Creatures of fire and pain

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. They only came when summoned by augury, called forth by the screams of the dying man as I dragged his entrails across a table soaked in pain. These were not the human sized monsters that prowled the north but creatures of power, their scales scorched by hellfire and their dark eyes open to the future and the past.

I’d called them to start the the story, to tell me how to bring players together on a stage awash with blood. Before the snow came a king would be crowned; before the snowbells rose to herald the spring, a god would be freed and an apocalypse begun. As the dragons drove prophecy through my screaming mind I saw the face of the thief, the hero and the lady who would help me end a world. And if I had been alone, when creatures of fire and pain danced around my head, I would never have told what I learnt.

But I wasn’t alone.

‘You saw her?’ my cousin’s voice jerked me out of the vision, folding the skyline of dragons, the hell I’d inhabited, back into a tiny room, bright with the circles of protection that had kept me safe.

‘I saw her.’ The disorientation of reality tore into my gut, giving me an excuse to be sick. I’d been a child when I first slashed my arms to summon demons and I was used to it now. Used to the twist of pain and pleasure as they fed, green and gold and crimson with my blood. I’d grown used to dodging the inquisition, familiar with the burns that prayers left on my flesh. But I would never get over the twisted sickness I felt as a man died screaming at my hands.

‘Clean up that mess.’ Gold eyes, the colour and shape of my own glared down at me. ‘And tell me where she is.’

‘She’s here in Sulis.’ A gesture ignited the vomit on the floor. ‘But not for long. There are visions hovering that will drive her north.’

‘When?’

‘I don’t know exactly.’ I swallowed hard at the fear he would realise I wasn’t telling him everything. ‘It’s her vision now, not mine.’ His eyes narrowed and I forced myself to relax. It’s the tension that gives you away when you lie. ‘I could keep an eye on her in person.’

‘Too dangerous.’ He pulled a cloth from the shelf and gave it to me to wipe my mouth. ‘We’ll do it with magic.’

Which is how I found myself cross-legged in a circle letting demons feed on my arms. While the Lady Vivienne pretended to be fascinated by a tale of dragon slaying glory.

I needed to get out of Sulis before my aunt woke up. Which meant I needed to distract the far-to-attractive lord before he discovered my saddlebags. I set my smile, batted my eyelashes and prepared to listen to another tale of monsters-I-have-slain. I didn’t believe it of course—everyone knew that the dragons, beast-men and walking dead were northerner exaggerations—but it was better than questions about what I was doing here unchaperoned. And, unlike most heroes, Alaric did seem willing to share the credit for slaying a dragon with his horse.

‘It was Rosanna who saved me.’ He slipped the mare another carrot. ‘We’d done two passes already and I’d thrown my spear but now I had to get in close, in range of its breath. They spit acid, you know, poison that burns flesh and I took the first barrage on my shield before its head swung back for a second.’

‘Which you blocked again?’

‘Couldn’t afford to. The acid eats wood like fire and more than one parry and I'd be burning flesh. It was Rosanna who leapt sideways as it spat, spinning to put me in line for the neck. I hacked as we dodged, two, three blows but the scales are like armor, and I had no chance of severing the head. Only a lance to the body would kill.’

I do not believe in dragons. I do not believe in dragons. But he made it sound so real. The sideways leap to avoid the poison, the wounds slowly opening on the monster’s neck, green blood trickling over blackened scales. The threshing head hitting his burning shield.

‘I heard the crack,’ he said, and I saw him wince at the memory. ‘It felt like my arm was broken. But the movement had exposed its side and Rosanna took me in for the strike. A desperate move it was for we’d be dead if it failed but she never faltered in her charge and the blow struck true.

‘You killed it?’

He returned my smile. ‘We killed it,’ he agreed. ‘And it’s not the only time she’s saved my life. Why one time…’

‘You must tell me about it.’ I took another step away from the horses. ‘Perhaps we could continue our conversation in more salubrious surroundings.’

‘I would love to, my lady.’ He sounded as if he meant it. ‘But I don’t think I can.’

Why not? And why isn’t he leaving?

‘Not until you explain what you are doing in the stables without an escort and with bags packed for travel. I hope,’ he continued, as he opened the wooden half-door to reveal my poorly concealed luggage. ‘That you aren’t planning on doing anything foolish.’

That cocklehead. Of course, I was planning on doing something foolish. When the alternative was staying here and being wed to Oswald the ancient lecher then long live folly. How dare Alaric Liddell pretend to be captured by my clever diversion when all the time he knew what I was doing and was just waiting for an opportunity to spring it on me. He probably made up that whole dragon-slaying story to distract me. Everyone knows there are no such things as dragons.

It was time to bring out the heavy artillery.

I burst into tears.

‘My lady? My lady, I’m sorry. I…’ Alaric’s voice trailed off. ‘Perhaps you could explain it to me and… If there’s anything I can do.’

Go away would be a good start. It was easy to cry when I thought about his perfidy in pretending to listen to me. ‘Just go away,’ I said. ‘Go way and leave me alone.’

‘I can’t do that, my Lady.’

I don’t see why not. I let more water appear in my eyes and blessed the fact that— provided my nose doesn’t start running, which is not a look any one can pull off—tears don’t ruin my looks. ‘You don’t understand.’

‘You’re right, I don’t,’ he admitted. ‘But that doesn’t mean I’m going to leave you here.’ I saw him draw in a breath as he looked down at my face. ‘Are you eloping, my lady?’

‘Eloping?’ My head jerked back and I heard my voice rise. ‘Eloping with who? My father’s chamberlain? A penniless knight? Or perhaps you think I’ve fallen for Sir William’s facile charm and empty promises?’ My anger grew as I thought of the idiots at court who simpered and giggled when the handsome knight flirted with them and didn’t notice that he’d run through his first wife’s inheritance before seeking an annulment and would no doubt run though theirs just as fast. ‘Do you think I’m that sort of fool?’

‘No, my lady. I…’

‘Well, I’m not.’ I shook damp hair back from my cheeks and glared up at Alaric’s far-to-sympathetic face. ‘I’m not a simpering fool and I never have been and the last thing I’d ever do is elope with some man who was only after my money or my body or, oh damn.’ The final comment was torn out of me when I realized, I hadn’t stopped crying and now my nose was running and every moniker I owned was packed in the bottom of my saddlebags and I had to either accept the linen square Alaric was holding or wipe my nose on my sleeve.

‘Thank you.’ I doubt I sounded as if I meant it. ‘You’re very kind.’

‘I’m concerned for you, Vivienne.’ Unlike me, he did sound sincere. ‘I would like to help.’

You’ve done too much already. ‘I’m not eloping,’ I said again. ‘I’m…’

‘Running away.’ He met my outraged glare with his own.

‘I am not running away.’

‘Then what are you doing?’

I’m….oh god’s blood,’ I swore because truth and expediency both told me to agree with him. ‘Alright, I’m running away. My aunt controls my family and she’s determined to marry me off to her advantage and she’s got Oswald Baudry in her sights and if I don’t…’

‘Oswald Baudry? Alaric’s jaw dropped. ‘The man they call Oswald the fish.’

‘Do they?’ Though it didn’t surprise me.

‘My lady, you cannot marry him you—’

‘—Need to leave,’ I finished. At last, the conversation was going my way. Thinking of the geriatric Oswald, with his cold hands and wet mouth I gave an authentic shudder and pressed some more tears out. ‘You see I can’t stay here.’

‘Of course not.’

‘I have to go away and…’

‘You could take refuge in the abbey.’

‘No.’ My denial was explosive. ‘No,’ I tried again, more softly. ‘I couldn’t do that. I have no calling.’

‘I noticed that.’ Alaric’s eyes met mine and I felt the familiar touch of fear. They can burn you for a witch, in the south. ‘So where will you go?’

I’m going home, I went to say. It was the truth and there was no need for him to know that it was not my father’s stone walled castle that was my destination but my mother’s isolated tower house. My mother’s wooden keep was smaller, far less defensible or comfortable than the concentric castle I’d grown up in. But it backed onto forest that housed some of the Goddesses oldest shrines. The women in those temples—hidden from the king’s men and the church’s priests—would help me evade my aunt’s ambition. I would be free to discover my power.

I’m going home; I opened my mouth to say when the door I’d been leaning against shifted. When the sun shafted through an open beam to land on a patch of water, and the Goddesses voice speared me to the future.

Go North.

A cloud of red hair, brilliant as fire against dull grey stones shone in the water. Hair that flashed with the same colour, and curled with the same attention to detail as my own. Floating around a hidden face with the same magically enhanced softness that was one of the first spells I learnt.

Who is she? I asked, as the vision took my sight.

Go North, was the only reply.

The girl’s hair was replaced by another picture. A peasant’s inn, grubby and ill lit, with the heavy hoods and sharp spears you see only in the north. An inn I would never visit so why did the picture show me sitting there, my image blurred with a don’t-look-at-me Glamour, my green skirt grubby with two hundred miles of travel.

Go North

I’m going home I tried to speak but my voice wouldn’t come. It was taken by images that came faster and faster, drowning my will in flashes of light and dark.

A blond girl sat in the inn, greed in her eyes as she scooped up coins, seemingly unaware of the curse on the dagger that rested by her hand.

A gold-eyed barbarian, mouth opened in a scream of pain, as demons feasted on the cuts across his arms.

Alaric: half naked and bleeding. His outstretched arms mirrored the crucifixion while dogs from a horned god licked blood from his feet.

He was weeping.

Like the girl.

The red-haired girl who cried as monsters from the north encircled her: black scaled wyverns, white-skinned undead, beast-man devils, circling like a nightmare as the flame–crowned women wept.

Is it me? I asked, as the vision traced water down my face. The weeping girl, is it me?

I will protect you, I heard Alaric say, though I know he didn’t speak.

Women are born to sorrow, was the voice of my father’s priest.

Tears can be a useful tool, my aunt replied.

Is it me? I asked again, waiting for assurance or warning. Is it me or her?

Does it matter? And my eyes widened as a voice sounded from neither memory nor the goddesses’ prophecy. ‘Does it matter who’s crying?’ asked the man with golden-eyes and demon scars.

‘My lady,’ this voice was real, and Alaric’s face swam into focus. ‘Lady Vivienne, are you alright?’

Yes. No. ‘Not really,’ I stumbled against him while my mind struggled to regain the present. ‘I do feel faint.’ His arm came round me, and I turned my head into his shoulder. It was a nice shoulder, well-muscled under a padded gambeson, and I let my tears fall freely. The tears were genuine, this time, though my mind still scurried for a defence. How long had the vision lasted? Had I said anything incriminating? Could the boy whose blessed cross hung less than three inches from my nose tell that I had been possessed by the power of another god?

And who was the gold-eyed barbarian who spoke? And how?