Dragon Kin

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Ilsa halted her horse, blinking to clear her vision.

  “The dragon star!” Merlin cried, pointing. “Look, it marks your presence, my lord!”

  Ambrosius glanced back at Merlin, who had stopped beside Ilsa. He halted his horse and looked up, as did everyone else, including Uther, who stared at the red star with large eyes.

  “Why would it mark my presence?” Ambrosius said, sounding merely curious.

  “You are the first dragon, surrounded by your kin!” Merlin said, his voice ringing in the cold night air.

  Ilsa remembered with another small start of surprise that she was one of those kin. So was Merlin, although he did not yet know it. Merlin spoke more truly than he realized. Through his marriage to Ilsa, Arawn was now Ambrosius’ cousin and not just a good friend and future subject. Uther was Ambrosius’ brother.

  “The first dragon, hey?” Ambrosius said, sounding amused. “I would be happier if it foretold my victory, not merely marked my family.” His gaze moved toward Ilsa and she realized he had learned of her parentage since meeting her. Had Arawn told him? Or Merlin? Merlin, she decided. He had Ambrosius’ ear in a way no one else did.

  “Why would it proclaim your victory?” Merlin said, sounding surprised. “There is no need to repeat a fact which has already been settled.”

  Everyone looked at the boy, startled. Uther rolled his eyes, his impatience registering. “The horses grow cold, Ambrosius.”

  Ambrosius nodded. The company started forward once more.

  Arawn laughed. “Head dragon, Ambrosius? It’s colorful.”

  “Head dragon,” Uther repeated. “First dragon.”

  “The pen dragon,” Merlin added.

  Ambrosius laughed, too. “The ultimate dragon? Men say I am the ultimate Roman, not a dragon.”

  “Perhaps the star is there as a sign to embrace Britain as a Briton, not a Roman,” Uther said.

  Ambrosius’ glance at his brother was sharp and short and thought-filled. “Perhaps,” he said, as they rode toward the star.

  Ilsa saw him gaze up at the red, pulsing star and its tail more than once, until the rising sun hid it from view.

  For the next four days of travel, the star was visible every night they camped. It generated comments and speculations about its meaning, until even the lowliest soldier at the back of the company was calling it Ambrosius’ star, the Pendragon.

  AS VANNES DREW NEAR, Ilsa’s nervousness increased.

  Arawn’s intent was to enfold Budic and his people into the larger company. The full party would then ride to Campbon, another two days’ travel south. As the kings would ride together with Ambrosius, it would put Budic just in front of Ilsa.

  Would he speak to her? Acknowledge her, even?

  What would this man who sired her be like in person? She had heard he was a hard man, a leader of men, who had taken in his brother’s children when the Saxons and Vortigern assassinated his brother. Budic had hidden and raised the sons, while inflaming Ambrosius’ ambitions to take back Britain and providing him with the means.

  Did that make Budic a visionary? Or simply a man bent on vengeance?

  Ilsa remembered Vannes as a large, imposing place. Now she saw it as an adult, it had not shrunk the way so many big things from her childhood now appeared smaller.

  They arrived early on the third morning. The town gates stood open, although alert guards manned the towers to either side.

  Budic and his small company were waiting just inside the main gates, already on horseback. There were no women among them, not even Budic’s queen. Budic was a tall, spare figure, with iron gray hair and beard and sharp, pale eyes the same blue as Uther’s…and Ilsa’s.

  She was looking at her father.

  Budic trotted his horse forward to where the company halted, a large smile on his face. “Ambrosius! Arawn! It is good to see you!”

  He pulled up with his horse’s nose bare inches from Arawn’s. He looked at Arawn. “We got word late last night that you were on the road with Ambrosius, Arawn. I can’t tell you how it pleased me. We feared you were all dead after the news reached us.”

  “What news would that be?” Ambrosius said sharply. “We saw nothing on the road at all.”

  Budic shook his head. “I don’t know how you avoided them. A group of thieves and thugs—fifty or more, I’m told—have been harassing travelers up and down the Via Strata. They’re well-armed, have horses and know how to use both. They’re not afraid to tackle even larger parties.”

  “We didn’t come by the Via Strata,” Arawn said, glancing at Nimue.

  “Clearly,” Budic said, with a nod toward Ambrosius. “As soon as I heard about the band, I sent word to you. My messenger was caught by them and killed.” Budic scowled. “I sent two hundred men to repay the debt. They slaughtered the bandits to a man, only they were too late to save a large, rich company the thieves had waylaid. They couldn’t tell me who because the bodies were burned. I feared it was you and yours, Arawn, for you should have been on that road the last three days past.”

  Arawn shook his head. “We came down the coast, instead. The Lady insisted.” He nodded toward Nimue.

  Budic inclined his head. “You have proved you are a worthy successor, Lady. Welcome to Morbihan.”

  Nimue bent her head. “Thank you, King Budic.”

  Arawn cleared his throat. “Budic, there is someone you should meet.” He glanced at Ilsa and beckoned her forward. “I recently married again.”

  “So I heard,” Budic said gravely.

  Ilsa’s heart raced. She touched her knees to her horse, encouraging him to move up between Arawn and Ambrosius, whose stallion shifted sideways in a neat side-step.

  Budic’s blue eyes blazed as they examined her.

  He knows. The thought whispered in her mind. Then she remembered. Uther had hurried to inform him, the day Ilsa met Arawn.

  “Budic, my lady wife and queen, Ilsa,” Arawn said.

  Ilsa bent her head as Nimue had done. “King Budic,” she said. Her voice was strained.

  “You have the look of your mother,” Budic said, his voice just as low. He stirred. “She was a beauty,” he added, with almost a sigh.

  Ilsa blinked. Was that to be the sum of his relationship with her mother? He remembered her appearance with regret?

  Arawn watched the older king with the same attention he would the approach of an armed enemy. He sat still upon his horse despite the stallion’s restlessness.

  Budic shook his head and resettled himself. “Shall we move out?” he suggested, speaking to Ambrosius, not Arawn.

  Ilsa was forced to turn her horse out of the way, as was Arawn, for Budic pushed between the two of them and through the semi-circle of riders, out onto the slate paved street. He broke into a trot, forcing the party to wheel about and follow him.

  Arawn glanced at Isla. He did not smile.

  She dropped her gaze to her hands in their heavy gloves.

  Arawn hurried to catch up with Budic, as did Ambrosius and Uther, with everyone scrambling behind them.

  It was a sour note in a day which had been free of such notes until now.

  Arawn did not speak to Ilsa until that night. They made camp in a shallow valley beside a few stunted trees which the prevailing winds and salt ladened breezes had not killed.

  Budic watched the women set up their positions around the large middle fire with his arms crossed and his legs spread, an amused expression on his face.

  Uther and Ambrosius also hung back to watch them settle on the ground, instead of sitting and waiting for a tent to be raised for them. Ambrosius’ expression was one of approval, while Uther’s amusement was tinged with the same practical acceptance and a sharp interest.

  When the fire was burning brightly, Arawn threaded his way through the men setting up their perimeter positions and stood beside Ilsa’s sleeping furs. “Your ladies are settled?” he asked, as she scrambled to her feet.

  “Yes, my lord,” Ilsa replied, for she had watched Ela
ine, the youngest of them, and Eseld, the oldest, arrange themselves without complaint. Elaine was on the other side of the fire, next to her sister.

  “A word, please,” Arawn said. He walked back through the soldiers and men arranging themselves with far less grace on the grass about them, with their inadequate cloaks for mattresses and blankets, both.

  As they had before, they stopped close to the rope line for the horses.

  Arawn patted Mercury’s nose, then looked at her. “He cannot openly acknowledge you. I wanted to be sure you understood that.”

  Ilsa flinched. “Budic?” she clarified, although it could be no one else.

  “He has a son, Hoel. He’s only a small child still yet he is the oldest…” Arawn hesitated.

  “Legitimate child?” Ilsa finished stiffly.

  “I was about to say Hoel is the oldest son, although perhaps not even that is true.” Arawn sighed. “Budic will not publicly declare you as his, for the succession must remain clear and undisputed. Do you see?”

  Ilsa looked past Arawn’s heavy shoulder to where the senior officers and men were arranging themselves around a smaller fire on the perimeter. Uther was sitting with his back to the fire, his chin on his knees, his cloak wrapped about him, watching the women with the same sharp, close attention as before. Ilsa did not think it was Uther’s usual preoccupation with the other sex which had captured his interest tonight. His gaze was one of measurement, not enjoyment.

  Budic, though, watched Ilsa and Arawn.

  Ilsa shivered again. The king had spread himself out, an arm on a cocked knee, the bronze wrist guard glinting in the firelight. He openly stared at the two of them. Even when a soldier moved between Budic and the fire, to stir the pot warming on the stone beside the coals, Budic’s gaze did not shift.

  Ilsa brought her gaze back to Arawn. “I understand,” she told him.

  “You yourself declared Budic to be merely the man who made you,” Arawn reminded her. “You claimed Pryce as your real father.”

  “I did not lie,” Ilsa said. “I just wish…” She sighed.

  “Kings cannot always be considerate, when it comes to their own affairs,” Arawn added. “The affairs of their people must always come first.” He nodded toward the big fire in the center of the campsite. “It appears your supper is ready. Go and eat.”

  Ilsa moved back to the fire where Evaine and Eseld ladled stew into dishes with much laughter and clumsiness over the unfamiliar domestic task. Ilsa’s thoughts chased each other about.

  She did not doubt Arawn was telling the truth about a king’s priorities. She had seen Arawn’s own concern for his people override his need for sleep, or to take time to care for himself, or for enjoyment. In these hard times, he worked himself to exhaustion.

  Budic and Bors and even Ambrosius did the same for their people. Ambrosius had spent his life preparing for a quest which still laid in the future. Budic would be no different. No one said he was a bad king. They spoke of his ruthlessness, but not with disapproval. It took a hard king to control people and care for them in times like these.

  Just as every child had, Ilsa had grown up hearing stories about the peace and prosperity in Britain when the Romans ruled. There had been no wars. The roads were safe for any citizen to use. A woman could ride alone and be sure of reaching her destination.

  Crops were bountiful and husbands could stay at home to harvest them, instead of tending to battles.

  Because bellies were full and grain stores stuffed, because everyone had shelter and clothing, desperate thieves and robbers did not waylay anyone caught outside their town walls. There were no lone Saxons cut off from their army to kill anyone they came across for fear of being found deep in British territories.

  People had time to make music and tell stories. Women could spin and weave cloth which had no other purpose than to look pretty. Craftsmen in their leisure could make jewelry and art. Even their everyday objects were adorned with flourishes and decorations that today’s artisans could not spend the time or resources to add.

  Indeed, the water urn used to bring up water from the village well in Brandérion had been a relic from that great age. Ilsa had fingered the urn many times, tracing the wet shapes of grapes and vines and flourishes, before lowering it back down to the water. It had been fascinating, that urn. It hinted at a different life.

  Peace. It was the thing every man, woman and child dreamed of and every king worked to achieve. Yet no lands known to man had enjoyed peace for decades—not since the Romans abandoned Britain so the emperor could defend his eastern borders.

  Now, even Rome itself was under siege.

  These were facts everyone knew. These were the facts which drove Arawn to extraordinary lengths to find solutions to the problems that beset his kingdom. They made him choose to serve his people before he considered anything for himself. He had taken as a fifth wife the first woman of child-bearing age he’d come across only for that reason.

  Yet tonight he sought Ilsa out at the first possible moment to ensure she did not feel slighted by Budic’s failure to acknowledge her.

  Did it mean Arawn considered Ilsa to be merely another of his subjects to take care of? Or had he put aside his responsibilities and indulged in a personal priority?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Guannes was a new kingdom, carved from the southern and eastern edges of Budic’s Morbihan. Budic had gifted the land to his kinsman, Bors, when Bors and Ban had lost their father and Budic’s uncle, the king of Benoic, to the Saxon menace. Like Ambrosius and Uther before them, Bors and Ban had fled Greater Britain and found shelter in Brittany.

  Unlike Ambrosius, though, Ban had no claim left in Britain. Instead, when he had come of age, Budic had formed Guannes for Bors to rule. The gift, Arawn explained to Ilsa, was not as selfless as it appeared. Budic had lost some land, yes. In return he gained a bulwark against invaders along his south-eastern borders, for Bors defended his new lands with greater eagerness than Budic.

  Over the years, as Rome’s hold over its western lands crumbled, trouble from Gaul had increased. Ambitious kings and emperors to the east sought greater territories, perhaps dreaming of establishing their own new Rome.

  Guannes was a small kingdom, as poor and embattled as any other in Brittany. The welcome the people gave Arawn and his party, though, and especially Evaine, Bors’ new bride, was warm and thorough. The wedding and the wedding feast were held the day after their arrival. The delay gave the travelers time to rest and recover from their journey before shaking out their wedding finery and attending the new church to witness the wedding.

  Evaine wore red, the Roman color for brides, which enhanced her dark features. Bors, only a few years older than Elaine, yet far older in demeanor and temperament, had trouble looking away from his new bride as the priest spoke his bad Latin over them. Bors and his younger brother Ban were of the same Roman stock as Ambrosius and Budic. They had black, curly hair and thin cheeks and were tall and rangy. They wore closely cropped beards which outlined their jaw and mouth. Both, despite their youth, carried themselves like seasoned soldiers. Ban even had a fine white scar running through his beard, by the corner of his jaw. Their swords were worn and gleamed from use, not from burnishing.

  The men assembled in the church behind Bors were not courtiers but soldiers, ill at ease with the finery and pomp of the circumstances. They kept one hand on or near the hilt of their swords not because they were threatened, but out of habit. Most of them did not understand the mass and grew restless before the end.

  At the wedding feast, most of the talk was about the increasing unrest at the borders of Guannes. Claudas, a Gaulish king of relentless disposition, seemed determined to cut a swathe from his inland kingdom to the sea.

  Bors and Ban had only recently returned from the eastern border where they had repelled Claudas’ latest attempt to claim lands which belonged to Bors.

  Ban was bitter about the fighting. He sat farther along the simple table which held the bridal party
, a cup in his hand. “He has more than enough of his own. What drives a man to take more than he can hold? How do his people fare while he is off, claiming ever more? Even the emperors stay in Rome and take care of their citizens.”

  Uther’s eyes narrowed. “Claudas is here? Fighting with his men?”

  “Indeed,” Bors said, his deep voice rumbling. “I saw the bastard for myself. A mountain of a man, with an eastern style helmet. He laughed as he swung his hammer.”

  Uther’s gaze met Ambrosius’.

  Bors remembered where he was and grasped for Evaine’s hand. “Never fear,” he told her. “We contained the man just inside the borders and sent him running. You are quite safe here.”

  Evaine held her veil aside as she glanced around the central hall of Bors’ house. It was as simple as the table they sat at, with an absence of decorations or creature comforts. It was, Ilsa concluded, looking about the room herself, a workroom for men concerned about little beyond war.

  “I can tell this is a secure home,” Evaine said, her tone approving, with not a hint of dismay at the rough-and-ready appointments.

  Bors’ smile was heated and his eyes—which were pale blue and a faint echo of Uther’s and Budic’s sky-painted eyes—roamed over Evaine’s lovely face.

  Once the meal was done and toasts made, Ilsa and the other women escorted Evaine to the king’s bedchamber, to prepare her for the night. Evaine was silent and introspective.

  Ilsa touched Evaine’s shoulder. “There is nothing to be frightened about. Bors is a good man. He will be gentle.”

  Evaine shook her head, frowning, as the women removed her clothes. “I was thinking only that this place needs someone like you, Ilsa.”

  “Me?”

  “You change things. You make things happen. Look at the way we traveled here. I would never have thought of it. Yet it worked and none of the men were upset about it.”

  Ilsa bit her lip. “That was only…well, we had to do something and Arawn was too busy to worry about it.”