Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

"And?" I prompted her. "What happened then?" She gave no sign of having heard, and I stood up and went to her, standing beside her. She paid me no heed. "Shelagh? What happened then, after the eagle came?" She turned to look up at me, frowning and shaking her head as though unable to remember, but I persisted. "You said an eagle came, upon a broadening beam of light. What then?"

"It killed the dominant wolf, a giant, and then stripped the coat from its back with its great talons. . . and underneath its coat, the wolf had green dragon scales, and it roared its breath of fire at the eagle, burning its feathers, burning it to death, and as it fell dying, the eagle, too, became a dragon- shape, crimson with its own blood. And the light faded, and I saw you, standing among the shadows, masked in almost darkness, and all else disappeared but you, with the crimson dragon bleeding on your shoulder and the great eagle itself, fully restored, perched upon your wrist."

As I stood there listening, my heart pounding, I realized that she had no more to tell me. I swallowed hard and stepped back from her, looking around me for my cup of mead. It sat on the floor by my chair, where I had no recollection of having placed it. I stepped to it and picked it up. It was empty. Breathing a great sigh, I crossed to the small table and poured a fresh supply for both of us, after which I returned to my chair and sat down.

"Shelagh," I said. "Come, join me."

She moved back to sit beside me again, taking the cup I offered her. We sat for a spell in silence, and then I asked her the question in my mind.

"You have no idea of what it means?"

"No." Her voice was still subdued with the memory of her dream. She looked at me. "Have you?"

I gusted a sigh. "No, I have not, although there are some elements of it that might make sense, in a demented way."

"Oh?" Her tone was livelier now, responding to my reference to dementia. "And what are those?"

"The animals, some of them at least. I myself might be the bear. It is my symbol. But I am only one bear; you saw two and I know of no other. Uther, my cousin, who is dead now, wore the symbol of the dragon, but his was red, not green. Lot, King of Cornwall, whom I believe Uther slew, had for his sign the boar. But there it ends. Of bulls and wolves and eagles I have no knowledge." I sighed again. "It is nonsense. I have the same problem with the dreams I dream, and they are less succinct than yours. Most often, it is only after seeing the things I dreamed about that I become aware of having dreamed at all. You are the only other person I have ever known to share the curse, and I had begun to hope for a moment there, having found you, that your dreams might be more intelligible than mine. Obviously I was wrong." As I spoke, we heard loud voices outside in the rain, and both sat up straighter, almost guiltily. "Here comes your father, so we will speak no more of this tonight," I said. "But if we have the chance, let's talk again when we can do it safely." Shelagh nodded and then rose and left the room hurriedly, exiting through the screens that masked the other end of the dwelling. I crossed idly to the fire again, where I stood gazing into the heart of the blaze, puzzling over Shelagh's dream and awaiting the entry of Liam and Donuil.

When they stomped in, muffled in close-wrapped cloaks and dripping wet, I eyed them closely, seeing the failure of their mission in their bearing and the air of weary frustration that hung about them.

"Oh, you're still here?" Liam began to unwind the cloak from about his shoulders as Donuil barred the heavy door behind them.

"Aye, are you surprised? You asked me to wait and you have not been gone that long. You didn't find him?"

Donuil's loud sniff was eloquent, and he crossed in front of me to spit violently into the fire before responding otherwise. "No," he growled then. "No sign of him. We might have passed him in the dark, lying dead or unconscious somewhere, but I doubt it. There were six of us and we searched thoroughly, though we were damnably hampered by the rain and mud. I think he's gone."

"Gone? Gone where? Shelagh says he is a creature of habit, never known to change his settled ways."

"And Shelagh's right, he is," Liam put in. "But even cattle can change their habits." He dropped the last of his sodden outer garments and crossed directly to the table where the mead sat in its jug, then poured out two fresh cups, looking at me with a raised brow to see if I would have some. I shook my head and he busied himself in bringing a cup to Donuil, who still stared into the fire. "The problem is," Liam went on, "that once a bullock or a cow changes its pattern, a mere man has little chance of understanding the change, or predicting its outcome." He sipped his drink loudly, then gasped in appreciation of the silken warmth of the mead.

"So? Are you saying he has absconded?"

Liam looked at me with a small, bitter smile. "Absconded? To where? No, Master Merlyn, I am saying merely that we were unable to find him. He might have wandered farther from his path than is his habit. If he did, and if he is to be found at all, it will have to wait until daylight. We will sleep now for a few hours, and search again at daybreak."

"I'll come with you."

His eyes travelled the length of me, from head to toe, and he smiled. "Not in those clothes, you won't."

I had forgotten how I was dressed, and now I returned his smile. "Of course not," I agreed. "I'll return before you leave."

"I don't think you should, Cay," Donuil muttered, almost inaudibly.

I looked at him in surprise. "Why not? Another pair of eyes will aid your search."

"We have no shortage of pairs of eyes. I'd rather you stayed here. There's something wrong, something beyond the loss of Rud."

I looked quickly to Liam and saw his gaze sharpen, his brow furrow as he seemed to lean towards Donuil. "What do you mean?" I asked, though my eyes remained fixed on Liam.

Donuil turned now to face me. "I don't know what I mean. But something is amiss, I feel it in my belly. Rud's vanishing is one thing, perhaps easily explained. We will know quickly, come morning. But in the meantime, something else is nagging at me, annoying me, something I ought to know, yet have missed seeing in the passing."

I heard a sound behind me as Shelagh came back into the room, and when she spoke I knew she had overheard what Donuil said. "You think there are enemies out there?"

Donuil looked at her and shrugged. "There could be. Have you ever felt yourself being watched, Cay?"

Shelagh answered for me. "By whom?"

"By someone, or some animal, that remains hidden."

I immediately recalled the feeling I had had the first time I discovered my brother Ambrose watching me, in Verulamium before we met face to face.

"I know that feeling," I replied. "It is unmistakable."

"Aye, well I had it tonight, while we were searching in the forest."

"Pshaw!" Liam's voice sounded relieved somehow, as though some kind of tension had been removed from it. "That was mere night nerves! I felt something of the like myself, but it was only because, even with our torches, the place was black as the pit. 'Twas nerves, nothing more."

"No, Liam, it was not. I know the difference. The lad who left here five years ago has grown up now, and can distinguish between fear and fancy. I felt we were being watched."

"By whom, then, lad? Who would be watching us, rooting about there in the dark? Rud himself, unwilling to be found?"

Donuil shrugged helplessly, looking to me for aid, but I had not been there. I could only shake my head. "I don't know, Donuil, but say you were right, and you were being watched, who could it have been, apart from Rud? An enemy? A single enemy? What could he hope to achieve, other than being caught? Did you look about you?"