In the Time of Dragon Moon

by Janet Lee Carey

  “No ale?”

  “Water first, ale later.” We shared some food. Jackrun ate with his left hand, his right arm and shoulder too sore to lift.

  “It pounced on me from behind. I didn’t see it coming. How did you kill it?”

  “Slit its throat.” Jackrun’s shaking hand made it hard for him to eat. He needed food. “Let me help you.”

  “No,” he said, but he took the bit of bread, and smiled, caught my hand and kissed it when I brushed crumbs from his chin.

  “No more,” he said, leaning back and wincing.

  “You will feel better in the morning,” I said.

  “Lucky for me you brought your wound kit along, Adan.”

  I let out a small gasp.

  “I pronounced it right, didn’t I?”

  I put my hand to my throat as the word traveled through me. No one had ever called me Adan before. I had waited all my life to hear it. I wanted to claim the title, believe it, but . . .

  “Only men can be Adans in my tribe,” I admitted under my breath. “A woman can’t be a healer, only a healer’s helper.”

  “What?”

  “That’s the tradition.”

  “You’re more than a healer’s helper. You’re a skilled physician,” he said, raising his bandaged arm before he winced and lowered it again.

  “The chieftain and the elders back home don’t know that.”

  “You can tell them when you return.”

  “It’s not that simple, Jackrun.”

  “Why not?”

  “It breaks all tradition for a woman to be the Adan. It’s never happened before in the history of our tribe.” He gave me a wry look. “It wasn’t long ago you English burned women who used healing herbs, calling them witches,” I pointed out, feeling suddenly defensive for our ways.

  “They aren’t burned now. Female healers haven’t been put to the stake for practicing medicine here on Wilde Island since my mother was young.”

  “Not too long ago,” I repeated.

  He was out of breath. I’d only just stitched his wounds, now I was arguing with him.

  “I’m in your care,” he said, leaning back and closing his eyes. “I won’t call you Adan if you don’t like it.”

  I liked it. I wanted it to be true, not just here between us, but when I went back home, if I went back home. Wind whistled around us. Jackrun scooted stiffly back in the triangular cave made by the leaning boulders, using his strong left arm to pull himself along. Something was wrong with his left leg.

  “The wolf didn’t bite you there, did it?”

  “Struck my knee on a stone when I fell, I think.”

  I rolled up his breeches to check his sore knee. It was bruised and swollen, but the skin wasn’t torn. I salved it and wrapped it using the last of my bandages. Some of the teeth marks in his shoulder were clean puncture wounds like the ones in my hand. They’d been too small to stitch. I gently rubbed them now.

  Jackrun breathed softly, eyes closed, as I salved the bites, feeling the curve of his muscles below his skin. I wanted him strong again. I whispered the Euit plant names in the ointment. Four in all. Each joined the others to strengthen the healing effect.

  Jackrun’s eyes opened. “What about your bites? Have you stitched them?”

  “No, better not suture the smaller wounds. They will close up on their own. I didn’t stitch your puncture wounds either, only the tears.”

  He reached out, unbound my bandage, and frowned at the arc of bites dotting my skin like small red burning stars. “Why haven’t you put anything on it?”

  “I’m all right. I don’t need any—” I swallowed. He’d already dipped his finger in the jar and was gently spreading woundwort over the punctures on the top of my hand. “Stop,” I said. “We need to save the rest for you.”

  “Just hold still, Uma.” He turned my hand over, dipped his fingers in the salve again to sooth the wolf’s teeth marks in my palm, his fingers awkward as a man unused to careful work. “You should take better care of yourself.”

  My eyes welled up. I turned away, bound my hand again, and went to lean against the far end of the boulder trying to breathe past the lump in my throat.

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, I just . . . need to take a breath.” Night spread its stars across the sky. Earth, wind, fire, water. All was in balance here, but I was not in balance. I never used Father’s medicine on myself.

  I was losing mi tupelli, the hardened, studious boy I’d been for years—the uncomplaining boy who used to work alongside Father, who earned his trust, won the right to practice medicine with a stern, manly confidence. The change had been happening slowly ever since I met Jackrun. Mi tupelli slipped away with Jackrun’s touch. He’d kissed it away, salved it away. I did not know how to be a healer and a woman at the same time. No wonder I’d felt strange when he called me Adan. As much as I yearned for it, the resistance the chieftain and the elders had against women healers was also in me. I didn’t want to believe it, but it was true.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Dragonswood, Wilde Island

  Death of Wolf Moon

  September 1210

  MY BANDAGED HAND stung each time I struck the flints. Cold, needing fire’s warmth, I ignored it, banging them again and again in frustration.

  Jackrun awoke. “Let me, Uma.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” Teeth chattering, I moved back, cradling my hand, grateful for his help as he filled his lungs and breathed onto the small woodpile I’d been trying to light. But no fire came. Jackrun made a hoarse roar, trying to summon the anger he seemed to need to awaken his dragon power, then tried again—still no flame.

  “Gone,” he whispered, terror in his voice.

  “No. The wounds have weakened you, that’s all.” Hoping I sounded more convinced than I felt, I turned and struck the flints fiercely, each sharp jerk sending fresh pain through my hand. Sparks flew. When the kindling lit at last, I bent down, blowing a thin stream of air at the base of the wood stack to nurse the tiny flame.

  Jackrun leaned his head against the granite boulder. “The fire wasn’t there when the wolf knocked me down. I had none left by then. You had to kill it with your knife.”

  “Jackrun, it knocked the wind out of you back there. You will be fine. You have lost nothing.”

  “You’re right,” he muttered. “It was a gift no one wanted me to have.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  Somewhere in Dragonswood, wolves began to howl. The sound ripped through me. I grabbed Sir Giles’s bow and arrows and scooted next to Jackrun, wedged between the protective boulders. It was the death of Wolf Moon. We were in the strangest of forests whose magic was darkening all around us. Jackrun had no fire left to defend us if the wolves came.

  More baying filled the night. Jackrun’s body tensed beside me, his hand rested near the bow.

  “Where did you put my sword?”

  “Over there.” I pointed. “I removed it when I stitched your wounds.” I brought it to him and sat again. “They sound like they are a long way off.”

  “I hope you’re right.” He took the short sword from me and laid it beside the blanket.

  “They don’t like fire, that will help,” he said. He swallowed and glanced down at his sword.

  “Your fire will return.”

  “I’m not so sure.” He was trembling. I touched his hands. His fingers had always been so warm. They were icy now. I looked away to keep him from seeing my fearful expression. If he’d lost his fire, he’d done it to protect me.

  He lifted the thick blanket. “Come.” I scooted in close to him, sharing the colorful blanket by our small fire.

  “I’m better off without it,” Jackrun said.

  “How can you say that when I would be dead now if you hadn’t use
d your fire to scatter the wolves?”

  He clenched his jaw.

  “I saw a new power in your fire this time,” I said. “It came out in a torrent that should have burned me and Sir Giles and the trees all around us, but you aimed it like a weapon and chased off the wolves. You burned only them. You told me once you’d never trained your fire. You cannot convince me of that now.”

  “I used to go to a secret place with Babak to roar fire. I’ve had to run off many times to scream it out when it burned too hot inside me. I don’t think you could call that training.”

  I’d seen how he’d tried to exhaust himself fighting in the weapons yard, riding, swimming, doing whatever he could to keep active to channel his anger. “That time you left the king’s court to visit a friend of your father’s down south?”

  “I made him up. I had to get away to breathe . . .”

  “Fire,” I whispered, finishing for him.

  “I used to think it would be easier when I got older, that I could learn to control it, but it burns within me like a blacksmith’s forge; each year it grows hotter and hotter.” He paused. “I don’t think I could ever learn to . . . This power is meant for dragons, not for a man.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s true, Uma.”

  I sat a long while with his words. At last the howling died away. I hoped it was gone for good and that part of the night was over. The fire near our feet was small compared to the vast darkness of the wood. I felt deep sadness for Jackrun, for Sir Giles lying dead under piled stones on the trail. He’d followed me over the wall. I should have left him on the road.

  Jackrun’s breathing grew quiet. His head drooped. I scooted closer so he could rest it on my shoulder.

  I watched the stars moving in the heavens, a slow sweep of broken glass across a black floor. An owl hooted hours later, waking Jackrun again.

  “It’s only an owl,” I said. “Try and sleep.”

  “Not sure I can. You try, I’ll keep watch.”

  “We’ll keep watch together.”

  We ate some food. Jackrun leaned his head back, drinking from the ale skin. He sighed, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and passed the skin to me. I drank, then tugged the corner of the blanket up to my chin. “Are you warm enough?”

  “I’ve never felt this cold before,” he admitted.

  I pressed myself up against his side, careful not to bump his sore knee. “Better?”

  “Mmmmm.”

  I watched his profile. His hand stroked my hair, eyes on the burning log closest to our feet. The red-orange bark glowed in scaly patterns like Vazan’s scales.

  “My family will be happy at least to see my fire gone.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “I do.”

  “You’ll hate me,” he said.

  “I won’t.”

  He looked up, speaking to the night sky. “I did a terrible thing when I was three.” He went silent a long while before going on. “Tabby was just a baby. I was jealous of her for taking all of Mother’s attention away from me. One day Mother was holding Tabby and wouldn’t take me up on her lap the way she used to. I screamed and roared fire at them both. Mother’s gown and the baby’s blanket burst into flame. Mother jumped up screaming. Father tore a tapestry from the wall, raced over and smothered the flames. The baby’s screams filled my ears. Mother bore down and shouted at me. She shook me hard and locked me in my room.

  “I could hear Mother crying outside my door. Father’s angry voice. There were shouts. Someone was running. But the worst thing was, I couldn’t hear Tabby anymore. I didn’t know if I’d killed my little sister. They wouldn’t let me out of my room. They wouldn’t tell me anything. I cried and pounded the door for hours until my fists were red and raw. No one came to tell me what happened. Not that day or all that night. I curled up on the floor at the base of the door with my blankets.

  “Father finally let me out of my room. He was stern. He didn’t say much, but he told me my sister lived. I was given a new guardian, a strict man with a wrinkled face and soul. My mother wouldn’t let me near Tabby again for three months. If Father hadn’t been able to put the flames out when he did, Tabby could have died. Mother’s knees were burned. Tabby had burn scars all down her arm and the lower part of her left side. She still has the scars I gave her. So does Mother. Thank God for long sleeves and long skirts, or I would see those scars every day.” He looked aside. “I told you I was dangerous.”

  “What you did was terrible, Jackrun, but you’re wrong.”

  “I burned them. I could have killed them both.”

  “You were a little boy when you threw that tantrum. You haven’t burned anyone since.”

  “Not people, but I’ve come close too many times. Animals,” he admitted. “I’ve burned them in a rage, and I don’t just mean the wolves that were attacking you today.” He pulled in a breath. “Tell me something awful you’ve done. Do it quickly. It’s only fair.”

  I thought about the day I broke Father’s medicine jars after I’d learned I had to marry Ayo, then dismissed it for another, more personal story. “I once crept into Father’s healing hut and stole some of his precious evicta medicine to ease my pain. My father, the Adan, came in and caught me swallowing his powder.”

  I shut my eyes remembering my father’s face when he saw me licking the black seed powder in my hand.

  “What is this, Uma?” His voice was cold earth.

  “Adan?” I drew back, frightened.

  “You are having pain?”

  Yes, terrible cramps. “I’m sorry, Adan.”

  “You have broken trust, Uma. Do not step where a woman should not walk! Now go and wash yourself.”

  I did not tell Jackrun I’d taken the evicta for my menstrual cramps. Some things were too personal.

  “Is that all?” he asked, unimpressed.

  He wanted more? “You don’t understand. I’d broken a sacred tradition. Only the Adan is allowed to administer his medicines. I should have gone to him with my pain, but I didn’t. I kept it to myself and stole a cure instead.”

  I stared at the flames a moment. I was not ashamed about breaking the law the day I healed Melo. But that first time was different. I’d been selfish. I’d stolen the evicta in secret because I feared he would take another apprentice if he knew how much I suffered from my courses. The Adan never complained of any illness or pain. I couldn’t admit my weakness to him, especially a womanly weakness. I lost my position anyway once he caught me.

  The wolves began to howl again, a cry of fury on the death of Wolf Moon. I could not scoot any closer to Jackrun than I already was. He took the short sword from the ground and laid it by the bow across both our laps.

  “What happened then?” he asked.

  “After that my father let me go. He took on a male apprentice named Urette.”

  I’d gone back to working at Mother’s side, feeling ashamed of myself, ashamed of my womanhood that had betrayed me. Mother welcomed me, offered me my own loom. I thought I’d lost everything.

  “When the Adan and his new apprentice came home from their week of harvesting herbs in the valley, I stole plants from Urette’s basket and hid them so he’d get in trouble and Father would send him away.”

  “Did he get in trouble?” Jackrun seemed more interested now.

  “Yes. But Father didn’t dismiss him. And when Father asked me if I knew what had happened to the medicines, I lied and said his apprentice must have lost them. ‘He’s not good enough to work for you, Adan,’ I said. Still Father didn’t let him go. ‘He will learn,’ Father said. That enraged me!”

  Jackrun smiled.“What happened then?”

  “Some would say fate intervened, but I don’t think so. Urette would have taken my place for good if he hadn’t died a month
later from snakebite.”

  “Ah,” said Jackrun. “I see.”

  “See what?”

  “How fate intervened.”

  “I wanted him gone,” I admitted. “I wanted my old position with my father . . .” I stopped.

  “Uma, you can tell me. I’ve told you the worst thing I did.”

  I leaned back, listening to the wolves. “Part of me was . . . glad he was dead,” I whispered. “Father had no time to train someone else. Urette was gone forever. My father had to take me back.” Shame flooded through me at hearing my own words. For a moment I hated Jackrun for making me admit such a despicable thing. I didn’t move, couldn’t look at him. After a while, he took my hand in his, rubbing my knuckles with his thumb.

  The distant sounds of baying filled the darkness all around us.

  “It’s a strange world, Uma. If Urette hadn’t died, then you wouldn’t have become a healer. You wouldn’t be here, right now, with me.”

  • • •

  JACKRUN FINISHED HIS meal and sipped the warm tea from the copper pot. “Pine?” he guessed.

  “Pine needle tea. It will warm you.” Across the fire, I removed bits of caked-on mud from my slippers with a twig. I could do nothing to remove the dried blood from my cloak or gown; at least I could clean the shoes. We’d fallen asleep sometime near dawn and slept away the morning hours, awaking hungry sometime after midday. I watched him sip the tea.

  Tiny patches of blue appeared between the scudding clouds above. I longed for sunlight. Jackrun offered me the copper pot. I waved it away.

  “It’s a chilly day. You need some warmth yourself, Uma.”

  “I’m all right.”

  “Have some or I won’t drink any more.” He passed it to me and I took a few sips, tasting the rich forest flavor before giving it back. Jackrun downed the rest and said, “Better get going.”

  “What?”

  “You have the herbs you came for?”

  “Not all of them. There’s one more I have to find, but I can’t see us walking out. You’re not well enough to travel so far. Your wounds need time to heal.”