Sativa waited until their voices had died away before she turned to fasten her saddlebags and check that she'd saddled her horse correctly. She rarely had to do it without the help of a groom, but needs must. Finally, she summoned the courage to leave the stables, leading Salt.
There was no one in sight as she swung onto the mare's back, but movement caught her eye and she stilled.
A door swung open, and a lady stepped out. A lady in a shimmery silk gown, with embroidery that drank the light of the torches in the courtyard, glowing gold as if by magic. It was Sativa's gown, but it was Melitta's now.
A man bowed low before her. The shoemaker. "My lady," he said throatily.
Sativa's breath caught in her throat. No man had ever spoken to her with such emotion in his voice. If Reidar loved her half that much, she would be a fool to delay. She wished the shoemaker and his lady well, but she could not stay to see more.
Sativa spurred her horse into a trot, not daring to look back as she departed into the welcome darkness.
NINE
"Even if your girl hasn't been eaten by the dragon, the beast will take her from you all the same," Regina announced as she swept into Reidar's solar.
Reidar set down the report he'd been trying to read. "Explain yourself, Mother," he said, trying not to grit his teeth. He failed, naturally.
"Word has reached the city that he has increased the reward. Whoever slays the pesky dragon shall have half the kingdom and be named the highest lord in the land." Regina spread her hands wide. "Well, we all know what that means."
Reidar sighed. "No, I do not. Speak plainly."
Regina gave an exaggerated sigh, as if to demonstrate she'd been doing it for far longer than her son, and was far more skilled, too. "Half the kingdom is the usual dowry that comes with a princess's hand in marriage. If your girl lives, she's the other part of the prize."
"King Boreslas would not do something so dishonourable as to break the betrothal without offering me some sort of recompense. He would not offer my bride as a prize without consulting me." Reidar picked up his scroll and pretended to concentrate on it.
"Perhaps the letter has gotten lost. There are plenty of pirates on the sea between here and Kasmirus, my son. Six ships have not arrived in port, and there was no storm to delay them." Regina nodded in satisfaction, as though she was the siren who had lured these ships to their doom.
Reidar almost laughed at the image of his mother, sitting on a rock without her clothes, singing for ships full of common sailors.
"When our neighbours stop raiding our borders, and you stop wasting my time with tavern gossip, perhaps I shall have time to wipe out the pirates," Reidar snapped. "Perhaps you should take a ship out and fight the pirates yourself. I'm sure they would find you a formidable enemy." He didn't hide his fierce grin.
"You're as insolent as your father was," Regina snapped back.
Now Reidar truly did laugh. "It must be something that comes with kingship, for you've never told me that before. Now, leave me alone, Mother."
Regina marched out the door.
Insolent. Well, she'd called him worse. Only now did he let the rest of her words sink in, and Reidar began to worry.
Desperate times called for things no man would normally do. Breaking a betrothal was a small thing, when your whole kingdom was beset by a dragon as dangerous as Boreslas' one was reputed to be. A king who would offer half his kingdom to the slayer of such a fearsome beast was a desperate man indeed. Perhaps Reidar should offer Boreslas some of his own best warriors to assist him. He had lost many men fighting the dragon, and it was the mark of a good ally to help when needed. Perhaps when the winter snows set in, and his marauding neighbours decided to stay home, he would venture across the water with a band of warriors. He could defeat the dragon and claim his bride, who would look on him as her hero, for he would have saved her father's kingdom.
He laughed softly at himself. Why, he'd grown quite sentimental for a moment there. Almost as though he was in love with Princess Sativa, the woman he hadn't seen since she was a child. Was she comely, now, with the kind of curves a man wanted? Would she still have her childish fire, refined to something more queenly? Would she have turned from rebellious daughter to obedient wife? Somehow, Reidar doubted it. Oh, she might be beautiful enough to put the sun and moon to shame, and she was born to be a queen, but if she was to rule here she would need every spark of stubbornness she'd possessed as a child, stoked up to a roaring blaze. The women of Viken were as fierce as their men, and Sativa would lead by example as their queen.
Or he would have to give in to his mother's increasingly strident demands that he marry a Viken girl. And in choosing one, he would offend the families of all the girls he'd overlooked.
Not for the first time, he prayed that his envoy would bring his bride safely to him soon. Unharmed, uneaten, unmarried.
Then he returned to the report in his hands, because as long as a monarch lives, his job never ends.
TEN
Sativa watched the sailors loading up the ship, wincing as the captain bawled orders, before she summoned the courage to address the man.
"I seek passage to the sea, and onward to Viken," she announced.
The captain grunted, then turned to face her.
Sativa was tempted to turn away from his scrutiny, but what was this man to cow her? She stood firm and jingled her purse. "I can pay."
"We already have a passenger," he said. "What's your name, girl?"
Girl. Sativa longed to tell him who she was, but she wouldn't get far if she did. She glanced down at her borrowed clothes, then jerked her chin up. "Lady Melitta. I helped Lord George slay the dragon."
The captain's eyes widened. "If you don't mind sharing, mayhap we do have space. I'm Captain Ziemowit. You can call me Ziemo, my lady." He executed a stiff bow.
Praying that she wouldn't be called to slay anything, Sativa followed him aboard. At the back of the boat was a wooden cabin, not much larger than Salt's stall. Sativa had to duck her head to go inside.
"What is it, Captain?" a fretful female voice asked. "Will no one let me mourn in peace?"
"We have another passenger. An important lady. She avenged your husband, she did, and all those others the dragon took." Captain Ziemo cast Sativa an adoring look. "I watched the battle from this very deck. While the menfolk fell, she stood firm and faced that dragon to its death."
So Sativa's suspicions were true. The squire had been the true hero. Sativa wished she'd thanked the woman, but it was too late now.
"Very well," the woman said, rolling over in her bunk to squint at Sativa. "I have no maid, so the other bunk is free. It is no less comfortable than mine, for I have tried them both. I am Lady Nekane, or I was, before the dragon killed my husband, Sir Hurik. If he had but waited a day..." She sighed heavily. "Now I must go to my sister, for I have no one and nothing else. He spent all our funds on new armour to protect him against the dragon, but it was not enough."
Sativa inclined her head to the widow. "I am sorry for your loss. No doubt, your husband waits for you in heaven now, at peace with all the other lost heroes."
"Yes, yes!" Lady Nekane said, then dissolved into tears.
The captain shook his head and backed out of the cramped cabin. Sativa followed him.
She pulled out her purse. "How much do I owe you?"
Captain Ziemo waved away her coins. "Nothing, my lady. My ship is at your disposal. The least I can do for the dragonslayer. The honour of meeting you is enough. We have a full cargo, and she has paid for the cabin. If you do not mind the weeping. If you do, I could put her ashore and tell her to find passage on another ship."
Abandon a widow in such grief? Never. Sativa shook her head. "Fate has been cruel enough to her. Let her stay."
The captain bowed. "As you wish, my lady. I shall have your things brought aboard. Where are they?"
Sativa hefted the small sack she'd removed from her saddlebags. "This is all I have. I travel light, for I a
m going home." She prayed this would not be a lie. Reidar's castle would be her home. It had to be.
ELEVEN
By morning, Nekane's constant crying had nearly driven Sativa mad. Sativa wanted to scream at the woman that she'd lost all four of her sisters and almost been married off to a stranger because of the dragon. At least her late husband had chosen to fight the beast. But Sativa understood grief better than most, after losing so much more. Grief paid no heed to reason or sense, especially when it was so fresh. Why, Nekane had not been a widow for more than two days.
So Sativa spent most of her time on deck, staying out of the way of the crew as they occasionally adjusted the sails. There was less of this than she expected, for the current carried them seaward.
When the endless fields gave way to forest, Sativa wanted to cheer, because she wasn't sneezing any more. But it grew hot and still between the trees, with no breeze reaching the river, so the sailors rolled the sail up and tied it the beam at the top of the mast, and there they stayed.
Sativa approached the captain. "What are they doing?" she asked.
He shaded his eyes from the sun and looked up. "Catching the breeze, perhaps, or admiring the view. 'Tis cooler up there than on deck. I'd be up there myself, but someone must steer the ship."
There was a cool place on the ship? Sativa tugged her sweat-soaked tunic away from her skin for what felt like the dozenth time. She longed to be in the tower room she'd shared with her sisters, wearing little more than linen shifts in the heat. But there would be no such days again. Her sisters were dead, and she would never go back.
"They'll make space for you if you wish to join them, my lady," Captain Ziemo said, evidently mistaking the look of longing on her face. He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, "Move aside there. The lady is coming up!"
Sativa opened her mouth to protest. Surely it was too high and too dangerous. Her mother would have screamed aloud at the very thought. And her father...
No longer cared. He'd handed her over to the shoemaker.
Lady Melitta would do it, a sly thought whispered through her mind. It was true. Lady Melitta would be up the mast in no time. Why, the woman had defeated a dragon and who knew what else. The captain would think less of her if she did not.
Sativa swallowed and made her way to the mast. It was just a dead tree, she told herself. She'd climbed plenty of trees as a child, until her sisters had tried to copy her and Viola had broken her arm in a bad fall. Then her mother had banned them all from such things. Since her mother died, Sativa had never felt the need to disobey her. Until now.
Someone had cut notches into the mast, which made it a much easier climb. Sativa had to stretch for some of them, for they'd evidently been cut with a man's longer limbs in mind, but she managed until she grasped the sail. That's when she made the mistake of looking down.
Sativa swore.
The men around her laughed. "I didn't know ladies knew words like that," one of them said.
Sativa felt her face grow hot. If she were still alive, her mother would be ashamed of her.
"Don't look down, lady," a boy who could not be more than ten years old told her. "Hook your elbows over the yard and hang onto the shroud." He demonstrated, and so did the others.
They all looked like men being crucified, Sativa thought uneasily, as she dug her fingers into the folded sail. But crucifixion took days to kill a man, and they wouldn't be up here that long, she told herself.
And there was a breeze up there, she was pleased to find, as it caressed her face. She was level with the treetops, and she could see the forest stretching for miles on either side of her.
"Ooh, an eagle! Look!" The man pointed.
Sativa's eyes followed his finger. Sure enough, the enormous bird wheeled above the forest, too intent on its prey below to pay any attention to a ship sailing along the river. Or perhaps the regal bird simply did not care.
She envied the animal its graceful calm as it glided across the sky. She would never be so free. And yet, for the moment, she soared above the river, thanks to the ship that carried her to her destiny.
TWELVE
Sativa spent most of her time atop the mast, where one of the men had nailed a little platform for her feet to rest on. She only descended when she had to – for mealtimes, and at night, when she ventured into the cabin she shared with Nekane so that she might sleep.
Nekane never noticed if she was there or not, and Sativa was hardly the person to comfort a grieving widow. If her plans came to pass, she would soon be happily married to a man she had no intention of losing to a dragon. If there were any such beasts left in the world. Sativa certainly hoped not.
Sativa was aloft when she heard the cry, "Captain! There's a ship in trouble ahead!"
The lookout on her left pointed.
Ahead of them, the river curved around a bend, and it appeared that a ship had taken that bend so fast, it had tipped over. Perhaps that was to be expected in such a strange boat, which looked very little like the broad-beamed river boat Sativa travelled on. The craft lay on its side, looking for all the world like a bowl a giant had sat on, squashing the usually flat base until it folded into a ridge at the bottom, and forcing the sides up like a sort of funnel. If it weren't for the pointy bits at either end, and the mast in the middle, Sativa would be hard pressed to recognise it as a boat at all.
It had ropes tied to it in several places, which stretched across the water and the shore, where dozens of people were trying to right the stricken vessel.
"We'll anchor here for the night," Captain Ziemo shouted, pointing. "Surely that little fishing village has a tavern, eh?"
The men cheered, and Sativa had never seen them work so fast. Even Sam, the cabin boy, seemed excited to be going ashore.
Sativa considered going with them. After all, when would she ever have another opportunity to visit a fishing village, or a tavern?
Almost as though the captain had read her mind, he turned to her. "Lady Melitta," he said gravely, "Would you be kind enough to watch over my vessel while we're gone? We will be under way in the morning, I promise you, as soon as the way is clear once more." He gestured at the stricken ship.
Sativa didn't know what to say. She wasn't sure if Melitta was familiar with ships, but after listening to the shoemaker's stories of her, there was little the woman could not do. Finally, she said, "I...I am not a particularly experienced mariner, Captain Ziemo. But if the ship should sink while you are gone, I will be certain to swim to shore, so that I might point to where your vessel lies."
Ziemo's eyes widened in surprise, before he let out a roar of laughter. "A good jest indeed, my lady. But my Wydra is sound as a drum. The only water in her bilges is the sweat of the men who work aboard her, I promise you."
"Men you promised some shore leave, Captain!" one of the men shouted as they lowered the boats over the side. Within moments, they'd climbed down the side of the ship and into the two boats, stranding Sativa on the ship with Nekane.
Rather than sit in the cabin with the endlessly weeping widow, Sativa climbed to her perch atop the mast and watched the men trying to save their ship.
It had run aground in the shallows, she saw now, and while the ship might look strange to her eyes, it did not appear to be damaged. She expected splintered planks or some part of it to be stove in, but instead it just lay there, like a toy boat some giant child had discarded, waiting for the boy to return for it so that he might make more mischief in the duck pond.
After plenty of pulling and shouting that achieved nothing, the men stretched out on the shore, opened a barrel of something, and started to drink. Someone lit a fire, and it soon had a stewpot suspended above it. Though she could not smell it, Sativa imaged the stew would smell delicious around about now.
She sighed. Their ship's cook had gone ashore with everyone else, so she would have to see to her own dinner for once. Descending to the deck, she helped herself to the ship's provisions. As she ate, she prayed that Reidar kept
a good cook. More often than not, the meals aboard the ship were so bad, they had almost made her wish she was home in her father's hall. Almost, but not quite. So she choked down enough food to keep hunger at bay, and waited for the day when her ordeal would be over.
When the sun started to sink, one of the men on the other side of the river gave a shout. The others came to stand with him, staring at the grounded ship. Unable to hear what they were saying or see what captivated their attention, Sativa ascended the mast once more.
Waves lapped at the ship now, lifting it as all the assembled men had not managed to. Even as Sativa watched, it started to right itself. It was the tide coming in, she realised. She'd heard of such things, but never seen them until now.
She watched in fascination as the men worked with the tide to refloat their ship. Even she felt pride swell in her heart as the masts rose so high in the sky they were silhouetted against the rising moon. The ship was saved!
She felt the thump of booted feet on the deck below. The crew had returned early, perhaps to take advantage of the turning of the tide and the cleared channel. Best to stay aloft and out of their way as they readied the ship to sail, she decided. So Sativa watched the stars come out instead, some as faint as a whisper and others as bright as a trumpet blast in the sky. Movement caught her eye, and she watched in wonderment as a star shot across the sky like an arrow, then vanished.
What had her nurse said about such things? Were they a good omen, or bad? Sativa racked her brain until she found the answer. They were not omens at all, but wishes. The one who sees such a star must make a wish.
Quickly, she squeezed her eyes shut and wished with every spark in her soul that she would reach Reidar safely and soon.
"Please, oh please, leave me be!" a female voice begged.
Sativa glanced down at the deck. "Quiet, you," a rough male voice said, followed by the smack of skin against flesh.
Nekane cried out.
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