Marcus didn’t like this news, and he was short with the patriarch, who was humbly apologetic. Young Thom did not have a horse, nor did he have wings. The road was as long as God made it and the king’s men would be here when they were here. Marcus knew he was being unreasonable, but he longed for home.
Since the patriarch expected all royalty to be unreasonable, no harm was done. The good old man hinted that a swim in the river might clear Marcus’s head and lift his spirits, and he offered to provide a change of clothes, although certainly not the sort of clothes to which the prince was accustomed. Grateful and ashamed of his bad temper, Marcus accepted. The swim did clear his head and left him feeling refreshed.
He was glad to discard the monk’s robes, which had become hateful to him, and put on homespun breeches and a much-patched woollen shirt. After that, he idled away the afternoon, refusing to let himself think about anything. He watched the fishermen return with the day’s catch and further distracted himself by talking with them about their livelihood. He asked some guarded questions about the sunken cave, wondering if these men had any idea that they were living in such close proximity to a vast city hidden inside an enchanted forest.
He found that none of the fishermen ventured past the fork in the river. The fishing was bad, he was told, and the waters treacherous. They fished the waters their fathers and grandfathers had fished before them and saw no reason to go anywhere else. Their lives were good, with the exception of the occasional flood, and when that happened they buried their dead and shoveled the mud out of their dwellings and went back to plying the river when it had returned to its banks.
Marcus also wondered what had become of Evelina. He asked around for her, and one of the women told him that Evelina had gone to the river, to an area where the women did their laundry, and that they were taking good care of her. He was not to worry about her.
Marcus didn’t. He’d find a private moment to speak to her tonight. He had to explain to her, as delicately as possible, that he was not in love with her. Manlike, he assumed they’d have a logical, rational discussion and that would end the matter.
The village held a feast in his honor that night, serving up fish and onions and potatoes all boiled together in an enomous kettle hung over a roaring fire. He saw Evelina, but did not have a chance to talk to her, for the men and women ate separately, the women after they had served the men. Evelina had apparently won favor with the women of the village, for they were making much of her. Someone had given her a change of clothing, like his own—worn and patched, but clean and comfortable. She looked fresh-scrubbed and wholesome in her homespun garb, and when she caught him looking at her, she blushed and smiled. Marcus felt a pang of uneasiness. The thought came to him suddenly that Evelina might not be all that logical.
He tried to signal to her that he wanted to talk, but he could never catch her eye. She seemed to be willfully ignoring him. The next thing he knew, the sun was sinking into the river and the fisherfolk were heading to their beds. Evelina walked off with the patriarch’s daughter. Marcus did not want to make a show of running after her, especially in view of the men, who were drinking and swapping stories around the fire. Marcus bid everyone good night and returned, alone, to the house.
Having slept most of the day, he was not ready for his bed. He sat by the fire, brooding over Evelina, Ven, Draconas, the dragon, his father—everything he’d refused to let himself think about all day. He made up his mind to the fact that he would never see Ven again, nor could he even dare contact him, for the dragon was always lurking about, trying to find a way inside. Draconas was dead; Marcus was certain of that. Dragonkeep would remain hidden beneath its blanket of illusion as its army marched on to conquer his people.
“Yet if I told these fishermen that there is a city of living souls not twenty miles from where they ply their nets, they would bind my arms with rope and take away all sharp objects,” Marcus muttered. “I’m not even sure my own father will believe me. It’s all so fantastic—”
A gentle knock sounded at the door. “It’s Evelina,” said her voice, speaking softly.
Marcus breathed a sigh. He didn’t want to have this conversation, but he needed to set things straight, let her down gently.
He opened the door.
“No one saw me,” she assured him, slipping in past him. She wore a cloak, with the hood cast over her head, and she carried a basket on her arm. Placing the basket on the table, she removed her cloak and hood, and tossed them aside.
“You should close the door, Marcus. Someone will see the light.”
He hadn’t realized until she said something that he’d been standing there with the door wide open. Feeling uncomfortable, he did as she bade him and shut the door. He turned back to find her removing a stone jar and a mug from the basket.
“I brought you some wine,” she said.
“Evelina, I want to talk—”
“And I want to talk to you, Your Highness,” she said.
She poured wine into the mug and carried it over to him. She stood before him, holding the wine in her hands. She had washed her hair; its blond curls fell around her shoulders. Her eyes were soft and warm in the flickering light.
“I’m sorry I was so familiar with you last night, Your Highness,” she said. “I realize that I behaved unseemly and I ask you to forgive me. I know that you were under a terrible strain when you said all those wonderful words to me when we were running for our lives from that dreadful place and that you really didn’t mean them. How could you love me? I’m nobody. Not a princess or a duke’s daughter ...”
“Evelina,” he began, feeling wretched. “It’s not—”
“Please, drink the wine, Your Highness,” she continued, holding it out to him. Tears glimmered on her lashes. “The patriarch’s daughter made this wine and she would be offended if you did not. I promised her I would tell her how you liked it. You can lie, if you want. After all, you are a prince and you can do with people what you like—”
“Evelina,” he tried a third time.
She thrust the wine into his hands and then ran to a corner of the room and sobbed as though her heart would break.
Marcus gulped some wine. He was completely out of his depth, floundering in water that had been ankle deep when he waded in, but which was now up to his chin and rising. Evelina had said the very words to him that he’d been going to say to her—about how it had all been different when they were in Drag-onkeep and he’d been under a strain and so on and so forth. When he’d said it, it seemed reasonable and logical. When she said it, she made him feel like a worm. He didn’t know what to do now. Anything he said now would only make matters worse. Yet he couldn’t leave her weeping in a corner.
He drank more wine. It had a peculiar taste to it, not at all like the wine to which he was accustomed. And it was far more potent. The warmth spread from his throat to his belly and his limbs, sweet and pleasant and relaxing. He drank more wine and then lowered the half-empty mug to the table and walked over to Evelina.
The water was no longer closing over his head. He was floating on top of it. He had wronged her. He would apologize. She had been brave and loyal.
“Evelina,” he said for the fourth time, and she turned around and looked up at him with her blue, shimmering eyes. He floated on top of those eyes, floated gently along like thistledown.
“I meant every word!” he gasped. “I love you! I adore you!”
The warmth of the wine suffused him. He ached and throbbed with it, and he could find relief only by drowning in the blue water of the river of her eyes. She was in his arms, her soft flesh in his hands and her sweetness on his tongue, and he was tearing off his clothes and her clothes and they were lying on the mattress, panting and heaving and his need was hot and pain-filled and she was willing and yielding . . .
And then he had to stop to scratch his leg. He went back to her, but then his arm itched uncontrollably and he scratched at it and then, suddenly, he was itchy all over. He tried to
ignore the itching, but he couldn’t, and he had to stop what he was about to do to scratch at himself. Evelina moaned and nuzzled him, running her hands over his body, and he tried again, but the itching was a terrible distraction.
She opened her eyes and looked at him and suddenly pulled away.
“You . . . you’ve gone all blotchy,” she gasped in dismay.
He scratched at his head and neck and looked down at his naked body and saw that she spoke truly. He was covered in large red blotches, about the size of a coin of the realm, growing larger and spreading rapidly. The blotches burned like fire and itched like the devil and he could do nothing now but scratch at them. He could swear he could feel them on the inside of his mouth.
“It’s not the plague, is it?” Evelina cried. Covering herself with a blanket, she crawled off the bed.
Marcus groaned. “No, I think it must have been the wine. I break out in these blotches sometimes if I eat certain spices or herbs, but it’s never happened with wine.”
“Spices,” murmured Evelina. “Oh, my God. You wretched man. You stupid, wretched man! Why can’t you be normal?”
Suddenly, strangely, Evelina turned into a dragon. The dragon’s eyes stared into his. The dragon seemed nervous, afraid.
“I don’t know how to talk to you.” The dragon’s colors were tenuous and wispy. “I . . . this is so alien. Your mind is too . . . small. I feel squeezed in. Human, can you hear me? I am a friend of Draconas. My name is Lysira. He sent me—”
And then all the colors in Marcus’s mind exploded.
Evelina scrambled backward off the mattress and crouched on the floor, staring in horror at the prince.
Marcus lay on his back. His eyes—gleaming wild in the firelight—rolled and roved, as if he were following the erratic flight of an invisible flock of birds. His eyes darted back and forth, up and down, back and forth. His body began to twitch. His hands curled. She’d seen the effects of wormwood on people before and she’d never seen anything like this.
“He’s having some sort of fit,” Evelina wailed. “First blotches, then fits. Why can’t you be normal?”
She shook him by the shoulder and dug her nails into his flesh. No response. He was gasping, as though he was finding it difficult to breathe, and watching the invisible birds, not paying any attention to her. Not getting her with child.
“You’re a freak!” Evelina cried. “As bad as your brother, even if you don’t have the legs of a lizard.”
She punched him a couple of times and then sat back on her heels and stared at him. She didn’t know what to do. He was growing worse. He began to thrash about. Men died of fits like this.
And if he died, what would become of her?
“I should get help!”
Evelina feverishly threw on some clothes and, flinging open the door, she ran out into the night—straight into the arms of Jorge.
“I heard a cry,” he said, and his voice was calm and his arms were strong and comforting.
Quivering, Evelina pressed against him.
“The prince,” she gasped, “He’s . . . there’s something wrong . . . he’s having a fit. . . the wine ... I have to find the patriarch—”
“No, you do not,” said Jorge. “You found me. Come back inside. Keep quiet.”
“You don’t understand! He might die!” Evelina struggled to free herself.
“You are the one who doesn’t understand,” said Jorge coolly, his grip on her firm. “If His Highness dies, they’ll discover that you put the wormwood in his wine.”
Evelina went cold all over. “Poison! They’ll think I poisoned him! They’ll hang me!”
She felt faint. Jorge put his arm around her and half-carried her back into the house. Shutting the door, he bolted it.
“Maybe someone else saw me go to the Widow’s . . .” she whimpered.
“Only me,” he said, reassuring.
She looked over at Marcus.
“Oh, Holy Mother of God!” Evelina whispered, shrinking back against the wall. “He’s dead!”
Marcus’s head lolled on the pillow. His arms hung over the sides of the mattress, hands dangling limply.
Jorge knelt swiftly beside the prince and felt for a pulse. He put his head close to Marcus’s open mouth. He examined the blotches on his body and then looked at Evelina and smiled.
“What?” she asked, shivering so that her teeth chattered. She could already feel the noose closing around her neck.
“He is not dead,” said Jorge. “He is breathing easily. His pulse is strong. The blotches are already starting to fade. They will probably be gone by morning. He is asleep.”
Evelina heaved a shuddering sigh and closed her eyes.
“Thank you, God!” she breathed. “Thank you!”
“He’s very deep in sleep,” Jorge added. “I doubt if a cannon shot would waken him.”
Evelina opened her eyes. She heard Huspeth’s words, You must lie with him this night.
With him. With some man.
Evelina was suddenly all business. “How much will he remember when he wakes up?”
“Very little, I should think,” Jorge said, shrugging. He moved near her, put his hands around her waist, and jerked her close to him, so that her breasts pressed against his chest. “Or, let’s say, he’ll remember what you tell him to remember.”
He sat down in the chair. Hiking up her skirt, he pulled her onto his lap and ran his hands up her bare thighs. Evelina’s mouth closed over his and she moaned as his tongue flicked against hers. Relaxing, her worries over, she gave herself to pleasure.
Pleasure with a normal man. Not a freak.
This was all working out for the best. At least now a freak wouldn’t be the father of her child.
Marcus would only think he was the father.
22
THE ABBEY WAS DARK AT THIS HOUR OF THE NIGHT, THE DEEPEST hour, the end of one day and the start of the next. At first, when Ven entered, he could not see Grald, not even with his dragon vision. He knew Grald was here—he could hear the man’s heavy breathing—but he could not locate him. Ven was not about to call out to him, like a lost child afraid of the dark. He assumed Grald was hiding deliberately, to try to intimidate him. Ven followed the sounds of the breathing and came to the thronelike chair that Grald used for his audiences.
The chair was empty. The sounds of the breathing came from the back, behind the chair.
Light flared suddenly, a torch ignited. Ven was momentarily blinded, and he squinted into the brilliance. The dragon crouched outside the cavern of his mind and, for once, Grald was not trying to scrabble or claw his way inside.
“I understand that you paid a visit to your siblings,” his father said.
Grald was a monstrous mound of flesh and shadow in the torchlight, a grotesque figure.
“Splendid, aren’t they? Like you, my son. You are the oldest, you know,” Grald continued, the eyes beneath the overhanging brow consumed in shadow. Not even a glint or gleam was visible. “There were others before you, but you were the first to survive. Finally I came upon the right combination. This might surprise you, but I’d never used a woman like your mother in our previous breeding trials. I deemed such human females, who were strong in the dragon-magic, too valuable. They protected Seth from invasion and, here in Dragonkeep, they help maintain the illusion that hides this city and bear those children who have grown up to become my soldiers. You saw the army, as well, I think. Draconas was most thorough.”
Ven remained silent. No need to speak, when all his questions were being answered.
“Draconas was the one who gave Anora the idea; ironic, isn’t it? I decided to experiment on Melisande, and you were the result, turning out far better than my expectations. I decided to see if I could emulate my success, and I mated with several females who were strong in the magic. One child out of that first group of ten survived to adulthood—your sister, Sorrow The next year, several more survived, as the holy sisters learned how to care for the infants. They
are magnificent, aren’t they? Your brothers and sisters?”
“For monsters,” Ven returned.
He hadn’t meant to say that. The words slipped out before he was aware of them. He was ashamed the moment he’d spoken. He didn’t want to feel that way. He didn’t want to hate them, as he hated himself.
Grald took a step nearer, moving into the light, so that his eyes seemed to kindle and catch fire. Ven didn’t like anyone coming that close to him, and he almost took a step backward. He then realized that this would look like weakness, and he held his ground.
Grald’s mouth twisted. He glowered down at Ven.
“I raised your siblings to be proud of who and what they are. They are the future of mankind. The future of dragonkind.”
“How can they be the future of both when they are neither?” Ven asked. “And neither dragons nor men will have anything to do with them.”
He couldn’t understand why he was saying such things. He had not come here intending to insult his father. He’d come here to talk to him. The reason was Grald. Something about the man made Ven nervous. Perhaps it was the way the dragon lay so still outside Ven’s cave, no longer trying to force his way in. Almost as if he knew it was just a matter of time . . .
“You should know the answer to that,” Grald stated. “You are stronger, smarter than any human born. What’s more, you have the ability to live in the human world and in the dragon world. You can communicate mind-to-mind, a feat no human can perform. You have the ability to wield the dragon-magic.”
“No, I don’t,” said Ven perversely.
“You do,” Grald reiterated. The eyes in the shadow of the brow were laughing at him. Grald was baiting him, and that further irritated Ven. “You choose not to. But that will change.”
“I don’t see how we are going to be the future of dragonkind,” Ven said, ignoring the lure. “Dragons must be as repulsed by us half-dragons as humans. Maybe more.”
“Some are,” Grald admitted. “But they will come to see the logic behind your creation. By ruling humans, you will ensure that our future is safe and secure. Because of you and those like you, ordinary humans will come to worship us, hold us in reverence and awe. They will abandon the God of their imagination, a God they cannot see, and turn to dragons.”
Master of Dragons Page 17