Dragonmaster

by Chris Bunch

“An hour,” Lowess said. “She’s bringing in her neighbors to help. And there’s a wizard down the street who can provide some spells to keep things fresh.

  “Now, while we wait, would you care for any news?”

  “What’s this about them forcing me out of the army?”

  Lowess lifted an eyebrow.

  “Of course they’re going to retire you, Sir Hal. You’re cut all to shreds.”

  “No more so than Cantabri.”

  “He’s different. He’s too mean to let go.”

  “Some people had best think of me as mean,” Hal muttered.

  “Some people already do,” Lowess said.

  Hal winced.

  “Besides, you’re giving everyone a chance to wallow in your heroism, for which I take some measure of credit. You’ll be told, in time, that the Eleventh Flight will now be known as the Sir Hal Kailas Flight.

  “Great recognition. Plus I imagine there’ll be some more medals, most likely a pension. You’ll not starve.”

  “I wasn’t quite starving when I got dragooned into the damned army,” Hal said.

  “So, then, what do you have to complain about? You’ll be out, a civilian, not that badly impaired, and with your life, which is a deal more than many can say.”

  Hal remembered Saslic, kept from snarling at Sir Thom.

  “Oh, one other thing, which I’ll make much of in one of my tales. It seems there’s a man in the flight who’s from your own town, and has sworn to get revenge against the Roche in your name.”

  “From Caerly?”

  “Yes, been a flier for some months, saw limited combat with the Fourth Army. You might know him, since he’s knighted. A Sir Nanpean Tregony.”

  Hal, remembering the last time he’d seen Tregony, tormenting a dragon kit, suddenly found everything, from his situation to . . . to the world, hysterically funny.

  He burst out laughing, so hard he thought he’d tear a wound open.

  Sir Thom smiled with him at first, then looked concerned.

  “Would you mind explaining?”

  “Sir Thom,” Hal said, “in time, I shall. But not right now.” And again he started laughing uncontrollably.

  Lady Khiri Carstares, eyes still red, opened the door to her room, and gasped.

  It was full of flowers, so full she could barely make out her small bed and tiny chest.

  There were orchids, many varieties, dancing ladies, hibiscus, roses, protea, night-blooming jasmine, other exotic flowers she had no idea existed in Deraine’s winter.

  “And I am, truly, a shit,” Hal said from behind her.

  She recovered from her surprise, forced a hard face, and turned. Hal sat in a padded wheelchair a few feet away. Down the hall was Sir Thom Lowess.

  “You are.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t say I’ll never be a shit again . . . but not in that way.”

  “Do you expect forgiveness?”

  Hal shook his head. Khiri deliberately waited until the silence was very uncomfortable.

  “Then you have it.”

  She came close, leaned over, kissed him on the lips, mouth closed.

  “Now, since I somehow forgot to ask to be relieved of your onerous care, shall we start thinking about where your convalescence should be best spent?”

  29

  Cayre a Carstares sat on a promontory overlooking the western ocean. A high curtain wall enclosed a dozen acres and a small village. The castle itself was octagonal, with a round tower at each corner, and could have comfortably held an army headquarters in its stone magnificence amid the jagged crags.

  “My forebears built this to keep off the raiders from the north,” Lady Carstares said.

  “The people I came from,” Hal said, finding a bit of amusement.

  “I’ll add that it never fell to them.”

  “Never from without,” Kailas murmured, surprised at what he was saying, not displeased that he wasn’t entirely soul-dead. “But what of within?”

  “What?” Khiri said.

  “Nothing.”

  But it was evident from Carstares’ lifted eyebrows and smile she’d heard what he said.

  The castle was gray, as Khiri had promised, matching the gray seas beyond, and the wintry land. The dusting of snow made it look even more ominous.

  Hal loved it, loved its gloom and dark menace.

  It was the perfect place to mourn Saslic.

  And to make himself back into a warrior.

  The castle was fully staffed, many of the retainers having worked for Khiri’s grandfather. They still tottered faithfully about their rounds.

  “Don’t be in much of a hurry around here,” Lady Khiri advised.

  Hal wasn’t.

  He found a round bedroom in the tower of the wing Khiri said was the castle’s most inhabited, just below the roof, with shuttered windows that looked out on the wild surf smashing against the rocky cliffs below. Khiri’s bedroom, one she’d had as a girl, was one flight down, and she had the local witch cast a similarity spell on two tiny bells. If Hal needed something, all he needed do was tap his, and the one in Khiri’s room would tinkle and summon her.

  Hal’s room was bigger than his parents’ house, had its own washroom and dressing room, plus a fireplace, fresh wood brought daily by a man who could’ve been Hal’s great-grandfather, but who refused, utterly shocked, Hal’s offer to help.

  “Never, Sir Hal,” he said. “You’re wounded, and to be recoverin’, and besides, you’re noble.”

  “Only by the grace of the king.”

  The man’s eyes rounded.

  “You’ve met our gracious Majesty?”

  “Yes,” Hal said, realizing the conversation was going in the wrong direction and, from the man’s expression, that now he’d never be allowed to do anything resembling manual labor.

  Khiri found this funny, although she still wondered why Hal had chosen this place.

  “Damp, and cold, and full of bad memories,” she said.

  “Maybe I picked it to exorcise them.”

  “Yours or mine?”

  Hal didn’t answer.

  He started with slow, creaking walks, hardly better than the pace of the archaic retainers, around the keep. Then, feeling stronger, he went beyond, and walked along the curtain wall, through the orchards, unharvested since Khiri’s father’s death, and the grazing grounds for the small herd of sheep.

  There were horses, and he took them sugar, or an apple he’d picked and thawed in his pocket.

  Khiri went with him at first, then realized he wanted no company but his own thoughts, and the howl of the wind.

  Hal wore a knee-length sheepskin coat, a matching hat, and thought he looked a perfect fool, a country bumpkin if ever one existed. But a warm perfect fool.

  Once, when the storm broke, he went beyond the curtain wall, and found a hollow, out of the wind, warmed a little by the winter sun.

  Full of a very good midday meal, he drifted away, then dreamed. All he remembered was Saslic’s body falling, falling, and then she was on Nont’s back, down below this very castle, the dragon’s wings lifted to protect her from the waves.

  She smiled up at him sadly, waved, and then Nont’s wings closed about her, and the dragon turned out to sea, as Hal came to his feet, awake, pain tearing at him, but the pain hadn’t brought the tears on his cheeks.

  He began training, lifting small weights, gradually increasing them, forcing his body from a walk into a limping trot. Hal went beyond the curtain wall, found tracks down to the rocky beaches below, went down them. The first time he came back up, he thought he wouldn’t make it, that he’d have to fall and wait for someone to rescue him.

  But he forced himself on, lungs ripping, and made it, staggering, to the top, before he went to his knees.

  Khiri ran up, knelt.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Just . . . just being stupid,” he panted.

  “Why do you want to do this to yourself?” Then she realized. “Oh. Y
ou want to go back to that damned war.”

  “It isn’t . . . what I want . . .” Hal said.

  “You’re right! You are being stupid!”

  She stamped away, back to the castle.

  But by dinner that night, her sunny mood was restored.

  He dreamed again that night of Saslic, again, on the back of Nont as his wings unfurled, and he beat hard, lifting, leaving a wake of spray.

  Again, he saw Saslic waving, but this time, he heard her shouting, words dimly heard against the sea’s roar:

  “Another time . . . somewhere . . . somewhen . . . maybe . . .”

  He strained for more, but couldn’t make out what else she said. Then Nont was in the air, flying due west, in the directions dragons seemingly came from.

  Hal Kailas woke, and there was melancholy in his heart, but he no longer felt dull, dead.

  He was alive, he would live, until he was killed.

  Once he might have felt mortal, but now he believed Saslic’s words: “There’ll be no after the war for a dragon flier.”

  Strangely, this made him feel better than he had since watching her die.

  “I have an idea,” Hal said. “I think we should have a party.”

  “A party?” Khiri said incredulously.

  They were in her bedroom. Khiri disliked rising early, so Hal, after his morning run, generally took her a tray with the rusks she preferred unbuttered and some herbal tea.

  For some unknown reason, neither one of them had tried romance, beyond an almost-brotherly hug and a brush of the lips at night and in morning’s greeting.

  “A midwinter party,” Hal said.

  “You’re mad.”

  “Not at all. Or, at least, not noticeably at the moment.”

  “Sir Hal, love of my life, you have the brains of a sheep. It’s winter. Everybody’s huddling around his fire, dreaming of spring.

  “And this castle—this whole district—isn’t a happy one. The war’s cost all of us too much.”

  “Exactly. That is why we need a party.”

  “You are not the kind of person who holds parties,” Khiri said suspiciously.

  “What kind of person does?”

  “Sir Thom. Me.”

  “All right, then. You’ll be the one throwing the party. You’ve got more money than I do, anyway.”

  “Uh-uh,” Khiri said. “If you want to have a stupid party, with everybody glowering around at each other and thinking about old feuds or . . . or thinking about people who aren’t here, you’d best have some kind of idea on what’s going to make it work. Make it sing, as Sir Thom might put it.”

  Hal grinned.

  “That was an evil smile if ever I saw one,” she said cautiously.

  He reached in his shirt pocket.

  “Here’s your invitation. You’re to come as you were when you received this.”

  “Like this?” Khiri wasn’t wearing much under a warm shoulder throw other than a thin nightgown.

  “And here are two other invitations for you to give others. Pick the right moment,” Hal said, “and we’ll all be amazed at how people show up.”

  A smile ghosted across her lips.

  “What about you?”

  “When I,” Hal said, “received my invitation from a dashing dragon flier, I just happened to be wearing full dress uniform. Hah-ha!”

  “Perhaps you’re not quite mad. Or maybe you are. I never thought you were the kind of person who would come up with an idea like this.”

  “I didn’t used to be,” Hal said, his smile flickering momentarily. Khiri saw it, looked away.

  “So who are we to invite to this party? The local nobility, of course.”

  “Everyone.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Servants, peasants, priests, popinjays, poopheads.”

  “The whole district?”

  “Grandsires, grandmeres, babes, children, even a sheep if you fancy.”

  “Let’s go back to your madness.”

  “Oh yes,” Hal said. “Two other details. For every jewel you somehow decide to wear, you bring a coin, copper, silver, gold, that’ll go to the hospital fund.”

  “That’ll keep some people from overdressing,” Khiri said.

  “And make others pile on the gems,” Hal said. “And the other detail is that everybody is to bring something to eat.”

  “Why?”

  Hal picked his words carefully. “When you’ve shared another man or woman’s meal, you’re not quite as likely to be hating them. Anyway, not as hard.”

  He jumped to his feet, winced.

  “Calloo, callay, it’ll be a joyous occasion.”

  There was a broad smile on his lips, but none in his eyes.

  Hal’s workout grew more intense by the day.

  Finally, it consisted, in the morning, of setting-up exercises, then a mile run, regardless of the weather. Sometimes he’d run down one of the half-wild, long-unridden horses, and go bareback with only a rope bridle for a ride out across the bleak landscape.

  He made friends—or, if not friends, acceptable acquaintances, courtesy of sugar lumps—with the completely wild hill ponies, and sometimes he’d chase them over the rolling moors, through the scrub forests, or they’d chase him.

  Other days, he’d hunt down the locals, and force an invitation to his party on them. He was quite pleased with the reactions he got, from petrified amazement to grumpiness to laughing joy.

  After midday, and a brief nap, he’d begin his real workout.

  First came setting-up exercises, then running up one of the ramps to the castle parapets. Another set of exercises, then running down the ramp. He repeated this five times.

  Then the hard part, climbing up and down a knotted rope he’d hung from the parapets, forcing his wounded arm to recover.

  Then repeating the ramp run and exercises five more times.

  Khiri watched him once, shuddered, and went back to one of the great hall’s roaring fireplaces.

  The afternoon of the party was warmer than usual, an almost tropical wind from the south blowing in from the sea. For a moment, he was reminded of the Southern Sea, and death, but he forced those from his mind.

  He wore the dress uniform Khiri had tucked into his trunk, complete with half a chestful of medals. As he’d threatened, he made Khiri wear her nightgown, although Hal had allowed her to cheat, and wear a matching silk bathrobe over it.

  The guests trailed in, sometimes singly, sometimes in village-sized groups. Some of them were honest, and wore what they had on when invited, others blatantly cheated and wore their best.

  From these, one of Lady Khiri’s retainers extracted the penalty, dropping the coins into an ornately carved chest that had belonged to her great-grandfather.

  Cooks took the viands from the guests, and whatever instructions needed to serve them.

  Khiri suddenly gasped.

  “But we have no band!”

  “Oh yes we do,” Hal said, pointed to three women and two men, holding the simple instruments of the peasantry. Their leader wore only a towel, and had been caught in the village sauna.

  But they tootled, sawed and strummed mightily, and then there were dancers. Priests danced with beldames, merchants’ wives with drovers, young boys with their mothers, young girls with their hopeful lovers.

  Khiri had been right—the district had been decimated by the war. There were few young men at the dance, and most of those were clearly unsuitable for soldiering or else they’d served and come home, far worse wounded than Hal.

  But they danced, they sang, and they ate.

  Hal made a note of some of the dishes, served along two great tables. Perhaps they should have been organized and served in proper courses, but everyone was too hungry, and enjoying themselves too much.

  There were small shrimp, boiled in beer and served in a tomato sauce from one of Khiri’s hothouse gardens; crisp, fried young smelt, dipped in a seasoned mayonnaise; hearth cakes in butter; oysters, raw or grilled with bac
on; grilled lamb sausage; marinated cucumbers; sea trout, poached in wine; potatoes cooked in a dozen different ways; smoked local ham; crab cakes; chicken livers baked with rice; lobster, fresh from the booming seas beyond the castle, served with drawn butter; puddings, from blood to fruit; tarts made from dried fruit; preserved orange cake; pies; filled cookies, and more.

  They drank the strong local beer, or mulled cider, or wine from Khiri’s, or the district’s other minor nobility’s, cellars.

  There were those who drank or ate too much, and there were wagons outside to carry the casualties home. Or else those incapable of moving were carted off to another hall, where straw had been piled for the eventuality.

  It was long after midnight when the last guest stumbled out, or was otherwise disposed of.

  “And me for bed,” Khiri yawned, waving at the tables. “We can clean up the rest in the morning.”

  “Good idea,” Hal agreed. “I don’t think I’m in any shape to be handling the family porcelain.”

  They went up the curving staircase into their tower. Hal stopped at Khiri’s landing, looked out through a tiny-paned window at the sea. The sky was clear, with only one moon out, but that clearly showing the white lines of surf as they marched against the cliffs.

  Khiri shivered, came closer.

  “I’m glad I’m in here, and not out there.”

  “So am I.”

  It seemed appropriate for Hal to kiss her, and for her to kiss him back.

  After a very long time, she pulled away.

  “Well, I guess you’re not that wounded.”

  He started to pull her close.

  “Oh no,” she said. “If you want to play those games, it won’t be with that damned pincushion of a tunic on.”

  She took his hand, led him into her bedroom, closed the door.

  “Now,” she murmured, unfastening his uniform’s loop and button fasteners, and lifting it off his shoulders. “That’s a bit better.”

  “Sauce for the gander, and all that,” Hal said.

  “True enough, young sir,” Khiri said, and let the bathrobe slip to the floor. “And my bare feet have been freezing all night, so perhaps you wouldn’t mind dealing with the problem?”