When she woke, the dictionary was missing.
Selendrile was gone, out hunting. It was safe to look at the dictionary, to consult it for the meanings of dangerous-looking words she'd come across in her readings. But Selendrile, once again, had detected and moved it. She'd glanced in the direction of its hiding place too often last night -- but she'd have sworn that he was occupied with whatever thoughts kept him looking at the fire.
Obviously, she'd been wrong. She hunted under the sofa, behind the firewood. No luck. She grimaced and bundled up, then lit a candle, grabbed the longest fire hook on the hearth and padded down three flights of stairs to check the oubliette.
The oubliette was inside the dungeon, naturally; a dark, airless chamber that didn't smell too good in summer. Right now, winter had frozen the odors. Half a dozen oak-plank cell doors opened off of the main chamber, but the oubliette was tucked in the farthest corner from the door, next to a trio of wall chains. So doomed prisoners could contemplate their likely fate, perhaps.
The trap door was still unbolted from the last time she'd been here. It lifted reluctantly under her hand. She put the candle down so she could yank with both hands and winced as the hinges squealed. The oubliette yawned beneath her, dark and rank. If she fell in, she wouldn't be able to climb out again, so she was very careful about how far over she leaned.
There it was... or, at least, there was something dark and lumpy down there. Selendrile had wrapped the dictionary in oilskin the last time he ditched it here, so she wasn't discouraged by the mystery object's roundish shape. She got a good grip on a wall chain and fished for the lumpy thing with the fire hook. It snagged on the second attempt. She dragged it up into the candlelight.
It was a human skull. She grimaced again and rocked back on her heels, considering the mottled cranium, the broken teeth. It seemed disrespectful to throw it back in, but keeping it up here away from the rest of its body didn't seem right either.
"And who were you?" she asked softly. "Were you someone's pet too? Did they get tired of you and leave you here to die?"
The skull didn't answer. Somewhere in the darkness beyond her candle, a bat squeaked.
Alys shrugged to herself. There were broken windows down on this level, and the little mammals had found that the chilly interior of the castle was still warmer than the snowy crags outside, so they wintered here. Her candle must have disturbed one. She eased the skull gently back down into the oubliette. A lifetime ago, she'd been staked out for a dragon and almost burned alive by her fellow villagers. Bones and bats didn't bother her anymore, but she was getting cold.
The bat squeaked again, closer this time. She picked up her candle and reached for the trapdoor handle.
And suddenly there was a bundle of fur and claws in her face, squeaking indignantly. Alys hung grimly on to the candle, but it guttered out in one gust from the bat's wing. It was a big bat; that much she glimpsed before the flame went out and she was in darkness, teetering on the edge of the oubliette.
A hand struck her collarbone, and she felt the sickening sensation of falling. She swung the fire hook wildly; it struck something firm, and she had the satisfaction of hearing a muffled yelp.
It didn't last long. Alys slammed into the floor of the oubliette, her fall broken by her fur wraps and the dry bones of previous victims.
"Oh, dear. Looks like you won't be going anywhere soon." The voice was melodic, feminine and spiteful. If the fire hook had hit anything important, dragon woman wasn't telling. "You really ought to watch your step down here."
Alys, flat on her back, said nothing. Her head had struck the wall as she fell, and she wasn't sure she could move. The afterglow of the candle swam into red and purple blotches across the darkness before her eyes.
"This is lovely. Really. Oubliettes are much slower than disembowelment."
The trapdoor's hinges squeaked. Then it banged shut with a force that made her eardrums hurt. Alys heard the bolt slam home.
That's ridiculous, she thought through a haze of pain. I can't even reach the top, let alone push the trap door open. She didn't know whether to be grateful or sorry that the fire hook hadn't skewered her.
She tried to sit up, but the least movement of her neck caused a rush of nausea. She retched helplessly, which caused even more pain, but finally managed to wipe her face with her sleeve. Nothing like drowning in your own vomit.
Then she lay still, feeling human bones against her back, the wooden fire hook handle in her palm, the bite of the frigid air around her. She was grateful for the furs. Too bad she hadn't thought to pack a lunch, too. And a ladder. Oh, and a saw, too, assuming she could keep her balance on anything after smacking her head into granite.
"Selendrile," she whispered.
She wasn't worried about what the dragon woman might do to him. If that female wanted to fight Selendrile, Alys felt sorry for her. Well, Alys might have felt sorry for her if she hadn't just tipped Alys into an oubliette.
But Selendrile was her only alternative to dying down here, adding her body to all the other forgotten bones. Would he come looking when she didn't show up for dinner? Or would he shrug and go back to carving his block of firewood?
X X X
The hours crawled by. She measured time by the throbbing in her skull. It had bled; she didn't know how much. She considered feeling the back of her head, but decided against it. Instead she gingerly rolled her shoulder-length hair up into a ball and tucked it between the wall and the painful swelling, hoping it would slow the bleeding. Of course, if Selendrile didn't find her before she froze, blood loss wouldn't be an issue.
Would he even come back from hunting? Maybe he wouldn't catch anything tonight and would make his bed out in the wild to try again tomorrow. She didn't know if she would last until then. Or maybe, with a toss of his head, he'd decide that he'd have enough of being saddled with a frail human and take off southward, forgetting even her name, leaving her in this frigid castle to die and decompose.
In her heart, she didn't believe that. Selendrile wouldn't leave her behind. He'd had chances to do it before, and he hadn't. But maybe her heart wasn't being quite honest with her. She remembered girls from her village, girls dead certain this or that boy loved them, only to have their hopes dashed when he was caught behind a haystack with someone else. Hope could be a mighty influencer of belief. She badly hoped he would come find her, that she wouldn't have to die alone. And so she believed.
Selendrile's pet.
With nothing else to do, she set her feelings aside and considered the statement objectively. Being a pet wasn't so bad, was it? Lots of people were worse off. True, she was pretty much at the mercy of her... benefactor... but weren't plenty of other women in the same situation? At least Selendrile, for all his teasing, never asked for anything more than entertaining verbal sparring. Married women in this country had to put up with whatever their husbands dished out, and they didn't always have a say in choosing their partner. Maidservants in fine houses had it worse, if the men of the house had a lecherous bent. There were slave women and beggar women and women working trades Alys and her peers weren't supposed to know about. They suffered abuse and suffered childbirth and often enough died of it. She had bearskins and reading lessons and books and meat every day.
So it wasn't so bad, being a dragon's pet. Although she ached to be on equal footing with Selendrile, to have him acknowledge out loud that she had some worth to him, realistically... even if he didn't, she was better off than most women. If she could just get out of this hole in the ground, that was.
Towards the end of the day, according to her inner clock -- which was not to be trusted by now -- she began to fade in and out of consciousness. Dreams of St. Toby's and her father, of long-dead Risa and even her mother mixed with the sound of her ragged breathing. Sunlight on meadows in summers gone by dappled her mind; small festivals, humble meals, friendly calls back and forth as the men came in from their work in the fields and women and children ran out to meet them in slanting evening light. Alys felt a spreading warmth over her body and realized that she was starting to freeze. Freeze like the ice frozen thick on the rivers, freeze like the ice that cracked underfoot in the spring and vanished downstream, past daisies bobbing under wreaths of morning frost...
"Alys."
"Father?" Alys reached out feebly. "Father, is it you?"
"Alys." A shape came into slow focus; Selendrile, with a lantern, crouched up by the rim of the oubliette. How she'd missed the trapdoor opening, she didn't know. She must be worse off than she thought. "What are you doing down here?"
Alys fumbled for words, fumbled in the dirty straw beside her and came up with a skull. The same or another, she didn't know. "I found a diagram of a skeleton in a book." She wiggled the skull at him. "I wanted to know if it was accurate."
He knew she'd come down here looking for the dictionary. But that was all part of the game; never call the other player's bluff.
"You're bleeding," he said instead. "Are you hurt?"
"Oh, just a tad." She tried to sit up, whimpered, and gave up. "I can't get out. You might as well just close that and leave me here. I can't move."
He set the lantern down and dropped in beside her, bones and straw crunching under his boots. "She pushed you in, didn't she? I can smell her."
"I already told you," Alys said crossly, fiction and reality blurring in her cold-addled mind. "I jumped in myself looking for skeletons." She patted at the stuff beneath her. "And I found all these other pets. Pet skeletons."
"Pets are animals. These were human."
"I thought humans were beasts to dragons." She coughed. "I'm human. So I'm a beast to you. Aren't I? I'll freeze into a maiden steak and you can eat me for dinner."
Selendrile shook his head and picked her up gingerly. Pain flared and she panicked.
"No! No! Let go, I'm going to --"
She broke off and vomited all over his jerkin. Humiliation flushed a little warmth into her. She'd been sick once during the summer when she'd eaten some dubious mushrooms, and Selendrile (with interest) had seen her vomit, but she'd never been so sick that she couldn't clean up her own waste.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, hiding her face against a dry patch of his shoulder. "Great heavens, I'm so sorry."
To her everlasting gratitude, consciousness receded, hovering round the edge of her mind. Vaguely she felt Selendrile propel them both out of the oubliette, landing so smoothly that only a ripple of pain resulted. Eventually, the rhythm of his stride stopped. She felt herself being settled into thick blankets, with the hard edges of hot bricks from the fire barely discernable through the furs, and then the ground fell away and she heard the wind beyond her warm cocoon, and she thought she must be flying, only she wasn't, so it must be that Selendrile was taking her somewhere.
She slept.
X X X
When her eyelids fluttered open, it was to show her an unfamiliar room.
She stared through half-open eyelids, uncomprehending. The room was small, for one thing, and the walls were made of brick instead of granite blocks. The furniture, what there was of it, was sparse and austere; a plain washbasin, jug, no mirror. One chamberpot, purely functional, without the usual decoration to mask its purpose. The bed she occupied was hard and narrow, and the sheets were scratchy. Living under Selendrile's roof had spoiled her. At least there was a fire.
There was only one window, a small round one high up in the wall. By the light, she couldn't tell if it was early morning or afternoon. Or maybe it was overcast and clouds were smothering the noonday sun. She had no way of knowing.
She got cautiously up on one elbow and gauged the distance to the chamberpot. Her bladder was screaming, but she wasn't sure her head could handle being upright. She eased her legs over the side of the bed, evaluating. Her head still throbbed, but the pain was bearable. A brief exploration told her fingers that her head had been bandaged. Also that the area around the injury had been shaved.
"Not again," she grumbled. She'd let Selendrile cut her hair once, for disguise. Now she'd have to comb her hair sideways to hide the shorn spot.
No more grumbling, she decided. She was lucky to be alive.
She made it to the chamberpot, laid a fresh log on the fire, and tottered back to bed. Just in time; no sooner had she rearranged the blankets and settled down than the door swung open.
"Oh..." It was a nun, young and fresh-faced. Her wimple was crooked, and Alys could see that her head was shaved in the manner of nuns. "Oh! Sister Tabitha, she's awake!"
The novice darted off, leaving the door open. Cold air spilled in.
So, Sel had taken her to a nunnery. She wondered if he'd done it because he thought Alys would be more comfortable with women treating her, or because he'd known he could charm the nuns into putting both of them up. Her bet was on the latter.
An older nun swept in; Sister Tabitha, no doubt. The novice hovered like a nervous sparrow.
"You're awake, young daughter." Sister Tabitha sat on the side of the bed, evaluating Alys. "It looks like you're on the mend. You had us worried for a few days."
"Days?" Alys squeaked.
The novice nodded, eyes wide. "You slept for two days. It happens sometimes, with head wounds... some people never wake up."
"I see," Alys said. Comforting, that. "Thank you for taking care of me."
"Your brother has already thanked us," Sister Tabitha said, her eyebrows twitching significantly. "In gold, I might add. You are fortunate to have such a weal-- ehh, I mean generous guardian."
She didn't know the half of it, Alys thought sourly. "Where is my, um, my brother? Is he --"
"I'm here." Selendrile had entered the room without anyone noticing. The nuns fluttered and withdrew to give them privacy, but not before he knelt down and took Alys's hands solicitously. "How are you, dear sister?"
She wanted to roll her eyes, but decided to give him tit for tat. "I'm feeling much better, dearest brother." She patted his hands with a syrupy smile. "I don't deserve to be loved so much."
His benign expression wavered, and she hid a smirk. Score one for Alys. "Run down and fetch me breakfast, won't you? There's a sweetheart."
He touched her forehead. "Are you still running a fever?"
His hand was cool against her skin. She gulped. "No. No, I'm not. Stop touching me."
It was his turn to smirk, but there was relief as well as humor in his eyes. "For a minute I thought your brains had been addled."
"Who says they aren't?" she groused. "But I really am hungry."
"All right." He padded off.
He came back with a tray from the kitchen, shadowed by a few curious novices. "Here's your breakfast," he announced, handing it over with a smile at the gawking girls. They all blushed and vanished.
"Quickest way to get rid of them," he said more quietly.
"That looks wonderful." Alys accepted the plain bread and lentils gratefully. "Thank you. What time is it?"
"About noon. This is lunch. You're a late sleeper," he added.
"Oh."
"I'll be back later," he said, and headed for the door. "Try not to fall again."
"Selendrile."
He paused, one foot on the threshold.
"I'm sorry I hurled on you."
He considered that. "It's all right. Unless you did it on purpose." He looked at her. "Did you do it on purpose?"
"No, I did not."
"Good."
"Selendrile... um..."
He gave her a longsuffering look.
"Thank you for finding me."
He cocked his head, nodded, and took off. She didn't see him again until evening.
X X X
Alys felt so much stronger the next day that she asked Selendrile to take them home. The nuns were very kind, but she'd noticed some of them shooting questioning looks between her and her supposed brother. She didn't want them to start guessing as to why Selendrile's hair was light and Alys's a muddy blonde, or why he had chiseled features and she had soft peasant eyes and a turned-up nose. That she was a bastard child of some lord and Selendrile his true heir was the safest conclusion they could come to.
The she-dragon was waiting for Selendrile, standing brazenly in the shadow of the castle gates.
"Hello, there." She waved coyly as Selendrile landed in the courtyard. "My name is Stelera. It's been a while..."
Selendrile set Alys aside. Stelera's eyes sharpened as she spotted the peasant girl. She had not been expecting to see her, and was none too pleased at the sight.
"What?" Stelera put her hands on her hips; Alys wondered if she'd chosen to wear human guise so she could take advantage of that pose. Thankfully, the woman had her clothes on. Alys had had enough of naked dragons. "I thought you would have forgotten about her by now. Is your toy so important to you that you went looking for her?"
Selendrile stepped in front of Alys, who was happy to fade into the background. He let out a hiss that Alys had no trouble hearing as "She's none of your business." She'd had a fair amount of practice at translating his draconian sounds and dirty looks over the past few months.
"She's a she," Stelera hissed, enraged by the scent of another female. "That makes her my business."
Selendrile's next vocalization was icy. "Enter my territory again, and I'll kill you," as Alys understood it.
The accuracy of her translation was borne out when Selendrile reared, golden wings spread high above his shoulders as he threw back his head and hissed. Alys recognized it as a threat display. He'd done it before, when they'd bedded down in the wild and wolves or bears threatened their campsite. It always worked.
This time was no exception. Stelera flinched and backed away, transforming as she did. It was the first time Alys had seen the older female in dragon form. Her scales were a dark steely gray, her mane jet black. She was bigger than Selendrile, but lacked his ferocity. Alys remembered what the tall man had said, about dragons eating unexpected guests, and an old story told in her village that hinted at a dragon's favorite food: other dragons. She didn't doubt it.
Selendrile kept his wings extended as the grey dragon flapped away. Only when she was out of sight did he revert to human form. He was shaking his head.
"She's such a coward. I don't understand her."
"Duh, Sel." Alys looked away, not interested in learning any more about male anatomy than she already knew. Maybe Selendrile's inscrutability came from his gender more than his species, because Alys could read Stelera loud and clear. "She's crazy about you."
Bare feet crunched across dead leaves. "She's not the only female under the sun."
"Maybe not, but she's a dragon." Alys heard her voice catch. "And she's beautiful."
Gentle fingers touched her jawline, moved up into her hair. Alys held still as Selendrile explored the soft, shaved patch around her wound. Then he tipped her chin up so she would look at him.
"Beauty," he said, "isn't the only consideration when selecting a mate."
"Oh, for heaven's sake." She looked away again. "Get some clothes on."