Dragon Rose (Tales of the Latter Kingdoms)

by Pope, Christine

  “Hmm,” was Sar’s response to my remark.

  “Anyway,” I went on, sprinkling a little more verdigris into the mixture on the thin wooden board I used for preparing my paints, “Mat is doing very well at it, so no need to trouble his lordship with tales of me sawing boards or stretching canvas.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  She left me then, stating some pressing need in the kitchens, but I really think her haste to leave stemmed more from her distaste of the scent of the linseed oil than any culinary emergency. The smell was so familiar to me that I didn’t think twice about it. Besides, I had the windows open to let in the fine summer air, but I didn’t mind her leaving. I had work to do.

  “Sar tells me that you are quite consumed in a painting,” Theran Blackmoor said to me over dinner several days later.

  I wondered how often the two of them discussed me but decided, again, that there was no way for me to ask without sounding too forward. “I’m painting the valley. The hues on the hillsides are quite lovely this time of year; I want to catch them before autumn comes upon us in earnest.”

  “It must be quite a gift, to see things as you do.”

  His words made me start a little, until I realized he spoke only of my artist’s eye, and not that far more troublesome one, the one which brought images to me in dreams. Since that first night, none of my dreams had been particularly vivid or memorable, and even the one that had troubled me so had faded almost completely. If it meant anything—which I doubted—most likely it had been my way of saying goodbye to any hopes of marriage to someone more suitable.

  “Oh, well.” Deprecating my talents came as naturally to me as breathing, and I did it without thought. Lindell had praised my work, and said it was a shame I was a girl, for I should have been plying my trade in Lystare and beyond. My family, though, tended to ignore it, save when they could use it for their own gain. No, that was not fair. I’d felt glad to be of some use, dull as the work might have been. Far better that I should have been gifted with a needle, or in the kitchens, for at least then I could have made a contribution they didn’t have to hide from the world, but that was not my fate.

  “Rhianne.”

  Although I still found myself thrilling to the sound of my name in that dark-honey voice of Theran’s, I couldn’t help but detect a note of reproof. To my surprise, he drew a piece of paper from somewhere within the folds of his robes and then laid it flat on the table between us, smoothing it with a gloved hand. Although the one candle sitting next to my plate did not provide much illumination, I could still see the piece of paper was one I had discarded earlier that day, a sketch of two roses clustered together. I hadn’t been entirely satisfied with the shading, and so I had thrown the scrap into the waste bin in my room.

  How he had come by it, I had no idea, although I guessed either Sar or Melynne, the girl tasked with keeping my rooms tidy, must have fished it out and given it to him.

  “It was wasteful, I suppose. I should have used the back of the paper before I put it in the waste bin, but—”

  “That is not what I was about to say.” A black-clad finger traced the lines of one rose stem, then paused, still resting on the paper. “To see the truth of a thing…to be able to put that truth down on paper, or canvas…well, it is a rare gift. You should not disparage it.”

  “I wasn’t—” I broke off, since I realized I had been doing that very thing. Well, it was never easy to shake off the habits of a lifetime. “So you don’t think it odd, that a woman should want to be a painter?”

  “No odder than the lord of Black’s Keep being a dragon, I suppose.”

  It was the first time he had ever said anything about his…condition. The words sounded almost amused, if in a rueful way, and they emboldened me enough to say, “They call you that, my lord, and yet I must confess that you seem very much like a man to me.”

  The gloved fingers clenched on the paper, crumpling it. “Do I?”

  Immediately I knew that I had misspoken, and the food I had just eaten seemed to turn over in my stomach. Why couldn’t I have just held my tongue? It seemed to forever get me in trouble.“My apologies—I did not mean—”

  At once he pushed his chair back and stood. Wood scraped against stone, and I tried not to wince. “Count yourself fortunate that you have not seen the Dragon in his true guise…and pray that you never will.”

  Then he turned and strode from the room, leaving me to stare at the half-eaten food on my plate. His palpable anger had quite killed my own appetite, so after a moment I set aside my napkin and stood as well. By then I knew the way back to my rooms well enough, but still I hesitated. Perhaps some part of me thought he might return. As the minutes passed, however, it became clear that he was done with me for the evening.

  Fighting a queasiness that had very little to do with the excellent meal I had just consumed, I found my way to the door and then out into the more brightly lit corridor. I saw no one, but that was to be expected. Most days I could climb from my own tower room to the ground floor and not encounter a soul. I expected that the servants, probably used to their lord’s vagaries of mood, knew how to make themselves scarce when necessary.

  Oh, why had I let those foolish words escape my lips? Yes, it was a thought that had been with me for some time, but I should have known better than to ask for details. And if my cursed curiosity must be sated, then I should have broached the subject with Sar, and not asked the question of the man himself.

  Man. He stood on two legs like a man, had two arms and the height and breadth of a man in his prime, but I still had no idea of what lay concealed beneath his cloak. Wings and horns? I could guess, but I did not know. I only knew that he appeared a man to me, far more than a dragon.

  I reached my rooms and let myself in, closing the door softly behind me. It was far too dark for painting, but I found I had little taste for that. I could only hope Theran wasn’t so angry with me that he would not sit down to dinner with me the next day, that perhaps his ire would burn itself out in the dark hours of the night.

  Even though I had no intention of picking up my paintbrush, I sat down in the chair in my little alcove. The windows were still open to the night air, and I welcomed the feel of the small breeze that whispered its way past the mullioned glass and played with the loose hair about my shoulders. If I closed my eyes and concentrated on the scents of dry grass and the faint lingering traces of linseed oil, perhaps I could forget that ugly little scene in the dining room, forget the anger in Theran’s voice.

  From somewhere above me came a high, piercing cry, one that seemed to chill the very blood in my veins, even though the night air was quite mild. I had heard that cry before, once, in my nightmares.

  Although some part of me wanted to fling the windows shut, to run back to my bed and draw the bed hangings around me, I made myself stand and go to the casement. Fingers gripping the cool, rough stone, I leaned out just enough to get a clearer view of what had made that sound.

  Black circled against black, blotting out the stars. There were no moons, and so I could not see anything clearly, but I thought I could make out the shape of enormous wings as something—someone—moved through the air above Black’s Keep. And perhaps it was just a fancy, but I thought I saw the glitter of eyes, green as emeralds. Those eyes seemed to pierce the darkness and find me where I stood.

  For one long moment I remained frozen in place, my own gaze meeting that of the monster. A shudder went through me, and I gasped. I had heard hunters describe the way rabbits might go still in such a manner, when caught by a predator’s stare, and indeed, it seemed to me that I was unable to move, that I could not force myself away from the open window. The shadow moved closer, and the breath strangled in my throat. It would dive now, drop through the black night and tear the life from me, just another Bride to bleed out her last in one of the castle’s high towers.

  But then the shape moved off, and that hard green gaze turned elsewhere. I gasped and pushed myself backward, then g
rasped the windows and flung them shut, heedless of the glass.

  They held, and I rushed to fasten the latches. A silly precaution; that enormous shape could have broken the mullioned windows with hardly a second thought. Better to have something there than nothing, though, and I stumbled out of the alcove and on into my bedchamber, where I closed the windows as well, and shut the door, though it had no latch.

  Then I sat on the bed, arms clutched about myself, as if that would do anything to stop the trembling which had overtaken my body. At last the tremors subsided somewhat, and I forced myself to look at the nearest window, now safely hidden behind a fall of crimson damask.

  It seemed clear to me now that the Dragon of Black’s Keep was more than simply a title.

  Sleep ran from me that night, ran like a quarry chased by a persistent hunter. Sometime in the dark hours of the morning I finally fell into an exhausted slumber, and the dream came upon me once again.

  This time I saw him only in profile, catching a glimpse of a fine, long nose and that same sculpted jaw. Once again, though, he turned away, seemingly swallowed in a blaze of blinding white light. Even in my dream I blinked. And then he was gone.

  I sat up in bed, and realized that wash of bright light was only the sun, now pouring in through the window. But hadn’t I pulled the curtains the night before?

  At the moment I couldn’t quite recall what I had done in the depths of my terror. And even now, my thoughts seemed less consumed by my discovery that the lord of the castle was, in fact, a dragon than the vision even now fading from my mind’s eye.

  I pushed the covers aside and fairly leapt from the bed, intent on the pens and pencils scattered across the worktable in the alcove. A pencil came to hand first, and so I grasped it and found a clean piece of paper, then began to sketch. A few quick strokes to get down those clean features, although even as the pencil moved across the paper I wondered whether I was getting it right, whether his nose was not quite that aquiline, and whether the longish hair touched the top of his collar or brushed past it. And as I sat there the image was gone again, and I was left only with those hasty pencil marks to prove I hadn’t conjured him completely from my imagination.

  From the other room I heard the sound of footsteps. Melynne with my breakfast tray, most likely.

  At once I was overcome by the impulse to hide what I had been doing. I shoved the half-finished sketch between a few sheets of blank paper and turned to face the doorway. My greeting to Melynne died on my lips, for it was not she who faced me, but Sar, looking grimmer than I had ever seen her.

  She carried a breakfast tray, but all it held was a bowl of hot wheat cereal, and not even some of the raspberries that grew wild along the mountain roads. This time she did not bother to disguise her sniff as she took in my posture at the worktable, the pencil still clutched in my right hand.

  “At it already, my lady?” she inquired in acid tones.

  It did not take a good deal of perception to realize she was angry with me, and I knew the probable reason why. It must be an unsettling thing to have one’s lord and master take to the skies in the form of a dragon, even if that sort of thing had happened before.

  “Just some scribbling.”

  Another sniff, and she set down the tray in the single empty space on my table. Even so, one edge of the tray nudged a paintbrush, which fell onto the floor and rolled off into a corner. She did not bother to retrieve it.

  Perhaps it would have been better to bear her anger in silence, thank her, and have her leave, but I felt a little flare of irritation myself. After all, how was I to know that a few unguarded words would be enough to raise such an ire in Theran Blackmoor that he would apparently be forced into his dragon form?

  Beyond the annoyance, though, was worry over what I had said to him, and his reaction to it. With the return of the bright morning light, the terrors of the night before seemed to pale somewhat. He had not attacked me, although it certainly had been within his means to do so.

  “Was he—was he very angry?”

  This time her dark eyes narrowed, but then she seemed to pause and truly look at me. I thought I saw her mouth soften just the slightest bit, although she said nothing.

  “I didn’t mean to upset him,” I went on, my words rushed, spilling over themselves. “Truly I didn’t. It’s only—well, too many times the words come out before I have time to think of them. I should learn to guard my tongue. The gods know my mother has told me that often enough.”

  Somehow the image of my mother chiding me for some long-forgotten transgression, and the memory of the disappointment in her voice, brought a choking sensation to my throat. Hot tears caught at my eyes, and I blinked. I did not want to break down now, not here in front of Sar, but thinking of my mother only brought to mind the understanding that I would never see her again, never hear one of her exasperated sighs or her warm, rueful laughs. And with that realization came a flood of sorrow I didn’t even realize had been pent up inside me until I let it go.

  I bent my head and wept, bringing my hands to my face in a childish attempt to conceal my misery. But then I felt Sar’s arms go around me, and one hand stroke my loose, tangled hair.

  “There, there, child,” she said. “I won’t say not to weep, because I know it’s hard, to be torn from everything you’ve known and brought to a strange place.”

  “I didn’t—didn’t mean to hurt him.” I brought up a hand to wipe away the tears, and from somewhere within her voluminous sleeves Sar extracted a handkerchief and pushed it into my damp palm. After I had wiped my eyes and blotted my nose, she said,

  “I don’t suppose you did.” Arms crossed, she surveyed me for a moment, and again her expression softened, as if she truly saw me for the first time. “He thinks very highly of you.”

  “He—he does?”

  “Indeed. And I don’t say that lightly, for it is not his way to praise others.”

  The hurt I had caused him must have been all the worse for that. Oh, why did I not stop my foolish tongue before it uttered things I would only wish later unsaid? The fears of the previous night seemed very far away. At the moment I could only think of how he must have felt when I had so lightly broken the fragile regard that had begun to grow between us.

  “I want to apologize,” I said. “Will he see me, do you think?”

  She hesitated. “I will have to see. He is always weary…the morning after. Perhaps later today.”

  “Of course.” What must it take from him, to have his body rent asunder and turned into something so alien? Weary? I would think he’d wish to sleep for a hundred years after such a cataclysm.

  “Eat,” Sar told me, and her tone was already more brisk, as if she had decided on a plan of action. “I’ll send up Melynne shortly to assist with your bath. It does no good for you to berate yourself further. Paint, and wait, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  Her words reassured me a little, and I nodded. She took her leave of me then, but I did not immediately pick up the spoon and eat my breakfast. Instead, I drew out the little sketch I had made and stared down at the half-finished features of the strange man.

  Who are you? I wondered. And why do you haunt my dreams?

  The Dragon Lord agreed to see me at sunset, in the rose garden.

  Ever since my painting supplies arrived, I hadn’t paid much attention to my appearance, save to take great care that none of my gowns became spattered with paint or stained with linseed oil. Of course Sar made sure my hair was tidy before I went down to dinner each night, but even she hadn’t seemed overly concerned with how I looked, as long as I was more or less presentable.

  That afternoon, though, I put aside my paints early and took great care to brush my hair and choose a becoming gown of a smoky dark teal color, and to put on some jewels of gold and enormous black pearls. If I had been asked, I’m not sure I could have given a very coherent explanation as to why I felt my appearance was so important on this one occasion, when in the past I had not given it much thought
. Perhaps it was something as childish and simple as thinking the Dragon would be less likely to devour a pretty-seeming young woman. Or perhaps I wanted to show him that I did care what he thought of me, that my previous carelessness had been no reflection on him.

  Almost imperceptibly the days had begun to shorten, and the sun was slipping toward the horizon, the light growing warmer and somehow slanted. “The golden hour” was what Lindell called it, that magical time when the world seems to be limned in warm hues, and everything appears somehow both more real and yet insubstantial at the same time.

  The roses seemed to be touched by that same magical paintbrush, and for a second I wished I had my own paints with me, that I might capture the beauty of the hour before it was gone. But no. I had more important things to occupy my time.

  A shadow at the edge of my vision, and then he was there, standing only a few feet away. It was the first time I had ever seen him outside the castle walls…unless, of course, one counted my brief glimpse of that dark shape circling overhead.

  He said nothing, no word of greeting, and although I had told myself to watch my tongue, I felt as if I should say something. So I moved toward one of the rosebushes and laid a hand against one of the blooms, fully open and a deep crimson. The gold at its heart seemed to echo the ochre-washed skies above us.

  “They are so beautiful,” I commented, my tone deliberately casual. “Do you ever walk here, my lord? I confess I haven’t yet seen you in the gardens.”

  “I can see them from my window.”

  The words sounded almost too neutral. I turned and looked up at him then, but of course I could see nothing within the hood. The black-gloved hands hung at his sides.