The Dragon Prince (10 page)

Rhun repressed a sigh. No point agonizing
over what was already done. He must get through this the best he
could. Keep Eastra safe, accomplish their mission, make the long
journey to Gwynedd—and all the while, try not to lose his heart to
his captive. It was going to be the most difficult fortnight of his
life.

“What would you like to purchase in
Londinium?” Bridei asked Eastra after they had ridden in silence
for some distance. “Is there some luxury item you’ve always
coveted? Perhaps a finely-made necklace to wear around your slender
white throat? Or a length of silk cloth to make a gown that matches
your sky blue eyes?”

She smiled at his flattering words. “I
brought no coin with me, so if I did find something I liked, I
wouldn’t be able to buy it anyway.”

“Oh, but Arthur has given us plenty of gold
to defray our expenses on this journey. I’m sure he would not
begrudge you some of it. After all, Arthur did advise us to treat
you with all the respect and honor due a princess. For that
matter”—Bridei gestured to Rhun—“I’m certain my brother would
gladly purchase anything you desire. So you might as well be
thinking of what you would like, something you could not obtain in
your own territories.”

“I will do that,” Eastra said, laughing.
Then she looked at Rhun and, seeing his somber face, wondered what
troubled him. Had his brother’s teasing brought on his dour mood,
or something else? Only a short while before he had looked at her
with a tenderness that took her breath away. Now he seemed distant
and wary.

She focused her gaze on the road ahead of
them, wondering whether things were going to be like this the whole
way across Britain.

As they neared Londinium, they began to see
farmsteads here and there. Most were in the traditional British
style of thatched timber buildings enclosed within a thorn hedge.
But some had rough stone buildings, the masonry obviously salvaged
from some ruined villa nearby. Although pigs rooted in the ferny
ground of the forestlands and shaggy cattle and golden white sheep
grazed in the meadows, they saw few people. It seemed likely they
were in hiding.

But gradually, they met other travelers on
the road—a black-bearded, red-nosed tinker with a cartload of
goods, a farmer and his family with a wheelbarrow full of cabbages
and a handcart piled high with leeks, turnips, and other
vegetables, a pair of holy brothers on mules. The travelers they
met regarded them with suspicion at first, but when Rhun greeted
them cordially, they seemed to relax. As they passed them, one of
the holy men urged his mule close to Rhun and asked for news.

Rhun told him of the truce with Cerdic. The
man—who had a fiery red tonsure and fierce dark eyes—nodded in
satisfaction. “I’m glad to hear there might be peace for a time. I
have traveled much of Britain this past year, preaching of Our Lord
and ministering to the sick and downtrodden. I have found suffering
and devastation everywhere. Near as bad, some people say, as when
the Saxons raided and burned a hundred years before.”

“Where are you headed now?” Rhun asked.

“From Londinium I hope to find a merchant
ship to take me to Gaul. From there I travel to Rome. If you have
no objection, Brother Anselm and I would like to follow behind your
troop the rest of the way into the city. I’m certain I will
encounter other dangers on my pilgrimage, but I would as lief not
be killed by marauding Saxons before I even cross the eastern
sea.”

“Have you seen many Saxons in your travels?”
Rhun asked.

The brother shook his head. “No warriors.
Only traders, old men, women, and children. You can always tell
they are Saxons because of their coloring.” His gaze moved to
Eastra, probing and hostile. “Speaking of which, I might ask you,
young warrior, why does one of Arthur’s soldiers travel with a
woman of the enemy close at hand?”

Rhun opened his mouth, but it was Bridei who
answered, “She’s a prisoner,” he said smoothly. “We’re taking her
to the slavers market in Londinium.”

Rhun made a faint outraged sound and Eastra
felt her cheeks grow hot. But the holy brother nodded in
satisfaction. “No doubt you will fetch a high price for that
golden-haired Saxon witch. Then you can use the wealth you earn
toward the cause of driving the rest of her kind back into the sea.
Ungodly bastards!”

Eastra gritted her teeth. She would not let
this man make her feel shamed. She would not!

She looked at Rhun, who also appeared
distraught. Bridei spoke casually. “I thought the Church was
opposed to slavery. Or did I hear wrong?”

The holy brother’s expression went sour.
“Aye, that is the Church’s official policy. But I believe we must
use every weapon at our disposal in this desperate battle to save
Britain from the barbarian hordes.”

“Since you are obviously so uncomfortable in
the presence of one of those ‘barbarians,’ I think it would be best
if we traveled separately.” With those words, Rhun nodded to
Eastra, then urged his horse into a trot. Eastra dug her knees into
her own mount to catch up with him. A few seconds later, the rest
of the troop joined them.

“Narrow-minded fool!” Rhun said hotly. “I
have half a mind to go back and confiscate his mule in the name of
Arthur’s cause. I wonder how he would like
that!”

“Relax, brother,” Bridei coaxed. “Remember
our purpose for this journey and our mission in Londinium. It was
reasonable for him to believe we share his prejudices against
Saxons. That was exactly what I hoped he would think when I said
Eastra was a prisoner. But you, you can’t let a lie stand for even
a second, can you?”

“I saw no danger there,” Rhun said. “No
reason to lie, to make up that crude, disgusting story about
Eastra. You know what he was thinking, that we mean to sell her for
a bedslave, and that we have all had her already!”

“And what does it hurt to let him think
that? It’s a plausible explanation for her presence in our troop.
If she’s a slave, a captive, then she becomes invisible. No one
would think to guess she is kin of the most feared Saxon warlord in
Britain.” Bridei looked at Eastra, his raven dark brows level over
his piercing blue eyes. “Perhaps it hurts your pride to think of
yourself as a slave, but it might well save your life.”

She nodded slowly. “Bridei’s right. I should
not care what that man thinks of me. He’s obviously ignorant and
embittered.” She turned to Bridei. “If you think it best to tell
everyone I am a slave, I have no objection.”

“I thought we were going to say she is my
leman,” Rhun protested. “That sounds a little more dignified, at
least.”

“When we reach the city, the story that she
is your leman will better serve. But for now, on the road—I don’t
think those holy men would have understood.”

“No, probably not,” Rhun said furiously.
“But I would have liked to make them understand!”

“What were you going to do?” Bridei asked.
“You can hardly strike a holy man. And if you tried to defend
Eastra, he would undoubtedly have complained to everyone he met
that King Arthur’s Companions are not the noble Christian heroes
they have been portrayed to be, but Saxon-loving whoremongers.
Frankly, that is not the sort of gossip we need right now.”

“I don’t dispute that.” Rhun sounded
resigned and weary. “But...” He sighed. “I mislike this whole
business. This journey is not a fit venture for any woman, let
alone a princess!”

“And yet here we are.” Bridei said. “We can
worry about proprieties and hurt Arthur’s cause, or we can make the
best of things.”

Rhun still looked angry, but he said no
more. And as they neared the outer edges of Londinium, Eastra also
began to forget the holy man’s rude words as she became interested
in the things she saw.

They entered the city through a towering
gateway of stone, and all around were the remnants of old,
tumbled-down stone buildings. She could see newer structures, some
of them in the Saxon style, with high roofs supported by arched
beams and timber walls, others with red tiles on the roofs and
walls of white plaster in the Roman fashion. And here and there was
a round dwelling that looked distinctly British, with
bracken-thatched roofs and rough timber walls.

It was like a village, only much bigger,
Eastra thought as they continued down the paved roadway. The people
she saw seemed to be as varied as the buildings. On one side of the
trackway, a plump woman with butter-colored braids, ruddy cheeks,
and a white apron over her gunna threw out grain for her chickens
and geese. On the other side, a thin, dark-haired, barefooted girl
balanced a dusky-skinned toddler on one hip and a full pail of
water on the other. But Eastra was truly unprepared for the sight
of two huge men with skin as black as soot carrying a curtained
box. As they passed by, a woman suddenly opened the curtains and
leaned out of the box, speaking in a shrill, peevish voice. Eastra
didn’t recognize the language, but guessed it must be Latin.

“Ah,” Bridei said, as the woman and her
servants passed by. “A fine Roman matron out for a bit of fresh
air.”

“And the men carrying her?” Eastra asked.
“Where are they from? I’ve never seen anyone with skin that color
before.”

“Probably from Nubia,” Bridei answered. “It
used to be a province of Rome.” He smiled. “You truly can find
anything in the world in the city of Londinium.”

“Do you go here often?” she asked him.

“Now and then. Arthur has a few contacts
here, and he sometimes sends me to get news on what’s happening on
the eastern shores.”

“Are they spies?” Eastra asked grimly.

Bridei smiled. “Nay, certainly not. They’re
all merchants and seamen, and as Rhun said, they care about their
profits, not politics. I’m certain they share information with your
people as well as ours.”

As they traveled deeper into the city, they
passed several large stone structures, now falling to ruins. The
sun crept low in the west, shining like a bright copper disc. It
cast a lovely rosy glow over the tall pillars and graceful archways
of the remains of a massive building. “That used to be the
basilica,” Rhun said.

“It’s beautiful,” Eastra said. “Hard to
imagine something so fine and elegant could be fashioned out of
stone.”

“The Romans were great lovers of beauty.
They liked the things around them to be pleasing to the eye. Their
passion for art was almost as great as their passion for
power.”

“And comfort,” Bridei put in. “They were
obsessed with ease, luxury and cleanliness. You will understand
when you see the baths. Huge structures, with vast pools for
bathing in. Some of them had heated water, some cold.”

“How did they heat so much water?” Eastra
asked.

“Very ingeniously. The water flowed over
heated rocks and gradually filled the pools. They also had special
rooms where the water was heated until it formed steam. They would
stand in the steam until they began to sweat then jump into a pool
of cool water.”

“And they did this all merely to get clean?”
Eastra asked.

“There was more to it than that,” Rhun
responded. “The important men would go to the baths together. While
in the pools or the steamrooms, they would talk about war and
politics and trade. It was a kind of meeting place. Almost like
your people or mine might gather around a hearth.”

“The Romans seem very strange to me,” Eastra
said.

Rhun nodded. “I’ve thought so, too. In many
ways, your people and mine are more alike than either of us are
like the Romans.”

“You think we are alike?” Eastra asked in
surprise.

“I can see many similarities between us. We
both love war and heroes and fighting. We both have great loyalty
to our leaders and our own races. We both love beauty, but of a
different kind than the Romans. Most of our people live in small
settlements, rather than in large cities like Londinium. We also
live close to the land, always aware of the passing seasons and our
dependence upon the earth for sustenance. We both favor bright
colors and ornamentation in our clothing, and use animals as
symbols of our might and power. Cerdic fights beneath the standard
of a white stallion, while Arthur goes into battle with a bear and
an eagle emblazoned on his shield.”

“Your standard is a dragon,” Eastra
said.

“The dragon is the symbol of the Cymry, our
tribe. My father is even called ‘the dragon of the island’ by some
men.”

“Why a dragon?” she asked. “It’s not a real
beast, is it?”

Rhun smiled, his white teeth flashing. “Of
course it’s real. When we reach the mountains of Gwynedd, I will
show you its lair.”

Eastra looked at Bridei, trying to decide
whether Rhun was teasing. Bridei quirked a dark brow. “A beast so
many believe in
must
be real.”

Eastra regarded him dubiously then laughed.
Rhun was right. There were many similarities between Saxon and
British. Here she was, spending time with two men who by rights
should be her enemies and enjoying herself immensely.

By the saints, she is beautiful when she
smiles.
Rhun felt intense longing wash through him. The fading
glow of the sunset caught the pale gilt of Eastra’s hair and tinted
her smooth skin a warm golden shade, making her appear so
breathtakingly beautiful his chest ached with yearning. He wanted
to lean from his horse across the short distance between them and
kiss her lips. He wanted to hold her lithe body in his arms as they
stood in the waning rays of the sunset and feel the night fall like
a soft, dark mist around them. Most of all, he wanted to send
Bridei and the other men away so he could show her the delights of
Londinium by himself.

A golden Saxon witch, the holy brother had
called her, and in a way, she was. She had enchanted him,
ensorcelled him. Or maybe she was a fairy, one of the fair folk who
came into the worlds of mortals and stole away a chosen one to bide
with them beneath the hollow hills.