The Dragon Queen

by Alice Borchardt

  Ah, Arthur thought. This is the nub of all their difficulties. Shame. Yes, shame is a powerful thing.

  Her face caught his eye. The silver cavalry mask still hung from the hawthorn tree, where he had placed it. The hawthorn tree was not in bloom. Indeed, it had no business to flower; it carried ripening fruit on its branches. But the white, soft petals clothed the branches, setting off the smooth, green leaves in much the same way white mist drifts over a mountain forest.

  Merlin thought he had imprisoned him, but in reality Arthur had been summoned here for some purpose. A more powerful hand even than Merlin’s had ordered the events of his life.

  “I am a king,” he said. “And I have worn the three crowns. True, I am only the summer king, for my father, Uther, yet rules. But I have been crowned with flowers, wheat, and acorns in token of sovereignty over the forest, meadow, and sown. I was taught the ancient laws of our people at my father’s knee. A king’s first obligation is to that law. So let us bring your case to judgment.”

  He strode toward the tree, and when he turned to one side of it, he saw they had all followed. Not just them, but everyone else in the clearing. Even the fishing women set their basket in the shallows and joined the outskirts of the crowd. The silver mask looked over his shoulder at the gathering.

  “It is in bloom,” Balin said, pointing to the tree.

  “The mask is not profaned,” Arthur said, “in spite of the evil use to which it was put.”

  He could smell the faint, exquisite perfume of the blossoms, a very pure thing. He closed his eyes for a second. He felt as though fingers, soft as flowers, stroked his cheek, and he knew his soon-to-be bride was present. She of the first trees.

  Then he opened his eyes and turned. “Will you trust my judgment?” he asked.

  He accepted slavery. All the peoples he knew about kept human beings in bondage. But the lawmakers had seen fit to limit its use and the circumstances in which it could be applied to any individual. In some cases they imposed limitations as to its duration and enforced a reciprocal obligation on slave owners. Slaves had a right to fair treatment; and they could not be sold off when old and no longer fit for labor but must be supported by the household as other dependent, aged persons were.

  The people in the crowd looked at each other. There was a growing murmur of assent.

  He raised his hand and silence fell.

  “The law is that there are only three ways a man or woman may be taken and forced to labor for another: capture in war, in compensation for debt that cannot be repaid by labor, or lastly as punishment for a capital crime, a crime for which the usual punishment would be death. The death penalty may be remanded, and the person sold away from his people, into slavery. Do any of these three circumstances apply to any of you?”

  The silence was vast. Arthur could hear in the distance the whisper of the wind among the trees, the long, slow afternoon sigh of the forest. The water flowing over the river cobbles near the banks sparkled in the slanted sunlight, a glittering ribbon of gold.

  He didn’t look into their faces, because he knew there would be too many tears. His mind stretched back to the broken feast from which the sky-eyed girl fled into the unknown. He knew many of the landowners at that feast harvested children the way they did calves or chickens from their estates, selling these surplus children into slavery. This, in part, was where these people had come from. Sent to the king of the summer country as tribute to work his lands. Never mind that the practice was illegal. It was convenient for the powerful.

  He remembered Eline’s tale of the children being rounded up and driven away from their homes by the “well-dressed man.” Merlin, if he was any judge, or one of his minions. In return, King Bade probably gave him leave to imprison Arthur in the cage of bones, and, if this king prevailed, he would return Arthur to his prison. Between Arthur and Merlin and this King Bade, whatever he was, there could be only war.

  SEVENTEEN

  AN YOU IMAGINE A RIVER THAT FLOWS through the vistas of the sky? Well, the one the dragon and I were on did. Sunstruck clouds flowed around and below us. Magnificent shapes in crystalline white, violet, amethyst, gold, and shades of blue, their edges dabbled in blood as the sun set.

  Below, I could smell and hear the storms: the clamor of the thunder, the breathless hush after a lightning bolt hit, and the roar of the air when it rushes back into the void the fierce discharge makes. Maeniel told me about this place. It is neither dawn nor sunset here, yet the light is drawn from both. The mountains of vapor hide the horizon, drifting wraiths of mist dampen your skin, and birds pass in flight. Hawks, eagles, swans, and geese drift by, borne on the rising air.

  We swam through cold, dark clouds and out the other side, into the splendor of thunderheads massing above us, surrounding us on all sides, gleaming with all the colors of the rainbow in the sunlight. We rode the waves among them, waves of air or water, I couldn’t tell. At times we entered many-pillared halls, the storm clouds a roof above, a floor below, while in between a dozen suns refracted from the one danced over the ever-changing shapes around us, tracing in their presence all the glories of the day. From dawn to dusk, the gift of God. Each one. All perfect, yet unique.

  “Where are we going?” I asked the dragon.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “How are we getting to wherever we’re going?”

  “I have absolutely no idea,” was the answer.

  A second later, the spray from a wave got me in the eyes. When I cleared them, I saw the shore of Cornwall. We were, however, well away from Tintigal Castle.

  I was no sooner finished drawing breath in a sigh of relief when I became aware I was being hailed from the beach … and I saw my family there. Until that moment, I had not known how much I loved them or had the slightest idea how much I missed them.

  The dragon turned and swam toward them. He had little sympathy for me.

  “Stop your bawling,” he said sharply. “All the time on this long—and I might add trying—voyage, you have shown yourself calm, clear-headed, brave, and bold. Now at the sight of your family, you shatter my delicate ears with sniffling and squalling. Compose yourself.”

  Not being human, he continued, “I have never had the experience of bringing someone home who has too freely imbibed an intoxicant of some kind—but I have the feeling that I’m about to find out what that is like. No doubt I and all our kind will be blamed by that old scold, Dugald, for your adventures and misadventures. You don’t have to compound my problem by arriving in a state of collapse. Endeavor to compose yourself and do it now!

  “I am appointed your guardian and companion. Don’t—I repeat, don’t—make my life any more difficult than the nature of such an arduous task demands.”

  The dragon was right. The brawl started when we hit the beach. I think that’s what families are for.

  Where had I been? Well, Tintigal was one place. After that, I wasn’t quite sure.

  How did I get to wherever I’d gone? I had absolutely no idea.

  Dugald, furious, berated the dragon and all dragonkind and kin. The dragon showed his excellent teeth and gave as good as he got, threatening to dine on Dugald if he continued to abuse him. And since the dragon floated just a little offshore in the shallows, held in place by gentle vibrations of his fins and tail, the threat was not an idle one.

  Kyra embraced me, and it felt good to be in her arms, for a moment pretending I was a child again. The Gray Watcher kissed me on the forehead. But Black Leg looked at me resentfully and said, “You even smell wrong.”

  Dugald looked away from his argument with the dragon and said, “Eh! What?”

  “Shut up!” I spat at Black Leg. “Just shut up!”

  “Hush,” Kyra said, and pressed my head against her breast. “You men set up a bathhouse and do it right now,” she commanded. “And you, you old fool.” She rounded on Dugald. “Stop jawing with your betters. Maybe they took her, but he brought her back safe and sound.

  “And as for y
ou, whatever your name is—” she pointed at the dragon “—make yourself useful and catch some fish for supper. Hear me. Do it now. Dugald wouldn’t make a good meal for a dragon anyway—too old and tough.”

  Dugald looked outraged. “Woman …” he began.

  The Gray Watcher took him by the arm. “Let’s go fix the sweat bath. Gray and I will help.”

  “Gray’s here?” I said to Kyra. “Why did he leave home?”

  “We have no home,” Black Leg said dolefully.

  “Be quiet,” Kyra commanded as she led me off. I don’t know which of us she was speaking to, because she gave both of us a stern look.

  Black Leg slunk away. I followed her, thinking I was more than ready for a bath. Not just because I felt sticky; I was having a new experience … cramps.

  I felt better when the heat began to drive the chill out of my bones as the steam rose around us. I had padded myself with a linen cloth, but it was already stained. I studied the blood creeping out and marking my thighs.

  “Looks as though I’m not a child any longer.”

  “Hush,” Kyra said, pouring more water on the rocks. “You are now and always will be the child of my heart. My first comfort after I lost all I had. If I was ever harsh and sharp-tongued with you during those first few years, I’m sorry. It is hard to lose all and then open your heart and love again. But with you, I have.” She kissed me on the forehead and began to unbraid my hair.

  “You have never been unkind to me,” I told her. “I have been very lucky. I have you, the Gray Watcher, Dugald, Black Leg, and Mother. Once I took all the love showered on me for granted. But having met Merlin and Igrane, I understand now how lucky I have been. They, that pair of snakes, are all he has.”

  “He, who?” she asked.

  “Arthur.”

  “So you met the young king?”

  “Yes,” I said, looking up at her. She stepped back and met my eyes. “He is my destiny.”

  Kyra looked troubled, deeply troubled. “Are you sure?”

  “She said so.”

  “Ah.” Kyra sighed and then took her seat on the bench opposite me.

  She was still beautiful, my Kyra, though gray threads were beginning to appear in her hair. But her figure had not begun to thicken, and she had wide hips and ample, handsome, upright breasts above a narrow waist.

  As I said before, she was marked as all the Painted People are, tattooed with vines and flowers patterned like the Celtic knot work that covers all our creations, the testament that the world is one. Yet she had, after she came to us, placed an adder among the flowers. Her art was colored red, black, and blue.

  “Look,” I said, slapping my own arm hard. The green armor leaped out against my skin.

  Kyra gave a loud cry and jumped to her feet. “What happened? You are marked as I am. But that must be the work of months. There hasn’t been time, and how did you hide it?”

  “No!” I said. “Silly, it’s armor. See?” And I snatched a burning brand from the fire.

  Kyra looked up at me in awe. I was naked, but clothed at the same time, my fairy armor glowing in the firelight of the sweat lodge.

  Then I threw the flaming brand back into the fire. The armor wasn’t perfect. After a few moments, the heat of the flames had begun to percolate through my protection.

  “So she did what Dugald thought she did,” Kyra said.

  “Did what?” I asked.

  “Your mother,” Kyra whispered. “Dugald swore she lay with the Sidhe. She did.”

  I paused. The green coils, meanders, spirals on my flesh faded. No, I hadn’t put it all together. But … I felt a chill.

  “They looked like men,” I said. “I thought they were Irish, drui—At first, they seemed ugly, dirty scoundrels, drunken fools. But when I drew closer, their aspect changed.”

  Kyra nodded. “They appeared as they wished to appear. Drunken ruffians to the eyes of Merlin and Igrane.”

  “They wanted to shame me, bring me to heel like a dog.” I nodded. “The Sidhe lords played into their hands, or seemed to,” I continued, seeing it whole for the first time.

  “Possibly the test was also directed at you. You, my lady, were supposed to turn up your nose at them. I take it you didn’t.”

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t. When I approached them, I saw what they really were. One of them, the one who said he was my father, later made a remark that I thought cast aspersions on my mother’s honor. I took them to task.”

  Kyra looked away from me. “Honor as humans know it is meaningless to them. They understand little of jealousy or regret. Our rules mean less than nothing to them. Though it is said they have their own, still, their customs are not ours.”

  “He said she had more than one of … them.”

  “I hope none of them tempted you.”

  I felt surprised. Had I felt the powerful magnetism of such lusty males? The answer was yes, yes, I had. But I was still protected by childhood. If we met again …

  Kyra stood and caught me by the shoulders, her grip so tight the green armor leaped out of my skin. She shook me lightly.

  “Listen, girl, and listen well. To love them is … death. That mother of yours made a heathcomb of herself in order to bring you into being. She gave her own life willingly into the fire of the gods, the altar fire. Father or not, he, the chieftain who sired you, would lie with you willingly if you invited him.”

  “They weren’t sure which of them was my father,” I told Kyra.

  “This I can believe. Mortal flesh doesn’t find it easy to commingle with immortal. No doubt she had to make a great many tries before she got a child of them. Shut them out of your mind. Be warned, here and now, never, never look on one of them with desire. It is a great danger to you. Because you have part of them in you and it might try to draw you … home.”

  I shrugged and smiled at Kyra’s frightened face. “They said I was the mare’s own foal. And it is Arthur that I desire. As I said, she told me he was my destiny. I think I’m human enough. Besides, it may be that all those who passed through my mother’s bed weren’t gods. Seems more likely I sprang from the seed of some brave mortal, who was bold enough to pretend.”

  And indeed, I was frightened by all this loose talk of gods, the Sidhe, who knows what they are. The Christians say the Sidhe are not gods but heroes who may be “honored” but not worshipped. What a masterpiece of self-deception, that. It was clear to me the Irish wanted the new God, but they didn’t want to let go of the old ones. So they compromised and kept both. Don’t laugh. It’s clear the Romans did the same. Whatever they could successfully dust off and slide sideways into the Christian religion—and it was a lot—they placed there, so that we are still encumbered with both old and new.

  Although Dugald insists it all hangs together—it doesn’t. And I’m surprised the whole thing hasn’t been torn apart by its own internal contradictions. However, given the massive human capacity for self-deception, willful blindness allows our churches to stagger along from century to century—sometimes doing good, at other times causing great harm; and possibly only God himself can tell the difference.

  I decided I would engage in a little self-deception myself. I didn’t like the look on her face. She reminded me of a hen who has just discovered one of the eggs in her nest is a hawk’s.

  We did that once, Black Leg and I, when we were younger, just to see what the hen would do. Maeniel was in a fury about it, especially after Black Leg admitted it was his idea. Maeniel said that it was irresponsible and cruel to both chicken and hawk, and humans were just naturally cruel anyway. Then he punished us by forcing us to raise the baby hawk until it was fledged.

  Then we found out we must teach it how to hunt. We were both nervous wrecks when it finally flew away to join its own kind. Maeniel said we deserved it.

  In any case, Kyra began to remind me too much of that hen. So I embraced her and said I was sure that was what happened; some rapscallion was convincing enough to persuade my mother to believe he wa
s of the Sidhe and that was how I was gotten. Or begotten, as the case may be.

  Then I sat back and tried to find out what happened after the dragons took me away to Tintigal. Kyra had mixed me a drink that eased the cramps. I was getting over the feeling of being drained and tired the first day leaves me with, and I felt better.

  “What is this stuff about not having a home?” I asked.

  Kyra threw up her hands. Then explained, “It was all the fault of that stupid Bain,” she said. “He looked, it seems, to get into the archdruid’s good graces.”

  “As if Merlin would look at him twice,” I said.

  “Yes,” Kyra said. “But he looked to capture us and deliver us in person to Merlin. What we would be doing in the meantime, he hadn’t quite thought out. In any case, he found a few souls as foolhardy as he was and they set out one night to surprise us while we slept. But that brother of yours decided he must go night fishing, so he had slipped away after we were all asleep and, as a wolf, went down toward the sea.

  “As fate would have it, he met Bain and his friends sneaking up through the forest. Black Leg said we would have heard them coming, since they made so much noise sneaking through the woods that they might have awakened the dead. The boy thought the whole thing a huge joke. Dugald did not.”

  I sighed and rolled my eyes. “He was probably furious.”

  “More than furious. Much more. Black Leg woke Maeniel, who woke the rest of us. Dugald was in an absolute fury. He pulled on his robes, picked up his staff, and threw the Druid Mist on them. They never reached the house.”

  Now, the Druid Mist is a terrible punishment. I must tell you this before I go further. We all have nightmares about being lost or being unable to complete an important task for which we are responsible. The Druid Mist is this nightmare made real.

  Bain and his friends found themselves wandering in the wilderness without being able to go backward or forward. The victim of the mist exhausts himself trying to escape it, and like one caught in a bog, his struggles only drive him in deeper. As time passes, hunger and thirst begin to torment him, then cold, because, as it is told, this foggy place has no sun. Springs are dry; rivers won’t run. The searcher blunders on and on, lost, until despair, exposure, and exhaustion claim him.