Dragonswood (14 page)

Leech Aisling stepped up and peered out at Tom, who’d squatted down to pet one of the dogs. “My work is done here.”

I nodded. “You have done a fine job with him, Mistress Aisling.”

“Poppy was a great help.” Before she left the room, she glanced at Poppy, who’d come in to dry the dishes.

“What was that look for?”

“I’m to ask you something,” said Poppy.

“Well, what is it?”

“Mistress Aisling says I have the gift of healing.”

I nodded, knowing it was so.

Poppy put up the dry bowl and took a wet spoon from the cutlery pile. “Aisling asked me to come live with her at her smallholding. She’s been looking for a new apprentice since the former one ran off to marry without her leave. And she promised to teach me all manner of things a healer needs to know,” she concluded.

I pulled my hands from the suds and turned to my friend, water dribbling down my arms. “Is that… what you want, Poppy?”

She did not look at me, but watched the dancing dust in the window light between us. “She is very kind, and I like the work, Tess.”

“Look at me. Say yeah or nay. Tell me if it is what you want.”

A blush pinked her pale neck. “I want it.”

It had been my dream to earn my own way in the world without the need of a man, not hers.
Earn my way through my art, not handling leeches or tending wounds
. Poppy had always doctored me, and she’d helped heal Tom. She had the healer’s touch, only she’d been unschooled. This was a good choice for her.

Suddenly I wanted her to stay. Not to leave me. “You should go with her.”

“You don’t mind?”

“It’s what we’ve wanted, isn’t it? A safe place for you to live far out of the witch hunter’s sight?”

“And we can still visit,” Poppy said. “Mistress Aisling’s smallholding is but a day’s ride from here.” Her face shone.

“Aye, it’s not too far away.” I hugged her, my wet arms staining her kirtle, but it would dry again and I did not care.

“Don’t cry, Tess,” she whispered.

“I’m happy for you. Go and tell Aisling your news.”

Poppy dropped her towel. Treading on it in her nervous excitement, she left me with the sudsy water that was barely warm now.

The next day Meg filled Aisling’s basket with cheese, bread, and onions. She kissed Aisling and Poppy on the cheek for healing her Tom. I hugged Poppy tight. My arms were dry this time, so I held her long. I did not know when I would see her again.

Poppy and Aisling were mounted on Seagull, who was large enough to carry both with little trouble if they rode slowly and let the horse rest when she needed to. Behind us the hunting dogs yowled for their master to let them out. Garth paid them no mind, leading Seagull out beyond the gate. There he paused, his hand moving up a little as if he might speak. Then he turned as they rode on. A small furry shadow followed Seagull: Tupkin trotting down the path with his tail up. I think the cat was glad to leave a house where he’d never been welcome.

Back in the lodge, I sat awhile looking out the window, then went out to hoe the garden. One friend gone, and the one remaining was full content now Tom was well and little Alice was back in her arms. The two I’d betrayed were settling in at last.

T
HAT AFTERNOON
G
ARTH
was outside more than in, touring the grounds with Tom to show the man his new duties. At mealtime he was pensive, and taking down a rushlight when darkness flooded in, he excused himself to read alone by the fireside. I walked down the hallway more than once, but he did not call me into the library as he’d once done.

Next day he made ready to quit the king’s lodge again, filling a bag with a bit of food, and his water skin at the well. I went outside before he left. Garth would not say where he was going, or when he would be back.

“Might I go along?” I asked, trying not to blush.

Garth did not look me in the eye. “I have my duties,” he said crisply.

I watched him go off alone on foot, without even Horace for company, slipping between the rowan trees and out of my vision.

I am not wanted here.

Back in the kitchen, Meg said she’d like to cook now that Tom was better. Even that duty was taken from me.

I retreated to the shadowed corridor.

You let your guard down, let yourself be duped into thinking he might love you. You are half fey. You’ve known that since the day before you returned with Alice. It’s time to go.

The room I’d shared with Poppy was empty. Her bed was neatly made.

I shouldn’t vanish without a word. I should write to him at least.
I sat on the bed trying to think of what I might say. No words came.
I’ll take parchment with me on a walk, write a letter in the woods, then leave it here for him before I go
.

Before I could change my mind I went to the library where we’d talked so many times together, took a quill, an ink block, and parchment from the desk. In the kitchen I packed my writing supplies, water pouch, and food into a rucksack. Circling back to my room I paused to finger Grandfather’s handkerchief a moment before folding it and slipping it into the pack along with my traveling knife. I’d be back only long enough to drop off a letter, then on my way again.

The pewter sky foretold snow. Gusting wind blew my hood off as I stepped out the back door through the garden. No one called or tried to stop me. They’d seen me go out to walk the hounds often enough. This time I passed the howling dogs cooped up in the kennels to leap over the back fence. My noisy landing startled the blackbirds from the holly. For a moment I could not move, surrounded by a sudden wild flurry of black wings.

Chapter Twenty

I
T SEEMED A
day of birds, for even more accompanied my walk. Passing a pond, I saw a bright kingfisher dive in beak first and bob up with a minnow. A mile deeper into Dragonswood, gulls screamed overhead, crossing the sky like torn strips of white sailcloth as they winged toward the coast. Hearing their cry made me think of my grandfather sailing warm waters somewhere across the world. Perhaps his ship would cross paths with Prince Arden’s on his way home from the crusades.

It was chill outside. The air had the scent of coming snow. I came to a sunlit spot.
First sit here to write the good-bye letter
. Garth’s quill, ink block, and parchment were tucked in the rucksack. But I needed some water to add to the black dust I’d scratch from the block. I’d crossed a little stream earlier. I was making my way toward the stream when I spied a moving figure through the trees. He was some distance from me, but I knew Garth’s singular stride, the way he threw each long leg out in movements both casual and quick.

Where was he off to? I wondered again why he’d been so firm about going off alone. Was he already missing Poppy? Perhaps the food he’d packed was meant for Mistress Aisling’s table. I saw his steps took him north toward the leech’s house.
We can still visit,
Poppy had said,
Mistress Aisling’s smallholding is but a day’s ride from here.
Her eyes had sparkled when she’d said it.

I shouldn’t follow; still, I crept behind, curious.

A soft snow fell and the brisk wind made the going cold. I thanked Saint Scolastica it was not yet snowing hard. I can step quietly as a deer if I have a mind to. By this, and the noisy wind whistling through the branches, I shadowed Garth undetected. After an hour or more the path narrowed to a deer trail thick with brambles. Up ahead, Garth used a stick to beat the brambles back. I could not do the same, since whacking sounds would give me away.

My cloak snagged in the evil thorns. I had to stop numerous times to free it. My hands were scratched, my fingers pricked.

I followed until Garth disappeared into a dark cave on the far side of a steep gully; smoke curled from the entrance.

I caught the smell of herbs on it, fennel and another bitter smell I could not name. Crouching, I waited outside, peering intently at the dark opening, as a cat will watch a mouse hole. A deep growl brought me to a run. I clambered down to the base of the gully and up the other side to the mouth of the cave, where I peered out from behind a rock.

Twenty paces from me, Garth looked straight up into the face of a dragon.

Half the dragon’s bulk was hidden in the deeper chamber behind. The creature’s triangular head loomed over the huntsman. Garth stood very still below. He’d told me he’d seen dragons up close on Dragon’s Keep, but up
this
close?

Now my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw the blue-green scales of a female. Her neck was not fully extended; still, it looked long as a pine sapling, near ten feet by my guess. All this I noticed in a moment, for now I could see her eyes were blue, a color rare in dragons. This must be the one who’d attacked us on the road.

Another rumbling sound and I saw what I’d taken for a growl before had been a kind of speech. I listened, keeping well behind the rock.

“. . . to Harrowton?” the dragon asked huskily. “And on the road?”

“We went to gather a child,” said Garth.

The dragon huffed, enveloping Garth in smoke. He went ghostly for a time and coughed till the smoke rose to the roof. “Should I do nothing to help the women Lady Adela hunts?” he asked.

My knees wobbled. He’d told the dragon about us?

The she-dragon tipped her head. “Are they witches on the run?”

“They are no more witches than my grandmother was.”

Both went silent as if in reverence, though how this dragon would have known Garth’s grandmother was beyond me.

“Do any of the girls have fairy blood?” The dragon’s tongue flicked out, furling and unfurling.

Garth did not answer straightaway. My heart sped.

Finally he said, “Half fey you mean? How can a man tell that?” With one hand on his hip, he pressed the other against the cave wall and leaned against it, crossing his legs. An astonishingly carefree pose before a powerful dragon. What would he do next, start whistling?

The dragon blinked, then smiled or snarled, I could not tell which. “Are they gone now from your lodge?” she asked.

“One is gone with the leech. Four guests remain, counting a husband and a child.”

“Put them out, Bash!”

Bash?
Had he lied about his name?

The dragon flicked her tail. My ears pricked to a tinkling sound coming from behind her. Peering harder into the dark well of the cave, I caught a glint of gold.

“I should not send them away, Ore.”

Another name I knew from Grandfather’s history lessons. Ore was a she-dragon hatched under Queen Rosalind’s care, the smallest female of the clutch, and one with uncommon blue eyes. Might this be she? I wanted time to ponder it. Rosalind’s Ore was raised on Dragon’s Keep and might have met Garth there in his visits. There was no time to tease it out while they argued.

“How can I put them out when the man is still recovering and they are all penniless besides?” argued Garth, or Bash, or whoever this huntsman was.

The dragon swept her tail behind her. Gold coins tumbled out, rolling past her enormous clawed hind feet and settling near Garth’s boots.

“Give them that. Then send them off.”

“And where should I say I found the money?”

“Bash!” She gave a warning growl. Garth backed away.

“Before you leave, young sir, give me what you stole last time.”

He wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of his sleeve. “It’s mine, Ore.”

“We agreed I would guard it all.”

“You do.”

“All but the pearl in your pocket, boy.”

“Shall we spar for it?” he asked, drawing his sword. The dragon reared back, extending a sharp black talon. I nearly screamed and raced out, but Garth jumped back, smacking his rapier against her talon as she matched parry for parry, breathing short, concentrative plumes of fire. It was like a tourney—both fighting for the contest but not the kill.

Throughout the match, the dragon used only one talon against her smaller opponent. But her eyes were narrowed on Garth. She had no expressive brows, yet her eyelids wavered up and down as when a woman concentrates over difficult needlework. Garth avoided talon and flames, jumping onto higher rocks.

“You hold back!” he accused, leaping to another ledge.

“I do not, Bash!” She turned her scaly arm, clanked against his sword.

“You could have me for supper!”

“A puny snack!”

Ore knocked him flat against the cave floor, flicked away his rapier, and imprisoned him under five long, black, fully extended talons.

He sat up coughing in the dust, and laughed. “Touché, Ore. Let me out.”

“Give me what you stole last time.”

“I keep it only as a remembrance.” He spoke quietly, gripping the black curved bars. Though he knelt in her jail, nothing but his body knelt. Garth would not bow to her power. I wondered at it.

“And you’ve shown it to no one since taking it?” Smoke now, not fire. I guessed she was trying to keep her temper, but she would not let Garth go till she had what she was after.

“One saw,” he admitted.

More smoke from Ore’s nostrils. “And what did you tell him?”

“Not him. It was a girl.”

“Why did you show her the pearl?” This came out like a moan, if dragons moan.

“I’m sorry, Ore. The girl, she… she—”

“Attacked you? Held a knife to your throat?” said Ore. “What?”

Yes, what?
I thought behind my rock.
Why did he let me hold it?
My heart pounded.

“I see,” said Ore at last.

See? What did she see? A look? A gesture?
Garth’s back was to me. What did I miss? It was all I could do not to show myself then and insist the man finish the speech he’d started.

Ore released him.

He took the necklace from his pocket. “I thought you would not begrudge me keeping this one pearl,” he said.

The dragon held the necklace in the air between them and spread a thin carpet of blue fire under it.

Behind my stone, I held my breath. The pearl glowed atop the blue flame like a tiny sun.

“She was so beautiful,” said Garth.

Outside, snow whipped in the wind. Trees leaned toward the cave where we three hid. Still, it was day within. The fiery stream from the dragon’s mouth made a sound like rushing water, spreading light around the pearl.

Ore lowered it again. “I know you’d like to keep it, Bash. But the crown jewels must be guarded.”