Mistress of Dragons (31 page)

“What
babies?” Melisande asked. “What are you talking about?”

Edward
was silent, soundly kicking himself. He hadn’t meant to bring this up. He hadn’t
wanted to add to her worries. He glared pointedly at Draconas, urging him to
make some innocuous response, turn the subject. Draconas, of course, ignored
him.

“The
male babies born to the women in the monastery,” Draconas answered. “The ones
the Mistress sends away every month. What happens to them?”

“They
are given to good people in the kingdom, people who cannot have children or—”

Melisande
fell silent. She stared at him, amazed, and suddenly afraid.

“How
did you know?” she demanded. “How did you know about the babies?”

“When
we entered the cave, we came upon some old women dressed all in black, carrying
babies out of the cave. We overheard the dragon discussing them. The dragon is
selling those babies into slavery.”

“I
don’t believe it,” said Melisande, clutching the gunwale with her hands so
tightly that the knuckles were chalk white. “The babies are given to good
homes.”

“Did
you ever meet any of these children later in their lives?” Draconas asked. “Did
any ever come back to visit their true mothers?”

“They
are not permitted to do so.”

Draconas
smiled, twitched an eyebrow. “And that didn’t seem strange to you? Didn’t you
ever wonder about them?”

Melisande
had often wondered. She had wondered about the babies. She had wondered more
about her father. She had never told anyone that, not even Bellona. Every
month, at Coupling Night, she would look over the long rows of men and wonder
if he was among them. What was he like? Was he a noble lord? Humble peasant? A
musician? Did his hands gently brush harp strings or grasp the blacksmith’s
hammer?

“The
children are a gift,” said Melisande, speaking the words the Mistress had
spoken. “A sacred gift, a divine gift. Those who receive these children are
specially singled out for this blessing. They agree, when they accept it, never
to reveal to the child or to any other that the boy is not their own. To do so
would anger the Mistress ...” Her voice trailed off. She remembered angering
the Mistress.

“But
you still wonder, don’t you?” Draconas said. “Secrets are hard to keep. People
whisper. People gossip. Everyone claims to know some family who has received a ‘monastery
child.’ But it is always the friend of a friend. Isn’t that how it goes?”

To
believe him was to believe something monstrous. The babies—neat, small bundles
of cloth, tiny fists, rosebud mouths, wondering eyes. Taken away by stealth, by
night. No one knew how or where they went, only the Mistress. No one knew a “montastery
child.” Only the Mistress.

“I
am a fool,” said Melisande softly.

“You
were duped,” Edward told her. “You are not to blame. You couldn’t have known.”

“Couldn’t
I?” Melisande stared out over the water, at the willows trailing their weeping
boughs into the river, at the water bearing them forward, sliding away behind. “I
could not sleep last night for thinking of the dragon’s victim, trapped in the
sarcophagus, trapped in the darkness, in endless pain, alone and forgotten,
with no hope left to her except one—the hope of death. And we were there with
her in the same room, so close to her that we could have touched her. Proud,
complacent, we worked our magic. Perhaps she heard our voices. Perhaps she
cried out. Perhaps I heard her!”

Her
hands let loose the gunwale, twisted together. “Once, I thought I did hear a
voice, a cry. I told myself I was hearing things, but maybe it was her,
desperate for help, and I turned away. I did not want to disturb the beautiful
tranquility of my life. And the babies,” she continued on relentlessly. “I
should have known. Now that I look back, it is so obvious. I never met a
monastery child! Why didn’t I ever question what happened to them?”

Lifting
her head, she looked at Edward. “Why did you choose our kingdom? Did you know a
dragon was secretly running it?”

“Did
we, Draconas?” asked Edward.

The
question came so suddenly that Draconas very nearly answered with the truth and
he had to shift the words about on his tongue, like divesting himself of a
cherry pit.

“I
chose your kingdom because your people were known to fight off dragons,” he
said, carefully picking his words. “For hundreds of years, your kingdom was
safe from them.”

“We
thought they were coming to harm us,” said Melisande, her voice soft. “But now
I wonder if they were attacking us, as the Mistress claimed, or if they were
trying to save us.”

“I
don’t suppose we’ll ever know,” Draconas remarked.

“I
don’t suppose we will.” Melisande sighed deeply. “Tell me something about this
dragon that is attacking your kingdom, Your Majesty.”

Edward
told his tale. Melisande listened with quiet gravity.

Draconas,
seated between the two, rowed the boat down the river.

Their
journey continued through the morning and into afternoon, idyllic, undisturbed.
Having exhausted the subject of the dragon, Edward and Melisande found nothing
else to talk about. They tried discussing fish, having seen one jump, but that
didn’t last long, nor did an attempt at ornithology. What each truly wanted to
say could not very well be said at opposite ends of a boat with Draconas in the
middle.

The
river’s current slowed, but they barely noticed. Draconas’s strong arms
propelled the boat through the water. He refused to let Edward spell him at the
oars, saying that he enjoyed the exercise.

The
Aston river was known to have a great many tributaries, contributing to the
main body, from small creeks that sprang up from beneath the ground or drizzled
down out of the cliffs to larger streams that entered the river only after they
had explored other, distant lands. The Aston was a branching river, too,
extending many arms into the surrounding countryside, unable to keep its hands
to itself.

That
afternoon, they came upon a tall edifice of red rock, jutting up out of the
earth, that split the river into two of these branches. One, the smaller of the
two, veered off westward. The other, the main body of the river, continued to flow
south. Draconas slowed the boat’s progress, as he considered which fork to
take. Logic dictated that they proceed southward, for Ramsgate-upon-the-Aston
lay in that direction. The wind, blowing from the east, and the river’s current
took them closer to the western fork. He was going to have to do some work to
head them the right way and he was bending to the oars when he sensed the
magic.

Dragon
magic, faint as a trace of perfume lingering on the air long after the wearer
has departed, yet unmistakable. And it came from the west.

Looking
down that western branch, Draconas saw blue water slicing through sheer red
rock walls, their vast height blotting out the sunlight.

In
his mind’s eye, Draconas could see that boatload of black-garbed women, holding
mewling babies, guarded by soldiers and the enormous Grald, sailing down
between those red rock walls. He hadn’t noticed that any of the humans were
particularly strong in dragon magic. But then, the dragon’s own magic had been
so overwhelmingly powerful that it might have masked the weaker magic of the
others.

Sensing
the magic like this was odd. Damn odd.

He
lifted his oars from the water, let the current carry them. “I’m taking the
western fork,” he told Edward.

“But
my kingdom lies to the south,” Edward protested.

“We
can always come back,” Draconas told him.

Edward
looked at him sharply. “What is it? What’s going on? Why do you want to go that
direction?”

“I
thought I caught a glimpse of another boat,” Draconas replied. “Down there.”

“You
think it’s the boat carrying the children.”

“I
think it’s likely.”

“But
they would be much farther ahead of us. They had a head start—”

“Not
that much,” Draconas argued. “They could not sail the river by night. They
launched in the morning, only a few hours before we came. And, remember, they
are ferrying women and small babies. They might have had to stop for any number
of reasons.”

“If
there’s any chance he’s right,” Melisande struck in, “we should go after them.
I want to know the truth.”

Edward
had no more arguments, after that. Draconas propelled the boat in amongst the
shadows of the high rock walls.

The
temperature dropped precipitously. Melisande clasped her hands around her arms
and Edward’s expression darkened. The current grew swifter as the river
narrowed to fit within the walls. The sense of dragon magic strengthened and it
was not long before Draconas found the source—a gaping hole in the canyon wall,
forming either a cavern or a tunnel that lay half-submerged beneath the
waterline.

He
stared hard into the sunken cave as they sailed past, trying to see what was
causing the magic. The darkness was absolute. He could see nothing, yet he was
convinced that the smugglers had come this way and that they had entered the
cave.

“There’s
a dragon feel about that place,” said Melisande, shuddering.

Startled,
Draconas turned to look at her. Her face pale, tense, and strained, she gazed,
wide-eyed, into the cavern.

So
she feels it, too, he thought. Though she probably doesn’t understand it. She
is so accustomed to being around the dragon magic that she doesn’t notice it
until she is away from it. Now she is sensitive to it, though she can’t quite
place it.

“I
don’t know about a dragon feel, but it has an evil feel to it,” Edward stated. “Probably
a smuggler’s den. Do you think they went in there?”

“Maybe,”
Draconas temporized.

Edward
cast another glance at the sunken cave as they floated past. “I wouldn’t relish
the thought of going in there after—”

Movement
caught his eye. Lifting his head, he stared upward. “Blessed Mother of God save
us! Speak of the demon and there he is!”

Draconas
did not look up. He knew full well what he would see—Braun, flying in lazy
circles, high above the red rock cliffs.

“That
is what I felt!” Melisande cried, staring up at the dragon. “I couldn’t understand.
. . . Will the dragon attack us?”

“No,”
said Draconas shortly.

“How
can you be so sure?” she asked, astonished at the certainty with which he
spoke.

“The
canyon walls protect us. It’s too narrow. The dragon would risk injuring his
wings. There, you see, he’s flying off.”

And
good riddance, Draconas thought. He didn’t want to meet with Braun. He guessed
that the dragon’s appearance meant that Anora had decided to go along with
Draconas’s plan.

Speaking
to his thoughts, Braun’s mind touched his.

“There’s
an ideal place to camp not far from where you are now,” the dragon reported. “The
gorge comes to an end and there’s a thick stand of trees on the north side of
the bank, not far from that cavern you’re thinking of investigating. I’ll meet
with you after dark. Make certain we won’t be disturbed.”

“I’m
having second thoughts about this,” Draconas told him.

“I
know you are,” said Braun. “And I’m here to dispel them.”

DRACONAS
MADE CAMP IN THE LATE AFTERNOON AT the location the dragon had suggested. As he
helped Edward drag the boat onto the shore, Draconas felt a sudden strong
temptation to urge the king to take Melisande and the boat and travel far
downriver, to keep going and never stop until they reached the sea.

Draconas
did not give way to the temptation, of course. The hard practicality of his
nature kept him from doing anything so wildly foolish and romantic. For one, he
knew that no matter how many rivers she sailed or how many oceans she crossed,
the woman with the dragon magic, burning like a sickness in her blood, could
never escape the reach of Maristara. For two, he knew that even if he rid
himself of the humans, he could not rid himself of the problem.

He
helped pull the boat onto the shore and covered it over with bracken and tree
limbs, to hide it from sight. They were downstream from the red rock cliffs, an
extravagance taken by the river at just that one point and then abandoned,
seemingly, for the shore on which they stood and the shore that lay opposite
were tree-lined, mundane, and ordinary. The river that had rushed frantically
through the cliffs slowed its pace, went back to drifting and murmuring.

The
setting sun shone glittering yellow through the leaves on the trees of the far
shore. The water and the sky were the same gray-blue. Melisande had not spoken
since they’d come across that dragon-tainted cavern. She sat on the roots of a
willow tree, gazing unseeing into the water, twining the leaves absently in her
hands.

Edward,
restless and antsy, paced up and down the beach. Taking pity on him, Draconas
reminded the king that their supplies were running low, suggested he might do
some fishing. After one long, yearning look at Melisande, who didn’t notice,
Edward muttered something and plunged into the forest.

When
he had gone, Melisande gave a deep sigh. “The dragon told them something awful
about me, didn’t she?” she asked. One by one, she plucked the leaves off the
bough, tossed them into the water.

“What
was that, Priestess?” Draconas asked. He hadn’t been listening. He’d been
thinking of fresh meat, his one weakness. He could not go long without craving
it.

“The
dragon must have told Bell— . . . told the warriors that I did something
terrible, to make them want to kill me. I was just wondering what she said to
Bell—to them.”

“Probably
that you ran off with your lover,” Draconas replied off-handedly, his mind on a
roasted haunch.

He
glanced at her and was immediately sorry he’d said that. Her face had drained
off all color, so that her skin was waxen white. She said nothing, but sat
staring out across the sluggishly rolling river, her hands fallen limp and
lifeless.