Jeon bit his lips together so tight he seemed to have no mouth. Marioza knew he would not say what he had come to tell her while this man was here, and she was suddenly very eager to hear him. She went across the room to her bed, and sat down on it.
“Whatever that paper says, I am still Queen in my own bedroom. I will accompany you later, sir.”
Erdhart’s hands parted. She saw he was considering commanding her. Once she married him, he would see no barrier to being in her room whenever he wished. In her body also. Her knuckle throbbed where he had bitten her. She put this new hate in with all the others, like a quiver of arrows.
Jeon said, “My lord, my mother has dismissed you.”
The Emperor’s brother smiled at him, smooth as silk. “Then I shall take my leave. Lady, we shall dine.” He turned back to the door, where now, out in the corridor, his two sons were waiting; he went out between them.
Jeon went to the door and slammed it and ran the bolt over it. “Mother, he is vile.”
She put her hand over her knuckle, which was bleeding, and turned her gaze back to her window. The oncoming storm was lashing the sea white as far as she could see, the clouds boiling black, the wind full of grit. She said, “What is it? I saw how you looked at me.”
“Mother—” He came up beside her. “I heard something today—from the north. A traveler, in the marketplace, come from the north, He was talking about a crazy woman roaming wild up there.”
Marioza lifted her head, all her body suddenly thrilled with premonition. Her son fixed her with his eyes. “A woman who shouts and screams gibberish.”
“Ah!” she cried, joyful. Then, almost at once, she saw the other side in this.
So did Jeon. He was taut as a harp string. He said, “Mother, what shall I do?”
“Ah,” she said, again. “She has always been a bad omen to me, since she was born.” She put her hand to her mouth, and licked her knuckle. Her daughter: in spite of all, Marioza’s heart warmed, glad. Tirza was alive, alive. “Go find her. We must send her back to Santomalo, as soon as possible, but I would see her first.”
He embraced her. “Mother. Thank you. Thank you.” And went away, silly boy, to find the misbegotten child who was better off gone.
* * *
The coast ran long out of the east to Cape of the Winds, and there beneath the black rocks of Castle Ocean turned sharp to the south. From the cape, a long jagged spur ran southward for over a mile, like a row of long teeth, which the local people called the Jawbone. Between this spur and the shore was a little bay, and in this shelter, halfway between sea and land, over long years the town of Undercastle had grown. The castle itself stood above the head of the bay, black as thorn against the clear blue sky, reaching halfway to the sun.
Jeon came out of a sea gate onto the beach and went on toward the town. He knew every stone of this place, every name and face, and that had begun to grate on him. The town’s four fishing boats usually moored at the head of the bay, in the deep water there, but they were all gone, left when the tide went out. He came up to the edge of the town, where the potter was just opening her stall, and caught the first whiff of the bread baking in the ovens she shared with the baker. Under his feet the mixed black and white sand crunched. A lean dog followed him a few steps, looking hopeful, but Jeon hitched his pack up higher on his shoulder and ignored it and the dog veered off. At the foot of the trail up the cliff, several people were waiting to go up to work in the castle. They waved to him and he waved back. He knew they cared more about his red hair than they did about him.
The black rock of the cliff was pocked with caves and over the years people had hollowed these out into houses and stores and shops. The two biggest caves, well back into the cliff, held the brewery’s vats and oasts. The brewery itself stood next door, dug far into the cliff, with a wooden porch built along the front. Slowing his steps, he looked for his brother, Luka. There was already a little crowd in the brewery and Jeon went on, not wanting to go in there among all those people.
Ahead, at the butchery, the beach widened, rising to a little prairie just inland. On this stretch of sand, an old cypress tree stood, a fat trunk like a bundle of barrels under a sparse prickly crown. A wooden bench encircled the trunk and Jeon saw his two older sisters sitting there.
He walked toward them. Someone from the town had brought a new baby out and Mervaly had it on her lap and was cooing at it, smoothing its little body with her hands, as if she molded it into shape. The remains of a christening feast littered his sister’s skirt, the bench she sat on, the ground at her feet. Beside her Casea sat with her needle and a long strip of cloth over her knees, patterned in colored thread. When Jeon came up she gave him a quick, eager look.
“What did she say?” Casea crossed her long white hands over the fabric in her lap. Mervaly looked toward them, keen.
“I can go find her,” Jeon said. “She says she’ll have to go back to the monastery, but first she wants to see her.”
Mervaly said, “I’ll never let her go back to that place.” She lifted the baby, kissed it, and held it out to the mother. They settled into a long discussion of naming. Casea threaded her needle with purple silk. A few red and white chickens had come over to peck at the crumbs on the ground. Jeon looked around the beach, at its widest here, fringed with shops and awnings. The weavery was shut, across the way, and the forge. Everybody knew there was a storm coming up, in spite of the blue sky. The butcher’s boy Guz walked by, his tray suspended before him from his shoulders, hawking his father’s meat pies.
In among all these familiar people, there walked a clutch of Imperial soldiers in their puffy striped doublets. The doublets looked soft, but Bedro, who had gotten into a fight with one of them, said underneath they were hard enough to break your hand. Jeon watched the soldiers; like all the Imperials they were big, square-shouldered men. Each of them carried a ten-foot pike, double bladed, leaning on it as if it were a walking stick.
The striped doublets made them stand out among the fishermen and farmers here like rocks in the soup. They stared at everybody, at everything, clutching their pikes, their helmets on their belts. They stayed in their little pack, always.
Jeon said, “Why do we have to let these hayheads here?”
“You know perfectly well,” Casea said, busy with her needle, stitching a meandering line into the white cloth between her hands. “Because Papa got himself killed fighting on the wrong side.” She glanced at him, at Mervaly, and across the common at the Imperial soldiers. “Which we should all take a lesson from.”
Mervaly said, “Let Mother deal with this.” She kissed the baby’s mother and waved her off. They three sat alone under the cypress tree.
“Mother,” Casea said, “has only gotten us into more trouble.” She lifted her face to Jeon, her skin pale as eggshell, her wide black eyes like onyx. “Are you sure you can find Tirza? There’s another storm coming after this one.”
“I’ll find her,” he said, a little uneasy; Casea sometimes knew things. He looked away: the boy Timmon from the stable was leading Jeon’s horse across the beach toward them. Across the way, one of the Imperials had turned to watch.
Mervaly’s voice called Jeon back to his sisters. “Where exactly are you going? So I can tell Luka where to look, if you don’t come back.”
That nettled him: they treated him like a child sometimes, just because he was youngest. “East. I’ll go inland, first; that’s where this traveler saw her, on the high road.” There was another way along the coast, but that was often impassable, especially in bad weather. That was the coast where the galley had been wrecked. He shuddered suddenly.
Casea said, “What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid.”
He knew what fear was. Of the wreck of the galley he remembered only the ship hitting the rock, or whatever it was, and heeling violently over. He had come back to himself sprawled on a piece of the deck, floating out to sea. He thought he remembered lightning flashes, the moun
tainous seas, so there must have been a storm. In his dreams there was lightning. Clinging to the deck, delirious with thirst, he had drifted a long while on the coastal current, until a fisherman picked him up, freezing and feverish. If they had found him a few hours later he would have been dead. He said, “I’ll take the high road as far as Santomalo. Follow the coast back from there as much as I can.”
Casea said, “What if we lost both of you, you know?” Her voice was gently chiding. She got up suddenly and kissed him. “Go on, Jeon; good luck.” He took the reins from the stable boy, mounted his horse, and rode out of the village.
* * *
Casea watched Jeon ride across the beach toward the path up to the top of the cliff. As he went he passed by several Imperial soldiers and one pointed at him, but nobody moved to follow him. At the foot of the trail Jeon stepped down from the saddle, and he and the horse walked on side by side. The Imperials wandered off along the beach.
Her eyes lingered on the long slope of the trail, remembering when her father the King had summoned his army here and led them off to the war, four years ago almost to the day.
Her father had been splendid on his charger. Her brother Luka, still a boy then, rode beside him, carrying the long banner on its staff. The army marching after had moved up that path all day long, everybody cheering and weeping.
When Luka brought the survivors back, after the massacre in the mountains, there was only weeping.
She saw a pattern in this, as she saw patterns in everything. She lowered her eyes; without any thought from her, the needle was making tiny precise stitches across the linen.
Jeon had been too young to go to war, a quiet, watching kind of boy. She looked for him on the cliff; he was almost to the top now. “He’s different,” she said. “What happened to him?”
Mervaly sat with her hands in her lap, her gaze turning toward the cliff. She said, “He’s gotten older. And everything is different.”
Jeon led his horse over the rim of the cliff and disappeared. The more Casea imagined it, the more she was sure he would come back. He would bring Tirza back. Casea’s heart lifted; she made a tiny blue star at the top of her work. Blue was Jeon’s color.
Off across the common suddenly a shriek went up. Mervaly stood, and Casea raised her head to see. Leanara, the baker, was the one screaming; she was leaning over the counter of her stall, throwing something at one of the Imperials crowded in front of her.
All around the beach, people were turning to look. Mervaly was already halfway there. Casea stuffed her needlework into her apron pocket and followed her sister across to the stall, where several people were gathering; they stood back to give Mervaly room.
Leanara was shapeless, floury as a loaf, her head almost bald beneath her headcloth, which was always coming loose and hung down now over her ear. She shouted, “I can’t use that. He has no tally stick!” She thrust out one arm, pointing at the Imperials, standing in their clump in front of her stall.
The other people around them were watching attentively, Casea saw. Aken the butcher was there, and Lumilla, the brewer’s widow, stood across the way, her elbows cocked and her fists on her hips. Mervaly bent and picked up something from the dirt.
“What is this?” She held it out toward the Imperials.
The tallest of them came forward, a big, square man like them all, fair skinned and rosy cheeked, straw haired and blue-eyed. Casea noticed on the front of his striped doublet was some insignia the others did not wear. He recognized the princesses: he bowed, his head bobbing, and Mervaly said impatiently, “Well?” and he straightened upright.
“That’s all I have, Princess. It’s good money. What do I need to have to buy something in this place?”
Mervaly glanced down at her palm. “Who are you?”
“I am Master Sergeant Pal Dawd, Princess. I mean no trouble.” He put out his hand for the money. “We’ll go.” In the pack behind him a soldier grunted, angry. Pal Dawd turned his head and the man quieted.
Mervaly took the bit of metal between her thumb and forefinger and looked it over. Casea went closer to see. It was round, with a little wreathed head on one side, a gate or a house or something else square on the other. Mervaly held it out to Leanara.
“It’s pretty. Keep it. It may come to be useful. Give him the bread.”
Leanara pressed her lips together, not liking this, but from the crowd a sigh went up, and Lumilla lowered her hands to her sides.
Mervaly waggled the coin under Leanara’s nose. “Do it.”
Leanara said, “Or they will just take it.” She thrust the loaf at the soldier and held out her hand to Mervaly for the coin.
Casea stepped back, looking over the Imperial men. The tall one was dividing the loaf among them and that made them content. Leanara was right: the soldiers were easy enough now, but that could change. The new men in the castle were not so easy, and they wanted more than a loaf of bread. Mervaly turned to walk back to the cypress tree.
“I’m going home,” Casea said. “I’ll see you at supper.” She patted her apron, to make sure of her work, and started off up the beach toward the rock below the castle.
* * *
The bread was delicious, and now maybe they could buy ale. Pal Dawd fingered his purse, fat with Imperial silver pennies, good everywhere in the world, and now perhaps even here. The merry Princess had gone back to her bench by the tree. He nodded to the other men.
“Let’s try this again.”
His corporal, Marwin, said, “I think these people need a lesson.”
Dawd elbowed him. “Remember what the Archduke said—no trouble.” Dawd led his men over toward the broad porch of the brewery.
The town fascinated him, so much different from an Imperial town with its ordered streets and square buildings; here the wooden porches and steps and little shops seemed to be spilling out of the cliff, like overflow from hidden places. On the porch of the brewery several old men were sitting on benches, cans of drink already in their hands. They watched him with piercing eyes, and the lanky woman who ran the place came to the top of the steps.
Dawd stopped, held up a penny, and said, “How much for a cup?”
The woman gave a little shake of her head, frowning. She came down and took the coin from him, and, like the Princess, turned it over and studied it. She shook her head again. She said, “Well, I’ll take it, since they say so. One cup each.”
Dawd said, unthinking, “One per cup?” and she turned quickly and smiled.
“Yes,” she said, and he saw he had cheated himself: she would have taken one penny for all of them. But already the men were moving toward the keg on the porch and she was taking down cups from her rack. As he went up among them she thrust her hand out. He dropped six more pennies into it, and she gave him ale.
It was good ale, too, and he drank deep. But being cheated still rankled him.
* * *
They were all monsters, the Archduke Erdhart thought, looking around the hall. They wore human faces to beguile the world, but the truth about them always showed through. Knowing that made it easier to plan what he had to do. He placed his hands together before him and thought this all over.
The two Princesses sat on his left side, beyond their mother. They were beautiful, Mervaly round and bubbling, Casea quieter, slender, pale, both with the hair of the family, the red of late oak leaves, the red of poison. Mervaly was always laughing, an unseemly merriment, no decorum in that woman, no sense of her rightful place. He would deal with that.
Casea had already formed all the objects around her into straight lines; now she was arranging them by size. While he watched she lifted her eyes and stared at him. For a moment she seemed not to see him at all, only some other object she had to put in order.
He would deal with that, too. He would deal with all of them. He laid his hands together in front of him, palm on palm, admiring the flicker of the ruby on his long white forefinger. Marioza would have to yield, in time. Make him King here, by the law as
well as conquest. His brother had insisted on that: bind them with the laws, until no one there can draw so much as a free breath.
Under that, the unspoken: fail me once more, Erdhart, and you’ll never see the Holy City again.
He did not mean to fail. This ocean kingdom was small, weak, with no army, and he would bring it under him as he brought its Queen under him. Then he would have a place to advance himself within the Empire, force his way back into his brother’s councils, even … aspire … He stopped thinking about that. Not yet. He watched the red light against his white skin, charmed.
There was, certainly, little to like about Castle Ocean itself, and he would have to move to a better place, once he was truly King. Inland, out of reach of the sea. He moved his gaze around the hall again, long and low as a cave, which was probably how it had begun, a wretched cave, the walls and ceiling of solid rock. Even the great winged chair he sat on was carved from the rock; he shifted his weight, uncomfortable on the hard, uneven seat.
Before him the great room opened up onto a broad terrace that overhung the sea. Now with the rain beating down from the west they had sealed that end of the room behind a wooden barrier, but the wind still swirled around, fluttering all the rush lights. Several fires burned in the hearths around the room, and he had to admit it was warm enough, but the light was very strange, like being underwater.
He frowned down at the rest of the court, seated at the inferior tables. His own officers sat nearest him; he had always insisted on this. Below, at the far side of the hall, were the local people—the kinsmen of the King, some such designation. Old men and women, of no consequence. Some lived in the castle, some in the town, and they did nothing but gobble food. They barely acknowledged even that he was there, stared through him, never spoke. Once he was married to the Queen, he would send all them out, to feed themselves. Leave them here, when he moved inland.
A servant had brought him wine, which he did not drink. Instead, after he had seen Marioza, on his right, take several sips of her cup, he exchanged his cup for hers. Her long, colorless eyes slanted toward him and the massy bundle of her body trembled with silent laughing. When they were married he would make her weep and beg in his arms, plead for mercy. For all this fearsome look, she was only a woman. He turned away, thinking of the wedding night.
Dragon Heart Page 4