Tall, Dark, and Medieval

by Barbara Devlin

  “Get out!” she told him, her finger pointing at the door. “Get out and leave me alone. I want you out of Thorndale Castle by nightfall.”

  “And where would I go with a broken leg, my lady? I can hardly climb the cliffs of Lornoon in this position. Especially in the dark. You wouldn’t throw me out like this, would you? You could at least wait until morning. Or, I suppose I could go to Lord Thorndale and tell him - ”

  “You’ll tell him nothing, do you understand? You can stay until morning, but then I want you out of my sight forever. If I find you here again within the castle walls, I’ll be the one to personally feed you to the dragon.”

  Calais chuckled. “The dragon looks for you, my lady. You’ve spited Dracus by leaving. He’ll not let you get away with it. Trust me, Dracus will be back. And next time, he won’t fail.”

  Calais’ words bothered Brynn immensely. She closed the door after him, wondering if what he said was true. But her own life wasn’t the only one she was concerned of losing. Now there were people conspiring against her husband, and for all she knew, wanting to kill him. And it was her fault. What had she done?

  She felt the need to help him, to be at his side should he be attacked. She looked down to her father’s torn, burnt banner sitting on the hearth. It was time to accept Drake. It was time to start acting like his wife. She shoved the pieces into the fire with her foot and watched them burn. Her father’s crest was gone now. Now she served under the crest of The Dragon.

  THE DRAGON AND THE DREAMWALKER

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Brynn approached the great hall with Birdie at her side. She was dressed elegantly, in a white smock with a scarlet kirtle, with long white tippets trailing from the elbows to the floor. She wore a golden girdle low on her hips, embedded with jewels of amethyst and jade. This belt had been a favorite of her mother’s. Her hair was woven together in an intricate design and wrapped in a circle around each ear as was fashion.

  “What troubles you, my lady?” asked Birdie, fixing a small flower on the circlet sitting atop Brynn’s head. “You seem so distant since that man came to your chamber.”

  “I’d appreciate if you didn’t mention that again, Birdie. Especially in front of people. They may think I’ve had a tryst.”

  Birdie’s head went down with a slight nod. “Aye, my lady.”

  Brynn could see that Birdie herself was troubled, and she had no doubt why.

  “Birdie, it doesn’t matter what secrets you’ve told anyone. I realize it’s not always an easy thing to remain silent. You are my friend and I hold nothing against you.”

  “Oh, thank you!” She looked up to Brynn with a smile. “I was only trying to help you regain the castle, honest I was.”

  “I know you were. You did as I asked trying to turn people in my favor. ’Tis my mistake. I should have specified not to tell Calais anything.”

  “He means to hurt Lord Thorndale, doesn’t he?”

  “Nay, Birdie. I will never let him do that.”

  Brynn spied Drake across the great hall, wearing a very tight tunic, and not looking at all the way he should at a celebration. He was much too casual. She suddenly felt very overdressed. His shining sword with the head of a dragon on the hilt was displayed proudly at his waist. He held a tankard of ale in one hand, and gestured with his other as he spoke with his knights by the open fire.

  The musicians saw Brynn standing in the doorway and the trumpets announced her arrival. Drake handed his ale to a knight and walked to greet her.

  “My lady, you do look quaint tonight.” He held out his arm and Brynn latched on to it.

  “Quaint?” she asked as they entered the room and made their way to the dais. “That’s an odd thing to say.” She nodded to the occupants who bowed or curtsied in return.

  “Mayhap I was being too vague, my lady. I should have said you put the stars in the heavens to shame with the way you sparkle tonight. Yet at the same time your smile warms the room hotter than a summer’s sun. Your beauty surpasses all the splendors of nature, your charm sweeter than the honey of one hundred bees.”

  She felt herself blushing at his comments. It was so unlike Drake to dote over her like this. And very surprising as well. She would have believed him had he stopped at that, but when she saw a nod of approval from Asad and realized Drake was speaking loud enough for the entire room to hear, she knew he was doing nothing more than putting on a show for his people, and this wasn’t coming from his heart. Would he never stop?

  “You daze me with your presence, my lady. Your superior elegance - ”

  “Quaint will be sufficient,” she interrupted him.

  She took her seat at the lord’s right side at the dais, and when Drake picked up his wine goblet in a toast, she had a feeling he wasn’t done with his compliments.

  “To the most robust wife in the kingdom,” he said, startling her with his words.

  “Robust?”

  The crowd cheered wildly.

  “Today we’ve lain as man and wife. My body has filled hers, and my essence as well.”

  The crowd cheered again, and Brynn felt very uncomfortable. She just wanted him to be quiet so she could have the conversation with him she knew she needed to have.

  “I have claimed my virgin as my bride. She will bear me many sons to become warriors and follow in my footsteps. My virgin is no longer a virgin. For as of today I’ve taken her innocence and made her a woman.”

  Brynn never felt more uneasy. Especially when Drake grabbed her by the arm and helped her up next to him, placing a goblet of wine in her own hand. Every time she decided Drake was to her liking, he did something foolish to upset her, like this. She didn’t know what to think, nor what to do. She wanted to put down the goblet and run from the room, but something made her stay.

  Instead, she raised her goblet and drank to the toast. Over the rim she saw Calais in the crowd. He was oddly smiling when he should be angry at her for telling him to leave. How she wished now she had made him leave the castle earlier. Something bad was going to happen. She could feel it in her bones. Her stomach turned and she sat back down.

  The food arrived and the musicians struck up a tune. Drake loaded up a trencher in front of her with mutton, fresh bread and baked eel, but she was too upset to take a bite.

  “My lady, is the feast not to your liking?” he asked.

  “I just don’t have a taste for mutton or eel,” she lied.

  “Then I’ll have the cook kill a chicken, or perhaps send my huntsmen out to find some venison.” Drake raised his hand to call over the head huntsman, but Brynn stopped him.

  “Nay!” she said, her hand on his. “I just think I need some fresh air.”

  Drake rose immediately, helping her stand. The music stopped and all eyes were on them.

  “Carry on,” he commanded with a wave of his hand. The laughter and commotion started up again as Drake escorted Brynn out into the courtyard.

  “Where do you wish to go?” asked Drake, trapping her hand under his arm as they walked.

  “I wish to sit on the bench in my mother’s flower garden,” she told him, pointing to the spot up ahead.

  They entered the garden, but no flowers grew there. Since Drake had taken over the castle, the garden was barren, and had never been replanted. They sat among charred remains of branches and vines that once held life and beauty. A dead, empty shell where once love, life, and beauty had been present. It was exactly how Brynn felt at this moment.

  “Something seems to have upset you, Lady Brynn. Was it the celebration?”

  “Nay, the celebration was fine.” She forced a smile, not wanting to tell him how uncomfortable she felt by his grand show. All a lie. “I would like you to answer my questions now, if you would.”

  “We’ve agreed upon answering questions after the celebration.”

  “I know. I guess I am just anxious.”

  “I see.” He took Brynn’s hand in his and ran his fingers up and down the back of her hand. “What did you
want to know?” He turned her hand over and with the tip of one finger traced circles in her palm, causing tingling sensations throughout her entire body.

  “I want to know why you’re called Dragon’s Son.”

  His fingers stopped. He let loose her hand and stood, looking up to the sky. She didn’t think he was going to answer at first, but after a long wait, he did.

  “I suppose ’tis time you knew the truth about me, Brynn. After all, you have been truthful with me.”

  She stirred on the wooden bench, clasping and unclasping her hands atop her lap, knowing she could no longer keep the truth from him that she had been bedded by Calais. And though she wanted to tell him, she didn’t know how. Nor did she want to experience what he’d do once he found out.

  He continued talking, but not looking at her. Instead, he looked up to the moon for his strength.

  “My father, as I’ve already told you, was an evil man. He was also a Pendragon. Do you know what a Pendragon is, Brynn?”

  He turned to look at her in the moonlight. His body was silhouetted dark against the blue rays of light.

  “’Tis a title of sorts. A name. Leader of men,” she told him.

  “True,” he nodded. “But it also has a dark, magical side to it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He sat next to her, but didn’t touch her. Instead, he laid his hand on the hilt of the sword, running his fingers along the head of the dragon.

  “A Pendragon has the ability to . . . change.”

  “Change? I don’t understand.”

  “My father,” he continued, “was able to change his physical form. The last time I saw him, he shapeshifted . . . into a dragon.”

  “Oh!” She couldn’t hide the startled gasp that spilled from her lips. Suddenly the dream in the cave came crashing back into her mind. She was the body of a young boy who saw his father for the first time shift into a dragon. That boy, as she suspected, was none other than Drake. “That’s how he killed your mother,” she said. “As a dragon, didn’t he?”

  Drake looked up in surprise. “Aye. He was angry with her. His dragon’s breath charred her to death.”

  “And you saw it happen. You were young, and frightened. Too frightened to try to save your own mother.”

  She saw him holding back the emotions. His head nodded slightly and he bit the inside of his cheek. He stood again, back toward her so she couldn’t see the dampness in his eyes, but she knew it was there.

  “How do you know all this? You said you didn’t have the ability to scry.”

  “I don’t.” She stood and walked toward him. She laid her hand on his elbow. He didn’t turn to face her. “I saw it in a dream. I experienced what you did as a boy - but in a dream last night in the cave. No one should have to go through what you did, Drake.”

  “No one should have to die the way my mother did,” he ground out. “I should have killed the bastard for what he’d done to her.”

  “You were young. And scared,” she said, trying to comfort him. “You couldn’t have done anything differently.”

  “Perhaps not at the time, but I can now.”

  “I don’t understand.” She let go of his arm. He turned to face her.

  “’Tis because of me that so many virgins have died at the jaws of Dracus. I should have stopped him long ago. ’Tis my fault the dragon lives.”

  “Are you saying . . . your father is Dracus?”

  “Aye. I believe so.”

  Brynn thought back to the episode at the cave. Seeing Drake’s father in the water. That dragon was him - the green dragon. It came to the man when he’d summoned it, and they became one.

  “If he is a dragon, how could I see his physical human body reflected in the pool?” she asked.

  “There’s obviously sorcery involved,” he told her with determination knitting his brow. “I don’t believe the vision you saw was my father.”

  “And what of the green dragon in the cave? ’Tis not the same color as Dracus. ’Tis a different dragon altogether.”

  “It was obviously a trick. My father is Dracus, and I intend on stopping him. I should have done it long ago. But the prophecies say even a Pendragon can’t kill a dragon without the help of one with magical abilities. He must mate with her and become one. Together, and only together, can they find a way to kill the dragon.”

  “And that’s why you came to my father’s castle looking for me.”

  “Aye.”

  “You couldn’t have just sent for me instead of killing everyone in the process?”

  “My name in infamous, Brynn. No one welcomes a Pendragon with open arms. Your father obviously didn’t trust me, or he wouldn’t have ordered his men to attack us when the Klarens arrived. And as I’ve told you, I only meant to speak with your father, and did not know the Klarens followed me. A siege was not my intent.”

  “So the only reason you saved me from the sacrificial stake and the dragon’s jaws was because of a personal vendetta against your father? For your own benefit, you saved my life?”

  “My reasons should not take your concern. The important part is that when I’m finished, the dragon will no longer exist.”

  Brynn crossed her arms and made her way back to the bench. She’d wanted to know the man called Drake, but now she felt she knew too much. She wanted to believe he was capable of love. And that she was as well. But now it looked as if Drake only cared about himself. He had guilt eating at him from his childhood and he’d go to any extreme to pay a personal debt. And she couldn’t really blame him, but somewhere deep inside she’d been hoping for something so much more between them. She wanted to feel those same feelings between them on the dreamwalking plane in her physical life as well.

  “Now it’s your turn,” he said, laying his hand on her shoulder. Answer me a question as well.”

  “If I answer your question, you’ll forfeit lying with me. ’Tis one condition only, remember.”

  “The power against the dragon will be no good unless you come to me willingly. If I have to force you, it will not work.”

  “That’s right. So will you have me come to you willing, or shall I instead answer your question?”

  He seemed to think for a moment, then shook his head slowly. “This isn’t the way I want our first time together to be, Brynn. I had hoped when we finally coupled there would be at least a hint of passion.”

  It wasn’t what she wanted either. When she made love with him, she wanted to feel the way she did on the dreamwalking plane. And with all the confusion in her mind, what she’d just heard from him, and also the fact her secret was tearing her up inside, passion was the last thing she was feeling at the moment.

  “Then state your question, so I can give you my answer, because if we couple right now, there may not be passion involved. For I cannot be passionate upon command.” She had thought he’d try a little harder to persuade her, but instead, he blurted out his question without a second thought.

  “Are you a virgin?”

  Her heart jumped at the question. Any question but this would have been more comfortable at the moment. But she’d promised to answer, and she could no longer keep the truth from him. He asked, and she would tell him what he wanted to know. She had to do this, and the time had come for her to tell him her secret, so she would not keep it to herself any longer.

  She looked the other way when she answered.

  “Nay, my lord. I am not.”

  She waited for a reaction. When none came, she drew up enough courage to look him in the eye. His eyes were dark in the night. His face was unreadable. If he was angry, she couldn’t tell.

  “Who took your virginity, Brynn? Who is the man who did what I am unable to do?”

  “It matters not,” she told him. “I am married to you now, my lord husband, and it won’t happen again.”

  “It matters to me.” She could hear the irritation in his voice now. The night was no longer warm. A cool breeze picked up and the cloudless sky was suddenly becoming
hazy. The moonlight flickered as clouds passed by.

  “What if I refuse to tell you? Would you beat me or drag the truth from me by harming me somehow?”

  “Have I ever harmed you, Brynn? Have I ever laid a hand on you in any way that would be considered violent?”

  She knew he hadn’t. Though he scared her immensely with the anger he vented, he had yet to physically hurt her in any way.

  “Nay, my lord. You have saved me from the dragon’s claws and for that I am eternally grateful.”

  “Then tell me. Who is it that took your virginity?”

  “If she won’t tell you, I will.” Calais walked into the garden, followed by some of Drake’s men, the falconer, and a few others that Brynn recognized as occupants of Thorndale Castle before Drake had seized it.

  “Calais, no!” cried Brynn, not wanting Drake to have to hear it this way. Now she really regretted not making him leave right away.

  Drake looked to her and then back to the semi-crippled man.

  “’Twas me, Lord Thorndale. I am the man who was able to bed your wife, though you don’t seem to be enough of a man to accomplish the task. I have the Elders here to vouch for me. I kept it a secret at Brynn’s request, but I can keep quiet no longer.”

  Brynn noticed Hermod and the Elders at the back of the group. They held no weapons, but they did hold disdain for her in their eyes.

  Before Brynn could stop him, Drake pulled his sword, only to be met by the sword of one of his own knights, Sir Burgess.

  “What is this?” Drake asked, appalled that his own man was standing against him.

  “A conspiracy,” answered Calais. “You can thank your little wife there for getting you away from the crowd where we didn’t have to make a scene. As a matter of fact, it was her idea to go up against you so she could reclaim her father’s castle as her own.”

  “Brynn, you are a part of all this? How could you?”

  “Nay, ’tis not true,” she told him.

  “So you’re saying what Calais says is a lie?”