In the Time of Dragon Moon (8 page)

Pendragon Summer Castle, Dragon's Keep

Egret Moon

August 1210

I
WAS
OUT
gathering fresh rushes mid-morning the next day when I heard the jingling sound of bridles. A fairy cavalcade had crossed the wide stone bridge and was coming up the road. I stepped aside with my bundle and watched transfixed as the riders paraded toward me in their shimmering clothes.

I'd never seen fey folk growing up in Devil's Boot. None of my mother's tales prepared me for the pageantry I saw now. The very air sparkled around them. They were wind and water, air and light.

The fairies were long and lean and easy in their saddles. Some were as pale as the English; others as dark as or darker than my people. The tallest rider wore a king's crown and a robe of dazzling white. He gazed down at me from his black charger. I shivered under his stark look until he passed.

A dozen or so children rode ponies decorated with flowers in the long procession. Tiny will-o'-the-wisps no larger than dragonflies flitted playfully around the children, their winged bodies flashing in the sunlight. Last came the wagoners driving painted carts stacked high with goods battened down with heavy, colorful tarpaulins. The stacks swayed to and fro as I turned and followed the carts down the road toward the castle.

• • •

A
T
DUSK
,
I
learned what the fey folk had brought us in their painted carts; costumes for the masked ball. The king and queen had the first pick. Both were trying on masks, their colorful cloaks brighter than Lady Tess's paintings of dragons and fairies on the chamber walls. They were parading back and forth in the queen's chamber when I came in and stood by Lady Olivia with Her Majesty's tonic.

“You look like a peacock,” Queen Adela said to her husband, clapping her hands.

“A proud cock I am too,” he laughed, turning and strutting in the feathered headdress.

I'd watched Father painting the thin yellow beak of his Egret Moon mask when I was eight. Everyone had to make new masks the year after the English soldiers came and burned the Moon Month masks and regalia in our huts before moving us south. Father had let me touch the long white egret feathers on his dance robe. I sang with Mother and everyone that year, watching the men dance in all new costumes, honoring the death of the old moon, the birth of the new. I felt the song in me now, wanting to rise up my throat.

“How do I look, Lady Olivia?” the queen asked, twirling in a petaled cloak.

“Like a living garden, Your Majesty.”

“Like summer itself,” added the king, grabbing her and kissing her.

“She'll have him in her bed after the ball,” Lady Olivia said to me under her breath. “Your remedy has a chance tonight.”

• • •

B
ACK
UPST
AIRS
,
A
soft dusky light fought its way through the iron grating, barely reaching the floor. I lit a taper to help the light along, turned and found a costume on my bed. Who had brought it up?

The half facemask was cut in the shape of a water lily. Two eye slits hid neatly in the bright white petals. The gown's skirts were earth brown at the hem, a shimmering watery blue above. The wide silky sleeves moved like flowing water when I touched it. What would it look like on?

I opened the wardrobe and paused. The jagged crack running down the mirror cut me in two. The split image I saw startled me: Uma of Devil's Boot, Uma of the Pendragon court. I spread my feet apart, trying to span my two worlds. My heart felt wedged in the crack between them both.

I recognized my mother in my large eyes, my shapely lips, my strong, slim figure.
Mother. I saw how people shunned you when I was young. You were so strong. I watched you weaving the most beautiful patterns, slowly gaining the trust of the other women.
I wasn't that strong. After the king's soldiers burned our village and pushed us south when I was seven, after I learned how many times the English conquerors attacked our tribe, and drove us off our land, I wanted to bury myself from shame at my Englishness.

Did you understand why I became mi tupelli to serve Father? That I felt I'd die if I did not belong completely to my tribe? There is so much I want to say to you now. I'm sorry I hurt you. So sorry. I hope;
my finger traced the curve of my jaw on the cold glass.
Holy Ones, I hope I'll see you again.

I did not close the wardrobe door on my reflection, not yet. I'd opened it to try my costume on. What would I see then? I pulled off my gown, slid the silky costume over my head, and turned, feeling the swish of cloth against my skin. It was softer than Bianca's gowns, and lighter, I could move in it, dance in it. The gown flowed with me.
Like wearing water,
I thought, turning slowly, tilting my head this way and that, lowering myself and rising in the pattern of the Moon Dance. I stopped. We hadn't been allowed to do the Moon Dances when I was seven, the months when the soldiers were with us. We didn't begin again until after Mount Uther rumbled and smoked, scaring the English away.

Here I was, admiring my costume when for all I knew the elders back home were forbidden to wear theirs, forbidden to dance. “And what are you doing about it?” I asked my cracked reflection.

This,
I thought, removing the costume to shrug on my well-worn gown.
This,
I thought, strapping the pouch of sacred earth taken from Devil's Boot to my belt.
This,
I thought, heading down the stairs for the king's rooms.

“What is it, Uma?” King Arden asked when I came in and curtsied. A plump tailor was circling the king, measuring and making small adjustments to his plush purple costume.

“Your Majesty, I have come to ask you for a favor.”

“How much longer do I have to hold out my arm?” he barked at the tailor.

“Just a moment longer, Your Majesty.” Sweat ran down the back of the poor man's neck.

“Out with it, Uma.”

“Please, Your Majesty. I've come to ask if you will bring your troops home from Devil's Boot.”

“Why should I do that?”

“I promise you I'll see my mission through, Your Majesty. If you set my people—”

“Enough, man!” he said to the tailor. “Help me take this thing off.”

The two men struggled a moment entangled as two cats in yarn. “Now leave us,” said the king. The man scurried out with the costume, minus the mask. The king studied his chessboard a moment before he looked up at me again.

“That's an ugly bruise. What happened to your neck?”

“I . . . fell, Your Majesty.”

He'd left his window ajar. Wolves howled in the woods beyond the castle. Egret Moon would die in four nights' time. In September, Wolf Moon would be born, a time when wolves came into their power—already the packs were restless.

“I will do all the queen asks of me, Your Majesty,” I said. “My people should not have to suffer while I'm here.”

“Who said they were suffering?”

“There was bloodshed when the soldiers took us, Your Majesty. I don't know what's happened since I left, what sort of restrictions have been laid upon my tribe, but—”

“A king should be surrounded by his offspring,” he said gruffly. “My wife wants assurance you will help her have more children.”

“Holding my people captive does not help with that, Your Majesty.”

“You have continued your father's work to make her fertile?”

“Yes, Your Majesty, that's what I was hired to do as her physician.”

“That is what your father was hired to do, Uma, and he failed.” He rubbed his thumb along the onyx bishop.

I could almost feel that rough thumb pressing against my own bruised neck as he moved the bishop slowly, square to square. “Tell me, Uma. Is she fertile?”

My heart thumped. “The Adan's medicines are powerful, Your Majesty. She has been taking them long enough now to be able to conceive,” I said carefully.

“Good. You may leave me now.”

He'd dismissed me without answering what I'd come for. “Sire, the soldiers. Can you order them home please?”

“You still have family down there?” he asked.

“My mother, Your Majesty.”

The king gazed at his chessboard a moment. “My wife arranged to keep our men down there until she has a child. I agree with her. You say you're committed to seeing this through. I know the army's occupation keeps you focused, Uma.”

He flung the words so casually at me. I'd seen delegations come to Pendragon Castle to argue behind closed doors as I'd passed down the halls with the queen's medicines. Some men left the king's rooms smiling, signed scrolls in hand. But I was an Euit woman. I had nothing to bargain with, no way to make offers or counteroffers, no idea how to tempt, lie, or wheedle to get what I needed.

I backed out of the room, through the door, under the sentries' crossed pikes, away from any hope of freeing my people until the queen had her child, if she ever did.

Castle Green, Dragon's Keep

Egret Moon

August 1210

A
T
THE
MASKED
ball, I scanned the crowded Great Hall for the queen. The room was riotous with movement, color, and sound. The tables overflowing with food and ale had been shoved against the walls to allow for dancing. Three giant candelabras swung to and fro overhead as the revelers twirled each other around. Some dancers spilled out onto the terrace above the castle green. This ball was nothing like the courtly dancing I'd seen at Pendragon Castle back on Wilde Island, where couples lined up facing one another and moved with prim, orderly steps.

I saw Lady Olivia across the room. She was dressed in black and wore a silver eye mask. I knew her by the way she held her chin like royalty, though she was only the queen's companion. She gestured to me. Her formality set against everyone else's noisy abandon made me smile. Somehow through my water lily costume, she had known me too. I wondered what had given me away.

“There.” She pointed to the royal couple dancing near a garlanded column.

“It's madness in here,” I said over the music. “Is Her Majesty all right?”

“She is fine and more than fine. For now,” she added.

“For now,” I said, knowing what she meant. The noise, the crowd, the wild costumes could stir her mind to sudden storm. I had a sealed cap of honeyed bapeeta in my waist pouch to calm the queen at any moment tonight if needed.

“Do you know how to conduct yourself at a ball?” Lady Olivia asked.

“I watched one back on Wilde Island.”

“Observing is not the same as attending.” I'd grown used to her etiquette lessons, but still I felt myself wilting as she laid down the rules for my evening. “You understand?” she said.

“Yes, my lady.”

I looked around the crowded room. Where was Jackrun? What costume had he chosen? Would I be able to spot him as easily as I'd spotted Lady Olivia?

Elbowing my way out to the wide terrace above the castle green, I stopped with a gasp. The masked ball indoors was tame compared to the one out here: Lady Olivia's courtly manners thrown to the wolves, literally—wild wolves, hinds, and boars roved among the dancers. My nose caught the musky scent of fur. I was feeling for my knife when a half man, half horned bull danced past, his lady draped in gray webs and wearing a spider mask. The man's giant bull's head and furry torso seemed far too real.

Two giant snakes, coiled together in dance, bumped my shoulder and sent me reeling into a tall fey man who swept me in his arms and twirled me round and round before he let me go and bowed, the tips of his coiled ram horns sharp as pikes.

I'd had enough of the terrace. I raced downstairs, my feet seeking solid earth. A band of fey musicians played on the outdoor stage. The lawn glowed with hundreds of torches set on poles. Castle servants and fey children wove in and out with trays of food and drink. Will-o'-the-wisps flitted over my head as I searched the crowd; some flew toward the castle, others swirled over the fairy musicians who had paused on stage to refresh themselves. A half horse, half man sitting by stacked drums held his mug between his hooves.

Amid the whistling, growling, and high-pitched laughter, I heard Prince Desmond shouting, “How dare you!” A large wine stain soaked the front of his costume. A fey child crawled about on hands and knees trying to retrieve the chalices rolling helter-skelter on the lawn. The fey boy must have crashed into him with his tray.

“Sorry, sorry,” the boy was saying.

“Sorry,” Prince Desmond mimicked, kicking him hard in the rear. The crowd gasped as the boot sent the boy flying forward, landing flat on his face inches from the tray.

“It was an accident,” a fey man snapped.

“The boy didn't mean to,” said a woman guised as a monarch butterfly at my side.

I heard fierce whispers, a deep feral growl that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Costumed creatures in the crowd seemed to grow larger, wilder all around me. There was far too much magic here.

A man in a fox mask stepped from the crowd. On his knees, he picked up the rest of the silver chalices, placed them on the tray, and helped the boy up to a stand.

Prince Desmond left, angry or bored or both. Butterfly Woman hissed at his back. The tensely knotted crowd began to slowly loosen and wander off.

Sir Geoffrey still stood a few feet away, disgust etched on his face. The tall fey man to his right leaned down and spoke with him. Hearing angry tones, I strained my ears, but I couldn't make out what they were saying.

Fox Mask mussed the fey boy's hair, saying something cheerful, I guessed. The boy sniffed a little, then laughed before he left with his tray.

Dancers swirled across the wine-soaked grass between me and Fox Mask. He stepped around them in long easy strides. His gait told me who he was before he spoke.

“You like the costume?” Jackrun asked.

“Did you choose it for me?”

“I told you not to worry about what to wear,” he said.

Jackrun's choice to come to the ball as my Path Animal made me feel vulnerable, exposed, even if he couldn't possibly have seen my mark. I was about to tell him how real his full head mask looked, when the boy he'd helped a moment ago scampered up, tray reloaded with fresh wine.

“Thank you, Senni,” Jackrun said, lifting two goblets from the tray.

“You were kind to help him,” I said, taking the goblet he handed me as the boy disappeared back into the crowd.

“Desmond's a fool to risk the fairies' wrath,” he snapped.

The boy hadn't sparkled with magic the way his elders did. “Perhaps he didn't know Senni was a fey child?”

“He knew!”

I started. Not at the vehemence of his remark, but because I'd looked down at the side of my goblet and caught Jackrun's true face reflected in the silver cup.

“Caught me,” he said.

“I don't understand.”

“You thought this was a mask,” he said, pointing to the fox head. “It's something else, a fey glamour spell. It fools the eye, but hold a mirror or any shiny surface like this up to a fairy glamour and you will see the truth. We can trick each other, but reflections do not lie.”

“The wolves and wild boars?” I asked, glancing around.

“Some shape-shifting going on here tonight,” Jackrun admitted. “A full animal form is achieved through shape-shifting, but most choose fairy glamours for a ball. A glamour takes much less skill and allows more energy for dancing.” I thought of the half man, half bull who'd danced past me on the veranda, shivered, and downed the goblet all at once.

Jackrun watched me, amused. “Hungry?” he asked, leading me to a long table laden with food of every kind.

I swayed a little from the strong wine that was already beginning to make my head float, and steadied myself against the table. Jackrun's true reflection still shone on my shiny chalice. I noticed the lanky fey man nearby under his unicorn glamour. Just down the table a half girl, half deer was nibbling at the fruit. Jackrun's sister, Tabitha, looked up at me, startled, before she pranced away.

Jackrun covered my wrist with his hand and slowly but firmly pushed my goblet down. “No one likes to be exposed,” he whispered. I left the reflective chalice on the table and backed away.

“You haven't eaten,” he said.

“I don't like bland English food.”

He swept a hand over the many dishes. “You must want something. Tell me what you want.”

“An egret feather.” I wasn't sure if the elders would be allowed to do the Moon Dance two nights from now. Someone needed to.

Jackrun pretended to look for it among the cheeses. “No feather here,” he said at last. “You have particular wants.”

I didn't apologize.

“What do you need it for?”

I hiccupped and shook my head. Jackrun grabbed something from the table and gestured for me to follow him to a stone bench bathed in torchlight near the wall. My skirts rippled like water as I sat. My head still felt light enough to float away with my skirts.

“You might like this,” Jackrun said, peeling an orange. “Take a segment,” he offered.

“Drop your guise first. Please, if we are going to eat together.”

“It's a masked ball,” he protested, but the fox glamour faded and I was left looking at the Jackrun I knew; his thoughtful brows, his fierce eyes, and lower lip still swollen lopsided from the blow Desmond gave him.

I reached for the orange.
It is shaped like a smile,
I thought, cupping the cool wedge in my hand.

“Shall we both eat at the same time?” he challenged. We raised our hands in time with the music. I bit, squirting liquid in my eye. The juice stung and I had to squint a moment, but I laughed all the same. It was delicious. When he offered me another piece, I took it.

“Now will you tell me what you need the feather for?” Jackrun said.

I swallowed the new segment. “You English study the moon cycles.”

“Our astrologers and alchemists do.”

“We follow the way of animal moons.”

“What animal moon is it now?”

“Egret Moon.”

He leaned closer. “So the feather is for some Euit ceremony?” he asked, interested.

I regretted what I'd blurted out earlier. Jackrun was English; what if he didn't understand?

Jackrun asked, “What are the names of the other moons?”

I watched the fey dancers twirling on the trimmed English lawn. This ball belonged to the fairies. I wanted to talk about something that belonged to me, if only for one night. I told Jackrun about the twelve moons, only touching the surface of our beliefs, not because Jackrun would be too slow to understand, but because there was so much about moon months I could not explain in one hour or six or twelve. I revealed that each animal moon related to parts of the body. “As with any month, the moon animal empowers some people and hinders others. Egrets have slender necks. Egret Moon strengthens some people's throats, they sing with power, they can speak with clarity and insight and sway men's minds.”
Egret Moon hadn't lent me her powers when I tried to sway the king,
I thought before I went on. “Others lose their voices. We see more sore throats this month, and those who die often die from broken necks.”

My hand nearly wandered to my throat, but Jackrun had already reached up, gently touching my bruise. “The swelling's gone down,” he said. “Does it still hurt you there?”

“It feels much better.” My skin sang where he'd brushed it even after he drew his hand away.
How restoring a touch can be,
I thought,
a healing that has nothing to do with plants or potions.
The revelation surprised me. Father had never mentioned touch.

“Tell me more,” he said, offering me another orange segment. I chewed and let the cool sweet liquid fill my mouth.

The Holy Ones ruled the four sacred elements of earth, wind, fire, and water, I told him, which were also a part of the moon months, each animal representing an element. “Falcon Moon, a time of wind; Bear Moon, a time of earth . . . ”

“And the animal moons are strongest when the moon is full,” he guessed.

I shook my head. “There are three times of heightened power: at the new moon's birth, at its fullness, and on the night of its death.”

“Why is it powerful when its light is dying?”

“At death the tips are knife-sharp. It does not want to be replaced by a new moon. The dying moon can be like a wounded animal lashing out.”

He named a few animal moons, repeating them as if to keep them in his mind; last he whispered, “Dragon Moon,” staring at the white flesh inside of the orange peel.

“That is the strongest of all the animal moons because it carries all three elements of earth, wind, and fire.”

“Why not water?”

I laughed. “Everyone knows dragons hate water,” I said, surprised he would ask. “It goes against their nature. Have you ever seen one swim?”

“It would be unusual,” he said with a playful look. “When will Dragon Moon come?”

“In October.”

Jackrun said, “We call that one Hunter's Moon. So do the fey folk.”

It pleased me in some deep reaching way down to my bones to learn my Euit people had a more complex relationship with the moon than the magical fairy folk. I thought I would tell Jackrun about the Murderous Moon, but changed my mind. It reminded me of the death I might face at the end of Dragon Moon.

Jackrun stood, held out his hand, and helped me up. “Dance with me.” His fingers were sticky, but so were mine. Before I could say no, he had me in his arms. His fox guise appeared again as he swept me into the crowd. I felt clumsy at first, not knowing the steps, but the fairy music pulsed through my body as he led me on. He laughed when I stepped on his foot and we didn't stop.

Later we spun past Prince Desmond, who seemed to have forgotten the spilled wine now his arms were around a shapely costumed maiden. Jackrun's body tensed before he yanked me away from his cousin, wheeling me deeper into the crowd. We turned and turned, the starry sky spinning overhead.

“Dragons,” Jackrun said, stopping and looking up. The thin strands of clouds drifting in the night sky turned red. A hot, spice-scented wind swirled in as the dragons flew over the castle turrets. The bright blazing ring they breathed as they wheeled overhead reminded me of the red dragons' fire on the birth night of Dragon Moon, the only Moon Dance the reds ever took part in. The sight made me hunger for Devil's Boot, for other dragons, other dancers, another kind of celebration that happened only one place in the world with a small tribe that might someday die out, a language lost, a people lost. I swayed on my feet, feeling the fire circle as if it burned around my heart.

“Babak's up there,” Jackrun said, shaking me from my thoughts.