Unquiet Dreams (6 page)

The abbot smiled, but he was not fooled. "Your skill comes from His will, too. Let us hope that is part of His plan as well. We will hold you both in our prayers tonight. God speed!"

Colburga was still shaking as she hurried back along the path to the village, muttering to herself under her breath. It was simply unthinkable! Not that the monks were perfectly adherent to their order. Ælfric himself was fond of saying there would be no need for reformers if there were not those who needed to be reformed. But murder? Even if you did not have to answer to the All-father, there were the people of the village who would not accept such treachery regardless of the clothes the maledictor wore. To risk so much simply to cover a moment of passion—the very idea was terrible. It spoke of one whose coldness of heart would shame any dragon. If he were willing to poison the mother, what would he do to the child?

"Where have you been?"

The words hissed crossly from the darkness behind a pair of trees made Colburga nearly jump out of her skin. "Don't do that!" she rasped, grateful that alarm had only made her clutch the precious bottle closer. "Why aren't you in the cave?"

The dragon sighed and flapped her wings. "I needed to get some flying in. I can't stay stuffed inside that cramped space all the time."

Colburga looked furtively around. "It's not safe. Anyone could come along this path."

The dragon snorted and a small wisp of smoke curled out of her left nostril. "Dragons need to fly."

"Dragons sleep for centuries without moving an inch. The dragon Wiglaf killed had slept for four hundred years they said. The one he killed, you know. As in dead?"

The dragon only blinked lazily. "I'm not sleepy. Where have you been?"

"I'm trying to save someone who's been poisoned, so I need to get back to that hut right away," Colburga answered, turning her steps again toward the far end of the village.

"Why?" The dragon had apparently decided to follow her.

"This is stupid!" Colburga said, stopping once more. "You need to hide."

"Why are you helping that child?"

"I don't know. It just seemed—I don't know."

"You're going to lose money on this."

"Shut up! You're going to lose your life if someone decides to be a warrior hero."

The dragon's laugh, as usual, sounded more like a cough. "In this village? I think I hardly need tremble. Who's going to attack me? Eldulf the cartwright? Cuthwin the miller?"

"Wulfraed the monk," Colburga snapped walking again and more quickly. "I think he might be the poisoner."

"A monk, really? Does your abbot friend know?" Apparently the dragon was going to follow her all the way to Hild's doorstep.

"No, no—I can't just accuse someone because they have the right color eyes." Colburga explained the events of the day in hushed tones, finishing her tale just before they arrived at the hut. "Now, stay out here and don't make a sound."

"As if I would. Dragons are known for their stealthy ways."

"Why is it you always wake me up in the middle of the crashing around the cave?" Colburga hissed before slipping in through the door.

Hild looked up from the fire which she had tended carefully, but her smile was wan. "Can we give her the remedy now?"

Colburga glanced at the concoction in the pot then looked over at the woman who still lay there, pale, breathing shallowly. A touch of her forehead revealed an even colder surface, below which a fire raged. Not a good sign, not at all. "Yes, take the pot off the heat altogether. Have you got a bowl for mixing?"

Hild scampered across the room to a collection of wooden bowls perched in a little nook in the wall. She brought the lot to Colburga who sat herself on the floor in front of the fire. In its flickering light, she dipped a smaller bowl into the pot and poured its contents into a slightly bigger one. The spoon from the cooking pot was large, but it would work well enough to mix in the wine and honey. Hild watched all the sorceress' actions with rapt attention, her little hands at the ready for any new tasks. Well, we shall see, Colburga thought. "Do you have some scraps of cloth for winding?"

Hild thought for a moment, then went over to the bed where her mother lay, reaching beneath the ticking until she pulled out some odd swaths of cloth, saved for patches no doubt. "Will these do?"

There was little choice in the matter, so Colburga nodded. She closed her eyes, reviewed the list of ingredients, then took a pinch of ash and dirt from the hearth and added it to the mixture, muttering under her breath, "Hale be you, Nerthus, mother of men. Ever may you grow in the arms of the gods, filled with food and useful for folk." The child looked at her curiously, eager hope dancing in those blue eyes. Colburga smiled and said, "Blessings of the All-father on this mixture, may it bring your mother to health once more."

"Amen," said Hild with all the gravity the abbot would have wished on his priests.

She had Hild hold the bowl while she used the spoon awkwardly to get some of the mixture into the woman's mouth, hoping it would not choke her. Hild's mother swallowed if only as a sleeper would. The cloth soaked up the rest of the concoction in the bowl, and Colburga wound it around the woman's feet as well as laying some across her belly in the hopes that it would draw the poison more quickly. But the waxy flesh suggested that the poison had spread throughout her body, and Colburga feared her ministrations would all be for naught.

A noise outside made Hild turn her head suddenly. That stupid dragon! Just what she needed right now.

"Father!" Hild said, running to the door where Wulfraed stood framed by the black night, the meager light from the fire casting flickering shadows over his carnivorous face. "Have you come to see Mummy? She's very ill, but the dragon lady has given her remedies that will cure her."

If the night sky was black, the look Wulfraed gave Colburga made it seem like midday in contrast. "I have come to administer extreme unction, for I am certain she will not last the night."

"You mean to make sure she does not," Colburga said, her tone surprisingly matter-of-fact even as she felt her heart leap up again. Hild looked uncertainly from one to the other. Colburga continued, "It is not wrong, is it, for the child to call you 'father'?"

Wulfraed smiled, but there was no warmth in his countenance.

"The eyes," Colburga continued. "She's got your eyes."

"That legacy she has indeed. But no one will know it." He walked into the room with boldness, scooped up the child and grinned at Colburga.

"You will not harm this child!" Her tone was more confident than her body. Scrappy though she was, Colburga could not match his strength. The child looked uncertainly between the two of them again, confused by the mix of tones and expressions.

"I need not harm her once she is alone," Wulfraed continued. "But I cannot have her mother laying claims before the abbot."

"How did you do it, anyway?"

The wolfish grin grew bright. "Communion wafer. At least I knew she would die cleansed of her sins."

"The All-father will curse you," Colburga said, hoping to reach his hidden heart.

"The All-father knows that I do what I do in his name, to protect his church. He had great plans for me, I know. And a child and a wife have no part in those plans. I will be an abbot soon. I have the ear of the archbishop in Canterbury. My path is certain."

Colburga heard a snuffling noise outside the hut and it filled her with sudden inspiration. "Never presume to know the will of the gods."

He barked with laughter. "You do not even understand the true way. You speak of idols and useless devils—the All-father rules the world he made and rewards those who follow his lead."

Colburga felt emboldened at his cocksure boasting. "There is ancient power that you forget. The earth is older than your All-father and its forces are beyond your tiny understanding."

"I think your potions have gone to your head, cunning woman. None but fools believe in elves and sprites."

"I'm talking about dragons," Colburga said with a cool contempt she almost fancied she believed. Please, dragon, don't have gone back to the cave, she thought, crossing her fingers.

Now Wulfraed laughed with real humor. "Don't be ridiculous! Everyone knows what a fake you are. Dragon's tears! Did you know there's no such thing as dragon's tears, little girl? This woman has poisoned your mother. Dragon's blood is a poison!" Hild looked terrified, but Colburga was at least relieved to see that the child did not immediately know which of them to fear more.

Colburga stepped over to the door and flung it open. "I will call up my dragon to drag the truth out of you," she shouted half in and half out of the door. Where was that dragon? "It was you who poisoned Hild's mother! You who hoped to hide your crime, your shame and your obligations."

"Who will believe that? It is all very well to say you have a dragon, but I have the church and connections and, unlike you, respectability and authority. And however much the abbot may be interested in your quaint potions and herbal remedies, I don't think—"

Whatever he was going to say next was cut off when the dragon poked her head down from the roof and through the door to let out a large belch of fire brightening but not burning up the entire hut. Hild shrieked, squirmed from Wulraed's arms , and crouched next to her mother on the straw bed. Thank the gods, Colburga thought with truly heartfelt gratitude. The monk's expression had turned from smug arrogance to befuddled fear, his world expanding so quickly it seemed to clear all thoughts from his heart completely, like a footprint in the dirt obliterated by a strong wind.

The dragon hopped down from the roof and thrust herself through the door as far as its small frame allowed, puffing smoke across the room. Colburga was upset by Hild's terrified crying, but she had to do this right. "You stand accused, Wulfraed. Confess or burn!"

He stared at her, eyes wide. "What?"

"Confess or burn!" You poisoned this woman, yes?" The dragon let a small flame flicker across the space between them.

"Yes!" he yelped.

Good boy! "You did it to hide your fornication with this woman, from which this child was born, did you not?"

"Yes," he nearly screamed it when another burst of fire belched from the dragon's mouth.

"You will leave at once, confess your sins to the abbot, and leave your order."

"No…" A whisper this time. Bad idea; the dragon lifted her head slightly and almost seemed to smile as she aimed a stream of fire squarely at the hem of his garment. The flames licked the weave, and the smell of burning wool filled the smoky confines of the hut. "Yes, yes!" he shrieked at last, slapping ineffectually at the burning habit. The dragon withdrew to leave him room to flee out the door. And flee he did, his leather-bound feet smacking the floor as he ran. The dragon could not resist letting go one last blast of fire at his retreat, so the tow of them watched him speed away with hands wildly waving to put out the conflagration in his hair.

Colburga grinned at the dragon. "Thanks."

"That was fun," the dragon responded, yawning. "We should do this more often."

"I don't think so," Colburga laughed. "We'll be run out of town in no time." The sudden silence seemed welcome for a moment, but then Colburga turned. Hild was still crouched by her mother's head, but the woman no longer seemed to be breathing. The healer ran over to take the woman's hand, laying her head upon her breast. If there was still a heartbeat it was too faint to hear.

"If there's anything to the dragon tears legend, now would be a good time to find out," she said to the dragon, who merely stared at her.

"Dragons don't have tears, I've told you a hundred hundred times."

Hild hiccoughed through her own tears. "Is my Mummy dead?" She seemed so ready for the truth it hurt Colburga. Too late, too late, she had been too late.

"There is something else," the dragon said, as if she had been turning the matter over in her mind as she stretched the kinks out of her neck.

"What?" Colburga answered, staring down at the still form of the woman.

"Well, I can't come in there, so you have to bring her over here."

Colburga looked up. "What?"

"Just bring her and hurry," the dragon said with her usual impatience.

Colburga hesitated for a second, then reached to grab the woman under her arms and began to pull her off the bed.

"No, no no!" Hild slammed her with tiny fists.

"She won't burn her." Colburga tried to convince the child and move at the same time. "We're going to help. We got rid of the bad man, right?" But the child continued to wail and strike at her as she dragged the woman within reach of the dragon. "What will you do?" Colburga asked the creature nervously.

The dragon ignored her and put her nose down to the woman's face. Hild was not quite courageous enough to attack the dragon, but instead stared in horror as the smoky breath poured forth from her slightly open mouth. Colburga began to understand. She lifted the woman's head higher and opened her mouth. With the other hand, she pressed on the woman's chest, hoping it might help encourage her breathing. For a few moments nothing happened—but suddenly, with a cough, the woman began to draw breath on her own.

"Mummy!" Hild shrieked and then wrapped her arms around the woman, who stirred slightly, opened her eyes, and murmured the child's name.

I hope she doesn't turn around and see the dragon, Colburga thought to herself, but the woman almost immediately sank back into unconsciousness. "Let's get her back to bed," she whispered to Hild. The child dutifully helped as well as her tiny arms could, then lay her head upon her mother's chest and promptly fell asleep.

"You didn't make a penny here," the dragon said as they turned their steps back toward the cave.

"Maybe not," Colburga said with a smile the night hid, "But I have a great idea for a new line of remedies. What do you think? Dragon's breath in a bottle. We can make twice as much from it as from the dragon tears!"

The dragon looked sideways at her. "Sounds like more work for me."

Colburga grinned. "Maybe you should fly home."