Dragon Rose(60)

But my hand trembled, and I forced myself to pause and take a few bracing breaths before permitting myself to daub any paint on the canvas. No point in making foolish mistakes simply because I hadn’t allowed enough time to pass so I could calm myself sufficiently.

Whether there would ever be enough time for such a thing wasn’t a concept I wished to contemplate at the moment.

Do not think of that. Think only of that hint of a shadow at the corner of his mouth…darken the tint ever so slightly…not too much, or it will simply look dirty…

And so on. It did help to distract me somewhat. However, after a time I began to think I should have focused on something less troubling, such as the collar of his doublet, because all that time spent staring at the stranger’s mouth only led me to remember my odd dream, and how he had felt far too real…if only until I awoke.

Still, he had not been afraid to kiss me.

Of course not, I chided myself. Because you have made him up completely out of your imagination. With all the time you’ve spent staring at this portrait, it would have been more surprising if you hadn’t dreamt of him sooner or later.

True enough, I supposed. I set down my paintbrush and tilted my head to one side, examining the changes I had just made. It did look better now, although I would have to inspect it in daylight—assuming there was much light when the sun rose again. The wind was howling in earnest now, wailing as it blew past my window.

Only that wasn’t the wind. Oh, part of it, of course, but above that came the high, keening cry I had heard before, when the lord of the castle launched himself into the air in his changed form. That first time it had been my doing, and I feared it was the conflict between us which drove him forth now.

I put my hands up to my ears to blot out the sound, crying, “No, gods, no, please stop!”

Of course he could not hear me, far away as he was in the wind and the storm. I could not hope to work now, could do nothing but fling myself across the room and onto my bed, where I scrambled underneath the covers and clutched the pillows around my head.

Even that was not enough; the sound seemed to somehow pierce its way through to my very brain. All I could do was huddle there and hope it would stop. Eventually…hours or minutes later, I could not say…the keening seemed to move off and then die away completely. At first I did not stir, fearing that it might return, but as time wore on I realized he truly had gone. Only then did I slip out from the spurious shelter of my bed.

There could be no more thought of painting this night. I had learned my lesson not to leave the portrait or any of my paints sitting out, for fear of rousing suspicions. Yes, I had an innocuous painting of the bare gardens in progress so as to throw the casual observer off the scent, but that subterfuge would only work as long as no one inspected my palette too closely. It was clear that the pigments used in the garden painting differed greatly from the flesh tones I employed in my portrait of the stranger.

So I tidied things as best I could, and after I was done with that, moved about the room, blowing out the candles until only the one on my bedside table remained lit. Somehow I couldn’t bear to extinguish that one. I didn’t want to be left alone in the dark.

And as I prepared myself for bed, I tried not to think of those anguished cries in the night, and how it had to have been our confrontation that put him in such a desperate state. What else could it have been?

It seemed I had wept all that day’s tears, however, and when I lay down at last I stared up into the dim canopy above my bed with curiously dry eyes. Was I to blame here, for reaching out to him, or was his misery no one’s fault but his own?

I found I did not want to know.





Melynne came the next morning with my breakfast, looking more subdued than usual, despite the spurious cheer of a clear morning. The blanket of snow on the castle and the surrounding gardens sparkled so much it appeared to have been dusted with diamonds, and if it were not for the tumultuous night which had preceded it, I might have greeted so glittering a day with more enthusiasm than I was currently able to muster.

Whether the servant girl had picked up on my own dreary mood, or whether she looked so downcast because she, too, had her sleep disturbed by the Dragon’s ragings, I had no way of knowing. Once or twice she appeared on the verge of saying something and then seemed to hold her tongue, as if thinking better of it.

At last, exasperated by her hovering—normally she would leave the tray and then come back for it later, instead of waiting for me to finish my meal—I snapped, “Well, what is it, Melynne? You have the look of someone who has something to say, so out with it.”

She gave a furtive look around the room, almost as if she expected someone to be eavesdropping on our conversation. “Well, my lady, we aren’t supposed to speak of such things, but…”

“But what?” Was she going to mention Theran’s raging of the night before? I somehow doubted it, but I had also begun to realize I knew very little of how other people’s minds worked.

“It’s…well, it’s only that my cousin Nan spoke with Linnart the carter when he came up to Greyton day before last, when the weather was clear, and he said he had news of your family.” Again she gave another one of those sidelong glances around the room. Perhaps she thought Sar had secreted herself within a fold of the draperies so she might overhear what we were saying.

I couldn’t be bothered with that. News of my family? From Melynne’s appearance, it couldn’t be anything good. Perhaps my father had suffered a relapse, or my mother had caught a fever. And what of all the slips and falls and other accidents that might befall young girls who had a predilection for charging up and down the stairs like a herd of wild horses?