The Dragon Revenant

by Katharine Kerr

  “Doubtless the marriage was far from … shall we say, satisfying?”

  Malina slapped her hands palm-downward on the table.

  “Just what are you implying, my fine showman?”

  “This is no time for fencing, is it? I heard distressing rumors, and I dismissed them as that, too—just rumors. But when I saw a horrible scandal in her tiles, well, I wondered if they sprang from more than envy and wagging tongues.”

  “Rumors about what?”

  “That handsome barbarian boy.”

  Malina wept, a thin scatter of tears that she controlled almost at once.

  “Nineldar spoiled her, trying to make things up to her. She’s gotten used to having anything she wants, even if it’s something forbidden.”

  Salamander looked her full in the face with an expression so sincere that Jill nearly believed him herself.

  “I tried to buy the boy from her for my show. She wouldn’t sell him. That’s what made me wonder if the rumors were true.”

  Malina looked away, her mouth a little slack as she thought things through.

  “I’ll go speak to her,” she said at last. “And I’ll talk long and hard. There are several other things that we haven’t even touched upon yet, have we, my dear sorcerer?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “Now, that I simply don’t believe. But have it your way; I don’t blame you for wanting to keep your own scandal buried in decent silence. I’ll send one of my slaves to your inn with a message, one way or another. You may leave me now. Hie sooner I speak to her the better.”

  All morning, after the wizard left, Alaena paced round the garden. Every now and then she would call for Rhodry; when he came, she would look at him so intently that he wondered if she were trying to memorize his face, then either give him a kiss or a slap and send him away again. Finally, when the household retired for the afternoon nap, she insisted he spend his with her.

  “Mistress, it’s really not safe, here in the middle of the day.”

  “Who do you think you are, to be arguing with me?”

  “I’m only trying to spare you grief. That wizard saw a scandal, didn’t he?”

  This time she slapped him hard enough to make his face sting.

  “You and your rotten wizard!”

  Then she burst into tears. Since he couldn’t think of anything else to do, Rhodry picked her up and carried her, kicking and protesting, into her bedchamber. After he made love to her, she fell asleep in his arms, so soundly that he could slip away and go up to his own bed in the slaves’ quarters. Although Porto made a great show of snoring, Rhodry was sure that the old man had been waiting to see if he would come in. By then Rhodry was so exhausted from all his anxieties that he fell asleep straightaway himself.

  He was awakened much later by Disna, shaking him and saying over and over again that the mistress wanted him. With a sound halfway between a yawn and a groan he sat up and rubbed his face.

  “She wants you to come pour wine in the reception chamber. Rhodry, something’s wrong, Malina’s here.”

  “Malina comes here practically every day.”

  “Oh I know, but something’s really wrong. I’m worried, for your sake.”

  All at once he was wide-awake, on his feet without even really thinking. Disna was looking at him with tears in her eyes.

  “I just hope they don’t beat you.”

  “I thought you couldn’t stand me.”

  “Men! Island men, barbarian men—you’re all blind!”

  Then she fled the room; he could hear her clattering down the stairs.

  In a cold panic he followed her down and rushed to the kitchen to fetch the tray of cups and the wine. When he came into the reception chamber, he found Alaena and Malina sitting at the low table, facing each other, both of them a little pale. He set the tray down and started to back away, but Malina pointed at a cushion with an imperious hand.

  “Sit down, boy. This concerns you.”

  When Rhodry glanced at his mistress, she ignored him, and he took the cushion.

  “Very well,” Malina went on, speaking to Alaena. “Do you see what I mean, dear? It’s all getting out of hand, if some traveling showman can hear everything there is to hear right down in the common marketplace.”

  “How do you know he heard it? He could be lying.”

  “And why would he lie?”

  Alaena hesitated, slewing half-around to look at Rhodry, then back to face Malina, whose eyes snapped like a cadvridoc’s when he gives hard orders.

  “You see it, too, don’t you? Well, are you going to do the decent thing and sell him back to his family or not? His brother’s certainly come a long way to look for him.”

  “I don’t care! He’s mine, and no one can make me sell him.”

  “I was talking about decency, not legality.”

  Rhodry was frozen by surprise. His brother? At that point he dimly remembered that he’d had several brothers, back in that other life of his. Krysello must have been one of them, if the women said so; he couldn’t remember enough to argue either way. Malina turned to him.

  “Well, boy, isn’t he your brother?”

  “Yes, mistress.”

  “Now listen, Alaena darling, you’ve simply got to sell. It’s the proper thing, and beyond that, if the gossip gets all over, well, what decent man is going to marry you?”

  “I don’t care! I’ll never marry, then. I like my slave better than half the stupid men in the islands, anyway.”

  “Enough to have a child by him? A lovely horrid thing that would be! The poor little creature would most likely have blue eyes, and that would be all the proof anyone would need. Do you want to see your poor boy flogged to death in the marketplace and his child sold away from you?”

  “Then I’ll set him free. If he’s a freedman, nobody can do anything to us, and if rotten nasty spiteful people want to talk behind my back, let them!”

  “That’s all very well, except you’re assuming he’ll want to stay.”

  Alaena slewed round again to look him with the question clear in her eyes and her half-parted lips. Rhodry felt as if he’d been struck dumb; no matter what he said it would be wrong. His silence, however, announced everything. Alaena dropped her face into her hands and sobbed.

  “I didn’t think so.” Malina’s voice was ice steady. “Are you pregnant already?”

  “I doubt it.” She was sniffling rather than sobbing by then. “I’ll know for certain in two or three days.”

  “Well, if you are, there’s a sensible way of dealing with the problem, and you’re going to do it.”

  Alaena nodded dumbly.

  “And you’re going to sell Rhodry back to his brother, and you’re going to do that tonight.”

  “I don’t want to sell him. I’ll give him to his beastly brother. I don’t want one stupid zotar for him.”

  “Very good. Rhodry, fetch Porto and tell him to bring bark-paper and ink. I’ll write out a deed of gift right now and have your mistress sign it.”

  As Rhodry ran from the room, his heart was pounding in excitement, but not so much from the prospect of freedom. At last he was going to learn the truth about himself. And then, all at once, he was afraid, wondering just what that truth might be.

  “It’s almost night,” Jill said. “Surely that blasted message should come soon.”

  “I wouldn’t call sunset ‘almost night,’ oh fretful egret of mine, but truly, I can understand why impatience blooms within your—oho! Footsteps are also blooming in the corridor.”

  Now that the crux was here Jill felt paralyzed. Moving faster than she’d ever seen him move, Salamander leapt from the divan, dashed for the door, and flung it open just as someone knocked. Rhodry stood there, a bedroll slung over his shoulder, a leather letter case in his hand. From her perch on the windowsill Jill watched, half-greedy at the sight of him, half-afraid she’d conjured up his image like one of her visualization exercises. Rhodry glanced her way, then merely looke
d around the room in a soul-weary bewilderment.

  “She’s willing to sell you, then?” Salamander said.

  “She’s not, but she’s made a gift of me.” Rhodry handed over the letter case. “It’s an odd thing, to be owned by your own brother.”

  “Oh by the gods! You know, then?”

  “The women spotted it, and once I had a moment to look in a mirror, I could see the same thing they did.” Rhodry smiled in a painful self-mockery. “I can’t lie and say I remember you, lad, but I’ve never been more glad to see kinfolk in my life—I guess. I couldn’t swear to that, either, not to save my life. Here, do you know what’s happened to me?”

  “Probably better than you do, oh brother of mine. Ah ye gods, it gladdens my heart to see you free.”

  When, half in tears, Salamander grabbed his arm and hauled him into the chamber, Rhodry tossed his bedroll onto the floor, then all at once looked up and gave Jill a smile that came from a recognizable ghost of his old self, only a shadow, perhaps, but cast by a familiar sun.

  “And aren’t we supposed to be rushing into each other’s arms and babbling at each other like in a gerthddyn’s tales, my love? It seems cursed tame, to just walk in and hand over my bill of sale.”

  She laughed, and with that, she felt as if a small but ugly ensorcelment had broken in her own mind. She slipped off the windowsill and ran the last few steps to his open arms. His embrace was so familiar—the way he gathered her close, the way his hands moved on her back—that she wanted to alternately shriek and howl with laughter like an hysterical child. Instead she kissed him, and again, the feel of his mouth on hers was as companionable as the voice of an old friend unheard for too long. When something wet touched her face she looked up to find him in tears.

  “I remember you, Jill. I never did completely forget you, not even at my worst—I want you to know that. And now, well, I remember more about you than I do about anything else, but by every god and his horse, I don’t remember everything.” He paused, sniffing like a child, and let her go to wipe his face on his tunic sleeve. “I don’t even remember how we met.”

  “Do you remember how we parted?”

  “Somewhat about it. Tell me one thing—did you want to ride off with Perryn?”

  “Never! I swear it on the gods of our people!”

  “That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  He grabbed her again and kissed her, and this time he was laughing, his old berserker’s chuckle under his breath, as if her kiss were magic enough to give him back his past. Yet all at once, when he let her go, that fragment of his old self disappeared into his bewilderment like a chunk of ice melting into a puddle.

  “What was Perryn?” He was looking at Salamander. “Some sort of sorcerer like you?”

  “A sort of sorcerer, true enough, but not one like me, not in the least, my thanks! Come sit down, brother. We’ve got many a grave and grievous thing to discuss, not the least of which is who you truly are.”

  For a brief moment Jill was angry, feeling more than a little slighted and dismissed. All at once she realized that for months, she’d been rehearsing this scene in her mind, wallowing in guilt and planning out various ways of begging Rhodry to forgive her, only to find that of course he forgave her, that all she needed to do was tell the simple truth for him to close the matter once and for all. There would be no tantrum of recrimination, no orgy of forgiveness. She was profoundly relieved, and in that sense of relief she found her first real hope that someday he would be cured. No matter how hard he’d tried, Baruma had failed to crush the honor at the core of his victim’s soul.

  As they all sat down at the low table, and Salamander poured a round of wine while he thought over what to say, she realized something more: that, indeed, they had far more important things to discuss than what she might have done with another man back in Deverry or, for that matter, what Rhodry might have done here in Bardek with his lovely owner. She felt a cold ripple of dweomer-warning down her back. Finding Rhodry had so filled her mind and heart that she simply hadn’t let herself see the danger. Here they were, hundreds of miles from home in a foreign land and faced with enemies who were both utterly corrupt and utterly ruthless. She doubted very much if those enemies were simply going to stand by and wave farewell while they took Rhodry home again. The same thought seemed to have occurred to Salamander.

  “I hate to interrupt the touching reunion and all, but the sad and tedious fact remains that we’re enmeshed in the worst toil, snare, danger, predicament, and so on and so forth, that any of us—and the Dark Sun herself knows we all have a penchant and taste for terrible trouble—have ever faced before. Sweet sentiment must hold its tongue—”

  “And blather,” Jill muttered.

  “And blather, truly, will have to wait as well. Here, younger brother. We have the same father, but not the same mother. Do you remember yours?”

  “I don’t, not a scrap about our clan or my home—naught. What are we? A pair of bastards sired by some powerful man?”

  “Well.” Salamander paused to rub his chin. “In a manner of speaking, though among our father’s clan no one cares about some tedious ceremony when it comes to claiming a child.”

  “Ah. He’s the elf, then, not my mother.”

  “Oh ye gods! You’ve ferreted out a goodly lot of secrets, haven’t you now? Scandal, indeed! Well, he is, at that, and a splendid bard among the Elcyion Lacar. The thing is, young brother of mine, no one but he, your mother, and the three of us know that he’s your real father. There are most urgent and pressing reasons for keeping this particular secret, too.”

  “Her husband’s still alive?”

  “He’s not, but dead, and you’re now his legal heir. His only heir, most likely.” He glanced at Jill. “I doubt me if Rhys is still alive. He was most cruelly injured in that fall.”

  At the mention of Rhys’s name, Rhodry frowned a little.

  “Do you remember him, my love?” Jill said.

  “I don’t, but the name sounds familiar somehow. Is he another brother?”

  “He is, your mother’s son by the man everyone thinks is your father.”

  “By the hells!” Rhodry laughed, one sharp bark. “What is this? I feel like I’ve wandered into one of those hedgerow mazes the High King has in his gardens … or here, have I been to the royal palace? I seem to remember a good bit about it.”

  “You should, because you were there quite often,” Salamander said. “Your mother’s husband, the man whose property you stand to inherit? He was Tingyr, Gwerbret Aberwyn. Remember what a gwerbret is?”

  Aberwyn nearly lost her last heir right there and then. Rhodry choked on a mouthful of wine, nearly spat it out across the table, swallowed it barely in time, then coughed, turning bright red, while Salamander pounded him on the back in real concern. At last he stopped, and his color slowly returned to normal.

  “Are you telling me that I’m Aberwyn?”

  “Exactly that.”

  Still holding the wine Cup he rose, stood dazed for a moment, then wandered over to the window, where he set the cup down and leaned onto the windowsill with both hands to look out. When Jill started after, Salamander caught her arm and motioned her to sit back down.

  “Aberwyn needs you badly,” the gerthddyn said. “By all dictates of honor, you’re not truly her inheritor, but you’re the only one she’s got. If you abdicate, the fields and streets will run with blood.”

  “I know what happens when there’s no heir for a rich rhan.” He was a silent for a long moment. “But a lie’s a lie.”

  “Rhodry!” Jill and Salamander both spoke at once.

  With a shrug he turned around and leaned back on the sill, and his smile was a painful thing to see, filled with mockery and weariness.

  “Listen to me, a cursed slave still, talking of honor. Ah ye gods, can’t you understand? You can fill my head with all the fine words in the world, but I still don’t know who I am.”

  “Don’t you believe us?” Jill s
aid.

  “Of course I do! But it’s only words. I don’t truly remember one wretched thing. I don’t feel who I am! Ye gods, try to understand that!”

  “I will, my love, and my apologies.”

  With a toss of his head he left the window and sat back down, reaching out a hand to catch hers and squeeze it.

  “You I know, Jill. And I remember exile and disgrace, and riding hungry and lying wounded, but now you tell me I’m a gwerbret—by the hells, not even a poor country lord or some landless courtier, but a gwerbret!”

  “Umph, well.” Salamander rubbed his chin again. “I can see where it would take a bit of getting used to, truly. But try, brother of mine. Oh by the love of every god, try, and take the blasted rhan, too, because if you don’t, Death will sail into Aberwyn’s harbor and ride her roads.”

  “True enough.” Suddenly Rhodry looked close to tears. “And it’s the common folk who’ll suffer the worst, isn’t it? When the lords take their sons for riders and trample down their crops and siege their cities, Oh truly, they’ll suffer and starve and suffer again. Ah by the hells! I may be naught but a bastard born and now a slave, but cursed and twice-cursed if I’ll let that happen!”

  Jill frankly stared at him. Never had she heard him or any other noble lord admit such a thing; truly, for all his fine honor, she’d never seen Rhodry do anything that showed he cared one whit for the ordinary folk below him. He’d always been generous to beggars, of course, but because a noble lord was supposed to be generous, and he’d respected his fighting men more than most lords, but then, they were warriors and in his mind his equals. But the farmers, the craftsmen, the merchants, the priests even—they’d meant exactly as much to him as his horses, creatures to provide for when he could and use up when he couldn’t.