Violet grunted, getting up.“No thanks to you!Why on earth did you have to go and do that?”
“I was trying to stop you getting yourself killed,” Una said.
“You’rethe one who startled her!“ Violet objected.
Una took a step back, the brief anger on her face smoothing away.“You’ve been away for too long, Violet.Things have changed.”
Violet snorted.“Oh, come off it!I grew up here, same as you!Cariad is being overprotective.If I can just get Elfed on his own…”
“Cariad isn’t trying to protect Elfed, Violet,” Una interrupted.“She’s trying to protectyou.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Una pointed behind Violet.“Ask Simon, if you won’t listen to me.”
Violet turned to see her tall cousin dressed in riding clothes, striding to meet them from the direction of the Drake Hall stables.
“Why won’t Cariad let me near Elfed?”Violet asked at once.
Simon stopped.“Lovely to see you again, too, Violet.Will you be staying for supper?”
Violet had never been amanneredsort of person by any stretch of the imagination.Being tossed about by a dragon had shaken all of the manners out of her.
“No, I won’t!”she almost shouted.“Justtellme!”
Una looked away.Simon leaned against the stone wall and considered Violet.
“Violet, no one’s been able to train Elfed,” he said gently.“He’s not rideable.I even wrote to Wales, describing his behaviour.They said there wasn’t anything to be done.”
Violet’s eyes snapped up at the reference to Wales.
“Something…went wrong with Elfed, somehow,” Simon was saying.“We thought about gelding him to see if it improved his temper…”
“You didn’t!”Violet burst out.
“Edith wouldn’t hear of it,” said Simon.“Truly, we don’t know what happened.No one has been cruel to him.But it’s too late, Violet.It’s a sensitive process, as I understand it.There’s a small period of time in which a Greater Welsh Dragon can bond and be trained.That time, it seems, is over for Elfed.”
A black thought came over Violet.
“When?”she demanded.“When did it start?”
Simon paused, as if holding something back.
“Perhaps she ought to know,” said Una softly to Simon.
Simon pushed off the wall and laid his hand on Violet’s shoulder, warm and strong.He’d always done this when he had to say something that would hurt or disappoint her.
“We were going to give him to you on your twenty-first birthday,” he said.
“The day you disappeared,” Una said under her breath.
Violet shook her head, pushed Simon’s hand off her shoulder.“No, no, no!You said—youbothsaid I wasn’t ready!”
“And then Edith convinced me you were.It was to be a surprise.”Simon’s voice became very kind, very soft, and somehow that made it worse, because it meant that Simon could see, perhaps even more than Violet could yet, how much this would hurt.“If it was anythingIsaid, Violet, I hope you can forgive me, one day.”
Violet thought with despair that her anger had nowhere to go but inward.Simon had done nothing.It had been entirely her own rashness and impatience that had caused this.For if Elfed meant so much to her, then why had she left him?
She ran towards the river, alone.
