The Seasons of Salt

Chapter Six

Maxon Rowley beckoned Bara's wet-nurse over to him with one finger. She had the same olive skin, long black hair and molten eyes that King Wyvon had had, that the new-born bairn still had. She had been riding in the back of the supply wagons mostly, refusing to let the boy out of her arms even when she was not feeding him, but the terrain had been too tough this past hour and she had reluctantly agreed to walk instead.

She slipped into his shadow now obediently.

“Do you see that line of trees down there?” he asked her. She followed his gaze and nodded mutely. Not that her silence was surprising. She’d barely said three words together to him on the whole week they’d been travelling. Still, at least they could take the straight road down. It was quicker than the slow and winding paths they had hidden themselves across on the way up – and more cheerful too. Going home always was, he found. Going home with a great victory was even better. The surviving men were belting out rowdy marching songs behind him as they traipsed, even despite the bones of the dead wrapped lovingly into the crypt wagon to be returned to their, as yet, oblivious, widows. As well they had reason to. No-one had expected such an easy victory as this. All these men had followed Rowley, expecting to die out there in the dragon caves. Should they not celebrate seeing their beloved homelands once more?

“That’s the borderline,” he told the wet-nurse. “Once we cross that path, we will be out of Kir-Karn and onto Aridshire at last.”

She still did not say anything. Her expression did not change either, but she held the child to her breast more closely.

She was a young thing. He had not noticed at first, in the darkness and gloom of the cave, but once the light had risen upon them, he found her youthful and supple. He hated the prickle of desire which prodded him when he saw her – the enemy, by all his ancestors – but she was still curved from bearing her own child, and her hair was long and ink black, and he was only a man, after all.

He thought of Féon, waiting for him back at Grimkeep. She had been so beautiful, when he first saw her, slight and Fae-like with her long brown hair, a dress cut down almost to her naval and eyes deep enough to drown you. When his father had told him the match was already arranged, he had not even protested – for all that his first inclination had been for the buxom and penniless Sendre Oust. He felt his lips twitch as he recalled his youthful folly. Sendre Oust was a beauty right enough, her fairness unparalleled across the lands (though the ancestors knew none of her children had inherited her looks) – but she was of a lesser house, and not even of his own county. A Large Lord’s son might yet wed one of his own vassal’s daughters, but there was no path for him to marry an impoverished daughter of a lesser house of a different county, no matter how fair the maiden or how infatuated the son. He’d been a fool to hope to the contrary and his father had informed him so with sharp impatience. What good will a pretty face do Aridshire, boy? Whatever made you think your marriage was about you?  

And so Brynn Dowse had got that one, the ancestors damn him, and Rowley had got Dowse’s sister instead. Féon had barely had enough upon her chest to fill a spoon’s head, despite the best work that corsetry could offer her, and it was especially noticeable next to her sister-in-law, but she was beautiful too, Rowley always thought.  All things worked out in the end, after all. He slid his eyes sideways to the wet-nurse. He’d been avoiding her, somewhat. Mayhap because of that treacherous prickle of desire he could not deny. They were almost home now though. He could not avoid her much longer.

“Where is your own child?” he asked her aloud. “You did not trust us to bring it with you? You left it with its father, mayhap?”

She regarded him with cold eyes. By all this ancestors, they were beautiful, the way they swirled and slid, the colours merging into one another like the molten magma streams that ran through the dragon caves. Hypnotic, even echoing with hatred as they now were.

“Her father is dead. You beheaded him. He was in Wyvon’s personal guard.” Her voice curled up at the edges in pride and bitter anger. That had been part of the agreed price of peace. Bara's life for Wyvon's and all of his most trusted warriors, and for a hold fire, where the people of Aridshire would be safe.

“He must have been a great warrior then. It is an honoured position.”

She did not say anything.

“And your daughter?”

“Dead. She was still-born, mere days before the ripple ran.”

“Ah. Forgive me. That is hard. My own wife has birthed a still-born before.” And how it changed her, he thought to himself. Féon had never been the same since. Harder. Crueller.

She had not absolutely forbidden him her bedchambers, she knew her duties as a wife too well for that, but she had made it so silently clear that he was unwelcome there that he had not tried again. And, well, were two children not enough for any man? He had a son and a daughter: one of each. He’d not force a third on Féon when it was so repulsive to her. It had been, what, five years now since that lifeless child had come between them, five years since her bedroom door had closed, and her grief did not seem to lessen any with time. She had fixated upon it – and he did not know how to pull her from it. The longer that it went on, the less sure he wanted to anyway.

“Her bones will rest beside her father’s,” said the wet-nurse coldly, drawing him out of his morbid reflections. “It is enough.”

It would have to be. She could have no other comfort, after all.

“Remind me of your name.”

The wet-nurse went silent. Maxon turned his hard eyes to her and she blushed, clutching the child a little closer.

“Wyvona,” she muttered reluctantly. Rowley felt his lips twitch.

“Like the king? Your mother was a fan, was she?”

“I was his sister. That is how we name siblings in the Kir-Karn. Wyvon and Wyvona. If there had been any more of us, they would mayhap be Wyvora or Wyvont. It builds bonds. It is important to know your kin. To know where you come from.”

“So if Bara had a sibling…?”

“He never will, will he?” She snapped, the first fire he had seen in her. She flinched out of his way, though he did not raise a hand to her, aware of what she had done.

“But if he had?” Maxon pressed, keeping his voice calm and steady, as if he had not even noticed her ire, seeking to soothe her without noticeably doing so.

“If he had a younger brother, they would likely call him Barart, or mayhap Baraton. If a sister, Baral, or Barala.” It came out sullen. Muttered. He wondered vaguely how old she was – or how old she would be counted in mortal years, at least. Old enough to be wed and seeded, certainly, but young enough to keep her temper unchecked and her moods volatile.

He dreaded the days when Ryland and Erilla were old enough for such things. Maxon was the eldest of all his siblings, and he all too well remembered the days of their storming tantrums around Grimkeep, struggling futilely to keep control without the authority of a father. He had inherited Grimkeep too young – far too damn young – and his siblings had all known it. It had been years of trial and error, balancing his grieving mother and the horde of younger siblings, before he had learnt how to gain authority without tyranny, and kindness without weakness. And then he had had to sort out their marriages. His father had only deigned to organise his and his sister Mytha’s betrothals before he had inconveniently died. Ha. He might take it up with him next time his father deigned to make an appearance. Why could not the spirit of his father have appeared to him all those years ago when he was drowning under the weight of that authority, trying to make all those decisions alone? He could have done with it then.

“Siblings are rare in dragon kin?” he asked aloud.

“Not common, but not rare. If a couple is fertile enough to produce, they will usually find it possible to produce more than one child. There is quite often a large gap between siblings though. There was twenty years between my brother and I. That is not considered uncommon amongst our people. We like to raise the infant out of the dangers of childhood before we commit to another one.” Her eyes fell mournfully to the babe in her arms. “Infancy is a dangerous time for my people.”

And it wasn’t for mortals? He scarce knew a man that had not lost a child of their own or a sibling in their youth. All folks walked closed with death in Aridshire, with only the comfort of the Morti Morturi to bind their wounds – and a closer comfort it would be if his father had indeed spoken true, and the dead could once more pass the veil on such holy days. In truth, he had thought it no more than superstition, for all her kept the old traditions from his youth. He glanced across at Wyvona, and wondered what afterlife dragon-kind hoped for: how Wyvona could look forward to reuniting with her husband, daughter and brother once more.

“You were close to your brother?”

“Yes.” Her voice was sharp and miserable, but he pretended he had not noticed. He thought pity would not be welcome to her, especially from the enemy k********g her and her nephew.

“Your brother was a man of honour,” he said instead. “I thought he died very bravely.”

“He had no other choice,” Wyvona spat, but Maxon just shrugged. He had seen a lot of men die. Not all of them faced the inevitable with such stoicism.

“Surely it is below your station to act as a wet-nurse, even to your brother’s child? Surely a princess ought to stay with her people in their time of need?”

“Do not lecture me on what a princess should and should not do. My first duty is to our Last Hope. It is thus that I shall serve my people – aye, even as a wet-nurse. And I would not let my brother’s son venture alone into the world of men.”

“You do not think a mortal will honour his word to a fire-beast?” he asked wryly, raising an eyebrow at her.

“We are no beasts,” she spat. “We have a greater capacity for thought and feeling than even you. We are dragons.”

He snorted out a laugh.

“Forgive me, Princess Wyvona. It will be good for us to have you in Grimkeep, I think. There is so little we know about your culture.”

“And there is so little I wish to teach you,” she muttered. She stopped suddenly, her eyes wide and fearful. She twisted her head to look over her shoulder and stared at the line of barren, wispy trees now waiting like a sentinel behind her.

“Yes,” he agreed quietly. “You’re in Aridshire now.”

She paused for a moment longer and then forced her stumbling feet forwards once more. The child squawked a little as she clutched it too tightly, and she forced herself to relax her grip a bit.

“You talked to me on purpose, to distract me over the boundary line,” she accused him. Maxon smiled grimly and did not deny it.

“It is not far now until Grimkeep,” he said instead. “We will march on for the rest of the day and then split our forces by daybreak. Durst, Telliford, Horin and Astley will march their men past our gates, and Burne will take his men eastwards to the coast watch. Then we will be back to our house, the closest to your lands incidentally, by the time lunch has fallen tomorrow.”

“That is close to the borders. I had not realised you dwelt so near.”

“Too near,” he said grimly. It was his men who suffered the brunt of dragon attack time out of mind. As the Large Lord, it was his duty to be nearest the danger Aridshire faced, his father had often reminded him whilst he still lived, but Maxon himself had often wondered why they could not set up their house closer to the Borderlands; the place where four counties met at once. Vaguely, he wondered how much more he could expect to see his father and hear his father’s wisdom, now that the urach had indeed fallen.

Wyvona did not respond to this. Nor did he expect her to.

“You will be able to see the topmost tips of the dragon mountains from the battlements of Grimkeep, on a clear day,” he told her. She still did not respond.

“The path will clear soon,” he said, somewhat more sharply than he had intended to. “If you wish to get back in the cart, you may.”

She nodded, but again held her tongue. She did not seem to sense the dismissal in his words, for she did not drop away from him, striding forwards, keeping pace for pace. He would ride, normally, but they had taken as few horses as possible up the mountains. He had been so paranoid about maintaining their secrecy – and he was right to. The queen would have been more highly guarded had they possibly known their enemy was so close to hand. Then he would not have had the little burden Wyvona carried, to guard and raise as his own boy. By bloodoath. He rubbed his fingers over the scars on his palms reflectively, four on one hand, one on the other - Wyvon had insisted on taking his blood on it too. Rowley hoped he had made the right choice. Too late for doubts, of course, but it did not stop them lingering.

He stared around at the barren rock-faces which bobbled over the country-side. It was hard to get anything other than scrub and heather to grow here. The skies were too clear, the sun too hot. It scorched the lands beneath them, aye, and the men which toiled them too. Goat country, by and large. Wolf country too, over on the mountains. Not a good combination for mortal men.

“We call this place Ashgra K’than Bagrilcka in our tongue,” Wyvona told him, watching his expression. The words were guttural and rough in her delicate mouth.

“Aye? And what does that mean?”

“The land where the darkness grows.” She shifted the baby in her arms a little, and he could see her asking herself how the little dragon prince would grow in the bleak world of men.

He could have said that the caves of the dragon-folk were darker than any of the realms of men, but he had no desire to antagonise her. She was alone and vulnerable. Let her win what petty victories she could if it made her feel better. He held his tongue entirely.

“Aridshire has sent more men to kill our kind than any other of the mortal counties,” she said, as if reading his mind. Her body language was prickly and defensive.

“That is because Aridshire has lost most men to your hunger. You cannot expect us to take it lying down.”

“We do not mind self-defence. Any dragon which is wounded on the hunt deserves to die, but to come into our very caves afterwards! You would not expect so much from yourselves. If one of your mortal kind was wounded on the hunt, you would not blame the boar which gored you and yet if a herd of wild pigs came trampling into your great halls whilst you slept and murdered your women-folk and young indiscriminately, would you not feel yourself rightly aggrieved?”

“Sounder,” he told her calmly. “A herd is for domesticated pigs. It is a sounder of wild boars. And we are not boars. We have minds and souls, hopes, dreams and ambitions. Why should your lives be any more valuable than ours?”

“Because they are more valuable! Just as black-gold is more valuable than its yellow cousin, just as diamonds are more valuable than coal! Not all things are created equal and you lie to yourself if you believe so.”

“Diamonds may be more valuable than coal, but I know which I’d rather have in a winter’s siege.”

“I am not saying you do not have any value at all,” she started apologetically, but he held up a hand.

“No, no. Do not stop now. I was very much enjoying learning all the ways in which I fall short of your greatness.”

She blushed, and shut her mouth defiantly. He snorted out a laugh, but smothered it quickly as Telliford came striding up to him.

He was a mountain of a man, Telliford. As tall as the dragon-king had been, and twice as broad. Mayhap there had even been a little fire-beast in him, long long ago – though Telliford would be sure to deny it with vehemence. He usually was a man quick to laugh, throwing his head back to the skies and roaring out bellowing echoes beneath his gorse-brush beard, but today he seemed terse. His mouth was barely a line beneath that scrubby brown hair.

“Trouble?” Maxon asked curtly.

Telliford sent a pointed glance in Wyvona’s direction and Rowley dismissed her back to the supply wagon. She fled gratefully away from the larger man’s presence.

“Is it a good idea to harbour the fire-beast in Aridshire, lad?” Asked Telliford gruffly as soon as she had slid out of earshot. Maxon was actually older than Telliford by three years, but anyone under the age of fifty was considered a lad to Dixon. He meant no disrespect by it.

“We’re not harbouring it. We’re hostaging it. And I do think it is a good idea, seeing as it was mine.”

“I’m just saying, you’ve used the spawn to buy the victory. You used it to decimate their army and kill their king. I’m not saying you should kill it or nowt, I know as you gave your honour to it. But there’s no need to get friendly with it. Or with the fire-beast weaning it,” he added darkly, throwing a glare over his shoulder at the woman now perched amongst the supplies on the unevenly bouncing cart once more. The babe did not think much of this joggling, apparently. It had woken again and was howling to the skies. She was trying to persuade it to feed, but it would not latch on, too intent on making his displeasure known.  Dixon Telliford turned back with a harrumph. “Mayhap we could send it down to the Brenin Penisula? Keep it safe in the Citadel there.”

Maxon regarded his friend, vassal and brother-by-law with cold criticism.

“What are you actually worried about, Dixon?” He asked. “I’ve known you since we were knee high to the mountain goats. You are married to my youngest sister. We have broken bread and supped wine together, at marriage feasts and holy days and battle’s eve. We have drawn swords and shattered shields side by side. We have shared our table in time of plenty and in time of need. Why are you now asking me if I am defecting to the dragons?” He kept his voice friendly but did not try to shield the layer of iron beneath it. Enough to notice, enough to prickle at Telliford’s pride, but not enough to send him roaring to the heavens.

Telliford was a short-tempered man, and he had the second-largest house in Aridshire and – truth be told – they’d have struggled to take the Dragon caves without his men, even with the prince as a hostage, but Rowley was the Large Lord of Aridshire, and he did not intend to let anyone forget it. Nor did he intend to let even the friends of his youth dictate to him his own policy in his own lands.

Telliford grunted something which might have been an apology, if the giant had ever been known to bend his stiff knees enough to admit he was wrong.

“I do not think you’re a dragon-lover,” he said gruffly. “No one is accusing you of anything, my lord. Only, we have tired of Hagwhore’s dragon-cooing. You’ve got to think how it looks. We went to war against them and him for their cursed accords and now you’re cosying up with the princeling. I’m just saying, do not tempt the men to discontent. Even Aridshire will not be loyal forever.”

“That sounds like a threat, Telliford.” There was definite ice in his voice now, and not even the cruel sun of Aridshire could melt it. He let his fingers stray idly to the hilt of his sword. Telliford’s red face grew even ruddier.

“I’m not threatening you. I’m trying to warn you, Rowley!”

“Consider me warned.”

Telliford stared at him for a moment longer and then growled something Rowley wisely ignored. He stomped off to his own men muttering dark curses which Rowley could have his skin for if he had chosen to hear them. Telliford was of a sharp temper, but he always cooled down in time, and he was as loyal as they came. Despite his words, Maxon knew that Dixon had not intended it as a challenge. The man was wise enough to know he lacked the capacity needed for Large Lording – but he did intend his daughter – as much of a giant as her Da – to wed her cousin, Ryland. He had great ambitions of grandsiring the future Large Lord of Aridshire.

 Maxon snorted to himself. Barley Telliford was broad-shouldered and, well not decidedly ugly, but certainly very…large featured. Big nose. Big teeth. Big ears. Again, much like Dixon himself. Looks were not everything of course (and at least there was no doubt who sired the child) but still… he thought Ryland would probably throw a fit if he told him he’d been betrothed to his cousin Barley, and honestly, he was not sure he’d blame the kid. On the other hand, he did not know how Dixon would take it if he outright refused to have her. He’d do best to settle Ryland quietly with someone else before Telliford got around to asking him outright and would pretend he just had not noticed Dixon’s occasional unsubtle hints. Telliford would get over it in time.

He realised his thoughts had wandered and drew himself back in once more, sharply. His mind was wandering more and more these days. It worried him, occasionally. They said his great-grandfather, who lived to the unprecedented age of eighty-four, had wandered his wits by the end – and then wandered his grounds in his night-shirt. They found him wading through the moats occasionally, demanding his fishing boat – though the spirits alone only knew the last time they had kept fish in Grimkeep moat. It froze solid too often to make it worth breeding them for it. He had forgotten his son and grandchildren by the end, they said. Maxon had just been born then, a little child in long-clothes when his great-grandfather died – and, so the family legend went, Wyllem Rowley had taken one look at his great-grandchild and declared it a changeling, and tried to throw him bodily out of the window. He would have done it too, had Brullim’s reflexes not been so quick. Neither Brullim nor his father, Rhyd Rowley, had lived long enough for their wits to abandon them, but Maxon could not help fearing it. Such things could be inherited through the family line, he knew. He feared it more than he spoke of. Being trapped there, in his own mind. Being unable to make anybody else understand him. To start being viewed, not as the Large Lord of the land, but as a soft-witted fool, to be pitied, condescended, surrounded by soft-voiced maids that refused to let him handle a knife.

No. Better a clean death early, than a lingering death late. He wondered if Féon would grieve him, though he knew that thought was uncharitable. She certain-sure would not grieve him as much as she had that little dead-born child. She did not know yet, that he had survived. She would not know until tomorrow lunch-time. Mayhap the evening if they were delayed in their travels. And, for the very first time, it occurred to him that he did not know what Féon would say when he came marching through that gate with a dragon-babe to raise alongside her own, mortal children.

The soldiers sang still behind him, raucous in relief, but the journey home seemed suddenly a lot less easy, for Maxon Rowley…