Dragon's Keep

by Janet Lee Carey

  Rousing from a strange dream, I found Demetra sitting at my side. Her rough voice still echoed in my head as if she’d spoken through my sleep.

  “Ah,” said the hag. “Your eyes are open now.”

  “Where is Mother?” I croaked.

  “Oh, where, oh, where has your mother gone?” taunted Demetra. Her cheek twitched as she peeled the poultice from my hand. I tilted my heavy head and looked down. On my puffed-up hand my blue claw seeped green ooze.

  Mother slipped into the cell, shadow quiet. Demetra touched my swollen claw with her long fingernail.

  “’Tis softened now,” she said.

  Mother was all concern. “Can she feel you?”

  “She feels it but far away. The poppy and the hemlock have her still,” said Demetra. “I’ll peel the putrid flesh down to the girlish skin.”

  “Do what you must,” said Mother, tightening her jaw. The cave swam as Demetra lifted my hand, grasped the flesh at the base of my claw, and pulled. I cried out as I felt her tearing. She ripped a layer of blue scales down to the nail then dropped it to the floor.

  Blood poured from the wound. Demetra raced for a leather thong, tied it tightly round my wrist, pinched the flesh again, and tore.

  I screamed.

  “You said she could not feel!” cried Mother.

  “She’ll not remember this,” said Demetra.

  Another dream but this one familiar to me. I was a flying thing, an angel or a bird with a mighty wingspan that cast a great shadow on the earth below. I was full of power as I sped across the sky. Never in all my life was I as happy as this. But then I swooped down to a herd of deer, my fearsome cry ringing throughout the wood. Fire. Torn flesh. Smoke. Blood. And a raw taste on my tongue.

  A searing pain awakened me. My hand was bandaged to the wrist. Mother sat close by, stroking my head.

  “Is it over?” I asked.

  “You’ve slept three days, dear, and called out in your dreams.”

  I looked into her eyes then, wondering if she’d heard the same beast cry I’d heard inside my dream, but her eyes were cool and unafraid.

  She leaned close to my cheek. “If Demetra’s doctoring is true, the claw will be gone.”

  Hope rose in me. “And the golden gloves?”

  “We’ll burn them! Yours and mine together.”

  “I’ll light the fire and hurl them in.”

  “Aye,” said Mother with a little laugh. “But hush, Demetra comes.”

  My heart hopped like a hurried rabbit.

  Slowly Demetra unwrapped the cloth. The sour smell of dying flesh went all about the room, and I felt the shame of it.

  “’Tis no bother,” said Mother, soothing, but her nose wrinkled just the same. With pounding pulse I watched the slow unfurling of the bandage, but when the last bit of cloth dropped to the floor, Mother jumped back with a scream.

  The finger was still blue-green and spined like a lizard’s, but now it was larger and was crisscrossed with purple, as if my flesh had creeping roots.

  “The curse is worse than before!” shouted Mother.

  “I take pride in my craft,” said Demetra. “And if the poultice and the tearing did not cure, my good knife will.” She pulled her knife from her belt. My heart leaped against my ribs as the blade glinted in the fire.

  “Wait!” screamed Mother.

  “The claw must come off,” Demetra said, stepping forward.

  Forgetting my tether, I leaped up, was caught about the middle and pulled back against my cot.

  “Maim her?” cried Mother. “No prince would have her, maimed!” She grabbed Demetra’s arm and they struggled near my cot, banging into the table, knocking over wooden bowls and scattering damp herbs across the floor. Mother wrestled the knife from Demetra’s hand, and with a sudden force, she pressed the hag against the wall.

  Demetra’s eyes bulged; she breathed roughly as Mother held her by her hair, pressing the knife to her throat. Much as I hated the hag, I did not want to see a murder.

  “Don’t kill her,” I pleaded.

  “Quiet, child!”

  “Know this.” Demetra gurgled, fixing her moonstruck eye on Mother. “I’ve sent a sealed scroll to a friend. To be opened if I should meet untimely death. On the scroll Rosalind’s secret curse is writ in full.”

  “Who has this scroll?” demanded Mother.

  “The scroll, the scroll. Who has the scroll,” taunted Demetra.

  Mother screamed, cut a hunk of Demetra’s gray hair down to her scalp, and threw it in the fire. Then she pitched the knife against the stony wall with a clatter. Demetra hunched over laughing as my mother covered her face.

  I curled my knees to my chest. My claw throbbing, my breath coming in gulps, I closed my eyes to shut out the world. The odor of my mangled claw mixed with the stink of Demetra’s burning hair.

  We left Demetra’s cave that very night. Wending below maple trees and pine, we urged our horses down the twisting path. There was a rustling sound and Ali burst from the bushes with Katinka. Mother halted suddenly.

  “Take my girl,” pleaded Ali.

  “I cannot.”

  “I’ve done all you asked. Don’t deny me this.”

  “She stays here.”

  “She’s not a burden. She makes no sound.” I looked at Ali’s daughter shivering in her threadbare gown. Her pale face and hair drank in the moonlight. “No,” said Mother.

  “She’s fourteen,” said Ali. “She’ll work sun to moon as I did for you. And she’ll eat but little from the table.” She lifted her hands. “ I’ve accepted all, done all. But my girl’s life is in danger.” Ali tugged the corner of Mother’s cloak. “Demetra beats her,” she whispered fiercely, then stepping back, she pulled up her daughter’s ragged gown.

  Indeed, even in the dark, I could see the blue-green bruises from her ankle to her thigh.

  “I want her,” I said suddenly. “Give the girl to me. I can use a lady’s maid.” After Mother’s betrayal of me in the hag’s cave she owed me this.

  “She’ll never be a grief to you,” said Ali, pressing her daughter closer to Mother’s mare.

  A crow cawed in the woods. Silence from Mother, but I saw she was considering. “Marn could use help carrying the chamber pots out to the privy,” mused Mother.

  “Give her to me,” I said again. And this time Ali lifted up her struggling daughter. I felt a rush of joy as Katinka took the saddle in front of me. She reached for her mother. But I held her tight. Booting Rollo, we started back down the path. Ali ran after saying, “Good-bye, my precious girl. It’s for love we say goodbye. Remember, Kit. Remember that so someday you’ll understand!” Behind us she crumpled on the path, weeping.

  With my arms wrapped about her I felt Katinka’s heart flutter like a small bird caught. She squirmed and tugged my arms. “The girl wants to jump.”

  “Hold her fast, Rose. Katinka is yours to lose or keep.”

  Only hours before this, I’d struggled against my own bonds, so I whispered in her ear, “I’ll not harm you, Kit.” I meant my promise. She’d betrayed me to Demetra, but I’d seen how the hag treated her. A slave will do her master’s bidding while in bondage, and too she’d been kind enough to bring the mint. “You’re free from Demetra,” I added. “She’ll not beat you again.” No thank-you from the girl, but then, she could not speak.

  None could replace Magda. This girl would not follow me about skipping and singing the way she had, but her hair was the selfsame color as the stolen child’s, and she was fourteen like myself. I’d found a friend to keep me company when the heavy winter snow bound me to the castle.

  Just before dawn we crossed the drawbridge and left our horses in the stable yard.

  “Where will Kit sleep?” I asked.

  “With Cook’s new girl.”

  “No, with Marn. If she’s to be my lady’s maid.”

  And so Katinka was moved into the chamber adjoining mine. And there she stayed, herself like a treasure box and I the one with the key.


  CHAPTER TEN

  Friend and Fowl

  “COUNT THE SEEDS,” I said, heart pounding. I’d slit the apple in the orchard with Kit. We were trying the newest love spell we’d garnered from Sir Magnus’s book. Kit was quiet on her feet and she knew well how to slip silently into the crow’s nest and smuggle out a text.

  The castle escorts stood along the edge of the orchard, guarding us from the common footpads hidden in the woods. They were posted far enough away for me to say the charm out of their hearing.

  I’d said the charm, chanting the name Henry three times as the book instructed. We’d even gathered the grave soil to bury the seeds should the charm prove unfruitful.

  Cut in two and count the seeds. Even, and your marriage day comes soon. Odd, and you’re sure to be a spinster.

  Kit nimbly wrestled out the apple seeds. They must be counted rightly.

  She looked up. No smile on her face, but then she hadn’t smiled once in her month here at the castle, though I’d done my best to ease her. Kit missed her mother, I knew. Still, she slept in a soft bed; rode my best roan, Marigold; and came on outings with me when I could leave my lessons. The girl might have lost her smile long ago in Demetra’s cave, but I was determined to find it.

  “Even?” I asked hopefully. I read Kit’s eyes.

  Odd.

  Spinsterhood.

  “The grave soil,” I whispered. Kit crouched under the tree and dug a little hole. This she did for me since I couldn’t soil my gloves. We tossed in the seven seeds and poured the pouch of grave soil over all to bury the charm.

  Kit peered at the boughs. Should we try the charm again with another apple?

  I sheathed the knife and shook my head. I was done with the apple charm. Clouds coiled overhead as if to ensnare the tree-tops. A storm would ride up soon from the sea. Kit stood and dusted off her blue gown. I saw she took some care with that. The day after she’d arrived I’d gone to Mother’s solar.

  “I’ll give Kit my old gowns,” I’d said.

  Mother had bristled, but I stood strong by the loom. “They’re too small for me. Should I give them to the pimply scullery maid instead?” I cupped one hand in another, my claw still aching from Demetra’s “cure.”

  Mother frowned as she worked the threads. “I’ll leave you to your folly, Rosalind. But don’t let the lady’s maid come close to your heart. Remember she’s a bastard.”

  We left the orchard on horseback, the escorts riding not far behind. Bitter over the apple’s fortune, I kicked Rollo to a canter. We managed to get farther ahead of the escort, galloping above town and past Witch’s Hollow. Kit’s cloak blew out behind her and her cheeks were pink.

  In just a month she’d learned to ride apace with me. And she’d go anywhere on Marigold except to the hunt. In all things my lady’s maid was obedient but this. She was too fond of animals for the hunt.

  One day Sister Anne, Kit, and I were in the study, where I sat misreading Latin. I’d just stumbled through another passage when a robin flew straight into the window. The crash of beak to glass made me jump, and the stunned bird fell like a stone.

  Kit leaped up and ran from the room.

  I called after her and chased her down the stairs with Sister Anne in tow. We raced through the kitchen, out the postern gate, and to the shallow place in the moat where the maids do the washing.

  With a loud splash, Kit leaped into the muddy water to save the bird.

  “Kit! Come back before you drown!”

  Sister Anne and I waded in to our knees. Cold water stung my shins. I tried to grab Kit, but she pushed farther out. “Turn round and come to me,” I ordered.

  The mute girl seemed deaf as well. She plunged in after the bird. Behind me, Cook was on the shore shouting, “Princess! Come out of the moat!”

  I lunged for Kit just as the water swallowed her. “My friend!” I screamed. “Someone save her!” Sister Anne and I were held to shore as in an iron brace, for neither of us could swim. Water rushed against my thighs. I made to leap, but Sister Anne pulled me back.

  Across the moat Kit came up sputtering. Holding the robin above her head, she gasped for breath and paddled toward us.

  “I’ve never seen the like,” said Cook. “What witch-spell aids her in the water?”

  My heart raced as Kit came to a stand in the shallows. Her hair was laced in green milfoil, like a dead spirit rising from the water.

  “God’s heaven!” I pulled her to the bank, choking back my tears. “I thought you dead! What devil possessed you?”

  Kit didn’t even look at me; her heart was all for the bird. Kneeling on the muddy ground, she stroked the sodden red feathers on the robin’s breast.

  I heaved a breath. “The bird broke her neck when she crashed into the window. You’ve nearly killed us all to rescue a dead thing!”

  The incident at the moat was all but forgotten by winter when the rains came in thick gray curtains across the sea. In my solar Marn was stitching me a pretty cloak out of soft rose-colored wool.

  “I hate the rain,” I said.

  “Aye, well. You should be glad for it.”

  “Why is that?”

  Her needle stopped midair as she squinted up from the cloak. “Dragons never attack on stormy days. Rain soaks their wings and downs them.”

  “That’s just an old story.”

  “Is it, now? Tell me when you’ve heard of any attack in foul weather like this.”

  I tapped the window, thinking.

  “There, you see?” Marn was satisfied and went back to her stitching.

  Bad weather may have kept the dragons away, but it didn’t hold the healers back. In the week the first winter snow blanketed the castle Mother brought a healer from Burnham. Indeed my claw had troubled me since Demetra’s painful cure, but this healer could only guess at my trouble. Assessing me, he went to work, shearing off a third of my hair, burning it to ash, mixing it with goose fat and rue and smearing it on my face. I broke out in pimples. Mother sent him to the dungeon until my face cleared and my hair grew back again.

  Three months he was imprisoned there and I was glad of it. All that time I took my meals in my solar. Kit stayed hidden with me until my hair grew back and my skin renewed. In those three months we read the lives of the saints, played countless games of chess, and, though I’m a clodpole at tapestry, Kit showed me some tricks that even caused Mother to compliment my work.

  As the snow deepened Kit stood at the window, hand at her throat, looking up at Morgesh Mountain.

  “Your mother’s safe,” I told her.

  No movement from the window. Kit felt betrayed but I knew Ali had sent her away to save her.

  “Ali loves you.” I would have said more but my words did not help. “Come.” I set up the chess pieces. “I’ll win this time; see if I don’t.”

  She sat again. Her eyes gleamed. Like Mother she would not cry in front of me. Kit pursed her lips with concentration, forgetting her sorrow for the moment as we challenged each other with our knights.

  In early spring when the snow in forest and valley had melted, Marn took us herbing. I wore my new cloak, the best Marn had ever made. I was glad now she’d taken the time to embroider roses on pockets and hood. The day was chill and bright, and we wore Marn out as we raced through the hills.

  At the top of a steep grade, Marn leaned over. “Thimbles, how my back aches.”

  Kit patted her shoulder.

  “Ah, well, I’m old,” said Marn.

  In the greenwood, Marn showed Kit where to find wolf’s bane, how to pluck holy thistle, and schooled her on the uses of sticklewort. “Now this herb protects against evil spirits and poison, but mind, it’s not taken by mouth.” She pulled it up by the root. “Sprinkle these leaves on the windowsill and you’ll keep wraiths at bay; place them under the pillow and you’ll aid a poor sleepless soul.”

  I had need of sticklewort that very week. Aside from my welcome flying dreams a new dream haunted me. In this one I saw the dragon d
evouring the shepherd and woke myself screaming. How that horrid sight still haunted me. Marn and Kit came bustling in.

  “There, there,” said Marn. She lit seven candles to chase away evil. “Now tell us what frightened you so.”

  “I dreamed the dragon . . .” My mouth went dry. How could I tell them what I’d seen that night on Morgesh Mountain? Or speak about the kiss that happened after?

  Kit spread sticklewort along the window and put more leaves under my pillow while Marn said her charm to bind the spirits and ward off bad dreams. “Three times winding. Four times binding. I bind all evil spirits now and cast them from this room.”

  Marn moved her hands over me as if tying invisible knots, then crossed herself for good measure. “Now,” she said with a half smile, “that’s better, isn’t it, poppet?”

  She rubbed oil on my temples as she began a tale of long-ago days when Wilde Island was a magic place full of tree spirits and fairies. “’Tis said Merlin himself spent a year on God’s Eye in the midst of Lake Ailleann. And didn’t he learn his magic there?”

  “What sort of magic?” I asked, yawning.

  “Well, the sort that mages know. How to read the stars and such.” She puffed up then. “And isn’t that a good thing, for he read the stars for you, Princess. And told the world about you six hundred years ago.”

  “Oh, don’t talk of that,” I said.

  Marn frowned under her nightcap. “Thimbles!” she fretted.

  Kit smiled, a first for me.

  I giggled.

  “Ah, so the cure’s working now,” said Marn proudly. I nodded, covering my smirk with a coverlet. Kit’s smile widened.

  Marn turned to Mother’s tapestry, finished now and gifted to me on my fifteenth birthday. There I sat enthroned, Pendragon scepter in my hand. Below me were the words of Merlin’s prophecy. And under them was the body of the dragon shot full with countless arrows like a great green pincushion.

  “The Pendragon scepter,” mused Marn, still looking at the tapestry. “Proof of your bloodline. I’ll tell how the evil dragon stole it from Queen Evaine right in the middle of the May Day celebration.” Her face beamed in the flickering candlelight, for she loved that story the best of all.