The Dragon Waiting

by John M. Ford

  In his mind, again, Tertullian walked away from him, leaving him to duty. New was the time to ride away, before any more old ghosts came back.

  Fire shot up, and smoke, and orange light sparkled in falling snow. "Now, Your Grace," Colin was saying, "for Berwick, as if Hel rode after us, for assuredly he does."

  They covered half the sixty miles to Berwick and England, and were sheltered in a barn; the farmer knew Colin, though he called the spy Mister Blair, and he did not ask the other travelers' names or business. There was whisky and cold water, and cold hare pie, and all of them were delicious.

  There was a small door in the corner of the barn loft, that seemed to lead nowhere; after the Duke was asleep, Dimi took a hooded lantern and opened the door. Just as quickly he closed it again on the moonstruck gleam of the altar cross.

  "Are you surprised, Captain?" Colin said. He took a sip of whisky, tore off another bit of pie. "As Inver Drum may be a laird, though he owns damn few sheep, so Mister Blair may be a Maccabee."

  Dimitrios nodded, sat down in the hay.

  Colin looked across at the sleeping Duke. He poured himself a little more whisky. "An' none of them any damn use once we're over that border. Have you ne'er burnt bridges behind yoursel', Captain?"

  Dimi nodded.

  "Well. Better to burn 'em yoursel' than have another do't."

  Dimi nodded again, and then he was asleep.

  The air was still, with a fog in from the sea, as the three men rode into Berwick. The castle windows were all alight, shafts of yellow in all directions, and the Duke of Gloucester's banner flew in the wet air. Dimi was reminded, not pleasantly, of von Bayern's fire machine.

  "Well, Alexander. Welcome to England again. You'll excuse me for insisting that Berwick is England?"

  "Richard... I thought it must be you at the back of all this. No, I can't contest your being here... not tonight, surely, even if I wanted to." He smiled. "And Berwick's an expensive mistress, isn't she?"

  With a sudden bad humor, Richard said "That's true enough." He looked Albany in the eye. "That's something we're going to talk over."

  "Just you and I... and Edward?"

  "And Edward," Richard said evenly. "But just now there are fresh clothes for you, and hot food."

  Albany sighed. "But before that, Richard..." He nodded toward Dimitrios. "Who is this brother, who will not speak to me?"

  Richard looked puzzled for a moment. Then he grinned, and said "This, brother leo, is the miles Dimitrios, a man of my house. If he would not speak, then duty kept him silent. I am quite certain of that."

  Dimi said "Thank you, my lord," and not just for the praise, though it was the sun in his heart; it was that the sun had at last driven the Alesian ghosts away.

  Albany was led into the castle. Richard said "What about the lairds, Colin? If Albany returned with an English army, which way would they leap?"

  Dimitrios was startled, but he seemed to be the only one who was. Colin said "King James has exalted too many tradesmen at the lairds' expense. They speak already of finding a place high enough to hang the King's advisors from; they lack only someone to bell the cat. And someone to sit on the throne."

  "Even if the English put him there?"

  "Men who make and unmake kings see all armies in the same color."

  Richard laughed dryly. "I deserve that, I suppose. Go and change, now; we're not having horse for dinner." Colin bowed and departed.

  Richard said to Dimitrios "He got that line from my father-in- law. Just as I got Colin. The man's been a spy his whole life, I gather."

  "What will he do now, my lord?"

  "Eh? Oh... blast, you're right." Richard looked in the direction Colin had gone. "I suppose he knew it must end some day. Better an English pension than a Scottish rack, don't you think? Well, what are you waiting for? You're as salty as Colin, and it's your feast too."

  Dimitrios was the first one changed and down to the dining hall. He waited, as did the others, for Albany and Colin; the soup went cold. Finally Dimi rose, said "My lord..." Richard nodded. Dimi climbed the stairs three at a time.

  He knocked at Albany's door. It swung open. The Duke was sitting before the fire, dressed in clean clothes. His eyes were open and did not blink.

  Dimi went in, touched him. Albany gave a small, whimpering gasp and fell, twisting, from the chair, a hand clawing at his abdomen. Blood spilled black in the firelight. The Duke's lips moved silently.

  "Get your doctors!" Dimi shouted at an astonished servant, and ran a little distance down the hall and kicked in a door.

  Colin, or Inver Drum, or Blair, or whoever, was seated almost exactly as the Duke had been, and for a moment Dimi thought he had guessed wrongly, that an unknown murderer was still loose in the house—but then the spy turned his head and looked bleakly at Dimitrios, and turned the bloody knife over in his hands.

  "Why?" Dimi said. "Why now?"

  "Because now we're in England," Colin said. "The Scots will think their brave bloody Albany escaped to you, only t'be murdered in search of Jamie's favor. You may still get your war wi' Scotland, an' maybe not, but alliance you'll hae none. Och, it feels good t'tell absolute truth, just once." He looked at the knife again. "Too bad your French friend wouldn'a told the truth about you." He picked at his cuff. "He'd'a lived."

  Dimitrios lunged forward, pushing Colin's knife aside. Colin tried to trip him; they both fell. The ghosts were back again, Lucian instructing Dimitrios in how to kill him. As he drew his own dagger, Dimi realized that Colin was waiting to be killed—and he did not strike. "Who did you do it for?" he shouted.

  The spy smiled, in absolute triumph. "That you'll ne'er know, will you?" He moved his fingers, a stroke and a crossing stroke: the Jeshite sign. Dimi turned his head. Colin closed his fingers around his knife.

  Dimi stabbed him through the heart, a faultless stroke. He was good at killing, he knew. It was why he would never own anything but a horse and a knife, why a woman like Cynthia Ricci would always turn away from him, because all he was good for was killing, killing, killing, and he was so extremely good at that that he would never lack employment.

  Dimitrios pushed himself off the dead man and sat in the heat of the fire.

  When he finally looked up, Richard was standing in the doorway. He wore a breastplate over his clothes, and a sword hastily buckled on; there was a gun in his hands.

  "Dead?" he said.

  "Yes, my lord." There was no room for apology, as Richard must know.

  Perhaps he did. "No blame of yours. He'd have known what would happen if we took him alive."

  "And Duke Alexander, my lord?"

  "Dying, as the doctor's honest enough to admit. I daresay you've seen gut wounds."

  Dimi thought that there was one more spirit of his memory that had not appeared, but he could not speak the thought even to be rid of it.

  Then, again, Richard did it for him. "The Doctor von Bayern. If we could bring him here, would he... give of himself?"

  "I don't know, Your Grace. But..." Richard had said he was faithful to duty. He was trying to be. But the path was not clear. "... would the brother lion want the gift?"

  Richard seemed to flinch, as if it were a factor he had not even considered. "Of course you're right. What would we be saving him for? The wildest of the lairds wouldn't see him king in such a state.

  No. Let the serpent go hungry." He smiled. "And think of the lives saved, now that we're out of the war." Richard turned and went away, down the hall.

  Dimi felt his hands shaking, beyond his power to control. He had seen his duty; he had found himself; and then, more swiftly than any man ever had, he had failed the one and lost the other.

  Chapter Nine

  ACROSS

  "WHAT an odd little excuse for a castle," Cynthia said, pointing as they rode past.

  Hywel said, "That's just the juliet tower. There was a Norman keep around it, but that's down now "

  "Who destroyed it?" she asked, in a dull and morbid tone.<
br />
  "A man named Owain Glyn Dwr," Hywel said. She did not press him for a reason; he was glad of that.

  They rode on north, up a stream valley. Mynydd Troed stood white and sharp to the right; to the left was countryside laid out like a giant's fortification. The stream, just cracking with spring, was the moat; the edges of Fforest Talybont, still crystalline, made a fantastical palisade around the hills called the Brecon Beacons, keeps half a mile high. "That one is Gwaun-rhudd. And the saddle mountain, high afar off, is Pen-y-fan."

  Cynthia said "And the name of the place we're going?"

  "Llangorse. I think we'll stay there a few days."

  "Whatever." She looked up; it was just past noon, and the thin clouds were brilliant. She turned back to Hywel. "What did you say it was called?" He could see the haze in her eyes.

  "Llan-gorse."

  "Perhaps in a few days I'll have learned to say that," she said, but her voice was mechanical and she did not smile.

  Llangorse was bustling; people carried lumber and tent-cloth through the streets, and they were not dressed for a working day. Hywel watched Cynthia, but she paid no attention.

  They stopped at an inn whose sign showed a castle half sunk in water. Hywel paid for two of the five guestrooms, and gave a boy an entire penny to carry a message.

  "Not that it is my business, sir," the innkeeper said in singsong English, "but why would yourselves want to stop here with the sun still high, and Brecon not five miles yon?"

  Hywel said, in Cymric, "Aberhonddu has not what Llangorse has." He used his northern, Gwynedd accent. A local inflection would only have further confused the man. "The smaller festivals are of the most interest to us... we are professors, you see."

  "Oh, I do see, sir." The innkeeper smiled. Scholars might do anything.

  Hywel went up the narrow, noisy stairs, knocked on Cynthia's door.

  "Entrare."

  She was looking out the window, still wearing her headscarf, dusty cloak, riding boots. Her bags were untouched where the porter had dropped them. "They are setting up a fair... is that why we're here? To go to a fair?"

  "It's one reason."

  She said "I haven't been to a fair in a long, long time. It sounds... very nice." She turned her head, looked at her baggage. "I only brought traveling clothes. Do you think I'll be dressed well enough?"

  "I'm sure you will." Hywel's throat felt tight. "Excuse me now, Doctor." He closed the door, feeling a drop of cold sweat slide down his flank. She had cared about something—something minor, but something.

  Feeling better than in days, he went to his room, to change, and to wait for the messenger boy's return

  Cynthia came down the stairs. Hywel stood to meet her, hearing all conversation stop in the inn hall, feeling a small joy at the sight of her.

  She wore a sleeveless gown of felted wool, forest green and without ornaments, smooth and straight of line nearly to severity. Her blouse sleeves were of rust-colored linen, puffed slightly, cuffed tightly with pearl buttons. A scarf of absolutely white sendal wrapped her throat, trailing long ends down her back. A green lace caul held her hair back from her forehead, shaped it into smooth white curves around her face. Her belt was silver cord, and Cecily of York's silver owl glittered on the green cloth above her bosom.

  Then Hywel looked into her eyes, and his spirit died again. He took her hand, which was cold.

  As they left the inn, Hywel picked up a crooked oak staff that rested against the wall. He wore a brown robe tied with braided leather, and a leather patch over his missing eye.

  They fell in with a stream of people moving southward from town. The townsfolk were wearing clean linen gowns, cheesecloth wimples, the quilted jacks of bowmen, felt doublets, brightly dyed hose. Some of the men carried shields made of sticks and paper, painted with colorful devices. A woman rode by on a dappled palfrey, garlanded with woven pine needles; after her came a man cap-a-pie in whitewashed canvas, couching a wobbly lance striped red and white.

  Cynthia looked around at the procession. "Sometimes, at the summer parties, we would improvise costumes. But that was forever ago.... Hywel, what is this fair?"

  "Arthur's Court. Tonight and tomorrow, everyone here is a lord or a lady."

  "Or a wizard?" She looked at his robe and staff. "When I first met you, you called yourself Plato. Are you a Platonist? Your nose is sharp."

  Hywel had seen the long-nosed man in her memories, wondered who he was. He was aware that memories were struggling within her for release; they must be careful now, lest something rupture. "Look," he said. "There's Arthur's pavilion, and within it the Round Table. Beyond is the lake, Llyn Safaddan. Just at dark, the Lady will appear bearing Caliburn, and there'll be a splendid first court.

  Then tomorrow, the Triumph, and the joining of the Kingdom. In the afternoon, the Cauldron Quest, and finally the Evening Court...."

  "Do all your people worship this dead king?" she said, voice dull again.

  He knew she was fighting the pressure of memory; knew she was trying not to be afraid. "Not worship," he said, and took her hand again. It was quite damp. "Believe in Arthur, yes, I think so. Actually they believe in a hundred individual things: noble knighthood, justice, repelling the invader, the leader who will return... the love that forgives anything... all of which are Arthur."

  "But he was an English king, wasn't he?" she said, with a sort of numb determination, staring at the knights in trumpery armor. "Isn't this... another country?"

  "Oh," Hywel said lightly, "Arthur was born a Welshman. Ask anyone here; it was England he joined to the Kingdom, not the other way around."

  The sun began to set, and the lake turned red; torches were lit, and lanterns with reflectors of tin. A small boat appeared, with a woman standing in it; there was only a small stiff sail, and no one seemed to steer the craft (though there was a heavily draped couch in the stern that might have concealed marvels, or an engineer).

  The Lady's boat parted the reeds at the lakeshore; Arthur, in flowing robes of purple and gold, waded into the shallows to meet her. A duck, disturbed, quacked furiously after the King. There were appreciative shouts from the audience.

  "There's a legend," Hywel said, laughing, "that the birds on Llyn Safaddan will sing at the command of the rightful King of Wales. The fellow hardly needs to take the sword now."

  But he took it anyway, and held it up so it caught the light from a focused lantern and blazed like pure fire. Arthur strode ashore. The Lady's boat shuffled itself off the stones and away. There were the sounds of kegs being knocked in, the smells of bacon and mince pie.

  Cynthia turned at another, stranger sound. She walked toward it; Hywel followed her, to a small pavilion near the King's huge one.

  In the tent, a young man was singing, while next to him a lady stroked a bow across a psaltery. Tke words of the song were not matched to the music, but rather a sort of counterpoint, the man's voice playing free with the rhythms. Singer and musician shot each Other glances all through the tune; they seemed to be competing, the woman playing now quicker, now slower, the man always just holding his own. Finally they reached the same note, held it for a full breath and stroke of the bow, and stopped. There was applause.

  Hywel looked at Cynthia. She seemed to be trying to smile, or cry, and failing at either. He said "It's called penillion singing. The musician must play a common song, one everyone knows; the singer must improvise. You heard how it's done; the singer can do as he pleases with rhythm, so long as it somehow suits the music—and they finish together."

  She nodded, not looking at him. A man with a long bass recorder was taking the musician's chair, while another singer cleared her throat. They played and sang less in competition, more complexly, and finished on a short, plangent, almost painful note. Hywel said "Would you care to sing? There are always instruments looking for a singer, and there's sure to be a song you both know."

  "But I don't know your language."

  "No one will mind."

  "I can't—h
ow can people make up words to music as it plays?" She turned and walked out of the pavilion.

  Hywel waited. There was a high-pitched cry from the dark outside. He lifted his robe just enough to walk fast.

  He saw a clump of figures, in one of the areas set off for tomorrow's mock battles. All of them were small. As Hywel drew close he saw that they were all children; all except one, who was Cynthia, kneeling. On the ground before her lay a boy, seven or eight years old; his left arm was covered with dark shiny blood. He was crying with vigor.

  "What happened?" Hywel said, in Welsh.

  There was silence. Cynthia was stripping away the boy's tunic with precise cuts of a dagger. "Lume di qua," she said. After a moment, she snapped in English, "Light!"

  The children milled and murmured. Hywel looked back; people were coming, but not rapidly. He held up his left hand, cupped his fingers, gathered the thought. A white spark appeared in his palm, then a downward shaft of bluish light. There were gasps. Cynthia did not look up or speak. The wounded boy kept whimpering.

  "What happened?" Hywel said again.

  "Please, sir, we were playing," one of the boys said, sheer terror in his look. "Playing Cei and Bedwyr, sir. We just had tin swords, sir, William's father's the tinsmith—"

  "And didn't he tell you tin has edges?" Hywel said gently.

  Cynthia said, in Italian, "Hywel? Get me some wine to wash this. Not pond water."

  Hywel let his witchlight fade. Cynthia looked up sharply, said "I need—"

  Hywel turned to the adults who were arriving. "Would you get that lantern over here, please? The doctor needs some light. And does one of you have a cup of wine?"

  "Here's strong soap in rainwater, and a boiled sponge. Will those do?"