Читать книгу Rhiana - Michele Hauf - Страница 6

The beast had landed the shore; its upper half, including the neck and skull, had plunged into the sea. No bones or scales to claim this day; the tide would carry away the carcass before nightfall.

From within the blackness of the cave opening another heartbeat yet pulsed, but she did not sense the second had been wakened by the attack.

A second? Truly, there was another.

Was it the mate? The fallen dragon was female, evident in its bright coloring. It was the male that protected the eggs, and which was in need of dull gray scales. Never had Rhiana seen a dragon egg. Or a male, for that matter.

Topside, after a perilous climb up the cliff face, Rhiana rushed across the open meadow to the forest and retrieved the thick wool cloak she’d secreted behind the twisted trunk of a burned-out oak stump. Swinging the cloak around her shoulders, she then followed the purlieu of the forest a league back to the battlement walls.

The sun dashed a gold line across the horizon and even from a distance Rhiana heard a rooster crow the morn. Beads of dew danced at grass-tip blades like faery finery. The morning smelled fresh and salted with the slightest tang of sage.

As she walked, she pulled the leather tie from her bound hair and shook it over her shoulder. True, dragon’s flame did little harm to her flesh and hair. But she hadn’t yet discovered a fabric that could withstand the heat, be it dragon flame or a simple hearth fire. The thin cambric tunic she wore beneath the scaled leather armor had burned away during her flaming, proving the wool cloak a necessity.

This armor was remarkable. Fashioned by her stepfather Paul, the leather cuirass was more a tunic that covered chest, back and the tops of her shoulders and arms. Secured at the backs of her arms and down her torso with leather straps, the thin strips were stitched through with fine mail wire to allow malleable strength that couldn’t be burned away. As for the mail chausses, Rhiana had made them herself, utilizing double rings instead of the usual single ring method. Rarely did she wear but hose beneath them—heavier chamois braies were unnecessary—for the thick mail protected verily, even one’s modesty.

Rhiana felt she might wear merely the armor, baring more flesh than any maiden should, for it would save on damaged clothing. But she must be cautious. Should she be spied in such attire, surely there would be a price to pay.

All in St. Rénan knew of her industry. They had seen her tromping about in the armor and wielding her dagger. “She’s an odd one,” they’d mutter to themselves. “Always has been.” Why, some had mistaken her for a boy when younger, for her antics and attraction to all things muddy or slimy, and her frequent play with makeshift weapons.

Yet, all in St. Rénan believed the real slayer who had been visiting the village two years earlier had taken down the dragon. A dragon Rhiana had slain. At the time, she hadn’t felt the need to correct perceptions, for she’d been so excited, the elation of the kill had far outweighed any glory the villagers might have bestowed. Instead, she’d gladly stood back while Amandine had collected his dragon’s purse from the hoard council as payment for his kill.

Praise and acknowledgment mattered very little to Rhiana, only that her loved ones were kept safe. For without family, what had one left?

The village walls were sixty feet high and fashioned from massive bricks shaped from the same ocher limestone that frilled the seashore. Four towers set at each direction of the compass punctuated the battlement walls, with wide parapet walks stretching between them all. The walls completely closed in the village, for it was small, yet growing, though none had chosen to build outside the walls for the dangers were real.

Avoiding the drawbridge that crossed to St. Rénan’s barbican and main entrance gates, Rhiana skipped along the curtain wall to the north entrance, close to where the artillery stored dusty trebuchets and long-forgotten cannonballs. It was rarely used, for siege and battle were nonexistent.

A narrow plank, no wider than two fists, stretched across the dry, yet deep, moat, attracting only the most deft and balanced.

Steadying herself with but one outstretched arm, Rhiana danced across the wobbly plank. The scaled armor clicked softly and her mail chausses chinged. The sound of mail in motion made her smile. It signified all things chivalrous and adventurous to her. Halfway across she lunged into a bounce. The plank wobbled, digging up plumes of dry earth at either end. Lifting one foot out before her, Rhiana performed another bounce, landed her foot and skipped quickly to ground and the thick iron door.

She glanced back at the expanse of moat she’d crossed. A satisfied nod followed. Every opportunity to danger must be met.

Rudolph manned the barbican in the early morn, but his watch didn’t start until prime, so Rhiana had coerced him to guard this door. Rudolph was a lifelong friend and fellow cohort in today’s mission, for ’twas his brother Jean Claude who had been snatched from his very boots.

A double rap to the thick iron door with the heel of her crossbow, was followed by Rudolph’s husky, “Who goes there?”

The lanky young man always tried to lower his voice and speak slowly, as Rhiana had suggested would make him sound more imposing.

“Fire chaser,” Rhiana replied, the previously decided password. It was a nickname only Rudolph and Paul used, yet Rudolph was not privy to her most exotic secrets, as was her stepfather.

A blinking eyeball peered through the squint hole. The door opened and an arm lashed out to grip her by the wrist and tug her inside the battlement walls. Slammed against the closing door, Rhiana smirked at Rudolph’s theatrics.

With a scatter of blonde hair poking out from beneath his tight leather skullcap, he glared his best glare at her, then, with a sniff and a nod, stepped back, assuming modest nonchalance. “My lady.”

“Rudolph.” She chuckled and tugged unconsciously at the wool cloak. He did not know what she wore—or did not wear—beneath. “Do you not recognize my voice, that you must every time treat me as a possible intruder?”

“It is my task, my lady, to protect the village from impostors and brigands.”

When they were children he’d once accused her of pressing him to always play the knight when he much preferred to be a minstrel or village fool. Mayhap their play battles had some influence in his chosen profession of guard, or so Rhiana liked to believe.

“You serve Lord Guiscard well with your astute attention to detail.”

“Think you?”

“Indeed.”

Pleased with the compliment, Rudolph bowed in affirmation. Then with a nervous tug of his cap, which never did cover his overlarge ears, he grew more serious. “Any dragons?” he wondered.

“One less, thanks be to my trusty crossbow.”

“My lady, you are a gem!” Eyes stretching up the battlement wall to her side, Rudolph said with less enthusiasm, “If only you had been near when Jean Claude was taken.”

“Rudolph.” She clamped a palm upon his shoulder. Wheat dust smoked out from his brown tunic; he spent his nights romancing the miller’s daughter in the shadows of the flour mill. “Your brother was a benevolent man, ever eager to set aside what he was doing to aid, be it building or chopping or even singing during the village’s frequents fêtes. There is no doubt, in my heart, Jean Claude sings with the angels this day.”

“You are ever kind. I just…keep wondering how awful it must feel to be snatched up in a dragon’s maw.”

A thought Rhiana had had many a time. It was what had kept her alert and deft in the face of danger.

Rudolph stomped a boot upon the packed dirt ground. “Forgive me, I am well and fine. No tears, no tears.”

Sniffing, he resumed a defensive stance, arms crossed over his chest, and a guardlike frown upon his face. A familiar pose, for Rhiana had often pushed him to tears with her teasing. Because, most certainly, girls were better than boys.

“Thank you, Rudolph. I continue to rely upon your discretion.”

“But wait!” He blocked her leave with a dancing step to the right. “You said one less. What does that mean? One less? Less than more?” His voice warbled. “Be there more…dragons?”

“Shh, Rudolph, you’ll wake curious ears.” They both looked down the aisle of houses that snaked along the battlement walls. But a strip of sunlight glowed upon the slate rooftops. “I am not positive, but I think there is another.”

“Another,” he panted out. Straining to keep his voice to a whisper, he muttered, “Go back! Kill it, fire chaser! Do not let this day pass without banishing hell’s evil. It will continue to stalk our village!”

“Rudolph.” Rhiana sighed.

Should she have remained? Walked deep into the darkness of the cave and explored, seeking the other dragon?

No, the other had slept surely. Else, would it not have flown out to avenge its mate’s death? She had sensed no immediate danger. And what if it had been male, protecting a newling? She did not kill indiscriminately.

“I am on it, you can trust me.”

“Girls are better than boys,” he tried with a teasing lilt to the statement.

She winked and gave him a quick hug, then strode past him and into the narrow back alleys twisting about behind St. Rénan’s strip of artillery and armory shops. The buildings were constructed of timber posts and beams, but overlaid by slate or fieldstone. A decades-old edict declared all buildings must be of stone and all roofs of slate or tile. Best defense for a village oft ravaged by flame.

A cock again crowed the morning and dogs yipped in response. The delicious smell of baking bread unearthed a ridiculous hunger in Rhiana’s belly. Dragon slaying was hard work and required a hearty meal. She must to home to catch the last bits of Odette’s breakfast.

A twig rolled off an overhead rooftop and tapped her on the shoulder. Must be from a bird. But yet—she paused and searched the sky. One must never become complacent. So many noises in this village forged of stone and earth and as little wood as possible. She spied a dash of gray skirts.

“Mother?”

Rhiana skipped around and hid behind a tightly woven wattle arbor. Her mother made her way to the castle kitchen. Lydia walked a swift pace, and kept looking over her shoulder. As if she thought she was being followed. Strange.

Rhiana scanned the area. No one else out so early. Hmm…

Her mother had been different the past fortnight. Avoiding Rhiana more than usual. She was most brisk with their conversations. ’Twas almost as if Rhiana had done something to affront Lydia. But she did not know how to ask if there was a problem.

Lydia’s dour gray skirts swept out of view and behind a wall of hornbeam.

Rhiana sighed. “Something is amiss with her.”

As she walked onward, the clangs of the armourer’s hammer sang out like a childhood lullaby. Truly, such racket was lullaby matter to her. Since she was very young, Rhiana had spent her days toddling about Paul Tassot’s legs, asking him questions about every step in the process of creating armor, playing with the old yellow mongrel that slept beneath the stone cooling tank, thriving in the atmosphere of the shop.

The song of the hammer beat out a rhythm in her blood. Hard metals being coaxed into smooth, elegant curves, and blades that could kill with but a slice? How exciting! The red-hot flames and the glow of heated iron? Mesmerizing. Wherever there was fire, Rhiana felt soothing comfort. And the exquisite reassurance of gold, on the rare occasions Paul worked the supple metal to a fine sheet to leaf armor, ever beckoned.

Rhiana slipped into the shop and padded across the swept stone floor. The armory was circular, the south half sporting the brazier and works in progress. The north half was set up with a massive oak table for detail and leatherwork.

Bent over the flame, Paul concentrated on a curve of metal heated to vibrant amber. Paul Tassot was Rhiana’s mother’s husband. He was not her father, but had married Lydia when Rhiana was three.

Rhiana did not know her real father. For all purposes, a man had been in her life from the time of her birth until she was two. One Jean Cesar Ulrich Villon III; he was not her father either, though he had been married to her mother. Villon had abandoned her and her mother without reason or word. Lydia had cried for a se’ennight following. Even so small, Rhiana had wondered would her mother’s tears flood their home and sweep them both out to the sea, never again to be found, and so far away from flame and the family she loved.

As she grew older, many questions busied Rhiana’s thoughts. But when asked, Lydia Tassot would not speak of Rhiana’s origins. Rhiana suspected her mother must have been violated, or, in her more lusty imagination, she wondered had her mother an affair with a powerful lord or a fancy traveling courtier.

Either way, Rhiana had taken to Paul Tassot, who had been a mainstay in her life for twenty years. Just riding the end of his fifth decade, he possessed kind blue eyes that never looked upon Rhiana with the exasperated frustration Lydia’s eyes often held. And he was supportive of her quest. When Lydia scoffed at Rhiana taking off with a slayer to hone her skills, upon her return, Paul would question her every lesson with great fascination. What is he teaching you? Do you feel confident? How can I help? And under his breath—touch any flame this day?

Paul looked up from his task. “Ah!”

After an incident with sickness last summer all of Paul’s hair had fallen out. Now, recovered and healthy thanks to Odette’s infamous comfrey poultice, he continued to shave off the new growth. Rhiana liked his shiny bald pate. It was soft and round, like his giving heart. The man embodied integrity in his simple manner and devotion to his family.

He flashed her a brilliant smile, and with a shrug, worked his shoulders against the rounding hours leaning over the anvil forged into his muscles. A nod of his head summoned Rhiana to his side.

The glowing curve of iron he held with tongs could not be left unattended, so he divided his attention between it and her. A forceful pound of the hammer clanged the molten metal and sparks danced out like fire sprites.

“Come from the caves?”

Rhiana nodded as she reached behind her waist to itch at the leather points securing her tunic to the mail chausses.

“Was it as you suspected?” he asked.

“Yes, and no. There may be more than one of them,” Rhiana explained. “I didn’t have a chance to focus and count, but certainly there could be another.”

“Another?”

“Yes, I sensed another heartbeat after—Oh, Paul! I took out a female rampant.”

“You did?” He winked and smiled broadly. So much pride in that look. Another pound. Sparks glittered in the air between them. “So the armor is good?”

Rhiana dropped the wool cloak to a puddle around her feet. The entire armored tunic glittered with the mystique of the beasts. Fashioned from dragon scales, the iridescent disks changed from indigo to violet beneath the sun. Paul had smoothed the sharp edges and pierced holes in each scale with such care. After much trial and error, he’d discovered the only tool capable of piercing the scale was an actual dragon’s talon or tooth. He’d designed a small inner tooth, which the beast used for ripping its prey apart, as a punch.

“It’s remarkable.”

Rhiana felt no embarrassment standing before Paul in the flesh-baring costume. But the backs of her arms and a narrow slit down each side of her torso showed. Paul had worked with her to fit the scales to her body to provide maximum movement along with minimal weight and excess attire. It was he who had suggested she wear a thin tunic beneath, for her modesty, but they both knew Rhiana would be sewing many a tunic should her slaying skills ever be called upon.

“Change in the closet,” he said, turning the curve of molten iron, held with a pincers, to begin working the opposite side. The dry metallic scent of heated iron was most pleasant to Rhiana’s senses. “The gown you keep stashed in there waits. Did no one see you reenter the village?”

“Rudolph is most discreet,” Rhiana called as she slipped into the tool closet and closed the creaky wood door.

“Only because you have cowed him over the years,” Paul said. With a laugh, he again hammered at the supple metal.

They both felt it important to keep Rhiana’s slaying discreet. Certainly the threat to the village must be dispatched. But so many had difficulty accepting a female as a powerful and strong force.

It dumbfounded Rhiana. Why should she not be allowed to perform the same tasks as men?

Inside the closet, her eyes strayed across the items on the many supply shelves. Splaying her fingers across a tray of wire rings she’d fashioned a few days earlier made her smile. Crafting mail, she enjoyed. Almost as much as slaying.

She unfastened the leather straps placed from armpit to hip neatly concealed with overlapping dragon scales. The leather tunic slipped from her body, baring her breasts. Tugging out the slips of burnt tunic from around her neck and at her waist, she tossed them into the waste barrel.

Exhaling deeply, Rhiana thrust back her shoulders and lifted her arms over her head in a languorous stretch. So alive, she felt. Vigorous and strong. A flex of her arm bulged the muscle above her elbow. Like a man’s muscles, she mused. Constant training with the sword and working with Paul kept her muscles hard. And that hard work had paid off.

The moment she had stood before the dragon, defiant, had truly been a pinnacle. For her only other kill had been assisted. This one was all her own.

“I’m a real slayer,” she murmured. “Finally.”

A folded blue-gray gown waited on the shelf. For emergencies, which is why she hadn’t left one of her two pairs of braies—she used those daily. Bits of dried lavender fell from between the folds as she shook it out.

Slipping the ells of soft damask over her head, Rhiana shimmied into the plain gown. Once silver vair had rimmed the hems of her sleeves, but the fur tickled overmuch, so she’d stripped it and gave it to Odette to sew onto a pair of house slippers. Rich as the village was, traders rarely visited, so fur of any sort was highly valued.

She stroked the gold coin suspended around her neck on a thin leather strip. Barter was the only form of purchase; coin had little value.

Shucking the mail chausses in a chinking pool about her bare feet, she then peeled down the wool hose, which were still connected to the points of her tattered tunic, fried to a crisp as they were. The softness of the damask fluttering about her legs felt ridiculous. So light, not at all protective. The gown was…not her. Many were accustomed to seeing her wear braies and tunic, but on occasion she did wear a gown. Only a gown caressed her waist and bosom and revealed to a man that, indeed, she was a woman. Look at me, she felt the gown called when she wore one.

And what be wrong with seeking a man’s attentions?

Still, many whispered as she strode by, defying propriety in her comfortable male costume. And to even consider her ambition? A female who dons armor and wields a crossbow? Insanity.

Carefully, she placed the armor upon the wooden stand and covered it with a tarp of boiled leather. While every man in the village was aware of her passion, they had not seen this latest armor made by Paul. Even those who looked to her with hope for their safety would be horrified. Women simply did not tromp about in mail and armor, acting powerful and flexing their muscles as a man.

Tossing her hair over her shoulder, Rhiana stepped back from the armor. Thick, loose curls tumbled across her back and swept about her waist. Ever teased as a child for her red hair and freckles—surely a witch, be she—Rhiana had come to accept her differences, but only after being assured by the village hag that she was not a witch.

Something so much more…

The hag, known to all as the Nose, after reading Rhiana’s future in the flames of a hearth fire, had flashed her a frightened grimace and shuffled her out from her cottage.

So much more?

Indeed.