Dragon Rose (Tales of the Latter Kingdoms)

by Pope, Christine

  “I would say that ours is not the first marriage made for reasons which have nothing to do with love…and it will not be the last.”

  That remark, in its casual cruelty, made tears sting at the back of my eyes. I blinked; I did not want him to see how he had hurt me. I took a breath, willing myself to stay calm. “And I would say, my lord, that although you have ruled this castle for five centuries and more, and I am only a woman with but two decades to her name, still I am wiser than you. At least I am willing to admit to the truth of what lies between us, even if you would deny it.”

  Then I truly knew I could not bear to be in his presence any longer, and I ran past him, out the door and down the steps, and finally back up the staircase that led to my own rooms. I rushed through the outer chamber and flung myself on the bed, weeping noisily, letting the tears flow until my pillowcase was quite damp with them. As if my own misery summoned it, a cloud of dark anguish seemed to descend upon me, choking me with its insufferable pressure, until I gasped and flung myself off the bed, going to the window and pressing my cheek against the icy panes. Something about that chill touch brought me back to myself, and I shook my head.

  What was wrong with me? Had I, by going to those deserted chambers, unwittingly awakened some demon that would now haunt me with its despairing presence?

  I didn’t know. I only knew that although I should sleep, I could not bear to shut my eyes, in case I fell into darkness and never awoke again. Instead I went to my worktable and feverishly went about setting up my paints, and then used the single lit candle by my bedside to touch off all the others in all the sconces and candelabras around the room so it was illuminated as brightly as I could make it.

  The sharp scent of the linseed oil also helped to clear my head, and with a jaw gritted in determination I pulled out the portrait and set it on its easel before I turned to freshen the pigments required. I still wasn’t entirely satisfied with the set of his mouth, nor the tiniest etchings of laugh lines on either side of it. If I focused on such minutiae, perhaps I could forget Theran’s cruel words, his refusal to allow any sort of intimacy between us.

  But my hand trembled, and I forced myself to pause and take a few bracing breaths before permitting myself to daub any paint on the canvas. No point in making foolish mistakes simply because I hadn’t allowed enough time to pass so I could calm myself sufficiently.

  Whether there would ever be enough time for such a thing wasn’t a concept I wished to contemplate at the moment.

  Do not think of that. Think only of that hint of a shadow at the corner of his mouth…darken the tint ever so slightly…not too much, or it will simply look dirty…

  And so on. It did help to distract me somewhat. However, after a time I began to think I should have focused on something less troubling, such as the collar of his doublet, because all that time spent staring at the stranger’s mouth only led me to remember my odd dream, and how he had felt far too real…if only until I awoke.

  Still, he had not been afraid to kiss me.

  Of course not, I chided myself. Because you have made him up completely out of your imagination. With all the time you’ve spent staring at this portrait, it would have been more surprising if you hadn’t dreamt of him sooner or later.

  True enough, I supposed. I set down my paintbrush and tilted my head to one side, examining the changes I had just made. It did look better now, although I would have to inspect it in daylight—assuming there was much light when the sun rose again. The wind was howling in earnest now, wailing as it blew past my window.

  Only that wasn’t the wind. Oh, part of it, of course, but above that came the high, keening cry I had heard before, when the lord of the castle launched himself into the air in his changed form. That first time it had been my doing, and I feared it was the conflict between us which drove him forth now.

  I put my hands up to my ears to blot out the sound, crying, “No, gods, no, please stop!”

  Of course he could not hear me, far away as he was in the wind and the storm. I could not hope to work now, could do nothing but fling myself across the room and onto my bed, where I scrambled underneath the covers and clutched the pillows around my head.

  Even that was not enough; the sound seemed to somehow pierce its way through to my very brain. All I could do was huddle there and hope it would stop. Eventually…hours or minutes later, I could not say…the keening seemed to move off and then die away completely. At first I did not stir, fearing that it might return, but as time wore on I realized he truly had gone. Only then did I slip out from the spurious shelter of my bed.

  There could be no more thought of painting this night. I had learned my lesson not to leave the portrait or any of my paints sitting out, for fear of rousing suspicions. Yes, I had an innocuous painting of the bare gardens in progress so as to throw the casual observer off the scent, but that subterfuge would only work as long as no one inspected my palette too closely. It was clear that the pigments used in the garden painting differed greatly from the flesh tones I employed in my portrait of the stranger.

  So I tidied things as best I could, and after I was done with that, moved about the room, blowing out the candles until only the one on my bedside table remained lit. Somehow I couldn’t bear to extinguish that one. I didn’t want to be left alone in the dark.

  And as I prepared myself for bed, I tried not to think of those anguished cries in the night, and how it had to have been our confrontation that put him in such a desperate state. What else could it have been?

  It seemed I had wept all that day’s tears, however, and when I lay down at last I stared up into the dim canopy above my bed with curiously dry eyes. Was I to blame here, for reaching out to him, or was his misery no one’s fault but his own?

  I found I did not want to know.

  Melynne came the next morning with my breakfast, looking more subdued than usual, despite the spurious cheer of a clear morning. The blanket of snow on the castle and the surrounding gardens sparkled so much it appeared to have been dusted with diamonds, and if it were not for the tumultuous night which had preceded it, I might have greeted so glittering a day with more enthusiasm than I was currently able to muster.

  Whether the servant girl had picked up on my own dreary mood, or whether she looked so downcast because she, too, had her sleep disturbed by the Dragon’s ragings, I had no way of knowing. Once or twice she appeared on the verge of saying something and then seemed to hold her tongue, as if thinking better of it.

  At last, exasperated by her hovering—normally she would leave the tray and then come back for it later, instead of waiting for me to finish my meal—I snapped, “Well, what is it, Melynne? You have the look of someone who has something to say, so out with it.”

  She gave a furtive look around the room, almost as if she expected someone to be eavesdropping on our conversation. “Well, my lady, we aren’t supposed to speak of such things, but…”

  “But what?” Was she going to mention Theran’s raging of the night before? I somehow doubted it, but I had also begun to realize I knew very little of how other people’s minds worked.

  “It’s…well, it’s only that my cousin Nan spoke with Linnart the carter when he came up to Greyton day before last, when the weather was clear, and he said he had news of your family.” Again she gave another one of those sidelong glances around the room. Perhaps she thought Sar had secreted herself within a fold of the draperies so she might overhear what we were saying.

  I couldn’t be bothered with that. News of my family? From Melynne’s appearance, it couldn’t be anything good. Perhaps my father had suffered a relapse, or my mother had caught a fever. And what of all the slips and falls and other accidents that might befall young girls who had a predilection for charging up and down the stairs like a herd of wild horses?

  “What is it?” I demanded. “Are they well? What has happened?”

  Obviously comprehending the path my thoughts had taken, Melynne replied at once, “Oh, no, my lady. N
othing like that. They are all well, as far as Linnart knew. Only he thought it was something amusing that Liat Marenson had been dangling after you, and now he’s apparently gone and gotten engaged to your sister Therella!”

  If meek little Melynne had slapped me across the face, I could not have been more surprised. For the space of a few breaths I could only sit there and stare at her, thinking I must have heard incorrectly. “Master Marenson, the wool merchant?” I managed at last.

  “The same. The rumor is that the wedding is planned for Midwinter.”

  Less than a month away. He didn’t waste time, did he? I reached for my cup of cider, hoping to wash some of the sick taste from my mouth. Therella was not quite eighteen. And they were going to marry her off to Liat Marenson, a man of forty-five? These things happened more often than they should, of course, but I had not thought my parents would subject Therella to such a marriage.

  “Thank you, Melynne,” I said faintly. “I think I would like to be alone now.”

  She dipped a curtsey, expression neutral, but I thought I saw the curiosity in her eyes. No doubt it was fairly obvious that I was less than pleased by her news. “Of course, my lady.”

  Once she had gone, I rose and went to stand in front of the fire, but its warmth did little to dispel the chill that seemed to have settled in my bones. Liat Marenson and Therella? Why in all the gods’ names had my parents allowed such a thing to happen?

  Surely the thousand gold crowns they’d been given in exchange for me couldn’t have been spent so rapidly. It would take a household far more profligate than ours to run through such a sum in so short a span of time. There seemed to be only one other logical explanation, even if I didn’t want to admit it.

  My sister had wanted the match.

  She had always been far more interested in young men—and, apparently, the not-so-young—and always talked of what it would be like once she set up her own household. While I used what little free time I had to sketch the streets around us or the people I saw from day to day, her hands were always busy with a needle, whether embroidering a pillowcase or tatting a length of lace to trim a chemise. All these bits and pieces she stored away against the day when she would be mistress of her own house.

  I could almost picture it, even now. A chance meeting when she went to market, or an encounter at the home of an acquaintance. An apology for her sister’s outlandish behavior, with the intimation that of course Therella herself would never have acted in such a way. Perhaps then a few carefully placed compliments, and Liat Marenson would have fallen into her hand like a ripe plum. I could not even allow her youth as a rebuttal against such behavior, as I’d seen such cunning in the past, during times when she managed to cajole even our father into agreeing to some scheme or another. Our mother, of course, saw through such duplicity, but I could not expect a man being flattered to have that sort of insight.

  No, when I thought of it that way, I supposed it was no real surprise. Therella wanted comfort, and luxury if she could have it; a man more than twice her age was a good enough bargain, if by such an agreement she would be mistress of one of Lirinsholme’s finest houses. Had she been glad, then, when I botched things so completely, and finished the job by giving myself over to the Dragon of Black’s Keep?

  Such a thought was perhaps uncharitable, but I knew my sister well enough that I did not put it past her. At least she would have a husband who wanted her, or thought he wanted her. Whereas I…

  I leaned my head against the mantel, once again feeling myself perilously close to tears. This was ridiculous. Could I look forward to a winter where all I did was weep, and wring my hands over my situation?

  “Oh, damnation,” I said aloud, and pushed myself away from the fireplace. The day was clear, and the light was good. I should not waste it, but should go back to my painting.

  By some effort of will I did return to my chamber, where the white morning light sent everything into clear relief. By its unforgiving glare I could see that I had been a bit too heavy-handed the evening before, and some of my work would have to be undone.

  I did not precisely sigh, but I did feel my mouth tighten as I laid out my pigments and brushes once again. And as the light touched the stranger’s painted eyes, it seemed almost as if they met mine with some sort of secret amusement, as though he were laughing at some joke unknown to me.

  “If it’s that amusing, I wish you would share,” I remarked with some acerbity, dipping my paintbrush into the linseed oil so I might freshen the pigment I required for a flesh tone paler than the one I had used the previous night. “I think right now I could do with a good laugh.”

  But of course the painted mouth did not move, and nothing happened except I experienced that same sensation of creeping despair as the day before. This time, perhaps, it was subtly different, in that it was less amorphous, more an ache within, as I thought of Theran, and how he had rebuffed me.

  It was the cry of a child, really, that plea of “but I love you!” These things were not always so simple. Love given was not always returned. A lesson I would rather not have learned, of course, but…

  But nothing. It hit me then, cold and rough and painful as the winds that had buffeted me in the garden the day before. I loved him, but he did not love me.

  And gods, the ache of that, the realization of how I wanted him— the need cramping my very limbs so the paintbrush fell from my nerveless fingers, and I dropped to my knees, doubled over as if someone had hit me in my midsection. I found myself hunched on the rug, body shaking with the sheer misery of it. What could I do, when he seemed so immovable? How could I go on in such a state?

  I had no answers, and none came to me. After what might have been a few minutes or a few hours, the spell seemed to pass, and I wearily got to my knees, moving with a stiffness that spoke of someone four times my age.

  The painting stared across the room at me, but I saw no compassion in those still, perfect features. Indeed, the slight tilt to his mouth seemed more a mockery, and I turned away, knowing I could not look at it a second longer.

  I crossed to the door and slammed it, shutting the painting away.

  If only I could do the same thing with my pain.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I resolved from then on not to dine with Theran in his chambers. In the past we had quarreled and made up, but I saw no resolution to our current impasse. I did not have the steadiness of mind to sit down with him, knowing he could never give me what I wanted. And so I made excuses that sounded even feeble to me when Sar came by to ask if I would care to change for dinner.

  Of course she knew the Dragon had circled overhead the night before, and so she also must know that all was far from well between us. To her credit, she did not press me, but said she agreed that I was looking pale, and that perhaps I should go back to bed for a while; she would send up a tray.

  I seized on this opportunity for solitude and thanked her, and she went away soon enough. Whether she’d seen this particular little drama play out before, I had no idea. I didn’t want to know.

  Perhaps I was the only one foolish enough to develop feelings for the Dragon Lord. Perhaps all those other Brides had seen him for the monster he was. Monster within and without, unfeeling, incapable of love.

  No, I could not believe that. I would not. We had had enough interactions that I had seen something of his quickness of wit, his appreciation for beauty, even if he believed he possessed none of his own. It was not his fault that I was not clever enough, or pretty enough, or interesting enough, to engage his affections. Who was I really, but a foolish girl from a simple family, a girl who fancied herself a painter but in actuality had done nothing but disgrace her kin?

  Misery seemed the best company for me then, and I let it overtake me, falling into it like a swimmer diving into a deep, cold lake. I did not question it. How could I, when I knew I had done everything wrong since the moment I first stepped foot inside Black’s Keep?

  Days passed in a similar fashion, days in
which I barely struggled out of bed to eat a few bites before crawling back under the covers like a wounded animal. This was not even like the time when I had spent so many hours asleep; at least then I had some recollection of time passing, although I spent much of it in slumber. Now, however, I seemed to drift in and out, barely aware of the world around me. I thought Melynne came in from time to time, and Sar, but I could hardly be certain. They seemed like something out of a dream, insubstantial as ghosts.

  Once I thought I even heard his voice raised in question outside my door, but this time I did not answer, and he did not come in. And then perhaps an exchange with Sar that I only partially overhead, something about it being “far too soon.” What was too soon, I had no idea.

  At length, though, I roused myself from my torpor, fighting away the cobwebs within my mind as if they were physical things. My legs felt shaky and my head as light as the time when I was ten and had contracted a rare case of tertian fever. But I had won out against that, and I would not let this…whatever it was…get the better of me.

  I tottered out of bed and gazed around my chamber as if I had never seen it before. All seemed more or less in order, and once again my instinct for self-preservation seemed to have won out, for the stranger’s portrait had been safely stashed away in its hiding place. I had no clear recollection of doing so. The important thing was that at least I had remembered enough to put it away.

  The water in the basin was almost freezing, but I splashed it on my face anyway, knowing that it would help to shock me into some semblance of alertness. Toothbrush, comb. I could not remember the last time I had used either one of them. They helped to make me feel a little more human, although what I really needed was a hot bath. Soon. I could have Sar call for one after I had eaten.