The Dragon's Son (24 page)

Ven slipped his arms into the loose sleeves of the robe and pulled it over
his head. The rough cloth covered his bare flesh, fell in folds over his
scales. He tugged on the boots, then straightened to his full height, once more
hidden, comforted.

“I want to fetch my sword,” said Ven. “It is probably in Ra-mone’s wagon.”

The holy sister shook her head. “You must appear to be a man of peace.
Wearing a sword is out of the question. Why is that a problem?” she asked,
seeing Ven frown. “After all, you do not need •weapons of steel to kill a man,
do you, Dragon’s Son?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about, Sister,” he said, his voice even,
level. Shrugging, he added, “If I may not wield a sword, then at least let me
carry a knife.”

The holy sister regarded him steadily.

Ven met her gaze, held it.

At last she said, “If you feel the need. Brother Mikal, fetch the Dragon’s
Son a knife.”

“Where are we going?” Ven asked, eager to leave the camp of the ill-fated
troupe of actors. Eager to leave the greasy piles of ash, that were already
being picked up and scattered by the hands of careless night.

“Your father is eager to meet you,” said the holy sister in response.

Ven understood by this that he was not to know their destination. He pulled
the hood up over his head, so that the fabric blotted out the wagons and the
cage and the drifting ashes, as the shadow of his father blotted out the other
voice, the voice of Draconas, who had told him who and what he was.

But not the why.

“I am eager to meet my father,” Ven said.

THE RAIN HAD BEEN FALLING FOR THREE DAYS. NOT A pounding, driving rain, that
made the creeks rise and caused people to eye the river nervously. This was a
nurturing rain, the type of rain the farmers liked, for it fell so gently that
it had time to soak into the ground.

Marcus stood at the window of his father’s study and watched the raindrops
slide down the leaded panes of glass. One after another, they spattered against
the pane, dissolving into each other, rippling along the thick glass that
distorted everything he saw through it, so that the rain blurred an image that
was already wa-very. All he could really see were colors. The dark slate of stone
walls and the stone courtyard below. The sodden blue of the cloaks worn by the
king’s guards, who huddled beneath eaves and overhangs or stood miserable in
corners, trying unsuccessfully to stay at least moderately dry. The dull green
of grassy hills. And over and above everything the feathery gray of the clouds
that rolled with steady, boring monotony over the land. The clouds obsured
the
city of Idlyswylde, so that Marcus could see nothing of it and it was not that
far away.

The palace was silent, except for the rain sounds, and those had become
monotonous, so that one did not hear them anymore.

He pushed open the window, which operated on hinges, and breathed in the
moist gray air. Water gushed from the mouths of the gargoyle drain spouts,
spewing out the rain in small waterfalls. That amusing sight could entertain
Marcus only so long, however, and eventually he turned from the window with a
sigh.

He’d been closeted with his tutor all morning, conjugating the verbs of
languages that no one spoke anymore, because the people who had once spoken
them were dead. Undoubtedly of boredom. His tutor was gone, but the verbs still
wandered about in Marcus’s head, dull as the dripping rain. He needed something
to clear the moldy taste of them from his brain, something to brighten the
gloom of this day.

Marcus’s body remained standing by the window, near the desk where his
father’s astrolabe collected dust and spiders. Marcus’s mind left the study and
entered a place known only to himself—a small, round room that had no windows,
furnished with nothing but a small chair—a child-sized chair.

Usually he was alone in this room. Only one person was ever allowed to enter
it with him, and that was a person he’d never seen, a child he knew only by
hand and voice, and that voice rarely heard. Marcus kept all others out, for he
recalled quite vividly Draconas’s warning about the dragon who was waiting
somewhere, hoping to enter and seize him. Marcus could sometimes hear snuffling
and sniffing and scrabbling outside the door to the room, as of some great
beast prowling about. When that happened, he sat quite still in the very center
of the room, let no one know he was there, and the prowler always went away.

Marcus did not remember the tower room in which he’d been kept prisoner as a
child; he remembered very little of his childhood, nothing much before the
arrival of Draconas. Looking back at that time was like looking through the
wavery glass into the rain-washed landscape—a blur of colors and images,
reality gone over with a damp sponge. The wing of the palace where the room had
been located had been refurbished during Marcus’s absence and nothing had been
said to him about it on his return. He did wonder, though, why he sometimes
felt a strange reluctance to go into that part of the palace.

The room where he went in his mind to work his magic was the exact replica
of that physical room, although he would never know it.

Inside his room, Marcus sat down in the chair that was a child’s chair, yet
always large enough to accommodate him. He spun the colors in his mind, the way
the spiders spun their webs in the astrolabe, and he caused the rain to stop
and the clouds to part. He brought forth sunshine and it sparkled and crackled
through the leaden panes. He could see the city with its church spires and
thatched roofs and colorful banners. The rain-soaked dead verbs drowned in the
sunshine. Motes of dust danced in the air.

Pleased, Marcus embellished the dust motes with wings and gave them heads
and arms and legs and little hats made of the tops of acorns. . . .

A scream and a crash jolted Marcus out of his chair. He turned around to see
one of the maidservants standing amid shards of crockery. The maidservant had
her eyes screwed tight shut and her mouth wide open, screaming.

Before her danced hundreds of playful dust motes, each with a little hat.

“Oh, dear god!” Marcus gasped.

He approached the hysterical servant with some intention of soothing her,
but when she saw him coming, she flung her apron over her head and fled the room,
still screaming.

The ludicrous side of the situation struck Marcus and he started to laugh. A
rustle of petticoats and puffing outside the door caused his mirth to
evaporate. He hastily banished the dust motes and began contritely picking up
broken crockery.

His mother stood in the doorway, regarding him with a look of affectionate
exasperation.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” Marcus said hastily, before she could speak. “I didn’t
realize—” He paused, then amended, “I thought I was alone.”

His mother shook her head and gave a deep sigh. “Is the girl. . .” Marcus
had to work to keep his lips from twitching at the memory. “Is she all right?”

“Oh, I suppose so,” said his mother. “Fortunately, she’s a bit addlepated.
Cook will be able to convince her she was seeing things, which she apparently
does on a regular basis anyhow or so I’m given to understand. . . . Now, don’t
you start laughing, young man. It’s no laughing matter.”

Ermintrude looked as severe as her dimples would allow. “I know, Mother,”
said Marcus, sobering. “I’m sorry.” Marcus had promised Draconas he would not
make use of the magic for this very reason. Danger to him. Danger to his
parents.

He swallowed his laughter, washed it down with regret. It was a promise he
had trouble keeping. The magic was so enticing, so tempting. The magic made of
this gray and washed-out world into which he had so mistakenly been born a
fantastical realm of his own creation. His little room was a realm he ruled, a
realm he controlled. In his room, no one looked at him askance or whispered
behind his back or sneered. . . .

Walking over to his mother, Marcus took hold of her hands and kissed her on
her dimpled cheek. She had grown plumper over the years, something she did not
mind, for as she was wont to say, “Better a double chin than one that looks
like turkey wattle.”

Even though she •was somewhere in her forties—just where she would never
say—gallant courtiers still •wrote poems praising her dimples, which flashed as
winsomely now as they had done in her youth.

“I am truly sorry, Mother,” Marcus repeated. “It won’t happen again. It’s
all so boring. Verbs and rain, raining verbs.” He smiled, hoping to make her
smile.

Ermintrude was forced to look up at him for he was taller than her by
several inches. He was sixteen, so young and so handsome in his youth, with his
fair hair, strong body, and finely molded face, marked by strong will,
intelligence, and a roguish sense of humor that sparked in his hazel eyes.
Everyone liked Marcus, yet he had no friends. He was the king’s bastard, that
was true. But being born on the wrong side of a royal bed was no impediment to
advancement in a royal household. His grandfather, the king of Weinmauer, had
made one of his bastards a chancellor and another a bishop. Nor were bastards
shunned or looked upon as less than desirable marriage candidates. A king’s son
was a king’s son, no matter the bar sinister. But when the tourneys and revels
were held at Castle Idlyswylde and the nobility gathered for merriment and
play, the young men laughed and drank and danced, the young ladies whispered
and giggled and danced, and Marcus roamed the windswept castle walls alone.

They thought him “odd.” People whispered that there was something “peculiar”
about him, not quite right. One young lady-in-waiting had actually used the
word “fey” to describe him. Ermintrude had immediately banished that young
woman, sent her back to her parents on some manufactured pretense.

It is his eyes,
Ermintrude thought.
Charming, laughing.
Disconcerting. Look into his eyes and you see dreams, glimpses of other
realities. He does not look at you, but through you and above you and around
you and beyond. He sees you and he sees so much else besides. You wonder if
you mean anything to him or if you are just another dust mote, adorned with
an acorn hat.

Ermintrude loved Marcus dearly, this child that she had not borne, this
child -who was her husband’s shameful secret. She loved Marcus more than she
loved her own sons, much as she was ashamed to admit it. She loved him because
he needed her. Her other boys were normal, healthy lads, who had let go of her
hand at age two and toddled forward into life without ever looking back. Marcus
was different. She had walked through darkest hell alongside him, only to feel
his little hand slip out of her grasp. She had watched helplessly as he
wandered into a dream world where she could not follow. Although he had no
memory of that terrible time, he did remember the hand that held fast to his through
the long night of his insanity. The two of them were close, with the closeness
of those who share a special secret.

Edward loved Marcus, but his love was a love born of duty and
self-recrimination. Marcus was a constant, living reminder to Edward of his
downfall and, although the king accepted his punishment with a good grace,
whenever he looked into Marcus’s eyes, he saw reproach.

“My son,” said Ermintrude, her grip on him tightening, as if once more she
felt him starting to slip away, “don’t go back into that little room of yours.
Promise me. You are always saying that these incidents will not happen again,
but they do and they will. Last month, it was a stableboy who was frightened
half to death by the sight of a mermaid in the horse trough, and before that a
guard. Shut the door to the little room, my son. Lock it and throw away ...”

Her voice died, her words sighed to an end.

Marcus still held her hand. He still looked on her with the same
affectionate smile, but mentally he had turned his back on her and left her,
perhaps going into that same small room.

He squeezed her hand, to assure her of his love, then, letting go, he turned
away from her to gaze out the open window. The wind had risen slightly, blowing
a fine mist of rain into his face. He’d hurt her and he knew it. She’d hurt him
and she knew it.

Ermintrude smoothed the silken folds of her voluminous skirt and tried to
think of words that would smooth over what she’d said, make amends. They’d had
this pain-filled conversation before. Afterward one or the other or sometimes
both at once would reach out, apologize. This time, he was the one. Something
was happening in the courtyard and he was swift to make use of it to ease the
tension.

“Barbarians at the gates, Mother,” he said lightly, gaily. “I believe we are
being invaded.”

Grateful to him, Ermintrude prepared to take up the proffered olive branch.
She moved to the window with a rustle of petticoats. She looked down on top of
the grizzled head of Gunderson, the old seneschal, escorting a prisoner.
Gunderson was wrinkled and crippled now. His gnarled limbs might have belonged
to an old oak, they were so bent and twisted. He was as tough as an old oak and
seemed likely to be as long-lived. The person being marched along behind him
might well have been one of those ancient people responsible for the death of
the verbs Marcus had been conjugating. The person was middle-aged, with long
dark braids that straggled out from beneath a crude leather cap. A leather vest
covered a sodden wool shirt and breeches. An empty sword belt hung around the
waist; the guards having confiscated the weapon at the gate.

By the sword belt and the breeches, most people took this person for a male.
Ermintrude did too, at first, but she changed her thinking.

“That is a woman,” she said astonished, not quite certain how she could
tell, yet positive it was so.

Perhaps it was a graceful flow to the walk, a lilt to the long neck, the set
of the slender shoulders and muscular arms. A woman wearing a sword belt being
escorted to the castle under guard. . . .