And woven through it all—the jewels and the heat and the rose-gold mirrors—was a scent. A balm, a spice, an infusion. It rose on the plumes of steam; it drifted through the open windows and diffused into the grayness outside.
And it was this scent that Emory of Harding inhaled as his handhold turned to dust and as he began to fall.
He didn’t have time to think about the scent in words. If he kept falling, in a few seconds he would be dead. But somewhere in his brain the scent took hold. It matched like a key in a lock and opened up a memory.
He was a child. No—an infant baby newly born. No—before that, even. He was womb-bound, eyes unopened, breathing and swimming in the hot stew of his mother’s juice. He could taste it and smell it, the same sweet-spice tang, then and again now, here, from above.
His left hand grabbed the pickax from his waist and struck it blindly at the slate-gray wall. And though it shouldn’t have, though the chances were nearly naught, the pick found purchase, a slit in the rock just the width of the pickax’s blade.
Emory’s fingers slid down the worn wood handle, and he was almost lost again, but he clenched his fist even tighter and then he stopped, hanging and swinging by one arm, the joint of his shoulder nearly torn asunder.
He breathed again, but the scent, and the memory, were gone. He brought his right hand up to meet his left, found holds for one foot and then the other, closed his eyes and bent his head for just a moment in thanks and prayer—to the gods, but also to his own strength and quickness. And then he grasped the wall again with his right hand, pulled the pickax free with his left, and resumed his climb.
At the top of the cliff in the womb-warm room, surrounded by mirrors and jewels and clouds of its own exhaled heat, the dragon opened one amber eye.
Pawlin’s Hawk
His strong right hand was the first part of Emory to make it, hours later, to the top of the cliff. Trembling, his right arm bent, hoisting the rest of Emory—his sweat-darkened head, strands of hair escaping from the leather tie, his straining, reddened face, his wide shoulders, his chest, his narrow waist, the crux of him, and then his legs and feet.
It was like being born new, emerging from over the edge of the cliff, and, like a newborn, Emory wanted to rest and wail and suck up air. He lay on the gray slate ground and felt every muscle burning, every joint on fire, his lungs working in shallow pants, greedy for air but too weak to take in all they needed.
He wanted to retch. He wanted to faint. But instead, he stood. He stood as tall and as wide as he could, and he turned his face in the direction of the castle, and he smiled, flashing his teeth.
For like all good hunters, Emory knew when he was being hunted. And he felt the dragon’s amber eye upon him as surely as the sun. Then, knowing the dragon was watching, he unbuttoned the front of his trousers, freed his yard, and pissed a steaming stream right there, at the top of the cliff, marking it as his own.
That accomplished, retucked and rebuttoned, Emory approached the castle.
At home, all of Harding would be resting after their noontime meal. The ladies would be in their chambers, loosening their stays to aid digestion, the older women gathering in circles around their handiwork, the girls piling together on the tall curtained beds to laugh and gossip.
The men and boys would be out of doors, if the day was fine, sporting with the horses or the hounds or perhaps playing at swords with the younger boys.
Of course, the servants would be neither resting nor playing, but rather working, as was their duty—clearing away the noon meal, beginning the preparations for supper, carrying water from the well, beating rugs free of dust, shoveling manure from the pigs’ sty, and all the other labors that Emory was only aware of when someone had failed to do them.
If he were home right now, Emory would perhaps be walking the fence line with Pawlin, the falconer, who would himself be accompanied by Isolda, his hawk, who would perch, as she always did, on Pawlin’s leather gauntlet, her leather jesses streaming like ribbons from her legs.
Isolda would listen as Pawlin bragged about everything: the hunt of the day before, the conquest of the night before, the hardiness of Pawlin’s erection—“like the blacksmith’s hammer, it was”—and Emory would listen too, and laugh, for Pawlin was as clever as he was loyal, and an afternoon spent in his company was sure to be entertaining.
But Emory was not home. He was not flanked by friendship and laughter. There was no ease here, on the cliffs before this great gray castle. There was no good meal in his belly, or wine in his cup. There was no cup.
Emory took his water bladder from his side and sucked like a babe at the teat until it was empty. If he were to die in that castle, there would be no need for more water. For in spite of his bravado, his great hot jet of urine, and the strong square of his shoulders, Emory was afraid.
“And why wouldn’t you be?” Emory heard Pawlin’s voice echo in his head. “You’d be a damned idiot not to be scared. For God’s balls, there’s a dragon up there!”
Imagining Pawlin beside him helped Emory relax a bit. For Pawlin would have found a way to make even a situation as grim as the one into which Emory had placed himself seem a lark.
Yes, Pawlin was there, just to his right. And Isolda as well, with her ever-disdainful expression, eager to be loosed from Pawlin’s arm and ready to gore out an amber eye with her ferocious beak, if need be.
He was not alone.
I am not alone, Emory told himself. He had arrived, alone, at the great door of the dragon’s castle. At its base, looking up, Emory felt almost as overwhelmed as he had at the base of the cliff. Such a door—broad as two men laid head to toe, and tall as ten. Gray, but not cold—even before he touched it, Emory felt the heat that radiated off the door, generated, no doubt, by the dragon within.
He laid his hand flat against the door and immediately withdrew it. Hot, hot, too hot. He pulled his gloves from the waistband of his pants and drew them on. Fine black leather gloves, sewn just for him by his mother. She had given the gloves to him from the chair by her fire when he had gone to kiss her good-bye.
“My fine young man,” she had said, “let us speak honestly with one another. You are no longer a boy, but you are just barely a man. You are a skilled fighter, that is the truth, but dragons are bigger and tougher than even the best of men.”
It had hurt, to hear his mother speak so, but it had felt good, too, like when a boil is lanced—pain, mixed with relief.
“I know my chances,” Emory had said. “But what is my choice?”
For Emory’s father was dead, two fortnights now, from a spreading madness some said had started with his early affection for whores, before he had married Emory’s mother, and which had gone dormant for many years, reemerging just last winter when his muscles began to seize, his face began to sag, his eyes began to cloud, and he began to shout loudly, whether anyone listened or not, that the dragon was coming, that it would feast on Emory’s heart, that the dragon was coming, was coming, was coming, until, at last, his screaming stopped and he was dead.
The king should have lived another ten years—maybe another twenty. And with that time, Emory would have trained. He would have prepared, the best he could. With Pawlin at his side, and all the aid and assistance of Harding’s best fighters, Emory would have grown stronger, and faster, and surer of foot, and deadlier.