The Book of Water (23 page)

—
Well, it’s gone now, whatever it was.

The dragon seems to think that should be the end of it, but N’Doch is glad this hidey-hole has a lockable door. Meanwhile, they might as well get bedded down. He sees the girl already looking around for her spot.

“You take the far corner,” he says, gearing up for an argument. But she’s cool with that, and he relaxes. He
stopped running with gangs once he became a teenager, so he’s not much used to moving about in groups. He’ll feel better if he can control the layout. But he does let the dragons scope out their own territory. “I’ll hang here by the door.” He closes it and locks it, though it makes him feel more trapped than safe. Then, to the right of it, where the door can’t swing against him if somebody bashes it in, he tosses down his pack. “Okay, rest up. Come morning, we’ll go looking for Lealé.”

He settles himself on the concrete with his pack for a pillow, and blows out the candle. Darkness encloses him like a shroud. The dragon must be asleep already. He knows she’s there, not ten feet from him, but he still loses faith in her existence if he can’t actually see her. He’d hate to sound like some little kid whining in the night, so he figures it’s time he tried the mind-calling thing the girl talks about. She says you just shape your thought like an arrow and send it. N’Doch wonders if she’s seen a real arrow. Maybe she has. Maybe they still use such things back in 913. He feels himself drifting and pulls himself back.

—
Dragon? Hey, Dragon! You there?

—
Of course I’m here. Where did you think I was?

—
No, I knew you were here, but I, like
, called
you, y’know?

—
Yes . . . ?

—
Well, y’know, I never did that before, so I
 . . .

—
You woke me up.

N’Doch is miffed. She didn’t congratulate him or anything. It was pretty easy, he has to admit, but she could have at least noticed.

—
Okay. Got that. Now, since you’re awake, you sure you’d know if there was something alive down here?

—
Absolutely.

—
You’d, like, smell it or something?

—
Or hear it.

—
What if it wasn’t making any noise?

—
I’d hear it
living.
Go to sleep.

He tries to, but just before he does, he hears the rustle again, muffled this time, like there’s something moving about out in the main basement. He gets up and checks the door, which is latched and sturdy. But then, because he’s come to trust the dragon’s word on things, no matter if he
questions her as if he doesn’t, he finds himself thinking, well, then, maybe whatever’s out there isn’t technically
alive
. . . .

And that keeps him awake for way longer than he likes.

E
rde lay awake for a while, tucked against Earth’s foreleg, listening to the deep bellows-rush of his breathing, always more like a movement of air than an actual sound. Usually it lulled her, but tonight it seemed less soothing. She decided he was not asleep after all, only pretending to be, and not doing a very good job.
In fact
, she thought,
none of us is asleep. That’s why the room feels so . . . full.
Probably they were all thinking about the next day and what it would bring. She had heard her father’s knights use the same tone the night before a battle that N’Doch used when he talked about going into the City.

—
Dragon? Are you sleep?

—
No.

—
I didn’t think so. Me neither.

—
Good. That means you’re not talking in your sleep.

—
Do I?

—
You used to, when you thought you’d lost your voice.

—
But I did lose my voice.

—
You didn’t lose it. You just couldn’t find it.

—
Oh, really? And tell me, Dragon, do you know how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

—
What’s an angel?

—
What’s an . . . well, angels are . . . never mind. It’s an expression. Alla used to say that to me when I continued an argument to too fine a point.

—
It’s not too fine a point if you think about it. You actually did have your voice all along. You just couldn’t use it, except when you were asleep and didn’t know any better.

—
Now, Dragon, I did not lose my voice on purpose.

—
Purpose is a complex thing to define, is it not?

—
You sound like Master Djawara. He said . . . Wait. Did you hear that?

Erde stiffened against him, listening.

—
What?

—
Do you smell anything out there?

—
Out where?

—
Out there, in the bigger part of the cave.

Earth’s body stilled. His breathing quickened. Erde waited while he did his search.

—
No. I smell nothing but unliving smells. Fire smells and the smell of the forge. And the smell of those things the boy calls machines.

N’Doch and Master Djawara had explained about “machines,” but Erde thought it sounded like alchemy all the same: burning certain precious substances in order to make the inanimate move. Just as the thing they named “electricity” was clearly strong air magic: calling down invisible power from the sky.

—
I’m sure I heard something. Remember, your sister said . . .

—
She said something had been there and was not now. I think you are tired and should go to sleep.

—
Well, I’ll try.

And she did, for a while, but she failed.

—
Dragon?

—
Mmmm?

—
Have you heard the Summoner at all since we left Deep Moor?

This time, she detected anxiety in his reply and instantly regretted the question.

—
I have heard nothing. I have waited and listened. Perhaps I am listening too hard.

—
Don’t worry. I’m sure we’re on the right path. Don’t you agree?

—
I am eager to find Mistress Lealé.

—
So am I.

—
Good night.

—
Good night, Dragon.

Finally, having shared her doubts, Erde fell asleep.

Almost immediately, she was dreaming.

She was home again, not home at Tor Alte but in her home time, in the chill mud and sleeting rain of a battlefield. It was early evening. From her vantage on a low hill, she could see the men and the carts moving about, hurrying to pick up the dead and the wounded before dark, butchering the dead horses to feed what was left of the armies.

In her waking life, Erde had never been to a battlefield, had certainly never seen so many dead in one place or had to listen to the moans of the dying. Their agonies filled her ears. The rutted mud was black with their blood. She wanted to turn away, but the dream would not let her.

Now a man stood in front of her on the hill. The same blood and mud stained his silken tunic and spattered his fine mail. A boy in blue-and-yellow livery raced up with linens and a steaming pitcher, and the man bent to scrub the mud and blood from his face and beard. This time, Erde was unsurprised to recognize Adolphus of Köthen, but she was sorry to see, when he turned toward her, how haggard he looked, how sad and bitter. She had assumed a warrior enjoyed fighting. Again, she thought he would speak to her, as his angry glance was so direct, but again, he looked past her and called out to someone farther along the hill. She turned and saw her father, equally battle-worn, standing beside two of his vassal barons, with a tattered parchment map stretched out between them.

In the dream, she understood she was seeing her father as Köthen saw him: florid, a bit too pudgy for a true fighting man, overly proud of his mane of prematurely silver hair, brave enough but not very bright. She understood also now that Köthen was using her father to further his own ends, but that he was no longer sure that he was getting the best of the exchange.

An early darkness was falling, thick with cold mist and cloud. Köthen signaled the boy to pour more heated water into his cupped hands. He drenched his face and beard, scrubbed hard, rinsed again, and toweled off. Out on the plain, the laden carts drew together, conferred, then split off in two directions, one group across the hill where Erde stood, the other up the longer slope on the far side of the field. Following Köthen’s pensive glance, she picked out a scattering of men and horses, one flying the royal standard, another the deep red of the King’s Knights.

That red—the familiar red of Hal’s leather jerkin, worn despite all dangers to attest to his unswerving loyalty to the King. Seeing it, Erde sensed emotion stirring, and saw how cruelly dispassionate she was in this dream, as if she had left all feeling behind to make this journey back to where the battle had finally been joined between the King’s armies and the forces of the usurpers. Men had fought and died, and Erde did not know if Hal or Rainer or King Otto himself still lived. She wished she stood on the opposite hill, instead of with her father and Köthen. At least she would know the worst. But then, she realized, she’d be wondering about Köthen.

Why was this man so often in her dreams? Not only dreaming about him, but almost as if she was him. She turned back to watch as he tossed the bloodied, dirty linen to the boy.

“See to my lord of Alte, that’s a good lad.”

The boy bowed and hurried off toward the gathered barons. Köthen followed more slowly. Erde’s father looked up as Köthen approached. He waved away the boy with the water and lifted a corner of the map to jab a finger at it.

“What’s left of them will fall back and join Otto’s main force somewhere around here, I figure.”

Köthen nodded tightly. “Peasants. Farmers. Tradespeople. Hardly a fair contest, wouldn’t you say, my lord?”

“Ah, but if we meet up with nothing more than peasants, we should catch up with the King in three days’ time, and that should be that.” He let the corner drop and took Köthen’s elbow, drawing him aside. Köthen eased out of his grasp but moved with him to avoid insult. “The good brother has his men spreading rumors in the villages,” Erde’s father continued quietly. “Once Otto is dead, Prince Carl can be accused of trafficking with witches, and gotten out of your way.”

Köthen shook his head. “No. Call him off. I don’t want the boy harmed. He shouldn’t have to pay for his father’s mistakes.”

“Brother Guillemo says no bishop will crown you King while Otto’s heir lives. The people, at least, require a semblance of legitimacy.”

“That foul priest does love the fire.” Köthen’s jaw tightened. “No, von Alte, there’ll be no burning the Prince.
House arrest will do fine. Carl doesn’t want to be King anyway. If he did, I’d put him on the throne and rule as his regent. Call Guillemo off.”

“Brother Guillemo is not mine to call off, even if I might wish it otherwise. You know that as well as I do.” Von Alte took a long look at the younger man before continuing. “A little late for scruples, my lord of Köthen, is it not?”

“Never too late, my lord of Alte. There’ll be no burning.”

Von Alte’s glance slipped aside. “You may not have the say on that, my lord. . . .”

“And why is that?”

Erde’s father turned, called out to the men behind him. “Bessen! Get over here and report to Baron Köthen what you heard just now.”

A skinny, scrub-bearded younger knight hurried toward them. “Concerning what, my lord?”

“Concerning Prince Carl.”

The man’s worry lines deepened. “Right. The Prince.” He faced Köthen breathlessly and bowed.

“Come on, Bessen, out with it,” growled Köthen.

“An escape attempt, my lord. This morning, while you were showing yourself so valiantly on the field . . .”

“An ‘escape’? As you may recall, Bessen, the Prince is a guest in my tent, free to come and go.”

“As long as he doesn’t go very far,” put in von Alte.

Bessen nodded eagerly. “And that’s just it, my lord. The Prince took advantage of your . . . generosity and tried to flee. The White Brothers foiled his attempt and brought him back.”

Köthen lunged at him, grabbing huge fistfuls of his tunic. “What have they done? Is he alive?”

Bessen cringed in his grasp. “Of course, my lord baron. The Prince is safe in Brother Guillemo’s custody.”

Köthen shook him like a rag doll. “SAFE? You call that safe?”

Von Alte levered an arm between the two men, to pry them apart. “Get a hold of yourself, Köthen. Poor Bessen’s only the news bearer.”

“And that’s what I’m surrounded with! Everyone reports! No one sees anything! Yet what remarkable detail they all bring to their accounts!” Köthen shoved Bessen
away in disgust, then tugged his tunic straight. “My lords will excuse me while I go rescue Prince Carl from his ‘rescuers.’”