Moonblood (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #3) (28 page)

She saw how the goblin knight’s hand sometimes drifted to touch the knife at his side. She never need speak or move to interfere, but she saw the pain in his eyes and wondered. For this fool who lay unconscious under her care had unknowingly dealt a most painful blow to Sir Oeric. There were some, Imraldera knew, who would not stand in the knight’s path to revenge.

Nevertheless, he would turn his sad eyes to her and say only, “Will he recover?”

To that, she could only reply, “He’s not gone yet.”

So they waited.

If anything could disturb the perfect equilibrium of that quiet, hard place, it was a sob. The sound sent chills up Lionheart’s spine, and that peace he had known, if only for a short time, shattered around him.

He waited to hear another.

It was like one stormy night when he was a boy, and his servant put a basin beneath a leak in the ceiling, for even palace roofs sometimes leak.
Drip,
drip, drip,
the rain fell in a regular beat, a beat he could fall asleep to. Then suddenly, the dripping was less frequent, the timing thrown off. He heard a last
drip
, then strained his ears for the one that must follow. But it didn’t. Wasn’t it beating a regular rhythm just moments ago? Would there be—

Drip!

There it was, and he breathed once more.

Then he waited for another.

So it was in that blackness. Lionheart heard a first sob, and it was followed by a second soon thereafter. But Lionheart, though his every muscle tensed with expectation of a third, heard nothing more. He turned in the darkness, casting about for some sign of the sobber, whoever he or she might be. He wondered for half a moment if it was his own voice. But he was altogether too content right now to cry! No, there must be someone else with him in this place, disturbing the stone-silence. He might need to have words with this person when he—

And there it was.

The third sob.

It wrenched his gut, for it was much closer than the others.

Lionheart turned and opened his eyes—if indeed they had been closed, for what difference did it make in this dark?—and saw that he was home.

Home . . . in his father’s house, the place of his birth and his childhood years. He knew this room very well, an anteroom used by his father for meetings with his various barons. Maps were nailed to the walls, elegant maps much more useful for decoration than for navigation, and heavy curtains hung in the tall windows. The curtains were new. Lionheart noted that right away with the absolute clarity that comes only to dreamers. The curtains were new, for the old ones had reeked of dragon fumes.

Across from Lionheart was a chair like a small throne, the seat where the Eldest would sit while the visiting baron took a place in a lower chair opposite him. How many times as a boy had Lionheart himself come before his father in this very room? Every time his mother, Queen Starflower, made the threat,
“Just wait until your father hears about this!”
Lionheart had found himself hustled off to this very place.

The comfort of familiarity gave way suddenly to the shame and expectation of impending discipline. But no! This could not be! Lionheart was no longer some baby-faced boy to be lectured for practicing fire-eating in the stables. He was a man, and it was his place to sit in his father’s chair. Let the barons sweat, not the son of Southlands’ Eldest. So he took the seat and faced the room.

And realized that he sat opposite the Prince of Farthestshore.

Dread dropped heavily in Lionheart’s stomach.

“Come with me,” said the Prince.

Lionheart gripped the arms of his chair as though he would break them. “See here,” he said, “I’m sorry about what became of her. I am. But there isn’t a solitary thing I can do about it now, is there?”

“You can come with me,” said the Prince.

Lionheart grimaced. “A lot of things happened during my exile. Most of them I wish to forget. She was kind to me when I needed a friend, and . . . and I appreciated her kindness. But I couldn’t help what happened next.”

“Come with me.”

Lionheart tried to look away, anywhere but into those so horribly kind eyes. But he couldn’t break that gaze. “There was too much, simply too much when I came back! I couldn’t very well leave, could I, when my people needed me?”

“Come with me, Lionheart.”

“But I can’t go with you! I can’t chase after you into a desert full of dragons and get burned to cinders! I cannot abandon my father and my people now for certain death, no more than I could harbor Rose Red when all of Southlands believed her a demon. It would have torn the kingdom apart. Haven’t they suffered enough, Prince? I had to think of them, not myself, not Rose Red, not anyone else. Just Southlands. How could I serve my country by facing the Dragon again?”

“Lionheart . . .”

“You know what happened last time! You know what I did as well as I do. I crumpled under his gaze! I could not lift a finger to help myself. I cannot fight the Dragon; I don’t pretend that I can! A man has his limits, and who can face that monster and survive? I did the best I could; I ensured Southlands’ safety. Is that not enough?”

“ . . . come with me.”

Here at last, unable to speak, Lionheart wrenched his gaze away from the Prince of Farthestshore.

He saw who it was who sobbed in the dark.

Imraldera watched her patient’s face. Though the features did not move, she saw them hardening. She stopped singing over him and sat back with a sigh. Then she turned to the knight beside her.

“The Prince sent you to bring Lionheart to this Haven. Why didn’t you lead him here directly?”

“Don’t scold so, old girl! It’s unbecoming,” said Eanrin. He lounged gracefully on a nearby chair, one leg extended and an elbow hooked over the chair’s back, the picture of ease. “We were well on our way, I tell you, when we met a couple of old friends of yours.”

“Old friends? What are you talking about?”

She saw Eanrin hesitate, noting how his easy pose tensed for a moment. He opened his mouth, closed it, then finally said, “The Black Dogs. We saw the Black Dogs in the Wood.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, though the expression was lost upon the blind poet. “Not hunting this mortal, I trust.”

“Need you ask?” The poet laughed harshly and shook his head. “Had they hunted the lad, they’d have caught him long ere now, and not a thing could I have done to stop them. I hate dogs.”

Imraldera nodded, still watching the poet. His profile was set and intent, as though he were making a study of their patient even without his sight. “You’re keeping something from me,” she said.

He shrugged.

“Did you meet no one else?”

“I’ll tell you no lies, Imraldera,” he said, still not turning from the mortal. “But I’ll not tell you all truths either. Lumé love us!” He laughed and tossed his golden head. “After all these years, is a man no longer entitled to a secret or two of his own?”

She watched the smile lines about his mouth, the crinkles beneath the patches covering where his eyes had been. She saw them fade as the smile slowly melted from his face again. And she wondered many things but kept her peace. She turned back to her patient, wiping his brow with a cool cloth. “You don’t care much for this young man, do you, Eanrin?”

“Can’t say that he’s a great favorite.”

“It’s because he doesn’t like your poetry, isn’t it.”

Eanrin glowered. “When have I ever been so petty?”

She made no reply to this but turned once more to Lionheart. He was so young, lying there half succumbed to powerful enchantment. His face had the softness of a boy’s despite the thin growth of beard. But the expression was not that of a boy. No child in sleep looked so miserable save in the deepest of nightmares. She wondered what dark paths he walked in his mind. Gently, she put out a hand and brushed the hair across his forehead, which was cold under her fingers.

Eanrin made a rather cattish growl. “Remember, he gave little Una’s heart to the Dragon. He didn’t fight.”

“He’s only mortal, Eanrin. Who’s to say what any of us would have done in his place?”

“I’d not toss a girl’s heart around so blithely!”

“Wouldn’t you?”

One of those silences followed which a stranger observing would not have understood. But even a stranger would sense the unspoken tension between two people who did not look at each other and did not speak. Even a stranger would realize that some history existed between these two that he could not guess. And even a stranger would realize that he was intruding on a private moment that could, in a flash, explode into an out-and-out fight or, perhaps, if miracles still happen, dwindle into something like understanding.

But the silence ended instead with the poet rising gracefully from his chair, clearing his throat, and marching across the room to lean against the trunk of a poplar tree. He crossed his arms, the expression on his face something between a sneer and a smile.

“What of Rose Red?” he said.

Imraldera, letting out a long breath between clenched teeth, put a hand to Lionheart’s forehead again, though she wasn’t entirely aware of him anymore. “Who?”

“The goblin girl who served in his father’s house all those years. Are you going to tell me that you would have banished her to certain death when she had done no wrong, just to placate a mob?”

“I’m saying we cannot know what any of us would have done if faced with the same choice,” she responded softly.

“Tell that to Oeric. He suffered more than either of us that day.”

“Yet he carried the lad here. Even when he knew.”

The poet crossed his arms even farther up his chest. He still smiled, though the rest of his face was a distinct scowl. “I did my part.”

Imraldera turned to him then, and her voice was urgent. “Do your part now, Eanrin. Help me sing over him. You know your voice is stronger than mine, and together we could call him back.”

“I don’t fancy singing over the likes of him.”

“And what would I have done if you’d said the same of me?” said Oeric.

The lady and the poet turned to the enormous knight entering through the chamber door, which was simultaneously nothing but a thinning place in the branches of a forest grove. He filled the room, towering above both Imraldera and Eanrin as he approached to look upon the ensorcelled Lionheart.

Eanrin snorted. “You wouldn’t remember, of course, but I didn’t sing over you, Oeric. I let Imraldera deal with that. She’s better at that sort of thing, being the nurturing sort.”

“We all know that your voice is stronger . . . when you try,” Imraldera said.

The poet shrugged.

Oeric did not hear their conversation, for he was studying the face of the boy. He saw something there, something that moved him beyond the anger he felt toward this person who had caused him so much pain. Whatever he saw, he turned suddenly to Imraldera. “I will help you sing him out.”

“Will you, Oeric?” Relief filled Imraldera’s face. “Despite what he has done?”

Oeric nodded. When he turned back to the stone figure, he whispered, “As one who has been forgiven much, how can I refuse to forgive?”

Aloud, however, he said, “Yes, I’ll help you sing. This lad may be our last link to Arpiar. No one in that kingdom could call a statue.”

With those words, he opened his mouth and began in a voice as deep as mountain roots:

“When eve’s shadows fell upon you

And all your heart was overthrown,

When the whispers say no choice to you remains

And teardrops turn into stone . . . ”

Imraldera reached out and took Oeric’s huge hand in one of hers and placed her other on Lionheart’s cold face. Then she too sang:

“Beyond the Final Water falling,

The Songs of Spheres recalling.

When you hear my voice beyond the darkened veil

Won’t you return to me?”