The Broken World (27 page)

‘It would appear that King Ballah has left behind many enchantments, sire. Traps for the unwary. I've no doubt that were you not so sorely injured you would have seen them immediately.'

Melyn concentrated, remembering the layout of the room he was sitting in. Slowly, the grey fog began to roll away, revealing the structure of the palace, the dull life-glows of the people moving around in it and the more focused and certain self-images of the animals.

‘The throne is there to attract attention,' Frecknock said. ‘It sits on a disturbance of the Grym the likes of which I have only ever seen once before. To go there unprepared would be to lose oneself completely.'

‘A cunning trap for any who would try to use the king's power for themselves. Truly, Ballah was a skilled mage.' Melyn composed himself before allowing his aethereal double to rise from the chair. ‘But tell me, where else have you seen such a disturbance?'

‘In the great hall of the Neuadd, sire. I couldn't help noticing it when I was presented to Her Majesty. When the assassin came for her, I used the subtle arts to stop him from escaping. The Grym flows so strongly through the throne that I very nearly killed him in the process when all I had intended was to confuse his mind.'

Melyn looked back in the direction of Ballah's throne, but the walls of the palace had reasserted themselves and he could no longer see it. He could feel it though, any
adept worthy of the name would have been able to feel it. And Frecknock was right, it had the flavour of the Obsidian Throne about it. But that was a mystery for another time. Now he had other more pressing things to attend to.

‘Can you sense the Duke of Abervenn?' he asked. Frecknock stretched her slender neck, raising her head high and sniffing at the air like a dog. Her scales glistened in the strange light of the aethereal.

‘He is at Tochers, sire. Would you like me to contact him?'

‘He is with the queen?'

‘Yes. And another. She has given birth.'

A child, an heir. Melyn almost slipped out of his aethereal trance at the news, catching himself at the last minute. ‘Can you take me to them?'

‘Of course, sire. Now?'

Melyn considered it. He would like to see them, and there was much to discuss. But the whereabouts of Prince Geraint was more pressing.

‘No. We will contact them later. Reconnaissance first. Help me find the Llanwennog army.'

Frecknock nodded and held out her hand again. Melyn took it, feeling the warmth and the silky texture of those tiny scales that covered her palms. There was a moment's sensation of incredible speed, the room blurring from his aethereal vision, and then they were somewhere else altogether.

‘Don't think I've seen anything like it. Even a hatchling knows better than to trip over its own feet landing.'

Benfro sat uncomfortably towards the back of the largest group of dragons he had ever seen, listening as Fflint and his young friends laughed and joked about the new arrival as if he weren't within earshot. His arm throbbed in time to his hearts, the tiny regrowing hand bruised and painful where he'd banged it on the ground in his pathetic attempt at landing. Darkness had fallen, the sky overhead pinpricked with a familiar constellation of stars. Or at least he thought they were familiar. Some seemed to be in the wrong place though. Not for the first time he wished Ynys Môn were with him. The old dragon had known the secrets of the night sky like no other. Where was he? What had become of his jewels? Benfro wished he had the strength to find out, but in truth he barely had enough to eat.

‘They call him Benfro of the Borrowed Wings. I can see why. I suspect he's never flown more than a few yards before.'

This from one of the other young dragons in Fflint's gang. Torquil or Tormod, he couldn't be sure which. Benfro hadn't been here long, but it was enough to start understanding the dynamics of the group. Fflint was clearly the biggest and strongest, and the others looked up to him. At least the young ones did. Even Cerys was there at the front, close to the fire they had lit to roast whole deer carcasses on. There were other dragons, older and perhaps wiser, who didn't hang on his every word though. They took their meat off into the darkness, retreating to their own families perhaps, or just wanting to be alone.

‘Don't mind them. They're just posturing. Fflint's been
throwing his weight around ever since his father disappeared.'

Benfro looked up to see an old dragon standing nearby. He'd been so wrapped up in his thoughts, his misery if he was being truthful, that the great creature had managed to get right alongside unnoticed.

‘I've had worse,' he said, remembering the countless times Frecknock had mocked him to his face, and that fateful spell she had cast on him.

‘I don't doubt it. You are young, Benfro of the Borrowed Wings, but you have seen more than your years would suggest.' The old dragon sat down beside him, curling his tail around his feet and letting out a long sigh of relief that reminded Benfro so much of Sir Frynwy that he almost laughed.

‘I am Sir Gwair,' the old dragon said once he had finally settled himself. ‘Although any family I might have had have long since gone. “Sir” is not so much of an honorific when you have no kin.'

‘Is this not your family then?' Benfro spread his arms wide to encompass the gathering, then winced in pain.

‘This lot? No. Well, there may be some distant cousins, I suppose. Go back far enough and we're all related. All descendants of the Old One. But none of these dragons are my family.' Sir Gwair laughed mirthlessly. ‘And they are all the family I have.'

‘What happened?' Benfro wasn't sure whether he should ask but didn't really know what else to say.

‘Oh, they got old, they died. It happens even to us. Well, most of us.'

‘Most of us?'

‘The Old One's still alive, and he was ancient when I was a kitling. Nobody knows how old he is. How long he's lived up in the castle. But nobody remembers a time when he wasn't there, either. You'd know that, of course.'

‘I would?'

‘It's all right, Benfro. You're among friends here. We've all run away from something. Well, apart from the likes of Fflint and his friends. Most of the young uns were hatched here on the Twmp.'

Benfro opened his mouth to ask a question, then found there were too many to decide which one should come first. Confused, he shut it again.

‘Has anyone shown you a place to kip? It can get chill out here after dark.'

‘Umm … no.' Benfro looked at the remains of the deer haunch he'd been given to eat. He'd assumed he would be heading back to Myfanwy's house at some point, but now he thought about it the old healer had been pleased to see the back of him.

‘Come on then. I'll show you the caves. You'll have quite a few to choose from. That many of us have gone recently.'

‘Gone? You mean died?' Benfro scrabbled to his feet as the old dragon stood.

‘Died?' Sir Gwair voiced the question as if it had never occurred to him before. Then shook his head. ‘Oh no. I don't think so. They just left and didn't come back. It happens.'

He led Benfro along a path towards the cliff. It dropped down to a narrow ledge that switched back and forth down the rock face, past a dozen or more cave openings.
Some were occupied, the dull glow of candles or fires flickering from them, but most were empty.

‘Any of these, really.' Sir Gwair pointed to the last four caves on the track before it petered out into nothingness. ‘Not sure if they left anything behind, but they've all been empty a year or more.'

‘Where did they go?' Benfro hesitated at the first cave mouth, unsure whether to go in or not.

‘No idea. Back to the castle, maybe? Or south in search of other dragons. Who knows. This lot leaving didn't surprise me much, but Caradoc? That was unusual.'

‘Caradoc?'

‘Fflint's father. Imagine Fflint, only twice the size and half as bright. He was a good hunter, mind. A good fighter. Had some knowledge of the subtle arts too, just not the gumption to use it. No idea why he decided to up and go, unless it was to try and find …' Sir Gwair tailed off, shaking his head. ‘No point worrying about it anyway. They're gone. You're here. You look ready to drop, so I suggest you get yourself comfortable. Make yourself at home. Tomorrow we can see how good you are at hunting.'

The wet nurse they found was called Blodwyn and she was perhaps two years younger than Beulah. Plain to the point of being anonymous and certainly not very bright, she was nevertheless the only one suitable who could be found anywhere near Tochers. Unlike the queen, she was both buxom and full of the joys of motherhood. She took swiftly to young Princess Ellyn and the child herself seemed happy enough to suckle on whatever teat was presented to her. True to her word, Beulah attempted to feed
her own child, but she felt no strong maternal ties, and was happy to hand over the infant as quickly as possible. The whole business left her feeling slightly nauseous.

‘She's wet again. Does that really happen all the time?' Beulah handed the child over to a waiting maid, pulling her blouse closed and wiping her hand. Everything smelled of milk, or semi-digested milk, or worse.

The maid said nothing, perhaps terrified or perhaps intelligent enough to realize that the question wasn't meant to be answered. She carried the child across the room to a waiting table, laying her down and changing her nappy with practised swiftness. Cleaned and dressed, Ellyn was handed over to the wet nurse to continue feeding. At least she hadn't wailed this time; there seemed to be a lot of wailing.

‘Where is my husband?' Beulah asked. This time the maid responded.

‘His Grace the Duke of Abervenn left early, ma'am. He was hoping to oversee the army's preparations for the march to Candlehall.'

‘Let us hope it is ready soon, then.' Beulah felt suffocated at Tochers, couldn't wait to get back in the saddle and head for home. She still ached from childbirth, her muscles stretched in ways they were surely never designed to stretch, but the thought of once more riding a horse, feeling the wind in her hair without the swelling of her belly to slow her down, filled her with hope.

‘You plan to ride with them, Your Majesty?' The disbelief in the maid's voice would once have annoyed Beulah enough to have the woman dismissed. Now she found it was simply tedious.

‘I am Queen of the Twin Kingdoms. Our enemy has captured my capital, my home. I can hardly leave its relief to someone else.'

The maid stood silent for a moment, perhaps a little longer than was polite. Beulah tried to remember her name, Alicia or Astilbe or something like that. She was youngest daughter of one of the minor noble houses from the lower end of the Hendry, more sensible than most of the Candlehall girls sent to work in the queen's service. Her skill at changing young Ellyn showed as much; most of the others would have fainted at the sight of a soiled nappy.

‘I will see about organizing a wagon train, ma'am,' she said eventually.

‘A wagon train? Why would I need that?'

‘Travelling with a child is more complicated than travelling alone. And if that child is heir to the throne then it is doubly so. The young princess will need guards as well as maids. Blodwyn too.'

The wet nurse looked up at her name, a happy smile on her face. Beulah didn't think she had ever seen anything other than an idiot grin there.

‘Ma'am?' she asked.

‘She will have to come with us, of course. And I assume there will be times when you will want to leave Ellyn with her. While you inspect the troops or ride out ahead? They will need to be protected, both of them.'

Beulah studied the maid again, reappraising her in the light of her words. If only her skill at manipulating the Grym and the aethereal had returned, she would have been able to skim the young woman's mind, made a better
assessment of her angle. Everyone wanted something, after all. But the magic remained locked away deep inside her. It would return in time, Archimandrite Cassters had assured her. How long a time, he could not say.

‘See that it is done then. Now I would be alone.'

The maid nodded her understanding, gathered up the wet nurse – still plugged into Ellyn – and together they left the room. Beulah waited until the door had closed before heading over to the fire. An autumnal chill had descended on Tochers since the day she had watched the dragons fly overhead, on their way to lay waste to Tordu's army. What had become of them? Where would they turn up next? Beulah stared at the flames, wrapping her arms around herself to fend off the cold as her frustration built. She needed to be doing things; this sitting around and waiting didn't suit her temperament at all. Maybe that was why she found it so hard to bond with her child. It represented – no,
she
represented stability, settling down, the domestic bliss Beulah's own mother had never known.

‘Damn it. Where's Melyn when I need him most?' Beulah struck the heavy oak beam above the fireplace with her fist, the brief flash of pain a welcome reminder that she was alive. With it came a flicker of the aethereal sight in the flames, fleeting but enough to give her hope it would soon return fully. She strained to bring it back, trying every trick the inquisitor had taught her, but nothing worked. Frustrated, she pulled the bell cord that would summon her maid. So much for being alone. There was nothing she could do by herself these days, it seemed.

‘Ma'am?' The maid appeared almost instantly, no doubt waiting in the next room. Alicia Glas-Uchel, that was her
name. She remembered it now. From the Hendry boglands, a dozen leagues south of Castell Glas itself. They'd picked her up on their grand tour, not long after the incident with Duke Glas and the dragon.

‘Send a messenger out to the city wall. I have urgent need of His Grace, the Duke of Abervenn.'

The cave was surprisingly spacious but pitch black. Benfro stood just inside the mouth for a while waiting for his eyes to adjust, then remembered what he'd learned in Magog's retreat at the summit of Mount Arnahi. He'd not tried to use the subtle arts for fear of giving the dead dragon mage the chance to attack him through the rose cord that linked them, but as far as he could tell the cord was gone, Magog's influence with it.

At a thought, the lines came to his vision. They were few and thin in this rocky, lifeless cave, but they were there. Somewhere overhead a fire blazed. It was simply a matter of reaching out for it, bringing a piece of it to him, trapping it in a fold of his aura.

The light that rose from his outstretched hand seemed bright after the near-total darkness. It banished the shadows to the corners, revealing a much larger cave than Benfro had expected. A hearth lay in the middle of the space, stacked with dry wood ready to light. More lay off to one side, but he felt no need for a fire. It was warm here, unlike the cold of the Rim mountains and the chill wind that had blown through the plains as he travelled with the circus. Wherever this place was, it must be far south of Tynhelyg.