Dragon's Winter (11 page)

In the dark morning, before dawn, Wolf went barefoot downstairs. He was thirsty. He crossed to the pantry and found the stone jug of ale sitting where Thea kept it, in the cool spot. The ale went down easy. He listened for the wind; it was still. The storm had passed. He drank another trickle of ale.

The fire was nearly gone. Wolf walked to the long shadow on the floor. The man had turned himself: he lay on his side, face turned away from the hearth. Kneeling, Wolf gazed into the grim gaunt face. The eyes were open. Wolf said gently, “Can you hear me? Who are you?”

The dark eyes did not change. Whatever they looked at so fixedly was not in the room.

In the morning, the stranger was awake. His legs and feet were warm, but however much it had hurt as blood returned to them, he had said nothing. He said nothing when they spoke to him. But he drank the water they brought him.

Thea said, “What’s the matter with him?”

Wolf said, “He’s been starved, and tortured.”

Thea said, “Well, he ought not to be lying naked on the floor like a beast. Give him some clothes, and put him into the rocking chair.”

“He may not have the strength to sit,” Wolf said. But he found some warm clothes, and awkwardly tucked and pulled them over the stranger, and lifted him into the chair.

Dawn seeped through the window shutters and drew straight lines on the floor. Thea made wheat cakes and poured honey on them. She sat down in front of the man and held a piece of wheat cake to his mouth. She said, “Whatever happened to you, you lived through it. You are safe. Whatever hurt you is not here. You must eat.”

The dark eyes looked at her. The man opened his mouth, accepting the cake. Wolf found that he was holding his breath. He released it. He had once met a man whose tongue had been cut out. But this man had a tongue. Thea fed the stranger, and gave him water. Then she brought comb and scissors, and combed and clipped the tangled hair and beard. As she finished, the man’s head drooped, and he slept. Thea fixed a pallet on the floor, and Wolf lifted him from the chair and put him into it. He slept as if he had not done so in weeks.

That morning, Wolf went to the Keep. The day was fair, almost warm, as if the night’s storm had been some wizard’s illusion. Branches snapped from birch trees littered the dark ground. A group of soldiers outside the walls were shooting at a straw target with longbows. Sunlight shone on the castle walls and roofs. Wolf told the sentries who he was, “I need to see the physician,” he said.

In a little while, the man himself came to the gate. He was a small, neat, sandy-haired man, not young. In Sleeth they said of him that he was good with wounds and broken bones. Wolf introduced himself, and explained why he had come. Macallan looked curious. “You’re sure he’s not some poor trapper who’s been wandering lost on the ice? Those folk go blind, and their minds grow strange.”

“I don’t think so,” Wolf said. “Of course, if you’re busy—”

“No, I’ll come. It sounds interesting. This way.” He led the way to the stables. They rode double to the clearing. “That was a hell of a wind we had last night,” Macallan commented, “The trees are in shreds. Odd, that it should blow out so swiftly.”

Thea had seen them coming from the upstairs window. She met them at the door with an ale jug, and two cups. Macallan grinned. “Milady weaver, my deepest thanks. Riding always makes me thirsty. Ah, that’s good.” Shem’s pen sat in the middle of the room. Macallan leaned over it. Shem lay on his back, snoring softly. “Ah, that’s a fine- looking boy. Now, where’s this stray of yours?” He was being polite; there was no way he could not have noticed the long body bundled in blankets by the hearth. Thea brought him to it.

The stranger was asleep, his breathing steady. Macallan looked at him, and went very still.

“You know him,” Thea said immediately. “Who is he?”

Macallan reached blindly for the cup. Thea filled it. He drank it off, still staring at the sleeping man. “I don’t know who he is now. His name’s Azil. He’s son to Aum Nialsdatter, steward of Dragon Keep. He lived at the Keep. He vanished in autumn, three years ago.”

Thea said softly, “That is when the lord’s brother left.”

“Yes,” Macallan said.

“Wherever he went, they were not kind to him,” Wolf said. “He’s been starved, and he’s badly scarred. His hands—”

UJ
      
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“I saw.”

“What could do that?”

“Fire,” the physician said bluntly. “Someone hated him, that’s certain. He played the harp. He’ll never do that again.” He crouched to look into the stranger’s face. “Has he opened his eyes?”

“Yes. He even ate a little this morning,” Thea answered. “But he’s not spoken. I’m not sure he can.”

In his pen, Shem started to bang on the bars, informing his parents he was awake and wanted their attention. Thea picked him up. He grinned at her. “Ma,” he said lovingly.

Macallan looked benignly at him. Shem reached for the physician’s beard. “A lovely boy,” Macallan said, but his attention clearly was absent. He turned away. Shem screwed his face up, ready to argue with the universe. Thea bounced him on her hip, and he squirmed, his hands in fists.

“Would you let him stay with you a while longer?” Macallan said. “It will not be for long.”

“Of course,” Thea said.

Wolf walked with the physician to the meadow, where they had tied the mare. When he returned, Thea had taken Shem upstairs. He went up to her. She was sitting at the loom. She had dragged the baskets filled with wool thread around her in a circle. Wolf leaned in the doorway. He could feel her unhappiness.

“Would you open the shutter?” she asked. He muscled open the shutter, which had stuck. Sunlight and cold air streamed in together.

“He is empty,” she said, speaking of the stranger. She picked up the shuttle, and reached for a skein of thread. “Whatever he was before, he is not that man. He is a hollowed gourd, a bell with no clapper.”

Downstairs, the stranger slept. Wolf went to his workroom. He patched his favorite salmon net, and carved fish hooks from the antlers of a deer for which he had traded two white mink pelts in Chingura Market. When the sounds of hoofbeats and wheels and harness jingling came through the window shutter, he laid his knife down and went into the front room.

Someone tapped softly on the door. He opened it. Karadur Atani, in black, stood on the step. Leashed power radiated from his body; it was like standing beside Ono’s forge.

Wolf backed up. “My lord,” he said.
Dragon
, said his mind.

Karadur’s face was unreadable as stone. “I’m told you have something here of mine.”

Wolf pointed to the long-legged man sleeping beside the hearth. Karadur crossed the room, and knelt. For a moment he only looked. Then he laid a hand on the stranger’s shoulder.

“Azil.”

The sleeper’s eyes opened. He gazed up into Karadur’s face. His dark eyes seemed to grow darker, brimming with supplication and a profound, defenseless, desperate shame. Whatever strength was left to him at that moment, he was spending it all so as to not move his head. Wolf turned away instead, because he did not have the right to see more. Karadur said something deep and too soft to hear. Then he left, and Wolf heard him giving orders. Two men came in.

“Gently!” their lord said, and very gently they lifted the stranger in his blankets and took him from the house, and brought the blankets in again.

“My thanks; I am in your debt,” said the lord of Dragon Keep. “You have done me a service. How did you find him?”

Wolf said, “My lord, I heard him calling.”

Karadur frowned. “Macallan told me that he does not speak.”

“He has not. I heard no words, my lord. His need was very great: it reached from his mind. I heard it, inside my head.”

That answer brought, for the first time, the dragon-lord’s full attention. “You have that gift?” he asked. “To touch another mind? You were trained to it?”

Wolf answered truthfully, “I had some teaching.”

“It is magic? Are you a sorcerer? A wizard?” Karadur’s eyes went hard, blue-white, bright as diamond. A hot wind seemed to blaze through the room. Wolf felt white fire grip his mind.

“No,” he said. Sweat ran down his sides. “I’m sorry, my lord, I thought you knew. I am of the wolf tribe. I am changeling.”

The searing wind died away. The grip on his mind eased. “Are you indeed,” the dragon-lord said. “Then we are cousins.” Stooping, Karadur drew a narrow-bladed dagger from his boot. The leather-wrapped hilt was set with a pattern of jewels, like stars. “This is yours.”

“My lord—”

“Be quiet.” He laid the dagger on the cracked hearth tile. “Is your wife home? I would thank her.”

“She is upstairs,” Wolf said. But she was not; she had come down and stood now at the foot of the stairs, Shem in her arms. She wore an old apron, and she smelled like lambswool. She had pinned her hair high on her head with the dragon comb that Wolf had carved for her. The red scar on her face showed dark against her smooth cheek. She stood very straight, like a queen.

“My lord,” she said, as if it was a greeting she made every day, “welcome to our house.”

“Thank you, Thea of Sleeth,” Karadur said. He inclined his head; it was almost a bow. “And thanks also for your kindness.”

“I would be kind to a beaten dog, my lord,” Thea said.

“So would I.” Their eyes met. Thea’s shoulders lost some of their rigidity. “You need not fear to leave your refugee in my hands.” He nodded at the baby. “I was told you had a son. Felicitations. May I see him?”

Wolf crossed the room and took Shem from Thea’s arms. Shem’s small round face clenched mutinously, but Wolf crooned to him, and he quieted. He brought Shem to Karadur. The fair-haired man and the black-haired child gazed curiously at each other.

“What is he called?” Karadur asked.

“His name is Shem.”

Karadur held out his big hands. “Give him to me.” Wolf put his child into the outstretched palms. Bright blue flame spurted along Karadur’s fingers and ran along his arms, and along Shem’s tubby body. Thea gasped in terror, and crossed the room in three strides. Wolf caught her before she could snatch the child away.

“It’s safe,” he said quickly. “Thea, it’s harmless.” She quivered in his arms. The cool fire danced, and Shem crowed at it with wonder and delight.

“Fearless,” Dragon said.

Wolf said, “My lord. You reminded me when we first met that I swore you no oath. But my son will, when he is old enough, if you will accept it.”

Karadur looked at him a long moment. “I do accept.” The benign fire went away. He put Shem into Thea’s arms. “You must visit
my
house,” he said to her. “This spring, when the snow melts.” He touched the plump baby cheek with a fingertip, and left the house. Thea was feeling Shem all over. Shem, irritated because the wondrous blue light had vanished, kicked, and yelled.

That night, with Shem nestled between them, Thea said, “Why did you do that?”

Wolf did not pretend to misunderstand her. He lifted Shem into the blankets which lined the crib beside the bed, and pulled Thea against his side. “Let me tell you a story,” he said.

“Is this an answer to my question?”

“Yes, it is. My mother, Naika, told me this story, when I was young. I was very full of myself. I thought because I would someday transform into a wolf, that made me better than the children I played with who would never be wolves.

“She told me that when Tukalina the Mother Goddess made the world, She filled it with four different kinds of beings, Monsters, Beasts, Changelings, and Men. And during that time when the world was new, She told each to gather among themselves and name from among themselves a lord, a king: otherwise, She warned them, there would always be disputes and disagreements and battles and wars. So the monsters went to the east, and the beasts to the south, the men to the west, and changelings to the north, and each gathering of beings attempted to choose a lord.

“And the monsters snarled and clawed at one another, and refused to give any one of them lordship over the others, and they fell to fighting among themselves, and that is why there are so few monsters in the world, because they killed each other at the very beginning, when the world was new.

“And the beasts talked and talked, and chose Elephant, but Elephant refused, and said, ‘No, I will not be lord.’ So the beasts gathered again, and talked and talked, and chose Lion. So Lion is king of beasts, except that Lion will always yield to Elephant, because Elephant was chosen first.

“And the men talked and talked, and some of them chose this one, and some of them chose that one, and others chose yet a third, and then they all drew apart and began making weapons, and killing each other over who was to be lord. And Tukalina was sad, and angry at them, seeing that their choices came out so ill.

“But the changelings could not choose. For there were very few of them, and each one of them felt that she or he had the qualities and abilities to be king, and none would yield. And at last they came to Tukalina and said, ‘Mother, we cannot choose.’ And Tukalina was angry at their pride, and they hid from Her wrath, and were ashamed. But they were filled with self-love, and they remained stubborn.