“I take it Dallandra told you my name,” the dragon said. “So you must be Lady Branna.”
“I am, indeed.” Branna felt as if someone had just hit her sharply in the face. How had she known that name? Dalla had never mentioned that she knew a dragon, much less the beast’s name. She fell back on ingrained courtesy. “It gladdens my heart to meet you. It’s a great honor.”
“My thanks, and the same to you, I’m sure. I’ve come with messages from the gwerbret. If you could just untie them for me?” Arzosah raised her head to reveal a leather pouch hanging from a strap around her neck. “I offered to bring them, just for somewhat to do. Sitting around and watching an army hold a siege turns out to be tedious in the extreme.”
“I imagine it would be, truly. Here, let me just undo this buckle, and you’ll be free of that strap.”
“My thanks.”
The strap had been pieced together out of a good many belts and bits of tack to make it long enough to go round the dragon’s neck. Unbuckling it required ducking under Arzosah’s head, which she obligingly raised high to give Branna room. Branna had the strap off and the pouch of message tubes safely in hand before she realized how dangerous the job might have been. She stepped back and glanced down at the ward to find it full of gawkers, fort guard, servants, and Aunt Galla, leaning heavily upon Lady Solla as if she’d nearly fainted.
“I’ll be back tomorrow morning for the answers,” Arzosah said. “Now listen carefully, because this is truly important. One of the letters is sealed with Prince Voran’s wyvern. Lord Oth is to read that one first and silently. It will explain why.”
“Well and good, then. I’ll tell him.”
“Good. Now, I’m off to hunt my supper. You’d best go back inside, though, before I leave. My wings tend to whip up a powerful gust of air.”
“No doubt. May you have good fortune on the hunt!”
“What a polite child you are! I do like that in a hatch-ling.”
For want of an answer, Branna curtsied, then wrapped the strap and pouch around her waist several times to leave her hands free for the climb down the ladder. Lord Oth and two men from the fort guard were waiting for her on the landing below. The men bowed to her in honest awe.
“Ye gods!” Oth murmured. “You’ve got ice in your veins, Lady Branna.”
“I don’t know what came over me,” Branna said. “But she does seem courtly in her own way.”
From above, wingbeats sounded, as huge as thunder. In a rush of air the dragon flew off, and as her shadow passed over the open trap, darkness fell for a moment. Oth wiped cold sweat off his face with his shirt sleeve, and one of the guards turned more than a little pale.
“Here are the messages, my lord.” Branna unbuckled the strap and held them out.
Oth took them with shaking hands. As they went downstairs, the two guards preceded them, allowing Branna to repeat Arzosah’s instructions concerning the letter with the wyvern seal in privacy.
“Very well.” Oth seemed surprised. “Let’s stop here on this landing.”
Oth looked through the messages, found the correct silver tube, and broke the seal. He shook out the parchment within, and as he read, his surprise turned into a certain grim look about the eyes. “I see.” Oth rolled up the message and shoved it back into the tube. “Let’s go on down.”
The great hall was mobbed. Everyone crowded inside to hear the news, servants, pages, fort guards, and noble-born ladies alike. Branna made her way through the whispering crowd to the table of honor, where the noble-born had gathered, and sat down next to her aunt, who turned to her, tried to speak, then gave it up with a shrug. I’ll be in for a talking-to later, Branna thought, on the subject of not consorting with dragons. The thought made her giggle until Galla silenced her with a black look.
Lord Oth had paused a few steps up the main staircase and was still surveying the crowd. “Is Varn here?” he called out.
Varn, the captain of the fort guard, made his way through the murmuring crowd. When he started to kneel, Oth stopped him. “Come have a private word with me,” Oth said.
Oth and the captain climbed halfway up the stone staircase to speak quietly between themselves while everyone in the hall watched and murmured speculations and rumors. Finally the captain hurried down again. He began rounding up some of his men and posting them here and there about the great hall. Oth followed more slowly.
“No doubt your hearts are all longing for news,” Oth called out. “I shall therefore read the messages out loud.”
He climbed onto a table and made a great show of opening the tubes and taking out the letters, then read them as loudly as he could. Although Branna wanted to hear the details as much as anyone, she realized that she was watching the crowd as carefully as she was listening. At first, she wasn’t quite sure what she was looking for, but when Lord Oth reached the portion of the message that dealt with the dragons, she got her answer.
“As you must realize by now, since you are reading this message, the black dragon has been of great and estimable service to the princes and the gwerbret,” Lord Oth read out. “We have hopes that her mate, the white dragon, will join us for the siege of this traitor to Great Bel.”
Near the back door of the dun stood a little clot of servants: two lasses, a groom, and a kitchen lad. The lad abruptly covered his mouth with one grubby hand, as if stifling a curse or scream; one of the lasses turned pale; the groom took two steps backward as if he were going to ease himself out of the hall. Unfortunately for him, three fort guards blocked the way. The lad darted forward, only to be collared by another guard. Here and there in the crowd, more guards were laying heavy hands on some of the listeners. Noise erupted—people whispering, then talking louder to be heard, moving, turning, straining to see. The dogs began barking in reflected excitement.
“Clear the hall!” Oth called out. “Later, good folk, you’ll understand. For now, all those free to leave, leave. Guards, bring the rest forward.”
In a flood of talk the crowd began flowing though out the doors. One of the lasses, caught in a guard’s strong grip, screamed. Oth clambered down from the table as the guards began hauling their captives forward.
“Um, Lord Oth?” Drwmigga said. “What, pray tell, is happening?”
“One of your husband’s advisors came up with a clever way of rooting out traitors,” Oth said. “The gerthddyn Salamander told us that the Alshandra cult thinks those two dragons are some sort of supernatural apparition, demons or suchlike, rather than ordinary wild animals. Silly, I know, but apparently they believe the dragons to be their bloodsworn enemies. So when I read the bit about them, some of our people here had a rather strange reaction. It’s suspicious if naught else.”
The people in question were being dragged forward by the guards. One by one they were forced to their knees in a line in front of the dragon hearth—some eleven culprits in all. One lass and the little kitchen lad were weeping, but the rest were putting on a good show of defiance, crossing their arms over their chests, scowling up at Oth, or merely watching him without a trace of feeling showing on their faces.
Lady Galla stood up from her chair and glanced Branna’s way. “I feel rather ill,” she said, “thinking about our Adranna, shut up with these people. I’m going to retire to my chamber.”
“I’ll come with you,” Solla said. “If Lady Drwmigga will give us leave?”
“We’ll all go to the women’s hall.” Drwmigga stood and collected her serving women with the wave of a pale hand. “I’m sure Lord Oth can handle this matter.”
Branna was planning on going with them, but some thought or feeling caught at her mind. She was hard-pressed to put it into words, but she knew that she needed to hear what the prisoners had to say for themselves. She slid down a few inches in her chair and shrank into herself, or so she called it, a particular trick she’d developed as a child when she didn’t want to be noticed.
Oth stood looking at the line of prisoners until the great hall had emptied b
ehind him. Varn joined him and counted up the prisoners.
“This is the lot, my lord,” Varn said. “As far as we can tell, anyway.”
“Well and good, then,” Oth said and turned back to the prisoners. “So! You’re all suspected of worshipping the false goddess Alshandra. I want to—”
“Not a false goddess.” The groom’s voice rang clear with defiance. “She’s the one true goddess, and I shan’t deny her now.”
“No more will I,” cried a serving lass. “If you kill us, we’ll go to her country, and there’s naught you can do about that. We shall die as witnesses to her truth.”
One by one they all joined in agreement, even the kitchen lad, though Branna noticed that his young voice wavered in terror. He was about Matto’s age, she decided, and seeing his tears made her wonder if her nephew would live to see another summer. Oth listened, stared gape-mouthed, took a step back, and stared some more. The captain swore under his breath in amazement, and his men shook their heads in stunned disbelief.
“Don’t you realize,” Oth said at last, “that the gwerbret will have you hanged if you persist in this daft idea?”
“Let him,” the groom said. “It matters naught to us.”
The others murmured, agreeing, except for the kitchen lad, whose silent tears ran down his cheeks.
“He might be persuaded to mercy.” Oth tried again. “But you must forswear this false goddess and—”
“Never!” the groom snarled.
“Well and good, then,” Oth said with a shrug. “Guards, take them out to the gaol. His grace will hold malover on the matter when he returns.”
“Wait!” Branna uncoiled herself from the chair. “I mean, please?”
Oth yelped, and the startled guards nearby did the same.
“My dear Lady Branna!” Oth laid his hand on his shirt as if soothing a startled heart. “I didn’t see you there.”
“My apologies, my lord. But that child, the kitchen lad—he’s far too young to know what he’s doing.”
“That may be, but his grace will be the one who decides that when he returns.”
“But should he wait in gaol with the others? It seems so harsh.”
“I have my orders, my lady. Your taste for mercy becomes you, but there’s naught I can do.” Oth turned back to the guards. “Take them away.”
From his grim tone of voice Branna decided that further argument would be futile. As the guards marched the prisoners away, the kitchen lad kept glancing back at her with tear-filled eyes. The adults in the group, however, began chanting a prayer, their heads held high, their voices strong. And what about our Adranna? she thought. Will she be just as determined to die?
For a moment she felt like weeping. She brushed the impulse away and hurried upstairs to join the other no blewomen in the women’s hall. When Branna came in, she found them all sitting in a tight little group of chairs and cushions, as if the evening were cold instead of sweltering with summer heat.
“There you are, dear!” Galla said. “We were wondering where you’d gone.”
“I stayed to listen to the prisoners.” Branna glanced around, found an empty half-round chair, and sat down. “I think they must all have gone quite mad. None of them would renounce their false goddess.”
“It’s so terrible.” Drwmigga was practically whispering. “Traitors in the dun! They might murder us all in our beds or suchlike.”
“I doubt that, my lady,” Branna said. “If there are some of them still free, they’re going to want to flee for their lives. If they stay, they won’t want to call attention to themselves or their fellow believers.”
“I suppose so.” Drwmigga sounded doubtful.
“I think our Branna may be right, my lady,” Galla said. “But there’s naught wrong with our keeping our wits about us at all times.”
“There’s never anything wrong with that, Aunt Galla.” Branna smiled at her. “I—”
Someone knocked at the door. Branna went to open it and found Midda, looking slant-eyed this way and that down the corridor, visibly enjoying the feeling of intrigue. “Lord Oth would like to speak with you privately,” she murmured. “He’ll be in the gwerbret’s chamber of justice.”
“Honestly, Midda, you don’t need to whisper like that!”
“Oh don’t I now? Aren’t there traitors in the dun? What if they murder us—”
“All in our beds?” Branna finished the thought for her. “I doubt if there are any more, and even if they were, they’ll be running or hiding, not giving themselves away.”
“Well, mayhap, mayhap not,” Midda said darkly. “One never knows.”
But I do know, Branna thought. I just don’t know how I know.
“My thanks for the message,” she said aloud. “I’ll go meet him straightaway.”
In the chamber of justice, Lord Oth was sitting behind the long table in a shaft of sunlight from a window above. The messenger pouch, various documents, and silver tubes lay spread out in front of him. Seeing him, she was struck by the strong feeling that she’d known him, too, back in some other life. The image that came to her was of a table in a cheap tavern, and a bald fat man pulling apart a roast chicken with his hands, an image so different from the slender and elegant Oth that she decided she must be mistaken. He stood up to bow to her.
“Ah, there you are, Lady Branna.” Oth held out a message tube. “I’ve got a letter for you from your betrothed.”
“My thanks!” Branna practically snatched it from his hand. “I was so hoping he’d send one.”
“Well, there you are. Now, about that kitchen lad. I agree that he’s very young, and the situation is very sad. Mercy becomes a noblewoman, certainly. But this is a matter for the gwerbret.”
“And not for me to meddle in?”
“Precisely.” Oth smiled, attempting to soften his words. “Now, you’re very young, after all. I suggest you discuss this matter with your aunt and take advantage of her wiser years.”
Branna found herself wishing that the dweomer really could turn people into frogs, just like in the old tales. Since it couldn’t, she forced out a smile.
“You’re in command of the dun,” she said, “and so I’ll do as you ask, of course. I wonder, though. If these Alshandra worshippers weren’t allies of the Horsekin, would their belief really be evil?”
“Of course! Don’t you see? They’re atheists, when’s all said and done. They claim that their wretched demoness is the only true god and the others are just illusions.” Oth stopped pacing and turned to face her. “If we let them spread this ugly belief, the real gods might well turn against us. And then where would we be?”
“In grave danger, truly.”
“Truly.” Oth favored her with a smile. “Now. I’ll be sending messages back to his grace on the morrow. Did you want to include a note for Neb?”
It was her reward for saying what he wanted her to, Branna supposed. For a moment she considered telling him just that, but in the end, with the force of law and command behind him, he’d win any sparring match.
“I do,” Branna said, “and my thanks. I’ll ask Lady Solla to help me write it. I’ve got lots to tell him.”
Yet, after she’d read Neb’s letter with its warnings and its talk of dark dweomer, Branna realized that she could never tell him the things that truly mattered, her remembering Arzosah’s name, her strange feeling that she’d known Oth as well, and all her insights into the dweomer of these things. Solla would have to hear them in order to write them down, and Prince Daralanteriel’s scribe could possibly read them by mistake. She ended up dictating a short note, telling Neb that she was well, that she was taking his letter to heart, and that she had interesting things to tell him when he returned. She finished by telling him how much she loved and missed him.
“It would gladden my heart to learn to write, Solla,” Branna said when they had finished the message. “Do you think you could teach me?”
“Gladly,” Solla said. “It will give us somewhat to do to
make the waiting easier.”
“Are you worried about Gerran?”
“Of course.” Solla blushed scarlet. “I suppose it’s foolish of me to care so much about a man who has so little interest in me.”
“Oh, Gerran keeps his heart locked up, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t got one. You just wait, this winter, when we’re all in the dun together. I’ll wager he speaks up then. He’s not blind, you know.”
Solla smiled, then let the smile fade. “If he lives,” she said. “Branna, I’m so frightened.”
“It’s in the laps of the gods now.” Branna caught Solla’s hand and squeezed it. “And we’ve got powerful allies on our side.”
“That’s certainly true.” Solla gave a nervous little laugh before she went on. “Branna, that dragon! You could have been killed.”
“Why would she have harmed me? She was carrying messages from the princes and the gwerbret. She can speak. She’s not some maggot-crazed wild bear or suchlike.”
Solla started to answer, then fell silent and began to tremble. With little clucks and comforting words, the other women in the hall came hurrying over.
“Here, here,” Galla said. “You poor child! Today’s been wretchedly strange for all of us. I think me you’re exhausted. I know I am.”
“Me, too,” Branna said. “I can go find a servant to make us some mulled wine, if you’d like that, Solla.”
Solla nodded and managed a feeble smile.
“Truly,” Drwmigga said. “I’ve never known a day like this one in all my eighteen years. Ye gods! Traitors in the dun, and they’re nasty rebellious servants at that, and then a dragon of all things! Do let’s have some wine.”
“A splendid idea,” Galla said. “And Branna my dear one, you really shouldn’t go consorting with dragons. This one may act tame, but you never know with wild animals, when they’ll turn on you.”
That’s exactly the talking-to I knew I’d get, Branna thought to herself. Aloud, she said, “You’re doubtless right, Aunt Galla. My apologies.”
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