The Golden Cage (9 page)

The preparation took almost half an hour, during which time Benfro examined the damage done to Errol's ankles. He had never studied the anatomy of men, but it was fairly easy to see that the damage had been healing badly. Not set properly, the bones would likely have fused into one unyielding mass, making walking extremely difficult and painful. In some ways the boy had done himself a favour by breaking them again.

It wasn't going to be easy to set them right though; he might not even be able to do it at all. Errol's ankles were much smaller and more complicated than Ynys Môn's shoulder, and he had only watched his mother heal that. But it was a task that would require his full attention, that would take his mind off sleep and the endless weariness that pulled at him.

Steeling himself to the task, Benfro let his perceptions
shift until he could see Errol's aura, stretched thin over him like a second skin. Only those ruined ankles glowed with any colour, and that was a livid shifting mass of purples and reds. Settling down in the best position he could manage for both comfort and light from the fire, he extended one talon and set to work.

Melyn pushed through the doors into the royal chambers, ignoring the startled looks of the ladies-in-waiting who hovered around the queen like so many flies around a corpse.

‘Your Majesty, once again you look ridiculous. Must you insist on wearing these outrageous costumes?'

Beulah laughed without any mirth. ‘You know as well as I do that I hate this pomp and show, Melyn. I hate it as much as you do. But it's what the people expect.'

‘True,' Melyn conceded. ‘Padraig may be an insufferable bore, but he knows how to manipulate public feeling. The whole city celebrates today.'

‘That's because they don't have to go to work.'

‘Well, that could have something to do with it, I suppose. But they're feeling well disposed towards the royal house too. The people seem to approve of Clun.'

‘I didn't choose him for his public appeal, Melyn. He has other qualities.'

‘I'm sure he does, but now is perhaps not the time to discuss them. You're due to be married in about twenty minutes.'

‘Is it that late already?' Beulah looked over at the window as if trying to gauge the time by the light filtering in. The sky was overcast, a grey pallor marring an otherwise
fine warm spring day. It had rained earlier, washing down the yellow sandstone walls of the citadel and making everything smell fresh. All they needed was a little sunshine and it would be perfect.

‘His Grace the Duke of Abervenn left for the chapel about ten minutes ago,' Melyn said. ‘I don't think I've ever seen a boy look more nervous.'

‘Boy, Melyn? He's a grown man.' Beulah shooed away the ladies-in-waiting. ‘Go now. I will speak with the inquisitor alone. You may wait for me downstairs.'

The ladies left the room, fussing that the queen was not yet ready, though Melyn could see nothing wrong with how she looked beyond the sheer ridiculousness of her costume itself. White and large was the best way he could describe it, with all manner of extraneous bits trailing off here and there. He understood the need for the symbolism, but he couldn't help disliking the extravagance of a dress costing so much gold which would be worn just once, for less than half a day.

‘Has he asked about his father?' Beulah took up the brush one of her ladies had placed carefully on the dressing table, and began pulling it through her hair. Melyn realized he was staring and looked away. He didn't think he'd ever seen Beulah brush her hair before. It had always been too short to worry about, but now it was down to her shoulders

‘His father?'

‘Clun. Has he asked about his father? I assume you took care of that little problem.'

‘Clun hasn't asked about his father, no,' Melyn said.
‘Not that I've had that much time to talk to him. Or you for that matter. I should have delivered my report to you as soon as I arrived.'

‘As I recall, you were doing that when we were interrupted. Never mind, Melyn. Tell me now.'

‘But your wedding?'

‘Can wait a few minutes more. It never hurts to keep a man waiting. A lady, on the other hand …'

Melyn told her what they had found at Pwllpeiran and how they had tracked signs of a dragon travelling north into the great forest of the Ffrydd. ‘I don't think it was the kitling, Benfro. I think this is another beast entirely, something completely wild. I've never heard of their kind eating people before. Killing us, yes, but not eating us.'

‘What about the boy Errol? Was there any sign of him?'

‘No,' Melyn said. ‘I don't even think he'd gone back to his home. We found only signs of the two adults living there, and their bones.'

‘And you're sure it was them?'

‘As sure as I could be. They were picked clean, but it was definitely a man and a woman. You could say the beast did us a favour, but I'll still track it down and kill it. I'll break the bad news to Clun tomorrow. Let him enjoy his wedding day.'

‘No, I'll tell him,' Beulah said, standing and gathering her voluminous dress around her, taking Melyn's proffered arm. ‘He's going to be my husband, after all.'

Errol sat on a cliff, looking out over hauntingly familiar mountains. He hugged his knees to his chest, shivered at the cold and stared at the impossibly large building across
the narrow steep-sided ravine. He had seen Emmass Fawr, walked its endless corridors from the highest tower to the deepest dungeon. The castle he saw now made the monastery of the Order of the High Ffrydd look like a doll's house.

It spread around the whole of a single mountain peak, encircling it with concentric rings of battlement-topped stone walls. Windows glinted in the sun like the myriad facets of some vast spider's eye, and thin towers reached skyward from every corner. In the middle, atop the highest peak, a single fat circular tower rose five or six storeys higher still, capped with a conical roof of dark slate.

As he watched the huge castle, looking for signs of life and wondering how he had come to be in this place, Errol heard a screeching noise behind him at once alien and terribly familiar. He turned to see four great beasts beating their way through the sky. One, weighed down with something, flew lower than the others, and as they approached one of its companions dipped down in a complex spiralling motion, dropping even lower still and catching the burden as it was released. Errol's heart lurched as he realized what that burden was.

Martha.

She was being passed from dragon to dragon in mid-air, hundreds of feet above the ragged mountains, tumbling from one set of talons to another like a child's discarded doll, and all the while the dragons were screeching at each other in what sounded like hideous laughter. Before he could do anything, before he could even register that he must be dreaming, they had passed overhead, ignoring him completely, and were making the short trip across the
ravine to the massive castle. In only a dozen beats of their wings, they were there, passing over one of the high walls and disappearing from sight.

And then Errol was sitting on the castle wall, looking down over a wide courtyard laid with flagstones and neatly mown grass. The four dragons had landed, their captive now lying on the ground motionless. They bickered among themselves like crows dancing around a dead animal, so absorbed in their dispute that they completely failed to notice a fifth dragon approach on foot from a huge arched doorway that led into the building. It had to be a male dragon; Errol had never seen a creature so big and magnificent. He towered over the other four, making them seem like children, and he clipped them around the heads until they stopped their arguments and formed a sulky line.

It was so like old Father Drebble knocking a bit of discipline into his more unruly pupils that Errol almost laughed, but his voice choked off before he made a sound. The large dragon leaned down to inspect the still bundle on the ground, stooping further to pick it up and inspect it more closely. He turned away from the four youngsters, walked a few paces back towards the door, then turned and shouted something at them. As one, they leaped back, crashing into each other in their haste to get airborne. Errol ignored them, straining to see the older dragon and the too-still form of Martha as he carried her away towards the building. Was it his imagination? Was it just the rolling, bumping motion of the dragon's gait, or did she move her arm to her head, like someone waking from unconsciousness? He prayed she was unharmed even as he knew she was in serious trouble.

He wanted to rush after her, follow as stealthily as he
could, find wherever it was the dragon was taking her and free her. They could escape together, if he could just get down to the courtyard. But it was a forty-foot drop on to hard flagstones. Behind, he knew without looking, it was ten times that on to near-vertical scree-covered slopes. To either side the wall snaked away, impossibly narrow, hitting him with sudden heart-stopping vertigo.

And then he was enveloped in noise, a terrible screeching as the first of the four young dragons dived at him, claws reaching for his head, talons outstretched. Instinctively Errol ducked and felt himself tipping over the wall backwards. Into nothing.

‘It is written that in the earliest days, when he still walked among his chosen, the Shepherd directed King Balwen towards fair Myfanwy and filled his heart with love for her as he filled hers with devotion to him. His blessing upon that union was the foundation of our people, the beginning of the Twin Kingdoms.'

Beulah tuned out the words, barely hearing Archimandrite Cassters' droning voice as he worked his way through the marriage ceremony. She knelt on a hard cushion in front of the altar in Brynceri's chapel, staring through her veil at the ornate carvings on the wall behind, at the archimandrite's heavy silk robes, at her hands. Darting a quick glance sideways at Clun.

‘Our lord no longer walks among his flock, but he watches over us at all times. From our first breath he is there, even until we depart this life and make that final journey to the safe pastures. He is our guide through life, our protector from the Running Wolf.'

She
had not expected to be so nervous. It was such a cliché; only empty-headed young maidens panicked on their wedding day. And yet here she was, fidgeting and quite unable to concentrate.

‘His compassion knows no bounds, his wisdom is infinite, and nowhere is his generosity more amply demonstrated than in his blessing of the union of man and woman. For if we search our hearts, we can see that he has brought together Clun Godric Defaid, Duke of Abervenn, and Her Majesty Queen Beulah of the Speckled Face, just as he has brought together every man and woman since the beginning of time.'

Beulah winced at her full title, hating her father for his cruelty in naming her so. She would have dearly liked to change it, but her people were a superstitious lot, and nothing would alarm them more than abandoning the name bestowed upon her. The history of the House of Balwen was littered with sorry tales of those who had tempted fate that way.

‘We gather here, in the shelter of this chapel, built by King Brynceri himself on the spot where the Shepherd instructed him to unite the whole of Gwlad in his love, to act as witnesses to this union.'

There was a power to this place, Beulah had to admit. She was not one for spending hours in religious contemplation, preferring to serve her god in her actions, but Brynceri's chapel glowed with an energy like the Obsidian Throne, though perhaps not as potent. She tried to relax, letting herself slip into the aethereal. Once more it seemed she was unable to reach that state that had been second
nature. She suspected it was something to do with her pregnancy, but it was frustrating nonetheless. She didn't like the feeling of helplessness, and she longed to teach Clun the art. His aethereal image was so strong, he would surely master it as swiftly as had she under Melyn's tutelage. There were few enough adepts as it was and she would need them all for the coming war.

‘Your Majesty, would you please stand now.' The archimandrite's words were a whisper, meant only for her. Beulah realized she had tuned him out completely, not hearing the ceremony at all. Behind her the chapel was an echo of silent anticipation, as if everyone assembled simultaneously held their breath. Then she felt a hand touch her arm lightly and looked round to where Clun hovered in an almost squatting position, offering to help her up. She took his arm and they rose together.

‘To be joined in the eyes of the Shepherd is no trifling thing. Do you, Clun Godric Defaid, take this woman to be your wife? Do you swear to protect her, to honour her for all of your days?'

Clun's nervous ‘I do so swear' was the greatest gift he could have given her. Beulah could see in his thoughts that he was in awe of her. There was no artifice in him: he didn't see her as a source of power or wealth or influence, only as the woman he wanted to be with for the rest of his life, to serve with unquestioning loyalty, faith and love. It was almost humbling, but also unsettling to be faced with such devotion.