The Golden Cage (7 page)

‘That you were carrying Clun's child.'

‘Cassters
came up with the diagnosis. I'd been sick as a dog for a fortnight before that.'

‘You had the archimandrite examine you himself?'

‘It wasn't my idea, actually, I just wanted a Ram rather than one of those useless Candle physicians Padraig's filled the palace with. They tried to treat me with leeches.'

‘So Padraig doesn't know.'

‘No one knows but Cassters, Clun and myself. And you, I suppose. Cassters has even found a pregnant maidservant in the castle to treat for morning sickness. Some of her medication comes my way.'

‘And you think no one will suspect there's a reason behind your sudden rush to get married?'

‘There are ways of lengthening my term, by a few weeks if necessary. My child will be conceived on my wedding night. It won't be delivered until nine months have passed. No one will be able to cast doubts on the legitimacy of my heir.'

‘That's dangerous magic, Beulah.' Melyn dropped all pretence of royal protocol. ‘You could damage the child, or yourself for that matter.'

‘It's necessary. You know how little the noble houses respect me. I need them for their armies and their taxes, and they know it. Angor wasn't the only one with sympathies towards the Llanwennogs; there are others with no stomach for war. I don't want to give them any reason to think my dear sister Iolwen might have a greater claim on the throne than my heir.'

‘Have you any news from Tynhelyg?'

‘She and Dafydd were married months ago. They went east towards Fo Afron for their honeymoon and nobody's
seen them since. Our spies are concentrating more on tracking Ballah's army; they're not too concerned with his grandson.'

Melyn was about to ask about the plans for the wedding, but they were interrupted by a guard running across the grass. He stopped several paces away as the inquisitor and queen both produced blades of light. Dropping to one knee, he bowed his head low.

‘Please forgive this intrusion, Your Majesty. But there's been an attack. In the citadel. An assassin.'

‘Who?' Melyn asked as Beulah mouthed the same words. ‘Who's been attacked?'

‘Your Majesty, it's the Duke of Abervenn.'

‘Your Majesty, please, get behind me. Stay with the guards.' Melyn cursed his age as he tried to keep up with Beulah. She ran with most unregal haste, despite her dress, sending servants and minor nobles alike flying as she sped down the corridor. The sensible ones stayed on the floor or ducked into alcoves and doorways to avoid the party heading for the royal chambers.

He managed to catch up with her as she stopped to
wrench open an ornately decorated pair of double doors. Melyn grasped her arm and held her back.

‘Remember what I taught you, Beulah. Don't go rushing in unprepared.'

He already had his blade of light at the ready, its steady fire a reassuring pressure in his mind. When he was sure that the queen was not going to go running off again, he released her arm and opened the door himself. A grisly scene awaited him on the other side.

It was a reception chamber in one of the guest suites, well appointed for the most noble of visiting dignitaries. Tall windows hung with elegant curtains looked out on to a lawned courtyard. Sumptuous armchairs were arranged around an open fireplace, currently unlit. Two ornate desks sat at the far end of the room, one split in two as if by some crazed axe-wielding giant. Chairs lay on their backs, and two very dead bodies sprawled on the floor.

It looked like something had ripped them apart. Their blood splattered the walls, innards oozing out into the richly patterned rug. A heavy stench of burned iron and shit hung in the air.

‘By the Shepherd! Clun!' Melyn was astonished to hear the wail in Beulah's voice.

‘My … my lady.' Movement behind the desk dragged Melyn's gaze away from the eviscerated corpses on the floor. He looked up and saw a man-shaped blood spatter shift, a clear shadow appearing on the wall as Clun stepped forward. He was covered from head to toe in gore, his ducal robes ruined.

‘By
the Shepherd, boy, what happened here?' Melyn heard Beulah's sudden intake of breath at his words and remembered that he was no longer addressing a novitiate but the Duke of Abervenn. ‘Your Grace,' he corrected himself. ‘Are you all right?'

‘I think so … sir.' Clun seemed to be unsure of the correct way to address him. Given what he must have been through, Melyn was prepared to forgive him, just this once.

‘What happened?'

‘I … They were here to see me about trade agreements.' Clun motioned with his hand towards the broken desk. Papers lay all around it, some stuck to the green leather top with blood. ‘Then one of them said something about Abervenn never again being a plaything of the House of Balwen. He conjured a blade of light, used it on the desk. He was trying to get at me.'

Beulah ran across the room, ruining her dress in the process, and began wiping blood from Clun's face with a white handkerchief. Melyn was so astonished by the sight that it took him a few moments to gather his thoughts. What had happened to the ruthless queen he had left behind?

Two sets of double doors led from the reception room; one stood open. Silently Melyn crossed over to the doors, approaching so that he could see what lay beyond. It was a large bedchamber dominated by a huge four-poster. For a moment Melyn thought that was all there was in the room, but something pulled at his attention, a feeling of incongruity. He stared hard, trying to work out what it
was, and then he saw her, at the foot of the bed, cowering, her head covered by her flimsy wings. Quite how he could have missed her bulk he didn't know, but the question was lost in his contempt and hatred for her kind.

Melyn crossed the room in swift strides, lowering the point of his blade until it sizzled just a hair's breadth from the dragon's face.

‘Well, if it isn't sweet Frecknock. I'd been meaning to have a word with you. Get up!' He spat out the words, a cold fury sweeping over him as he remembered the death and destruction caused by the dragon in the woods near Pwllpeiran. A dragon she had failed to tell him about. ‘What are you doing in the duke's bedchamber?'

‘Your Grace, Master Def— the duke asked me to attend him.'

‘Nonsense. What would the likes of him want with the likes of you?'

‘He said that he wanted to learn more about the Grym. What little I know, I was happy to share.'

Melyn came close to lopping off her head there and then, but he remembered the other reason he had kept Frecknock alive: her knowledge of the passes through the Rim mountains to northern Llanwennog. He stayed his hand, let his blade evaporate into nothing. The pent-up force of the Grym took some of his anger with it as it went.

‘What happened out there?' He pointed towards the reception chamber.

‘Some men came. They said they wanted to talk about trade agreements. His Grace the duke invited them in,
started talking to them about commerce. He knows a great deal about it; I think his visitors were surprised.'

‘And where were you while this was happening?'

‘I was sitting under the window by the door over there.' Frecknock pointed back out to the main chamber. I suspect the duke likes to have me around when he conducts his negotiations; my appearance is … unsettling to some men.'

Melyn hastily revised his opinion of Clun. His knowledge of trade was understandable, given that his father had been a moderately successful merchant, but using a dragon to put his competitors on edge during negotiations? That showed a subtlety of touch beyond his years.

‘So. You were lying there taking up space, and what? You just let these men attack the duke? You ran in here to hide? You didn't think to help?'

‘No, Your Grace. It happened so fast I barely had time to react. I would have done anything to help Master Defaid. He's always been kind to me, ever since the attack on the queen. I didn't run from his attackers.'

‘But you were hiding in here.'

‘I didn't run from his attackers,' Frecknock repeated. ‘I ran from him.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘The first man leaped up, shouted something and then slashed at the desk with a great fiery blade, much like yours. His Grace took a step back and then …' She paused, her expression changing from deferential and scared to one of total puzzlement.

‘Then what, dragon?'

‘I
… I don't know. I think His Grace reached out for the blade. Then there was this screaming sound, and both of his attackers sort of … exploded. No, that's not the right expression. It was more like something tore them apart. But I couldn't see what. And then His Grace was standing there alone, with the blade in his hand. And he looked at me with such a light in his eyes. I thought he was going to kill me. I … I fled.'

Benfro sat under the trees at the edge of the clearing and watched as the boy dragged a heavy wooden chest from the riverbank back towards the cave. He managed a couple of paces, then slipped and fell, staying down for a long time. Then he sat up, rubbing at his ankles as if they were sore, climbed wearily to his feet and started again. Two more paces and he fell once more. At this rate it was going to take him all day to get the chest to the cave.

Leaning back against the rough bark of an old oak tree, Benfro felt the reassuring ache in his wing root. It was his anchor, the only thing that he could rely on to help him escape from Magog. But slowly, inevitably, the damage was healing. Despite the endless nights of twisting and turning, digging his back into roots and branches, bashing it against rocks or just lying on it badly, it was getting increasingly difficult to raise the necessary pain out of his injury. Soon he would be as good as he had been before his fall, and then there would be nothing to stop Magog from possessing him throughout the night. He would sort jewels until he was so exhausted he fell into a stupor, and as soon as he was rested, he would be back in the repository. Even now he could feel the weariness pulling him
down, as if he weighed three times as much as he should, as if the earth were a warm welcoming bed just waiting for him to sink into its comforting embrace.

Benfro jerked his head back, smacking it against the tree and blurring his vision for a moment. He had been so close. He could see the outline of the ancient writing desk fading away from his sight as he snapped back into himself, and deep in his mind he heard the insane laughter of his tormentor, echoing away to nothing.

He tried to focus on his aura, to tighten his grip on the rose cord that linked him with Magog's jewel, but to see it properly he needed to relax, and to relax was to succumb to sleep. To sleep was to condemn more of his dead friends to an eternity of terrifying solitude. Like he had condemned Sir Frynwy.

The old dragon's spirit had told him to look to his friends for help, but Benfro couldn't think of anyone he could consider a friend. His mother was dead, most of her jewels stolen by Inquisitor Melyn; the villagers were dead and at the mercy of Magog; he supposed Frecknock was still alive, but she would never be friend. And besides she was responsible for the whole mess he was in. Perhaps he could consider Corwen a friend, but the dragon mage was only a projection of his memories. If he'd been able to help Benfro fight Magog, then he would surely have done so already. So who had Sir Frynwy meant? Malkin? The mother tree? Benfro was sure they would help him if they could, but how could he find them? He didn't know where to begin looking. It was all helpless. He was alone.

Glumly he watched as once more the boy hauled
himself to his feet, his pain obvious even this far away, and tried to move the heavy chest. He was persistent, Benfro had to admit, but couldn't he see that the task was beyond him?

More for the want of something to do than anything else, he levered himself to his feet and headed down into the clearing. The boy didn't hear his approach; he was too intent on straining at the chest. As Benfro neared, he let out a short gasp of pain and crumpled to the ground again, clutching at his ankles and grimacing.

‘Where do you want it?' Benfro picked up the chest as if it weighed no more than air.

‘I … In the cave, please. If it is fit.' The boy spoke halting Draigiaith with a strange accent that reminded Benfro of Gideon. He remembered his first meeting with the man, and how his mother had said that of all their kind he was perhaps the only one she would have trusted.

‘Who taught you our language?'

‘I learn what I can from to read scrolls.' The boy was very pale, now that Benfro looked at him. He didn't know much about men, but he was sure their ankles weren't meant to look like that either. Not twisted at such an odd angle to the leg, and not swollen, bruised. He shifted his perception a little, trying to see the boy's aura. It was a pale thing, as if he was hanging on to life by the thinnest of threads. But around his ankles and feet it swelled out, pulsing and livid with purples and reds. Benfro remembered his own aura when he had damaged his wing root and knew that these injuries were much worse. How had the boy managed to walk at all?

‘Wait
there,' he said as if it were necessary. He carried the chest into the cave, setting it down close to the bed. Then he went back out to where the boy was still lying, reached down and scooped him up. He weighed even less than the chest.

‘What am you do?'

‘Your ankles are broken.' Benfro spoke Saesneg, even though he hadn't used the language since his mother had taught him. He carried the boy to the cave and set him down on the bed, then turned his attention to the fire. The coals were almost burned out; it would take too long to stoke them up to a decent flame. Instead, he piled thick logs on top of the ash, then breathed out a steady flame. The wood caught, blazing a welcome warmth. On the bed the boy shivered, moving towards the heat.

Benfro went to the chest, opened it and peered inside. There were assorted clothes, piled on the top, some damp from the river, but at the bottom he found a couple of dry wool blankets which he handed over.

‘Rest,' he said, then left the cave before the boy could say anything more. Outside the sky had darkened with clouds, threatening rain. The tops of the trees whipped back and forth in the strengthening wind, suggesting a storm might be coming. Benfro looked over at the makeshift roof on his corral, wondering whether it would withstand a good blow. He didn't really fancy finding out.

‘He can help you. If you let him.' Corwen appeared beside Benfro as if he'd been there all the time.