Dragon's Keep

by Janet Lee Carey

  On the dawn of my fourth day the cell door opened and the guard came in with the rushlight; I awoke to find the rats nibbling on my hair. I was still screaming when the guard pulled me from the cell and bound my hands behind my back. In the Great Hall a crowd awaited. It seemed Sir Magnus, who sat above all dressed in blue velvet and wearing golden gloves, had called forth all of Dentsmore and Nesmith besides, for the hall was full. The younger children clung to their mothers.

  All were gathered as if for a great celebration and the dogs roved about slobbering in anticipation of a feast. I was led to the center of the room. Sitting on either side of Sir Magnus were Sheriff William and Father Hugh. It gave my heart a tug of hope. Both men were sound and just.

  To my right Jossie Brummer stood with Niles, wearing a hardened look. It was the same proud glance she’d given me at age twelve when she’d found the hidden ring and bested me at the game of sweet apple crowdie. My heart panged to see Niles had chosen her after his first love, Kit, had been sent away. Near Jossie stood her father, Keith the miller, and his plump wife, Kate. Near them was Marn’s son, the dark-haired blacksmith. Mother’s band of lady’s maids, including the nib-nosed Lady Beech, stood in assembly. And idling about here or there as if they had not a bit of work to do this day were the castle servants. Nowhere in the throng could I see Sister Anne. Her presence would have strengthened me, but she must have left the castle long ago for the abbey.

  Sir Magnus stood. The crowd murmured excitedly. Yet in all the faces besmeared with dirt or clean, none had a smile for me but Cook. I gave her round face a nod, but she took sudden interest in the rushes at her feet and tidied up her skirts.

  “We are bound today,” began Sir Magnus, “to try this Rosalind who disappeared a year ago to abide with the beast on Dragon’s Keep. I’ve called all present here to give witness to her witch crimes, which are many, as all shall see.” He lifted his finger in the air. “But we are a civilized people and do not condemn on hearsay.”

  With this he nodded to the sheriff and acknowledged Father Hugh. The good Father gazed back, his heavy brows discontent. “Has this woman, Rosalind, done any crimes that she be here?” he asked.

  “Well,” said Sir Magnus with a shake of the head, “many may be counted against her if all I hear is true. I call Niles Broderick first to testify.”

  Niles stepped from the crowd proudly wearing his knight’s garb, his sunny hair combed back. He was an arm’s length away so I caught the smell of hay and horses, a welcome scent.

  Magnus eyed him encouragingly. “Tell us what you know, Niles Broderick.”

  Niles’s shoulders slumped. It may have been his chain mail vest, but I thought the weight of what he had to say was heavy on him. “A year ago we sailed to Dragon’s Keep to rescue the princess.”

  “This I know well,” said Magnus proudly. “I equipped you at your knight’s fitting.” He leaned forward. “What happened there?”

  “We found the princess. I brought her to the ship, where we awaited Sir Kimball and the slayers’ return,” said Niles. “But all the while the lady here challenged me to launch the ship and escape the island. I stood firm for waiting. But she didn’t care about the others, she—”

  “I cared about them all!”

  “The accused is not allowed to speak until all witnesses are heard!” warned Sir Magnus. “That is the law.”

  I clenched my teeth as he motioned for Niles to continue. Indeed it was the law, but I’d be hard pressed not to break it with all this truth-twisting.

  “Go on, sir,” urged Magnus.

  “The others did not come back.” Niles paused and crossed himself, as did many in the throng.

  “And then the dragon . . .” He frowned and looked askance at me.

  “Fear nothing here,” said Sir Magnus.

  “The dragon landed near us, cutting off escape. I charged him but he captured me.”

  A moan from the crowd.

  “As he held me high in the air, I swung my sword to slice his throat and shouted for the princess to attack him from below. She had a knife, but she . . .” He shook his head. “She would not attack. Instead she . . . drew the blade against her own throat.”

  I worked to slow my breathing as a series of gasps and murmurs crossed the room.

  “What threat would this be to the dragon,” said Sir Magnus, “unless the beast had a special feeling for the girl?” He said these words to the air as if they were his thoughts, yet all about heard him clearly. “What then?” asked Magnus.

  “The dragon cracked my skull. I remember nothing more until I awoke near the tomb in the arms of our good queen, God rest her soul.” Niles crossed himself again.

  “Were any present there to witness this knight’s return from Dragon’s Keep?” asked Sir Magnus.

  “I was there,” said Sir Allweyn. The falconer emerged from the crowd, his long neck stooped forward. The baldness had increased across his pate in the time I’d been away. Three gray tufts remained. These he’d combed outward like a jester’s cap, but there was no joy in his face nor in his dark ringed eyes.

  “I saw the dragon throw Niles Broderick on the turf by the tomb. Then the princess tossed her gloves at the queen and cursed her mother before she flew off on the dragon’s back.”

  More gasps.

  “I did not curse her!”

  “The accused will be silent or be gagged!” warned Sir Magnus.

  “Indeed,” continued Sir Allweyn. “I was not close enough to hear the curse, but the queen spoke of it straightaway. ‘Cursed,’ she cried when I led her to the castle. She was weeping and all undone by her daughter.”

  “Hmm,” said Sir Magnus. “This tells us much. The girl tossed her gloves to the ground—and this before the dragon when we all know a high-born woman does not remove her gloves to any but her husband.”

  He shook his head. My blood fairly boiled. I withheld a hiss.

  Magnus went on. “I tended the queen after that strange night. How twisted her bowels were and how morbid her liver.” He looked at the ceiling as if to consult the chandelier. “Neither toadflax nor bloodletting nor Saint-John’s-wort cured her. Indeed, she muttered strangely to herself often in the months ahead, and many times called out from her fevered sleep, ‘The curse!’” He raised his voice when he said the words to mimic Mother’s tone. This pleased and stunned the crowd, who always liked a show.

  “I wondered what the queen meant,” said Magnus. “Now I begin to see.”

  Waves of body heat wafted from the close-knit crowd. I tried to swallow, my throat dry as stale bread. “And you poisoned her with poppy potion!”

  “Gag her!” ordered Sir Magnus.

  “Wait! I’ll not speak again.”

  Too late. The gag was across my mouth. Sir Magnus looked down at me. “Who but a witch would curse her mother so,” he said, “and choose a dragon’s company over her own kin?”

  I screamed into the gag. How the mage twisted everything!

  “It would kill me if my daughter chose a dragon over me,” said Kate Brummer with a nod. And Jossie, who now stood arm in arm with Niles, held her chin up proudly.

  “You may step back, Sir Allweyn,” said Sir Magnus.

  “If I may,” said Sir Allweyn with a cough.

  “What more have you to say?”

  “’Tis a thing I fear to speak.” He turned his three-tufted head to the crowd. “A strange sight I saw long ago still troubles me.”

  A smile twitched the mage’s lip. “Speak,” he offered.

  “It concerns an old friend, once a servant to the princess, who died unnaturally, and whose soul weighs on me. Some here remember the princesses nursemaid, Marn?”

  “Aye! A kindly sort!” cried Cook.

  “My mother,” called the blacksmith.

  “I say this with some dread,” he went on. “I knew Marn well and never would she throw herself into the moat.”

  “Aye! That’s God’s truth!” The blacksmith’s voice was deep and fairly echoed in the
hall.

  Sir Allweyn sighed. “I was the man who fished Marn from the water,” he said. “And as I lay the lady by the moat I saw the marks about her throat, too small for a man’s hands to make.”

  More stirrings from the crowd behind.

  Sir Magnus leaned forward. “What are you saying, sir?”

  “Marks, I say.” Sir Allweyn pointed to me, stretching out his forefinger the way I’d seen him do to coax a small bird from the cage. “And seeing those marks, I remembered how many times Marn ran to the muse when the princess was having one of her fits. The poor woman lived in fear of her. So I wondered at the marks the morn I fished her from the moat.”

  “I told ye!” shouted the blacksmith, raising his fist in the air at Father Hugh. “I told ye she’d never killed herself. It was never in her!”

  “Hush!” warned Sir Magnus. “This trial shall be orderly.” He faced Sheriff William. “Why did you not see these marks?”

  The sheriff turned stiffly, sucking in his belly. “I was still attending to the murder of the chandler’s wife, Tess.”

  Sir Magnus nodded knowingly.

  “And the dragon attacked that same morning!” called out a villager.

  “After the Midsummer Fair!” called another.

  “Demetra died,” added a third.

  Magnus didn’t silence them this time. “Well,” he said at last, giving a sober look about the room. “If murder is suspected here, we should dig up the nursemaid and look into the matter.”

  “There’ll be no flesh left on those bones by now,” said the sheriff. He exhaled and his belly rounded for a moment before his next breath. I closed my eyes. The thought of my dear Marn all gone to bones brought vomit up my throat. I worked to swallow it, recalling my lady training. Ah, if Marn were at this trial, she’d defend me. And if I felt faint she’d tell me to lean on her, though she’d whisper, “Thimbles, how my back aches,” if I rested for too long.

  Marks on her neck? I hadn’t seen them on her drowning day. Sir Allweyn said the bruises were too small for a man’s hands—Mother’s last farewell.

  Bram was called to testify next. He shook as he spoke. I’d never seen him tremble so.

  “You may speak plainly,” said Sir Magnus. “I do,” said Bram. “That is, I always have, being a pigboy, thou knowest.”

  This brought a snort from Sheriff William. “Tell us what you came to say.”

  “Pigs are my pride and duty so I should have been more watchful, but I let the princess touch a sow one spring, and that sow birthed a two-headed piglet within the hour!”

  A story, I thought, for he had never told me this. Still, the villagers moaned, the sound crossing the Great Hall like wind in a thicket.

  “Two heads, I say. And I knew it were a witch-sign. But her being the princess and all, I kilt the piglet swift and buried it behind the barn.”

  The crowd was murmuring now with stories of strange beasts.

  “. . . born without a leg after she saw my sheep at the fair,” said a man’s voice from behind, “and the lamb had to sport about on three.”

  “. . . and the dog hadn’t any tail,” said a woman’s voice. “So it was all rump and no wag. Have ye ever heard of such?”

  Cook rushed forward. “I have some things to say in defense of the princess!”

  Sir Magnus ordered, “Wait your turn, Cook!”

  “Bram’s done, aren’t you, pigboy?” said Cook, bustling to the front of the Great Hall.

  “I be done, sir, unless you want to hear her spell.”

  Sir Magnus’s bushy brows went up. “Don’t hold back, son.”

  “I was all over stung with bees and that was bad enough, but she”—he pointed to me to make it clear whom he was accusing—“she held me down and rubbed a potion on me and said a spell that went, ‘Sting, sting of the bee. Remove thy sword—’”

  “Don’t repeat it here, lackwit!” shouted Magnus as if he feared the words, when he knew as well as I that he’d shown me the healing charm in his own book when Bram was stung.

  “Oh,” said Bram, eyes wide. “Sorry, Sir Magnus.”

  Many were crossing themselves against the charm, though Bram didn’t seem to feel the need to.

  Cook nudged the pigboy aside. “I’ve known the princess longest here. Haven’t I worked over the kitchen fire at Pendragon Castle since before the queen’s wedding day? Aye, so I was here for the princess’s birth and all. Ah, what a storm there was! Wind and snow so’s a body couldn’t see a foot ahead, and the poor midwife died in it!”

  “Hmm,” said Sir Magnus. “A bad sign.”

  “Aye! And the poor babe with none to attend her but her mother and she wouldn’t let anyone near, keeping the babe to herself as if in mourning, but some women take on that way. Anyway, what a rosy babe she was! And didn’t I serve up a mighty table at her christening! The roast was tender as churned butter and the pan puffs light as clouds—”

  “Menu not needed here,” said Magnus. “We look to the state of the girl’s soul.”

  “Ah! My head’s always at the table.” Cook laughed.

  I bit my lip, praying to Saint Brigid for Cook’s kind words to heal the wounds made here. Thus far, she’d only added more weight to the witching scale.

  “Who could blame her nursemaid, Marn, for loving the child so?” said Cook. “How she fussed over the princess! How worn she was, yet she’d work and work to serve the girl’s every whim. Ah! The child had her nurse in such a love-spell. Marn would have died for her! I say it now and I say it again, the woman would have died!” Cook dabbed her eyes with the corner of her apron. I prayed she had no more words of help for me, but she heaved a sigh and went on.

  “And her lady’s maid, Katinka. Never was there such attending. Didn’t she come to my kitchen early each morn to bring sweet milk and bread to the princess? Ah, she was up with the dawn to serve her. Ah, they had a bond. I once saw the princess help the girl from the moat. Didn’t Rosalind bravely go into the water when all know only witches can swim?”

  By this time I was praying to Saint Balbulus to inflict his stammer on Cook. Still Cook went on, “I often wondered why the princess shunned Katinka. A pretty girl like that shouldna’ waste away in a nunnery!

  “Ah!” she went on. “But we all loved the princess! When she was but a poppet, she rode her father the king like a horse and ordered him about the castle gardens, the precious little thing. And sure it was her mother loved her so! She’d never hear my complaints of the princess stealing food from my pantry, not even when she took whole rounds of cheese and meat besides!”

  Cook squared her shoulders. “And when the dragon took the princess that last time, the queen’s heart broke! I say it now, though I’ve no doctoring sense: It wasn’t her bowels nor her liver that twisted her to her end, Sir Magnus. I’m bold to say the princess kilt her!”

  “With her curse,” said Magnus, driving in the final blow.

  “Aye.” Cook sobbed. “You could say that, love’s curse it was, for she’d not touch her food and withered away in mourning for the girl.”

  Cook lifted her apron to her face and cried mightily into it, her shoulders quaking. All stood befuddled by her display, unsure of what to do. Sir Magnus waved his hand and had her whisked away.

  “We have strange evidence still to come,” announced Sir Magnus over Cook’s loud bawling, which still filled the room though she was far down the hall by now. “There may be some here,” he said, “who would swoon at what Sir Winston is about to show. Remove yourself if you have a weak stomach.”

  None moved. No man protected his good wife. No mother took her child from the room.

  “Step up, Sir Winston, and show what you found on the floor hidden under the queen’s bed the very morning you discovered Rosalind there.”

  Sir Winston came forth with a simple cloth bag such as the castle laundress used. He paused to run his fingers through his thinning hair, looked first this way, then that, and pulled out my dragon skin gown.

  “O
oh! Ah!” crooned the onlookers.

  “Would you call this lizard skin?” asked Sir Magnus.

  “Aye,” said Sir Winston, “if it be a giant lizard like a dragon.” He held it higher. The shape of it still showed my form that once lay under it, like the hollow of a wasp husk.

  “Here is her dragon’s skin!” said Sir Magnus. “And there’s no denying it is hers, to view the shape. Here is how she used dark magic to enter Pendragon Castle unseen.”

  “Look away,” said the miller’s wife to her children. “Don’t gaze into her witch’s eyes!”

  This was too much! I squirmed in my bonds, shouting in my gag.

  “Grab her lest she cast her spell on us!” ordered Sir Magnus. I fought the guard, but he held me tight and from behind.

  The wizard stood. “Here before us all is the woman who wafted into Pendragon Castle. Logic tells us she used witchery to float above the moat, for we all know the bridge was up. Thus, she came wrapped in dragon skin, invisible to mortal man. Coming home, as she said, after she was sure her mother was dead. Returning to Wilde Island to claim the Pendragon crown. Think now,” he said, leaning toward the townsfolk. “Are you safe with the queen’s crown on this woman’s head? She who chooses dragons over kin? A spell caster and a murderess?”

  He let the word murderess fall across the crowd like silk.

  “Nay!” shouted the crowd. “Hang her!”

  “Is this sure proof she is a witch or murderess?” asked the sheriff cautiously.

  “Proof aplenty!” said Magnus.

  “Trial by water,” said Father Hugh, padding across the rush-strewn floor to my defense.

  “No,” said Magnus. “For one such as her it must be trial by fire. She’ll walk the coals, and if her wounds don’t heal in three days’ time, we’ll know her to be guilty.”

  “God have mercy,” said Father Hugh, shaking his head in good sadness, and so all were agreed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  The Devil’s Footpath

  I WAS THROWN INTO my rat-infested cell to contemplate my sins before my torture trial. Stale bread and brown water were brought to me each day. I battled the rats for my food, relieved myself in the bucket, and went down on my knees in the narrow bit of sunlight and called out to God.