The Dragon's Son (23 page)

Twenty sovereigns.

Her lip curling, Evelina took a step nearer Ven and tossed the blanket at
him. She missed her aim. The blanket only partially covered him. One knee and a
shin, with its glistening scales, were bare.

He might have covered himself up, but he lay still, looking at her.

Evelina drew in a breath. Bending down, she grabbed the corner of the
blanket and twitched it into place. If any monk peered into that cage, he would
see no demon. Nothing but a grubby, stinking thief.

“It’s in your best interests to keep quiet, monster,” Evelina hissed from
her curled lip, “and play along. Else you will be burned at the stake!”

The flame in the monster’s eyes did not waver. The eyes did not blink. No
expression altered the face that was half in shadow. Evelina shuddered,
uncertainty pricking her. From the way the monster looked, he might embrace
burning, as some of the martyred were said to do to hasten their own deaths,
reaching out to the searing flames with half-charred arms. Evelina thrust open
the cage door and jumped out.

She trembled; her hands shook. She had to pause to calm herself, quiet the
beating of her heart, and recover before she could walk back into the
torchlight.

“Twenty sovereigns,” she repeated to herself,
telling them off in her mind as if they were beads on a rosary. Feeling better,
she ducked beneath the canvas, taking care to keep to the side of the wagon
that was in shadow. She sauntered over to stand beside Glimmershanks and smiled
at him in confident assurance.

VEN WRAPPED IN DARKNESS. INSIDE THE CANVAS COVering, he could see nothing.
He could hear voices, but they were muffled and indistinct. He concentrated,
listened closely, trying to make out what was being said.

The words brought only fear, not reassurance. Fear that was half-remembered,
yet sprang from somewhere hidden deep inside the cave of his being.

“Demon . . . devil . . .”

He was a child again and his breeches torn and his leg exposed, blue scales
glistening, and the horrified whispers, all around him. . . .

He tensed, raised himself up on one elbow.

There came the crunch of feet outside the cage and the click of a key in the
iron lock. He smelled perfume. He heard her voice, muttering to herself. He
closed his eyes.

The barred door opened. Evelina pulled herself up into the cage. He opened
his eyes, looked at her.

She went pale. Her eyes widened in terror. She shrank back against the bars.

Ven took grim and bitter pleasure in her fear, but
her terror didn’t last long. Disgust curled her lip. Her mouth moved, but he
couldn’t hear what she was saying for the blood pounding in his ears. He
watched her until she left and even when she was gone, he watched where she had
been, her afterimage burned on his eyes, as when one stares too long at the
sun.

“See for yourself, Your Worship.” Glimmershanks took hold of a corner of the
canvas and drew it back from the bars of the cage. Ever the showman, even with
his livelihood at stake, he could not help but indulge in a bit of theatrics.
His gesture at Ven came complete with a bow and a flourish. “As you see,
Sister. No demon. Naught but a thief and an inept one at that.”

Ven propped himself up on his elbow.

The monks gathered around the wagon. The light of their torches blinded him
and Ven raised his hand to shield his eyes. At first he could see nothing but
flaring flame and black, indistinct shapes merging together in a smoky haze.
His eyes focused. The shapes were faces, separate and apart and
distinguishable: Glim-mershanks with his unctuous smile, Evelina scornful and
aloof, Ramone afraid.

The nun approached the cage, her hands folded in her sleeves. She came to a
halt at the iron-barred gate, standing directly opposite Ven, separated from
him by the length of an arm. The light of a torch carried by one of the monks
shone directly on her.

Ven knew the nun. He didn’t know how he could know her, but he did. He knew
her face, knew the features of her face, knew the eyes and the sound of her
voice. The thought came to him that she was someone he’d run across at the
faire or in the city, but that seemed unlikely. The face did not conjure up
images of faires or cities. The face conjured night, loneliness, blood, death.

Transfixed, Ven stared at the nun. Her lips moved, forming words that only
Ven could see and hear.

“Dragon’s Son.”

Ven knew her then.

The night on the road. Bellona beaten, bleeding, dying. The holy sister
holding him fast in her smothering, black-robed grip. His rage, his terror hot
in his mind, coursing through his blood, bursting out of his fingertips. The
horrifying scream and the sickening smell of burnt hair and flesh and the
satisfaction of the kill.

The holy sister smiled at Ven, a secret smile, for just the two of them.
With a rapid movement, she reached into the cage and took hold of the blanket
that covered Ven’s legs. The nun proved that she, too, appreciated a good show.
She hesitated just long enough to allow Ghmmershanks to break out into a sweat,
then she gave the blanket a yank.

The blanket slithered off Ven’s legs. The monks held their torches high, so
all could see.

Scales glittered in a smoky halo. The white claws on the toes glistened.

The nun turned to Ghmmershanks. “Not only are you harboring a demon, but you
attempted to conceal the fact. There can be only one reason.” The nun sounded
sorrowful. “You have bartered your soul to the devil, my son.”

“And I made a damn good bargain, Your Holiness,” returned Ghmmershanks with
a laugh. He could see, out of the corner of his eye, his men on the move, clubs
in their hands, slipping up on the hapless monks. “Twenty sovereigns off the
monster this night alone.”

Evelina clapped her hands. “Bravo,” she shouted, mocking. “Bravo, my love.”

Emboldened, Glimmershanks thrust out his jaw in a grinning leer. “I’d make
money off the devil himself if I could keep him penned up.”

“Godless man!” The nun’s voice stalked the hillsides with the rumble of a
gathering storm. “Your soul is lost! Would you drag down the souls of others?”

Glimmershanks raised his voice. “Shall we save our souls tonight, lads, or
our purses?”

Growling ominously, his bullyboys raised their weapons and moved in. The
monks appeared oblivious to their danger. The nun laid her hand gently on
Glimmershanks’s breast.

“I call upon the devil to leave you,” she said softly.

Glimmershanks started to strike aside the hand that rested on his beating
heart. His hand jerked. His mouth gaped, his eyes bulged in shock. His body
went into spasms. Starting at his rib cage, the spasms jolted through his arms
and legs and snapped his head back. Glimmershanks stared at the nun with eyes
in which life had already fled, then toppled over, stiff as a stone statue,
dead.

Evelina’s gleeful mockery gurgled into screams, her cries rending the
fire-filled night. The rest of the troupe stared at the corpse, their leader.
They stared at the nun, who had not moved, beyond the outstretching of a lethal
hand. The stares shifted wildly after that, some going to Evelina, some to the
monster, and many, in growing terror, to the monks. All the thoughts of each
person seemed to coalesce in a single moment. Without a word spoken, the
members of the troupe dropped their weapons and fled. The first off the mark
was Ramone, whose self-serving thought process had moved a bit more quickly
than the others.

“Slay them!” cried the holy sister. “For they, too, have consorted with the
devil. They cannot be permitted to live.”

The monks reached up to the torches. Grabbing handfuls of fire, they held
them, blazing, in their palms. Each wrapped his hand around the flame, shaping
and molding the fire. Selecting a fleeing target, each monk hurled his gob of
flame. Trailing fire like comets, the balls streaked through the darkness and
smote their targets squarely.

The flames whirled around the writhing bodies of the players. The fires
spread rapidly, fanned by the winds of dragon magic. Ven could see the flames
reflected in his scales, tiny people dancing a death dance in each one.

The horrifying screams of the immolated lasted only moments before the
charred bodies collapsed into heaps of black, greasy ash.

The holy sister turned to Evelina. She had not run away, but had remained
standing over the ruin of her dreams. Her face drained of blood, she began to
shake, her teeth chattering so that she bit through her tongue. Blood dribbled
out of her mouth.

One of those piles of ash was her father.

“Hand me the key, girl,” said the nun.

Evelina stared at the holy sister without seeming to comprehend her words.
Then, with a sudden movement, a spasmodic jerk of her hand, she flung the key
into the woods, flung it as hard and as far as she could. Ven could hear the
faint tinkle of iron as it struck a stone or a tree. The sound and the key were
swallowed up by darkness.

Evelina laughed—tight, thin, terrible laughter that echoed strangely in the
night. Still laughing, she sank onto her knees and crouched there, clutching
her arms around her breast, and rocking back and forth, laughing.

The nun made a gesture to Ven, who stood impatiently waiting for freedom
behind the locked door.

“Stand back, Dragon’s Son,” she said.

Ven obediently stepped back a pace. The nun passed her open palm near the
lock. Blue light sparked and the lock burst asunder with a sound of splintering
metal. The cage door slowly sagged open. Ven jumped lightly out of the cage to
land on the ground. His claws dug gratefully into the cool, dank earth.

The monks bowed to him, bowed their tonsured heads. The torches sputtered
and smoked, the flames flickered.

“Dragon’s Son,” they whispered softly.

The holy sister’s gaze flickered from Ven to Evelina. “If you want this girl
for your pleasure, Dragon’s Son, take her. We have time,” she added in cool
nonchalance.

Evelina ceased to laugh. Huddled on the ground, she looked up. Her eyes
fixed on Ven, who stood staring down at her with a calm and terrible
impassivity. Drawing herself up, Evelina clasped her blouse and chemise over
her breasts—a flimsy blockade—and regarded him with disdain that was not
feigned, not bravado. She knew her power. Every man she had ever known had
withered before it.

“You dare not touch me, monster!” she cried.

Ven reached out, took hold of her arm, and dragged her close.

Evelina quailed. She saw in his eyes her own reflection, yellow in the
firelight, and she saw herself withering in the fire, like the dying martyrs in
the books she could not read, but could only enjoy the pictures. Her disdain
burnt to ashes, she shrank from him, tried to pull away.

“Ah, Sister! Don’t let him harm me!” she pleaded. “He’s a demon. . . .” Her
voice died.

The holy sister had turned her back. The monks had reformed their line and
were walking back toward the road, taking their torches with them. Evelina was
left in the dark with Ven, with the monster.

She began to sob and beat on him frantically with her free hand. He held her
fast, his dragon eyes seeing her flesh glimmer pale as moonlight in the
darkness.

It was pleasing to think:
I can take her. I can have my revenge on her.
She made me love her and then she laughed at me.

The thought, unbidden, came to him,
What grotesque creature will I begat?
What kind of wretched child will come wailing into this world to live what sort
of wretched life?

Suddenly sickened, Ven flung Evelina away from him. She stumbled and fell,
landing on her hands and knees, sobbing and moaning.

He turned his back to walk away and then felt something strike him. He
glanced over his shoulder. She had thrown a clod of dirt at him. Crouched like
a beast on all fours, she shouted curses at him, filthy curses, fit for the
brothel.

Ven continued walking to join up with the monks. The holy sister glanced at
him, as he fell into loping step beside her.

“You do not want her?”

Ven shook his head. He felt sick to his stomach.

The nun made a gesture. “Brother Mikal, kill her.”

“No, don’t,” Ven said quickly. “Don’t kill her.”

“Wait, Mikal!” The holy sister intervened. “The Dragon’s Son has spoken and
we obey.” She turned to Ven. “What would you have us do with her?”

“Let her go,” Ven said, glancing back at the pale, slobbering girl. “What
harm can she do?”

“A great deal,” said the nun gravely.

She seemed to be silently communing with someone. A spark flared in her
eyes, dimmed, and was extinguished.

“If we do not kill her,” she said, after this pause, “then we must take her
with us.”

Ven scowled. “I don’t want—”

“She knows too much,” the holy sister stated in the flat tones of finality. “She
would talk. Fetch her along.”

When Evelina saw the monks coming for her, she leapt to her feet and tried
to run. Her skirts tangled around her ankles. She staggered, tripped, and fell
flat. The monks seized hold of her by the arms. Evelina gave a muffled cry,
then sagged in their grip, her body going limp, flaccid.

“She’s fainted,” reported Brother Mikal.

“Just as well,” said the holy sister. “She’ll be less trouble.” She gestured
to a handcart that the troupe had used for hauling about barrels of ale. “Put
her in there and bring her along.”

They tossed Evelina into the back of the cart. Ven pretended not to watch,
though he cast worried, sidelong glances at her when he thought the holy sister
wasn’t looking.

At a gesture from the holy sister, one of the monks untied a bundle he had
been carrying and brought out a brown robe, such as they were all wearing. He
handed the robe to Ven to cover his nakedness. They had also brought along
leather boots, to hide the clawed feet.