“You recognise him, don’t you?” she says. Goldfoot is clever enough to understand a gift when he sees it. She knows – oh, she knows now, all too well – that those creatures people believe to be dumb are often merely misunderstood. “I thought you might like to have your revenge.”
The dragon snorts.
“Take it closer,” she tells the others.
“Are you mad?” Florin asks.
“It will not hurt us,” she says, although she’s not certain of that at all. “It cannot reach him this far away. We must get closer.”
“Do as the queen says,” Ursula says, her brow dripping with sweat. Four of them pick up Culpepper again, and heave him towards the dragon, dropping him within the circle of bones. The skeletons rattle and crackle, protesting at his weight.
“Now get back,” Florin says, pushing Howard and Ursula behind him. But the dragon sniffs the air in two long, growling inhales. It uncurls from around its tether and drags itself, pockmarked with branding and spears, creased with claw marks, over to Culpepper. It nudges him with its muzzle, sniffs him and bares its teeth once more.
It is at that moment, as if the goddess herself wished to witness Culpepper’s final humiliation, that the man wakes. He was not dead at all. It takes him a moment, through the wound in his head, to realise where he is. His eyes widen on the dragon’s open maw. He screams as the dragon begins to feed, from the bottom up. Her ladies-in-waiting turn away, but Howard watches it all, for she is a queen, and queens take responsibility for the lives they snuff out.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Cleves
Goldfoot finds them more easily over the coming days, and his packages keep them from needing to venture into the realms of man. They remain in the forests of Plythe and flee from any sign of humans. In doing so, they forget that other more dangerous creatures exist in the land of Elben.
“With a full stomach and some luck, we should reach the Heahmores by nightfall,” Cleves tells Seymour one morning. They have just woken and Seymour’s hair is escaping its braid. Lelij yawns loudly, then ambles over to lick their faces. Seymour cossets him, her expression sober.
“You are missing Haltrasc,” Cleves guesses.
“It was for the best – he would be too noticeable on this journey. At least your Lelij is small and easily hidden.” Her voice is bright like glass.
Cleves lifts Seymour’s chin, forcing her to look at her. “You miss him,” she says again.
“Like I’d miss a limb, were I to lose one.”
Cleves pulls Seymour to her feet. “Come, I have a plan to make you smile, my angry queen.”
She thought she had heard it the night before, and she was right. She follows the faint bubble of running water and at last emerges into a clearing through which runs a merry stream.
“Excellent,” Seymour says. “Henry’s dogs will not be able to trace our scent if we travel through the water.”
That had not occurred to Cleves. “Indeed, but I had thought we could use it for the more pressing matter of washing the gargoyle spit from our faces.”
To demonstrate, she pulls her mud-stiffened shirt over her head and then wiggles out of her breeches. Seymour is not so bold. She takes off her boots and stockings, then wades into the stream after Cleves. They squeal as the cold water bites their feet, but it is a welcome pinch. The stream is shallow and the water clear, running over large rocks rather than mud or pebbles.
Seymour splashes Lelij, who gambols on the bank. Cleves wades out, naked, into a deeper part of the stream, relishing the numbness across her skin. She watches them in their joy, the woman and the gargoyle. She did that to Seymour. She put the laughter in her throat. When Cleves first met Seymour, the other queen never smiled, never laughed. She has never seen her so happy as when they have been homeless together.
Cleves’s heart tightens and her stomach twists, and she can no longer work out whether it is with love or fear. She is a fixed point. She is a runner. She is a solitary castle. She is unencumbered and content to be so.
Seymour turns to her. Cleves cannot let her see the turmoil within her. She grins, holds out her arms, displaying her naked body, and falls backwards into the deeper water. Seymour’s laughter echoes around the clearing.
“You fool!” Seymour crows. “You will die of cold before we reach Mathmas!”
Cleves flails over to her lover, keeping her body in the water as she skates across the shallower rocks.
“No, my bright star, I shall make you keep me warm,” she says, and with a deft swipe she takes hold of Seymour’s bare ankle and makes a show of trying to pull her into the water with her.
“I am clothed! I am clothed!” Seymour laughs.
“Well, we should do something about that, shouldn’t we?”
In short order, Seymour’s clothes and undergarments are thrown to the bank, where Lelij proceeds to curl up upon them, and Seymour is in the water alongside Cleves.
