The marble altar at the far end was certainly impressive. The dragon carvings had been done by a master, seemingly, for every scale of a thousand, thousand scales had been carefully delineated. By contrast, the carving of the Eye on the floor looked rustic and crude. He noted the worn prayer rugs, arranged in a circle around the Eye, and a thrill shivered up the base of his spine.
“This is where they work the magic,” Edward said to himself. “Magic that is a tool of the devil, reviled by God. Magic that fools the senses, makes us distrust ourselves. I can see why we are warned against it.”
The idea was unsettling and, despite his pressing need for haste, Edward’s steps slowed. He had grown up in the church and, though he considered himself a man of science, he was also a man of faith. He had no difficulty reconciling the two, as did some of his generation, for no matter how much science managed to explain, it could never provide him with the why, the how. God was always somewhere in every equation.
Edward had felt certain that God was with him on this holy quest, but now he had the unnerving feeling that he had left God waiting in the antechamber. The illusion of the wall, the stone altar, with its dragon’s Eye, whose stony pupil seemed aware of him, were the stuff of dreams, and dreams were the unsavory, outlandish cavortings of the mind escaping nightly from civilization’s safe prison house. Edward thought of this Mistress that he was going to save. He saw in his mind’s eye the beautiful face and he remembered the stories of the priest who told tales of the pleasing shapes the Evil One could assume in order to lure man to his soul’s destruction. One could roll one’s eyes at that when seated safely in one’s pew, but here, in the perfumed firelight, being watched by that stone Eye, his stomach shriveled and his mouth went dry.
Edward hesitated, but only for a moment. The rational, scientific part of him struck him on his mental jaw, much as Draconas had struck him on his real jaw, and knocked the terrors of the nursery out of his head. There were terrors here, but one was a murderer and, if that involved the Evil One at all, it was the evil that dwelt within men’s hearts.
Swiftly, but not heedlessly, Edward passed through the open doorway and entered a corridor of rough-hewn stone. Ahead of him was a stone staircase. He took the stairs several at a time, and came to a door at the top.
This door was closed. Edward placed the torch in an iron sconce on the wall, to have both hands free, then studied the door, noting that it opened inward. He was pleased and rather surprised to find it was not locked nor barred in any way. If Draconas had been there, he could have told the king that in places where there is magic, padlocks and keys are not necessary, but Edward had no knowledge of this. He put his hand upon the handle, which was of wrought iron twisted into the shape of a dragon, and gave the door a gentle tug.
Opening it a crack, he peered out into a hallway and some part of him sighed in relief. Here was not more dream-stuff. Here was civilization: polished marble floors, wood-paneled walls, oiled rosewood and ebony furniture. Torchlight gleamed off the shimmering thread of a fine tapestry hanging on the wall directly opposite. Looking up, he met a dragon’s eyes looking down at him—the painted eyes of a painted face of a painted dragon, an image in an elaborate mural.
The hallway was dark and it was empty.
Edward stepped cautiously into the shadows, keeping the door open, and wondered which way he should go.
To his right, darkness. To his left, not very far from where he was standing, faint light shone from an open door, casting a warm reflection on the cold marble.
He heard breathing—the rasping, shallow breathing of one who is either very old or very ill, and he smelled the fetid air of the sickroom. Edward listened intently, but could catch no other scent, hear no other sound. That room and the person in that room would at least be his starting point.
Reaching down to his belt, Edward removed his knife and wedged it firmly between the door and the door jamb, propping the door open. This would not only keep the door from shutting and perhaps locking, but it would also provide him with a strip of light to mark his way back.
Keeping close to the wall, he padded soft-footed down the hallway. The light’s soft glow spilled into the hall, unbroken by any shadow. The labored breathing continued without pause. The night was quiet, except for a drumming sound that Edward eventually recognized as rain beating on the roof.
Nearing the room, he flattened himself against the wall and peered over his shoulder into a large room of sumptuous elegance and beauty; the walls hung with heavy cut-velvet draperies, the marble floors softened and warmed by hand-woven rugs. A writing desk—its surface bare—stood at the far end of the room. Four large, high-backed chairs were placed two and two, facing each other, in front of what was probably a window, covered over by the thick curtains. Glints of light came from all around the room, reflecting off jeweled boxes, a silver flagon, a set of gold-inlaid chalices. A dainty oil lamp, standing on a small, gilt-edged table, gave the light that had drawn him to this room and its sole occupant—an eldery woman, asleep in her bed.
She slept on her back, her mouth open, her thin body covered by a coverlet of silk stitched in gold. Fine lace was at her throat and her wrists. A locket of gold hung around her neck. Her hands lay on the silken coverlet and they were thin and bony and veined with blue. Her yellow-white hair had been neatly braided and hung down beneath the white lace cap that covered her head. A dressing gown of embroidered silk had been neatly folded and laid across the foot of the bed.
“Frail and feeble,” Edward said to himself, repeating words the assassin had used.
The old woman is frail and feeble and of no more use to me. The Mistress dies this night.
Edward had thought and dreamed so long of the beautiful face in the topaz that he had not until this moment equated “frail and feeble” with the words “Mistress dies.” Now, looking down at the elderly woman sleeping peacefully in her bed, he realized that they were one.
“She is the Mistress of Dragons and she is the one who is meant to die this night.”
He glanced again around the room adorned with every symbol of wealth. Yet here she lay alone, abandoned. No loving daughters, no grieving sons, not even a servant to fetch her water or trim the wick of the smoking oil lamp. And here she would die alone, by violence.
Poor woman, he thought, pitying her deeply. Poor woman.
He gazed down at her, conflicted, uncertain what to do. She seemed so frail, he feared he might kill her if he lifted her. Yet he could not leave her to be brutally murdered. He listened intently to her breathing and decided that, though weak, it was not the rattling, gasping breath of the dying.
She is old and feeble, but, as the giant Grald himself had said, she might well live many more days. Edward glanced again around the empty room, filled with wealth, but devoid of comfort. Perhaps all she needed was care and attention. He would summon his own physician, a clever fellow who specialized in restorative medicines. And he would not mention his dragon to her, not until she regained her strength.
“And if she does not recover, at least she will leave this life in peace, with a priest by her side. And she will be given a holy burial,” he added grimly, thinking of Grald and his instructions to burn the body.
Edward knelt down beside the bed, so that when he woke her, she would not find a man looming threateningly over her. He reached out his hand and gently touched her shoulder.
“Madame ...” he said softly.
Her eyelids flickered, but she did not awaken. She seemed deeply sunk in sleep. He thought this odd, for the elderly tend to drift light as thistledown on sleep’s surface.
Perhaps she has been drugged. Dosed with poppy-water.
He slid her flaccid arms beneath the coverlet, tucked the blanket around her as one would swaddle a babe, then lifted her out of the bed. She weighed nothing in his arms. Her head lolled against his shoulder. She gave no sign that she was aware of anything that was happening to her and he was convinced now that they had drugged her.
Edward halted all movement, listened intently.
The rain thudded on the roof and, far in the distance, a rumble of thunder. Voices spoke, then came footfalls—the slap of wet sandals against a marble floor, the sounds of someone moving in haste and with purpose.
The murderer.
Edward entered the hallway, carrying his burden toward the door that he’d left slightly ajar. The elderly woman’s head bumped gently on his chest. The coverlet trailed behind him.
11
MELISANDE WOKE ABRUPTLY. SITTING UP IN BED, SHE threw off the sheet and started to rise, only to realize that she had no idea what had awakened her. She stared around in a sleep-dazed state, suspended halfway between dreaming and waking, listening again for the sound that had roused her with a suddenness that made her heart race, her blood throb in her temples.
Her first thought was for Bellona and she reached out a hand in the darkness to touch her, to make certain she was beside her.
Bellona’s breathing was deep and easy. She responded to Melisande’s touch, but only as does a slumbering cat, stretching her body, then sliding back into sleep.
Melisande said to herself, “A dream,” and was starting to lie back down when she heard the voice.
“Melisande! Come to me! I need you!”
“Mistress!” cried Melisande, starting up and staring around the darkened chamber.
The only person with her was Bellona, half-wakeful at Melisande’s cry.
“Melis,” she murmured drowsily, “what is it? Did you call me?”
“No, dear, no. I’m fine. Go back to sleep,” Melisande said, drawing the blanket over Bellona’s shoulders. The rain had begun again, and the night air was damp and cool.
Melisande listened, unmoving, not breathing, for the call to come again. She heard nothing, however. A dream, she said to herself. Yet the voice had been very real. She could hear it still, hear the urgent timbre, hear the panicked, desperate tone.
Fear constricted her heart, squeezed it so that for a moment she could not breathe. Her limbs went numb. Prickles stung her fingertips. She rose hastily from her bed and fumbled her way through the darkness to the door. The thought came to her that she could not go into the presence of the Mistress naked and she grabbed up the ceremonial gown she had been wearing the night before.
She was so shaken that she tried to thrust her head through the sleeve opening, and she paused a moment to calm down. She would gain nothing by haste. She draped the purple-dipped black gown over her head, settled it around her, and clasped the belt around her waist. She remembered, incongruously, Lucretta complaining of the blood marring the sheen of the gold-embroidered hem. Melisande had soaked the dress in cold water the next day, scrubbed off the blood. She slid her sandals onto her feet.
Her mind still fogged with sleep, she opened the door to their bedchamber without really knowing what she was doing and hastened out of the barracks into the quadrangle.
A steady rain continued to fall. The cool water on her face woke her thoroughly. She knew where she was and what she must do. The night was very dark and quiet, heavy with clouds and rain. The couples slept, worn out by their pleasures. In the nursery the newborn babes, product of a past Coupling Night, slept the sleep of innocence. The sisters slept and dreamed of dragons. The warriors slept and dreamt of blood, except for those who kept the watch. The sound of their footfalls were drowned in the rain.
“I am coming, Mistress,” Melisande said softly.
The rain was falling so heavily that she had the feeling that the night had taken liquid form and darkness itself pelted her, its drops hard and stinging. Her robes were soon sodden and the heavy fabric clung to her body, its weight dragged at her, the wet skirts wrapping around her legs, hampering her progress. Her hair dripped water into her eyes. Tree branches, their wet leaves dangling, clutched at her.
She thrust the branches aside, splashed through the rivulets of water running along the walkways. Slipping in the mud, she hastened on through the night and the rain, feeling her way more than seeing it, and at last reached the quarters of the Mistress.
The guards were at their post. Huddled in cloaks, they bowed their heads against the rain. The sound of Melisande’s footsteps roused them and they started up, raising their spears. Their grim expressions changed to startled surprise, to see Melisande, soaked and bedraggled, come running out of the darkness.
“Let me pass,” she commanded, thrusting aside their spears, as she had thrust aside the wet branches.
“Is anything wrong?” one asked, alarmed.
Melisande turned back, her hand on the door.
“No one is to enter. No one.” She paused, her throat constricting, then said quietly, “The death watch begins.”
“Yes, Priestess,” said the guards, their faces ghostly glimmers in the rain. “The Mistress’s blessing be with you, Priestess.”
The guards pushed open the great bronze doors. The hallway stretched before her, dark and quiet. The doors closed behind her, the guards pulling them shut gently and quietly, not wanting to disturb the hushed and fearful silence.
The thought came to Melisande, unbidden, that when next she entered this door, she would do so as the Mistress of Dragons.
“I am not ready. It’s too soon. Mistress, walk with me and grant me strength!” she prayed.
Then, straightening, she wiped her eyes of tears and rain. Lighting one of the candles that were always kept on the table by the door, she lifted up the candle in one hand and took hold of her wet skirts in the other. Swiftly, with heartaching trepidation, she walked down the silent, dark hallway.
She wondered as she went if she had truly heard the Mistress’s voice in her mind or if it had been a dream or maybe a combination of both, her dream speaking to her from her aching heart.
Reaching the end of the hall, Melisande rounded the corner and entered the hallway that led to the Mistress’s room.
She halted, staring in dismay. So shocking was the sight that for a moment she was paralyzed, unable to move or think or make a sound beyond one startled gasp.
The door leading to the Mistress’s room was open and, farther down the hall, the door that led to the Sanctuary was also wide open. Light flared out into the hallway and in the light she could see a man holding what looked to be a bundle of the Mistress’s bedclothes. Melisande’s dazed brain could not think why any thief should want to take a coverlet; then she caught a glimpse of a limp hand, dangling down from the folds of blue and green silk.
Shocked understanding gave her voice and strength.
“Mistress! Stop!” she called desperately, but, at the sound, the man bolted into the Sanctuary, carrying the Mistress with him.
The door slammed shut. The light vanished. The hall was dark, except for the flickering light coming from the Mistress’s chamber.
Melisande started to run after them, but at her first step, her wet sandals slipped upon the marble floor and she fell heavily, landing on her hands and knees, bruising her knee and spraining her left wrist. Fear for the Mistress numbed the pain. Melisande scrambled to her feet and dashed frantically down the hall.
She stopped at the Mistress’s chambers only long enough to make certain that she had seen what her disordered mind told her she had seen.
The Mistress was gone from her bed, as were the bedclothes. The man had carried her off. The Mistress, knowing she was in danger, had cried to Melisande to help.
“Too late!” Melisande moaned in agony. “I am too late. Bellona! I must summon the guard—”
She started to turn back toward the entryway, but her heart misgave her, and she turned again, a prey to indecision. Every second counted perhaps.
“He is a man,” she faltered,
quailing, “and he is armed . . . and I am armed,” she said, calming herself. “Armed with the magic.”
A strange sensation swept over her, one of resolve that banished all fear.
“The fool! The stair leads him to the sacred Sanctuary—a dead end for him, who would dare steal away the Mistress.”
Melisande ran after them. The magic that she had only ever used in anger against dragons burned on her lips and in her belly.
12
“Mistress! stop!” the woman cried.
In Edward’s excitement, her voice was the hissing, sibilant voice he’d heard in the cave, the voice promising that this night, the Mistress would die. Edward looked back to try to see the assassin’s face, but she was in shadow and he could not make out her features.
Anger swelled in him, and he would have liked to have been able to halt to confront this assassin, but his first care must be for the elderly woman he held in his arms. He would see to it that she reached safety. He would hand her over to Draconas, then he would deal with the fiend seeking to take this poor woman’s life. Edward had his plans already formed. He had decided that he would remain here in this kingdom. He would capture this treacherous female alive and turn her over to the proper authorities. He would see to it that the elderly woman received proper care and attention. Finally, he would start his own investigation regarding Grald, the soldiers, and the mysterious baby smugglers.
All this he thought through in an instant, as he clattered down the stairs, heading for the firelit chamber.
He held the old woman firmly but gently, worried that he would stumble and trip over the trailing coverlet in which she was wrapped. She never stirred, but lay comatose in his arms, sunken in her drugged sleep, oblivious to the jostling and the shouting, the tramping of his feet, and the clanking rattle of his sword hitting against the rock walls.
He reached the altar room, with its white marble altar, and its strange and unholy Eye in the floor, an Eye that flickered in the firelight and seemed intent upon him.
Mistress of Dragons Page 14