Katie MacAlister: Love in the Time of Dragons

Kaawa left, and I spent a pleasant hour clearing out the chrysanthemum, amaryllis, and saffron sprouts, worrying all the while about what had become of my life.

“Where is she?” The roar reached me, even hidden from view as I was in the farthest corner of the stable, behind the broken wagon that Dew, the smith, was supposed to have mended months ago.

The doors to the stable slammed shut with a force that I felt in the timbers behind my back. The horses inside with me protested with startled snorts and whinnies. Hastily, I set down the two kittens I had been nuzzling for comfort, returning them to their anxious mother before dusting off my knees and picking my way through the gloom of the stable. The man’s voice was deep, and he spoke in French, not the English of the serfs, but there was an accent to his voice that I had never heard.

“Where are you hiding her?”

Anger was rich in that voice, anger and something else, something I couldn’t define. I patted Abelard, my mother’s gelding, and slipped beside him to peek out through a rotten bit of wood next to his manger, watching as the warrior-mage stomped across the bailey, my father and mother trailing behind him.

“We are not hiding anyone, my lord,” Papa said, his tone apologetic.

My mouth dropped open in surprise. Papa never apologized to anyone! He was a famous mage, one of so much renown that other mages travelled for months just to consult with him. And yet here he was, following the warrior around, bleating like a sheep that had lost its dam.

“Kostya saw her,” the warrior snarled, spinning around to glare at Papa, the tall guards moving in a semicircle behind him. “Do you call us liars?” “No, my lord, never that!” Papa wrung his hands, my mother next him looking pale and frightened. “If you will just come back inside the hall, I will explain to you—” “Explain what? That you are holding a dragon prisoner, a female dragon of tender years?” “She is not a prisoner—” Papa started to say, but I stopped listening for a moment. A dragon? Here? I had heard tales of such beings, but had never seen one. Margaret told me they did not really exist, that it was just a bit of foolishness spoken by men who had too much wine, but once I had overheard my mother talking to her maid about a female dragon she had befriended in her youth. Perhaps Mama had hidden her here all these years. Who could it be? Leah, the nurse who tended both Margaret and me? One of my mother’s serving women? The flatulent Lady Susan?

“I just wager you it’s her,” I told Abelard. “She is very dragonlike.” “Bring her forth!” the warrior demanded, and I pushed Abelard’s head aside in order to get a better view of the bailey, watching with bated breath to see the dragon.

“My lord, there are circumstances that you are not aware of. Ysolde has no knowledge of her ancestry. We have sheltered her as best we could, indeed, raised her as our own daughter—” My skin crawled. My blood curdled. My brain exploded inside my head. I stared at Papa, my papa, the papa I had known for my entire life, unable to believe my ears.

“—she has been protected from those who would ill use her, as sworn by my lady wife to the dragon who bore her here.” “Me?” I said, touching my throat when my voice came out no more than a feeble squeak. “I’m a dragon?” “That is none of my concern,” the warrior said now, his voice thick with menace. “She is a dragon, and evidently of age. She belongs with her own kind, not with humans.” My own kind? Scaly, long-tailed, fire-breathing monsters? A sob of denial caught in my throat, the noise almost inaudible, and yet as I stood there reeling from the verbal blows my father — the man I thought of as my father — dealt me, the warrior spun around, the gaze of his black eyes so piercing, I could swear he could see straight through the wood of the stable.

Run , my mind told me as the man started forward toward the stable doors, and I knew at that moment that he was one of them. He was a monster the like of which I’d never seen. My brain didn’t wait for me to absorb that knowledge. Flee , it urged. Flee!

I didn’t stop to question the wisdom of that command. I spun on my heels, racing down the narrow aisle of the stable to the far corner, where a small window had been cut in order to pass hay through from the fields. I wasn’t fast enough, however, not if the roar of fury that followed me was anything to go by.

“Stop!” the warrior bellowed as I leaped through the window, not even pausing as I hit the ground hard before I was off again, racing around the pens holding the animals to be slaughtered, dashing between the small huts housing craftsmen and their families, dodging chickens, dogs, and occasionally serfs as I raced for the postern gate along the west curtain.

“Lady Ysolde,” John, the man on guard at the gate, called in surprise as I rounded a cart loaded with wool destined for the market, not even slowing down as I flung myself past him and through the postern gate. “Are you off to the village — hey, now! Who are you, and what right do you have to be chasing Lady Ysol — oof!” I didn’t stop to see how John fared, although I sent up a small prayer that he hadn’t been hurt by the warrior. I ran along the rocky outcropping that led down into the village, the moat not coming around to this face of the castle since it would be impossible for anyone to scale the cliffs that hugged the west and south sides. Behind me I heard the noise of pursuit, but I had always been fast on my feet, and I dug deep for speed as I leaped down the last of the rocks and headed for the trees beyond the village. They marked the edge of the thick forest where I had spent many an hour, wandering pathways known to only a few. If I could just make it there, then I could hide from the warrior… and then what?

I didn’t stop to answer that question. I just knew that I needed to be by myself, to absorb the strangeness that had suddenly gripped me. And I couldn’t do that with the intense, black-haired dragon storming around me.

He was still behind me as I skirted a newly plowed field, ignoring the calls of greeting from the serfs as I raced by, intent on my goal, greeting the dappled shade of the outer fringes of the forest with relief. I’d made it, no doubt due to the extra weight the warrior wore in the form of his armor. I risked a quick look behind me as I sped around an ancient birch tree. The warrior was about thirty feet behind me, but just beyond him, his guards approached on horseback, leading his horse.

“By the rood!” I swore to myself as I leaped over a downed tree trunk, heading for the densest part of the forest.

The sounds of pursuit were muted in the calm of the forest. Birdsong rose high above me as the swallows dipped and spun in the sunlight, making elegant arcs in the air. Patches of sunlight shone here, and I slowed down, trying to control my breathing, picking through the muffled noises of the animals of the forest as they went about their business. Somewhere near, a badger was snuffling along the ground, disturbing earth and fallen leaves. A woodpecker drilled a few yards away, while farther afield, foliage rustled and snapped as a large animal, probably a stag or hind, grazed. In the distance, the jangling of horses’ harnesses was audible. I smiled to myself at that, pleased that the growth was too thick for the warrior’s men to ride through.

I was just looking around for a suitable tree that I could climb and hide myself in when a man’s voice sounded, uncomfortably near. “Where are you, chérie ? You do not need to be afraid of me. I will not hurt you.” I snorted to myself, trying to pinpoint the origin of the voice. Usually I had very good hearing, but the denseness of the trees and sounds of the forest combined to muffle the warrior’s voice, making it hard to judge where he was.