In the Time of Dragon Moon

by Janet Lee Carey

  “I saw him after the palace guards tortured him. He’d confessed on the rack just to make the pain stop, but he didn’t do it, I’m sure.”

  “If Prince Desmond knew Sir Geoffrey killed the lute player, that would be a compelling motive for Sir Geoffrey to—”

  “Wait. Now you’re accusing Sir Geoffrey of not just one murder, but two.”

  “I’m looking for a strong motive, Uma, otherwise . . .” He paused, glancing at some twisted roots.

  “Otherwise what?”

  A silence had fallen on him. I thought of Sir Geoffrey, weighing the broad-shouldered knight who’d rescued Father and me from starvation against the one who’d informed on me later, telling Lady Olivia he’d caught the prince embracing me in the ship’s galley. Then there was the man I saw in the cave, the man who’d threatened me with his knife; he’d kept his blade close even after he knew who I was, as if . . . as if, what? As if he was more than ready to kill me if he thought I’d give him away?

  My eyes fell on Jackrun’s dagger. I shivered, remembering Sir Geoffrey’s feral look. The man was trained to survive. Prince Desmond knew something vile enough to get the man hanged. Had he killed to keep him silent?

  “There is something you should know. I saw Sir Geoffrey once after he ran off.”

  Jackrun stepped in front of me. “You found him? Where? How?”

  “I don’t know how to explain. I had a dream. I packed food and medicines, and when I went to the cave the dream had shown me, he was hiding there.”

  “You are not only a healer; you are a seer, Uma Quarteney.” I heard the awe in his voice.

  “I am not a seer. It felt like”—I rubbed my damp hand on my skirts —“like Sir Geoffrey drew me there himself.”

  “You mean by some power?” Jackrun asked, his expression changing. “Yes . . .” He reached up and plucked a leaf. “That’s what I’ve been afraid of. There’s another reason Sir Geoffrey may have killed my cousin, a more radical one—something to do with me.” He took a long breath and heaved it out. “I’d rather not believe that, but if the man had the power to draw you to him . . .” He stared at the elm leaf veined with autumn’s gold and green.

  “What?”

  His head was still bent. Dark hair covered his forehead and eyes. “He would have needed some kind of magical power to bring you to him when he needed your medicine, Uma, powers like the fairy folk have.” He looked up, his face wary now as a hunted creature caught outside its lair. “I think Sir Geoffrey was fey. He could have killed my cousin acting under orders.”

  “Fey? Why would the fey want to kill Desmond? Who would give him such orders anyway?”

  “My grandfather Onadon, for one. I think he wanted Desmond out of the way so I would inherit the crown. If the fairies devised a way to remove Prince Desmond, it would put me in line for the throne.”

  He tore the elm leaf in his hand down the middle, renting the heart-shaped leaf in two.

  We’d talked before about the fairies’ hopes for Jackrun, Son of the Prophecy. I tried to imagine Sir Geoffrey involved in such a plot. “But Sir Geoffrey did not even look fey.”

  “He could have used glamour magic to guise himself. Even the broken nose could have been a guise.”

  “The king trusted him enough to give him the responsibility of keeping an eye on Prince Desmond,” I argued.

  “Or the clever Sir Geoffrey convinced the king to entrust him with that job, waiting for his moment to set up a murder and make it look like an accident.”

  I took off, walking right then left in the pathless glade, the trees crowding in on me.

  “Uma?” Jackrun called. I ran.

  Jackrun caught up with me at the edge of the knoll where tree roots met the grass in the graveyard. He stopped and waited, breathing hard behind me.

  A watery sun came out above. “I don’t want to talk about murder anymore.”

  “We have to,” Jackrun said. “I need to.”

  I turned and saw him framed by woven branches. Copper leaves fluttered in the breeze behind his back. “How long have you been thinking this way without telling me?”

  “We’ve both been busy since we arrived here. Tell me you weren’t.”

  “I was, but—”

  Jackrun stepped closer. “I’m not here to convince you. Only we must talk together and share what we know.”

  I swallowed; his closeness drove argument from my mind. I blinked at his strong, resolute face in the half-light of the autumn sun and tried to regain my footing. “I don’t think Sir Geoffrey could have killed the lute player. Whatever sins Prince Desmond knew about, whatever offenses the knight committed, I don’t think it was that.”

  “So there could be more than one murderer about,” Jackrun said.

  “Or the same murderer?”

  “How? There wasn’t anyone else up there with us that day.”

  “I know, but . . .” I was trying to remember something. What was it?

  “I still don’t want to believe it was murder,” I said.

  “I knew you would argue with me about it. I wanted you to. Part of me still hopes it isn’t true, because if the fey committed the murder, then it was done for me, because of me.”

  A gust blew up the hill; he fingered his sword hilt, looking left and right as if preparing for action, but there was just the two of us using sharp words that hurt in bloodless ways. “I’ve wondered about Lady Olivia.”

  “What?” I asked, startled. “Why ask about her?”

  “I noticed her speaking with Sir Geoffrey a lot. She and Sir Geoffrey both seemed very interested in my cousin. She kept a close eye on him.”

  “Lady Olivia had every reason to keep the prince safe,” I said. “She was hoping her daughter, Bianca, would marry the prince and become the next Pendragon queen.”

  “Oh,” Jackrun said, raising a brow. His face changed. “Bianca. I’ve noticed her.”

  “You could hardly have missed her.”

  “That’s true,” he agreed.

  I clamped my jaw a moment. Bianca and the prince had seemed happy together. She was giddy the day he’d generously given her one of the loveliest chestnut mares in the king’s stable. She wept when she learned he was dead and had come to me often, begging for evicta to ease her headaches.

  “So we are back to where we began,” Jackrun said.

  I thought of Sir Geoffrey’s words on the cliff. “I can see how Sir Geoffrey could have insulted Desmond’s pride so he would want to jump to prove himself. Still, we all agreed it was the wind that pushed him off the cliff in the end.”

  Jackrun was silent a moment. “That wind was the thing that got me thinking of murder to begin with,” he said. “Do you remember how it felt? The sudden power of it? The smell of it?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. “The wind smelled different—not a sweet summery scent of August, but a thick smell, like pungent rotting leaves. And it blew in so powerfully, I called out a warning.”

  “My cousin was on the edge. A blast of wind was all that was needed to push him off, and the fey have power to stir the wind.”

  “But,” I said, beginning to believe. “Sir Geoffrey was standing there with us. We would have noticed him doing it, wouldn’t we?”

  “He stood behind us,” Jackrun reminded.

  I fingered my embroidered waist pouch. “Can you . . . stir the wind?”

  He tipped his head to the side and closed his eyes. Fingers spread, he moved his raised hand to and fro. Nothing happened at first. I felt a small dip of disappointment, then the leaves began to speak in whispers, a soft, cool breath crossed my skin. It was not human breath. No ordinary wind either, a green scent of living magic on it.

  Elm leaves trembled, some flew off the branches and twirled down to my feet. As more spun down, Jackrun plucked a coppery leaf from the air, put it in my hand, and curled my f
ingers around it. He kept the other hand moving, wind swirled around me, finding its way under the eaves of my clothes, the walls of my skin until it hushed and the last of the green and golden leaves shuddered at my feet.

  “I cannot make more than a small breeze like that,” Jackrun said. “Tabby can stir up a gale,” he added.

  “And she hated him.”

  “What do you mean by that? Tabby would never—”

  “I didn’t mean to imply she’d stirred up the fey wind that day. Only you said she had the power to stir the wind. I’m sure she would rather see you, her brother, on the throne than her cousin who insulted her.”

  “Of course he insulted her! He insulted everyone. Tabitha might have girlish dreams, wrong ones, but she would never commit murder and neither would Griff. No matter how much fey power they have, no matter how much they care for me.”

  “Yes, of course, but this whole idea of murder . . .” I took a breath and looked out at the graveyard. “You told me you knew I would argue with you about it. I have questions now and you have to let me ask them.”

  “This was my free hour before I fight in the weapons yard. I’m expected back now. I can’t stay much longer.”

  “Wait. You said your grandfather might have ordered Prince Desmond killed so you would inherit the throne, but that won’t happen if Queen Adela has another child.”

  He studied my face a moment. “Yes, that would end their plans.”

  My mouth went dry. “Do you think the queen might be in danger?”

  “They wouldn’t risk killing her, Uma. Then my uncle could remarry a younger woman and sire an heir through her. I think she is safe for now. But you should watch out for yourself. Trust no one in the castle.”

  The elm leaves stirred again. We drew back, looking up, then he whipped his head around, hand on his hilt before saying in a hushed whisper, “I’ll come to you again when it’s safe to talk.”

  “I will want to argue more.”

  “I’m counting on that.” Jackrun turned to go.

  “Wait, take this.” I pulled the small hand-sewn pouch I’d made the night before from the purse at my waist and held it out to him by its long leather straps.

  “What is it?”

  “I sewed wolfsbane inside. Wear it around your neck.”

  Jackrun slipped it on. “I used to carry wolfsbane back home.” He pressed the calfskin pouch to his nose, breathing in the pungent scent.

  “This bane is fresh,” I said. “But it’s not much against the feral packs in Wolf Moon. I have seen you ride out alone sometimes, you—”

  “You watched me?” he asked, lowering the pouch, revealing a crooked smile. “From what window?”

  “I . . . The stables are—”

  “Don’t worry.” He reached up and brushed his thumb slowly across my lower lip in one smooth movement like a golden pour of honey. I held very still, hoping that if I did not move, said nothing, he would trace his thumb along my lip again. He gave me an intense look that said Take care, and other things I hoped to read but could not because it was not English or Euit or any language I yet knew.

  He stepped through the leaf pile he’d made with his fey wind, and passed the moss-winged angel as he headed down the hill.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Pendragon Castle, Wilde Island

  Wolf Moon

  September 1210

  I DIDN’T SLEEP well that night, picturing Desmond’s fall again and again. The word murder whispered across my flesh, making the hairs along my arms stand up.

  Part of me wanted to argue with Jackrun further. Another part had remembered something else in the dark, wakeful night.

  I dressed quickly, mixed the queen’s medicines so her brew was already cooling before she returned from morning mass. But my hurry made no difference at all. Jackrun had ridden out at dawn to visit a friend of his father’s on his lands down south, and would not be back until the morrow.

  Annoyed at his disappearance, I left the queen in Lady Olivia’s care once my morning duties were done, and went again to Father’s grave. A crisp clear day. Perhaps Vazan would come? She hadn’t promised to meet me on the hill with the bapeeta leaves. She’d not even agreed to look for them before she’d winged off in a huff the other day; still, I paced the frosty ground below Father’s grave, grumbling to myself, raw with lack of sleep.

  After a few hours, I left the graveyard, hands empty, stomach empty.

  The smell of fresh-baked bread drew me to the kitchen. Cook was pulling loaves from the brick oven on long paddles and setting them on the table. I’d not tasted bread before I’d come north, but I knew how much my mother loved it. She’d lived alone in town with her father the ironmonger. As a girl she’d cradled fresh loaves in her arms, racing home from the baker’s shop to present them to her father warm. I thought of her as I sat on the long bench to take a meal with the kitchen staff, and buttered a steaming slice. My mother had had nowhere to go when her father died until the midwife took her in and trained her.

  I ate here in the kitchen when I wasn’t too rushed and had to take the meal to my room. The hardworking staff was friendly in a rough way that I admired. Today I longed to warm myself with soup, fill my emptiness with Cook’s good bread, lose my worries a moment listening to stories. The raucous tales exchanged in Cook’s kitchen were nothing like the ones I’d heard back home when the people encircled the fire. Still, they brought to mind the happy hours when Mother, Father, and I joined the tribe, listening to stories of Father Sun or Sister Sea, or the lighter animal tales.

  Cook cleared his throat.

  “’Nother wolf attack last night,” he said. “I heard it was a beggar woman this time. Tore out her throat.”

  “You sure it wasn’t cutthroats with knives?” asked the server.

  Cook eyed his row of knives hanging on the far wall. “Knives do a clean-cut job. I heard she was teeth-torn. Besides, she was poor with no coins for thieves ta steal.”

  “Not safe to go anywhere,” said a scullery maid.

  Cook said, “I wouldna step beyond the wolfsbane seal Uma Quarteney here spread to protect us.” For a moment all eyes were on me. I wanted to say the wolf attacks would lessen after the death of Wolf Moon, but these folk wouldn’t know what I was talking about.

  “They won’t cross the drawbridge,” I said.

  • • •

  BACK UPSTAIRS, I buried my head in Father’s Herbal, studying the pages.

  Vazan hadn’t promised to gather the bapeeta, so I might have to seek a vision, like Father did, ask the Holy Ones to show me where it grew and journey there myself. It couldn’t be too far away. Father had gone after it with Vazan and returned the very next morning with a basketful of bright green hand-shaped leaves.

  I felt a small flutter of hope as I set the four elements on the floor, a feather for wind in the north, a candle for fire in the south, a bowl for water in the east, a pouch for earth in the west. I wrapped the beautiful Euit blanket Lady Tess had given me around my shoulders. The Holy Ones visited Adans. I would sit very still as Father used to do, pray, and wait for a vision.

  I lit the candle and closed my eyes. Please, Holy Ones, show me where bapeeta grows, I prayed. If I am an Adan, bless me with a vision today. You know my need. You know my people are in trouble and why I have to please this queen so she will let them go. An hour passed. My back ached. I did not move. Two hours passed. My legs cramped. I did not move. Three hours passed. Silence. Darkness. Emptiness.

  Someone pounded on my door. “Mistress physician,” a young voice called.

  “Yes,” I answered hoarsely. My feet had gone to sleep.

  I hobbled to the door, slid back the iron bolt, opened it a crack.

  “The king summons you.” It was a page. “You’re to come right away.”

  “Is he ill? Should I bring my medicines?”

 
; The boy shrugged. “He didn’t say, mistress physician. Come on.” I pulled the blanket from my shoulders and folded it, deeply disappointed in myself. I’d had no vision. No proof I was an Adan. I might never be more than a well-trained girl who followed her father’s teachings, who used his medicines until his trunk was empty and I had no more to give.

  My feet were no longer putty; they were two pincushions pricked with needles from all sides. I gripped the iron banister, barely able to make my way downstairs behind the pageboy. It didn’t help that he was bolting down two at a time. As sprightly as a fey child, I thought, which made me look at him again and wonder where he was truly taking me. Trust no one, Jackrun had said.

  I sighed, relieved when the boy swept off his hat, bowed, and vanished at the king’s door. Jackrun has me suspecting everyone. The sentries uncrossed their pikes to let me inside King Arden’s privy chamber. He was alone. I curtsied. “Your Majesty, you wanted to see me?” How English I sounded now. How much of my Euit past, of me, had slowly leeched out of my bones in these past months?

  King Arden poked a log in the fire. Flames sent his wavering shadow along the high-backed chairs behind him as if there were two kings in the room, one who faced the flames, and one who backed away from them. “My wife wants me to come to her chamber tonight.” He jabbed the log again, sending up a spray of sparks. “You must know how . . . difficult it is with her.”

  I chose my words carefully. “Sire, she has been greatly troubled since we returned from Dragon’s Keep, she—”

  The king held up his hand to silence me. “How is she doing with your fertility cure?”

  My heart thumped. “She has been taking it each day, Your Majesty. She continues to hope.” They’d come together more than once on Dragon’s Keep before their son died. She was a few days late, but women her age could be irregular. I didn’t dare mention the lateness to His Majesty until I was more certain of what it meant.

  “You have to help me.” He kept his eyes on the fire. “My own physician is an imbecile in these matters. I am forced to turn to you.”

  “Sire, are you ill?”