In the Time of Dragon Moon

by Janet Lee Carey

  I tasted the words callous bastard, liking the sound. The callous bastard had shed the blood of my people, the callous bastard whipped me and my father, the callous bastard slobbered on my neck, reached up the front of my dress.

  Jackrun was on the move again, this time walking to the shore. Water hissed up to our feet, touched his boots and my bare toes. I pointed across the sea at the dragon flying under the stars, black as a torn piece of night. It might be Jackrun’s dragon, Babak, or Lord Kahlil. Too far away to tell. Dragons combine earth, wind, and fire in their bodies. They have a power like the sun. Jackrun had this same life force in him.

  “You are the only one who can do what they do with fire.”

  Jackrun’s mouth tightened. He hooked his thumb around the jeweled dagger at his belt.

  “You don’t understand. It’s dangerous. I’m dangerous.”

  “You didn’t harm Prince Desmond tonight,” I said. “You ran outside before you burned him.”

  “He deserved to burn.” His body was rigid. He glared down at me. I kept his gaze.

  “Yes. He does.” Had I spoken the words out loud? For a moment his fire had released me.

  “Uma Quarteney.” Jackrun’s gaze softened. Then he crouched to fill his hands with seawater and rinse his face. Water ran down his cheeks and chin, his wrists and arm scales. He looked calmer when he stood again. “You remind me of someone,” he said. “Someone I lost years ago.”

  I waited for him to explain, taking in his thoughtful mouth, the weight of sorrow around it. But he never told me who he was thinking of. We circled the beach, gathering firewood. Jackrun broke a longer branch across his knee with a loud crack.

  “You still haven’t given me an answer, Uma.”

  I paused, cradling my driftwood. Time in the water had made the wood’s surface smooth as skin. What would Jackrun’s scales feel like? Thick and leathery? Rough as bark? “I’ll keep what I saw to myself if you will do something for me.”

  He gave a wary sigh as he faced me. “Of course there is a price. What is it?”

  “I need the key to my tower room. The servant would not let me have it.”

  Jackrun’s shoulders eased. He stepped closer, stretching his hand over mine a moment like a hovering bird, then took my branches and added them to his stack to carry for me.

  “Key it is,” he said.

  Chapter Eight

  Pendragon Summer Castle, Dragon’s Keep

  Egret Moon

  August 1210

  JACKRUN’S MOTHER, THE duchess Tess Pendragon, waylaid us in the castle hall, parting us as soon as we came in as a tiny island parts a river. She asked Jackrun to step into the family presence chamber with her and called a servant to carry my firewood upstairs. As soon as the gangly boy stacked the wood and left the tower, I shoved the wardrobe in front of the door—one way to keep Prince Desmond out until I had the key—then opened the windows and cleaned the room by torchlight, chasing dust and shadows until I sat alone exhausted on the bed.

  The ropes below the straw mattress creaked under my weight. I knew I should rise, set out the four sacred elements, offer myself to Creator, and pray to the Holy Ones. Father would have done that, grateful to arrive safely on a new island without accident or injury. But I was too tired. I felt a strange rocking motion in my body as if I were still aboard the ship. I decided to rest a little and wait for Jackrun and the key.

  Jackrun came to me in my dreams. Not breathing fire or riding his dragon. He had filled a bowl with seawater. I looked inside and saw a bright orange starfish. In the dream I asked how he’d found the power to pull a star down from the sky and he laughed.

  Thunderous pounding outside the tower door woke me hours later with a start. I raced across the room thinking it was Jackrun. Lady Olivia’s muffled voiced called, “Uma! For God’s sake, open up!”

  The heavy wardrobe scraped against the floor as I pushed it aside. Lady Olivia shivered in her long robe at the top of the stairs. “The queen!” she said. “She is in a bad way. Crying in her bed. Shouting at people who are not there.”

  “I’ll mix the calming cure.”

  “No time. Bring what you need and make it in her bedchamber. Come on!”

  I unlocked the trunk. Jackrun hadn’t come with the room key. I might miss him if I left, but I couldn’t think of that now. I gathered the medicines, locked the trunk, and followed Lady Olivia to the queen’s bedchamber.

  The red curtains had been drawn back on Her Majesty’s bed. She was writhing as we entered; twisting the sheets and covers into thick cloth snakes. “Let me go, you filthy witches,” she was crying. “Untie me!”

  Lady Olivia approached the bed. “She relives the night the witches tormented her and put out her eye when she was a girl. I tried to wake her, but it is not a dream. It is more like some fit. Your Majesty,” she said, sitting by her, “your physician is here.”

  “My eye!” she screamed, pushing Lady Olivia away. “Get away from me! Please don’t put out my eye!” Her scream sent ice up my spine. Lady Olivia forced a hand over Queen Adela’s mouth. However late it was, someone was bound to hear us if we couldn’t quiet her. I shook as I mixed the sleeping remedy and the bapeeta in honey. Mother had told me the story of how the queen lost her eye on All Hallows’ Eve, but it was one thing to know a tale, another thing to be drawn into the agony as if it were happening here and now, to hear the pitiful, frightened cries of the victim as she relived it.

  On the bed, Lady Olivia was doing her best to muffle the screams. “Ouch,” she cried, cradling her hand. “She bit me!”

  Someone pounded on the door. “Your Majesty? Are you all right?” Lady Olivia flew to answer the knock as I spooned the honeyed cure into the queen’s mouth.

  “No,” the queen said, tears wetting the side of her face below her living eye. Still she swallowed the mixture.

  “A nightmare,” Lady Olivia was saying to the person on the far side of the door. “Her physician is attending her. We will call you if we need any assistance.”

  Queen Adela breathed fast as a frightened bird, but she took a second spoonful. I’d made sure to add extra honey to entice her. “Now we wait,” I said.

  Lady Olivia sat again and began a lullaby my mother used to sing to me. For a brief moment I thought I smelled the scent of my mother’s hair.

  I stepped back, overcome, as I watched this woman’s way of healing, a way to calm fears, ease pain with song. This was not Father’s way, and so not mine. Shaken by the childhood feelings the song unleashed, I told myself to do what the Adan would do and went about recapping the honey, cleaning the medicinal spoon as I waited for the cure to take effect.

  The queen rested her head on her companion’s shoulder, her face ashen under her wildly tangled hair. The room began to quiet. Ona loneaih, I thought in Euit, be you well. I heard Her Majesty whimper as a young child would do after a bout of crying. Then she let out a sudden, violent snort and pushed Lady Olivia off the bed onto the floor.

  I jumped back as Queen Adela leaped onto her feet with tremendous energy that seemed almost inspired.

  “You can’t have her,” she shouted to the ceiling.“She’s mine!”

  “What has happened?” asked Lady Olivia, stepping back, afraid now to come near her.

  “Another memory,” I guessed. “The medicine hasn’t taken hold yet.”

  The queen screamed, “Get away from my witch pyre, dragon!” She raised her leg as if mounting a horse, and rode off in her mind, her body jiggling up and down in an imagined gallop. “Bring back that witch. Witches have to burn! Tanya has to burn! Riders, go after that thief of a dragon and bring the witch back to me!”

  The queen’s body tottered and I was afraid she would fall. “Help me with her,” I said.

  Lady Olivia moaned and crumpled to the queen’s bed, gathering the blankets to herself and hiding her face in them. I’d
never seen her so affected by the queen’s distress.

  “Your Majesty,” I said, speaking softly. “This is only a dream.” My eyes were drawn to a painting on the bedside wall of a dragon breathing fire as he flew over the trees. If this painting brought on Her Majesty’s current nightmare . . . I took it down and turned it to face the wall.

  “Bring Tanya back, you thief!” the queen cried.

  I inched up to her right side, put my arms about her, and held her. Until at last her body quieted to a series of trembles so strong I felt the quaking in my own.

  She cried a little. “Where is—?” She shuddered, turning her head to me. “I am so tired, Uma,” she whispered.

  She gripped my double-belted waist as I led her back toward her bed.

  Lady Olivia still hugged the blankets, shaking. It took some coaxing on my part to get her to release them. “I am sorry, Uma,” she said, her breath catching as we tucked Her Majesty in. “I . . .” She looked like a stunned woman pulled out of the wreckage.

  “It’s all right. You were overcome.” I felt the same, but I did not say so. The Adan was never shaken. He was reserved, proud. The queen relied on me to treat her as competently as my father would. It unnerved me to be so undone.

  “I’m thirsty,” the queen said, sitting up. “What are you doing here, Uma?” she asked as Lady Olivia fetched her cup.

  “You were having trouble sleeping, Your Majesty.”

  “I see,” she said, yawning. “Well, I can sleep now.” She drank to the dregs and lay down again, her dark hair spreading out like wet seaweed around her head.

  We watched her eyes close, her face serene now in the candlelight.

  Lady Olivia sighed and glanced up. “It is over, I think. Thank you, Uma.”

  “We both worked together.”

  She shook her head. “It was you and your potent medicine put her back to sleep,” she whispered.

  “My father’s medicine.”

  “You must learn to take a compliment, Uma. He is not here. You are the one who serves Her Majesty now.”

  And I’m the one she will burn if I fail, I thought, looking down at the queen. The queen’s eyelids fluttered, pale as moths. I remembered Father’s warning: If we both die here, who will free our tribe? Already the Adan was in the grave. Did I have the skills to give Her Highness the child she wanted? What if the elders back home were right? What if a woman did not have the ability to become a true healer? I didn’t move, sat poised as rock hoping Lady Olivia could not read my fear as I broke into a cold sweat.

  Chapter Nine

  Pendragon Summer Castle, Dragon’s Keep

  Egret Moon

  August 1210

  THE QUEEN WAS in the walled garden the next morning, playing ball with a little curly dark-haired boy of two or three, and her lapdog, Pippin. I came up to Lady Olivia as the boy raced after the red ball, squealing, “Mine!” Pippin reached it first and caught it in his mouth, his tail wagging furiously.

  “She slept through the night,” Lady Olivia said, with her usual untouchable tone. The woman who had buried her face in the blankets like a terrified vole was gone. Her silks shone, her face was powdered, her skin scented with hyacinth perfume. I decided I liked the woman I’d met last night who was less proper, more human. The woman who had sung a lullaby, cried.

  “There is something I must speak with you about,” she said sternly. We both ducked as the tossed ball flew over us and splashed in the fountain at our backs.

  “Retrieve it, Lady O.,” said the queen, lifting the hem of her elegant gown as she crossed the lawn. Lady Olivia threw me a look that asked, Why should a person of my station have to fetch it? before she curtsied in resignation, rolled up a lacy sleeve, and turned for the fountain.

  I offered Queen Adela her tonic while we waited on the gravel path. It was less than an hour after breakfast, a good time to drink it. The little boy on the lawn didn’t seem to need the ball. He ran in circles now, romping on the grass with Pippin.

  “He is a delight,” the queen said. “So like Desmond at that age. I’d almost forgotten.” She swallowed the brew and licked her lips. I thanked the Holy Ones for my ample supply of honey that made the potion tasty. “I will reward you if you help me have another child,” she said with sudden brightness. “This,” she added, lifting the emerald necklace from her throat. “This will be yours if you succeed.”

  I blinked at the expensive jewels. “Thank you, Your Majesty, but . . .” I paused. “What I truly want—”

  Her eyes flared. “What you want? Don’t tell me you do not appreciate my gift!”

  I curtsied, afraid. “I like it very much, Your Majesty.” The smile I tried on did not quite fit. My cheeks felt hard. “It is beautiful. Much too good a gift for me. You are exceedingly generous. But if you wish to give me anything, more than any jewel, any gift, all I really want is to go home to a free people.”

  “Why?”

  “Wh . . . why?” By the Holy Ones, how could she ask that? “When the soldiers leave my village, we can all live without fear.” There. I’d said it. The naked confession made me shiver.

  “Your skills are wasted there, Uma. You could have so much more. You could practice medicine anywhere you like. This necklace would buy you a pretty house and good land with a few servants to tend it.”

  “My home is in Devil’s Boot, Your Majesty,” I said, though saying it didn’t make it true. Would I be any more welcome there now than I was when I left?

  Lady Olivia returned with the dripping ball. The queen raised a brow at it until Lady Olivia sighed and used her skirts to dry it off. Satisfied, Her Majesty took it out to the boy and dog again.

  Lady Olivia peered at me. “Are you all right, Uma?”

  “Fine, my lady.”

  She shook water droplets from her hand and rolled her sleeve back down. “What did she say to you?”

  “I talked of home,” I admitted.

  “You miss your tribe,” she said.

  “I’m worried about what the king’s troops might do to them while I’m away.”

  We watched the boy and frisky dog run into the bushes after the ball. Jackrun’s sister, Tabitha, came into the walled garden, the sun catching gold-brown gleams in her hair. Her fey blood from her mother’s side showed in her graceful steps as she passed the fountain. “Is Kip out here?”

  Lady Olivia nodded toward the hedge. “Your little brother has been playing catch with the queen.” The hiding boy giggled in the bushes. More laughter and squealing erupted as Tabitha moved toward the hedgerow. Queen Adela joined her. “Where is Kip?” she called, the game of catch turning into hide-and-seek.

  “Your talk of home brings up the matter we need to discuss,” Lady Olivia said under her breath. “It is a matter of discretion between the sexes.”

  I felt my spine go taut as a tugged rope.

  “I spoke with Sir Geoffrey at breakfast this morning. He told me about the incident between you and Prince Desmond in the ship’s galley.”

  My jaw dropped before I said, “Incident?”

  “He was right to come to me with his concern. It is Sir Geoffrey’s job to keep an eye on Prince Desmond, and mine to watch out for you.”

  Her explanation did no good. I felt betrayed. I’d thought of Sir Geoffrey as a friend, or at the very least as someone who wished me well. I’d made it clear I hadn’t wanted Prince Desmond’s attention.

  “Kip? Where’s Kip?” Tabitha called in a singsong voice, peering through the bushes.

  “I do not know what your customs are regarding unwed men and women back home in Devil’s Boot,” she continued in a half whisper. “We’ve talked before about courtly manners. I thought you understood our strict rules of decorum. I was shocked when Sir Geoffrey told me—”

  “I did not approach the prince, my lady.”

  “You must have done somethin
g to attract him.” Her shrill voice had risen above a whisper.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what Sir Geoffrey told you, but—”

  “He told me very little. He is a man of discretion.” She had a bitter look, as if she’d eaten hax root. I knew she expected her daughter, Bianca, to marry the prince someday. I’d seen Bianca and Prince Desmond together often my first months at court, and I’d heard the rumors flying. His Highness made it clear he was interested in the prettiest girl among the eligible maids. He’d given her one of the finest horses in the king’s stable. I hoped Lady Olivia didn’t think I was trying to lure him away from her daughter. If anything, I felt sorry for Bianca.

  “Please believe me, my lady. I did not seek his attention.” I scraped my shoes in the gravel like an impatient mare wanting to run.

  “Listen closely, Uma. You will keep your distance from now on. He is royalty. He is the Pendragon heir. You are a queen’s servant.” Her face was growing redder. “You should do nothing more than curtsy when he passes you in the hall. I’ve taught you how to behave in court. I expect you to comply with my instructions. Your life depends on your actions both medical and moral in these next few months.”

  “Of course I know that! My lady,” I added in a brutal whisper.

  “Good,” she snapped.

  A child’s high-pitched scream came from the hedgerow. Kip ran out of the greenery, crying, “Bee! Bee stinged me!” Pippin followed, barking at his heels.

  Kip’s screams turned to tears as we ran to him. I joined Tabitha, who was on her knees.

  “Where did it sting you, honey?” she asked.

  “My . . . my neck.”

  The tiny stinger protruded just below his ear. “Let me,” I said to Tabitha over Kip’s sobs. Pinching the stinger between my nails, I carefully pulled it out.