The Red Wyvern: Book One of the Dragon Mage (13 page)

“There you are, Mother,” Anasyn said. “Father said I should tell you what happened.”

“Oh did he? It was more than some stupid insult, then.”

“Truly. Someone proposed a wager, you see, on how soon one of the queen’s fellowship would bed the queen, and which one it would be. Well, they overheard, and—”

“Oh ye gods! So the gossip’s got as bad as all that? Who started it?”

Anasyn shrugged for an answer. Out in the great hall everyone was sitting back down; a pair of pages were righting the overturned benches and picking up trenchers from the straw while assorted dogs wagged their tails and watched, hoping for another spill and sudden meal.

“Your father was right to let me know,” Bevyan said. “I’ll have a word with Merodda about this. As far as I can tell, she’s the only one with any influence over the lass.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Which reminds me, dear. The queen tells me you were offered a place in her fellowship.”

“I turned it down.”

“So she said. I was just curious—”

“I’ve never wanted to be anyone’s lap dog and run with a pack of them. It’s disgusting, watching them fawn over her.” I see, Bevyan thought. So my lad’s fallen in love! Aloud, she said, “And quite right, too. Well, I’d best see how the poor lass fares.”

The queen’s hall in Dun Deverry occupied an entire floor of the royal broch. Carved chairs, heaped with faded and torn cushions, stood on threadbare Bardek carpets, while sagging tapestries covered the walls between the windows. When Bevyan came in, she expected to find the queen in tears over this insult to her honor, but instead Abrwnna was pacing back and forth in front of a cold hearth while her maidservants cowered out of her way in the curve of the wall. One of the girls was crying, and her messy hair, pulled every which way in long strands, gave evidence of her royal mistress’s bad temper. Merodda, however, was calmly sitting on one of the wide windowsills as if to take the air. None of the queen’s other serving women were in evidence.

“There you are, Lady Bevyan,” the queen said. “I have need of your counsel.”

“Indeed, Your Highness?” Bevyan made a curtsy in her general direction, since she kept pacing.

“Indeed. Lady Merodda tells me I should disband my fellowship.”

“Ah. I fear me that I agree with her.”

“I don’t want to!” Abrwnna swung round and threw one arm up, as if she were thinking of slapping the older women down. “They’re mine and I don’t want to!”

“No one can force Your Highness,” Merodda put in. “Bevyan, her highness asked my opinion, and so I gave it.”

“As I have given mine,” Bevyan said. “And there we’ll let the matter drop if Her Highness commands.”

“Well, I cursed well do!” With a deep breath Abrwnna caught herself and lowered her hand. “We do not wish to hear this matter discussed in our presence.”

“Very well, Your Highness,” Bevyan said. “So be it.”

In years past Dun Deverry had sheltered three times the men who lived there now. In its tangle of wards and towers stood many an empty building—sheds and stables, mostly, but in a small ward far from the king’s residence rose a deserted broch. Its lower floors stored arrows, stones, and poles for pushing siege ladders off walls, but the top floor stood empty except for a stack of tanned hides, all stiff and crumbling from age. These Lilli and Brour hung over the windows until, after a lot of struggling and cursing, not a crack of sunlight gleamed.

“Good,” Brour said. “We don’t want anyone seeing our lantern and coming up here.”

“How did you find this place?”

“I’ve been searching for the bolthole for weeks, so I’ve been prying into all sorts of deserted places. I remembered this one when I decided to try a ritual.”

“Do you think anyone else comes up here?”

“There weren’t any tracks in the dust.”

Lilli looked around the room—an ordinary sort of room for Dun Deverry, yet no one had been up here for years, if the dust and the cobwebs could be trusted.

“I hope my mother doesn’t want me to scry this evening.”

“She won’t,” Brour said. “She told me she’d be attending upon the queen again. Is somewhat wrong with her highness, do you know?”

“I don’t, but I’ll wager it’s that fight in the great hall last night. Everyone is saying that the queen’s honor was insulted, and no doubt she’s ever so upset.”

“No doubt. Well, that should keep your mother nicely occupied, then.”

“Truly.” Lilli paused for a sneeze. “It’s so dusty up here! Will the Lords of Earth like that?”

“I’ll sweep up a bit before we start. Now you’d best run along before someone misses you. I’ll go back later. We don’t want anyone seeing us come in together.”

When Lilli returned to the royal broch, she found servants standing around gossiping about the insult to the queen’s fellowship, if not the queen herself. During their afternoon of sewing, Bevyan seemed worried about the incident as well.

“What’s causing the trouble,” Bevyan said, “is having all these young hotheads packed in together, waiting for the summer’s fighting to start. The regent needs to lead his men out soon.”

“I don’t understand why he hasn’t already,” Lilli said. “Do you, Bevva?”

“Well, I don’t truly know, but Peddyc’s shared his guesses with me.” Bevyan hesitated, thinking something through. “I’d say that the regent doesn’t have enough men to stand against the Usurper, and they’re trying to round up more.”

“Oh. Oh, that means we’re going to lose, doesn’t it?”

Bevyan and Sarra both looked up from their sewing and stared at her. Lilli felt her face grow hot.

“I’m sorry,” Lilli stammered. “I shouldn’t have—oh gods! I always say the wrong thing—I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize, dear,” Bevyan said. “But it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to lose. The regent thinks he can find the men we need, and Peddyc seems to agree with him. One good victory, and a lot of the lords who went over to the Usurper will swing back to the king’s side.”

If, Lilli thought, if we can gain the victory in the first place.

“The waiting’s just so awful,” she said aloud.

“Just so, dear, just so.”

Bevyan sighed and bent her head back to her work, but all at once she seemed old, and to Lilli’s sight the streaks of grey in her pale hair suddenly spread and turned dead-white while her skin turned a cold dead grey to match it. Lilli nearly cried out. She’s just weary! she told herself sharply. You’re just seeing things again.

As soon as the evening meal was finished, Merodda and Bevyan went to wait upon the queen, and Lilli could slip unnoticed from the great hall. In the abandoned tower she found Brour waiting for her. As she climbed the stairs, she saw a broom leaning against the wall on the landing, and the wooden floor inside had been swept clean. Brour himself was sitting in the middle of the circular room, while all around him huge shadows danced on the rough stone walls. He’d lit four lanterns and set them equidistant from one another.

“They sit at the four directions, as far as I can reckon them anyway.” Brour rose to greet her. “East west, north south. It’s in the pillar of light above each lantern that you’re to imagine the great lords of the elements when the time comes.”

“Very well,” Lilli said. “We’re going to practice this a lot, aren’t we?”

“Many times over, truly. It has to be done just precisely right. Tonight I’m merely going to tell you the different parts and what they mean. Oh, and I want to give you a lesson on hardening your aura.”

“My what?”

“It’s like an egg of invisible light that surrounds every living person. It’s the effect of the etheric plane interpenetrating the physical. When you throw a stone into a pond, the ripples spread. And what are the ripples? A pattern in the same water as fills the pond. Think of the aura as being somewhat like that.”

Lilli stared at the floor and tried to think.

“I don’t understand,” she said at last.

“It’s not an easy thing to understand.” Brour sounded amused. “But spend some time thinking on it, and see what comes to your mind. But the point is, once you learn to control yours, your mother won’t be able to pry into your mind again.”

“Splendid!” Lilli looked up and found him smiling. “There’s nothing I’d like more!”

“No doubt. Let’s begin.”

“Braemys rode in this afternoon,” Burcan said. “He’s brought the news I’ve been waiting for.”

“Indeed?” Merodda said. “Good or ill?”

“Good. The northern lords have agreed to strip their fort guards. We’ll have a full army when we march.”

Merodda allowed herself a brief smile, which he returned. Late in the evening, they were sitting alone in her chamber by the light of a smoky fire. Outside, rain hammered against the walls, and every now and then the south wind lifted the leather hides hung at the windows.

“Have there been any omens?” Burcan said.

“I’ve not had Lilli scry this past few days. I was waiting to hear your news. You need to have some knowledge of how things are before you can interpret an omen, you see.”

“Very well, then. Huh, I’ll have to remind Brae to have a word with her. About their betrothal, I mean.”

“If he’s not too busy for a courtly gesture, of course.”

Her sarcasm earned her a sour smile. Burcan hesitated, studying her face. She knew what he wanted to know, what they all wanted to know, Bevva and that beastly little herald, too, and her women servants—they’d all suspected for years, after all, who her lover might be. She could see it in their narrowed eyes, hear it in the hesitations of their speech. In the hearth a log burned through and dropped in a gush of flame and a scatter of coals on stone.

“Rhodi?” His voice hesitated, stumbled. “Do you really think this marriage is an um, er, well, allowable thing?”

She smiled into the fire. On the hearthstone the coals were winking out, one at a time. She heard him move uneasily in his chair, then sigh.

“I’d best get on my way,” Burcan said. “Daeryc and the other gwerbretion are waiting for me.”

“So late?”

“I promised I’d tell them when we’ll march as soon as I’d spoken to the king. He was asleep when I stopped in there, but I spoke, anyway.” He smiled briefly. “I didn’t say I’d wait for his answer.”

“And when will you march?”

“As soon as the full northern contingents ride in. They’re on their way.”

In the morning, when Lilli came down to the great hall, she found Braemys waiting for her near the foot of the staircase. He was a tall lad, as all the Boarsmen were, blond and blue-eyed and with the clan’s squarish face as well. Since last they’d met, his upper lip had sprouted a line of hair that could be called a moustache for courtesy’s sake if naught else. When he saw her, he strode over and bowed. She curtsied in return.

“My lady,” Braemys said. “Does this betrothal please you?”

“It does. What about you, my lord?”

“Well enough.” He turned to look away—when she followed his glance, Lilli could see Uncle Burcan standing near the doorway. “I’d best get myself to the council of war.”

He turned and strode off to join his father. Lilli watched them as they made their way through the crowded hall and out. Ah well, she reminded herself, he’s ever so much better than Nantyn.

Over the next few days Lilli had scant time to worry about her betrothed. He was much involved with the councils of war, while she and Brour had their practicing to do. Once as well, late of a rainy night, her mother called her to scry in the black ink. With Brour holding the long candle as usual, Lilli stared into the silver bowl, where shadows danced, black on a deeper black. She could hear the wind howling around the broch, and as the spell took her over, the sound transmuted into voices, screaming and crying out.

“Tears and rage.” It was the only thing Lilli could say about the wailing. “I hear tears and terror.”

She could feel her mother’s hand squeezing the back of her neck.

“Try to listen,” Merodda hissed. “What are they saying?”

“No words. Weeping and fear.”

In the blackness images were beginning to form of headless riders on black horses, huge, towering over entire cities as they galloped through a stormy night. The wailing faded away, and Lilli heard her own voice start describing the omens. Swords that burned with blue fire formed a huge wall in front of Dun Deverry. An army all dressed in red threw itself against the wall but fell back, tattered and dying, only to regroup on a far hill.

“They’re riding again,” Lilli said. “I see them riding—wait. It’s going away, it’s all going away.”

In the basin the flaming swords winked out like sparks on a hearth stone. The images turned pale and watery, then faded in turn. For a moment, blackness—then lantern light revealed a pleasant chamber with bright-colored tapestries on the walls. In the middle of the chamber stood an elderly man with a shock of untidy white hair. He was leaning over a table and staring into a basin of water. All at once he looked up—looked right at her with ice-blue eyes that seemed to pierce her very soul.

“Well, here’s a surprise!” He sounded amused, and his voice was oddly resonant for someone who looked so old. “Who are you, lass? You’ll hurt yourself spying on me like this, if you’re not careful.”

Lilli started to answer but found she couldn’t speak. All at once the vision broke. The image separated into pie-slice fragments like the design on a shattered plate—then disappeared. A white-faced Brour was shaking her by the shoulder.

“Are you back? Are you back?”

“I am, Brour. What’s so wrong?”

“I’d rather like to know that myself,” Merodda said. “Why did you stop her?”

“Because that old man is dangerous. He’s the Usurper’s personal advisor and a sorcerer of the greatest power.”

“I saw into Cerrmor?” Lilli said.

“You did.” Brour paused to wipe his sweaty face on his sleeve. “Or Nevyn tricked you into revealing yourself.”

“Who?” Merodda broke in. “No one? Don’t talk in riddles.”

“I’m not. That’s his name, nev yn, Nevyn, some miserable jest of his father’s, it was, naming his son no one.”

Merodda was studying her scribe with her mouth caught in a sour twist. With a long sigh Brour composed himself.

“I studied under the man,” Brour said. “I know him quite well.”