The Rose Cord

by J. D. Oswald

  ‘I’m not Magog,’ he said to the Gweinyddau, who were still cowering in front of him. ‘Magog died two thousand years ago.’

  ‘Master jests with us,’ the eldest of the creatures said, but he could see the seed of doubt germinating. Its face crumpled and creased in a parody of expression. ‘Yet master is undoubtedly changed.’

  ‘I’m not your master,’ Benfro continued. ‘My name is Sir Benfro, son of Sir Trefaldwyn of the Great Span. I came across the place where the last remains of your master lie. I rescued his jewel, his last remaining essence, from his watery grave.’ He reached over for the bag of food, tipping the remaining contents out on to the table and sorting through it, looking for the jewel he had wrapped thickly in a bundle of leaves.

  Malkin hopped across the table and helped with the search. The squirrel, no doubt adept at finding things, soon located the small package. Benfro couldn’t help noticing that it still looked at him with a nervous stare as if any moment it expected him to explode. He knew that for a short moment he had stopped being Benfro, had become something more akin to the ferocious Magog of legend. It had changed how the squirrel viewed him, and the loss of their innocent friendship pained him more than anything else.

  Taking the small package, Benfro opened it, unfolding layer after layer of thick green leaf until the minute gem lay like the centre of some bizarre flower on his outstretched palm. He held it up to the Gweinyddau.

  ‘See,’ he said. ‘This is all that is left of your master.’

  Errol stood perfectly still, not believing what Duke Dondal had just said.

  Back home, in the forests around Pwllpeiran, he had perfected the art of disappearing. All you needed to do was stop moving, stop drawing attention to yourself, make your breathing so shallow as to be virtually inaudible and think yourself into the background. Many was the time he had avoided a taunting or worse from Trell and his cronies by simply acting like he wasn’t there. Now he longed to be able to do the same thing.

  But it wasn’t going to work.

  ‘Seize him.’ King Ballah’s command was almost lazy, but before Errol could do anything two guards had him by the arms.

  ‘He poses no threat, Your Majesty,’ Dondal said, bowing more deeply than before. ‘I’ve seen to it that he has no weapons. In truth he’s little more than a novitiate, and one taken from the peasantry by all accounts.’

  ‘And how much did Melyn pay you to bring him here?’ the king asked. Dondal reached into his travelling cloak, pulling out a heavy bag of coins. He stepped forward to the throne and handed it to the king.

  ‘A tidy sum, Your Majesty,’ he said. ‘But I would sooner forfeit my title and lands than betray my king.’

  ‘And yet you chose to keep this matter from His Majesty all this time? Or did you fear discovery and have a change of heart?’ the major domo asked. ‘How long have you planned this, Dondal? How long have you been in collusion with the enemy?’

  ‘Is that how low my house has come in your estimation, Tordu? That you could believe we would sell out to the House of Balwen? My own brother died defending the crown.’

  ‘And you tried to pass this impostor off as his son. How does that honour his memory?’

  ‘But you fell for it, didn’t you, Tordu?’ Dondal said. ‘So what’s all this about nothing happening in this city without you knowing about it?’

  ‘Gentlemen.’ The voice was quiet but the effect was instant. Both the duke and the major domo fell silent, turning like chastised schoolboys to face their king. Errol felt the king’s demand for attention like a compulsion in the base of his brain, as if there could be nothing he wanted to do more than listen to the old man. Only the guards’ restraint stopped him from approaching the throne, but their tightening grips also served to shock him out of the spell. The old man’s power was far more subtle than Melyn’s.

  ‘Bring the boy forward,’ the king said. Errol didn’t fight. He was still too stunned at the turn of events to begin to worry about what might happen to him. His mind was racing too fast to think straight.

  ‘So you’re one of Melyn’s spies,’ the king said as Errol was forced to his knees in front of the throne. ‘Well what have you got to say for yourself, boy?’

  Errol stared up into the old face with its piercing black eyes. He was caught before he had even started. He would be put to death. He would never find Martha or see what had become of the dragon Benfro. But why? He owed no allegiance to the Order of the High Ffrydd or the House of Balwen. By the luck of the draw he had been born in the Twin Kingdoms, but his father had been a Llanwennog, one of King Ballah’s subjects. Why should he die for a cause he so hated?

  ‘I no more wish to serve Inquisitor Melyn or Queen Beulah than you do, Your Majesty,’ Errol said. ‘My father was Llanwennog. Melyn sought to use me simply because of my looks.’

  ‘I see your father taught you our language. No doubt he also taught you our ways, so why did you decide to stay in the Twin Kingdoms and not return to your homeland?’ the king asked.

  ‘I never knew my father,’ Errol said. ‘My mother would never tell me about him. I never had a chance to leave the village where I was raised before the inquisitor came and took me away to Emmass Fawr. That’s where I learned to speak Llanwennog.’

  ‘Indeed?’ The king made no attempt to hide his disbelief.

  ‘It’s true, Your Majesty,’ Errol said, looking for any way he might possibly convince the king. A tiny window of opportunity had opened; if he could prove his loyalty to Ballah then he might be free of Melyn.

  ‘Ah, but your loyalties lie elsewhere,’ the king said, ‘somewhere even I can’t see. True, you’ve no love of Melyn. His sticky thoughts are all over you like a pox, but you’ve managed to fight them off. You’re an enigma, Errol Ramsbottom, and I don’t much like riddles.’

  ‘I was sent to make contact with Princess Iolwen, to persuade her not to enter into marriage with any Llanwennog prince,’ Errol said. ‘And failing that I was supposed to arrange an accident for Prince Dafydd. Those were my orders. I tell you this because I had no intention of carrying them out. As soon as the opportunity presented itself I intended to abscond.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that,’ King Ballah said. ‘But you’re mistaken if you think your candour will earn you any favour. You’re supposed to be a soldier, boy. You obey orders. You carry them out to the death if necessary. It doesn’t matter that you’re on the other side; you should serve your country, your people in whatever role it sees fit. But you’ve decided you know better. You’ve decided to be selfish and follow your own heart. I’d see you executed before the end of the day.’

  Errol bowed his head, defeated. This was it then – he was going to die. He hoped it would be quick and painless.

  ‘But you’re different, Errol Ramsbottom,’ the king said. ‘For one thing, you fooled me, and you must have fooled Melyn as well. That takes uncommon skill, not something I’d expect to see in a boy. And I’m also intrigued by your very nature. My eyesight may not be as good as it once was, but I can see an aura as well as I ever could, and there’s something very familiar about yours. Guards, take him to the West Tower. See he is fed and watered.’

  Errol felt the hands grip his arms once more, but when he went to stand, he found his knees too weak to support him. Roughly he was hauled to his feet and dragged away from the throne.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ Duke Dondal said, stepping between the guards and the long trek to the door, ‘is it wise to keep an enemy so close?’

  ‘Wiser, I think, than letting him plot and scheme on the borders of my kingdom, Dondal,’ Ballah said. ‘It’s as well you gave me all the money Melyn paid you, otherwise I might suspect your motives. Now, please, my guest has travelled a long way and no doubt needs to rest. Let him pass.’

  Reluctantly, Dondal stepped to one side. Errol’s mind was still a-whirl with the rush of events, but he registered the look of dreadful rage and hatred on the duke’s face as he was led past. Then he was heading for the huge doors and
if not freedom then something closer to it than he had any reason to expect. As he moved away from the throne, the king’s voice rang out clear for all to hear.

  ‘And now, Duke Dondal, I believe you had come here to pay your tithes to the crown?’

  Quite what response he had been expecting, Benfro was not sure. He was not prepared for what happened. First the eldest then the other Gweinyddau tipped their malformed heads back and uttered a strange ululation, a cry that reminded him of the howling of wolves on a moonlit night, except that it sounded nothing like that. It was a keening, but it was also the roaring of a storm wind through summer trees. It was a death scream, but it was also the last gasp of a dying stag, hunted to the edge of exhaustion and beyond, hope ended by a well placed talon. And as the noise rose, so the Gweinyddau seemed to fall apart. They didn’t so much disappear as dissolve, mote by mote in front of his eyes. Dust spiralled from their limbs, dancing on invisible currents in the air. They melted together, a whirlwind of particles that swept up towards the ceiling.

  But the ceiling was no longer there. The night sky opened out overhead, framed by the ruined walls of the castle. Stars shone sharp in the high cold air of the cloudless, moonless night, and the hazy remains of the Gweinyddau rose towards them like steam from a boiling pot, dissipating fast. For a moment Benfro thought he could make out a shape in the mass, a beautiful female dragon with her head bowed in sorrow, but it could have been his imagination. Did he imagine a voice, perfect like his mother’s say, ‘Thank you, Sir Benfro, for freeing us from our endless torment’? It was so faint it could have been the wind whistling between the ruined columns and collapsed arches. Certainly the cry faded until it merged with the breeze, dwindling to nothing.

  Shuddering, he squeezed the gem tight in his fist.

  ‘We go now,’ Malkin said, its former chirpy self starting to reassert itself. The surface it stood upon was now rotted almost to nothing at the edges, brittle and dry with age, yet still it hopped about the table, picking up little handfuls of vegetables and placing them in a pile by the bag. Benfro could see its eagerness to be gone from this place, could understand it completely. He too longed to flee, but there was one thing that held him back. One thing his curiosity would not let go.

  ‘A moment, Malkin,’ he said as the squirrel started to throw provisions into the bag. ‘There’s something I have to try first.’

  Lifting the little creature on to his shoulder, he walked out of the kitchen and into the great hall. As a ruin it was not quite as impressive as it had seemed before. A rickety old bench sat beside the empty fireplace and a small table was heaped with the remains of his last meal. Carefully he added what he could to the bag and, still clutching the gem in his palm, set out in search of something he knew must be nearby.

  Deep inside the ruins of the castle, only broken scattered fragments of light pierced the gloom, yet somehow Benfro knew where he was going as if he had been here a thousand times before. When finally it was too dark to see, and he had already stubbed his claws on one fallen stone block too many, he unwrapped the jewel and held it in front of him. It glowed a tiny ruby light, just enough to see the smooth stone walls and arched ceiling, blackened with soot from the torches which had hung in the now empty rusted iron sconces.

  With his guide to lead him, Benfro made swift progress to a great wooden door. Bones were piled at its base and at least one skull. He stared at this for a long time before recognizing its shape, the high forehead and wide nose cavity, the lower jaw still holding stumps of blackened teeth. A man, and an important one judging by the glittering gold torc that hung around his neck. He reached down and pulled the glittering bauble off the skeleton, breaking its neck and tumbling the skull to the stone floor as he did. Kicking the bones aside gave him a small thrill, as if that simple act of desecration and disrespect could go some way towards making up for the pain and suffering he had felt. The moment soon passed. Revenge would have to be far greater than that.

  On his shoulder Malkin gripped tight with sharp little claws but remained silent. Steeling himself to the task, Benfro tried to remember everything that was himself. Strangely the dead man helped here. Seeing the skeleton made it all too easy to recall his mother’s death and his silent walk through the burning village. He reached out and took the tiny red jewel between taloned finger and thumb, watching as the gem glowed brighter, tendrils like red mist twisting from it to wrap themselves around his hand. Immediately he could feel the assault on his mind, the rage building, but he was ready for it. He reached out for the door with his glowing hand and pushed.

  11

  Dragons’ jewels are dangerous and wonderful things, and yet men cannot help themselves from seeking them out, for in the hands of skilled magicians they can be a source of great power, but to all but the most proficient they bring only sorrow and death.

  As gems go, they are hardly remarkable. Duller than a ruby and rough-faceted as if cut by a novice, still they hold a terrible fascination that can tempt even the most fastidious soul. To hold such a jewel in one’s hand is to live another, fantastic life, freed from everyday worries and concerns. It is a powerful illusion, intoxicating and addictive. Many have withered away to nothing, all thought of food, drink or any of life’s pleasures overwhelmed by the single desire to be connected to that make-believe world.

  It is said that a dragon’s jewels are formed by the learning and experience of the beast as it goes through life. Certainly what little knowledge dissectors have gleaned over the years would suggest that dragon young have few or no jewels within their brains. Only fully grown beasts, and old ones at that, will yield more than a handful of gems. Even then, some promising-looking specimens, those considered by their own kind to be elders in what passes for their society, may have only one or two tiny jewels, as if they have long since stopped experiencing the world in which they live. Perhaps there is some kernel of truth in this observation, for many of the older Ffrydd dragons are sorry, pathetic creatures, quite resigned to a slow uneventful descent into senility and death.

  Tradition has it that King Balwen slew the first dragon and claimed its jewels for himself and his heirs. To this day only the royal house of the Hendry may harvest the gems, although they have long since passed the actual task on to the inquisitors of the High Ffrydd. Dragon jewels are highly prized as gifts, perhaps the highest honour that the royal family can bestow upon favoured servants. Yet there was never a noble house to which this particular favour was extended that did not soon after suffer some tragedy in its line of succession. For if a dragon’s jewels can be said to contain all their experiences and knowledge, it is true also that they will continue to gather experience and knowledge into themselves, taking them wantonly from whatever source of life they encounter.

  The gift of a dragon’s jewel is thus a double-edged sword. To possess one is to be favoured at court and to be trusted with a great and powerful secret. But it is also to be tempted beyond the ability of most to resist. There is a power to be drawn from them by the skilled magician, but for the weaker willed they can be a source of untold grief.

  Father Charmoise, Dragons’ Tales

  The door resisted at first, but setting his shoulder to the task soon had it moving, slowly and with a terrible noise. Once there was enough room to squeeze through, he pushed past and into the space beyond.

  Benfro was immediately aware that he could see without the aid of the ruby still clenched between his fingers. Light entered the room from somewhere, reflecting off an incredible hoard of treasure. He stepped lightly past plates of purest gold piled on the floor. His eyes were drawn to countless glittering white jewels, stacked neatly on deep shelves carved from the rock and rising from floor to ceiling. There were books and scrolls here too, filling wooden shelves surrounding the pillars holding up the ceiling. The wall farthest from the door was dominated by a huge fireplace, alongside which sat a comfortable-looking chair and a reading table with twin sconces for candles. Everything was clean and dust-free, as if it
had been in constant use not hidden from sight for more years than it was easy to imagine. And it was all hauntingly familiar, as if he had been here before.

  For a moment Benfro thought he had slipped back into the dream state, that this was once more Magog’s memory of the place imprinted on his mind, but it felt different this time. He was aware of the jewel trying to inveigle itself into his thoughts. It was a constant itching at the base of his brain, a whispering voice too quiet to hear. But he knew what it was now, what it was trying to do. And so he could ignore it, even try to suppress it. He knew too that it wasn’t affecting the way he saw this great room. Protected by whatever magics he could not begin to understand, the repository had stood in a time warp since its master last had left it.

  With a great effort of will Benfro placed the glowing red jewel back into its wrapping of leaves, folded them tight around it and dropped the package into the bag with the food. He crossed the room to the fireplace, noting as he reached it that the rag-clothed skeletons of three more men lay on the hearth like logs set out for a fire. Scrapes in the blackened stone showed where they had scrabbled in their attempts to escape the place, but there was no sign that they had tried to take any booty with them.

  A scroll was rolled out on the reading table, and he bent to make out its words. The faint illumination of the jewels was not enough light to read by, and he wished there were candles in the sconces. They appeared at his bidding, or so it seemed, twin wax spires, their wicks flickering with guttering yellow flames. Astonished, Benfro reached out a hand to feel the heat. It was real. He took one of the candles and carried it to the nearest shelf. Carved into the wall, it was more of an alcove and contained ten silver-white jewels. He picked up the nearest, feeling the weight of it in his palm, and was nearly floored by the memories.