The Fire Dragon Read Free Page A

Owaen's falcon is red. What if I have a silver eagle? And I can have the heralds turn its head in the opposite direction, too.”
    “Owaen?” Nevyn turned to the captain.
    “That will suit, my lord.” Owaen looked up at last. “My apologies to you again, Your Highness.”
    Bellyra collected her pages with a wave and turned to go. In the doorway to the main broch Lilli stood shading her eyes with one hand while she watched the scene in the ward. Yet when she saw Bellyra looking her way, she spun around and ran, disappearing into the shadows inside. Poor child! the princess thought. She's still terrified of me, and here I would have liked her so much if only she weren't Maryn's mistress.
    “You've both had a silver dagger's luck,” Maddyn said. “The prince could have had you both flogged for this, fighting out in the ward like a pair of drunken bondmen.”
    “True spoken,” Owaen mumbled. He was gingerly exploring his injured eye with dirty fingers. “I didn't know the princess would be right there.”
    “You might have looked.” Maddyn turned to Branoic. “You too.”
    Branoic shrugged and refused to look at him.
    “Owaen?” Nevyn put in. “You'd better stop poking at that eye. Let the chirurgeon look at it. Tell him I said to make you up a poultice to draw the swelling off.”
    “I will.” Owaen hesitated, then turned on his heel and strode off.
    “Very well, lads,” Nevyn said. “I'd best be getting back to my chamber. I—” He stopped at the sight of Lilli, trotting across the cobblestones toward them. “So you've come down? No doubt you're worried about your betrothed.”
    “I am, my lord,” Lilli said, “if you'll forgive me.”
    “Of course. The memory work can wait till later.”
    Nevyn left Branoic in Lilli's care and strode across the ward to the side broch that housed his tower room. He wondered if Lilli realized that Branoic had as much of a gift for dweomer as she did. Once the wars were done, and they married, he was planning on teaching both of them. Normally a dweomermaster could take only one apprentice at a time, but the circumstances were hardly normal. He owed Branoic a deep debt from an earlier life, when the person who was a burly silver dagger now had been not only a woman, but Nevyn's betrothed, Brangwen. I failed her so badly then, he thought. May the Great Ones grant that I may redeem myself now! Yet even though the thought carried the force of a prayer, no omen came to him, as if the matter lay beyond the power of the Great Ones to control.
    Up in the big half-round room of the women's hall, warmth and comfort reigned. When Bellyra walked in, her maidservant took her cloak, curtsied, and hurried off to the bedchamber. Near the hearth, where a fire crackled, the princess's serving women rose to greet her. Through the wickerwork partition that separated the hall from the sleeping rooms, she could hear the nursemaid's voice, singing the two little princes to sleep for their nap.
    “Your Highness, you look exhausted,” Degwa said. “Doyou think it's wise, the way you climb around the towers and suchlike?”
    “Most unwise, I'm sure,” Bellyra said. “But it's better than brooding about the baby and wondering what's going to happen to me once it's born.”
    Degwa winced. Bellyra took her usual chair close to the fire, but she sat spraddled, propped up by cushions. Degwa sat opposite. Elyssa brought a cushioned stool for the princess's feet, then fetched a chair for herself and placed it beside.
    “My poor highness!” Degwa said. “You look so uncomfortable.”
    “I am,” Bellyra said. “And tired, too.”
    “It's all that climbing around in the dun,” Elyssa joined in. “Do you truly think you should, my lady?”
    “You could quite wear yourself out,” Degwa said.
    “You're both right enough,” Bellyra said. “But it gets tedious, sitting around all day. I don't know what I'm going to do when I finish my book.”
    “That troubles me, truly,” Elyssa said.