King of Dragons, King of Men, page 21
“In time you will feel better,” Ninieum said. “The energies of our world will heal you.”
“Maybe,” Garwolf mused. “There is only the two of us, so far. That will reduce the strength of the magic that will build on this side of the gate. And I have been misshapen a long time. I am not sure how quickly or how completely that might ever be put to rights. Surely more will follow, more dragons would mean more magic…”
Ninieum shrugged and stretched out luxuriantly. “There have been very few dragons hatched in time since the gate shut. It has made our people more cautious. Very few go even to the elven worlds, or the dark lands, both of which are known to be rather more hospitable than the world of men. I, for one, don’t regret it. When I saw the gate open, I acted on impulse.”
“Do you regret your choice?”
Ninieum laughed. “No, the men and woman are not without appeal. But I cannot understand this new king of yours, what made you choose him.”
Garwolf swirled his claws into the warm sod. “I didn’t choose him exactly. He was the one I happened to be…well, paying attention to. Perhaps it was fate.”
Garwolf looked down at the keep. Morning was fully broken and people could be seen working in the fields and moving about the buildings. Cattle were being moved to new pastures, a droving dog barked insistently as the placid beasts sauntered along blithely. Rugs were being aired on the balconies and hay was being cut, perhaps the last growth before the frosts.
“What I don’t understand…” Ninieum said, as was very much her habit, “is why the king is rejecting his mates.”
Normally Garwolf was happy to explain the vagaries of the human world, but this time, he was silent. It was taking him some time to go over the confused memories and understand what he had done. Much of it bothered him deeply. As a dragon, a long-lived being, he was able to consign the past to past, but William was very much in the present.
Garwolf turned his eyes to the far side of the valley. His vision picked out William and Shandrick where they stood watching the cattle file past. The herdsman stopped to speak with them. Garwolf could never understand the fascination they all had with the beasts; they didn’t even taste as good as wild deer of the woods.
“As they count things, they are not mated,” he said. “William thinks Allen should be Margaret’s mate.”
“But I thought she was already his mate, his wife.”
“That was annulled.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s not only that they are not married. Mated, anymore—but they never were.”
Ninieum struggled with that one a while, a thoughtful frown sketched across her features. “That does not make sense.”
Garwolf sighed and tried to think of a way of explaining the bizarre customs of marriage. He folded one clawed hand over the other, and rested his chin upon them.
“They were married which is a ceremony to show they intend to be mates, but as they didn’t, it was…reversed.”
“But he likes her, and the man.”
“And so he does.”
“Then I still don’t understand.”
“These people usually only have one mate, and he thinks that is better that Allen and Margaret be together.”
“So why can’t they be together with him.”
“It isn’t…usual.”
Ninieum lifted her delicate head from the deep grasses. “And the real answer is?” she asked, looking directly at him.
“I was pretending to be some kind of demon, as you know.”
“The great demon, the devil.”
“I knew the child that Margaret carried was not strong enough and would soon fail. I simply formed William’s affairs in a way so that it seemed like he had chosen to kill the child. I knew that to live I had to forget myself, and so I made myself into the demon. My goals were simply to stir up trouble in the house of Lukas, to drive men to desperate acts so that eventually one of them would open the gate in mad grab for power.”
“You made him think he killed the child.”
“I have told him that it was only an illusion, a trick, but that does not change what he chose to do.”
“He changed what he has done. He should be grateful things were not as they seemed.”
Garwolf watched as Allen went out to William’s side. They spoke only a short while before William turned and walked away across the fields.
* * *
Finister and Margaret poured over the livestock records and accounts that covered the table in front of them in a tessellation of journals and loose papers.
“William is right about one thing,” Margery conceded. “The stores are very low and winter is almost here. Now that we cannot depend on help from anyone else, things are going to become rather difficult if the season is harsh.”
Allen came into the chamber. “Now it is the hay he must inspect in case the sun has dried it too far before cutting.”
“If that is the case the cattle would starve, Allen. It is hardly a trivial errand.”
Allen’s jaw clenched as he sat down at the table opposite them. “It never is a trivial errand. The first frosts will arrive soon and everything is in chaos. Everything including our William for whom the frosts have come early.”
Finister raised one eyebrow and absented herself from the room. “I shall just check these grain store records,” she said. “They seem a little optimistic.”
“Allen,” Margery sighed. “We are here by his invitation and his sufferance. What can we do? If he wishes to devote his time to the estates…” She felt her voice drop, betraying her real feel feelings. “Neither of us have anywhere else that we can go, Allen. The king stops just short of accusing us of treason and only the dragons make us safe even here. Harild could not send an entire army against them with any surety of success.”
“Harild will have to swallow his pride and let the matter rest,” Allen replied blithely.
“Perhaps he will, outwardly. But if we leave the Tor, we will not be safe.”
Allen reached over the table and put his hand over hers. “In truth do you want to leave here, Margaret? Say that you do and I’ll go with you. Let William spend a winter here on his own and see how it suits him.”
“You don’t mean that, Allen,” Margery chided.
“How many times must I let him brush me aside and order me around as if I were his lackey?”
“He does not…”
“It certainly seems as if he does… Oh, Margaret. I do know he’s still in there somewhere. But all he does is tell me to go to you. He is so fixed in seeing us together. But if he thinks he has achieved that end he will leave us both. The proclamation of descent is lodged and if he goes, this place—dragons I imagine included—becomes mine. But he wants to ensure that we are together so that it becomes yours also—all in one tidy package. That it why he labors to ensure that everything is ready to see us through the winter. So that he can go.”
Margery knew he spoke the truth. “What is it that drives him? Is it that he will not tolerate one of us being left alone? We are not so feeble as to be unable to endure it, and find our match elsewhere, given time. Or does he know and repudiate what he truly wants; the three of us together? Ninieum tells me he is drawn to us both, but there is some other matter he does not speak of. That is the knowledge I would have.”
“Ninieum,” Allen mused. “She has been a boon. Watching over the land, caring for Garwolf, I worry about him when the snows come. She told me how William has powers from the dragons—to know the truth, to tolerate fire. But being human there are other effects. He cannot lie. So if only I can get an answer from him, I will know it to be the truth.”
“It would also be a fine change from these moody silences. What is it you are proposing?”
Allen shook his head. “The best I can suggest is that we have Garwolf tell us William’s troubles, his reasoning and then we confront him. Once he realizes for certain that we are staying with him, part of his life, and not letting him leave…”
“If we push him, there is no telling what he might do.”
“What can he do? He must leave the Bridle and the dragons here to protect this land. If he leaves alone there is no place the king could not find him.”
“There is one place,” Margery replied. “One he has already tried to go.”
“I’d follow him even there if you’d come with me.”
“What kind of fools are we?” Margery said with a laugh. “I’d go with you. Even acting as he is, I love him. But I would love him better if only he would embrace the life this place can offer him, and all of us. I suppose your plan is no worse than mine.”
“And which was that.”
“A few bottles of wine and a subtle seduction. He watches us, and being offered what he truly wants, might not refuse it.”
Allen raised one eyebrow. “Unsubtle, but perhaps sufficient. But which if us would be the better bait?”
“Why both, of course. We should begin as we mean to go on.”
Margery sighed. “So you learn the truth of his concerns, while I see what is in the cellar. Let us not narrow our options.”
* * *
William ground the rough strands of the standing bales between his fingers. A chilling wind was coming down from the hills and ruffling the shorn heads of the grass. The bales would be taken into the barn by evening but they weren’t the best. They should have been cut earlier in the autumn when the goodness was still in the grass.
It was bad enough that he had been away, and Shandrick—but Shandrick’s son had run off somewhere and nobody would say a word about it. Things had to be put to rights and properly stored or the household would starve when the snows came.
He hiked to the top of the paddock to see if the bales there were any better, but if anything they were worse. The hedge there was growing out and needed resetting too. William looked back towards the keep, he had come a long way, and drifting from task to task and the buildings were small in the distance. It was cooling as the afternoon progressed and the wind made the tattered collar of his workday tunic flutter against his neck.
A light ran began to fall and William scowled up at the sky, as if it cared about his opinion on the matter.
With a shrug, he headed back to the keep. He knew that by the time he got there he would be soaked through and chilled to the bone. Worse than that, his friends would be waiting for him. Despite his best effort to leave them alone together, they remained stubbornly amicable rather than amorous, except towards him. William could not bring himself to do more. Perhaps he should merely leave them to it. Matters were in a poor but tolerable state at the keep. His presence was the only real obstacle.
He saw Ninieum aloft again and wondered idly whether she was in any danger from lightning. There was no telling whether lightning was to be found in her world, but if it was a peril to their kind, Garwolf would surely have warned her.
She swooped down out of the sky and landed lightly just down the slope. The tip of her wing hovered over his head, holding off the rain, as it grew more insistent.
“I’ll give you a lift the rest of the way,” she offered with an outstretched taloned hand.
“I’m not really so keen on being hand luggage for a dragon,” he said nervously.
“It will be pelting down very soon,” she said. “Besides, I can take you directly to that drafty loft you like to call your bedchamber.”
The chance of bypassing another awkward scene with Allen and Margery was a temptation. But there was something about the broad expanse or her reptilian face that suggested young Ninieum was up to something.
A yawn stretched William’s face. He had been up since long before dawn and well-occupied all day. If the dragon was prepared to save him a long walk, it would be discourteous to complain.
“I would be most obliged,” he said with a bow.
* * *
Ninieum set him upon the high balcony with utmost delicacy. William was a little more shaken than he expected by the experience of being born aloft, and he barely managed to smile his thanks as he ducked gratefully inside his own small chamber. He was rather distressed to find Allen and Margaret both sitting upon his bed with an open bottle of wine, somewhat depleted, propped up between them.
“Ah,” Allen said. “At last! Help us finish this off. A little of the grape does wonders for a man’s sleep.”
“I told you not to come in here,” William said tersely, irritated to be bearded in his den.
But in the back of his mind, he saw a chance. Send Allen and Margaret on their way a little tipsy and nature might finally take its proper course.
“Come, William,” Margaret said, patting the space between the two of them as she lifted the bottle aside.
William dithered, but his legs ached and his mouth was dry. He settled back against the headboard. Allen sat close by his left side, but took no advantage. Margaret to his right leaned in only slightly as she passed him a clay goblet. William took the cup and sipped from it cautiously. It was one of the better pressings, fresh but just starting to soften with age.
“I was just telling Margaret,” Allen said, “of that time I went missing for three whole days and you managed to convince my father I was still in the keep. When the town guard finally worked out who they had arrested, my father told them they must have it wrong because I had been at home all along.”
Oh yes, Allen had been the wild one of the two of them. “Of course,” William added, “you got to have a wild time at a bordello. I just got to scramble to cover up, and then we both got the same punishment.”
“Ah yes, but you got me back. Remember that time…”
It was just too easy to fall into reminiscence, and somewhere along the way William lost track of who was getting whom drunk. His cup was refilled so often and there seemed to be more than one bottle somehow. More than two. A single lamp at the foot of the bed illuminated the scene with a low, orange glow as all color drained from the sky.
“…but a girl never gets up to the same things a boy does,” Allen protested.
“Really?” Margaret replied. “I once snuck into the king’s chamber on a bet—and then got stuck there when he came in with his latest mistress. Quite an education it was for a girl. I couldn’t sneak out ‘til they both fell asleep near dawn.”
“Oh,” Allen leaned across, “what did he do?”
“Well, Melissa was certainly a forward minx. As soon as she got him onto the bed, she reached up…”
She demonstrated a gesture that crept up William’s thigh with firm, probing finger, pushing up the hem of his tunic. William flinched back against Allen’s arm, which had inveigled its way around his shoulder.
“Margaret,” William warned.
Allen leaned over to him. “William,” he whispered. “We have spoken to Garwolf and know what a trial he was to you, and how you blame yourself for your choices…”
William felt the weight of this guilt settle on him, and it seemed like Margaret saw it on his face.
Leaning into him, she said softly, “You thought you were offered only two choices. In the same place I cannot know what I would choose—but knowing and loving Allen as I do. Perhaps it would have been the same as you. I ask you, William, forgive yourself or not—as your conscience wills it—but do not think I blame you for it. We, all of us, make choices we would unmake if we could—but God does not give that option—and we must move forward. Can you not look forward and see a life with us worth striving for?”
She leaned forward and in a gentle gesture kissed him on the lips.
“How can I ever have deserved you?” William said. “Either of you. How would I ever be the kind of man to deserve you?”
“Oh, William,” Margaret chided. “That’s for us to say and you don’t have to question it so much. We are, neither of us, fickle.”
Allen replied more lightly. “Margaret and I agree that there is only on thing about your conduct that truly exasperates us.”
Margaret’s hand moved over his privates, and William replied quite hoarsely, “And what is that?”
Margaret replied for them. “That you refuse us, when you obviously care for, and desire, us both.”
“But you two should…”
William’s words were cut short as Allen kissed him deeply. William’s eyes closed as he felt the warm mouth move against his own, tongue softly probing. They pressed against him on either side.
“Trust us on this,” Margaret said gently as she took him in hand.
* * *
William usually rose at dawn, but today he was not inclined to. Margaret spooned up against him, her soft body as warm as the first rays of the sun. Allen’s arm lay over both of them protectively. William’s mind was devoid of its usual busy thoughts. It felt right. His land, his lovers. He smiled as he curled back down under the covers, feeling skin against his skin on either side. In the distance, he heard Ninieum greet the day with her surprisingly unmelodic bugling call.
William had accused himself of many sins and some he was even guilty of but this, this was not one of them. King of men, he could have been—but he never wanted power. King of dragons? Only time would tell what that would mean. But beloved of two people who should have had more sense than to pursue a feckless scholar who made a barely passable knight… From now on, he could only hope to deserve that, highest of honors.
About the Author
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