Dragonwitch (3 page)

“No,” said the Chronicler, still without looking around. “You are
reciting
the rhyme. You know it by heart. You're not reading at all.”

With a curse, Alistair slammed the book shut and stood, nearly knocking the nearest candle over into its pooling wax. “If I already know the dragon-eaten thing, I see no reason why I should read it.”

“Neither do I,” the Chronicler replied, “so long as you are determined to be less of a man than you could be.” He shook his head and assumed a patronizing tone, one that Alistair knew all too well and hated for the familiarity. “Do you not realize, my lord, that you only limit yourself by this stubbornness? Can you understand the wealth of worlds and lives available to you through the written word, waiting to be discovered?”

“Unreal lives,” Alistair said. “Unreal, untrue, unlived. I have no interest in holing myself away in dark rooms, poring over pages of these fool letters. I have a life of my own to live.”

“Unless, of course, this pale-faced child of your dreams has its way,” said the Chronicler.

Alistair's cheeks drained of color. He looked sickly in the candlelight. “Don't mock me, Chronicler. Remember your place.”

But the Chronicler was one of those people unable to be intimidated by rank. He turned and fixed Alistair with a stare, and Alistair immediately wished he could take back his words.

“You mock yourself,” said the Chronicler, “wasting your energies worrying about dreams when there is work to be done. Or do you think the kingship will land upon you without merit? You, Earl Ferox's illiterate nephew?”

Alistair wanted to rage. But rage didn't come naturally to his nature. Besides, he was terribly, terribly tired. So he wilted beneath the Chronicler's stare and managed only a muttered, “I don't see how reading and writing will make me a better king. Will it strengthen my ability to lead earls, bind alliances, or battle Corrilond?”

“The Kings of Corrilond read,” said the Chronicler.

“Well, then I won't be a King of Corrilond, will I?”

The Chronicler's mouth opened, and Alistair braced himself as for the whip. The Chronicler may not have possessed anyone's idea of manly prowess, but he did possess a tongue quicker and sharper than any cat-o'-nine-tails and a wit to match. Some of the tongue-lashings Alistair had received during library altercations left scars, and he did not relish taking another.

He was spared by a knock at the door and the entrance of his mother's page. Alistair turned to the boy with relief. “What is it?”

“Her ladyship wishes to inform you of the arrival of the envoy from Aiven.” The page bowed quickly, his eyes darting from Alistair's furious face to the Chronicler's and back again. “Your bride, my lord.”

“Oh.” The heat drained from Alistair's body, leaving him suddenly cold and a little clammy. “Of course. Thank you, and tell Mother that I will be down directly.”

The page left and Alistair, without a word to the Chronicler, went to one of the south-facing library windows and looked out. He heard the thump of his teacher sliding off his high stool, but he did not turn around. His gaze swept across the courtyards of Gaheris and down the path leading up from River Hanna. He saw the flag of Aiven, white with the crest of a griffin in red, and the retinue, some on foot, some on horseback. In the midst was a horse-borne litter in which he was certain rode Lord Aiven's eldest daughter, Lady Leta.

The entourage entered the outer courtyard, and Alistair could see the curtains of the litter drawn back. The Chronicler climbed up on a low step beside him and also looked out the narrow window.

“Well,” said Alistair as the girl emerged. “There she is. My bride.” He frowned a little. “What do you think of her?”

The Chronicler's eyebrows lifted, and his voice was as dry as it had ever been when he replied, “She looks a proper milk-faced lass. Just what you'd expect in an earl's wife.”

“I suppose you're right,” said Alistair, and while he felt he should be angry with the Chronicler, he couldn't work up the strength for it.

“You'd better go down and meet her,” the Chronicler said. “Your lesson this morning is through.”

“Maybe one more verse?” It was only almost a joke.

“Face it like a man,” the Chronicler said, and though they had just been at odds, he clapped the young lord on the back. “You can't escape her now she's here.”

“No. I suppose not.”

Lady Mintha, sister of Earl Ferox, wrapped her fur-edged robe tightly about herself as she waited to receive the Aiven envoy. The cold morning tipped her features a raw red but could do nothing to emphasize the chill in the gaze she turned upon her son.

“Alistair!” she cried, her smile freezing his blood as Alistair, still buckling his cloak, hastened to join her in the inner courtyard. “You've kept us waiting in the cold, my darling. I was beginning to think your uncle would be obliged to escort Lady Leta inside himself.”

“Forgive me, Mother,” Alistair said, dropping a kiss on his mother's cheek . . . or rather, on the air just above. He feared his lips might ice over if he actually touched her. Then he offered a hasty bow to his uncle.

Earl Ferox, though he had been a magnificent man in his prime, trembled like a gutted old tree, still standing but only just clinging to life. His eyes, once bright with warrior's fire, were filmed over with dullness. A few years younger than his sister, he was not an old man. But the wasting disease struck even the mightiest, and neither leech nor herbalist could prolong the span of his days.

He kept living, however. Long after many had thought he would
succumb, he continued his labored existence, day after dogged day. He had not yet seen the earls of the North Country offer the crown to Gaheris. He could not die. Not yet.

He nodded to his nephew and bade him rise. “This is a great day for Gaheris,” he said, his voice quavering but determined. “Long have I wished to see the Houses of Aiven and Gaheris united in purpose. Today marks the beginning!”

Even as he spoke, he stepped aside. The hunched mass of his body moved to reveal the form of the maiden standing beyond. And Alistair had his first up-close look at his future bride.

Light of Lumé, she was much younger than he'd thought!

Or perhaps, he decided on second glance, she was merely small for her age. And the way she stood, head bowed and eyes downcast, gave her the look of a young girl rather than the woman he had expected. She wore a white barbet and veil that covered all her hair, decorated by a simple gold thread.

And the eyes she raised to meet his, though gray, reminded him of a fawn's timid gaze. The poor girl was at least as unhappy about this arrangement as Alistair, which was some consolation at least. Alistair offered her what he hoped was a friendly smile.

“Welcome to Gaheris,” he said.

She opened her mouth. For a moment she said nothing, and he could see by the look in her eyes that she was trying to think of something clever, something charming. He braced himself. In the end, however, she managed only a weak, “I . . . I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Lord Alistair.”

He felt his grin sliding away, so he stepped forward swiftly and offered his arm. “You must be cold,” he said. “Allow me.”

She slid her hand up onto his wrist and walked beside him, her head scarcely coming to his shoulder, and said not a word the rest of the day unless spoken to. There was no doubt in Alistair's mind.

He would never love Lady Leta of Aiven.

In the gloom of night, a shed door creaked.

By the light of the moon above, a wizened, dirty figure emerged, toting
a broom, a mop, and a leaking bucket. He shut the door and latched it firmly, then turned with a sigh to survey the inner courtyard and what the moonlight might reveal. River muck tracked everywhere! And who to clean it up? Certainly not the great lords and their great guests.

This was the work of a scrubber.

So the scrubber swept and mopped and scraped mud and horse droppings from the stone. As he worked, he turned his eye up to the castle keep. He saw a light on in the library, of course. Lifting his gaze one story higher, he saw another flickering candle in a window. Lord Alistair's room, he knew, and the candle his one feeble defense against the terrors of the dark and his dreams.

The scrubber looked for a light in the guest quarters. But Lady Leta must have been sent to bed, obedient little creature that she was.

The scrubber scrubbed on. More muck would be driven into the crevices come morning, and he would be out here at this same chore yet again. But that did not mean a man shouldn't try. So on he worked at his lonely task.

But he wasn't alone. Oh no! He had the moon above and all the starry host watching him. One star in particular, bright blue and low to the horizon, winked with curious interest. The scrubber looked up at it and smiled.

“Starlight, star bright,” he whispered.

Let us out!

Across the way stood a heavy door, the entrance to the Gaheris family crypt. As the scrubber drew near, driving mud before him, whispers reached out to him from beyond the door, whispers no one else heard, perhaps because, in reality, there was nothing to hear.

Let us out!

“Keep your helmets on,” the scrubber said, his bare feet squelching in the mud trailing behind his mop. “It's not time yet.”

T
HE
P
ARASITE
LATCHED
HOLD
OF
E
TALPALLI
,
and I, for the first time, saw death in the eyes of my father, my mother. Immortal, they had ruled the City of Wings since before Time dared visit our demesne. They had seen the rise of the red spires and guided the growth of green things. They ruled from Itonatiu and Omeztli Towers and were, in my eyes, like the sun and the moon themselves.

But the day the Parasite came, my parents looked from their two high towers and saw, for the first time, their doom.

When Leta's father came to her earlier that spring and said, “You are going to marry the Earl of Gaheris's nephew,” her first instinct was to rebel.

“I am a person!” she wanted to shout. “I have my own desires, my own passions! I'm not a tool for the manipulation of alliances!”

But as always, it was practical Leta who responded instead.

“Very well, Father. This will be a great thing for Aiven House, will it not?”

“A great thing indeed. The nephew may be King of the North Country one day.”

So Leta nodded, folded her hands, and resigned herself to her fate. After all, as her mother often told her, marriage was the only means by which a maiden might gain power to change the course of history. A strong marriage could be the making of a woman, and even a bad marriage was preferable to no marriage at all.

“And Lord Alistair of Gaheris is the best match to be had among all the earldoms,” Lady Aiven informed Leta later that same day. “He is young, well-formed, strong, and will inherit all his uncle's estates.”

“Did Earl Ferox never marry and have children of his own?” Leta asked, curious, for she knew little about this family that would soon be hers.

“Oh yes,” her mother replied. “Ferox did marry. Pero was her name, Lady Pero. A charming, delicate thing she was! She was due to have a child too, but she died on the birthing bed, and Ferox never remarried. Brokenhearted, so they say.”

“What of the baby?” Leta asked.

“Dead too, of course.” Lady Aiven shrugged, then gave her daughter a sharp glance. “Don't look so dispirited. It makes you more whey-faced than ever, and no man wants to marry that. Why should you care about the death of a woman and child you never met? These things happen. It is our woman's lot.”

“Our woman's lot,” Leta whispered to herself on this, her second morning in Gaheris. The night before had passed in a blur, and although she'd sat beside Lord Alistair for the whole of a sumptuous banquet, she could not recall two words spoken between them.

She'd spent half the night staring at the drawn curtains round her bed and reviewing the evening's events without satisfaction. Now she sat, hollow eyed, in the privacy of her chambers and waited for life to happen. But life seemed as disinclined to happen that morning as it ever had in Aiven. Her lady had informed her that she would be invited to dine privately with Lady Mintha later that day and, until then, she must amuse herself in her own chambers.

Like a prisoner.

So much for a grand adventure,
rebellious Leta thought bitterly.

What did you expect?
practical Leta responded with annoying calm.
Romance? Intrigue? Silly girl.

A knock sounded lightly at the door. Leta hesitated, uncertain what to do. Her lady had stepped from the room. Dared she answer the door for herself? A second knock. She couldn't very well pretend not to be in, could she? Feeling a bit bold, Leta crossed the room and cracked open the door.

She found herself face-to-face with Lord Alistair.

“Oh!” This was as far as her vocabulary would take her on short notice.

“Good morrow, Lady Leta.” Alistair offered a friendly grin as he bowed. He wasn't a handsome man, though he was, as her mother had told her, well-formed and strong. His face was pleasant enough beneath a shock of bright red hair. Perhaps not what a girl envisions as her future husband or even, for that matter, her future king. But then, Leta knew very well she was no man's dream come true herself. And she would marry Alistair a year from this very day. Best to put a brave face on it. So she tried a smile of her own in response.

“I wondered,” said Alistair, encouraged by that smile, “if I could interest you in a tour of Gaheris? As you are new to my home, I should like to do what I can to make you comfortable.”

Leta looked him swiftly up and down. He was dressed in riding gear and even held a riding crop in one hand.

He wasn't intending to seek you out this morning,
her practical side said.
His mother caught him on his way to the stables and sent him up to court you.

Her rebellious side responded,
So what? At least he's an opportunity to escape these cold rooms!

Leta drew a breath, all too aware she'd let the silence linger too long. “Um. Let me fetch my cloak,” she said.

Alistair waited patiently until she joined him in the passage. Perhaps he was a little disappointed. By agreeing to his proposal, she had certainly deprived him of his last hope for a morning ride. Disappointed or not, at least he was courteous about it, and that could go a long way toward making a marriage bearable, Leta told herself. After all, plenty of young men would have ignored her existence entirely, before and after marriage.

And really, who could blame them?

Alistair led her down the passage, explaining how her chambers were on the same side of the keep as the family rooms. “Since you're to be family soon enough,” he said with another of his vague but friendly grins, “my uncle thought it best that you be settled with us.”

Leta floundered for an interesting response. “I am comfortable,” she managed. It sounded just as insipid as she'd feared.

Alistair took her through the whole of the keep, pointing out the great hall, the passage leading to the scullery and kitchens. “And the most prized possession of all within Gaheris,” he said grandly, opening a certain door, “the castle well.”

Leta tried to demonstrate interest as she looked into the small, damp chamber housing the castle water supply. Like Aiven's, it was located within the keep itself so that should siege come upon the castle, the defenders could retreat all the way to the keep and still have everything necessary for life and defense.

“It's the best water you'll find anywhere in the North Country,” Alistair claimed proudly.

Leta nodded. Then she asked, “Has this castle suffered under many sieges?”

“More than you can count, though not since my uncle's mastery,” Alistair replied and seemed pleased to be asked. “And never once has Gaheris fallen!”

Leta knew he expected some comment, but she could think of nothing, so she smiled again.

“Yes,” said Alistair, turning away from her with something of a sigh. “Shall we continue?”

They emerged at last through a door into the inner courtyard. Alistair waved a hand to indicate the castle's guest wing, where, he informed her, the steward and other servants of high rank lived. “The castle chronicler has rooms there as well, but he rarely emerges from his library,” Alistair said. “And beyond that wall”—he indicated the opposite side of the courtyard—“is a sheer drop down to the river below. Another of Gaheris's defenses.”

“What is that?” Leta asked, pointing to something along that same wall. It was a small mausoleum in marble with a heavy wooden door, rather finely made, eye-catching amid the harsh and militaristic lines of Gaheris.

“The entrance to the family crypt,” Alistair replied, leading her toward
it. “Beyond the door, a stairway leads down to the vaults where my ancestors are laid. My father is there. What's left of him.”

Leta shivered at this and drew her cloak more tightly about herself. She felt as though she looked upon her own final resting place. After all, she would marry into the House of Gaheris and someday be laid among the lords and ladies of the castle. “Our woman's lot,” she whispered.

“What was that?” her betrothed asked.

But she merely shook her head. He beckoned her to follow him to the outer courtyard, which was a veritable market square open to the farmers who tilled the fields beyond Gaheris's walls. The housecarls' barracks lined the north wall, with the stables and smithy on the west. It was all much grander than Aiven, though Leta knew her father was considered the second most powerful earl in the North Country. No wonder all talk of possible kingship centered on Gaheris House and no other!

“Do you hunt?” Alistair asked as they neared the stables.

“I . . . I never have,” she replied, ducking her head before she could see the disappointment on his face.

“Well, never mind,” he said, his voice cheerful if a little forced. “My mother dislikes the hunt herself. She calls it a bloody ritual of—”

“My lord! My lord Alistair!”

A stableboy came running up to them, bowing and touching his forelock and hardly sparing a glance for Leta. “It's your red hunter, my lord! Master Nicon wishes you to come at once!”

“Ah, the same old trouble, eh?” Alistair said, his voice light but with a trace of concern behind the lightness. He turned to Leta. “I must see to this. The stables are no place for a lady. Shall I . . . shall I escort you back?”

He looked frustrated at the prospect despite that ever-determined smile. Leta hastily replied, “Oh no, I can find my way well enough. And if I miss a turn, surely someone will direct me.”

Relieved, Alistair bowed over her hand and kissed it in a distracted manner. The next moment, he was hastening off behind the stableboy, and Leta watched his red head disappear into the gloom of the stables.

There was nothing for it. She must return to her rooms and the boredom of a day highlighted only by a prospective supper with her future mother-in-law. “Our woman's lot,” she muttered again and retraced her
steps through the gates. Determined to ignore the crypt with its fine marble, she turned her head away and saw, on the opposite side of the inner courtyard, a humble shed.

Even as she watched, a wizened little man emerged from it, a lowly scrubber carrying a mop over one shoulder. He saw her too and grinned and bowed. What an ugly creature he was, as old as age itself! She gave a cool nod and hastened on to the keep.

Oddly enough, as she passed through the doorway into the dim and drafty halls, Leta met no one. She continued to meet no one as she climbed the first set of stairs and paused at the top, trying to remember from which way she had come. The passages right and left looked exactly alike to her, so she took the right one and went up another winding stair, though she was certain by then she'd chosen incorrectly. Arriving at a long, well-furnished passage that seemed familiar, she hurried to its end and opened the final door, expecting to come upon her own rooms.

She stood at the threshold of the castle library.

Leta paused, her mouth open and her eyes wide. What a wondrous sight! Why had Alistair, amid all his boasting of wells and defenses, neglected to show her this room? It was dark and dusty, lighted only by a few candles, but she could smell the wealth of knowledge contained therein. Volume upon bound volume filled the various tables and shelves lining the walls, and a hundred or more scrolls! A long table littered in papers took up half the floor space on one side, and a desk covered with inkstands and parchment was drawn up to one of the windows.

You should shut the door,
practical Leta advised.
Shut the door, own your mistake, and retrace your steps. Someone will have noticed you're missing by now.

Yes, and what a stir that will be!
rebellious Leta thought, amused. And she stepped into the library and closed the door.

A book lay open on the long table, a candle lighting its pages. Leta approached with all the reverence due holy things and leaned over to look upon the written pages. One page boasted a fine illumination of a house, she thought, though it was turned away from her. With tentative fingers she gently moved the book to a better viewing angle.

And there it was. The House of Lights. She would recognize it anywhere, the heart of all North Country history and legend. The House of Lights,
built by Faerie hands and filled with the light of a magical lantern. The illuminator had depicted it as it once was, its doors flung open and light pouring out in sacred brilliance that was almost song. Beneath it all were written words. Leta put out a hand as though to catch them even as they danced across the page.

“I wouldn't touch that if I were you.”

“I'm sorry!” The words fell from Leta's mouth, as much a reflex as her hastily removed hand. She whirled about, expecting to see some stern figure standing behind her. But there were only more shadows and more books. “I'm so sorry. I have never seen so many books in one place before.” She spun slowly as she searched the library for some sign of the speaker. “How many are there? A hundred at least, I should imagine. Two hundred even! Aiven cannot boast half that. Indeed, I think my father possesses no more than twenty bound volumes, even were you to combine all his estates.”