The Crown and the Dragon (11 page)

Chapter Sixteen

The first day was not so bad. Aedin spent much of the day scouting ahead, which gave him time to think about who his traveling companion was.

The girl’s wild claims to be Lady of Adair were pure mince, obviously. On the other hand, the heartbroken look on her face when she had to hand over that fat gold ring said that it was hers for true. So Leif’s accusation that she was a thieving Lady’s maid was wrong. She came from money. And whether her father was a merchant or a Laird, anyone who could part with such a fine piece must have something more to give. As they said in Heortigsport, if you find one cockle in the sands, get your rake. So Aedin was raking.

The odd thing was that he was actually enjoying the journey. The lands they passed through were sparsely inhabited because of their proximity to the dragon, but with a little woodcraft and some luck a man could live quite happily here. Having both, Aedin fashioned a crude sling as he walked and brought down two squirrels.

That night after sunset there was an orange glow to the sky in the southeast, but faint enough that the dragon had to be far distant. So he spit-roasted the squirrels, and they ate them with some penny-bun mushrooms he had found in the forest. Warm and dry and with food in their bellies, they exchanged stories about their childhoods.

As Elenn recounted tales of the Fortress of the Leode, Aedin decided that she truly was connected with the Leodrine Sisters somehow. Perhaps her promises of further payment when they reached the Fortress were not just the lies of another desperate refugee. It was a pleasant thought to sleep on.

But the second day made Aedin wonder if he had made a smart deal, or if he had been tricked into a sucker’s bargain by a pretty face. A pre-dawn rain shower woke them, which was an inauspicious beginning. It didn’t get better.

Clouds hid the sun all morning as they entered the hills, so their clothes didn’t dry out. Perhaps it was because his wet feet were by now nothing but a mass of painful blisters, but everything just seemed to turn bitter. Elenn certainly did.

“This is deliberate,” she accused, just before noon. “You’re picking the most difficult route for us.” Footing was treacherous because of loose rock and numerous tiny rivulets of water making their way down the hill. And the hillside was covered with thorny bramble bushes. Carrying her leather sack, Elenn was red-faced and sweating.

“Right you are, my Lady of Adair,” Aedin said, employing his most genteel accent. Holding Elenn’s small, battered chest under his right arm, he helped her up the rocky slope with his free hand. “If it please my lady, this is the roughest terrain for miles in any direction.”

“Why would that please me?” she asked, flabbergasted.

“Because that’s what you asked for,” he said.

“I most certainly did not,” she said, sounding nettled.

Aedin shook his head. “Thought ladies like you had tutors,” he muttered.

“I did,” said Elenn, more quietly.

“Didn’t teach you much,” he said. He turned and began picking a path north and east through the scrub-covered hills that led into the highlands. Every step chafed his raw and blistered feet, but the sooner this was done with, the better.

“They taught me… a great deal,” she said, out of breath. “Mathematics. Theology. Languages. Music. Poetry. And all the arts… of home and hearth.”

“Poetry, eh?” he asked. “That helping you today?”

“Yes, thank you—oop!” There was a brief yelp as she lost her footing and slipped.

He tried to stifle his laughter without much success. “Can see that.”

Elenn made no reply, struggling to keep up with him.

“I’m always ready to learn,” said Aedin, “so if you have a poem, or a song, that you think is fitting, I’m all ears.”

“Why do you mock me?” she asked. “I can only think it is because you resent the circumstances of my birth—about which I can do nothing.”

“Not your fault you’ve had a soft life. True,” replied Aedin. “But no one is forcing you to whine like an infant, or to babble whatever fool thing occurs to you without thinking first.”

“What?” Elenn cried angrily, rising to his bait.

“You want an example?” Aedin asked, prodding further.

He turned to see her explode with anger, but she merely folded her arms and raised one eyebrow—even in the face of one of his most infuriating grins. It was a disappointingly mature reaction.

“You accuse me of taking the worst and most difficult path,” he continued. “You were the one who asked for the most direct route to the Leode. Told you to take the road. Don’t blame me. Not my fault you’re not riding in a gilded carriage.”

“There must be some other way, though,” she exclaimed. “Smugglers’ trails or some such thing.”

“Where you’ll find
smugglers
.” Aedin rolled his eyes. “No virtuous folk left in this part of the Riverlands.” He knew that from personal experience. “Farmers and herders got burned out. No one here that you’d want to meet.”

“But surely,” she said, “even the meanest villains must offer each other some measure of society, or how would they survive?”

“Want to find out first hand?” Aedin asked. “Could take you to a nice spot not far from here where a particularly sociable outlaw has made his hideout. Bat your pretty eyelashes at him, bet he’d invite you in to dine. Darling little soiree that'd be.”

He leaned in close and smiled in a sickeningly sweet simper. “Once you were well pashed on wine, he’d say, ‘Sleep well, fair princess’. Wake up at the slave market.”

He turned around and pushed his way through the brambles and up the slope, picking wild blackberries as he went. A moment later, he heard Elenn following him. For a few minutes, there was nothing but the sound of the two of them fighting their way through the brush.

Once he was through a particularly nasty tangle of brambles, he looked back. She was wrestling to free herself from a particularly nasty tangle of brambles, with a look of supreme determination on her face.

He set down the battered chest and inched back down. When he reached her, he relieved her of the leather sack she carried over her shoulder and then helped free her of the brambles. A few minutes later, they reached a large flat rock, next to a little trickle of water which burbled its way down the hill.

“I'm sorry,” she said, finally.

“We should rest,” said Aedin. “A few minutes.”

“Thank you,” she said.

They drank deeply and did what they could to wash themselves. Both of them needed it. Aedin couldn’t see himself, but Elenn’s hair was a great mass of snarls. Her face and arms were covered with scratches. Her scarlet dress was still stained and the hem was in tatters, ripped into shreds by the wicked brambles. She dipped her hands in the rivulet and splashed her face with water, leaving trails where the grime was washed clean all down her neck and disappearing into the top of her dress.

He turned away, looking for a way up the hill. Behind him he heard Elenn sigh as she dipped her bare feet in the running water. He took a deep breath and considered pulling off his own boots, but wasn’t sure he could tug them back on. He shook his head. Time to move on.

“Shall we?” He turned back to Elenn and extended his hand.

“Just a moment more,” she said. Frowning, she looked down at her clothing. “Not very practical, is it—the kirtle?”

“Suppose not.”

“Well, then.” She pulled the dagger out from her belt, bent over, and began cutting a wide strip of cloth from the hem of her kirtle, leaving it shorter and less ragged. The stabbing blade was not made for such work, and she struggled. But she did not ask for help.

He settled into the most comfortable stance he could manage, and popped a blackberry in his mouth, rolling it around on his tongue. Birds had taken most of them, but there were a few left for him to pluck on his way up through the briars. His arms were pretty scratched up, but most anything sweet in life also required a little hurt.

“There. That’s better,” said Elenn, standing to examine her newly-altered garment. “A little less to catch on the thorns,” she said. She spun and the dress twirled up slightly, revealing pale, shapely calves.

He bit down on the blackberry. It was sour as a lemon. No, worse. He could feel his whole face puckering.

“Okay,” said Elenn with a laugh, “I get the hint. It’s not lovely.”

He tried to correct her, but sour juice running down the back of his throat sent him into a coughing fit, which led to more laughter and some comments about maybe finding some berries that weren’t quite so strong.

“Ready?” Aedin asked, once he had regained control.

“Not quite,” Elenn said. She sat down and took up the discarded material from her kirtle. Humming to herself, she tore a large piece and used it as a rough kerchief to tie her hair back.

“Still wish I hadn’t lost my cap,” she said. “But this will do, don’t you think?” She beamed up at him.

“It’ll do,” he said with one last cough.

He pulled her to her feet and handed her the leather sack. Shouldering the battered chest, he forged a path up the slope.

Later in the afternoon, the sun came out. They found a grove of wild apple trees and stopped for a few minutes to pick. The little green apples were nearly as sour as the blackberries, but they took several with them anyway. As they walked, Elenn talked about how she would make them into lovely tarts if only they had a proper kitchen.

As the sun sank low, they met a stream and followed it up until they found a suitable campsite on the east bank. Aedin caught three grayling fish in the fading light, small enough that he might have thrown them back under ordinary circumstances. But they were hungry, and he didn’t want to use up the little food that Leif had left them.

Hearing him grouse, Elenn said that it was time for her to demonstrate her mastery of the “arts of hearth and home”. She gutted the grayling with admirable skill and steamed them in wet leaves. Once they were unwrapped, the moist and tender flesh just fell off the bones. Then came the apples, which she had cored and stuffed with blackberries and nuts before roasting. Given the sourness of both fruits, Aedin didn’t expect much. There was no denying the sweetness of the result, however. He had to admit, she cooked quite a meal.

“So,” he said, leaning back and enjoying the feeling of something like fullness. “What’s this secret mission you’re on?”

“I never said it was secret,” she said.

“Kept pretty mum, though,” he said. “Figure you’re not on your way to get married.”

“It’s probably better that you don’t know,” she said.

“Better for who?” he asked.

“For us both,” she replied.

He shook his head. “What is it you’ve got me into? Am I going to die because I met you?”

A dark cloud passed over Elenn’s face. “That’s quite a thing for you to say to me.”

Instantly, Aedin felt his guts twist up in a cold knot. What had possessed him to say such a fool thing? If Elenn had not met him, her aunt would still be alive, and Elenn herself would not have been assaulted by a disgusting brute. “Sorry,” he muttered, his cheeks hot with shame.

She turned away for a long couple of minutes, saying nothing.

Aedin leaned forward and furiously stirred the fire with a stick, turning over their discarded apple cores and fish bones—all blackened and charred.

“Your apology is accepted,” Elenn said finally, “on the condition that you ask me no more questions about the purpose of my travels.”

“Just trying to keep us breathing,” he said.

Elenn made no reply.

Poking the fire with his stick, he got an idea. “Try this,” he said. “Look around. See these trees—how small they are compared to the ones in the woods where we met, over by the Shirbrook?”

Elenn glanced around. “Why does it matter?”

“Shows we’re in dragon country,” said Aedin. “Things don’t grow tall here, because they get burned down. Tells any woodsman that this is dangerous territory. You didn’t notice, because you didn’t know what to look for.”

“What’s your point?” Elenn said.

“You’re a smart girl, Elenn,” Aedin replied. “But your education won’t help you here. This is my world. But there's things I don't know, either. And I don’t want to lead us into disaster because I don’t know what in the Abyss you’re running from.”

Elenn pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them. “I’m not running from anything,” she said. She looked very young, almost childlike.

“All right,” he said. “Running to something, then. Why Ghel?”

Staring into the fire, she said nothing.

“That woman you were with,” he began.

“My aunt. Ethelind,” said Elenn quietly.

“Your aunt,” Aedin repeated. He hesitated. “Used magic, didn’t she? On Tuliyek, or his horse? Never seen a Sithian lose control of his mount like that.”

She gave him a glance that spoke volumes.

“Some kind of sorceress?” he asked.

“She was one of the Leodrine Order,” said Elenn. “And many other things besides. She was an incredible woman.”

“Thought I heard her say something about bringing supplies to Ghel,” said Aedin. “Candles or some such.”

“That’s right,” she said. “We were.”

From her nervous manner alone, it seemed clear that the supply story had been a lie. But lies were usually built on a truth. The girl wanted to reach the Leode. That was certain.

“But they all got left behind in the cart,” he said. All but the wooden case she kept with her at all times.

“Well, those weren’t the real cargo,” said Elenn. “We just had to have something to tell the Vitalion if we ran into a patrol.”

He nodded. “Obviously.”

“The truth,” she said slowly, “was that Aunt Ethelind was escorting me to Ghel, where I planned to take my vows and join the Sisters.”

“Virgin Sisters of Ghel?” he asked, incredulous. He had known girls who had gone to take vows, but none of them would have taken a week-long journey alone with a strange man. None of them would have chosen to wear scarlet.

“It’s true,” she said.

“Poverty? Chastity? Obedience?” he asked. Elenn was too strong-willed and contentious for him to believe she would go on her own. Of course some parents sent their brazen daughters to study with the sisters, hoping they would come home meek and modest. But Elenn’s parents were dead. So who would send her?