Dragon Tree Read online

  Without thinking of the consequences, the friar had hastily outfitted Amie in peasant’s clothing, tucked her hair under a worn felt hat and, after pausing in the chapel and praying for forgiveness, had removed the coins from the bishop’s box.

  Bundling Amie in a cloak, he had taken her out of the castle through the postern gate. They had made their way south through the forest, heading in the direction of Kent and the abbey at Exeter. Guilford knew the prioress there, knew the holy mother would shield Elizabeth Amaranth de Langois with the last breath in her body if need be. Moreover, Exeter was nearly a hundred miles away, far enough that whispers of Amaranth’s whereabouts might not reach the ears of her hunters.

  The first night they had stopped to beg respite at a small cottage. Upon seeing the dazzled look in the farmer's eye when he beheld Amie’s silvery blonde mane, the friar had mixed a paste of burnt acorns, coal dust, and lard and applied it thickly to her hair. Darkened to a dull brown, the disguise took them anonymously through several more days of hard walking before a storm caught them out in the open one night. Amie had wakened with a chill, so stiff she could hardly stand, leaving Friar Guilford no choice but to beg shelter for her in the humble vill. He left here there, feverish and exhausted, and set out for the castle at Taniere, having been told he might buy a cart or a horse there.

  Odo de Langois, had come upon him the next day.

  “I defend her,” Friar Guilford said, turning and looking Odo calmly in the eye, “because no one else will. Certainly not you.”

  Odo tipped his head, his eyes narrowing with the curiosity of a hawk tracking a mouse. “You cast insults, Priest, like a man who is not afraid to die.

  “Do your best,” Guilford said wearily. “And cease your tiresome threats.”

  “My best?” Odo’s mouth spread in a grin. “Ah, Priest, you have not seen my best. Not by half. My little whore-wife will, however. She will live long enough to rue the day she ever lifted a hand against me. But I am a generous man and make you a final offer: Tell me where you have hidden her and I will release your bonds. I will let you walk away from here unmolested.”

  Friar Guilford frowned and glanced at his feet, swollen to twice their size from the tightness of the ropes around his ankles; he knew he would never be walking anywhere ever again. “I will do nothing to help you find the Lady Elizabeth. I will pray instead to God that she runs fast, runs far, and that she never needs to lay eyes upon an animal like you again in this or any other lifetime.”

  Odo’s eyes kindled with sharp points of light and he pushed to his feet.

  “Then I expect your usefulness is at an end,” he said quietly. Quicker than the eye could follow the motion, he drew his dagger, leaned down, and slashed it across the Friar’s neck from ear to ear. He watched the blood bubble out and spill down the front of the brown cassock and when it slowed to a trickle, when the priest’s head had slumped to the side and the last breath had foamed between his lips, Odo spat noisily on the ground and turned to Rolf.

  “Fetch that pike. We will leave the good priest spitted here as a warning to God Himself that nothing and no one will stand in my way.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The second time Amaranth woke up, when her head was clear and not clouded by pain, it was easier. Someone had hung a kettle of broth to simmer over the fire and the contents filled the air with the heady scent of stewing beef and onions. There was still an element of fear over the unknown—where was she? Who were these men?—but it was tempered by the knowledge that she was not strapped to a subjugator’s table, nor were there hot irons and pincers waiting to tear at her flesh. She was no longer stretched out on a table either for that matter; she had been moved to a clean, whitewashed chamber, placed on a mattress stuffed thick with fresh, sweet-smelling rushes. There was also light. A great deal of light, most of it streaming from a large mullioned window recessed in the wall beside the bed.

  Amie lifted her head. There were no fancy trappings on the walls, no tapestries, no painted roses. The chamber itself was bare but for a few practical pieces of furniture: a writing table, a chair, a three-legged stool. There was a stone fireplace set into the far wall, the opening as tall as a man and as wide as would require three long strides to cross from one side to the other. A log the size of a small tree trunk burned inside, heating the contents of the iron pot that hung suspended on an iron tripod.

  Amie shifted tentatively and tried to worm herself higher on the pillow. Her injured shoulder ached, but the pain no longer tore the breath from her body when she moved. Whatever magical herbs Marak used in his poultices were working to heal the wound and give motion back to her arm.

  Beneath the pile of warm furs that covered her, she was no longer naked either. She was dressed in a plain white sheath, the sleeves long and the neckline high to her chin. Her hair had been combed out of the plait and washed; it spread over the feather-stuffed bolster like a soft russet fan.

  Amie’s hand rose to pluck a few strands from her temple and drew them forward.

  Definitely russet. Washing had nearly eradicated the concoction of stains and pastes Friar Guilford had used to camouflage the true color of her hair.

  She heard a sound at the door and lay quickly back. Closing her eyes, she tried to relax her face and feign sleep, but the temptation, after she heard soft footsteps pass by the bed, was too great and she raised her lashes a slit.

  It was a woman. She was slight of frame and dark-skinned, wearing long, flowing layers of silk that shimmered where the light caught each rippled step. Her head was covered with a veil that trailed over her shoulders, the edges embroidered with gold thread. Following close on her heels, one eye warily fixed on the bed, was a small boy no more than three or four years old. Huge brown eyes filled his face and as he walked, he kept one hand on the woman’s robe, the other clutched around a carved wooden horse.

  The woman paused by the fire and stirred the broth. She murmured something to the boy in a strange language and he released her robe and ran over to the window embrasure. He scrambled up onto the stone lip and, because the ledge was deep, disappeared for the few moments it took him to close and latch the wooden shutters.

  Amie was curious enough to forget that she was supposed to be asleep, and when the woman straightened, their eyes met straight on. That alone was startling, but when Amie saw the ugly, ragged scar that marred the woman’s right cheek, her lips parted over an involuntary gasp. The whole cheek was caved in, the flesh puckered in such a grizzled knot that one corner of her mouth had been stretched to the side in a distorted grin.

  The shutters closed, locking out the sunlight. At the same time, the woman hastily lifted a corner of her veil and turned her head to the side.

  Amie was momentarily stripped of speech. Her reaction to the woman’s terrible injury had been cruel and obvious.

  “Please....”

  The woman said something to the little boy, who scrambled instantly off the window ledge and ran so quickly to the door that he dropped his wooden horse.

  “Please wait!”

  Amie pushed herself up onto her elbows, but it was too late. The woman and child were gone, and in their place, moving through the open door like a hooded wraith was the tall thin seneschal, Marak.

  “You are with us again, then, are you?”

  “That woman...?”

  The hood shifted slightly as if he turned his head within its shadowy confines. “Inaya? She has been tending to you these past few days.”

  “I... I think I may have startled her.”

  “She startles very easily around strangers, take no offense.”

  “But I am afraid I reacted very badly when I saw...”

  “Her face? Ah, yes. The wound was full of poison by the time she was brought to me. I did what I could, but—” his shoulders lifted in an apologetic shrug. “I cannot work miracles, despite what you may hear. I am not even a good magician, though I am often credited with raising spirits and changing god-fearing Christians into toads.�
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  He came closer to the bed, close enough that Amie could see the point of his chin taking shape under the shadowy hood.

  “How are you feeling today?” A cool white hand came forward and rested on her cheek a moment. “No fever; excellent. And the shoulder? You are able to move it without too much pain?”

  Amie looked down. She had pushed herself up onto her elbows without thinking about the action, and only realized now that the arm was holding her weight. The skin felt as though it was stretched tight and the muscles protested from disuse, but in truth, there was little more discomfort beyond a dull ache to remind her of the injury.

  “It still hurts,” she admitted with no small amount of wonder, “but it is nothing that cannot be borne.”

  “Excellent. In a week or two, you will hardly flinch when you lift a sack of flour—something I will start having you do on the morrow. Just a small sack at first, to rouse the muscles that have grown lax. Then we will add more and more flour to the sack each day as you gain the strength back in your arm. Before we can begin that, however, we must keep making more blood, and to do that, you need something with more substance than wine and honey.”

  Amie’s stomach gave off an audible rumble in response to the suggestion. The sound must have carried farther than the bed, for she heard Marak give a low chuckle and a moment later, he was beside the fire, ladling some of the contents of the steaming pot into a small wooden bowl. When he returned to the bedside, she was laying down again, the blankets pulled up to her chin.

  “Come now. My cooking is not that dreadful. What can one do to spoil broth, anyway? Some beef bones, some onions, some garlic... a little mustard and salt...” He tipped the spoon to his lips and slurped up a noisy mouthful. “Mmm, yes. I forgot to add the nightshade and the belladonna, but if luck should have it that you survive another day, certes I will remember it on the morrow.”

  The smile she could see reshaping his mouth belied the gentle sarcasm and invited a small one of her own.

  He filled the spoon again, bringing it slowly to Amie’s lips.

  The broth was delicious. It flowed from her throat straight down into her toes, causing them to curl with pleasure. Marak used a scrap of linen to catch any dribbles that ran down her chin but there were not many that were squandered so carelessly.

  When the bowl was emptied, refilled, and emptied for the second time, she looked hopefully for more, but he wagged a cautious finger and set the empty vessel aside.

  “Wait a while, Little One. Too much too soon can be more painful than the lack. If you suffer no ill effects, you can have as much as you like—and bread and cheese besides—for there was not much flesh on your bones to begin with. After such a long fast, I began to fear we would lose you in the bedding.”

  “Little One,” she whispered. She leaned back against the bolster and her gaze rose to the ceiling beams crossing overhead in the gloom. “I have not been called that since I was a child.”

  “I would call you by your name, but alas, I do not know it.”

  Tell too many lies, said her inner voice, and you begin to forget the truth.

  “Amaranth,” she said. “My father called me Amaranth.”

  “The flower that never fades,” Marak said, smiling.

  “He hoped I would grow into a likeness of my mother.”

  “And did you?”

  “I know not. Mother died when I was two and Father when I was twelve. He told me yes, but he might have been saying that through a father’s clouded eyes.”

  “And your husband?”

  Startled, she looked up at the shadowed face. "My... husband?"

  "Was he from the same village, or did he have family elsewhere?"

  She remembered, then, telling the knight with the green eyes that she had been living with her husband in the village. Tell too many lies...

  “No. No, there is no one else,” she said in a whisper.

  Hopefully he would assume her stumbled words stemmed from her bereavement, although there was something in the way the shape of his mouth changed that suggested he knew more of the truth than she suspected.

  “If it please, may I ask where I am? How far are we from the village?”

  “You are inside the stone walls of Taniere Castle. The vill lies along the easternmost border of Lord Tamberlane’s land and luckily for you, he was out hunting when he was alerted to the raid.”

  “Yes,” she mirrored. “Luckily for me.”

  “They counted a dozen crossbowmen enjoined in the ambush... an uncommonly strong force to raid a simple farming village.”

  “I... did not stop to count. I was too busy running for my life.”

  “You had no children of your own?”

  The blue of her eyes sparked for a moment. "If I had, I would never have left them behind, they would have been running with me."

  "Of course. Forgive me."

  "Why do you not show your face?"

  The question caught him off guard and he paused a moment before he answered. "I have... an affliction. Sunlight... or any manner of bright light for that matter, causes great pain to my eyes. And as you can see—" he splayed the fingers of one hand and turned it over for her to observe— "my skin has no color."

  "An albino?"

  The hood tipped slightly. "Yes, that is the term used. From the Latin word albus, meaning—"

  "White."

  "Yes. White. Lord Tamberlane said the men who attacked your village were neither common thieves nor outlaws.”

  She blinked at the rapid change of subject, but answered smoothly. “The one who chased me rode a destrier and carried a sword wrought with a fine silvered hilt. But how did Lord Tamberlane know this?”

  “Three of the men he slew were knights.”

  “He slew them?

  The gray hood nodded. “Lord Tamberlane is not a man to be trifled with when his temper is roused.”

  It was on the tip of Amie's tongue to ask if one of the slain knights had hair the color of hell’s own flames, but she curled her lip between her teeth and kept the words to herself.

  She thought to distract him from more questions by sliding her arm out from beneath the covers and testing how much she could move her arm by reaching for the cup of water on the table.

  “Perhaps it would be easier if you sit up first,” he suggested.

  Since he kept his hands tucked inside his long sleeves and made no move to assist, Amie sucked in a small mouthful of air and rolled herself onto her right elbow, using it to inch and wriggle her way up until she was sitting tall with her back against the bedboard. Straggled lengths of hair fell over her brow, and when she shoved it back, she could sense Marak watching her every move and gesture.

  Her brow pleated with a frown. “Why do you stare at me so? I feel like a mouse being watched by a cat... a cat I cannot see."

  He chuckled softly. "If you found Inaya’s scars discomfiting... you might find my appearance harrowing.”

  “You judge my entire character on one sorry lapse?”

  “I judge it on many things, Amaranth. The smoothness of your skin, the manner of your speech, the softness of your hands... the stain of burned walnut shells that was used to darken your hair. My guess is that you were not from that village,” he added gently. “Nor any village like it.”

  Amie bit down hard on her lip, unable to stop the flow of heat that rose in her cheeks.

  “You expressed shock that there were no other survivors, yet you asked no further questions, blurted no other names, asked after no close friends. Nor did you show any sign of recognizing Lord Tamberlane’s name, which you surely would have done had you lived in the village for any length of time.”

  “It is small and isolated...”

  “Yet must still pay tithes and give homage to the Dragonslayer.”

  “Dragonslayer...?” she whispered.

  The broth that had tasted so delicious only moments ago burbled in her stomach and threatened the back of her throat. She could tell more lies
, of course, add more half truths to those she had told already, but she suspected they would not stand the test of those unseen, colorless eyes. More lies, more shameful falsehoods would only make her appear more of a coward than she was already.

  Her fingers betrayed a tremor as she tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear.

  “I cannot help you, Amaranth, if you do not tell me the truth,” Marak said quietly.

  She felt the sting of tears building behind her eyes. “Why would you want to help me at all?”

  Instead of answering, he made a general observation. “People say many things when they are burning with fever. Things they fear, cruelties they have suffered, horrors they have endured... even crimes they have committed.” He paused and watched a slow, fat tear slide down her cheek. "And you forget I have tended your shoulder... front and back. I have seen the marks."

  Amie's lashes lowered to hide her shame. Of course. He would have seen the stripes left on her skin from Odo's belt.

  “The men who attacked the village,” he asked gently. “Is it possible they were looking for you?”

  She sighed faintly and nodded. “It is possible, yes.”

  “You... were running away from someone?”

  She nodded again. “My husband.”

  “Your husband?”

  “A vile and brutish animal," she said, shivering through the words. “A man who would not have had a moment’s pause ordering the death of so many innocent people in his quest to catch me and put me in my grave. People, especially wives, do not run away from a man like him and live to tell it.”

  “Surely you were not attempting to do such a thing on your own?”

  “No. I was... with someone else. I was with my confessor. A loyal and compassionate priest whose life, I fear, must have been forfeited as well in his efforts to protect me.”

  “He helped you escape?”

  She nodded. “But we were caught out in the rain one night and I came down with a chill. He brought me to the village and begged the good people to keep me there until I was strong enough to travel again. He was taking me to a convent, you see. A convent in the south of England where he thought I would be safe.” Her voice trailed away and she squeezed her eyes tight against a stronger flood of tears. “And now all those good people are dead. All dead because of me. They did nothing. They were guilty of nothing but trying to help the friar and me.”