No one bothered Alain; no one noticed him to make sure he did his work. Every night, lying beside Lackling in the loft above the stables, he would touch the wooden Circle of Unity Aunt Bel had given him and then draw out the string from which hung the rose and finger the soft petals. The vision he had seen from Dragonback Ridge above Osna Sound seemed so distant now. He would have thought it an illusion, born of storm and sorrow, except that the blood-red rose he wore as a necklace beneath his shirt had not withered or died.
In the holding, a quiet month passed. Trained by a navigator, Alain watched the skies when it was clear; the moon waned and waxed to full and began to wane again. Lackling showed him where all the best berry bushes ripened, in bright clearings hidden away in the forest. He found a path leading farther up into the hills, but the boy became frightened and dragged him away from it.
Alain asked Master Rodlin if he knew of any old trails in the forest, and the stable master merely said that an old ruin lay up in the hills beyond and that more than one foolish boy had broken leg or arm climbing on crumbling walls. Like the kennels, it was something even a halfwit avoided.
Now that most of the stable animals were gone, Alain was given whatever odds and ends of the worst work were left, whatever task no one else wanted to do. He spent more and more time leaning on a shovel inside the empty stables and staring at nothing. That moment up on Dragonback Ridge when the Lady of Battles had invested him with her terrible sword seemed like wishful dreaming now. How could he have been chosen for a special trial? Unless digging out the latrines was one.
“Oooo. There he is,” said a female voice. This declaration was followed by a giggling.
Alain whirled around. Two of the kitchen girls stood at the stable doors, thrown open to admit more air. Light streamed in around them, showering their disheveled hair in dust motes. Hay drifted down from the loft to settle in the empty buckets they carried. One of the girls sneezed. The other giggled again.
Alain blushed, but he marched forward resolutely nonetheless, heading out through the door. He refused to be cowed by a pair of serving girls no older than he was, girls who would never have looked at him twice if there had been more single men than old Raimond and witless Lackling about.
The blue-eyed girl dipped her shoulders as he passed, enough that her shift slipped down to reveal a tantalizing expanse of flesh.
He stumbled on even ground.
“Isn’t your name Alain?” asked Blue-Eyes.
They only meant to tease him. He knew that. And yet, he could not help but stop. “Yes.” He knew he was still blushing.
“Have you heard about the ruins up behind on the hill?” asked Blue-Eyes as she straightened up. Her friend, whose eyes were a nondescript hazel, giggled again, then covered her mouth with a hand to hide her crooked teeth.
“I’ve heard of it,” said Alain cautiously.
“Withi, you daren’t do it,” said the friend in a choked voice.
Blue-Eyes cast her a scornful glance. “I’m not the one who won’t dare.” She looked back at Alain. “Where do you come from?”
“Osna village,” he said proudly, but they looked blankly at him, never having heard of such a place. “It’s called Dragonback, too, for the great ridge—”
For some reason this sent both girls into wild laughter, as if he had said something indecent.
“Dragonback, is it now?” asked Blue-Eyes finally. She was the prettier of the two, although she had an open sore on one lip and her hair was more grime than color. “I’ll be walking up to the ruins at sunset, this evening. They say at Midsummer’s Eve the ghosts of daimones walk abroad!” She blinked those blue eyes at Alain and put her hands on her hips, thrusting them provocatively forward. He knew he was flushing again, however hard he tried not to. Withi was one of the girls the men-at-arms took up into the hayloft. She had never had time for him before today.
He took in a breath. “Deacon Waldrada at last week’s sermon said it wasn’t devils or daimones who built those ruins. She said it was the people of the old Dariyan Empire built them, long ago, even before Taillefer was emperor over all these lands. That it was men, like us. Or maybe elves.”
“Oooo. What a fine learned young man we have here. What was your father? The abbot of “Dragonback” Abbey, making dragonback with a sweet innocent village lass?” She laughed, and Crooked Teeth laughed, too.
“My father’s a merchant, and a good, decent man! He served the old count in his time. And the brothers of Dragon’s Tail Monastery are dead, killed in an Eika raid this spring. The Lady scorns those who laugh at the misfortune of others!”
