Dragonswood (11 page)

Chapter Sixteen

T
HE DRAGON SKIMMED
over the canopy, her long, blue-green tail swam fishlike in the sky. The startled horses bolted. I ducked my head and hugged Seagull’s sides with my knees as she sped behind Goodfellow. With an angry cry the dragon dove at Garth, driving Goodfellow headlong into the bushes. We weren’t in her sanctuary, why attack us on the road? No time to wonder more, for she’d already wheeled about flying open-jawed toward me. Her heavy wing strokes agitated the branches; her teeth were dagger sharp, her eyes a brilliant blue.

I yanked Seagull’s reins in a frantic attempt to turn her about. The terrified horse bucked me off. I flew back and hit the road hard, tumbling through dust and stones, ending painfully on my backside.

“Tess?” Garth was shouting from somewhere up the road, but the hard landing had knocked the wind out of me. I struggled to draw breath. The creature dove again. I felt the heat of her wings, her copper belly became my sky as she skimmed overhead with her foreclaws stretched out. I did not know dragons could extend or retract their talons like a cat’s claws, until I saw her black talons jut out suddenly, twice their former length, as if to catch me. Stunned from my fall, I could not pull my knife to defend myself, could not scream or roll away.

Garth raced back, shouting and waving his arms. The dragon flew upward, spitting red fire before she darted back to the wood.

Garth was at my side, his face drawn with concern. The dust still swirled around us. “Tess? Are you hurt?”

My spine ached. There were many stones on the road; at least one poked into my back. I sat up dizzily. “Only bruised, I think. She was angry with us, Garth. Her cry sounded angry.” I looked at him. “Why is that? We were not in her wood.”

“Can you walk, Tess?” He wrapped his arm around me. I’d known the back side of a man’s hand, the crack of a man’s fist. But this new, tender touch surprised me. He helped me to my feet and I stepped away, confused.

“I can walk.” I dusted off Aisling’s riding cloak and saw the tear in the hem. “Aisling won’t like the state of her cloak.”

“It’s not her cloak I care about.”

Blushing, I glanced down the road where Seagull waited, thrashing her flaxen tail across her rump. She was still unsettled and I couldn’t blame her. Garth’s well-trained stallion was calm compared to her. Head down, Goodfellow chewed the patch of dry grass beside us. Garth led Goodfellow along by the bridle as we went to fetch poor, startled Seagull.

“Now, now,” I said, stroking her sweaty neck.

Garth rubbed her nose. “It’s all right, my girl. No one’s going to hurt you.”

His words melted me. I put my face against Seagull’s neck, and felt the heat rising up my own.

“You did not scream when the dragon flew over, Tess. Most maidens would have.”

I had to fight to take possession of myself. I was all knots inside over the dragon’s attack, over Garth’s tender touch. At last I said, “I have seen dragons before.”

“Many folk still scream mightily when one flies by, even if they’ve seen one before.”

“That’s true.” We led the horses on. The reddened clouds turned gray brown overhead. More blew in from the sea, bringing sheets of rain, and we were forced to shelter under oak boughs overhanging the boundary wall. “I didn’t tell you earlier. We all saw something while we were on the road.”

“Go on.” Garth adjusted Goodfellow’s saddle, which had slipped askew in the attack.

“A dragon rescued a girl from a witch burning back in Hessings Kottle. He pulled her from the fire just in time, and his wingtip was burned in the rescue.”

“How badly burned?” Garth asked, alarmed.

Did he care for dragons? “I don’t know. He flew the girl to the bay to douse her burning gown, and dunked his flaming wingtip also. His flight was awkward with his singed wingtip. He struggled even after he managed to put out the flames. But he did not drop the girl.”

“And he took her—”

I answered, nodding at Dragonswood. I’d watched it all happen from the cliff that night, but I’d missed some things. “Poppy saw a fey man riding on his back, but I did not.”

“Fey can vanish in the blink of an eye,” Garth said.

True he might have done that, and I’d only just missed him.

Garth said, “We should move on.” The rain had lessened, though smaller pinprick drops still fell.

I glanced about. “Will she attack us again? I’m worried about Seagull.”

“I don’t think she’ll return.” Garth cupped his hands. His hood fell back as he helped me up into the saddle. His black hair was tangled, and I had the urge to straighten the lock hanging over his eyes, smooth the worried wrinkle from his brow. I combed Seagull’s mane instead.

O
UR RETREAT THAT
night was an enormous boulder leaning strangely to the left, providing a goodly overhang. The evergreen beside it arched over like a giant’s bow. Shielded from the weather beneath boulder and tree, Garth tried to light a fire. When the damp sticks were not responsive, he pulled a black stone from his saddlebag. This time the fire took.

“Burningstone? Wherever did you find it?” I’d dug alongside my father many a time in search of the rare rocks said to be made of ancient dragon bones. Burningstone would have done wonders for his smithy, heating the ovens without costly wood, saving him the chore of making his own charcoal. We’d never found any.

“It’s around if you know where to look,” Garth said.

“Could you show me?” I asked timidly.

“Too dangerous to ride so far in these times, Tess.” He sounded somewhat apologetic, as if he might like to take me there. The flames grew steadily, but my damp back was still chilly. I drew my cloak in tighter. “Are you sure it’s safe to camp in Dragonswood?” I’d asked him the same thing earlier when we’d entered the sanctuary for the night. It was the first time we’d gone inside the wall.

“Safe as it’s ever been. I’m allowed in here as a king’s woodward.”

“Yet we were attacked today.” I knew he was also upset by the dragon’s attack, but he’d been reluctant to talk of it all afternoon. I watched him blow into the flames to encourage the fire along. He wiped dirt from his palms, and caught an airy bit of floating ash.

“The dragon’s gone now, Tess.”

“I still don’t see what we did to offend her.”

Garth kicked the back of his boot against the rock to knock the mud off. “We might have ridden too close to her den,” he suggested. “If she has hatchlings, she’d be on high alert.”

Was this what he really thought, or a reason he’d taken all afternoon to come up with? Still, it could explain her strange behavior. Angry birds dove at my head when I’d gone too near their nests. Even larks, usually so sweet, had attacked me once to protect their young.

Garth took his crossbow and left me to tend the flames while he went to hunt up some dinner. I placed the stewpot on the fire to boil, and finding a clean, flat stone, used my stolen knife to dice an onion. The knife was the only weapon I’d ever owned. It comforted me to have it here in the darksome forest even if I used it now to chop an onion. Soon my eyes were streaming. I leaned against the boulder awaiting Garth’s return and stared long at the flames.

The burningstone added a spicy scent to the fire. Colorful sparks flew up from it. Whether it was the strangeness of the burningstone, the long day’s ride, or the blue-green color the stone added to the yellow flames, I cannot say, but in time my body went very still, my breath grew shallow, and my pulse slowed. The fire-sight came on.

In the wavering light I saw a fey woman riding a dragon across the sea, the water glowing red with dusk where it was not white-capped. The dragon wheeled, rising and falling in the heavy gusts as they winged silently into the distance. Flames roared, but the fire was not done with me. I saw a girl strolling down a beach. Her back was to me. How old she was I could not tell, but she was small in stature and her step was as lively as a child’s. She wore a strange kirtle, copper colored as a dragon’s chest scales, and indeed the pattern of the cloth was scaly as if the gown were sewn with dragon scales.

The girl ran. Waves crashed, but I did not hear the sound. Down the beach I spied a woman holding a babe. The woman shouted, yet like the waves, I could not hear the shout, only the coaxing whisper of the fire, and the strange bubbling and whispering sound that sometimes troubled my left ear. The girl with her back to me ran closer to the woman with the babe.

I saw the woman’s face and it was mine. My heart thumped against my ribs. But I could not move hand or foot, entranced by the fire. Was this some future event? Where was this beach? Whose babe was in my arms, and why was I shouting? The girl snatched the babe, and when she turned about, I saw her monstrous face and screamed. Green scales covered half the girl’s forehead, and her eyes… her eyes were golden dragon eyes with black diamond pupils. She’d snatched the infant, my babe! Ah, God. What was she about to do?

The fire-sight faded. Teeth chattering, I backed away from the flames and ran.

Garth must have heard my scream earlier; pounding up with his crossbow, he dropped the rabbit he’d shot. “What is it, Tess?” he asked, looking left and right. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing,” I said, shivering. “I… had a wicked dream.”

He sighed. “Come sit down, then. I can see I made you ride too far today.”

Back at the fire, I averted my eyes, fearing more fire-sight might come. Garth skinned the rabbit and put it in the pot with the onion. When the stew began to seethe, he asked, “What did you dream?”

“It was nothing.”

“Nothing does not usually make a lady scream as you did. Were you dreaming of the dragon that attacked us today?”

I shook my head. “I have night terrors,” I admitted.

“What sort of night terrors?”

“Mostly about my father.” Without thinking, my hand crept up to my cauliflower ear. I dropped my hand, but he’d seen me covering my ear.

He broke a stick over his knee. “You know what I think about that,” he said.

Men who beat the weaker sex are brutes
. “I know.”

I watched the hot steam rising between us.

“So you fell asleep and dreamed about your father,” he said. “What happened in the dream?”

I cleaned the onion juice from my knife blade. Tossed the brown onion skins in the fire. I’d often had nightmares of my father beating me with his mallet, trying to pound me into shape, but I’d only spoken of it now not wanting to confront the images I’d just seen.

Garth must have sensed my reluctance. He said, “I sometimes dream I’m falling from a high cliff, but I wake up just before I’m smashed to pieces on the rocks below.”

“A good time to awaken.”

“Indeed.”

“Are you pushed?”

“What?” He gave a startled look.

“Does someone push you off the cliff in your dream?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then you jump?”

He frowned, watching the bubbling stew. “Maybe,” he whispered. “Maybe I jump.”

Then I told him what had made me scream, as if it were a dream and not a fire-sight, I described the hideous monster who’d stolen my child.

“Hideous… monster?” Garth jumped up with such violence, he nearly kicked over the stew. I huddled like a hunted creature. He towered over me and I saw the mounting, inexplicable anger I’d known all my life.

This time I’d not wait for a beating. I grabbed my knife and fled.

Chapter Seventeen

T
ESS?”
G
ARTH’S HEAD
was thrown back to peer up at me in the branches. “Why scurry up a tree? The stew will be ready soon. Won’t you come down?”

I gripped my knife. Why had I trusted him? I knew better than to trust a man. “You’re angry with me.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Don’t lie; I know anger when I see it.” He looked so small standing far below. Like a grounded blackbird.

Seagull trotted up to him and whinnied. Garth patted her neck. “Now see, you have Seagull worried.”

“Tell her I am happy up here in the tree.”

“She is happy up there in the tree, Seagull.”

I smiled a little. “Tell her I am tired of sudden anger, of punching fists, black eyes, cuts, and bruises.”

“She is tired of sudden anger, fists—”

“Punching fists,” I corrected.

“Of punching fists, black eyes, cuts, and bruises.”

Seagull huffed and nodded. Garth and I laughed.

“Will you come down now and have some dinner?”

“You go ahead and eat. You must be famished.” I felt gnawing hunger but would not admit it. The man did not obey. Instead he climbed. My breath caught. What was he doing?

Garth positioned himself on a thick branch across from me and slightly lower so his head was not quite as high as mine.

“This is my tree,” I said.

He poked a pinecone. “So you own it?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Do you plan to cut a branch?” he asked, looking at my blade.

I didn’t answer. A squirrel leaped pine to pine, then raised his brushy tail, calling
Cheet! Cheet!

“He thinks your tree belongs to him,” Garth said.

“Sir Squirrel,” I said, “you can have your domicile back soon enough.”

“So you mean to come down eventually?”

When I did not respond he added, “Do you want to know what angered me?”

I fingered the blade.

“You dreamed of Princess Augusta.”

“How do you know it was she?”

“I told you I was a castle knight. I did not mention my father was a friend of the royal family. My father, my brother, and I often traveled with them when I was a boy.”

“Did you go with them to the hunting lodge?”

He nodded. “The lodge in fall, the castle on Dragon’s Keep in summer. I played with the princes when we were boys.”

“Then you’ve… seen their little sister?”

“The one you called the hideous monster? She is but four years old now. I visited her a few times with Prince Bion, though Prince Arden has never gone to see the child.”

“He’s been busy on crusade,” I said.

“Busy? Is that what he’s been?”

I felt his irritation raising the hairs along my arms, but Garth had climbed the pine to speak with me, not thrash me. “The girl in my dream was more than four years old. It might not have been Princess Augusta.”

“You described her face, Tess: the scaly half of her forehead and her copper-colored dragon eyes. It was her.”

I swallowed, remembering the girl had snatched a baby from my arms. What did it mean?

“What is she like?” I asked cautiously.

“Like a four-year-old girl,” he said. “She is no more a monster than the rest of the Pendragons whose scales are hidden on wrist or neck or arm. She did not ask to be so marked, but it’s too much for most folk. Even her father could not look at her.”

I thought of King Kadmi rejecting his youngest child. Was it only for her looks? “There might be other reasons.” I told Garth that Poppy’s mother had died birthing her. That her father had resented her because of it and kept her as a man does a thoroughbred animal for its value and not for love.

Garth was silent. I could not read his expression in the dark. The pine swayed in the damp wind. We held our branches, riding the gusts.
He seems as much at home as I am up here,
I thought. I liked him well for it.

“If you’re such good friends with Prince Bion, why aren’t you with him searching for the missing treasure now?”

Garth rode another gust before answering. “He asked me to guard that part of Dragonswood.”

“Why that part?”

“Bion fears the sanctuary walls there might be breached. The sheriff in Oxhaven is a powerful man and one who would like to see the boundary walls come down. He’d use the excuse of hunting for the missing treasure for a start.”

“Then it’s dangerous for you to leave and ride south with me.”

He shook his head. “I have allies, Tess, and they guard that part of Dragonswood while I’m away.”

“And what’s Prince Bion doing while you and your friends guard the wood?”

The wind had quieted. I felt the night wrap around me as I waited for his answer. “Other than combing the isle for the treasure?” he said with some rigidity. “If you want to know, Prince Bion has to keep an eye on the king’s regent, Sackmoore, a crooked man if there ever was one.”

Crooked? I considered the man who had funded Lady Adela’s hunts. Garth was watching his tongue in my company. There were baser words to describe the demon.

The gusts had swept the sky clean of clouds. Garth clutched the branch, straightened his arms, and leaned back to spy the stars through the greenery. The moon was like a half-gone pie.

“Nice up here. How often do you scale trees?”

“I cannot say.”

“Cannot or will not?”

“Will not.”

“Often then,” he guessed. “You surprise me.”

“I’m glad.”

He laughed outright. “Are you ready to come down?”

“I might like to taste your stew.”

“So hunger wins,” he said.

I slid my knife in my belt and climbed down after him. When I jumped from the lowest branch, he caught me, and held me a moment. The touch sent a clean wind through me, sweet and strong. If I could have stayed there all through the passing night, I would have. But he let me go and we trailed back to the boulder and the warm rabbit stew.

U
NBUCKLING
G
OODFELLOW’S SADDLEBAG
, Garth pulled out two wooden bowls. Wolves howled somewhere in the distance. Our eyes locked. “We’ll keep the fire going throughout the night,” Garth said. “And if they come closer we can always climb yon tree,” he added with a teasing smile.

The howling continued. How could he jest about such a thing? But behind the light talk, I saw caution. Scrambling up the tree would keep us from the wolves’ jaws. I thanked God we’d seen no bear scat in the woods. Bears are veteran climbers.

“How clearly did you see the dragon who rescued the girl from the fire?”

“It was night, but I saw he was very large.”

“An old one then,” Garth said, filling my bowl.

“An old one,” I agreed. “And one I’d seen before.”

“When?” He did not try to hide his curiosity, but had stopped mid-pour, holding the bowl up between us and looking at me through the rising steam.

I’d told him about my witch trial back at the lodge the night he’d showed me the pearl. But I’d not detailed my escape from Harrowton. He handed me my bowl. I was about to tell him how the old dragon rescued me, dropping a turtle in Miller’s Pond, when I felt as if a cold hand encircled my throat.
Don’t speak of it.

I glanced down and blew on the hot stew.
I already told him the dragon rescued the burning girl, why not mention my rescue?
The invisible hand seemed to tighten. I fought against it, sipped the stew to bring warmth back to my throat. Was this my own caution or something else preventing me?
Tell him about the other time
. “I saw the same old dragon one night when I’d climbed a tree.”

“In Dragonswood?”

I nodded.

“So you were also a lawbreaker, Tess.”

“I never hunted in the wood,” I said. “I just went there to be alone and think.”

“And recover from your father’s blows?” he guessed. His look was kind.

Again I nodded. “I saw the old dragon the night before we buried Adam.”

Garth’s look asked
Who was Adam?
but he waited for me to say more.

The cold hand was no longer at my throat. I could eat from my bowl; still, I was finding it difficult to speak. “Adam was my baby brother,” I whispered. “I’d gone to Dragonswood to cry. Seeing the dragon… helped. He breathed a stream of fire over the Harrow River. It was beautiful,” I added.

Garth nodded. “Dragons can be wiser than men, though they’re wilder.” He tasted his stew, and ate some more.

“Did you meet dragons on Dragon’s Keep?” He’d only just told me of his boyhood travels. I was trying not to be jealous. “Have you ever spoken with one?” I added eagerly before he could even answer my first question.

He nodded. “I have, and I can tell you this. The dragons wonder that we, the weaker race, should have taken over the world, driving them from their wilderness in the last few thousand years.”

I knew the dragons died without vast hunting ranges. I also knew the jealousies the sanctuary provoked. “Men like my father want the dragons and the fey booted out. He often talked of tearing down the walls so he could hunt and fish and harvest the timber there for his forge.”

“A common sentiment,” Garth said. “Men high and low want the wood back, the lords no less than commoners. The king’s regent knows it too. In fact he counts on it. Sackmoore would destroy the sanctuary if he had the power.”

“Then Prince Arden best hurry home,” I said.

“Amen to that,” he whispered. Garth sat cross-legged on the ground in his mud-stained jerkin. A proud man and strong, he was concerned for his section of Dragonswood, I could see that, yet he’d taken us in. Now we were on a mercy mission for Meg. “Why have you been so kind to us?”

He shrugged. “I knew from the first you weren’t witches.” He sloshed more stew into his bowl. “I could not leave you out there to die, could I?”

“Some might have.” I studied his face, half in light and half in shadow, the fire and night taking what they may. “Was it because… did it have to do with what Lady Adela did to your grandmother?” I asked cautiously, knowing it might upset him.

“The witch hunter didn’t harm my grandmother.”

“But you said your grandmother was tried for witchcraft.”

“She was. I would not lie to you about that, Tess, but it was years and years ago.”

“Was she…” I fought the bile coming up my throat. “Did they burn her at the stake?” I pictured Garth as a small boy, seeing his grandmother taken, perhaps witnessing her death. Some people took their youngsters to witch burnings. My father brought me when I was just seven.

“No, Tess. She was lucky. She lived.”

He would not tell me more of her, though I asked not only from my heart, but because I wanted to know how she’d gotten away. I’d heard of no other women aside from myself and the one the dragon rescued who escaped after their witch trial.

Garth finished his meal and left the fire. I did not follow him. I could tell the man needed to be alone. The stewpot sat cooling near my feet. The fire’s heat silvered the air above. I watched Garth brushing Goodfellow’s mane as if through glass. The burningstone greened the fire; flames moved like living dragon scales. The green man I’d first seen in the fire-sight long ago continued to surprise me. I sat very still, my body at rest, my heart full.