Ice & Smoke

by Elizabeth Belyeu

  "You are quite right. Next time I will leave you to drown in the mud."

  "A very princely end."

  "You deserve no less. Come, we must get to the fire or be frozen in place until spring!"

  There was much laughter and to-do at the hearth, as the others scurried to bring us blankets and warm drink, but though I smiled and teased with the rest, my thoughts were far away.

  "Are you cold still?" Tristan asked some minutes later, when I had been staring into the fire too long to escape comment.

  "No, no, I am well."

  "Well, perhaps, but distracted."

  "I worry for Braith," I admitted, "out in the cold rain."

  He sighed. "None worry for the forest creatures in the cold rain, and he is at least as able as they."

  I let some moments pass in silence. "He is not a forest creature, you know," I said at last. "He thinks and feels just like you or I. He is as much a person as any in this room."

  "That does not make him a good person."

  "Yet what has he done, that you think him evil? Do not speak of my captivity. You know already my argument to that."

  "You may have noticed him dashing a pitcher of ale into my brother's face, but very well, you ask for evil, not hot-tempered spite. I name his injuries to me, then."

  "Wha—Tristan, you were trying to kill him! Even a beast of the field is granted self-defense."

  "But when he inflicted this injury, the battle was already lost. He had no further hope of winning, he only wished to drag me with him into death. That is an evil thing. A true warrior, a true gentleman, would accept defeat with grace and dignity."

  "Perhaps, or perhaps a true warrior would fight to the last, and not surrender even with his final breath. In any case, your argument is moot; Braith's death was by no means assured, as you can see by his continued survival."

  "Thanks only to your intervention."

  "Well, your advantage was also thanks only to my intervention, which distracted him—"

  "What would you have of me, Ariana? Leave you here, to till soil and milk cows until you die of age?"

  "I would have you seek Braith's master!"

  "Braith's master—if there is any such man—is a figure of shadow and rumor. The only one who could tell us anything of him is the dragon himself, who denies that he even exists."

  "Because he is sworn to silence! But we have been mulling this problem, Braith and I. I think it is possible we could indeed communicate information, if I ask the right questions. He cannot speak directly of his master, but if we speak of unrelated matters, with unspoken understanding—"

  Owain, approaching the fire with a pitcher of milk to warm for us, stumbled, fell, and drenched us both.

  "Sorry, sorry! Oh, dear goodness, let me help with that—"

  "No, Owain, I think you have helped enough," I snapped, shoving his hands away. "Oh, I know it was an accident, but you have so many of the bloody things—no, truly, let me be!" I shook off his attempts to blot me with a towel. "Look to your brother, I shall return. Let me be."

  I shrugged off his hands, Tristan's protest, even Elaysius's anxious flutter, and marched outside into the rain.

  I stood several minutes, letting the rain wash away the sticky milk. It fell in earnest now, not storming yet, but with a promise of thunder and lightning in the dark underbellies of the farther clouds. It was cool, to be sure, and I was soon shivering, with my dress—an airy linen thing suited for working in the sun—now clinging like another skin. All reason dictated I return inside, but I could not bring myself to do so. Instead I made for the stable.

  Generally the stable doors stood open all day, that the horses might come and go as they pleased. I swung them shut behind me, to keep the wind and rain at bay, but one horse was inside already—white Winifred, the only one wise enough to seek shelter while the storm was still young. She pricked her ears on sight of me, and came forward seeking a treat.

  "Sorry, dear Winnie, I have none," I said, stroking her long face. "Such an excellent life a horse must lead! All grass, fresh air, gallops and bits of bread and fruit. No moral dilemmas, no intractable princes to persuade, no bad-tempered dragons to keep alive…"

  Winifred snorted and tossed her head.

  "Not so sure you have the better lot in life, eh? I suppose the lack of thumbs alone must be hard to bear."

  This time her snort sounded almost like a laugh, and I laughed too.

  "Keep your sense of humor, good Winifred, and life's troubles will have no power over you." I gave her a last pat and turned to wringing the water from my hair, once a braid, now only a waterlogged mess. My skirts I gave up on entirely and left in a sopping heap on the floor. I was immediately quite cold, of course, and sought shelter in the layer of blankets left in the hay for the stable's non-equine inhabitants.

  The hay-bed smelled strongly of dragon, of course, a very particular dragon—hot metal and woodsmoke, snow and crisp winter air. The sound of the rain lulled me into relaxation, then slumber. I dreamt of a warm room, snow blowing outside the windows, where Braith and I laughed together over a book, and our fathers played chess by the fire.

  "Now it is the princess who sleeps in the stable?"

  I gasped, choked on hay dust and horsehair, and was some time coughing and fighting free of the blankets—only to recall my half-clothed state and dive back under them again. "You are still alive, I see," I croaked, glaring at Braith.

  "Yes, and apparently in better condition than you. Do you need water? There is plenty of it, outside."

  I coughed again. "You are in a good mood."

  "I am, in fact, for I made good use of your sword after all."

  I straightened in alarm, but he waved a reassuring hand. "Oh, your prince is safe. I mean that I hunted—wild pig, most savory—and was able to eat my fill for the first time in many days. Already my wound feels the better for it."

  "You ate an entire pig?"

  "All but the bones."

  "Pray tell me you did not eat it raw."

  "Dragons do cook their meat, thank you. Though I admit I am unused to building a fire rather than merely breathing it—and in such rain! It was quite the endeavor, but well worth the result."

  My mind now clearing of sleep, I swaddled myself in blankets such that I might sit up without immodesty, and blinked at the darkness of the stable. The gleam of yellow dragon eyes was near the only light. How long had I dozed? With rain still beating on the walls, it was hard to figure the hour. "Speaking of fire," I said, "I don't suppose you have a candle?"

  "No candle," said he, "but there is a lamp on the wall here. I wager I can have it lit soon enough."

  He crossed the room to the lamp on its nail, and I heard him draw a deep breath, and another and another, ever deeper—reaching, I realized, for a spark to go with the copious smoke now scenting the room. At length he achieved it, and the wick burst into merry flame. Few materials could fail to burn when touched with dragon's fire.

  "How frightening it must be for humans," he said, sounding a bit winded as he carried the lamp nearer to me, "to have such weak eyes."

  "How frightening it must be for dragons," I replied, "to know that they are the pinnacle of creation, and can have no further goals to achieve."

  He only chuckled, setting the lamp nearby and pulling up the milking stool for a seat. His appearance was as bedraggled as my own, clothes wet and grimy, steam rising from his skin and hair (which hung in his face with only the faintest memory of a braid), but his movement was undeniably much easier. I would scarce be surprised now to find his skin entirely knit back together, if tender still.

  "Tell me now," he said, "how it is that I return from my day's banishment to find an unclothed maiden in my bed. I admit I am largely unfamiliar with human mating rituals, yet in this case the signals seem unmistakable."

  I sat open-mouthed, entirely too shocked to respond.

  He broke into such laughter as I thought must surely burst his wounds open again, laughed until tears s
treamed from his eyes and his breath whooped as he tried to draw air.

  "Oh, your face," he gasped. "Oh, I wish I could commission a painting, and keep it always!"

  "I think perhaps you spend your unoccupied hours dreaming up ways to offend me," I said with as much stiff dignity as I could gather.

  "Nay, no such planning is necessary, for something so easily come by." Limp with laughter, he slid off the stool, landing on his side in the hay, entirely too close to me. "Oh, Ari. Oh, you do lend joy to my life, in your way."

  "And you lend unprecedented levels of shock and irritation to mine."

  "I am glad we appreciate each other." He looked up at me with so pure and easy a smile—so unusual on his face—that I could not help returning it, though tempered with a goodly dose of exasperation.

  "Go back to your seat, laughing fool, rather than befoul the bed with your muddy clothes." I shoved his shoulder.

  Still chuckling, he put out a hand to push himself up—a hand that slipped in the hay, and came to rest against the bare skin of my back.

  His laughter stopped, and both our breath besides.

  He reasserted his attempt to stand. Did his fingers linger across my skin for every remotely excusable moment? Or did I only wish they had?

  What in the world was wrong with me?

  Thunder like tumbling boulders made us both jump, and Winifred in her open stall shifted uneasily.

  "Storming in truth, now," I said, my voice brightly artificial to my ears. "If you would, open the doors—the other horses and the cow may well be seeking shelter."

  I expected argument, this being Braith, but instead he hurried to obey, as if glad for a reason to go to the farther end of the stable.

  There were indeed a few horses waiting at the door with Bessie, and the stable filled with the smell of wet livestock as they filed in. Two of the horses came to investigate the strange hay bundle that smelled like Ariana; I laughed and pushed at their inquisitive noses. One, of course, was nervous, elegant Firefoot, demanding to be groomed of his mud and water immediately.

  "Very well, tyrant horse. I have spoiled you and now pay the price. I do so hate to embrace those wet skirts… Oh, Braith, look there! Gareth has left some clothes here. That corner, you see the barrel? There is a tunic there, and trousers…"

  Braith brought the clothes, the horses dodging him with their tails swishing; though somewhat accustomed to his presence by now, they were still not eager to stand near the smell of dragon. He turned away for me to dress, without my having to request it, stepping into Winifred's stall to pat the one horse who did not mind him at all.

  The clothes were none too clean, and fitted to someone shorter and thinner than I, but I was in no position to object. I could not remember ever wearing trousers before; they were most strange, more confining to the leg and yet giving more freedom of movement. The tunic came only partway down my thigh, so the trousers were a necessity; I should have to bear the strangeness.

  Once dressed, I called Braith permission to return, and turned to grooming Firefoot. "In answer to your question," I said, wondering if he had forgotten it as near-entirely as I, "I am in the stable because I quarreled—again—with Tristan, and stormed out in a sulk. We disagreed on the subject of you, as usual."

  "I apologize for proving such a wrench in your romantic plans," he said dryly.

  "It cannot be helped. But Tristan did, in fact, show some measure of interest in the idea that you might answer… that you might converse with me on irrelevant subjects of various sorts."

  "Aha." Braith settled again on the milking stool. "Very well, then, princess. Of what should we speak?"

  Chapter 9

  "We shall speak," I said carefully, "of nobility. How strange it is that a man earns the gratitude of his king, is granted lands and a title—and that his son inherits these things, and is called noble, having done nothing of himself to earn the description."

  "I feel most keenly," Braith said, "the injustice of such a situation."

  I itched to ask if dragons had similar customs, but that was not relevant. If I was to glean anything useful, I must take care to focus my questions. "You feel, then, that high birth is no true guarantee of gentility?"

  "I have seen with my own eyes," he said, "that the son of a nobleman may have no more honor than a pig in its stye, for all that he may call upon the honor of others."

  "I see," I murmured, bending to follow a slop of mud down Firefoot's foreleg. He sighed blissfully, the joy of being groomed quite overshadowing any anxiety caused by the storm. I heard, in memory, Gareth's voice—He is high, but not high enough. "There are degrees of nobility, of course. A lesser noble may be only a peasant in a grander cloak, but the truly high-born, those with generations of wealth and honor to their names, those surely are bred to uphold better standards?"

  "On the contrary," Braith said bitterly, "I have found that the higher a man's birth, the higher still he wishes to climb. Some would be unsatisfied with a place in any hierarchy that they did not head."

  Did he imply that his master's aim was a kingdom of his own? A dragon could be great help in a conqueror's war, but instead he had set his dragon as nursemaid to a young girl—

  I fumbled the brush, dropped it entirely, and followed it to sit upon the floor. Braith watched solemn-eyed.

  "Such a man," I said hoarsely, "might find there are two paths to such greatness. The first in arms—and the second—in marriage."

  Braith said nothing.

  "Any man, for instance, who rescued a princess from a dragon, might reasonably expect to wed her," I said. "And, should she happen to be heir, to then rule as king."

  Very deliberately, Braith said, "I cannot speak as to that."

  I stared down at my own legs, like alien creatures in their borrowed trousers. My breath hitched and heaved, torn between sobs and laughter. The master's mysterious motive, at which I had wondered so desperately... why, it was perfectly obvious. I had not thought of it only because I was betrothed, and had no knowledge of my father's offer of my hand.

  But then why had he not come? Why would this man take but one step down his path to greatness? I was imprisoned that he might rescue me, yet rescue did not come.

  Because I had a brother. No sooner did my father declare the traditional reward for my rescue, then he had a son. I was not desired for myself, after all, but for my kingdom. A kingdom that belonged now to Edric.

  "He will never come, will he?" I whispered. "I am useless to him now. Will he leave me captive until my death? Or—speed my death along, to regain the use of his dragon?" In the which case, there was but one underling to charge with the task.

  The eyes I raised to Braith's must have been more fearful than I realized, for he visibly flinched. "I am charged with your protection," he said. "That has not changed."

  Yet remained unspoken.

  "An ambitious man, of course," he continued, "throws nothing away until he is quite certain he can make no use of it."

  And Edric was young still, and had been a sickly babe. The thought occurred that it might not be my death that was sped along, and a new and more hideous fear gripped me. Perhaps I loved my brother after all—though the death of even a stranger's child would be sickening, for such a cause.

  Edric will not be murdered, I assured myself, for we will defeat this master before any such plan can be accomplished.

  Firefoot nosed my shoulder, impatient for the continuance of his grooming. I stood, clumsy with tangled thought, and resumed brushing. Silence reigned for some minutes as I gathered my composure.

  "How chilling," I said at last, "to think I might have met men of such cold-blooded ambition at my own home court."

  "To my knowledge," Braith said, "the court of Caibryn harbors none such."

  That was a relief—yet, too, a disappointment, for it would have put us a step closer to this master's identity.

  "Though you have doubtless encountered them elsewhere," Braith added.

  True enough, I ha
d had contact with any number of visiting dignitaries and foreign fosterlings, both in Caibryn and on my visits to Dewgent. Any of them might have seen in me an opportunity to advance himself, and what matter to him the cost to my family and myself? My grooming of Firefoot grew vigorous as I imagined the faces of a hundred half-remembered childhood acquaintances, wondering which had decided to marry me, and thus ruin my life.

  And if I had not had a brother, where might I be now? Married to a man I thought my rescuer? Mother, by now, of his child? Would I be happy, imagining he loved me? Or would I silently long for another?

  A tiny whispering voice in my middle asked, Which other?

  "Have you no more questions, Ari?" Braith asked.

  "No, I think we have quite exhausted the topic for tonight," I said. "I have… much to consider, before I may discuss it further. Besides, I feel I should return to the tower, before the others grow too anxious."

  "Anxious? I daresay they are all sleeping. The hour is quite late. And the rain, as you can hear, continues unabated. You had much better stay here."

  "No, indeed, I would much rather go."

  "You may have the bed, if that is your concern."

  "Off with you, Firefoot, that is all the brushing you will get tonight. Good-night, Star, Winifred, Bessie—yes, all of you, good-night!" I waved merrily at the livestock, put away the brush, and moved to the door.

  Braith stood before it. "Ariana, it is pure lunacy for you to venture out in this. Only hear how the wind howls—and you damp and chilled already."

  "So it will be only more of the same. And it is not two minutes' walk."

  "On rocky hillside, in the dark."

  "Believe me, Braith, I could walk these hillsides blindfolded and with my hands tied." I tried to push past him, but he did not budge. "Oh, do move aside!"

  "Very well, catch your death and spare me a burden!"

  "I thank you." I pushed the door open, and the wind nearly pulled it from my hand, dashing a cold handful of rain into my eyes. "There, you see, it is nothing at all!" I shouted over the howl, and stepped out.