meals that I could take to my room if I came to the kitchen after the serving was done in the Great Hall.

• • •

O
UT
SIDE
,
AROUND
THE
corner past the stables, I followed the sound of cheering and found Tabitha in a small crowd, watching the men in the weapons yard.

Jackrun fought his knight in one ring, Griff in the other. Swords bashed and clanked in the fierce competition. In Devil's Boot, our warriors were proficient hunters, using bows and arrows or poisoned darts. We were not a people of the sword.

I followed Jackrun's quick, skilled movements. He'd rolled his sleeves up, and the sunlight played fire on his dragon scales. A few onlookers grunted as the opponent hit Jackrun broadside; applauded when Jackrun recovered, and made a similar strike a moment later.

Young Tabitha fixed her eyes on Griff—a man her brother's age and she just fourteen—but a lady can look.

I bit the sharp cheese, watching Jackrun. A lady can look.