The Rose Cord

by J. D. Oswald

  ‘It’s been the talk of the monastery since you left,’ Errol said. ‘They say you went to fight an army of dragons.’

  Melyn laughed, and the itching in Errol’s brain fell away slightly. ‘Not an army, that’s for sure. More a ragtag collection of decrepit remnants. I did them a favour dispatching them all. As for young Clun, I’ve sent him on an errand to Candlehall. We captured one of the beasts, younger than all the rest. He’s taking it to the palace to present to the queen.’

  For a moment Errol’s concentration wavered. He remembered the night he had somehow travelled across the great forest and seen the dragon Melyn had gone to hunt. Had she died, or was she even now being dragged along the road to the Neuadd for an even worse fate?

  ‘You’re interested in dragons?’ the inquisitor asked, and the itching in Errol’s brain started again. From nowhere he knew he conjured up an image of a tall man wielding a blade of pure white light, swinging it through the thick neck of a recumbent dragon, parting its head from its body with a single blow.

  ‘I recently came across a manuscript written in their language,’ he said, trying to convince his mind that the disturbing image was one he applauded rather than abhorred. ‘Quaister Andro said he’d teach me how to read it.’

  ‘Perhaps, when you’ve finished your other studies,’ the inquisitor said. ‘But for now I want you to continue practising your Llanwennog. It’s good, but not good enough to fool a native for very long. You might pass for a borderer in the north, a northerner at the border, but in Tynhelyg you’ll just sound out of place.’

  ‘Do you want me to go to Tynhelyg?’ Errol asked.

  ‘Not today, no.’ The inquisitor chuckled again. He drained his goblet and held it out. Errol quickly refilled it. He bowed, not daring to hope that the interview was over so soon. ‘Is there anything else you need me for, Your Grace?’

  Melyn was about to say something, but a knock at the door interrupted him.

  ‘Come,’ he barked. Captain Osgal entered, stared hard at Errol and then bowed to the inquisitor.

  ‘A messenger has just arrived from Candlehall, Your Grace. Queen Beulah wishes to speak with you as soon as possible.’

  Melyn let out a sigh, then stood up and put the full goblet down on the table beside the jug.

  ‘Very well.’ He turned to Errol. ‘Go now, boy. But remember what I’ve said. I’ll be testing you regularly so you’d better work hard.’

  Errol bowed, not daring to say a word, then turned and made to leave. As he was stepping through the door, a heavy hand caught his shoulder. The captain bundled him out into the corridor and pulled the door shut behind him.

  ‘Don’t you think you’ve got it easy just because the old man likes you,’ he said. ‘I’ll be watching you from now on. One step out of line and you’ll be out of the order. Got me?’

  Errol nodded, still not daring to speak. A small part of him wondered how he might provoke the captain into carrying out his threat, but he knew the inquisitor would never allow him to leave. At least not alive.

  ‘Well don’t just stand there. Get back to your books.’ Osgal clouted Errol over the head so hard and fast his knees buckled. No need to be told twice, he ducked his head and ran.

  The sun was high overhead when Benfro woke. He lay still for some time, staring at the slowly moving clouds and trying to work out where he was. Every part of his body ached. A deep pain throbbed in his head as if he had been drinking some of his mother’s more potent potions. For a moment he wondered how much trouble he was in with her, sleeping out like this. Then the memories came flooding back and he had to move just to overcome the helplessness.

  He sat up, woozy and unstable, and gazed at the sight in front of him. A tall rock stood at one end of a still, calm pool, which was edged on his side with a sandy beach. It was just like the strangely realistic vision he had dreamed during the night. It had been a dream, of course. Nothing like that could really have happened.

  Then he saw the fish.

  They lay there, dead, on the beach, in the grass and draped over the short scrubby bushes that pocked the clearing. Some had been pecked at by birds; a lone crow was tugging at one nearby, trying to drag away a fish five times its weight and in the main succeeding. Where it was going to take it to, Benfro couldn’t think. It wasn’t important. The dream was important. Except that it hadn’t been a dream.

  Slowly he stood up, feeling oddly unbalanced, willing the ground to stop swaying. After a few minutes it complied and he stepped forward to the water’s edge. A slight current ran through the pool, keeping the water fresh and clean. Benfro knelt and splashed a cold cupped handful over his face. Nothing stirred in the black depths and no voice spoke to him. Only his reflection looked back, a thin haggard thing that he almost didn’t recognize. How long had he gone without food? A couple of days at most. Surely that wasn’t long enough to have had such a profound effect. A sudden fairy-tale thought flitted across his mind. What if he had stumbled into the clutches of some evil spirit and was trapped in a night that lasted a thousand years?

  The nearest dead fish to Benfro was a large salmon, easily as long as his arm. Such a beast would have been a splendid trophy back in the village, a testament to his skills as a hunter. Reaching out, he hauled it closer, noting as he did that there was no smell of rotting. No more than a dozen hours had passed since it had died, so he had not been sleeping for days. Its eyes were white, and he remembered the water boiling as it took on the dragon form. Carefully, he slit its belly with a sharp talon, removed the entrails, gills and head. The flesh was pink and firm, but cooked rather than raw. It wouldn’t have bothered him either way. Grateful for food wherever it came from, he ripped chunks from the body and shoved them into his face.

  Nothing could have tasted better. Even gulping down great lumps with indecent haste, Benfro was aware of the sweetness and succulence of the meat. Still, his stomach lurched and groaned at the sudden introduction of food. He took a long drink of the pool water and settled down to a more measured devouring of the fish.

  Belly full and with the warm sun at its zenith, Benfro could feel the tugs of weariness pulling at him again. He was stiff and sore from the previous night’s exertions and needed to stretch. His wings in particular felt heavy and ponderous. He had never really noticed them before, in the same way that he had never really noticed his hands. His wings were there. They had always been there. And if they had changed at any time in his life it had been such a slow change that he was unaware of it. But now his wings felt different.

  For a start, they felt. Even folded, he could sense the rippling heat of the sun on them, the gentle tickling of the midday breeze. The muscles in his back were bunched and solid, as if they had grown while he slept. He tried to flex them, stretch them back into the smooth shape he remembered, but instead of the familiar shrug which should have folded the thin vestigial flaps against his side, Benfro found himself spreading them.

  It was like suddenly discovering he had a second pair of arms. And they were so much bigger than he could believe. Benfro stood tall and stretched wide. He looked left and right, marvelling at the sight. Surely these were not his wings. His were pathetic. These were magnificent great things. Tiny scales of green and gold fringed their leading edges, spreading back in ever larger patterns. He could feel the tips, like fingers he could use to grab the wind and twist it to his every whim. These were the stuff of his dreams.

  For a moment he felt he could leap into the sky, catch the air on these massive sails that flowed from his body. Then the crushing weight of skin and bone dragged him earthwards. The middle of his back burned with an agony of muscles stretched beyond their capacity. He collapsed into a huddle, his wings folding themselves back tight to his body in a reflex action.

  The pain was excruciating, like someone was stabbing him with hot knives, over and over again. It dimmed his sight, brought tiny sparks of flying light to his vision. He knew with a deadly certainty that he was going to pass out.

 
Melyn looked at the scrap of parchment in his hand. It was small, designed to roll up and fit around a messenger bird’s leg, and the report on it was written in a tiny hand in a coded language. It had taken him two hours just to decipher the message, which bothered him. And try as he might, he couldn’t think past the problem it contained. He felt tired and unfocused, as if the trip to the dragon village had been more like a summer’s campaign. Even drawing power from the lines no longer energized as once it had. There was no denying it: he felt old.

  The stone under his knees was cold and hard, the single candle flickering in the permanent draught that whistled through his private chapel. Only the glittering of the flame in the tiny polished gem set in its ring of gold in front of him held any warmth. Trying to quiet his frazzled mind, the inquisitor began to recite the words of the Shepherd’s Prayer, taking comfort from the simple catechism.

  ‘Who is my comfort through life? The Shepherd and him alone. Who shows us the true path and protects us from the corrupting Wolf?’ As the familiar words soothed his mind, so Melyn began to relax, slipping at last into a state of grace where he might communicate with his maker. It had been long months since last the Shepherd had spoken to him; there was much he would have liked to discuss, but he knew that his god would reveal himself only when his servant was deemed worthy.

  ‘Fear not on that account, my faithful inquisitor.’ Melyn shuddered inwardly as he heard the familiar voice. His aches and pains disappeared; his body felt at once renewed.

  ‘You are concerned by the betrothal of Princess Iolwen to Prince Dafydd of the House of Ballah,’ the voice of the Shepherd said. ‘And you worry about the factions that plot the assassination of Queen Beulah so that her younger sister might take the Obsidian Throne.’

  Melyn knelt in reverent silence, bathing in the presence of his lord and the sure knowledge that, at this moment in time, he was worthy.

  ‘Princess Iolwen will marry a man of the Hendry,’ the voice continued. ‘But you must take steps to remain in control of the situation. Send a spy to Tynhelyg. Someone who can enter the royal apartments. Someone who can blend in, speak to her, dissuade the prince if necessary.’

  ‘And what of the queen? I fear for her safety,’ Melyn said.

  ‘Is your faith become so weak you no longer trust me to safeguard the throne?’ The voice was mocking, but the inquisitor still felt the surge of guilt. He would scourge himself for his lapse.

  ‘You have already done what I intended you to do to protect Queen Beulah,’ the voice said. ‘The gift you have sent her will prove more valuable than even you realize.’

  ‘The dragon?’ Melyn asked, but he could feel the departure of the Shepherd as a lonely emptiness in the room, a seeping cold that was almost fear, his joy had been so intense. Always his god left him so: burning with a desire to carve the world in his image, but also hollow and empty that the Shepherd no longer filled him with his presence.

  Slowly, but with greater ease than when he had knelt, Melyn rose. He made the sign of the crook, bowing his head once more to the altar, then pinched out the candle, lifted the reliquary and placed the ringed finger back in its leather box. By the time he reached the door, his mind was once more calm and collected. He knew what needed to be done. As ever, the loyal Captain Osgal stood guard.

  ‘We must put a spy into the Llanwennog royal household. I need someone to put Princess Iolwen off the idea of marrying Prince Dafydd. Or, failing that, to arrange a little accident for the prince.’

  ‘How are you going to get someone that close?’ Osgal asked.

  ‘Duke Dondal’s sympathetic to the House of Balwen,’ Melyn said. ‘For enough of Queen Beulah’s gold, he’ll introduce one of ours as a page to the court at Tynhelyg.’

  ‘A page? That would mean someone young,’ Osgal said, a look of distaste crossing his face. Seeing it reminded Melyn of Osgal as he had been years ago, when first chosen for the novitiate. Melyn had favoured him then and now it seemed the captain harboured jealousy in his heart. It was of no matter. Either Osgal accepted that he was no longer the inquisitor’s favourite, or he would find himself posted a long way from home.

  ‘Fetch the boy Ramsbottom to my quarters,’ Melyn said. ‘I have a task for him.’

  Benfro dreamed of the dragon that called himself Magog, Son of the Summer Moon. He knew it was a dream this time and not some fantastical reality. The dragon was alive for one thing, not a collection of bones washed clean by uncounted years of running water. He was a huge beast, Magog. Far bigger than any dragon Benfro had ever met before. And far grander. His hide was as dark as the night and his scales were a polished black so shiny that they reflected moon-white. He was standing in the clearing next to the rock and staring into the sky. Reaching up, he could put one massive hand on the top of the rock where Benfro had precariously stood the night before, such was his size. But it was his wings that were the most magnificent thing about him. Unfurled, they were each as big as the house of Morgwm the Green. The scales along their edges were in turn tar-black and white as chalk. In the middle of each they patterned to form a perfect image of the full moon, its own dragon wings outstretched. And surely these were the wings of the dragon who lived in the moon.

  Benfro watched in awe as the great beast folded his wings, looked once more up into the sky and then settled down beside the rock to sleep. No sooner had he fallen into the rhythmic breathing of rest, or so it seemed, than a great wind buffeted the clearing, ripping at the bushes and flattening the grass. In his dream Benfro looked around from the security of his resting place. He was much smaller than the bush in which he hid and well able to avoid being seen by the creature that flew down towards him. Still he was gripped with a fear far greater even than the inquisitor could induce.

  At first he thought it was a crow, or perhaps one of the kites that occasionally soared above the village, mewling at the sky. But it was far too large to be such a bird. Its head was easily as big as he was and its eyes glowed with an evil intelligence. It landed only a few paces away from Magog, shaking the ground on contact. Still the great dragon slept on, unaware of the stench that filled the air. Benfro gagged as the curious beast stepped forward with an odd chicken-like gait. Its legs seemed ill constructed and were covered in a thick black coat of glossy hair like that of a boar. Its feet were bizarrely misshapen, with great fleshy claws, blunt and curled as if arthritic with age.

  Benfro knew what was going to happen next. Still he was not prepared for the sudden, unprovoked brutality of the attack. One moment the bird was standing over the sleeping dragon, just looking at it with that quizzical manner crows have when they find something just recently dead to eat. The next it had seized a huge rock in its foot, more like a hand Benfro realized, and dashed it down on Magog’s head.

  There was no recovering from that blow. Even a dragon as large and obviously bone-headed as Magog stood no chance. His skull broke with the first blow, bright red blood gushing out of the wound. The bird creature dropped its rock on the sand and heaved against the quivering corpse, rolling it into the water and pushing it out until it cleared the shallows. It stood, knee deep and watching as the uncomplaining form of Magog slipped slowly under the surface. Great bubbles rose in a slow procession, bursting like dropped eggs in the reddened water. After what seemed like for ever, they stopped and the bird stalked out of the river. It strode up the beach, gathering speed with each stride. Benfro was convinced it had seen him, was running to kill him, the only witness to the murder. But it passed him at a gallop, desperately flapping its great wings and leaping into the air then falling back to earth.

  It took a long time, running, bounding into the air, then crashing earthwards to try again. Each leap took it higher, kept it aloft longer. Each landing was lighter, a little spurt of dust in the increasing distance, until finally, just short of the trees and avoiding a painful collision, the creature was aloft. It banked, screeching, and headed back for the rock and the pool, slowly fighting its way higher and higher into the s
ky. From his hiding place Benfro looked up at its passing and for a moment felt terror bite into him again as he realized how exposed he was from above. But the creature did not see him, even though it circled the pool for a few moments before heading off towards the setting sun.

  Almost at the same instant as the creature disappeared from Benfro’s vision, the bubbles started to rise once more in the pool. Slowly at first, the surface boiled and churned, the water lifting into a vast dome that parted to reveal the great dragon.

  Its head was smashed in, blood and brain dripping from the ruined side of its skull. Still there was a fire in its one good eye, and it fixed Benfro with an uncompromising stare.

  ‘You have bested me, little dragon,’ Magog said. ‘Or maybe my anger has finally devoured me. Either way, I owe you a debt of gratitude. I cannot count the days I have lain here, unknown, forgotten, powerless. You have woken me and you have shown me the simple truth I could not bring myself to face.’

  Benfro wanted to ask what this was, but in his dream state he could only watch, listen, absorb. He was powerless to act.

  ‘You’ve shown me that I’m truly dead, little dragon,’ Magog answered as if he had heard the question. ‘You’d think one so wise and powerful as I would know something like that when it happened, but in my arrogance I could not accept it. So I’ve lain at the bottom of this pool these countless years, trapped by my anger and hatred, by my own proud sense of injustice. For what could be less fair than the mightiest of dragons laid low while he slept by a mindless carrion beast?’

  The great ruined dragon was sinking now, the pool slowly reclaiming its prize. In his dream Benfro was full of questions. If this truly was the Magog of legend then what of the other great dragons? What of the tales of fabulous courage and daring, of love and hate, trust and betrayal? All the stories he had clung to as a kitling, the dragon myths that Sir Frynwy had taken so much delight in telling, if these were somehow based in truth then perhaps there was some reason to go on living.