In the Time of Dragon Moon (29 page)

Dungeon, Pendragon Castle, Wil
d
e Island

Dragon Moon

October 1210

T
HE
NEXT
DAY
the guards dragged me to His Majesty's chamber before the king's council. They gave me a swift trial that consisted of the queen's guard claiming that no one but I had entered the queen's bedchamber before the murder, and of me pleading my innocence. Shaking in my manacles, joints aching, chains clinking, I relayed what I'd seen from the landing, told them the scent I'd caught coming from the room. “Whoever stole my medicines used the utzo oil to poison Her Majesty.”

“You did not report your medicines stolen.”

He was right. I'd kept that hidden.“I was afraid to, Your Majesty. I feared the queen would turn me away. It was why I was forced to go after more herbs.”

The council conferred with one another all too briefly. The sheriff said, “The fact remains, the physician was the only one seen going up and down the queen's stairs.”

My heart hammered. “The fey,” I barked, remembering what Jackrun said. “They can guise themselves to look like someone else. Please believe me. I didn't—”

“Now she blames the fairy folk,” the sheriff said with a huff.

The king squeezed his eyes shut. “Take the Euit woman out of here. Now.”

Rain drummed outside my underground cell. By nightfall a stream of muddy rainwater flowed down the wall from the courtyard outside, forming a black puddle near my cheek where I lay in the straw. I stayed awake for what might be my last night on earth, trying to understand my life, the sacrifices I had made to learn the healing craft, throwing away my girlhood, shedding the company of others to serve the Adan.

What had it brought me? Jackrun was in the tower because of me. My mother and my people were still surrounded by soldiers. I was afraid to walk into the afterworld carrying all my failures with me. I had washed my father's feet for his spirit walk to Nushtuen. No one would wash mine.

The puddle grew larger, slick and still as a black mirror. I slapped the surface, shattering the image there. The water drew together again, healing itself. The sight of the queen's dead face reflected in her mirror came back to me with sickening clarity. Jackrun had warned me that mirrors told the truth, but I never thought I would see such horror and misery in one.

I rubbed my sore wrists. I wanted to black out that last horrible image of Adela's contorted face, the agony she must have felt. Who poisoned her so cleverly? So heartlessly? How had they gotten away with it?

Someone passed by with a torch outside. Yellow light glanced across the dark puddle. I sat up blinking.

I'd seen something else in the queen's mirror.

The torchlight was gone. The puddle went dark again. But the memory of what I'd seen in the mirror remained. The questions swarming through my head settled.

I knew who had killed the queen. I just didn't know why.

• • •

I
CALLED
OUT
and banged against the door, anxious to tell someone what I knew. No one came all that night.

“I'm innocent,” I cried the next day when the cell door opened. “I know who murdered her. Bring me up to see the king.”

“Shut up with your babbling.” The muscled guard tied my hands behind my back.

“You'll see the king all right,” the second man said with a chuckle.

I blinked in the harsh sunlight on the crowded castle green. They dragged me forward.

“No, wait. I demand a trial.”

“You got yours already. It's the fire for ye.” People threw dirt clods. The ones loaded with rocks stung my chest and thighs.

“Best pray to your Holy Ones, whoever they are. See if they'll hear ye.”

King Arden waited on the viewing stage, the sheriff and the bishop to one side of him, Bianca and Lady Olivia to the other. My whole body shook as they led me up the stage steps. It did not help to see Bianca crying as if I were already dead. The king linked his arm through hers and glared at me with cold hatred.

People on the lawn below us crowded closer to the edge of the stage, hungry to hear my confession before I was taken to the pyre.

By the Holy Ones I didn't want to die this way, executed by the English. I didn't want to die so far from home.

Two guards ushered Jackrun outside and made him stand to the left of the stage. His hands were tied behind his back like mine. Men on either side held him by his upper arms. I looked down at the face of the one I wanted to remember most as I left this life. His cheek was bruised. He'd fought his captors and paid for it. His eyes burned, looking up at me. We'd kissed by the escape tunnel, in the Crow's Nest, in Dragonswood. Three times. I'd hoped for more.

Jackrun started pushing and shoving like a young bull. “Let me speak!” he shouted. “I have something to say that must be heard! Uma did not—”

At the king's signal, the guard to Jackrun's left clamped a hand over his mouth. The man didn't drag him away for his disturbance. King Arden wanted Jackrun to see. Watching me die was part of his punishment.

My stomach stormed as the sheriff read out my crime.

“Uma Quarteney, for the heinous murder of Queen Adela, you are sentenced to be burned at the stake by order of our sovereign, King Arden Pendragon, on this fourteenth day of October in the year of our Lord 1210.”

Ravens circled overhead, landing noisily on the wall edging the castle green. Where was Vazan? A bitter taste came to my tongue. I should not blame her for keeping to her cave with her hurt wing when I'd been the one who told her to rest, but I did.

The bishop stepped up. “Kneel, Uma Quarteney.”

Just before the guards pressed me down to my knees, I saw her. Fox had come out to the lawn to sit by the wall. My Path Animal was here to lead me from one life to another. My eyes teared up as the bishop sprinkled my head with holy water, praying over me.

“Do you have any last words to say before us and before God?” he asked as I was helped back up to my feet.

I turned to the king. “Your Majesty. I did not do this crime. The woman who used magic to guise herself to look like me is—”

“Sorcery and magic?” King Arden shouted over me. “Is that your confession?”

The crowd booed, yelling, “Burn the murderess!”

Jackrun broke free from his guards below and raced for the pyre, shouting, flames roaring from his mouth in radiant reds, oranges, yellows. The sound was almost deafening; the brilliance stung my eyes. People screamed, leaping back in terror.

I gave a secret shout of joy seeing his fire again when I'd feared it might be gone. The pyre burst into flames, devouring the stacked wood at the bottom, crackling and licking up the sides. Jackrun ran to the far side, he screamed fire: spoke with fire, a speech every human soul on the castle green feared but me. I was alive with it, alive because of it. No one could get near enough to tie me to the stake now. The ladder leaning up against the pyre blazed along with the platform, the stake they were about to bind me to.

King Arden shouted furious orders behind me. I couldn't make out the words over the inferno. A few men rushed toward Jackrun with their weapons drawn, but they all stopped short, afraid to go any nearer.

In the bedlam I did not notice the black shadows sweeping across the lawn, did not look up until I caught the familiar spicy scent.

Craning my neck I saw two dragons winging in with Vazan. My Vazan. She hadn't stayed in her cave at all, hadn't abandoned me. Filalda and Babak flew in behind her with riders on their backs.

Jackrun went silent now, looking up, surrounded in coils of smoke.

The crowd drew back even farther than they had for Jackrun as Babak and Filalda winged in, landed on the grass before the royal stage, and lowered their heads. King Onadon and Princess Augusta dismounted gracefully onto the stage a few feet from me. The dragons took off again, joining Vazan, who'd alighted on the high crenellated wall just behind the stage. Six dragon eyes peered down at us, four golden, two silver. I caught Vazan's silver ones. Loyal dragon. Did she see the gratitude in mine?

The king was staring openmouthed at his younger sister, whom he hadn't seen in years.

King Onadon bowed. “We came as quickly as we could, Your Majesty. We hoped we would not be too late.”

“You are still in time to see the execution,” King Arden said, recovering his dignity.

“Then we are not too late to see justice served, Brother King,” said Princess Augusta.

Jackrun climbed the steps onto the stage, his wrists still tied behind his back.

“You are not welcome up here,” King Arden cautioned, putting up his hand. “You're still under arrest.”

King Onadon moved his smallest finger. The ropes slipped off Jackrun's wrists and coiled like a dead snake by his boots.

“More magic,” King Arden growled. “You cannot stop justice through sorcery. Guards, grab Jackrun. See that you hold on to him.”

“I didn't use sorcery, Your Majesty,” Jackrun said as the men surrounded him, swords and daggers drawn. “I only used the fire I was born with as part of our Pendragon heritage.”

“To save a murderess.”

“To save an innocent woman. Uma Quarteney couldn't have committed the murder.”

“Let him go, please, Your Majesty,” I said. “And I will tell you who poisoned your wife. You didn't let me finish before.”

“Don't move,” King Arden warned the men around Jackrun. “Speak, woman,” he said bluntly. “And give me no more prattle about fairies and magic, I warn you.”

The courtiers closed in on the stage, faces upturned. The guards held me firm. I swallowed, looking down as if to find courage by my feet. The delicately embroidered toes of the slippers Bianca had given me poked out from under the hem of my gown. I hated accusing the woman who'd watched out for me since I'd come to Pendragon Castle, but everyone was waiting and the king was impatient. I sensed I did not have long to tell my story. When I raised my eyes, I took heart from Jackrun's encouraging look. The king's guards still pointed their daggers at him, yet his face was intent. He believed in me.

“The sentry at my trial told the truth, Your Highness,” I began. “He saw no one else but me climb the stairs to go in and out of the queen's bedchamber that morning.” I searched the armed men in the crowd until I found the one I was looking for, and nodded at him before going on. “I don't blame the man for saying what he said. A woman guised to look like me took the poisoned sweetmeat to the queen. A fey glamour can fool anyone. But it cannot fool a mirror. I went upstairs later that morning with the queen's potion. Four people were already there in her bedchamber. I could not see them straight on from the spot where I stood in the stairwell, but all four were reflected in the queen's mirror. There were two castle guards and two others at Her Majesty's bedside. I saw you kneeling, Your Highness, and the woman praying at your side who tucked a dark strand of hair under her veil.”

“Yes,” said the king. “And so?”

“And so, I heard the woman's voice and knew it was Lady Olivia. The voice told me one thing, the mirror another. Lady Olivia's hair is blond, not dark. The mirror showed her true hair color. If she'd turned her head just then, I would have seen her true face as well, but I heard the guard accuse me of the crime, and I ran.”

Vazan suddenly flew down from her perch, catching Lady Olivia, who had just edged down off the back of the stage. Vazan lifted her up and set her back in her place. “You will not sssslip away.” Vazan's silver eyes had the look of polished daggers.

“Let me go!” Lady Olivia screamed, still caged in the red's long talons.

“Help her,” Bianca pleaded, tugging the king's arm.

“I demand you let her go, red dragon,” King Arden said. “She was my wife's closest companion. Onadon, Augusta, you and your dragons were not invited to this execution. If you care anything for the refuge we have provided for the fey folk and the dragons for more than six decades, you will leave my—”

“Wait,” King Onadon said. “There is a way to settle this.”

“A mirror,” I said. “Just bring a mirror out.”

“Would you listen to a murderess?” Lady Olivia called from her clawed cage. “Your nephew has put on a show so the fairy king and his dragons can carry his lover off to safety.”

“Have I?” Jackrun nodded to the knights at my side. “You still hold Uma Quarteney firmly, don't you?”

“Aye, we do, and her wrists are tied.”

“More show!” said Lady Olivia. “King Onadon can make her vanish and whisk her away with the twitch of a finger.”

Jackrun raised a brow, then smiled. “If that were the plan, he would have done so already, my lady. If you are innocent, you won't mind standing in front of a mirror, will you?”

“Now,” said the king, “we'll clear this up. You and you,” he said, pointing at two armed men alongside the stage, “bring me the large mirror from my own privy chamber.”

The men made their way through the whispering crowd and returned shortly, hefting a large oval mirror up to the stage. Two more followed them with a long sturdy bench. Vazan moved her captive aside while the men climbed onto the bench set at the back of the stage, holding up the heavy glass between them by its wooden frame. They were up high enough to tilt the mirror slightly so all the onlookers could see whoever stood before it.

For a moment I was afraid. The sight of the queen's dead body the other morning had thrown me into shock. Had I imagined the dark strand of hair I'd seen in her mirror? What if the mirror told us nothing?

The rest of us on the stage moved to the outer edges to give all a clear view. The guards dragged me to the side opposite from Jackrun.

“Let her go, red dragon,” said the king.