Dragon's Winter (39 page)

“What bull?”

“Some bull belonging to a farmer near Yarrow. Remember last month’s lightning storms?”

“Gods, yes,” said Orm feelingly. “I spent a week, it seemed, pulling cows out of mud wallows and picking up flattened fences.”

“Well, this farmer’s bull—his name is Bjorn, the farmer not the bull—Bjorn’s bull trampled his fence and went helter-skelter into the fields, chased by the farmer’s dogs and the men and boys from two villages. They flushed it from a copse, and then no one knew what to do. Finally someone got a bright idea: they soaked a cloth in grape mash—this bull, it seems, has an unconquerable yearning for grape mash—and tied the cloth on a pole, and used it to lure him back to the corral.”

Orm said pensively, “I knew a girl in Yarrow once—”

Rogys asked, “Did she like grape mash?”

Through the laughter Herugin said, “What other news have you heard? Is all well in Mako?”

“As far as I know. Let’s see. Gerris Hal, the old lord of Serrenhold, has the wasting sickness: he’s not expected to live out the year. The Chuyo lords are fighting again. The grape harvest in Merigny is reputed to be particularly good this season. Oh, and the Lemininkai’s daughter is betrothed.”

Hawk asked, “To whom?” She remembered Kalni Leminin’s daughter, Selena, as a grave girl whose sweet smile and calm demeanor masked a wickedly mischievous bent. She had once spent an otherwise tedious afternoon in the Lemininkai’s palace by catching grasshoppers and filling the boots of all her father’s visitors with them.

“Some Kameni prince.”

“Prince?” Finle said. “We don’t have princes in Ryoka.”

Hawk said, “We did once.”

Herugin lifted his head. “Listen.”

A rushing, thunderous murmur shook the Keep. They heard the great wings beating, and the drag of razored claws across stone. The young men stilled. Soft-footed, they ceased their contests and drifted from the hall toward the barracks.

In a little while, the dragon-lord entered the dining hall. He walked through the shadowy, silent room to their table. They rose.

“My lord,” said Marek. “I came to make my report.” They waited for the dragon-lord to sit before resuming their seats.

One of the serving-girls brought him food. His windblown hair was crusted with salt. The dragon armband glittered on his sinewy forearm. The door at the back of the hall opened; Azil Aumson strolled into the hall. Karadur looked up, and smiled. Azil seated himself at Karadur’s left shoulder. Herugin slid a glass of wine in front of him.

“So,” the dragon-lord said. “How is it in Castria?”

“All’s well, my lord. The traders are here. The harvest is mostly in and I think your steward will tell you when the accounts are made that it is one of the best in years. The men have worked hard. Some sheep were taken from Miri Halleck’s farm.”

“How many, and by whom?”

“A ram and two ewes. No one knows who was responsible. A shepherd saw two of Reo Unamira’s men riding near her land the day before, but there was no proof.”

Karadur said, “Let her know that the Keep will recompense her for them. What else?”

“A wax trader from Firense had his purse stolen. The thief was a peddler from Derrenhold. He was lashed and branded.”

Hawk rose to leave. Fire brushed her mind.
Hunter, stay.
She sat, heart beating faster than it needed to. She filled her own glass with sweet wine, and drank it off quickly. The candlelight glinted in the dragon-lord’s hair. She watched him under lowered lids. Pots clanged in the kitchen; a woman laughed, a high lilting sound, like the refrain of a song.

The door from the kitchen opened. A child’s voice, defiant and passionate, said, “I know he’s here. Let me go!” A small body squirmed through the narrow opening and flung itself unhesitatingly across the shadowy hall.

As he neared the bench where the dragon-lord sat, the boy slowed, and halted. His tunic was streaked with dirt. A purple bruise puffed his left cheek.

Karadur gazed at him impassively. Then he said, “Well, cub. What’s amiss?”

Shem said, “Simon hit me.” His baby speech had gone. He was two, but had the height and heft of a child of four. His face had changed: the hollow thinness of deprivation had been replaced by a lean beauty. He looked very much like Wolf.

“Why did he hit you?”

“I bit him. He said he would put Turtle in the pot.”

“What do you want me to do about this?”

Shem said, “I want you to punish Simon.”

“For hitting you?” The boy nodded. “How hard did you bite him?”

“Hard,” the boy said, with pride. “He’s bleeding.”

“How hard did he hit you?”

Shem started to answer, and then stopped. He touched the swollen cheekbone. “Not so hard,” he said grudgingly. “But if he puts Turtle in the pot I will
kill
him!”

“Yes?” said Karadur. The boy looked at him. “Come here, Shem.” Shem edged forward. His shoulders were very straight. Karadur reached out a hand, and pulled him close.

“You will not kill Simon,” the dragon-lord said firmly. “It would be hard for you to do, he is bigger than you. But you will not do it, because Simon is my servant. I do not allow anyone to hurt my servants unless I order it to be done. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” Shem said earnestly. “But—”

“I know. You don’t want Simon to put Turtle in the pot. He will not. I promise it. But you must keep your puppy out of the kitchen during mealtime, when the cooks and servers are busy.”

“But Turtle is the smallest of all the puppies. He gets lonely.”

Man and boy regarded each other. The listening men smiled. Karadur said gently, “Say what you want, cub.”

Shem said staunchly, “It is cold at night now. I want Turtle to stay with me at night, in my bed. But Kiala says no.”

“Ah. I see. Tell Kiala you have my permission to let Turtle into your bed. But if he makes a mess, you shall clean it up, not Kiala. Is that clear?” Karadur flicked a finger against Shem’s unbruised cheek. “Good night, cub. Rogys, will you see he gets safely to his bed?”

“I will, my lord,” Rogys said, rising. He held out a hand. “Come on, cub.”

Finle rose. “With your permission, my lord—” The two of them walked with the child to the door.

Marek said softly, “He has grown so... I will never forget the sight of him on your saddlebow, the night you came down from the mountains. Do you mean to keep him?”

Karadur said, “I do.”

“Does he know that this is his home?”

“He knows that it is his home now, but in his deepest heart, home is a house by the river, with two people he loves, whom he saw killed.”

Hawk saw, in her mind, the small, empty house under the birch trees. The meadow where Wolf and Thea had died was thick with grass. The river sang plangent lament beneath the birch trees. The moon shone through the high window into the room where Thea had worked on her loom...

Silent as night, the dragon-wraith emerged out of nothingness. Folding its dark wings, it coiled at Karadur Atani’s feet like a dog.

“Hunter,” Karadur said, “how is your arm?”

The small hairs rose on the back of Hawk’s neck. She said, “It is healed, my lord, as much as it will be.”

“And what is it in your mind to do now?” he mused. “Shall you return to Ujo, to Lantern Street, and make bows?”

“I think not.” Around them the men had fallen silent.

“Then stay here.”

She folded her arms. Her right elbow tightened and pulled where the torn tendons had scarred. “What would I do in Dragon Keep?”

“Murgain’s position will be open soon.”

“I cannot draw a bow,” she pointed out tartly. “Besides, Orm has earned that post. I will not take it from him.” Orm, at the other end of the table, went red as a poppy.

Karadur leaned forward. His eyes blazed blue fire, brighter than the torchlight. “Then stay as my councilor, as my teacher—as my friend. We are bound, hunter. You know this, you whose rage called me from the sky.”

She did know it; she could feel it, burning between them. Dragons whirled before her inner eyes: golden, silver, black, azure, red, white, one the color of iron, another the color of stone. Wings furled, wings spread, they tumbled through her mind, through blue skies, through moonlight, through a waste of snow, through a black and starless silence, through the blazing heart of the sun....

She could not move. At his back, the men were watching her.

There were words she could say. She had heard others say them, to other men.
I swear fealty to Karadur Atani, lord of Dragon Keep. At his bidding I will come and go: my knife to his hand, in war and peace, in speech and silence, until he release me, or my life fails, or the world ends.
They were words only. She did not need them. She held her hands out, across the table and felt his huge, warm ones close around them lightly.

She said, “I will stay, my lord.”

When she left the hall, the Hunter’s Moon was glowing in the autumn sky, plump and yellow as a Kameni apple. The mingled scents of honeysuckle and rosemary drifted from the kitchen garden. Walking into the courtyard, she found a bench, and sat.

After a while, a man strolled quietly across the moonlit night. She had thought it would be Huw, or Herugin, but it was not: it was Azil. She nodded. He seated himself on the other end of the bench. A yellow-eyed owl, white wings spread, glided overhead.

He said, “He is wholly Dragon now. Do you feel it?”

“I feel it,” she said shortly.

“He holds back, with everyone. Almost everyone.”

“With you?”

“No.”

“Do you find it hard to sustain?”

“Sometimes.”
Do not lose yourself in Dragons Country. It is perilous to know and love the dragon-kind...
“I am glad you chose to stay.”

She said, “I will teach him everything I can. But it may not be what he wants.”

“Do you know what he most wants?”

She shook her head.

“He wants to find his kin. For six months he has flown the length and breadth of Ryoka, hunting for them.”

“Why?”

“Because he is alone,” Azil said. “He has no father, save in memory, no mother, no brother, no one like him in or out of Ryoka. He is the Dragon of Chingura; there are no others. Can you imagine it?”

She could not. Her mother lived still in Voiana; the women she called her sisters were scattered across Ryoka: dark-haired, keen-eyed women whom she had mostly never met, but whom she would know at once, from the way her blood would sing when she saw them... “No.” The granite at her feet sparkled with the moonlight. The owl swooped suddenly downward. A mouse screamed thinly, and then was still. “What if he does not find them?”

Azil said, “If he does not find them, then he will look for a woman who will wed him, and bear his children.”

“Do you mind?”

He smiled. He said reflectively, “I won’t know, until it happens. It will change him. But I can sustain that.”

They returned to the hall. Dragon had gone, but Huw and Herugin and Orm were still there. Orm had taken out his dice. Huw leaned back, resting his head against her belly. She let her hand stroke his hair. Azil drifted from the hall. She knew where he was going. She bent, and blew in Huw’s ear.

“Come on,” she whispered. “Let’s go to my room.”

Hawk woke to hear the horn blowing.

Arise, arise and cornel

She lifted on her elbow. For a moment she did not know where she was: it was cold, and moonlight shone around her, and the sound, blowing through darkness, reminded her of waking to fire and arrows on the ice. Huw had gone.

He had left the window shutter open; the curtains were whipping like sails in a breeze. Below, the dogs penned in the courtyard howled like demons. The horn was still calling,
Arise, arise and come!

She flung her clothes on, and hurried to the hall. Every torch and lamp and candle in the place was burning. Dragon was there, and a woman, holding a riding whip. She wore a man’s breeches and a leather tunic like a soldier’s, and her face was smeared with mud beneath a crown of thick gray hair. It was clear that she had once been very beautiful. Hawk had never seen her before. The room was filling with whispering, grim-faced men. Hawk looked for Huw.

“Who is she? What has happened?”

He said tensely, “Mellia Amdur. Thorin Amdur’s wife.”

The woman was speaking. “Hern rode after them. He was hurt, but he rode anyway.”

“Who were they?” Dragon asked.

“I could not see: they wore kerchiefs on their faces. But they came from Coil’s Ridge. There must have been twenty of them. They were drunk, and laughing. They did not burn the barn. I left Leanna and the children inside it, with the girls and the grooms.” Her voice broke, then steadied.

Dragon laid a hand briefly on her shoulder. “We will find them,” he said. “Herugin, I want thirty men horsed and armed. Mellia, did they see you?”

“They saw me. Three of them came after me, but I was riding Melody, she is the swiftest of the mares, and I know the trails. I lost them in the woodlands.”