“Remember how Liandra could sooth the little thing? How she would call up to the window for us to watch as she rubbed his belly? He would lie on his back with his eyes closed and purr like a kitten. He would watch for her, run to her when she came into the courtyard … Why do we want to kill them Imelda? Don’t you think about what it must have been like before our people came here, when the Dragon Priestesses of the Earth People knew how to tame them?”
Imelda shrugged her shoulders and watched her former mistress, whose eyes were far away.
Chapter 49: Maida
Mother Peg and Rafe came home just after midnight. “That looks better,” Mother Peg said when she saw Liandra wearing her new outfit. Then when Liandra helped Maida prepare food for them, Peg’s eyebrows rose up to her hairline.
When they had eaten, Liandra picked up a folded length of linen she had left on the stairs. “Rafe,” she said, “I think you need a new shirt.” Maida and Mother Peg looked at the one he was wearing. She was right; it was pretty ragged. Rafe grunted his delight at being the centre of attention. Liandra told him to stand up and hold out his arms. He hesitated. “Don’t worry,” she reassured him. “I won’t hurt you. It’s just so I can make you a new shirt.” She unfolded the length of homespun linen. “See?” Rafe grinned, delighted, straightened his back and held his arms out as far as he could. Liandra began to work with a length of cord, tying knots to mark the measurements she was making.
“You do know what you’re doing,” Peg remarked.
“All the girls at the castle have to learn how to sew,” Liandra said. “Silly, since the servants make all our clothes.” She continued to work. “Yes, that’s right,” she said, “At the Castle.”
“Pardon?” Maida asked.
“I’m talking to Rafe,” Liandra told her.
Maida studied the pair of them. Rafe did not seem to be communicating. In fact, he was staring out the window as he stood with his arms held straight out. Suddenly she realized that Liandra was talking to her. “Does Rafe have a longer name?”
“I don’t know,” Maida said. “We named him Rafe. Is he telling you what his name was before?”
Liandra stopped working and frowned in concentration. “There’s something,” she said. “Something long … but I can’t make it all out.”
“Surely she can no longer deny she is pregnant,” Mother Peg said when she and Maida had retreated to the stable.
“No, she’s accepted it now,” Maida told her, “And I don’t think she was quite as innocent about men as she made herself out to be.”
Mother Peg studied her servant sharply. “Do I see a sparkle in your eyes?” Maida flushed darker and looked down. Damn her mistress for being able to read her mind!
Peg chucked, then became serious again. “Maida, is this wise? She is Anglewart’s daughter, destined to marry a Prince. There are things she should not know, including the woman-love of the Earth Mother. Many King’s people think that’s a myth, and we encourage them to think it. Their Warrior God is not kind to women who touch other women.”
“I know,” Maida responded, troubled, but that night Peg noticed that the pallet by the hearth remained folded neatly away.
Chapter 50: Melisande
Melisande approached the Head Mother and knelt to kiss her hand. “Rise, daughter,” Mother Mabonne told her. “Come, be seated.”
Melisande took one of the comfortable chairs set in a small circle in front of the Head Mother’s desk. The room was better appointed than most in the Women’s Retreat House, but by Castle standards, it was still a very simple room.
The Head Mother did not go back to her seat behind the desk, as Melisande expected she would, but sat in another chair in the circle. “I hear good things about you,” Mother Mabonne told her. “The embroidery mistress is delighted with your work and Imelda’s too. She says she can assign the two of you to anything, no matter how difficult, and you do a perfect job of it.”
“Thank you, Mother, although I wouldn’t say perfect.”
“Also the Sister teaching you to read and write says you are an eager pupil and learning fast.”
“Thank you, Mother.”
“Are you happy here?”
Melisande looked up at her for the first time and smiled. “I am.”
“I am glad of it. Now, what can I do for you?”
“Mother, I have a favour to ask, a very large favour.” The older woman nodded, waited. “My only grief in leaving my old life and coming here is my eldest daughter, Liandra. A Queen loses her sons at the age of ten, when they go to the barracks to become soldiers, but her daughters are close to her until they are seventeen, eighteen, perhaps nineteen or twenty. Even after they are married, they come to visit, and a mother is usually allowed to visit as well, especially when a daughter goes to child-bed.”
“You grieve that your daughter believes you are dead.”
“I do. She is the only one I have left.”
“So what do you propose?”
“Liandra is currently visiting relatives in the Eastlands. As soon as she comes home, she will be married to Lochiel, Second Prince of the Southlands. On the way home, her party will be very small and they plan to stay at inns along the way.”
“And you propose to cross her path at one of those inns?”
“Yes. No one in her party will know me. I will simply be a travelling Widow from the Women’s Retreat House.”
“A rare enough occurrence to draw attention.”
“But it happens.”
“Yes, sometimes it happens. And what of Liandra? The agreement with your husband … that is, your former husband, is that if knowledge of your true identity goes beyond the five people who know already, we stand to lose our lives. Knowing the King, I have no doubt that he would keep his word.”
“I trust Liandra. She learned court politics young. All children of a King do. And why would she want to put my life at risk, or Imelda, who raised her, or her own, for that matter?”
“True. What of the cost? Such a journey would bring the expense of a carriage, a travelling party, inns.”
“How much money did my husband … former husband, that is, give to the Women’s Retreat House for my upkeep here? For all his ambition and cruelty, he is very generous.”
Head Mother Mabonne opened her mouth to respond, then closed it again. She rose to her feet. “This is a risky thing you ask.”
Melisande slid from the chair to her knees. She clenched her hands and put all of her longing into the look she gave her superior. “Please.”
The two women remained in that position, eyes locked, for a long moment before Mother Mabonne began slowly moving her head from side to side. “You are convincing, my Daughter, but the risks are too great. I cannot possibly allow such a thing.”
Chapter 51: Gleve
One early morning Lynna and Gleve were returning from setting a farmer's broken arm. The journey had taken them far to the east and they had stayed over several days with the farmer's family, both because of the distance, and because they wanted to be sure the infection that had set in before they arrived was under control. Lynna asked questions all the way home, stopping only when the lights of the cottage appeared through the woods.
Father Mallory met them at the door, kissing both of them on the cheek. Keiran sat by the hearth. He and Gleve greeted one another with a wary nod before Gleve’s eyes dropped to the stones of the hearth itself. They were covered with drawings. He walked over to look and shuddered. A moment later Lynna came down from the loft where she had deposited her pack and, responding to the silence, came over to look as well. "Oh!" she exclaimed.
The stones on the floor in front of the hearth were covered with Dragons. These were not just the vague shapes one usually saw in artwork, or in the badly worn stone sculptures that survived from the Old Times. These Dragons were fully formed. They curled gracefully and ominously around one another, with every scale, every point along the ridge of the spine, every toe and claw, every whisker
and tongue drawn in awesome detail. Their eyes glittered not only with sharp awareness, but with a range of expressions--curiosity, malvolence, humour, wariness.
"Where did these come from?" Gleve finally asked.
"Keiran drew them," Father Mallory told him.
Gleve looked at Keiran, who shrugged his shoulders. "I suddenly remembered what they look like. I don't know how I know, but I started to see them."
"He took a piece of charcoal out of the fire," Father Mallory said, "Fell to his knees and started to draw. He kept it up for hours."
"These aren't beginner's drawings either," said Gleve. "Do you remember being an artist?"
"I must have been," said Keiran.
Chapter 52: Jessa
Jessa heard the soft brushing of linen hem on stone. The sound stopped as the day-watch Sister paused at the door of her tiny stone cell. She heard the wooden cover of the peephole slide up, then back down, and the swishing gown continued on its way.
A moment later the door softly opened and closed again. Jessa sat up. It was Ev, shivering in her light nightdress and bare feet.
“What’s wrong?” Jessa whispered.
“I can’t sleep.”
“But the day-watch sister …”
“She’s just gone by.”
“I know, but she’ll be back soon.”
“I left my blankets piled up so it looks like I’m in the bed.”
Jessa giggled. It was usually her role to come up with rule-breaking schemes. “Come here,” she said, holding up the edge of her blanket. Ev ran the few steps to the cot and climbed in. “Yikes, your feet are cold!” Jessa complained. “We’ll have to look like one person,” she whispered, snuggling close and pulling the blanket over their heads. They stifled giggles.
Becoming serious again, Jessa asked, “Why can’t you sleep?” Ev was silent. “It’s something to do with that old Healer woman, isn’t it? And the reason you tried to escape? What’s going on, Ev?”
“I can’t tell. It’s a secret.”
“But I’m your friend!”
“I know, but it’s between me and my mother, a promise I made when she was dying. I haven’t kept it … yet.”
“But she’s dead.”
“It’s still a promise.” A few moments of silence went by then, “Jessa.”
“Um hm.”
“How does the Lady Merrit know so much, like about Healers, things King’s People usually don’t know?”
“She’s strange.”
“She watches you all the time.”
“I know. It feels weird.” They fell silent and Ev began to doze off. Jessa shook her shoulder. “Tell me your secret.”
“No.”
“If you don’t tell me, you’re not my friend.”
“Jessa, that’s not fair.”
“Tell me.”
Both girls froze as the day-watch Sister passed in the hallway. As soon as her steps faded away, Ev said, “No.”
Jessa gave her a firm push out of the bed. “You’d better go.”
Chapter 53: Maida
One early morning, Liandra, Maida, Peg and Rafe sat at the table sharing the morning meal before Rafe and Maida went out to settle the animals and Rafe in the barn for the day. Their plates were filled with vegetables from the garden spiced with slices of sausage from Liandra’s box, their cups filled with goat’s milk. In the midst of satisfied chewing and scraping of spoons on pottery, Liandra suddenly asked, “Can you tell me about the Dragon Priestesses?”
Mother Peg looked startled, narrowed her eyes at Maida, who shrugged and shook her head.
“What do you already know about Dragon Priestesses?” Peg asked, a sharp edge to her voice.
Liandra looked up at her, surprised and confused. “Is that something I shouldn’t have said?”
“No, it’s all right,” Maida told her. “We just don’t talk about them much because during the time when the Kings were killing them it was dangerous.
“Rafe said something,” Liandra told her. “Something about the bond was between the Little Dragons and the Dragon Priestesses. Sort of like a deep love.”
All three women turned to stare at Rafe. He had been bent over his plate, intent on shovelling the last of the good stew into his mouth with his spoon. Suddenly the centre of attention, he straightened, looked from one of them to another, first wary, then delighted that all eyes were on him. He broke into his characteristic grin.
“From everything I have heard, I believe that is right,” said Mother Peg in a low voice. “I think it was the closeness of their bond and, in turn, the closeness of the bond between the Little Dragons and their cousins, the Great Dragons, that allowed them all to make the Agreement, so we could share the Land in peace together for so many generations.”
“They must have been powerful women,” Liandra said. “More powerful even than my father. I bet they could do anything they wanted.”
“Not quite,” Peg told the Princess. “The Dragon Priestesses committed their whole lives to their work of communicating with the Dragons, resolving conflicts and breaches of the Agreement, tending the cattle to feed the Dragons. They had little life of their own in which to do ‘whatever they wanted.’”
“But the power to direct Dragons …”
“It’s a different kind of power. It’s not the power to make people do as you say, like your father’s power. It’s more like a power that’s given to you to serve the people, and the Dragons, and in turn it owns you. It tells you what to do.”
“Really? What a life! Just like a servant!”
Mother Peg sighed. “Not quite, because it was a choice to serve. And think of what they had in return. Every account I have ever heard says that the Dragon Priestesses were loving, wise, deeply satisfied women, and they had a strong community among themselves. Just think, in all those generations, none of their secrets got out, one little bit. Think of what kind of trust was involved in that.”
“Why were they all women?” Liandra asked. “Men can be Healers, even though most are women, and the Leaders were both women and men, weren’t they?”
“Yes they were,” Mother Peg told her. “No one I’ve ever spoken to, or read, has been able to say why only women became Dragon Priestesses. It was part of the secret.”
Chapter 54: Melisande
Melisande bent over an embroidery frame in her room, carefully stitching a Dragon’s eye, thinking about how many more colours there were in the real thing than one could possibly create with needle and thread. She straightened and turned when the door opened behind her. It was Ev, a bucket of cleaning equipment in her hand. “Oh,” she said when she saw Melisande, stopping in the act of stepping into the room. “I didn’t know you were here. I’ll come back later.”
“No, no, my dear. Clean it now. You won’t bother me. Where is Jessa?”
“In the kitchen.”
Melisande studied the young servant’s unhappy face. “I haven’t seen the two of you together for some time. Is something wrong?”
“No, Lady Merrit.” Ev’s whole demeanour denied the words, but Melisande knew better than to pry further.
“So you must clean all the rooms alone?”
“It’s no problem, Lady.” With that Ev turned her attention to her work. A minute later, so did Melisande.
Suddenly Melisande felt watched. She realized that she had not heard movement behind her for some time, although Ev was still in the room. She turned. The young woman was watching her, twisting a cleaning cloth in her hands.
“Is there something you want to say, Ev?” Melisande asked, shifting to face her.
“I want to ask you … how do you know about Healers? I mean People of the … Earth Healers?”
“I don’t know any personally.”
“How did you know how to send that package to Mother Peg? Do you know where she lives?”
“I’m afraid not. It was your aunt who knew how to send the package.”
“Oh.”
Ev worked the cle
aning cloth between her hands. Melisande broke the tense silence. “Ev, my dear, why did you try to run away?”
Ev twisted the cloth harder. “My mother,” she said. “I was eight years old when she died. She taught me something, a sort of poem, made me repeat it over and over again. When the time is right, when the Old Ones send for me, I’m supposed to tell them the poem. An Old One has sent for me, but I can’t leave.”
“Why didn’t your mother give the poem to one of the Old Ones herself?”
“She was a bond-servant, Lady. She couldn’t leave her household any more than I can leave here, and besides, no one sent for her. It wasn’t time.”
“Can you get someone to write it down?”
“I’m not supposed to tell it to anyone else, just one of the Old Ones.”
“Oh.” Melisande knew she shouldn’t push farther, but could not help herself. “Is it something about Healing? Herbs or spells or something?”
“No, Lady. It’s … like directions to go somewhere. There’s a traveller, sort of, in it.”
“Sometimes poems with travellers in them are about a spiritual journey.”
“Are they?” Puzzlement crossed Ev’s face. “I always thought they were real directions … Is there a place called Theta’s Well?”
“Yes there is. I went through there many times when I was young. It’s a good, fresh well at a clearing where several roads and paths meet. It’s been an important stopping-place for travellers for many generations. There’s a small market there, a blacksmith shop and an inn. Is it in the poem?”
Ev nodded. As if she felt she had said too much she quickly gathered up her bucket and left.
Chapter 55: Gleve
As they shared the morning meal in the presence of the Dragons sketched on the hearthstones, somethin teased the edge Gleve's memory. Finally it popped to the surface. "Keiran, when you came back from your journey to Hanford … tell us again what your neighbour told you. Wasn't there something about King Anglewart's expedition to search for the Little Dragons?"
Keiran looked blank for a moment, then understanding dawned. "Yes! It's true. She said I was wanted because I had deserted from the King's service during the expedition to search for Dragons!" He looked at Gleve, awe written on his face. "That's why I was so far north with other King's Men. That's why I know what Dragons look like. What an amazing memory you have."