Mistress of Dragons Page 23

  Nzangia tied the gag around Bellona’s mouth with sharp efficiency, then stood up. She gazed down at her former commander, then, turning on her heel, she walked away. Bellona kept her in sight for as long as possible, lost sight of her when she entered the forest. Nzangia would be making the rounds, checking on the guards, making certain they were at their posts, none of them fallen asleep.

  Bellona could do nothing more. She leaned back wearily against the tree. She had no idea whether Nzangia would do as she wanted or not. Hopefully what she had said had made an impression, but Bellona did not know. Nzangia had been startled at first by her sudden rise to power, but she had always been ambitious and she was quickly adapting, fitting into her new role with ease. She and Lucretta would get along well. Nzangia would see to that.

  “If nothing else, Nzangia will be glad to be rid of me,” Bellona said to herself. “And so might Lucretta. She was so odd about the wagon. Not the least curious about it. She should be. It’s close to the borders of the kingdom. Too close. Not that it matters. Nothing matters, except Melisande. I will bring her back to face her crimes. I will prove to Nzangia, prove to Lucretta that I am bound by honor and my oath, that I did not let Melisande deliberately escape me.

  “I will prove it to them all,” she vowed, but she knew in her heart that she was proving it to only one—herself.

  The night was clear and cool. The river caught the light of the stars, carried the silvery gleam upon its smooth surface.

  Bellona wiggled her wrists again. Her warriors had done their job well, as she would have expected them to do. The bowstrings were tied tight, bit into her flesh. She shifted position. After all, Nzangia had forgotten to bind her to the tree. Bellona leaned back against the trunk, closed her eyes against the silver-gilded dark ripples gliding downstream. Melisande was there, gliding on top of them, silver-gilded, and Bellona was beneath, in the cold darkness, swept under, swept away . . .

  “Bellona!” Nzangia whispered in her ear. A hand shook her shoulder.

  Bellona woke with a start, never having meant to fall asleep.

  Nzangia held a folded blanket in her hands. Carefully, she unwrapped it, spread it around Bellona’s shoulders, draped it over her bound hands and feet.

  A hunting knife fell into Bellona’s lap. She grasped the hilt gratefully.

  “Thank you,” she said gruffly.

  “Good luck,” Nzangia said and walked back into the darkness.

  Bellona held the knife fast, finding comfort in the feel of the cold, sharp iron. She settled down to wait until the dead of night, when all were drowned deep in slumber.

  “Commander!” Drusilla cried, coming to shake Nzangia awake. “Come quickly.”

  “What is it?” Nzangia demanded, rising up on the instant.

  Drusilla led her to river’s edge, pointed at Bellona’s armor, which lay stacked neatly on the bank. She showed her the footprints that led into the water.

  “She has drowned herself,” said Drusilla.

  The women stood gathered together on the bank. Their faces expressed both their sorrow and their approval. One of the women hastily gathered up the severed bowstrings, flung them into the water.

  “I will tell the Mistress,” said Nzangia.

  Lucretta heard the news without emotion, without reaction of any sort. She threw off her blanket. Stiff and sore from yesterday’s ride and from sleeping all night on the hard ground, she grimaced as she tried to stand, held out her hand for Nzangia to aid her.

  “I will see this for myself,” said Lucretta.

  “Mistress,” said Nzangja, her gaze fixed on the shifting shadows beneath the trees, “you wanted to make an early start. We have much to do back at the monastery and there is nothing more we can do here. What’s done is done, and for the best, I think.”

  Lucretta cast Nzangia a shrewd glance.

  Nzangia met her glance and held it.

  An understanding passed between them.

  “A good suggestion, Commander,” said Lucretta with unaccustomed mildness. “We will start at once.”

  “As you command, Mistress,” said Nzangia humbly.

  21

  THE FUGITIVES WERE ALSO UP WITH THE DAWN. A SOFT fog covered the river, but the mists soon burned off with the rising of the sun. The water sparkled, the poplar leaves shimmered. Melisande returned from her morning ablutions smelling of mint, which she had crushed beneath her feet.

  Their sleep had done them good. Everyone seemed in better spirits and Melisande was able to eat some of the last of the dried venison, which Edward had saved for her.

  Her spirits dimmed a little, as she climbed into the boat. Looking downstream, she had a clear view of the mountain peak on which the monastery was built. Her eyes grew shadowed, her face drawn and troubled.

  The river’s swift, sun-dappled water bore them rapidly downstream. The three were silent at the beginning of the journey. Two of them were thinking thoughts of the other, wondering secretly if the other was thinking thoughts of them.

  Draconas’s thoughts, on the other hand, left the boat, ranged far down the river.

  He found boats much preferable to horses. The current carried them along at a rapid pace. He did not have much work at the oars, beyond correcting their direction now and again, and he followed in his mind the journey of those babies that had been spirited away from the kingdom of Seth. He guessed that those same mad monks, driven insane by mistreatment and the dragon magic that burned in their blood like plague’s fever, had begun life in the very same way. Male babies, smuggled out of Seth, given to Maristara’s dragon partner. And this had been going on for hundreds of years.

  Edward’s hazel eyes were fixed on Melisande, wrapped in the blanket, staring into the water that slid away beneath her. His thoughts were mostly of her, but sometimes Ermintrude intruded and then he would shift his eyes away from Melisande, stubbornly fix them on the tree-lined bank.

  Melisande had nothing to do but think. Her life had altered so suddenly, so abruptly, that she stared at herself in confused dismay, as she had once stared at a mosaic in the making, trying to see in the random pieces of sharp-edged tiles a picture, a pattern. Just as she felt she might be starting to understand, she shoved the tiles away from her, left them in a jumble, and turned her thoughts to Edward.

  She had mistaken him. He was not like other men she had known. She looked at him, whenever he was not looking at her, letting her eyes linger on his countenance, finding some solace in her pain by tracing the lines of his face or watching his hands.

  Then came the tense moment when he looked suddenly at her and she could not look away. Their eyes met. She shifted her gaze swiftly to the willow trees. Edward decided that it was time for conversation.

  “Draconas—you said when we made camp last night that the warriors wouldn’t come after us.”

  “And I was right, wasn’t I?” Draconas leaned on the oars.

  “Yes, but how did you know?”

  “We’re traveling the same route as the boats carrying the smugglers,” Draconas replied. “If the warriors came after us, there is the possibility they might stumble across the babies. They would recognize the children and start asking questions. The dragon can’t risk that.”

  “What babies?” Melisande asked. “What are you talking about?”

  Edward was silent, soundly kicking himself. He hadn’t meant to bring this up. He hadn’t wanted to add to her worries. He glared pointedly at Draconas, urging him to make some innocuous response, turn the subject. Draconas, of course, ignored him.

  “The male babies born to the women in the monastery,” Draconas answered. “The ones the Mistress sends away every month. What happens to them?”

  “They are given to good people in the kingdom, people who cannot have children or—”

  Melisande fell silent. She stared at him, amazed, and suddenly afraid.

  “How did you know?” she demanded. “How did you know about the babies?”

  “When we entered the cave,
we came upon some old women dressed all in black, carrying babies out of the cave. We overheard the dragon discussing them. The dragon is selling those babies into slavery.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Melisande, clutching the gunwale with her hands so tightly that the knuckles were chalk white. “The babies are given to good homes.”

  “Did you ever meet any of these children later in their lives?” Draconas asked. “Did any ever come back to visit their true mothers?”

  “They are not permitted to do so.”

  Draconas smiled, twitched an eyebrow. “And that didn’t seem strange to you? Didn’t you ever wonder about them?”

  Melisande had often wondered. She had wondered about the babies. She had wondered more about her father. She had never told anyone that, not even Bellona. Every month, at Coupling Night, she would look over the long rows of men and wonder if he was among them. What was he like? Was he a noble lord? Humble peasant? A musician? Did his hands gently brush harp strings or grasp the blacksmith’s hammer?

  “The children are a gift,” said Melisande, speaking the words the Mistress had spoken. “A sacred gift, a divine gift. Those who receive these children are specially singled out for this blessing. They agree, when they accept it, never to reveal to the child or to any other that the boy is not their own. To do so would anger the Mistress ...” Her voice trailed off. She remembered angering the Mistress.

  “But you still wonder, don’t you?” Draconas said. “Secrets are hard to keep. People whisper. People gossip. Everyone claims to know some family who has received a ‘monastery child.’ But it is always the friend of a friend. Isn’t that how it goes?”

  To believe him was to believe something monstrous. The babies—neat, small bundles of cloth, tiny fists, rosebud mouths, wondering eyes. Taken away by stealth, by night. No one knew how or where they went, only the Mistress. No one knew a “montastery child.” Only the Mistress.

  “I am a fool,” said Melisande softly.

  “You were duped,” Edward told her. “You are not to blame. You couldn’t have known.”

  “Couldn’t I?” Melisande stared out over the water, at the willows trailing their weeping boughs into the river, at the water bearing them forward, sliding away behind. “I could not sleep last night for thinking of the dragon’s victim, trapped in the sarcophagus, trapped in the darkness, in endless pain, alone and forgotten, with no hope left to her except one—the hope of death. And we were there with her in the same room, so close to her that we could have touched her. Proud, complacent, we worked our magic. Perhaps she heard our voices. Perhaps she cried out. Perhaps I heard her!”

  Her hands let loose the gunwale, twisted together. “Once, I thought I did hear a voice, a cry. I told myself I was hearing things, but maybe it was her, desperate for help, and I turned away. I did not want to disturb the beautiful tranquility of my life. And the babies,” she continued on relentlessly. “I should have known. Now that I look back, it is so obvious. I never met a monastery child! Why didn’t I ever question what happened to them?”

  Lifting her head, she looked at Edward. “Why did you choose our kingdom? Did you know a dragon was secretly running it?”

  “Did we, Draconas?” asked Edward.

  The question came so suddenly that Draconas very nearly answered with the truth and he had to shift the words about on his tongue, like divesting himself of a cherry pit.

  “I chose your kingdom because your people were known to fight off dragons,” he said, carefully picking his words. “For hundreds of years, your kingdom was safe from them.”

  “We thought they were coming to harm us,” said Melisande, her voice soft. “But now I wonder if they were attacking us, as the Mistress claimed, or if they were trying to save us.”

  “I don’t suppose we’ll ever know,” Draconas remarked.

  “I don’t suppose we will.” Melisande sighed deeply. “Tell me something about this dragon that is attacking your kingdom, Your Majesty.”

  Edward told his tale. Melisande listened with quiet gravity.

  Draconas, seated between the two, rowed the boat down the river.

  Their journey continued through the morning and into afternoon, idyllic, undisturbed. Having exhausted the subject of the dragon, Edward and Melisande found nothing else to talk about. They tried discussing fish, having seen one jump, but that didn’t last long, nor did an attempt at ornithology. What each truly wanted to say could not very well be said at opposite ends of a boat with Draconas in the middle.

  The river’s current slowed, but they barely noticed. Draconas’s strong arms propelled the boat through the water. He refused to let Edward spell him at the oars, saying that he enjoyed the exercise.

  The Aston river was known to have a great many tributaries, contributing to the main body, from small creeks that sprang up from beneath the ground or drizzled down out of the cliffs to larger streams that entered the river only after they had explored other, distant lands. The Aston was a branching river, too, extending many arms into the surrounding countryside, unable to keep its hands to itself.

  That afternoon, they came upon a tall edifice of red rock, jutting up out of the earth, that split the river into two of these branches. One, the smaller of the two, veered off westward. The other, the main body of the river, continued to flow south. Draconas slowed the boat’s progress, as he considered which fork to take. Logic dictated that they proceed southward, for Ramsgate-upon-the-Aston lay in that direction. The wind, blowing from the east, and the river’s current took them closer to the western fork. He was going to have to do some work to head them the right way and he was bending to the oars when he sensed the magic.

  Dragon magic, faint as a trace of perfume lingering on the air long after the wearer has departed, yet unmistakable. And it came from the west.

  Looking down that western branch, Draconas saw blue water slicing through sheer red rock walls, their vast height blotting out the sunlight.

  In his mind’s eye, Draconas could see that boatload of black-garbed women, holding mewling babies, guarded by soldiers and the enormous Grald, sailing down between those red rock walls. He hadn’t noticed that any of the humans were particularly strong in dragon magic. But then, the dragon’s own magic had been so overwhelmingly powerful that it might have masked the weaker magic of the others.

  Sensing the magic like this was odd. Damn odd.

  He lifted his oars from the water, let the current carry them. “I’m taking the western fork,” he told Edward.

  “But my kingdom lies to the south,” Edward protested.

  “We can always come back,” Draconas told him.

  Edward looked at him sharply. “What is it? What’s going on? Why do you want to go that direction?”

  “I thought I caught a glimpse of another boat,” Draconas replied. “Down there.”

  “You think it’s the boat carrying the children.”

  “I think it’s likely.”

  “But they would be much farther ahead of us. They had a head start—”

  “Not that much,” Draconas argued. “They could not sail the river by night. They launched in the morning, only a few hours before we came. And, remember, they are ferrying women and small babies. They might have had to stop for any number of reasons.”

  “If there’s any chance he’s right,” Melisande struck in, “we should go after them. I want to know the truth.”

  Edward had no more arguments, after that. Draconas propelled the boat in amongst the shadows of the high rock walls.

  The temperature dropped precipitously. Melisande clasped her hands around her arms and Edward’s expression darkened. The current grew swifter as the river narrowed to fit within the walls. The sense of dragon magic strengthened and it was not long before Draconas found the source—a gaping hole in the canyon wall, forming either a cavern or a tunnel that lay half-submerged beneath the waterline.

  He stared hard into the sunken cave as they sailed past, trying to see what was causing t
he magic. The darkness was absolute. He could see nothing, yet he was convinced that the smugglers had come this way and that they had entered the cave.

  “There’s a dragon feel about that place,” said Melisande, shuddering.

  Startled, Draconas turned to look at her. Her face pale, tense, and strained, she gazed, wide-eyed, into the cavern.

  So she feels it, too, he thought. Though she probably doesn’t understand it. She is so accustomed to being around the dragon magic that she doesn’t notice it until she is away from it. Now she is sensitive to it, though she can’t quite place it.

  “I don’t know about a dragon feel, but it has an evil feel to it,” Edward stated. “Probably a smuggler’s den. Do you think they went in there?”

  “Maybe,” Draconas temporized.

  Edward cast another glance at the sunken cave as they floated past. “I wouldn’t relish the thought of going in there after—”

  Movement caught his eye. Lifting his head, he stared upward. “Blessed Mother of God save us! Speak of the demon and there he is!”

  Draconas did not look up. He knew full well what he would see—Braun, flying in lazy circles, high above the red rock cliffs.

  “That is what I felt!” Melisande cried, staring up at the dragon. “I couldn’t understand. . . . Will the dragon attack us?”

  “No,” said Draconas shortly.

  “How can you be so sure?” she asked, astonished at the certainty with which he spoke.

  “The canyon walls protect us. It’s too narrow. The dragon would risk injuring his wings. There, you see, he’s flying off.”

  And good riddance, Draconas thought. He didn’t want to meet with Braun. He guessed that the dragon’s appearance meant that Anora had decided to go along with Draconas’s plan.

  Speaking to his thoughts, Braun’s mind touched his.

  “There’s an ideal place to camp not far from where you are now,” the dragon reported. “The gorge comes to an end and there’s a thick stand of trees on the north side of the bank, not far from that cavern you’re thinking of investigating. I’ll meet with you after dark. Make certain we won’t be disturbed.”