Dragonheart (23 page)

She tossed her red hair from her face and admired him. “There. All done.”

“Not quite,” Bowen said; her hair still beckoned. “It is custom to bestow a favor on a knight.”

“A favor?”

“A veil or a scarf that he wears into battle as a token from his lady fair,” Bowen explained, moving close, unable to resist the luring blaze of her hair.

“Do you have a lady fair?” Kara asked hesitantly, aware of his proximity, but not edging away.

“I should be honored to wear your favor.” Bowen moved closer still and his fingers laced through her tousled locks. He had frightened her. He had thrilled her. Both his request and his touch. Flustered, she turned.

“I . . . I have no such finery. I am a peasant,” she stammered nervously.

“You are the woman I love,” came his blunt confession. He saw her back stiffen, and as he gently turned her to him she trembled uncertainly, her brown-gold eyes full of disbelief . . . and another, deeper feeling, a feeling of anguish . . .

“How can you . . . ?” she whispered.

“How can I not?” Bowen asked, not understanding her dismay. But even as he pulled her close she broke from him.

“I can give no favor.” Kara spat out the words, tears welling in her eyes. “I can give nothing. The one thing that was mine to give Einon stole forever.”

Bowen seized her shoulders. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me!” Again, Kara pulled away. “It was all I had. My only dowry. My only treasure . . . love’s first blush . . . now scarlet with shame!”

“Not your shame!” Bowen insisted. But Kara was not to be soothed.

“It is easy for you.” Kara spoke with numb sorrow, her cheeks stained with tears, her brown-gold eyes drowning in them. “Lost honor can be recovered. Not so lost youth. What washes away the stain of soiled innocence?”

Bowen knelt before her.

“Einon’s blood. I swear.”

It was a holy vow. Made at the altar of his goddess. And the goddess was touched. She held out her hand to her acolyte, who reverently took it in his own, pressing his lips to it in one chaste kiss.

Twenty-Nine

A DRAGON’S BEQUEST
AND A MOTHER’S GIFT

“Fear not the dragon, my son.”

Bowen rode up the narrow trail to the crest of the cliff, The valley below was alive with cookfires, gleaming in the darkening twilight. Music and shouts and sounds of merriment trickled up from the camp, joyous and carefree, as though none of the revelers were facing death the following day.

Draco had claimed this lonesome bluff, where he spent long hours, sleeping little. But he knew he had chosen the best watchtower and that he was the best watcher. Who could see or hear as far as he? There was little chance for a surprise attack with Draco at his post.

But even though the enemy had discovered their camp, and sent out a few scouting parties, they made no move against them. Bowen had drilled enough tactics into Einon to know the boy wouldn’t dare risk an attack. He was at a disadvantage in terms of open ground and numbers, as Einon’s spies surely had told him. He would wait for Bowen to bring the battle to him. Well, thought Bowen, he would not have to wait long.

Bowen heard the soothing beauty of Draco’s contented trilling before he saw him, curled at the cliff edge, dreamily gazing down on the camp.

“Hello, Bowen,” Draco greeted him without turning around. “I heard another hundred and fifty families found their way into camp today. The eve of battle and still they come.”

“So many, so fast . . .” Bowen said. “There’s not been enough time, they’ve not been properly trained.”

“What they lack in training, they make up in passion.” The assurance in Draco’s voice was like the assurance in his dragon song . . . comforting and peaceful. Both allayed Bowen’s concern. The dragon turned and smiled at him. “You’ve done well.”

“Because you have made me better than I was.” Bowen longed to take pride in the dragon’s praise, but he could not. Not yet. His dream of this morning still haunted him. He leaned back in his saddle and unhooked something from it. It clanged as he slung upon the rocks in front of Draco. It was his talon-trophy shield. “I have not always done well.”

“Oh, Bowen,” the dragon said sadly, “the Once-ways were long forgot on both sides. And wrongs by both committed in ignorance and misunderstanding. You, like these you slew, were merely a creature of sorry circumstance. Surely God forgave you any sin in this.”

Bowen dismounted and knelt before Draco. “I do not seek God’s forgiveness. Only yours.”

The forgiveness was in the dragon’s eyes. “I can find no fault in you, Knight of the Old Code.”

“A knight of the Old Code needs no such adornment.” Bowen picked up the shield of his shame and offered it to Draco. “Perhaps you know what should be done with it.”

“I know . . .” Draco smiled again and leaned his shoulder down. “Climb up and bring your shield.”

Bowen obeyed, mounting Draco and clinging to his neck. Draco’s elegant wings unfolded and Bowen felt the kiss of the wind upon his face as they hurtled heavenward.

They soared higher than Bowen ever remembered soaring. The last gray streaks of dusk gave way to the oncoming night, its advent lit by an escort of stars. Draco’s constellation dangled across the sky like glittering diamonds spilled on black velvet. How clean and white they were. And Bowen spoke his silent thought: “Like a promise of hope.”

“Hope is not so far away, Bowen,” the dragon replied, gazing longingly at the stars. He swerved and swooped away. “Look down!”

Bowen did so . . . and gasped at the panorama that filled his eyes. The landscape was dotted with the campfires of his people, as though some stars had fallen to earth and now glowed both above and below him.

“There lies your hope, Bowen,” Draco said. “The one I’ve waited for. Man must now make of the world what he can . . . The day of dragons is done . . .”

“Not done for you!” Bowen protested. “If we are victorious tomorrow, we’ll need you.”

“You’ll have victory,” Draco assured him. “But no need of me. Listen to them, Knight of the Old Code. The Once-ways are in their songs and their laughter and the cries of their children. Listen. And look.”

Perhaps it was only the hollow howl of the wind that made Draco’s words sound cryptic and wistful. But they sent a suspicious shiver down Bowen’s spine nonetheless. He looked, watching the patches of light flicker against the dark. “What do you see?” he asked the dragon curiously.

“Everything,” Draco replied. “It’s yours now . . .”

The night was dirty and loud. Aislinn watched from her chamber window as Einon and his knights surged through the crowded courtyard, bustling with war preparations. Men drilled. Armorers and blacksmiths sweated over forge fires. Weapons were cached. Wagons rolled into the castle gates with food and provisions for storing.

As Brok and the others tried to keep up with his fierce pace, Einon strode across the stones inspecting everything. He was dressed only in his night robe and carried a torch. As the entourage moved to a cart stationed below her window, Aislinn was able to catch bits and pieces of the conversation.

“. . . entire towns and shires deserted, milord,” Brok was dourly reporting, “. . . peasants all gone . . .”

“And gone with them the best of my crops and livestock!” Einon snapped out the words. He had leapt into the cart and his torch exposed a meager load of apples. Picking up one, he bit into it, made a sour face, and spit the morsel out. He flung the apple against the castle wall in disgust. It hit with a pop and clung there—an oozing glob.

The torchlight danced grimly across his face. It seemed whiter than normal, almost ghostlike. The rage in his pale eyes dwindled to a fixed reflective daze as he stared up. Aislinn pulled back from the window so that she would not be seen. But he wasn’t looking at her. His intense gaze sought the night sky, as though trying to bore a hole into the darkness, in search of some light to chase the shadows from his disturbed soul. He shuddered and his fingers crawled inside the folds of his robe, stroking his chest in agitated distraction.

The unctuous tones of Felton trickled over the din as the lord slithered forward to try to appease his troubled king. He gestured grandly with his stumped wrist, now covered in a leather cuff studded with jewels that caught the torchlight and sparkled. Aislinn had observed that he had several different cuffs, dyed in different colors to match the variety of his wardrobe. This one was brown, matching the soft deerskin tunic and pants he currently wore. “Do not worry, sire, a few dirty peasants are no match for us.”

“A few, fop?” Brok growled. “Hundreds, all armed and spoiling for a fight.”

“You should know, Brok.” Felton sneered, amiably. “It’s your land they’re on. But any noble is worth a hundred peasants.”

Brok tapped Felton’s leather cuff. “Guess you’re only worth fifty.”

Felton snatched his arm from Brok’s touch and held it up proudly. “At least I have proven my valor to my king. Do you preach caution because you’re afraid, Brok?”

Brok certainly wasn’t afraid of Felton, and snarling at the man’s insult, he charged the noble. But Einon leapt from the cart to stand between them, and waved Brok back with his torch, putting a protective arm about Felton. The torch flickered over the king’s calm smile.

“My brave Felton.” Einon patted the noble’s cheek. “A regiment unto himself.”

Einon chuckled. Felton giggled. The others joined the merriment. Then Einon savagely clawed the cheek he was patting and whirled Felton around by it, slamming him against the wheel of the cart.

“Idiot!” Einon’s fingers slid from Felton’s cheek and his palm thrust under the noble’s quivering chin, stretching his neck back over the rim of the wheel. Felton’s startled eyes stared straight up—where they met those of Aislinn, gazing down. In the torch glare, she could see the red welts where Einon had torn at his cheek.

“I know this man who leads them!” Einon barked, and released the fop. Gasping, Felton slumped against the wheel as Einon whirled on his other knights, shouting, “You’re all idiots! I am served by dolts and fools! The only clever man in this kingdom is my enemy! And I will destroy him! But I will not underestimate him! Him or the dragon! Now begone! All of you!”

The knights quickly dispersed into the commotion of the courtyard. Einon, torch in hand, stormed into the castle. Aislinn knew where he was going and waited and watched. A few moments later her suspicion was confirmed when she saw flickering light ascend past the arched windows of the tower stairwell.

The queen turned to the five burly men who waited behind her. “Come,” she said, and led them from the chamber.

Einon stood in his partially constructed tower room, holding back the surrounding dark with his torch. Its blaze danced wildly to the rough whistle of the wind; the gusting song muffled the racket drifting up from the courtyard far below. The wooden window shutter in the one erected wall swayed on its hinges, groaning against the portal with an abrupt hollow bang.
Groan. Bang. Groan. Bang.
It reminded him of the wretched scum condemned to the hell of his quarry. Groan, as they swung their hammers back. Bang, as the hammer struck stone.
Groan. Bang. Groan. Bang.
A rhythmic dirge of doom.

Memories of the quarry inevitably brought thoughts of Kara in their wake. Einon had done his share of wenching, but he understood little of women’s ways. The only woman with whom he had had any lengthy relationship was his mother and he understood her not at all. He had always been awed by her beauty and intimidated by her sad, knowing eyes. It was as though she had the power to look into your soul and steal your secrets. Kara was like that too, he thought. Knowing eyes and frightening beauty. But it was beauty that could only belong to a king! He knew that such beauty was the reason his father had taken his mother as his queen. Einon also knew why his father had taken Aislinn as he had. To show her who was the strongest. To claim possession and, at the same time, to purge his fear of her. But despite being taken and possessed so ruthlessly, the look was still in his mother’s eyes. And it was still in Kara’s as well. And it chilled him, and made him more afraid than before.

As Einon considered these thoughts, the torchlight fluttered in the wind. It reminded him of Kara’s untamed fiery hair blowing free. She belonged to him. But she was with Bowen, his betrayal of each of them binding them together. Bowen must see her every day. Did they talk often of him? he wondered. Hate him together? Plot his downfall? Share their secrets of him behind his back?

An ache tore suddenly through his heart, and with a whimpered cry, he thrust the torch into a pile of sandy mortar, extinguishing it. He sighed as the gloom embraced him and he slipped his hand into his robe, pressing it against his throbbing chest. He didn’t want Bowen talking to Kara. Didn’t want him seeing her. Looking into her dangerous eyes. He didn’t want Bowen to know what he had done and said to her the night they had been alone. She belonged to him!

When this was done, he would stick Bowen’s head on a pike up here in the tower room and possess the girl in front of it. Let her writhe and struggle under him while Bowen, gory-necked and slack-jawed, watched with sightless eyes. That would blot out the searing defiant light in her own eyes. That would strip away her power and Einon would never be afraid of her again.

His fingers ran across his naked breast, gingerly tracing the knotted scar there. His heart careened against his chest, and on curious impulse, he looked up into the sky. The blackness seemed to ripple with strange movement.

“Fear not the dragon, my son.”

Startled, Einon spun sharply to find his mother, holding a torch, emerging from the stairwell.

“I fear nothing! Nothing! Do you understand?” he insisted, and wondered how she alway knew what he was thinking. The witch. He shot an uneasy glance skyward. “It’s just that . . . sometimes I seem to sense him. Feel him. As though he were close.” His heart had beat like this before. At the waterfall. How big and ragged the scar on his chest felt. He turned back to his mother as she stepped from the stairwell. “But I do not fear him!”