The Dragon Queen

by Alice Borchardt

  Necromancy, they called it. Only those with a natural talent excelled in it. She had heard both Merlin and Igrane speak about the procedures involved. They roused a sort of horror in her mind. She was not at all prepared for this calm sadness.

  He had died loving them and they thought he betrayed them. He had to get back and tell them he hadn’t. Then he could go on with a …? She wasn’t sure what.

  Ena remembered there were questions. Merlin had told Igrane questions you shouldn’t ask the dead. Questions they were forbidden to answer. She didn’t know what they were.

  “All right.” She shrugged. She wouldn’t ask him anything.

  She prodded her horse a bit, and it drew up next to his. She studied him narrowly. A pleasant enough young man, if you didn’t pay attention to the fact that you could see through him.

  He glanced around quickly and then registered surprise. Most can’t see us. The words formed themselves in her mind.

  I know, she answered. She didn’t speak aloud either, not wanting to alarm the men riding with Cai. But I can. The tree is down many winters. Lightning struck it in a storm. It burned, and then someone carried away what remained of the timber. The person who did that didn’t care that it was sacred.

  Here! she said, turning her horse. It staggered slightly as it had to scramble down into a ditch and up the other side. She guided the horse past a tangle of deadfalls and found, as she had thought, a narrow trace running along a hillside. When she looked up, he was beside her.

  Yes, he said quietly. Yes.

  Below them, a thickly grown water meadow bloomed brightly, supporting a lush growth of furze, golden broom, and tall purple thistles. High up on the hill, mixed stands of giant pines grew. But farther down, toward the meadow, the ground was more open and a sprinkling of white birches shaded the road as it wound away among the trees.

  Thank you, he said. Then drifted into the haze of sunlight and was gone.

  Just then she heard Cai calling her name. “Ena! Ena!”

  He pushed his horse with some difficulty over the soft bracken-covered ground. “What are you doing here?”

  “What do you think?” she said, dismounting.

  “Oh, that. Ena, it’s safe enough this close to Morgana to wander off, but there are still dangers for a woman alone.

  And …”

  He was turning his back to allow her some privacy as she squatted. “I wasn’t alone,” she muttered.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she answered in artificially dulcet tones. “Love me or not, you louse.” She was in a bad mood. “When the child is born, I bet I can make a living at this.”

  It was true. There was a lot of call in the world for the services of someone who could ask the dead questions. She remembered her parents visiting the vovulas, as they were called among her people. They left a big offering in the ladies’ pot for news of their family back in Frisia. And the women had been right, too, because her uncle stopped by, having taken service with a Veneti captain. And he confirmed everything the women said.

  Ena felt a lot better already. And, yes, she hadn’t been in too much discomfort, but it was nice to get her bladder emptied. She didn’t know what kind of a woman this Morgana was or how long she would be kept standing around. If her court was anything like Igrane’s, there would be a lot of that.

  But it wasn’t, and she didn’t have to wait long.

  Morgana’s stronghold was near the sea, on an island in the center of a lake. It gleamed in the sun. Ena had seen the glass-domed feasting hall at Tintigal, but this thing was completely foreign to her experience.

  “A Roman built it for us,” Cai explained. It was an explanation that didn’t explain.

  The island held three ancient trees: an oak, an ash, and a linden. The stronghold was triangular, with three massive halls, one at each tree. The tree trunks supported the roof of each hall. They came up very high on the tree, but it didn’t matter. The trees were able to get all the light they wanted, because the halls were roofed with glass. Or rather, as Ena looked more closely, she saw the roofs were half glass. A strip of glass and then an equal-size strip of wood. The multi-paned windows were held together by lead, a new process, now beginning to be used in churches.

  A causeway, narrow to be sure but still stone, stretched out over the lake to the island. The guards at the entrance to the causeway hailed the king. He returned their salutes and rode past, over the lake, toward the stronghold.

  Women—at first Ena didn’t recognize them as women because they were armed and armored as men would have been—greeted them in the courtyard before the door. They took the horses, and one, a tall, dark-haired one with her hair coiled in braids at her ears, helped Ena to dismount. She was perfectly courteous but gave Ena a look of appreciative appraisal such as a man might have, and Ena found herself blushing violently.

  They ushered the party through richly carved double doors into the hall. Ena took a long, neck-craning look at it and thought, No matter how long I live, I will never see anything as magnificent as this again. I must study to see it all and remember it.

  The tree was at the center, as it had been in the other strongholds. More of the tree was enclosed than in the other halls, but the alternating solid and glass segments of the roof let in a blaze of light. This was the brightest dwelling she had ever been in. Indeed, it was a garden, more beautiful than the terrace gardens at Tintigal.

  All inside was part of a garden. They crossed a footbridge over a water-filled canal, which ran on the inside of the building and irrigated the gardens.

  “This is a wonderful place,” Cai said. “It is never too hot or too cold here, and anything grows in my grandmother’s gardens.”

  And indeed, they passed a blooming tree in a tub near the water. The flowers were orange, and the fruit scarlet. Cai told Ena it was a pomegranate.

  Beyond the gardens, the floor was dark, polished stone, as at Tintigal. And in the center a fire pit seethed, the ash a white crust over the coals. Beyond the fire pit, the big river cobbles floored the area around the massive tree trunk.

  The woman stood there. She wore white, a soft linen-silk weave of some kind. Ena had expected someone dark like Cai. But she was fair, though not blond, as Ena was. Her hair color was more tawny, and her eyes were green. Ena was reminded uncomfortably of a lioness. She’d seen one once. The Romano-British aristocrats still held games in the amphitheater at Aquae Sulis, and the lioness had been exhibited as a curiosity by a troop of traveling gladiators.

  Once a bestiarius might have fought one, but now importing them from whatever lands they frequented was far too expensive for the big cats to be so lightly slaughtered. They had given it a runaway slave from her father’s lands, but the lioness hadn’t been hungry enough to finish the man off right away. Halfway through the spectacle, Ena got sick and lost her lunch. The rest of her family laughed at her squeamishness and the antics of the cat as she played with her victim. And Ena had come away convinced that they would offer her to the gods just as lightly as they enjoyed the ferocity of the cat and feel her loss no more than they did the killing of the runaway.

  Ena felt hot, dizzy, and sick as she watched Morgana approach the king. For she knew this was Morgana. No one had to tell her. It didn’t help one bit that the first person she beckoned to come to her was Ena.

  “Come here, Ena. That is your name, is it not? Come here to me.”

  Ena gritted her teeth and whispered, “Hell!”

  Then she approached Morgana. The closer she got, the more frightened she became. But her hardhanded father could have told her there was virtue in laughing and poking fun at weakness, because Ena was determined now to face this woman down, no matter what she had to do.

  Ena stopped just in front of her. Morgana said, “Ha,” a puff of breath, and she placed her hand on Ena’s belly. It was protruding only slightly.

  “You know what you’ve got there?”

  “Yes,” Ena said. “And if you’re as good as
your reputation suggests, you know, too. It’s a girl.”

  Morgana nodded. “A strong, healthy girl, at that.”

  “I take after my mother,” Ena told her. “She was born to birth babies. She had eleven and came to no harm through it. And I won’t, either.” She bared her teeth at Morgana, but it wasn’t a smile.

  “When did you decide to get pregnant by the highest-ranking man you could get to share your bed?” Morgana asked.

  “As soon as I set foot in that witch bitch’s court,” Ena snapped back.

  “Why Cai?”

  “Take your pick. The rest of them were too young, too old, too drunken, too mean, uninterested or just plain too damn married to bother with. Though in the case of your people, marriage doesn’t seem all that important.”

  Morgana snorted. “Now, there’s the pot calling the kettle black. Our people indeed. How many concubines did your father have?”

  “Only one,” Ena answered sourly. “That was all he could afford. But he kept the house slaves busy. His little by-blows are all over the place.”

  Morgana chuckled. “A realist. I see you are a realist. Are you in love with my grandson?”

  “No!” Ena said. “I stopped loving him when I knew it was a girl. When it’s birthed, he won’t come back to my bed.”

  “Yes. Yes, I think he will,” Morgana said. “I can tell by the anxious look on his face right now. He can tell by our expressions that this is a spirited exchange.”

  Ena relaxed a little. “You think he will still have feelings for me?”

  “Yes,” Morgana said. “And so will I. In fact, if you wanted to sit on a silk velvet cushion, eat wheaten porridge sweetened with honey and butter—for the rest of your days—you could do no better than bring me a great-granddaughter. I have several grandsons, but no granddaughters. And whatever my straying Cai might do, come or go, you have a place in my home forever. And make no mistake. I rule here.”

  “Then we will get along,” Ena said, “so long as you remember she’s your great-granddaughter but my child.”

  Morgana laughed. “Full of yourself, aren’t you?”

  “Today, yes!” Ena said.

  “Found out what you can do, have you?”

  “Yes!” Ena said. “I am a vovula.”

  “That’s what your people call us?” Morgana asked.

  “Yes. That’s how I knew it was a girl. Things have been happening all along the road.”

  Morgana’s hand was still resting on Ena’s stomach. It was a large hand and the nails were long, like claws.

  “Night before last, I heard a panther scream,” Ena said.

  Morgana smiled. “Yes. Yes, you did, didn’t you?”

  Ena felt a chill ripple over her whole body and gooseflesh covered her arms.

  “We will speak of these matters later,” Morgana said, “not before the assembled company.”

  Ena’s mouth was suddenly dry. Morgana radiated raw power. Whatever her own abilities, this woman must be immeasurably stronger than she was. Ena stepped back and dropped into a curtsey, but Morgana raised her and kissed her on the cheek. Ena made her shaky way back to Cai.

  When Uther approached her, Morgana bowed. But he kissed her hand.

  Cai made as if to conduct Ena away. “No,” Morgana said. “Stay! Bring chairs and set them around the fire pit.”

  Ena looked up. The hall was filled with long shafts of light from the glass roof. The roof was so high that Ena saw a bird leave the giant oak above and soar down through the doors to the outside. The glass was not clear but tinted a greenish color; and the tint blocked some of the sunlight the way the canopy of a forest would, giving the hall a look like that of a sunlit glade. There were no heads except those carved on the tall rafter posts that soared to the top of the roof near the tree trunk.

  Morgana was silent until the hall emptied of servants and hangers-on. Then each member of the party took up a position at the edge of the fire pit.

  Uther and Morgana faced each other. Ena was horrified to see Uther was weeping silently, the tears trickling down past his nose to disappear into his mustache and beard. She and Cai faced each other. He smiled at her, and she felt uncomfortable as she always did when he showed her affection as opposed to lust. Lust she expected from a man but not affection. The men in her life, her brothers and father, had not been affectionate; and lust would have been inappropriate, though she saw them direct that at other women, usually women of low rank, ripe to be used and cast aside.

  Of Uther, she thought, the loss of his son grieves him. Maybe he loves him. She found this a bit astonishing. Some parents must love their children, but who would believe the stern winter king was troubled by this weakness?

  “Compose yourself, my lord,” Morgana said.

  “The thought of what they might be doing to him troubles me beyond words, Morgana,” the king replied.

  “Whatever it is,” Cai said, “it won’t work. No matter what they do, it won’t break him. I know. We were constant companions since I was nine and he was seven. He will let them kill him before he will yield to either one of them.”

  “I’m not sure your sentiments offer much comfort to your king,” Morgana said.

  “I don’t intend to comfort him,” Cai answered. “I’m simply stating a fact. If Arthur lives to rule, he will be no one’s puppet or surrogate. That’s why we have to pry him out of their hands before they come to that realization.”

  “Ena?” Morgana asked. “Are you ready?”

  “For what?” Cai asked, alarmed.

  “Be quiet,” Ena said. “I’ve been part of this since the beginning. And if you want the truth, I don’t know for what, and I’ll wager neither does she.”

  “Stand close to the coals, Ena,” Morgana commanded.

  Morgana threw a handful of something into the fire pit. Ena took a deep breath of the smoke. For a second, it blinded her, then she backed away from the smoke and saw visions.

  The first was a lioness. As tawny as Morgana, she crouched at the edge of the fire pit, one big paw on the polished floor. Her jaws were crusted with blood, the way Ena had last seen her, and she roared, showing the red-smeared fangs of a killer.

  “You sent that!” Ena said accusingly to Morgana.

  “No!” Morgana said. “You get only what you call.”

  “Yes,” Ena admitted. “She, the lioness, would be dead by now, too.”

  The lioness faded, the way a cloud changes its shape at the force of the wind, and became the face of the dead young man she’d offered directions to today. He seemed sad, and Ena wondered what he’d found when he returned home. But when he saw her, he smiled.

  “Oh,” Ena whispered, because he brought a message. A complex one. She was afraid of men, with good reason, but she need not fear all of them. Cai loved her and somehow always would. But above all, she could trust him, because dishonesty wasn’t in him. Not always a good trait but a part of his nature. He kept faith without thinking about it at all. He couldn’t imagine not doing so.

  Then the face was gone, and the smoke hung between her and the world like a veil. When it cleared, she was at the edge of a forest, and the grass around her was filled with small songbirds, finches and wrens, in all shades of green, gray, and brown. She cried out loudly in surprise at finding herself in some other place. Or was it even she who cried out?

  The birds flew, and a second later she was back in Morgana’s hall. But she had a name.

  “Vareen!” she said.

  Uther whispered, “God!”

  Morgana looked triumphant.

  “Vareen,” Uther said, surprised. “But he’s long dead. Long dead,” he repeated.

  “Sometimes with one of them, that’s not enough,” Cai said.

  “What are you talking about?” Ena snapped.

  “Vareen was Vortigen’s druid,” Morgana explained.

  “But Vortigen was high king long before our time. He was a criminal. He stole from the church.”

  Cai, Morgana, and Uther all
laughed.

  “Is that the Saxon version?” Cai asked.

  “That’s what I was told,” Ena said. She sounded exculpatory. “I’m just a woman. I don’t know anything about war and politics.”

  “You’re learning fast,” Uther said. Then he continued, “Whatever may be said of Vortigen, he was a good king. And, no, he did not steal from the church. He demanded money from the monastic orders, who have a lot of it. The church is always accusing someone of stealing from it. In any case, Vareen was his druid. All kings have a personal druid, advisers. Mine is Morgana.”

  “She’s a woman,” Ena said.

  Morgana laughed. “You noticed.”

  Ena blushed violently.

  “Yes. Well, sometimes the gray mare is the better horse,” Uther said.

  Morgana laughed again. “Such compliments, Uther.”

  “Vortigen perished along with Vareen due to Merlin’s treachery,” Cai said. “They were murdered when they tried to make peace with the Saxons. Merlin is a supporter of the southern landowners, who keep them as mercenaries. He felt that the office of high king should be abolished.”

  “He miscalculated,” Morgana added. “He and his followers were nearly wiped out in the resulting backlash. The Picts attacked, bypassing Hadrian’s wall. The Veneti refused to man the supply lines of the Saxon troops. The Silures, our people, rose in revolt, and Merlin had to invoke the high kingship to end the war. Uther’s father was elected high king, and he and his oath men were able to impose a peace on the kingdom.”

  “Peace. Hardly a peace,” Uther said. “Say, more a truce. We won’t kill them if they don’t try to kill us.”

  Ena still didn’t understand, but she didn’t care to draw another lecture from the parties involved.

  “We will need money,” Uther said.

  “Time for you to rob the church,” Morgana said.

  Uther looked sour. “I suppose so. I’d rather take their money than impoverish our own hearths.”

  “Niamh said war, and war it is,” Morgana told him.

  “What has money to do with war?” Ena asked.

  “Everything,” the three—Cai, Morgana, and Uther—chorused.

  “When you talk war, the first thing you had better worry about is money,” Morgana said. “Why the hell do you think those cursed Romans were so successful in their conquests?”