“What will we do now?” I said.
Poppy pulled back. “Jyro said I should go to Pendragon Castle as planned. He’ll come along so I won’t be alone. He promised he’ll think of a way for us to be together.”
Poppy still had the broken comb in her left hand. Jyro might have the magic to fix it in a wink the way he’d fixed the platters, but hearts and lives were harder to mend. How could he interfere with the fey plans for an alliance without endangering their sanctuary?
“I thought you would be pleased for me to step aside,” Poppy said. “It means you can marry Prince Arden yourself.”
I gripped the railing, leaning out into the wind. I wanted to tell her the real reason I was going with the fey, but could not press a single word past the lump in my throat. I knew Poppy wouldn’t tell a soul, but my hope to free Garth seemed like a dream, a bright reflection in the mirror that looks warm in the light and turns cold when you touch the glass. I was sure if I spoke, I’d see all the ways in which it could never work. It’s one thing to spring a prisoner from a small jailhouse set apart from a sheriff’s manor, another thing to free a man from a king’s dungeon guarded by well-trained knights, and escape from a castle fortified with towering guard walls and a moat.
BECAUSE WE HAD to arrive by sea as a royal delegation from Ireland would have, our party of fourteen rode southeast for a place called Swanebrook Harbor to find a worthy ship. Morralyn came along to act as Poppy’s lady’s maid, Aisling as mine. Other men and women joined us, including King Elixis and Onadon, who would be called Lord O’Malley and Lord McLaughlin in turn until we were past Sackmoore’s guard. So we left with our entourage, our lordly escort. And of course, Jyro.
Now that Prince Arden was at court, both Onadon and Elixis were anxious to reach Pendragon Castle. We hadn’t ridden long before my father resorted to magic.
“Shall we speed it up?” he asked.
Remembering our ride to meet Lord Kahlil, I sensed what was coming. “Hold on,” I said to Poppy, “and keep your head low.”
In a rush, the horses sped through the greenwood. It was rough going at first, then just as before, the ride became smooth as silk and everything became a blur. Riding thus, we reached the boundary wall quite soon and took up our journey again on Kingsway. I was nervous at first to be traveling so conspicuously on the road. I soon found I needn’t have worried. Everything—all the fey, their horses, and the cart—completely disappeared when humans were near.
My first dizzying experience of this came after Elixis’s scout spied a tinker’s wagon up ahead, a man and his family rolling wares to the next town. They’d not yet seen us. Elixis waved his hand, and in a wink, we all vanished. I let out a startled scream. No sound came. All was silent in the fairy spell so Tinker and his family would neither see us nor hear us approach.
I did not know how quick the fairy’s senses were, but I was deaf within the spell and could not hear the jingling wagon, his horse’s hoofbeats or our own. All the clopping rhythmic sounds that had drummed the roadway only minutes before went dumb. Only our telltale hoof prints on the snowy road gave evidence of us.
As my eyes adjusted in the spell, I caught a glimmer of myself and my companions all wavering pale as sunlight through mist. But I knew the humans could not see even that. I became less anxious and began to ride along comfortably like a quiet flame suspended in midair.
A girl of five or six peered out of the back of her father’s wagon. Mouth open, she pointed at our new-made hoof prints appearing in the snow. The excited child tugged on her brother’s cloak and was ignored.
When we’d ridden far enough down Kingsway, the spell faded and we came into ourselves again. I was a little numbed by the magic. Jyro rode near Poppy, consoling her after her first vanishing. I saw him speaking softly, but he did not touch her. As it turned out, the tinker’s family was the first of many encounters. So Poppy and I had to adjust ourselves to the vanishing spell as we rode on. It came to me this was the way the fey had always moved through the human world when it suited them. I wondered how often I’d passed them by myself.
Swanebrook Harbor looked deserted in the moonlight. It took little time to “borrow” a ship, as Morralyn called it. Sailors watching the harbor were gently enspelled to sleep. Soon fey men hoisted sails aboard the newly christened Malarkey. Jyro unfurled and raised the flit-spun Irish flag.
A light snow fell on ship and harbor as I made my way across the dock. Many fey were already on board. King Elixis helped Poppy over the icy gangplank. On shore my father directed the horses to return to Dragonswood, and onward home without us. Other fey men carried trunks and heavy bundles across the plank. I decided to cross the steep gangplank on my own. Halfway over, I slipped on the ice, fell facedown, and screamed as I felt the sharp nail gouge my chin.
Onadon was at my side in an instant, his eyes full of fire. He gripped my upper arm so fiercely, I knew there would be a bruise there later. He pulled me up, saw the deep cut, and said, “Now look what you’ve done, clumsy girl,” his eyes backlit with anger. He had yet to call me daughter, but clumsy girl came easily enough.
King Elixis snickered as Father helped me onto the ship’s deck, which was slippery wet but not as icy as the plank. “She bleeds like a stuck pig,” Onadon complained.
“And it’s running all down her gown!” Morralyn added, horrified.
No one but Poppy seemed to care that I was hurt. “Poor Tess,” she said, offering me her new kerchief.
“Thank you, Poppy, I will be all right.” My teeth chattered as I pressed her gift over my bleeding chin. Onadon gave strict orders. “Take Tess downstairs and fix her face.”
Snip-snap, Morralyn and Aisling led me down the creaking steps to a tiny cabin, and helped me onto a straw-stuffed pallet. Morralyn lit the lamp while Aisling ran off to fetch the bags. Once back she dribbled one tincture after another onto a gray sea sponge.
“What is that?” I asked, afraid.
“Poppy juice, hemlock, a touch of bryony, gall from a castrated boar—”
“That should knock her out,” Morralyn said, opening her bag.
“Leave me be.”
Aisling hushed me. “You don’t want to feel the stitches, do you, Tess?”
“Stitches?” I tried to sit up. “Can’t you spell the cut away?”
“You’re half human, Tess. It’s not as simple as that.” Aisling pressed me firmly down and cupped the sponge over my face. The ship’s cabin rocked—whether it was the motion of the boat or the tincture fumes, I could not tell. Morralyn pulled out a long needle. I have never screamed into a sponge before, but there is always a first time. Before darkness fell, I heard the two arguing.
Aisling said, “The stitches will show for days and days, Morralyn.”
“We will have to glamour her face.”
“Not possible. Prince Bion made us swear we would not glamour our fey maidens or use any love spells to win his brother’s affection.”
I was surprised to hear Prince Bion knew so much about the fey plan, enough to place his own conditions on it.
Morralyn threaded the needle. “Our agreement with Bion restrains us from making Tess more beautiful, but should she enter court with the face of a warthog?”
Warthog was the last word I heard as the tincture filled my nose.
HOURS LATER I awoke to a throbbing and swollen chin prickly with stitches. Sickened but needing air, I half stumbled across the tilting floor to the porthole window. It was open a crack, enough to let in the frigid breeze.
Above deck, pipes and fiddles played. My ceiling boards drummed with the fairies’ rhythmic, pounding feet. I was hungry and terribly thirsty, but I knew I would not go upstairs where Onadon was. My gash had bled, and I’d seen no care in his face, only anger, disappointment, even… disgust.
He is not the blacksmith. He yanked me up harshly, he shouted, but he didn’t strike me.
I watched the snow falling above the sea, then stuck my fingers out the inch-wide opening and caught a
snowflake. It was colder than the pearl Garth let me hold, but just as white before it went clear and turned into a droplet on my finger.
I gently touched my stitches, disappointed they’d not used magic. It had been the same for Tanya. They’d done their best to heal her burns, it seemed, but their medicinal magic was for fairies, not for those of us who were just half. The longer I stayed with my father’s people, the more I learned about their powers and their limitations.
The tune changed upstairs. They danced to “Fey Maiden.” Already King Elixis and Onadon were celebrating an alliance between the Pendragons and the fey kingdom. They had no idea Poppy’s heart was set on Jyro, mine on freeing Garth. Neither man had bothered to get to know his daughter.
The ship rocked on the night sea. I shut the porthole window and heard a knock. “Enter.”
Poppy came in with a water goblet and some hot peas porridge. The porridge was not the kind of food the fey would eat, but seeing as how I couldn’t chew without pain, I welcomed the bowl.
The water dribbled down my chin as I drank. I winced.
“It must hurt awfully,” she said, sitting by me on the pallet.
I nodded. How many times she’d said that in our childhood back in Harrowton when she’d seen a new bruise forming on my lip or eye, or when she’d laid a fresh poultice on my boxed ear.
“I’ve been dancing with Jyro.” Smiling, she looked down at her hands.
“And no one noticed?”
Poppy knew what I meant. Couldn’t others see the growing love between the two? But she assured me they were careful, and no one had seemed to know. I listened to her talk while I ate, trying for small bites so I wouldn’t move my chin. She loved him, I could see. Every word she said was love-lit.
What would King Elixis and Onadon do if they knew their daughters’ hearts? One set on a thief, another on a fey man? We were in a mess, surely.
Chapter Thirty-one
WE MADE LANDFALL the next afternoon to great fanfare. How the fey managed to have a cheering crowd greet us in Dentsmore Harbor was beyond me. Prince Arden had ordered a royal escort down to the harbor. This time Onadon himself helped me across the gangplank. He wouldn’t tolerate any more mishaps.
I was still counted as one of the “Irish princesses.” It had been agreed among the fey that Morralyn would charm my stitched chin in public. By this I would not be a warthog.
The castle escort took us north along Kingsway Road. I was glad not to have to ride bareback; still, my sore chin throbbed in rhythm to the bouncing saddle. I sat regally as an Irish princess in her fine gown, and thought about Garth and my challenge ahead.
Snow covered the rolling hillsides and the woods beyond. I heard hammering in the distance, and rounding the corner, I saw the Lord Faul Amphitheatre crowning the hill. Built in Queen Rosalind’s day, it was named after the dragon she’d served as a girl on Dragon’s Keep. I did not think there was another land in all the world that could boast an amphitheatre named after a dragon.
There was much ado about the place. On the large stage below the ringed seats, carpenters sawed and hammered, building a tall wooden structure as a temporary roof.
The castle escort riding just ahead of me said, “They’ll be working straight through to finish the roof in time. Prince Arden’s coronation’s to take place there three days from now on Saint Dyfrig’s feast day.”
“An auspicious day for the new Pendragon king to be crowned,” said Lord McLaughlin, Onadon.
I silently agreed. Arden was a Pendragon, and Saint Dyfrig was the famed bishop who’d crowned Arthur Pendragon King of Britain.
We rode in slow procession so I had time to take in the great gray castle overlooking the sea. Right away I counted four towers at each corner of the immense structure, and four more towers in the corners of the outer guard wall. The palace was surrounded on three sides by a stone wall and a deep moat, and on the backside by sheer cliff and sea. A sour taste came to my mouth. How in the name of all the saints would Garth escape once I freed him?
I was the last to arrive at the drawbridge. All the kings and queens of Wilde Island had crossed this very bridge. Now I crossed. Tess of Harrowton, blacksmith’s daughter. Tess of DunGarrow, fey princess. I bared my head and let my hair fly back.
Horse hooves pounded the planks and echoed down below. The spiked portcullis gate hung over my head like a monstrous jaw, the iron spikes sharp as dragon’s teeth.
The courtyard swarmed with castle guards, lords, ladies, servants, and dogs. In a glance I spied a falcon’s mews, stable, kennels, a buttery, and henhouse. The rest of the outbuildings were not so easily defined, but one beyond the mews and garden might be an outer kitchen, judging by the rich scent of roasting meat.
All of this was nothing compared to the castle itself. Larger than DunGarrow, it loomed over all like a watchful grandfather with a hundred eyes, and all the eyes were windows. High and low, the windows were barred from attack; many were arrow slits just wide enough for archers to shoot through, though some higher up were bright with stained glass. The few I saw at ground level were dark even in the late afternoon sun. Dungeon cells. Black and desolate as the Treegrim’s eye pits. Fixing on those barred windows filled me with dread. Was Garth down there? How could I reach him? What condition would I find him in? Please God not beaten. It had been hard enough discovering Tom raw and bloody in his cell; I didn’t think I could stand to see Garth that way.
“Your hand, my lady.” A groom helped me from the saddle and led my horse toward the stables along with Poppy’s. Poppy struggled to keep Tupkin hidden in her cloak.
A sallow-skinned lord stepped out with his guards, wearing velvet robes with golden neck chain and golden belt. His feet were clad in red pointed shoes curled up at the toes. Lord Sackmoore, I thought. It must be. He was a man of fashion sure, but his sunken cheeks and puffy eyes told me he knew little sleep.
A young noblewoman with protruding teeth had stepped out with him. Also clad in velvet, she wore a gown of pale blue that showed her ample bosom. The lady sucked her lower lip as she studied us. I remembered Onadon’s remark about Lord Sackmoore’s bucktoothed daughter, Lady Lizbeth.
Onadon, or Lord McLaughlin, as he’d be called here, introduced our party. Sackmoore fixed his eyes on the ornate treasure chest in his arms—lavish gifts for Prince Arden from the Irish king. Sackmoore bid his attendant reach for it, but my father held firm. “I was told to deliver it to no one but the prince himself, my lord.” His voice was quiet, but stern, looking the king’s regent squarely in the face.
Lord Sackmoore backed off and turned his attention to the Irish princesses. If he was annoyed by my pretty face and comely figure, he was truly stunned by Poppy. Even with a smudged cheek and hair tangled from our windy ride, she was as beautiful as ever. The lord steeled his face, recovering his composure, but not before I saw his quick marriage plans for his daughter undone. He would have some work to do now the competition had arrived. Elixis and Onadon looked gratified.
A trumpet blared above. Prince Arden stepped out onto his high balcony and hailed us down below. This was the first time I’d seen our soon-to-be king. I was struck by his strong frame, his dark skin, which came from his great-grandmother, who was herself a woman from the holy land, and his broad smile as he took us in: a handsome prince indeed. I noticed Poppy thought so too. A moment later she eyed Jyro, and blushed.
The prince’s finely embroidered coat still missed a left sleeve. The tailor who’d come out on the balcony with him was measuring his arm. The prince ducked back inside a moment later.
Lord Sackmoore bid us come inside. “An awkward time for you to visit,” Sackmoore complained to my father. “With just three days left to prepare for the coronation. The palace is in an uproar.”
I saw at once what he meant. Servants scurried past us in the halls. In each adjoining room, I saw them sweeping, scrubbing floors, or laying down fresh rushes. In the Great Hall, a stout man perched on a high ladder replaced the candles in the eno
rmous chandelier. I’d heard this chandelier held a hundred candles. I believed it now. The man whistled through his teeth as he dropped the spent candles to the floor, stubs the blacksmith would have made us burn. There was no such thriftiness here.
Lord Sackmoore did not show us the busy kitchens, two inside and one out, he said, where thirty cooks were baking, roasting, mixing, and boiling for the coronation feast. We passed an alcove where I had to stop, though the party in front continued on ahead.
Two castle guards stood on either side of a glass case. No jewels on display here, but what a jewel Princess Rosalind’s book was to me. Here was the very one written on dragon pip scales while she was on Dragon’s Keep. By clever device, one could turn a page without touching the book. A bellows embedded in the glass case allowed the reader to pump air into the enclosure, blowing a page over. Ah, I’d read, and if allowed, I’d pump. The guards stood stock-still. I scanned the page, read:
Mother knifed Tess.
I swallowed, seeing my name, but this was a Tess from long ago. I went on reading. She scrawled witchery in blood across her hut, and let the angry crowd rush to Morgesh Mountain to burn Demetra for the crime. Marn, Tess, Demetra. Three deaths I knew of to keep my claw secret, were there more I knew nothing of? Was it only a blizzard killed the midwife on my birthing day?
Before I could read more, Morralyn marched back and hauled me away. I’d grown up beaten by the blacksmith, hating the man I thought was my father. But this island queen had a mother who was a murderess. How had Rosalind borne it?
Down more halls, past more castle uproar. The noisy palace annoyed me. I’d only just come in and already wanted out. The windows on this level were but arrow slits made for defense, not to gaze out. Saints. How could the Pendragon family live with the constant, noisy bustle? If forced to stay here, I’d straightaway adopt the highest tower overlooking the ocean and let the crowd swarm far below.
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