The Dragon's Son (30 page)

“Draconas gave me the dragon’s son,” Bellona was saying, as the first
raindrops spattered against Marcus’s cheek. “He told me to take the child and
flee with him into the wilderness, because his life was in danger. The last
words Draconas said to me were this: ‘When the dragon’s son wants to know who
and what he is, bring him to his mother’s tomb.’ “

Bellona fell silent, watching the trees that bent and swayed and mourned.

“He asked the question. He asked if he was his mother’s curse.” She spoke in
dispassionate, emotionless tones. “I told him the truth, but I did not bring
him to the tomb.”

Marcus listened to her, said nothing. He had been listening for hours, it
seemed, standing beside a strange-looking cairn built atop a grass-covered
hill, the highest point of land for many miles. He felt dazed and shocked,
horrified and dismayed, and, oddly, settled. The questions he’d been asking all
his life had been answered. The answers were bloodstained and awful and he
needed time to think about them. Still, they were answers.

The rain fell in earnest now, drops hard as the iron cannon-balls. He rested
his hand on his mother’s tomb—a cairn, crudely built, made from chunks of stone
that had been ripped out of the earth by some powerful force, then fused
together with fire. Breathed into the stone was a fire-seared word, a name:
melisande. And below that the words: mistress of dragons.

The stone was warm from the bright afternoon sun, which had put up a losing
battle against the encroaching clouds, but Marcus fancied that the warmth was
hers, that she was glad to see him, glad that he was here. His mother’s resting
place was located near an abandoned village only a few miles from the city of
New Bramfels, the second largest city in the kingdom of Idlyswylde. Marcus and
his family had relatives in that city and had visited there on more than one
occasion. An hour’s ride would have brought him to this place, had he known of
its existence.

“Why
didn’t you
bring Ven?” he asked Bellona.

“Because I knew he wouldn’t come.”

“I don’t understand,” said Marcus, and suddenly he laughed. “I don’t
understand!” He repeated it wildly, flinging out his arms and lifting his gaze
to the rain-soaked heavens. “In God’s name, how am I ever supposed to
understand any of this? My mother murdered in the hour of my birth. My body
drenched in her blood. My twin . . . My brother ... I have a brother . . .”

My brother!
The hand that was one of the earliest and most comforting
memories of his childhood reached out and clasped hold of him. Marcus had a
sudden, startling, momentary glimpse of a face with eyes that were dark,
embittered, cold and shining as the blue steel in which his twin encased
himself, armoring his soul, as gallant knights armored their bodies. And for
the same reason.

A hailstone struck his face. Marcus blinked at the stinging, chill sensation
and came back to what passed for reality. They were out in the open, far from
shelter, and the storm was worsening. Bellona seemed oblivious. She stood
beside the tomb, her fingers tracing the name burned into the rock. She had
blood on her fingers. The edges of the letters were sharp, cutting. Marcus
pulled his cap low over his face, hunched his shoulders against the rain.

“Where is my brother?” he asked Bellona, almost yelling to be heard above
the storm’s tumult. “What has happened to him?”

She regarded him coldly. “That is what I have been trying to tell you. Haven’t
you been listening?”

“I’m sorry,” Marcus returned defensively. “It’s been a shock. I didn’t
expect this. Any of this.”

Above all, he hadn’t expected this terrible end from that joyous,
freedom-gulping beginning. He had often dreamed of vaulting onto his horse and
galloping out of the palace walls, riding up the road and into a star-laden
night. The realization of his dream had been exhilarating. Then, here at the
tomb, the dream had bucked and thrown him and run away, leaving him, bruised
and aching, to limp back home.

Except that he didn’t know where home was anymore.

“I’m listening now.” Worn out, he sat down on the cairn. He rested his hand
on his mother’s name, felt the letters sharp and stark beneath his fingers.

Bellona began again and he realized that some part of him must have heard,
for he knew the story, recognized it as it unfolded, as one recognizes a
well-loved fairy tale.

Ven robbed. Ven setting off to find the robbers and win back his money. Ven
hoodwinked, kidnapped . . .

“He is being held prisoner somewhere,” said Bellona.

“No,” said Marcus, speaking without thinking. “He is not a prisoner.” He
watched the clouds, dark gray and lightning-streaked, rush across the sky. “He
is not being held against his will. Wherever he is, he wants to be there.”

The cold drops striking the warm rock caused steam to rise from the boulder
in a ghostly mist. The water ran in rivulets down his mother’s name.

“I knew it,” Bellona said, and she smiled in grim triumph. “I knew you would
be able to find him.”

Marcus started to protest that he hadn’t found anyone. He didn’t know where
his brother was. How could he when only an hour previous he didn’t even know he
had a brother? . . .

“You know now,” said a voice inside the little room. “You can find me, if you
want to. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Marcus gazed north, up the river, in the direction of the distant mountains
that sheltered the kingdom of Seth. The mountains could not be seen, their
granite had been absorbed into the rain, but
he
could see them, for now
they formed the horizon of his being.

“That way, toward the mountains. But not as far as the mountains.”

Marcus frowned, concentrating. “The river forks and there’s a cave ... a
drowned cavern . . .”

“Yes,” said Bellona, her gaunt face glimmering with a pale, eager light. “Melisande
spoke of such a cave. She said it had a ‘dragon’ feel to it.”

“He went into that cave,” said Marcus. “But he never came out.”

“Then I know where to start looking,” said Bellona. “Thank you for your
help,” she added gruffly. “I hope you won’t get into too much trouble with your
father over this.”

Hefting her pack, she turned from the cairn and walked off through the
downpour, heading toward the river. Her abrupt departure startled Marcus,
caught him flat-footed.

“Wait!” he cried, bolting through the long, wet grass. “Wait, Bellona. I’m
coming with you.”

“There is no need. You have done enough. More than enough.” Bellona gestured
back at the cairn. “You have done this for your mother and you have pleased
her. It is time for you to return to your father, to the life he has made for
you.”

“I am coming with you,” Marcus repeated. “I want to know my brother.”

Bellona’s brow creased in a frown. “I don’t think he would want to know you.”
Her eyes flicked over him, taking him in from head to toe. “You are what he
longs to be. He won’t thank you for that. Or love you for it.”

Marcus almost laughed. “He wants to be me? If he wants to conjugate verbs
all day, I can certainly arrange it.”

Bellona gazed at him through the falling rain. She seemed about to say
something, then stopped. Shaking her head, she said something else. “The way is
fraught with danger. I won’t be responsible for you, King’s Son. Go back to
your books and your silk cushions. That is your life. Ven and I have our own
lives.”

“You will not get rid of me so easily,” said Marcus, falling into step
beside her, ignoring her scowl. “You will not find him without me along. He and
I can talk to each other, you know.” He tapped his head. “In here.”

She said nothing, but continued to slog her way through the wet grass to
where the river ran, pockmarked by the rain.

“I’m very willful when I choose,” he added, matching her stride for stride. “From
what you have told me, I am a lot like my mother.”

Bellona glanced at him and looked away, glad for
the rain that masked the other, softer water in her eyes. “Too much,” was all
she said, grumbling.

Edward rode hard, not sparing his horse, but the raging storm slowed him
down, forced him to seek shelter against the driving rain and stinging hail. He
was off again the moment the rain let up. By the time he arrived at the site of
the cairn, the storm had passed, the sun had come out, only to die slowly, its
last rays making liquid gold of the ripples in the swollen river.

Leaping from his near-foundering horse, Edward ran to the cairn. He searched
the ground and saw signs in the trampled grass that someone had recently been
here. Their trail led to the river. He was starting to follow after them, when
a voice brought him up short.

“You’re wasting your time. They’ve come and gone.”

Edward gave a violent start, for it seemed that the voice had spoken from
the grave.

A man rose up, not from the cairn, but from behind it.

“Draconas! You scared me half out of my wits!” Edward scowled, not liking
this. “What the devil are you doing here? And where is my son?”

“Gone,” Draconas repeated. He leaned on his staff, gazed at the gilt-edged
river.

Edward eyed him. “Did he go with
her?”

“Bellona, yes. They came here. She told him everything.”

“About his mother,” Edward said hesitantly.

“Everything,” said Draconas with emphasis. “His mother. You. Grald. The
rape, the attack, everything. That is,” he amended, thinking of Ven, “she told
him almost everything.”

Edward looked grim. “There was no need for that. It will only confuse the
boy. What does that woman want with him anyway? Why is she doing this? If it is
for revenge—”

“No,” said Draconas. “She wants her son back. He’s run off and she knew that
Marcus was the one person who could help her find him.”

“But that’s crazy!” Edward exclaimed angrily.
“She’s
crazy! How is
Marcus supposed to know anything about this woman’s son?”

“The two are brothers. They were born within minutes of each other. When
Melisande died, I gave one child to you and sent the other away with Bellona.”

“Twins!” Edward gasped. “Melisande had twins. I
have two sons—”

“No,” said Draconas, and his taut voice and flashing-eyed gaze halted Edward
midbreath. “Believe whatever you will, Your Majesty. Believe in a heaven,
believe in a hell. Believe the earth is flat, believe it is round. Believe the
sun orbits us or that we orbit the sun. Believe whatever you want. But
know
this
for a fact. You and Melisande have
one
son. One son.”

Edward wondered whether he did believe him. He decided that he did. Such
passion could not lie.

“And the other child?” he ventured.

Draconas looked away, to the mountains in the north. “He is the dragon’s
son.”

“Dragon? Are you mad?” Edward demanded. “How—” He flushed and fell silent,
not certain where that question might end up.

Draconas made no response.

“I want to understand,” Edward said finally, frustrated.

“No, you don’t. Get down on your knees and thank God that you don’t,”
Draconas returned.

He turned his gaze from the mountains, looked back at Edward, and sighed
deeply. “Go home, Your Majesty. You have a wife, other sons, a kingdom to rule—”

“I had all that sixteen years ago,” Edward retorted. “You didn’t think about
my wife or my sons then, when you took me to that kingdom.” He gestured north,
to the mountains. “Took me to the Mistress of Dragons. And now my son has run
off—”

“—in search of his brother.”

“You know where?”

“I have a good idea.”

“It’s a trap. You’re using him. Just as you used me.”

“Edward . . .”

“Admit it!” Edward said angrily.

Draconas leaned on his staff, looked away. “Go home, Your Majesty. There’s
nothing you can do.”

“I can damn well go after my son!” Edward cried vehemently.

He turned from the cairn to follow the trail the two had left in the
trodden-down grass.

A strong hand grasped his arm.

Edward swung around, fists clenched. “Back off, Draconas. I knocked you on
your ass once before! I can do it again.”

Draconas half smiled. “You didn’t knock me on my ass. You rocked me back on
my heels, and that was only because I wasn’t watching.”

He regarded Edward with a look that was not without sympathy. “Go home,” he
said for the third time. “Leave this to me.”

“You go to hell.” Edward shook loose of Draconas’s grasp and started off
toward the river.

“And I did this to you the last time,” said Draconas ruefully.

Lashing out with his staff, he struck the king on the back of his head.

Edward slumped down into the wet grass. Draconas rolled him over. Sliding
his hands under Edward’s arms, Draconas dragged him through the grass and
deposited him at the foot of Melisande’s tomb, where he propped the king up
against the cold stone and covered him with his cloak.

“Take care of him, Melisande,” said Draconas. “When he comes around, say to
him the words I once said to you: ‘I never meant for it to come this. I am
sorry.’“

He picked up his staff and walked off, toward the
river.

MARCUS AND BELLONA MADE CAMP NOT FAR FROM THE bower where Marcus had been
conceived. Bellona knew this. Marcus did not, for Bellona did not tell him. She
kept silent not out of regard for his feelings—she had no care for his
feelings— but because she did not want to think about it, much less talk about
it. She would have camped in another area, but this was close to the drowned
cave, which they had passed at dusk, and it was one of the few open patches of
ground on this side of the tree-lined river.

Bellona was not sentimental. Her life was too hard for sentimentality to
survive. She camped here, where she had found Melisande bleeding, ravished,
half-dead, because it was practical to camp here. She slept soundly, because it
is practical to sleep soundly the day before one faces a dangerous unknown. If,
in her dreams, she relived that terrible night, those were dreams and were gone
by morning.