Chapter 8: Under a White Flag

Wystan didn't move.

He just turned his head and looked at the bronze dragon on his wall.

"You're on my Hold," he said. "Under a white flag. So you'll come down into my hall like a man, and you'll talk there."

The dragon's lip curled off its teeth.

Then it shrank.

Drystan stood on the wall walk in the moonlight, naked and shivering, with the white flag still knotted round his wrist.

One of the guards threw him a cloak.

It was an old one, patched, with mutton fat down the front.

I don't think it was an accident.

The hall filled up fast.

By the time Drystan walked in, there were two hundred people round the walls.

The cook. The shepherds. The smith's wife. The mothers from the gorge. The elder with his staff.

Bettris sat on the edge of the dais with her bow across her knees.

Dorrit leaned on a pillar and ate an apple very loudly.

Drystan stopped in the middle of the floor.

He'd found his own breeches in the bags under the bronze dragon's harness.

He'd combed his hair with his fingers.

He looked round at the clan.

Then he looked at me.

"I'm not here to fight," he said. "I'm here to fix this."

"Fix what?"

"You." He spread his hands. "You were upset. I understand. It was a bad night, there was a fire, and you made a scene. You've had your fun."

"My fun."

"The writ was a trick, Alys. Everybody at court knows it. A trick's not a marriage ending. It's void."

"The King's clerk sealed it."

"The King's clerk will unseal it if I ask." He smiled. "Come home. Your rooms are just as you left them."

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