In the Time of Dragon Moon

by Janet Lee Carey

  Sir Geoffrey waved his hand. “Go. You’ve got lots of other rooms to search.” The men tromped out with the dogs. On the floor against the wall, I heaved a sigh. Handing me what was left of the leather sack, Sir Geoffrey bowed stiffly to Father. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you, Adan,” he said under his breath before raising his head again. “You are free now to go about your work.”

  I stood up, shaking with anger.

  “Why did they come in here?” Father asked.

  “A cutthroat slit the lute player’s throat last night and stole his coin purse.”

  Father and I looked at each other. Some elders called the moon the Murderous Moon at the end of its cycle. But even though we’d honored the end of Snake Moon with a ritual before we’d bedded down for the night, a man had still died here.

  Sir Geoffrey hung our cloaks back in the wardrobe. “Men and hounds are searching the entire castle for the murderer.” He stuffed some straw in my slit mattress, placed it on my pallet, and turned to me. “Bolt your door when I’m gone and keep yourselves safe until we catch the cutthroat.” His brown eyes held me a moment longer. “I’m sorry for the roughness of my men.”

  His penetrating eyes felt too invasive. I folded my arms across my chest, suddenly afraid he saw me for what I was—a woman in scribe’s clothing—then turned my back and knelt by the trunk to scoop up the spilled earth. By the time I’d gathered it all into a pile, Sir Geoffrey was gone.

  • • •

  A KITCHEN SPIT boy was seized later that day and punished so severely they had to call my father down to the dungeon.

  “King wants him kept alive till his public hanging tomorrow,” said the stout guard who’d patted me down earlier.

  “I didna do it,” the boy sobbed. In the rank dungeon cell, I pulled more bandages from the medicine basket while Father leaned over the cot. The king’s soldiers had cut off his hand and tried to stop the excessive blood flow with tight leather straps before calling the Adan down.

  The guard leaned against the doorframe watching. “Oh, he’s guilty, right enough. Cried out his crimes when we stretched him on the rack, didn’t you, spit boy?”

  “But I didna. I s . . . said I did it to stop the pain. They—” He was crying too hard to say more. I breathed through my mouth against the stink of sweat, blood, fear, and urine, and tried not to look too deep into the boy’s pale eyes set close together in his thin grimy face.

  “I wouldn’t kill no one never,” sobbed the boy.

  “He’s a lying thief,” said the guard. “We found the money sack under his straw mattress. Did it for the money, didn’t ya? Kitchen work don’t pay enough, is it?” he said, looking over Father’s shoulder. “And we found the knife he killed the musician with besides.”

  “Someone put it there!” the spit boy cried.

  “Shut him up or I will,” the guard growled at Father.

  “Hold still,” Father said softly to the boy. “I’m nearly done, and I have something for the pain.”

  “What’s that?” The guard stepped up to Father’s back. “Don’t give him nothing. Pain’s a part of the punishment. Just keep him alive for his hanging, that’s all.”

  “That’s not right,” I argued.

  “What do you Euits know of right and wrong?” he spat. “You’re done now, the both of you. Get out.” He shoved us down the dim dungeon hall.

  “Father, I’m sure he’s telling the truth. What can we do?”

  The Adan approached another guard near the base of the dungeon steps. “Tell me,” he said, “if the king wants the boy hanged tomorrow, why cut off his hand?”

  “Oh, hands go off for thieving. Hanging’s for the murder, see?” He squinted at Father in the dim torchlight.

  “He says he is innocent,” Father said.

  “Oh, they all say that. But he confessed on the rack.”

  “Anyone would under such torture,” I snapped, stepping closer, my hands curling to fists.

  “What’s that, boy?” the man growled, reaching for his knife. Father yanked me away from the armed man. He dragged me firmly up the dungeon stairs, led me down the hall, and pressed me into a dark alcove.

  “What were you thinking down there, Uma?” he whispered fiercely. “If you attacked one of the guards, they’d throw you in a cell. Do you want that?”

  “I couldn’t help myself,” I said in a choking whisper. “It’s horrible, Father. They’ll hang an innocent boy. Can’t we go to the queen and say something to stop it?”

  “What can we say that they she will hear?” Father said. “We are captives ourselves here, Uma.”

  “We’re not in a cell. Not about to be hanged.”

  Hearing footsteps, Father pressed himself closer to the wall in the dark alcove and whispered the chant “havuela”—become. I did the same, hoping my Euit skills were strong enough to blend into the walls as swiftly and easily as my father had done.

  Prince Desmond came down the hall, arm in arm with Lady Olivia’s daughter, Bianca. I heard the swish of her silken gown just before they passed us. Bianca glanced aside; I tensed under her luminous blue eyes, but she did not seem to see us. I let out a silent sigh as they trailed down the hall in their colorful riding clothes, heading for one of their afternoon rides together.

  Father waited silently until the halls were empty again before he faced me and put his warm hand on my shoulder. “I would say something if I thought it would change things for that boy,” he whispered, “but it won’t. You know it won’t.”

  “It’s not right. Nothing is right here.”

  “Nothing will ever be right here, Uma. I will do what is needed to satisfy the queen so we can go home to a free people. We cannot upset the balance of this. If we both die here, who will free our tribe?”

  I looked into his sad eyes and nodded.

  “Until we can go home, guard your power, mi tupelli.” He touched the dragon belt encircling my waist. “Never trust the English. You are the fox. They are the hounds. You must learn to survive. Promise me.”

  • • •

  FATHER WORKED. We survived. Still, the queen’s frustrations with the Adan’s cure sharpened. One afternoon late in Whale Moon she clicked the chalice rim against her teeth, glanced up at Lady Olivia, and said, “How long has Adan been serving us?”

  “He came in May on Saint Florian’s Feast Day, Your Majesty. Nearly three months ago.”

  “Three months,” she repeated. “And still I am not with child!”

  “It can take time to conceive, Your Highness,” Father said.

  “I beheaded Master Fenns, that cloying little man who leeched me dry. We’ve already had a hanging last month,” she mused before turning to Lady Olivia again. “I much prefer a burning. A double one,” she added, looking at Father and me. “If you fail me, you and your faithful apprentice can burn together, Adan. What do you think of that?”

  Burn? I grabbed Father’s arm, the floor pitching underfoot.

  “Tying two to a stake would be unusual. What do you think, Lady Olivia?”

  Lady Olivia clutched her throat as if she were choking on a mouse. “Un . . . usual, yes, Your Majesty.”

  The queen put out her hand for my father to kiss her ring.

  As Father knelt, I noticed his narrow shoulders. He’d grown so thin working day and night for the queen; I could count the bony knobs along his neck. The sight startled me. The English did not know how to spice their food. You might as well chew ash. Still, I promised myself I would make him eat more; sleep more so he’d regain his strength.

  That night I brought him ox-tail soup and thick buttered barley bread. Father got up from his prayers and waved it aside. “The Holy Ones have given me a vision,” he said, eyes sparkling. “I’ve seen where I must go to harvest the special remedy for the queen.”

  Adans were gifted with visions. I’d never argued
with him when he’d had one. Now I couldn’t stop myself. “You are overworked, Father. You need to eat, to rest.”

  “I am the Adan,” he said.

  “You treat our enemy.”

  He flipped to the first page of his Herbal and pointed to a line in the Adan-duxma—the healer’s creed: Adans heal the wicked and the righteous alike.

  I knew the line, I’d memorized the Adan-duxma as a part of my training.“But she will not let you go.”

  Ignoring me, he flung the window open and called his dragon to the tower, a silent call, a summoning. He called Vazan this way when he truly needed her. Always I pricked my ears, hoping to hear some small sound from him. But the only sounds were those of pumping wings against the night sky as Vazan came to us like a great dark shadow. The room filled with her sharp peppery odor, the tang of rusted metal, her familiar spicy scent. Father crawled out onto the window ledge and carefully mounted her, swinging his leg over the base of her long neck.

  “I will return by morning,” Father said. “Keep the door bolted, mi tupelli.”

  Of course I would keep it bolted with a murderer still about. I leaned against the sill, wanted to call, Don’t go! Instead I jammed my hand outside, crying, “Take this!” He took a slice of the barley bread. A moment later he was gone.

  He’d vanished just as quickly other times back in Devil’s Boot; days when he’d gone to gather herbs too far away for me to journey with him. Always I felt his leaving with the hot wind stirred by Vazan’s wings. Back then I’d gone home to our hut, watched Mother’s freckled hands fly, weaving bright patterns on her loom. I’d ask her for a song or story to ease my sadness. I’d give anything to see her, hold her, hear her smooth, low voice now.

  I’d never felt this alone.

  I ate some buttered barley bread, hoping Father would eat his. The English bread was good, but it sat in my stomach like a lump. I couldn’t face the ox-tail soup. I crawled into my narrow bed behind the screen. In my dreams Father and I were tied back to back to a stake. And burned. I bit my nails down to the quick that night and had to lick the blood from my fingers before I dressed.

  “What did you do to yourself?” Father asked, looking at the swollen fingertips when he returned later the next morning.

  “I . . . dreamed she burned us.”

  “She won’t, Uma.” His brown eyes were soft above his sunken cheeks. “My medicine will work. I am the healer who will cure her. Trust me. You do trust me?”

  “Yes, Father.” He looked so tired. “Why don’t you rest, Adan.”

  “I have to work,” he said. “A child cannot grow in the queen when her mind is so troubled.” He pulled the bapeeta plants he’d gathered from his herbing basket. I recognized the five-point leaves that looked like an infant’s hands. “This herb will calm Her Majesty’s wind mind,” he said.

  We turned the leaves over. The undersides had more tiny pollen dots than ferns do. I helped him scrape the pollen dust into packets. It was the dust he wanted.

  • • •

  I WAS AFRAID Her Majesty would detect the bapeeta in her curative brew. But Father was a master, adding just enough honey to hide any telltale bitterness. She took her morning and evening doses without comment that day. Father was pleased, but I saw his exhaustion the moment we left Her Majesty’s room that evening. Halfway up the stairs to the Crow’s Nest, he hunched over and clutched his arm, his brown face gray as if he’d bathed it in dust.

  “You’re ill, Father.”

  He waved my words away, went up and unlocked his Herbal. I took out his ink and quill and watched him draw the bapeeta. This plant differed from the ones that grew down south; the leaves here a smaller, brighter green. The Adan was careful to note such differences. He traced the shape of the leaves top and bottom, the pollen dotting the undersides, and wrote the Euit words beside it, noting the variations of color. He stopped a few times to grip his upper arm and draw in breath.

  “Please take some medicine, Adan.”

  “Uma. Let me work!”

  I backed away, hurt. I could see he was in pain. Why would he never admit it even to me? Why would he never take any of his own medicine when he needed it?

  Father worked another hour, finished the page, got slowly to his feet, and went to his bed. He usually prayed before he lay down, but I saw how little strength he had tonight.

  “Eat a little first, Adan.”

  “Not now, Uma.” Father turned and faced the wall. I covered him with the moth-eaten wool blanket. He needs his rest, I thought. He’ll feel better tomorrow. I was wrong.

  • • •

  HE NEVER WOKE the next morning. When I went to check on him, he was cold. He’d been dead for hours. My legs went out from under me. I fell with my head on his chest. I had not let him see me weep since I was a small child. Now the flood came rising up, roaring, breaking the banks inside me.

  Chapter Four

  Pendragon Castle, Wilde Island

  Whale Moon

  July 1210

  PALACE GUARDS POUNDED on the door. Sobbing, I swayed on my feet. Pock Face barged in with a second guard, saw my father’s body, then grabbed me and muscled me through the castle.

  In Queen Adela’s bedchamber, I dove to the floor, prostrating myself.

  “Your Majesty,” Pock Face said, “we could not bring your physician with your morning tonic. The man is dead.”

  “Dead?” she asked, her voice cracking with the word.

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Was he murdered in his bed?”

  “Doesn’t look like murder, Your Majesty.” Pock Face sounded disappointed. “What shall we do with the leftovers?” he added, stepping closer to where I lay on the floor to jab my ribs with his boot.

  “Wait outside in the landing, both of you, until I call for you again.”

  They shuffled out, leaving me alone with Queen Adela and Lady Olivia.

  “Look at me,” said the queen. I raised my head off the floor. Her Majesty selected a sweetmeat from a tray on the small table at her side. The glint coming off her golden fingerbowl stung my eyes that were still raw from crying.

  “Tell me how he died. Did he take his own life?”

  “No, Your Majesty,” I said, shocked. “The Adan would never do that.”

  “Disease, then.” She leaned out from her chair narrowing her eyes. “A physician who cannot cure himself.”

  I swallowed. “He would not take his own medicine, Your Majesty,” I said hoarsely. “He believed in using it only on his patients.” On you!

  She huffed. “What a ridiculous way to die.”

  She’d burn me now. I’d welcome it. It hurt too much to breathe with Father gone. I felt part dead already. But I heard my father’s voice: Never trust the English. You are the fox. They are the hounds. You must learn to survive. Promise me.

  I was still on the floor. “Your Majesty, let me try and help you.”

  Her lip twitched. “How can you help me?”

  “I worked beside the Adan for years, Your Majesty.”

  She flung the fingerbowl. It struck my temple before it hit the floor and rolled under her vanity. “He lied to me. Stop groveling,” she added. “And stand up. I said leave the room!” She spoke these last words to the vacant place by the door. By now I’d grown used to her addressing the air.

  On my feet, I brushed away the rushes clinging to my breeches. Queen Adela studied me and smiled. “I see you.” She touched her cheek with her forefinger, pointing to her fey eye.

  See me? What does she mean?

  “You think you have fooled me in those scribe’s clothes, young woman?”

  My knees began to wobble.

  Lady Olivia blanched, blinking rapidly as if seeing me for the first time.

  I gripped my dragon belt. “Your Majesty, I can explain. In our Euit tradition . . .” No, don’t
tell her that. “I chose to dress this way in service to the Adan because—”

  “I don’t want to hear anything about your quaint tribal customs. I am the queen of Wilde Island, and I have waited sixteen years to have a healthy second child. Your father promised me a marvelous cure. If this was not a lie, tell me why I am not already pregnant.”

  Because you are going mad and the king fears visiting your bed. Because you are too old.

  “The remedy does not always work right away, Your Majesty. One woman took Kuyawan for six months before she conceived. In time she birthed a healthy boy.” Ashune and little Melo.

  The queen’s mouth curved down. I wasn’t convincing her.

  “I have studied beside the Adan all my life. I know his remedies. Please give me the chance to help you have the child you want, Your Majesty. I promise I can do it.”

  “Come here, Pippin.” The queen picked up her lapdog and stroked his head, her face now strangely serene. I’d seen her quick mood changes before. They did not mean anything.

  “You beg me for a chance,” she said. “What do you have to offer that your father did not?”

  Sweat dripped down my back. Nothing. He was a great healer. “Time, Your Majesty.”

  “Time?” The queen squeezed Pippin’s neck. He yelped before he struggled free and jumped down to hide under the table. “I have given your father too much time already.

  “Guards!”

  Pock Face rushed in with a second man, they grabbed my arms and started dragging me from the solar.

  “Wait, please. You haven’t taken the cure a full six months, Your Majesty. What if just a few more doses—”

  “Stop a moment,” Queen Adela said, raising her hand. The men held me firmly, pinning my arms against my sides as if I might fly away.

  “Three months more,” she mused. “That would be October’s end,” she said, tapping her armrest with her long nails, a sound like hungry woodpeckers searching for food.

  October’s end. By the death of Dragon Moon. I wasn’t sure it gave me enough time, but it was too late to retract my words.

  She fixed her eyes on me. “If I give you this chance, Uma, the first thing you will do is to destroy those foolish clothes.” She turned to her companion. “Lady Olivia, your daughter is about Uma’s height, if a little rounder, is she not? Have Bianca give my new physician two of her prettiest gowns. I’m remembering a blue velvet one with pearls along the neckline.”