Dragonwitch (11 page)

“You are welcome to my uncle's home during these sad times,” said Alistair. His face was paler than usual, and his blue eyes were dark with lack of sleep. But he spoke with the cool confidence of a lord, and Leta could see that her father was favorably impressed by him.

Lord Aiven glanced her way at last. “You're looking well, girl,” he said, and that was all. He offered his arm to Lady Mintha, and they made their way up from the river to Gaheris, Alistair leading the way, and Leta trailing far behind.

She wondered as she tramped through the crunching snow:
Does my father know
?

She sat unspeaking at dinner between her betrothed and her father. They spoke of lands and alliances, of wars long past and grudges all too present. They never spoke of the crown, but plenty of latent meaning lurked in the not speaking.

Leta could not eat. She picked at the bones of a small roasted fowl, feeding much of it to the dog under the table. Her gaze kept shifting to the great, heavy chair, its wood as delicately scrolled as any illuminated manuscript, filled with Earl Ferox's absence.

Suddenly Leta stood. Her father and Lord Alistair gave her swift glances but scarcely heard the excuses she murmured as she left the table and hastened from the room. She felt Lady Mintha's gaze like daggers between her shoulder blades, and it drove her swiftly out to the darkened, frozen passages beyond the warm light of the dining hall. She picked up her pace, all but running now, lifting her heavy skirts as she climbed the stairs.

The Chronicler sat at his desk, bowed over his work by the light of three tall candles. He turned when he heard the door open and sat up straight. “M'lady.” He said nothing more, but Leta saw how quickly he covered his page with his blotting cloth. And she could feel the Wall surrounding him as though it were built of stone and mortar.

She closed the door and stood a moment, her face hidden in shadows. Her heart beat a dangerous rhythm in her breast, and she could feel the wellsprings of sorrow trying to rise up inside, to drown her. She forced them back.

“Chronicler.” Her voice froze on her tongue, unable to say what she had come to say. So she wrapped her arms around herself, her hands buried in her fur-lined sleeves, and moved across the room to his desk. By rights, he should have climbed down from the stool and bowed to the future wife of his future earl.

But the Chronicler only drew a long breath and let it out in cloudy vapors. “What have you come about, m'lady?”

“I . . . I was wondering,”—her voice dropped almost to a whisper—“what it is you are copying.”

His look was sharp. Slowly he removed the blotting cloth and allowed Leta to look at the vellum page. She saw there, in his firm hand, the nursery rhyme she had seen days ago in the hand of Lady Pero. Lady Pero's own fragile parchment lay to one side of the book, held in place by a stone weight.

“Foolishness,” said the Chronicler. “More nursery rhymes. More tales of Faerie brothers and mystical houses full of lights and songs and truth. More deaths and prophecies of coming kings. Foolishness.”

Practical Leta nearly cowed her into submission.
He doesn't want to see you now. Leave him be. Go back where you belong.

But when Leta opened her mouth, though she could scarcely get the words out, she heard herself say, “Would you read it to me?”

He did not meet her gaze but sat staring at delicate lines of red ink, still drying, a little smeared from his attempt to hide them. The Wall around him was almost palpable. But there was a frailty to it. At the right provocation, it would crumble, leaving him unprotected.

He read:

“Fling wide the doors of light, Smallman,

Though furied falls the Flame at Night.

The heir to truth, blest blade of fire,

He finds in shielded shadow light.

“Not in vain the hope once borne

When flees the king to farther fight—

Dark and deepness hold no sway.

The brother dies, the lantern lights.”

It was like the nursery rhyme of Leta's childhood, but quite different as well. A distant inspiration that had perhaps become twisted over time into the simple lines so familiar to her. This one was closer to the truth, she thought even as the last words died upon the frosty air.

“What does it mean?” Leta asked.

“What do you think it means?” he replied as she knew he would. Never willing to give an opinion for her, he forced her to form her own.

“I think it means,” she replied quietly, “that though he flees, though he hides, the king will come to us one day. I think it means the true heir will be revealed in the end.”

She felt his gaze upon her face. She felt him reading her thoughts. Drawing a sudden breath, she lifted her eyes and met his, and she thought with all the fury she dared not speak:
You want the Smallman to be true, to be truly true. Not a symbol. Not a metaphor. You want him to be real. But you're afraid.

She could not know how bright her eyes flashed, how her face resembled that of her father, a strong and determined lord of men. But unlike Lord Aiven's, her eyes held kindness as well, and this made her face the stronger by far. In that brief span of time, she looked the woman she was born to be, not the creature she had been molded into.

How much the Chronicler understood in her eyes, no one could guess. But at last he whispered, “It is all Faerie stories. Men of old trying to make sense of a senseless world. Nothing more.”

Leta swallowed and dropped her gaze. But the flash of rebellion had not quite gone from her spirit. She moved a little away from the book that now seemed dangerous, the written words full of power and desire.

She whispered, “My father has come to take final leave of Earl Ferox.”

“I know.”

“And then Alistair will be made Earl of Gaheris.”

“I know.”

She could not look at him. But she said, “What about you, Chronicler?”

“I am nothing,” the Chronicler replied. “I do not matter in these great events.”

“What about . . . what about me?”

The Wall redoubled with such tremendous force, Leta almost felt it slap her face. She took a step back, her arms tightening about her small frame, her gaze fixed upon the legs of the Chronicler's stool.

The Chronicler said, “You will marry Lord Alistair as you should. You will bind Aiven to Gaheris. And one day, m'lady, you will be queen. A great queen, able to read and to write. You will be stronger than these men
can begin to guess, and you will serve the North Country as you rule by Alistair's side.”

She could not believe it. He spoke of some other girl. Not Lord Aiven's useless daughter, fit only to sit quietly in her chambers. Fit only to bear children and pass them off to nursemaids while she stitched at tapestries and thought of nothing.

But that wasn't her anymore. Leta knew it deep down, even if she did not yet believe it. Worlds were open to her that no other could see, for she could read and she could think. She could travel to distant lands and glean the wisdom of ancient times and histories.

“You will be a great queen,” said the Chronicler.

“Is that why you've taught me?” Leta said. She looked at the Chronicler then, full in the face, seeing every detail etched out in the glow of those three candles. “For the good of the North Country?”

Even in the candlelight, his cheeks drained of color. He was sinking back into that silent fortress he had built for himself from the time he was young, from the time he was first made to realize that he was different from other children, from other young men. The muscles in his cheek tightened, though otherwise he was still as stone.

At last he said, “I have work to do, m'lady. You should return to the hall and Alistair's side.”

Leta's hand darted out. Her practical self didn't have time for a word, for she moved before thought. She dashed the books and papers from his desk, knocking them in a shower to the floor along with one candle, which snuffed out the moment it struck stone.

And she cried, “Why are you such a coward? You tell me that I make myself less than I could be, that I hide inside what people tell me I am! But how are you any different?”

Then, catching up with herself, she realized what she had done. She stared down at the mess on the floor beneath the Chronicler's high stool. He sat there quietly, looking at her with wide eyes.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered.

The next moment she had fled the library, leaving the door standing wide behind her. She ran down the cold corridor, her slippered feet soundless on the stone. Tears froze on her burning face.

O
NE
FINAL
DAY
,
THE
T
WELVE
CAME
to Omeztli. Citlalu and Mahuizoa were scarcely recognizable by then. Their feathered wings molted but did not replenish, and their limbs were gray and wasted. These were not the immortal rulers of a Faerie demesne! They were no better than mortals, unable even to fly. Broken creatures. I could not bear to look at them.

But when the Twelve called up the tower, “Cren Cru commands. Send us your firstborn,” my father and mother replied as if in one voice: “Not while we've yet life coursing through our veins!”

With those final words, they fell from the rooftop of Omeztli Tower. They fell and crashed upon the stones below, winged beings made flightless. Dead.

And Tlanextu became King of Etalpalli.

Other earls arrived, some by river, some by road, all wrapped in heavy furs with dustings of snow on their great shoulders. They came with large
retinues, and Gaheris was filled to bursting. Soon even the fields beyond the castle walls were crowded with fine tents, and nighttime was full of campfires in the snow, like so many stars fallen to earth. Alistair stood wrapped in furs upon the walls of his uncle's keep and thought how like a siege it looked, all those tents, all those fires.

“They've come to honor you,” his mother reminded him.

“They've come to bid farewell to my uncle,” he snarled in response. But that wasn't the whole of it, and he felt the weight of coming mastery hanging above his head like a suspended sword, ready to drop.

The castle was full of feasting and the booming talk of men. Mouse ran his legs off on errands for both Cook and the scrubber, and he shied away from the gazes of those earls, wishing he could find a hole to crawl into and never emerge again. Alistair, always in the thick of it all, laughed and joked and spoke of North Country policies with those who were his uncle's allies. Leta, when obliged, sat at his side, testimony to the Earl of Aiven's link to Gaheris.

And the Chronicler sat in the silence of his library. In that silence, he could almost hear Earl Ferox struggling to breathe.

“You are wanted in the earl's room, my lady,” said Lady Mintha's page, bowing in the doorway of Leta's chamber. Leta sat by the fire, wrapped in a fur cloak, her face red with cold. Even here in seclusion, she could hear the rumble of crowded life in the castle's great hall below. She wondered if Earl Ferox heard it in his sickroom and what he thought, if anything.

“Ferox must be near his end,” said Leta's head lady, and she fetched a mourning veil from among Leta's things and fixed it to Leta's head, covering her hair and partially hiding her face. “Go now,” she said, her voice stern.

Silent as a phantom, Leta followed the page from her chambers and down the darkened hall, which was not as cold as it might be, crowded as it was with the servants and retainers of all the various earls. They waited, their backs against the walls, their arms crossed over their chests, their faces sullen because they were not with their fellows in the feasting hall down
below. They were made to wait outside Ferox's room, to wait and bring word to their lords the moment there was word to bring.

Leta passed beneath their gazes and on to the sickroom. Though a large chamber, it too was crowded. Ferox's closest allies stood along the walls, the light of the great fire flickering on them. A host of candles burned near the head of Ferox's bed but could cast no warmth upon his gray, strained face. Leta briefly wondered if he was already dead. Then she saw the rise and fall of his wasted chest and heard the labored scraping of his breath. He lived. Only just.

Alistair stood on the other side of the bed, his face white in the candlelight. He did not look at Leta as she entered, scarcely seemed aware of her. But Lady Mintha at his side beckoned her near. “He's not long for this world now,” she whispered in Leta's ear. “You must be present at the end. Here, take my place beside my son, and offer what prayers you know for Ferox's passing.”

Leta dared steal a glance at Mintha as she spoke. She saw no sorrow there, though Earl Ferox had always been a kind and true brother to her, giving her a place of precedence in his house and at his table. No, there was no sorrow in Mintha's gaze as she watched her younger brother struggle upon his deathbed.

Shuddering, Leta did as she was commanded and drew close to Alistair. In his expression, at least, she saw real pain. The pain of coming loss and . . . something else, she thought. Something that was akin to fear if not fear itself. She wondered if she was expected to do something to comfort him but could not think what. She hardly knew him, and she did not think a word or gesture from her would make any difference.

So she turned to Earl Ferox, his face worn so thin, his nightshirt folded back to reveal the hollows of his neck and collarbone. He sweated and shivered at once. There could be no comfort for him now save death.

What prayers did she know? She thought of all the little phrases she had been taught as a child, songs of olden days that according to the Chronicler were nothing but fanciful stories. Her heart plummeted at that thought. At a time like this, a man needed fancy to be truth. And if he could not believe it himself, he needed others to believe it for him.

She whispered softly the first of all the prayerful songs that entered her head:

“Beyond the Final Water falling,

The Songs of Spheres recalling.

When you hear my voice beyond the darkling veil,

Won't you return to me?”

She did not realize how loud her voice was until Lady Mintha reached out and pinched her arm. Instantly, Leta clamped her mouth shut, her face burning with embarrassment and the threat of oncoming tears.

But Earl Ferox opened his eyes.

They were clouded over with pain, shimmering with regret, and blind, Leta thought, to all those gathered near. She heard a collective gasp from those around her, and Alistair started forward, kneeling down by the dying man's side. “Uncle Ferox.” His voice was rough yet gentle. “Can you hear me?”

The earl's throat constricted, and the muscles of his face tensed with pain. He croaked hoarsely, “Bring me . . .” His eyes closed. Was that a tear sliding down the grayness of his temple and vanishing into his thin white hair?

“Bring you what?” Alistair said. “What do you need, Uncle?”

Ferox's lips trembled, but his eyelids fluttered open again. “Bring me,” he said, his voice a little stronger this time, “the dwarf.”

Even the distant noise of the earls down in the great hall seemed to still. Leta stood, scarcely breathing, staring at the earl's tense expression, and she felt cold from the inside out. Alistair's mouth hung open, his brow wrinkled and puzzled. “Uncle?”

Mintha stepped forward and grabbed his shoulder. “He's raving,” she said. “His mind is fled. Pay no attention to anything he says, my son. He's already as good as dead.”

Alistair stood uncertainly, but the dying man repeated, “The dwarf. Bring me . . .”

Lady Mintha whirled upon the castle leech. “Have you a draught to give him, to make him sleep?”

“My lady,” said the leech, bowing and scraping, “he ordered me to give him nothing at the end. He ordered me—”

“He can give no more orders,” Mintha said. “My son is giving the orders now. Listen to him!”

“Mother,” Alistair said, “I don't like to go against my uncle's wishes—”

Leta heard no more. She was already out of the room, slipping away like a thief on a wicked errand. She passed into the crowded passage, where retainers tried to grab her arm and whispers assailed her, asking, “Is there word? Is he dead?” She shook her head and pressed on through their midst to places where no torches were lit and shadows surrounded her like icy specters. She fled down the stairs, her black veil trailing behind her, on through ways she knew better than all the rest of Gaheris.

She came to the library door and burst through. “Chronicler!”

A single light burned at the desk. And there the Chronicler sat, pale and tense. She saw his eyes gleaming in the darkness. “M'lady,” he said quietly.

She was across the room. Without thinking, she took hold of both his hands. She could scarcely draw breath enough to speak, for she had run all that way. “Earl Ferox is asking for you!”

Shadows cast by the candlelight played strangely across his features. She saw his eyes widen, his jaw clench. Then, without a word, he slid down off the stool. How like a child he seemed in the darkness, his head no higher than her heart. As fast as he could, he hastened from the library, and she followed him back through the cold passages, up the stairs, and on to the earl's death chamber. The retainers without muttered and pointed, but he ignored them all and passed into the room under the eyes of Gaheris's allies.

“What is he doing here?” Lady Mintha snarled and started to come around the bed. “Get him out!”

“Peace, Mother,” Alistair said, grabbing her arm and holding her in place. “Or I will send you from the room.”

So it was that the castle Chronicler approached his dying master unimpeded. He leaned over the bed, gazing on that wasted face, once so strong, so lordly, so commanding. There were tears in his voice when he spoke:

“I am come, my lord.”

Earl Ferox's eyes slowly opened, and he turned to look upon the dwarf. Something like a smile pulled at his sagging mouth. “So you are, my son.”

The scrubber stood in deep shadows, his back against the wall, feeling every contour of the cold stones pressed into his withered shoulders. He kept out of sight of the earls' retainers. His eyes, runny and clouded though they were, kept sharp lookout. He had seen the quiet maiden hastening behind the little man, and he nodded, grunting.

Turning about and hobbling down a quiet passage, he made his way to a window. Through the stone slit the blue star peered, watching eagerly. The scrubber, using his mop for support, hauled himself up to the window and put his head out into the night cold.

“Go tell Queen Bebo the time is come,” he said. “She must send me aid.”

The star twinkled brightly.

Then it vanished.

Down below, in the cold courtyard, the door of the crypt strained. Behind it, voices whispered:
Now! Now!