Dragon Heart

by Cecelia Holland

  “What do you think happened at the new fort?” Around the side of the chest she could just see the table. Broga was watching the servant put cheese on his bread. He was the one who had spoken.

  “This whole coast crawls with pirates. Wait until the fleet arrives; we’ll drive them off the seas.”

  Broga lifted his head and stared across the table. “Pirates? There were fifty soldiers in that fort.”

  “Obviously not good ones.”

  “They had some help,” Broga said. “I think we did not kill Luka quickly enough.”

  Tirza jerked, her elbows pressing tight to her sides. She drew back deeper into the corner, until she could not see them, only hear. Broga’s deep, raspy voice went on, “I think these people here did that, and we must find out who and punish this, or our power here is nothing. You shouldn’t have let the boy go.”

  They had killed Luka. She squeezed her eyes shut, sick to her stomach, thinking how she might fling herself out there, seize a knife, and murder them.

  Oto said, “You dream.”

  “They are all foul,” Broga said. “But they’re afraid of us now. The boy particularly: why do you think he was so willing to leave? And we have the upper hand and should use it. That’s what it means, her begging you to marry her. Now we can redeem all that’s gone before.”

  Oto’s voice was keen. “I will manage this.”

  Broga spoke through his teeth. “We have limited time. Once Uncle decides we have failed he will move speedily to replace us. Father would have—”

  “Father me no father! I rule now.” A chair creaked. “Who has brought us this far? And who lost everything to them, in some ridiculous fight on the beach, which now I have at great cost to me regained? Do as I bid you.”

  Broga rasped, “I killed him. I avenged myself. Without me you would still be under his thumb.”

  “I was never under his thumb. You misunderstand everything.” Oto fired out each word like a stone from a slingshot. Something hard hit the table; she heard the cups rattle. “When the fleet comes, we will wipe away the pirates, we will crush the local people into obedience, and Uncle will be very pleased.”

  “What about the boy?”

  “He is nothing. We will dispose of him when it proves convenient.”

  “Then you are going to marry her.”

  “Oh, yes. Uncle will admire the legality. But I will be King here.”

  At that Tirza leapt up and shouted, “You will not! Never!”

  The brothers wheeled around in their places; Broga’s jaw dropped open, and Oto shouted, “Catch her!” Tirza bolted for the door.

  From the hall a tall soldier blocked her way. She knew him: the big sergeant who was always looking at Casea. Tirza went toward one side and when he leaned to stop her she bounded through the space he made. His hand closed on her hair. She screeched, and he wrapped an arm around her and lifted her back into the room.

  Broga sprang toward her, his jaw clenched, as if he would eat her. “Where was she? She heard everything we said. What did we say?”

  Oto was still sitting. In his fist a knife, upright. “Enough. Not that she could tell anybody, but enough.”

  “Kill her.” Broga held out his hand for a weapon. Tirza, clutched in the sergeant’s grasp, let out a howl of rage and fear: Luka’s face swam into her mind, and she forgot to be afraid.

  “Murderers! Murderers!”

  Oto rose, and pushed his brother’s arm aside. “Not that way. They might find out. I don’t want anything to interfere with the wedding.” For an instant he looked into Tirza’s eyes. His face was cold with calculation. His gaze lifted to the man holding her fast. “Throw her into the sea.”

  * * *

  Dawd had the goblin girl by the arm, the furious coil of her body straining against him, and he gripped her tight, pulling her up a little off the floor. His heart was thundering. He went quickly down the stair. Marwin started after him, and he turned and said, “Go back and stand guard. Remember your duty.” The corporal went on back up to the landing and the door.

  The goblin girl made no sound, all the while wresting and yanking at his grip on her. Finally he tucked her under his arm, pinning her elbows to her sides. At the foot of the stair, in the antechamber, two more soldiers were watching him, staring curiously at the girl; he could do nothing while they watched. He went on to the door into the great hall.

  The bold light of the sun flooded it. All around were people making ready for the wedding. He turned back into the antechamber and beckoned over the two soldiers.

  “You. Go in there; spur them. They’re slacking.” To the other, Dawd said, “Take my place upstairs with the Lord Oto while I attend to this.”

  One went in the hall, the other up the stairs. The Goblin whined, and twisted in his grip. He took her to the door into the hall again, and set her down.

  “Run,” he said. “I know you can find the way. Run.”

  Her eyes went round as stars, deep blue. She fled. He put his hand against the wall, leaning his weight against it, sick to his stomach, as if the floor under him tipped.

  He did not want to face Oto, and as soon as Dawd could get away he went down into the town. The sun stood in the peak of the sky and a long line of women waited at the baker’s, each carrying a dish in her hands to cook in the baker’s oven. Dawd veered over toward the butcher’s stall, where the man had a tray of meat pies, still steaming. The butcher, the size and shape of a keg, was in the back of the stall, hacking up a headless carcass hanging by its hind feet from the ceiling. When he saw Dawd he came spryly to the front. Most of the soldiers simply took what they wanted, but Dawd always paid, and the shopkeepers all knew him and liked him.

  “That one,” Dawd said, and pointed.

  The butcher picked up the pie neatly with his tongs and wrapped it in a square of cloth. Dawd handed him a full Imperial. The butcher fumbled under the counter for his sack and spilled the contents onto the counter—several coins, some whole and some cut into quarters and halves—and after a moment took a half and a quarter and gave them to Dawd.

  “Bring me back the napkin,” the butcher said, and went back to his meat chopping. Dawd carried the pie off, taking a big bite as he did.

  He went on through the town, stopped again to get a drink of ale at the brewery, but he could not sit. He took the cup and went along the beach, past the lapping edge of the quiet water.

  The sea had infected him, he thought. He could not rest anymore. Everything orderly in his life was overturned. He was a soldier. He did as his officers told him. Now he hated his officers and he could not make himself obey them.

  Far down the beach, well past the edge of the town, he saw a tall white figure walking, and all his body tingled. He went after her, long-striding to catch up with her, as he went making up some excuse to talk to her.

  She stopped, and turned back toward him; she had seen him coming. She wore a common apron, the hem of her dress damp and bedraggled; her hair was knotted up on her head and her feet were bare, but she was a Princess born, and royal to her bones. He stopped and bowed to her.

  He said, “My lady, you should not be out here alone, should you?”

  She smiled at him, her eyes steady. “I am not alone now, though. What has brought you to me?”

  “I have repaid,” he said. This came out without thinking, and he put his hand over his mouth.

  She said, “Tell me what you mean.”

  “I-I— Your sister. When you saved me.” He licked his lips, coming suddenly to this and now uncertain. He blurted out, “I did not kill her.”

  She put out her hand and gripped the front of his doublet, her voice suddenly harsh. “What do you mean, soldier?”

  “I let her go. They told me to—not, though. Only throw her into the sea, and I let her go.” He clutched her hand; blinking his eyes, he felt blind, all he knew gone into a mist. “A helpless, invalid child. I could not.”

  He could not tell her that he knew the brothers had murdered Luka.
He wanted to protect her, to encastle her in himself. Instead she took his hand and led him forward.

  At her touch, his eyes cleared: before him the long bay lay like a glittering blue sheet. His heart ached. “I am a soldier. I obey orders. How can I—how can I—”

  She led him down into the gentle breakers. Her voice was calm. “The sea washes everything away. All the needless things.” He stood to his knees in the soft and endless sea, holding her hand, the sand crumbling beneath his feet.

  12

  Tirza sat on the bed, and watched Mervaly put on her mother’s jewels, the necklaces of coral and pearl, the earrings of chrysoprase like drops of green water, rings of serpentine, nacre carnelian. She said, again, “You mustn’t do this.” She gripped the bedclothes in both fists. “Why won’t you understand me?”

  Mervaly said, “I know you’re upset, Tirza. Don’t listen to Casea. She’s a fool, Tirza. I know what I’m doing and she does not. Stay close by me, where I can protect you.”

  Tirza grunted. Mervaly could not protect her. But for that soldier she would be dead now and Mervaly likely would not even know. Tirza banged up and down on the bed. “They killed Luka. How can you do this? Please. Please.” She sounded in her own ears like a twittering bird.

  Her sister ignored her, part of a lifetime of ignoring her. Mervaly lifted the skirts of the pale green gown, so that the many layers of the skirts fluttered. On the windowsill, the seagull abruptly spread its wings and sailed off into the air. Mervaly moved around the room, doing nothing except touching the furniture and looking out the window. The birds followed her with their small, bright eyes. One of the swallows flew down suddenly and perched on her shoulder.

  “No, not now,” Mervaly said, and touched it, and the bird flew back to its nest. Tirza got up and went to her, and coiled her arm through Mervaly’s and leaned on her.

  “Why can’t you understand me? Change your mind!” That came out all squeaks and whistles. She squeezed her eyes shut, clogged with terror and sorrow.

  Mervaly thrust her off. “Stop, Tirza! This must be done. Go away, then, if you’re just going to be cross. I don’t like you when you’re cross.” She did not smile. She had not smiled or laughed since she told them she would marry Oto Erdhartsson. She stood before the door a moment, and her hands moved along her body, as if she encased herself in unseeable armor. Then she left, to go down to the terrace to be married, but Tirza went into the wall.

  * * *

  Oto stood before the high seat. His face still ached, but he was walking well now, and he would not put this off. A storm was coming in from the sea and so the barrier was up, all the lamps and torches lit. The hall seemed bigger with so few people in it—his brother, the priest, a dozen soldiers. None of her family. That would not matter. This time, there would be no dancing.

  He saw no way he could not triumph now. He watched the door across the way; she would come through that door, and bring him a crown, a kingdom. Poor as it was, still a place to start from. The Great Emperor had begun with less. Oto did not glance toward Broga, beside him, not wanting to share this. Then the doors opened.

  At the sight of her he caught his breath. Jewels flickered at her throat, on her breast, her plump white arms and hands. Her dress floated around her, and her red hair was like a torch. His eye caught on the way she walked, every step precise, how she held her head, as if she wore a crown. For the first time, he thought how she might appear at court, among those languid ladies, and a warm, expectant pleasure filled him.

  She knelt before him, and he took her hands. The priest came forward and spoke, and she and Oto recited their responses. All the while her eyes were raised to his, her hands tightened on his. He lifted her up to her feet, and bent to kiss her. At the moment their lips met he thought she glanced away, but then she shut her eyes, and when he straightened and looked back nobody was there except Broga.

  * * *

  Mervaly took the jewels from her hair, and laid them on the table; she moved forward, toward the man sitting on the bed before her. She had sent away the others. She needed no one but him for this. She stood before him, just out of his reach, and bent and took off her shoes.

  He watched, intent. His face was livid green with the fading bruises; it was like marrying a corpse. She lifted her hands to her hair, and let free the bindings, and shook her head so that her hair tumbled around her.

  His fingers curled. She cocked an eyebrow at him, and put her hands on her breasts, lifting them, her thumbs on the nipples beneath the thin cloth. He swallowed.

  She moved her hands behind her, unclasped the top of the gown, and began to peel it away from her. As she did, she began to sway, slowly, back and forth. She let the dress hang a moment on her breasts, as the cloth slid like water down her sides, and on the bed he started up. She shut her eyes. With her thumbs she twitched the cloth away, baring her whole body to him, and he was on her, dragging her to the bed, bearing her down beneath him.

  13

  After he left Castle Ocean behind, Jeon let the horse carry him at its own pace up the beach. More than anything, he needed to get out of the thorny, overheated atmosphere in the castle so he could think.

  He knew Oto and Broga had murdered his brother. Everything in him wanted to leap on them, kill them, too, even if it meant—as it likely did—that he would die. That was honorable, to die for justice, and Luka’s wounds wept for justice. If Jeon stayed in the castle, he thought, the chance would come for his revenge, the opportunity overwhelming, and he would take it.

  Part of him wanted to take it, to rise up with a sword like a flame and destroy them, whatever the outcome. Another part of him said, Wait.

  Because he thought, now, there was something else. He thought now maybe he should be the King of Castle Ocean.

  Which meant he should not die, even to avenge his brother.

  He rode all the rest of the day along the shore, along the margin of the surf. The late sun blazed across the sea, but the seabirds were flocking by him, moving steadily inland, and on the horizon dark clouds piled up. The wind rose. At night he lay down in a fisherman’s hut made of driftwood and slept on the sand.

  In the morning the storm was coming toward him, trailing its veils of rain, the lifting sea dark green. The heavy waves smashed and swept along the beach. He went along into the east; since he had left the castle, he had seen no other human being, and he did not expect to see one this day, either.

  The storm roared onshore, pelting rain, and wind like fists. Swallowed up in the enormous tumult, he bundled himself in his cloak, the world all gone. This felt good to him, even the cold. He remembered all he could of Luka, every moment. What Luka would want him to do. In the afternoon the rain slackened and the bright sun shone, which he took for a sign.

  He slept under the overhang of the cliff, shivering all night. The next day blazed bright and clean, and around noon he rode into a little cove where the tide was well out and found several people digging in the wet sand.

  He waited on the beach and, when they came in, traded them bread and cheese for their clams. Being with other people now made him feel prickly, close, invaded. They talked readily enough about themselves; they came from a village inland, where the harvest would be lean this year, and so they were digging up clams.

  He said, “Have you had any trouble with wild pigs?”

  They only blinked at him.

  “What about pirates? I have heard,” he said, to jog them, “some place of soldiers was attacked, up the coast.”

  At that they began to nod and talk. They had heard something of that. Pirates it was, then. They’d thought so. “Yes, remember, I said so from the first. Brave ones, too, going after all those soldiers.” The soldiers, it seemed, had thieved from the local people, raiding sometimes even as far as their village, and so the local people were on the side of the pirates.

  Night came. He steamed his clams in seaweed with theirs and ate, and they fell quickly asleep. The wind laid the fire over. He sat staring into
it, and Luka’s face swam up into his memory again, vivid, laughing. He wept into his hands, hollow with loss.

  Beyond the reach of the firelight the ceaseless wave rose up out of the sea and thumped onto the beach. His heart felt like a stone, dragging him down. Revenge. And yet that way they might lose everything. What use, if they all died? The wind blew the flames flat; the ocean roared, the voice of the world, too large for any human ear to hear.

  He rode two more days, and in the next afternoon he came on the place where the new fort had been.

  The sand had blown over a lot of the wreckage. There had been stones in rows, and some wooden walls above that, burnt down to the ground. The patrol that found the dead had done their work: on the higher ground lay mounds of sand in neat rows, each grave marked with rocks at head and foot. He counted fourteen. That did not seem enough.

  The crabs and gulls and wolves had done their work also. Several of the graves were torn open, and bones spilled into the sand.

  The pirates would have carried off anybody left alive, he thought. Maybe, therefore, they would have taken care to leave many alive. Dead bodies made bad slaves.

  He went on past this graveyard. The fort had grown larger since he had last seen it; there had been three courses of stones at least, a square wall higher than his head. Now flat and blackened with fire. Burnt driftwood cluttered the beach. Higher, above the tide line, he left his horse and walked around kicking at the litter. He turned over helmets, scraps of black-and-white-striped fabric, more bones. The head of a pike. Dimples in the sand might have been footprints. He found, in the kelp strands, an odd little jewel, uncut and unpolished, a clear green stone.

  Out of these pieces he could make no picture of what had happened. With the height of the cliff here nothing could have attacked from the land; whoever did this had to have come from the sea. He was exhausted now, but he could not bear to stay in this place, and he rode on.

  * * *

  He stopped, some way down the beach, where the cliff sagged down and grass grew on an old landslide. Turning out his weary horse to crop this graze, he found a place out of the wind and lay down. Sleep overtook him. He woke deep in the night, caught the horse, and rode on toward the dawn edge of the world, chewing on the last of his bread. The seam of the world began to lighten, and far ahead, against the red smear of the sunrise, he saw the steep headland where to keep on eastward he would have to climb up the cliff and go inland.