The Rose Cord Read online

  J D Oswald

  THE ROSE CORD

  The Ballad of Sir Benfro ~ Volume Two

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Acknowledgements

  Follow Penguin

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  THE ROSE CORD

  J D Oswald is the author of the epic fantasy series The Ballad of Sir Benfro. Currently, Dreamwalker, The Rose Cord and The Golden Cage are all available as Penguin ebooks. He is also the author of the Detective Inspector McLean series of crime novels under the name James Oswald.

  In his spare time James runs a 350-acre livestock farm in north-east Fife, where he raises pedigree Highland cattle and New Zealand Romney sheep.

  www.jamesoswald.co.uk

  Twitter @SirBenfro

  By the same author

  The Ballad of Sir Benfro

  Dreamwalker

  The Rose Cord

  The Golden Cage

  The Inspector McLean Novels

  Natural Causes

  The Book of Souls

  The Hangman’s Song

  Dead Men’s Bones

  For Barbara

  Who first pointed out that ‘Sir Benfro’ was

  a great name for a dragon

  1

  In the early years of the Order of the High Ffrydd the slaughter of dragons was continuous. Charged by the word of King Brynceri, inquisitors and warrior priests spread out through the forest of the Ffrydd in search of their prey. Few dragons put up a fight, most accepting death as if they had been expecting it.

  But with time the zeal of the order for its task began to wane. Inquisitor Hardy cast his magic upon the Calling Road, setting it to lure what few dragons were left to the monastery, and the order turned to its more familiar role of protecting the realm from foreign invasion. Of those dragons that had not yet been slain some strayed upon the road and were killed. The rest remained in their simple villages, waiting.

  It is one thing to take up arms against a monster that steals your sheep and sets fire to your farmstead, but once the raids ended, so the people of the Hendry found there were more important things to do than hunt dragons. Years turned into decades, decades into centuries, and now there are many who truly believe that dragons are nothing but a myth. As they will never see such a creature in their lives, this belief does them no harm.

  There are others who know the truth, who understand the real power of these lumbering, flightless beasts. They do not breathe fire, they pose no threat to the kingdom, but they are creatures of the earth who have an innate understanding of magic. And the seat of this magic is their jewels. For in the brain of every living dragon can be found such gems as are beyond description, and to possess one is to be wealthy beyond compare.

  Father Charmoise, Dragons’ Tales

  Twigs and branches whipped at Benfro’s scales as he ran through the forest. He had no idea where he was, where he was going. There was only fleeing and blind panic. A prickly sensation shivered over his whole body, pulsing and reaching for him with waves of fear as Inquisitor Melyn and his warrior priests extended their search behind him. It felt like an invisible force was reaching out to grab him, and each time it came close he could feel his muscles tense.

  A root snagged at his foot and he tumbled head first down a gully. Benfro felt his wings twisting and snagging on bushes as the world rolled around him. Then, with a dizzying splash, he was face down in icy clear water.

  The cold shocked some sense into him even as it drove all the air out of his lungs. He sat up in the fast-moving stream, spluttering and gasping but no longer out of control. He could still feel the questing aura of fear, but it was a weak thing, distant. He didn’t know how he could be sure, didn’t understand how he could feel Melyn at all, but he knew the man was searching in the wrong direction, getting further away with each passing moment.

  Slowly Benfro dragged himself out of the water and on to a low silty beach that had formed in the lee of a fallen trunk. With his back to the tree he felt slightly more secure, though tremors of fear still shook him from time to time. He wanted to gather his thoughts, to try and make some sense of what had happened, but all he could see was that blazing blade crashing down. The sudden slump of his mother’s body as the life leaped from it.

  And there it was. His mother was dead. But she couldn’t be dead. She would never have left him like that, so suddenly. She would never have bowed down to anyone, least of all a puny man, and let him chop her head off. Did she love him so little that she could leave him like that?

  No, that was unfair. Guilt flushed through him at the traitorous thought. She had done everything in her power to save him, even if that meant sacrificing herself. And what had he done in return? He had run, scared and mindless, creating such a ruckus in his passing that the whole troop had come bounding after him. He had been lucky – he had evaded them for now – but it could all too easily have ended with him dead. Or worse, captured. Then his mother would have died in vain.

  His mother was dead.

  Benfro thrust his head into his hands, rubbing his scaly palms hard against his eyes. He wanted to scream, to sob, to cry, anything. Surely there was some emotional response in him. But he could do nothing. Nothing except watch as, over and over again, his mother’s head fell lifeless to the ground.

  He had abandoned her. He had to go back. His mother was wise, a skilled healer. He had learned only a tiny fraction of her craft. Maybe it had all been a ruse. Some near-magic trick to get the men off her back. She would be whole and hearty and waiting for him to come home. She would laugh at him in that loving way and explain how she had beaten them once more. And she would have a hot stew of venison bubbling away on the hearth, with thick crusty chunks of forest bread to help it down.

  Benfro’s stomach grumbled and he realized that he hadn’t eaten since morning. The sky overhead had the dull purple twinge of twilight about it and already a gloom was settling in between the trees. But how could he think of food at a time like this? How could he be so callous?

  And what if his mother needed him? What if the magic she had woven required his help to complete? He had to get back to her, had to make her whole again before she really did die.

  Benfro picked himself up and clambered to the top of the bank, sensing as he did that the questing presence of the inquisitor was gone. No more the soft pulses of fear, no more the prickling in his skin. Evening birds had begun their noisy chorus, and the first nocturnal animals were scurrying about in the brush. If there were men in the forest now, they were a long way off.

  It took less time than he expected to get back to the clearing. For all that his panicked fleeing felt like it had taken hours, he had travelled only a short distance from home. His senses, those inexplicable feelings he had never noticed before, told him that there were no men around, but still he approached the house with care, his hearts fluttering with a mixture of desperate hope and fatal realism.

  The house stood in the darkening night, a familiar shape surrounded by familiar sounds and smells. Fourteen years, his life, had been spent in this clearing. Yet as he approached, even before he c
ould see the spot of his mother’s execution, Benfro knew that there was something wrong. As he edged round the corner of the house, feeling the comforting rough surface of its walls, he saw the one thing he knew would be there and yet hoped beyond hope would not.

  His mother was dead.

  Her body lay slumped on the blood-slicked ground.

  Her head was nowhere to be seen.

  Errol knelt in the small apse off the main worshipping hall that was reserved for novitiates. In front of him the rough stone altar was adorned with candles, flickering in the cold draught that always whistled around the older parts of the monastery. They cast shadows on the uneven mottled surface of the walls and ceiling which moved in small leaps and bounds like wild animals in the depths of the forest. Distracted for a moment, he remembered happy times in his childhood when he would sit in the trees and wait and watch. It was something old Father Drebble had taught him – that if he waited long enough, the animals would come to him. But he was not here to dwell on the past, he reminded himself. He was here to pray.

  ‘I pledge my loyalty to thee, O Shepherd, and to my queen, Beulah of the House of Balwen, and to this most holy Order of the High Ffrydd. I humbly beg thee to give me your wisdom to guide me in my studies and your discipline to resist the myriad temptations laid in my path by the Wolf. I thank you for gifting me the opportunity to serve in thy name and promise always to do thy will in all things.’

  Errol savoured the words and the sentiments behind them, revelling in the power and purpose of them and the pledge he made daily. This morning the apse was empty save for himself, and he was able to take some time over his meditations. When he felt ready to face the day, he rose, bowing his head once. Stepping forward, he pinched out the wick of his candle, snuffing the flame that he had lit after his prayers the night before. His candle was large; only a few hours passed between each lighting and extinguishing. Not all the novitiates were as conscientious as he was, and their candles were almost burned to the base. If a novitiate did not graduate to the priesthood before his candle melted completely, he would be cast out of the order. To be candled was the greatest of shames, and Errol had no intention of falling from grace that way. He would work hard and learn all he could learn. He would graduate with honour and serve the inquisitor’s will, the Shepherd’s will, in whatever way was seen fit. His loyalty was without question – had he not pledged as much even at his choosing?

  ‘No, no, no, no!’

  A sharp pain cracked Errol’s hands and he looked down to see a raw red welt across them. For a moment he was confused, but then the image of the apse in the worshipping hall faded away, to be replaced by the familiar surroundings of the library archives. Andro sat across a small table from him, glaring. The old man held a thin length of cane in one hand.

  ‘I … I was there,’ Errol said, trying to shake the disorientation from his mind. ‘It was real enough, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Oh yes. Very convincing. I particularly liked the bit where you let your mind wander briefly to your childhood. Just the sort of thing a real novitiate would do. But you went too far, Errol. You started trying to justify your loyalty. No one’s questioning it, not directly. Melyn won’t come up to you and say, “Are you loyal to me?” He’s going to look for signs that suggest you aren’t.’

  ‘It’s too hard,’ Errol said. ‘I can’t keep everything together at once. And that’s without Melyn charging around inside my head. Ow!’

  ‘Inquisitor Melyn,’ Andro said. ‘Or the inquisitor, or His Grace. He may be your enemy Errol, but he’s also the head of this order and as such your superior. You will give him respect at all times.’

  ‘Sorry, Quaister.’ Errol bowed his head. ‘I forget myself.’

  ‘Exactly, Errol,’ Andro said. ‘You forget yourself. And you must not do that. Never. Your only hope is eternal vigilance. You’ve got to immerse yourself totally. Be the person who is unquestioning in his loyalty to the order.’

  ‘But I hate the order.’

  ‘No, you only hate what it’s become. Remember that. If it helps, imagine that you’re loyal to what the order used to stand for – knowledge and learning, the protection of the realm. Now I want you to start again, only this time I’m not going to tell you when I start trying to pry into your thoughts. You should be able to sense me and block me. Melyn will expect you to block him too. But he won’t expect you to succeed for any length of time.’

  Errol settled himself down into his chair once more, laid his hands on the tabletop and closed his eyes, building the image of the perfect novitiate in his mind. A sharp rap on the knuckles startled him out of concentration.

  ‘Eyes open this time,’ Andro said.

  The bulk of Morgwm’s prone body lay exactly where it had fallen. Dark blood stained the ground around it, lending an iron tang to the air that reminded Benfro sickeningly of the end of the hunt, when a young hind or stag would be strung up and bled. For once he cursed his keen eyes which could pick up the slightest detail even in the quickening gloom. The ground around his mother’s body was trampled where dozens of feet had milled around. The vegetable patch was ruined, the cabbage leaves all torn, potatoes smashed off at the haulm before they could ever have reached a decent size. The swing chair where he had spent many a warm evening listening to his mother’s herb lore lay on its side now, shattered beyond repair. And someone had kicked in the door to the house. His eyes darted from this to that, never once settling on the one thing he didn’t want to see.

  He found his mother’s head some distance from her body. A deep runnel in the ground showed where it had been dragged. His hearts leaden, Benfro steeled himself to approach. Any hope that his mother might have been alive, any triumph over the evil terror that had so suddenly swept into his life, had long since disappeared. He had to accept that his mother was dead. She would not be coming back. And now there was an important ceremony to be performed.

  Benfro had touched his mother a thousand times before, hugged her, kissed her, held on to her and sobbed into her shoulder as only a son could. Yet it was the hardest thing he ever did to stoop down to pick up her severed head. And as he came close, he saw something that made him first pause, then leap away to retch dry empty heavings into the vegetable patch. For the once proud and beautiful features of Morgwm the Green had been split lengthwise between her eyes, exposing a raw ruddy mess of brain and bone within.

  If Benfro had been angry before, it had been tempered by fear. Now his rage was pure and unbridled. Bad enough that these men should kill his mother, but to mutilate her after her death was beyond his comprehension. What manner of beasts could do that? And why? In his fury he lashed out at the vegetables, finishing the job of destruction begun by his tormentors before collapsing in a heap. The tears that had so long eluded him came thick and fast then, great sobs of pain and grief, anger, despair and hatred.

  It was a long time before he could bring himself to go back to his mother’s mutilated remains. Night had fallen completely by the time he managed to place her head in some semblance of the right position beside her neck. The sticky blood on his hands felt like a curse, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to wash it off.

  Inside the house the last embers were still glowing in the hearth. For a fleeting instant he felt a flush of guilt, knowing the trouble he would be in for letting the fire burn so low. Then reality came back to him again. His mother was beyond caring about such matters now.

  The men had been through the house, turning things upside down as if just for the hell of it. Pots lay broken on the floor, wet and dry contents mingled to a sticky pulp that smelled sour and sweet with the pungent odour of drying herbs. Benfro did his best to ignore it, heading instead for the storeroom at the back.

  By the time he had finished covering the prone body with Delyn oil, the moon had breached the treetops, full and fat. Its pockmarked face formed the shadow of a dragon with wings outstretched: great Rasalene, the father of them all. Except that Benfro knew no dragon could have wings that
large. His own thin flappings were more of an embarrassment than anything else, a vestigial remnant of some earlier wild creature. Like the lore, the dragon in the moon was a pitiful, pathetic children’s tale to his current state of mind. But there was one part of being a dragon that could not be denied.

  Finally he went back into the storeroom and fetched the tiny blackwood box, sliding the close-fitting lid from it with trembling fingers. The powder within was darker than the night, as if it absorbed whatever light came its way. It smelled like nothing he had ever come across before, at once alien and exotic and frightening.

  Benfro took a pinch between his finger and thumb, feeling its soft coolness almost numb his whole arm. His hearts were racing now, his mind a churning turmoil of grief and excitement and fear. He looked up at the moonlit night sky, seeing the thousand thousand pinprick lights of the stars, and then with what he hoped was a flourish, he cast the powder over his mother’s body.

  It was late, the night sky outside pocked with stars where it showed through the low clouds that covered the city. Beulah sat in her stateroom, an empty wine glass in one hand as she stared out the window, thinking. She had tried to contact Melyn earlier in the day, but he was neither at Emmass Fawr nor close enough to Candlehall that she could trace him. She missed his wise counsel and thought, not for the first time, that she relied far too heavily on him. Not that she couldn’t make decisions for herself. And this was a big decision, so perhaps it was better to take it in small steps.

  As she walked out of her room, two guards snapped to attention and began to follow her down the corridor, maintaining a discreet distance and trying to keep their movements quiet in the silent palace. Beulah ignored them for as long as she could, before turning on them with a fierce fury in her stare.

  ‘By the Shepherd, must you follow me everywhere?’ she shouted, knowing that they had been ordered to do just that, and if they failed in their duty they would most likely be flayed alive. ‘Oh very well then. Come with me.’