Page 54 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
I took off my gloves, steel gray that matched my muslin walking gown and feather-trimmed bonnet. For color, I had a dark rose corded spencer over top. I packed this outfit to be intimidating when I reached Hartfield, but it was warm, so it was pleasant to feel the cool air tickle my fingers. I crouched and rested my palm on one of the gold-hued stones, a foot tall and three feet long. “The Abbey’s history is all layered, like an oil painting covered over and over.” I lifted my face to the sun and closed my eyes, flooding my eyelids with scarlet glow.
So far away that I could not comprehend the distance, I felt the tug of Yuánchi’s binding. He was moving. Swiftly. “Yuánchi is flying again.” I had felt him move several times in the last few days, in the quiet moments when I was very calm.
Mr. Knightley’s clothing rustled. His watch chain jingled; he had crouched beside me. “With Mrs. Darcy?”
“I still am not sure. He is so far, I cannot make out her side of the binding.” The binding was changed, too. The black streaks I had noticed at Pemberley were more pronounced, like a sheet of paper dropped on hot coals and charring before it bursts into flame. “I am not sure,” I repeated. “It is very frustrating. I hope they sent a letter to Hartfield.”
“That is a mundane hope for a woman who can sense dragons.” Mr. Knightley sounded quite impressed.
I opened my eyes, and the sensation faded. “Ink and paper are easier to interpret.”
My fingers rested on the stone. The blocks were coarsely dressed, but the texture was smoothed by age. They were also dirty. I rubbed my gritty fingertips together, wondering why that did not distress me. I did not want it on my gloves, though.
“There is something reassuring about this place,” I said. “It was not a ruin when Queen Mary ruled. Then it was a fortress.”
Mr. Knightley bounded to his feet. “Miss Bennet thought your connection to Yuánchi would help you find the amulet. Could it be here?”
“Thatwouldbe nice! Just lying in the grass. But I think not. The ruins have been picked over a thousand times. It is something else about this place. Draca rarely come here, but I feel like there is a residue of binding, an echo soaked into the earth.”
“Is that the change you meant? That you sense their past presence?”
I closed my eyes, seeking the calm I had before. The impression of Yuánchi had vanished, but there was a resonance around us like the hum of bees in a flowering garden.
“I suppose so,” I said, unsure myself. “Draca bindings have become more tangible to me. Like they can be touched.”
I brushed off my hands and put on my gloves. The start of the footpath was in view, so we set out.
There was another half hour’s walk until Hartfield. I had left Mrs. Hewitt’s house happily confident, but the approaching confrontation hatched little flutters in my stomach.
“Tell me something clever about yourself,” I said.
“Clever is a high standard,” Mr. Knightley protested.
“I need a distraction. Anything I do not know.”
We entered the path, side-by-side in the shade, and he began, “As a young man, I traveled to Vienna for my musical studies. There, I made the acquaintance, and then the friendship, of the composer Herr Beethoven. He was an irascible man—a truly ferocious temper. At the time, I thought him very old.” He chuckled. “He was in his early thirties, and already famous throughout Europe.” His smile ended. “It took six months before he confided that he had lost most of his hearing and that the condition was worsening. That is a curse for anyone, but for a musician, it is catastrophic, and for a genius who had barely begun his ascent, it was cruel in its irony.
“He had many dark nights of the soul. He was too proud to confess his struggles, but I saw his pain. His daily life was hard as well. Fear of ridicule and of pity prevented him from announcing his disability. To him, the word deaf—taubin German—was terrifying. But after he confided in me, he regained a measure of hope. His brilliance remained a pure thing within him. He could create even while his body sealed him away in silence.”
“That is very sad.” My view of the path had turned watery. It was all too easy to imagine the loneliness of hiding his disability.
Mr. Knightley’s hand touched my forearm. “I did not intend to upset you. I suppose I had some thoughtless idea that it was relevant. A gifted person fighting private battles, then confiding in friends who help. But it is a poor analogy to your situation.”
“I am not irascible,” I pointed out and dabbed the tips of my gloved fingers beneath my eyes. “Nor do you think me very old.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “True.”
I felt he had not finished his story. “What happened with you and Herr Beethoven?”
“He wrote a sonata for me, and we performed it together. He could just manage that if I played loudly. We went to a bar to celebrate, and he admired a pretty woman singing folk tunes. I told him her singing was offkey—the crowd was noisy, so he could not hear her, only see her. I had to shout before he understood, which embarrassed him. Her, also. I had drunk too much. He became enraged, and we never spoke again.”
Mr. Knightley’s steps fell heavily. His cheeks and lips were furrowed with regret and shame.
“I am sorry it ended poorly,” I said, “but you helped him before. That help is what matters. I think you will meet again, and he will take your hand and call you ‘friend’ in German.”
“Freund,” Mr. Knightley supplied, his thoughts far away.
“You are in good company with me. You cannot imagine how foolish I was when I was a young woman.” That made me laugh. “Actually, I am sure youcanimagine! You criticized my project to remake Harriet. Think how insufferable I was at eighteen.” I could see Mr. Knightley puzzling over how to answer that, so I rushed on. “I lived through so many years that left no mark on me at all. Then suddenly, I was caring for Papa, and every day changed me. And then the challenges after he was gone.” I hesitated but felt it was cowardly not to finish the thought. “The six months that you and I have known each other—those have affected me a great deal.”
