by Jane Yolen
The Dragon’s Boy
IT WAS ON A day in early spring with the clouds scudding across a gray sky, that the boy found the cave. He had been chasing after Lord Ector’s brachet hound, the one who always slipped her chain to go after hare. She had slipped him as well, leaving him lost in the boggy wasteland north of the castle walls. He had crossed and recrossed a small, meandering stream following her, wading thigh-deep in water that—he was painfully aware of it—would only come up to the other boys’ knees. The reminder of his height only made him crankier.
The sun was high, his stomach empty, and the brachet had quit baying an hour earlier. She was no doubt back at the kennel yard, slopping up her food. But she was his responsibility, and he had to stay out until he was sure. Besides, he was lost. Well, not exactly lost but bothered a bit, which was a phrase he had picked up from the master of hounds, a whey-colored man for all that he was out of doors most of the day.
The boy looked around for a place to get out of the noon sun, for the low, hummocky swamp with its brown pools and quaking mosses offered little shelter. And then he saw a small tor mounding up over the bog. He decided to climb it a bit to see if he could find a place where he might shelter, maybe even survey the land. He’d never been quite this far from the castle on his own before and certainly had never come out into the northern fens where the peat-hags reigned, and he needed time to think about the way home. And the brachet. If the mound had been higher, he wouldn’t have attempted it. The High Tor, the really large mount northwest of the manor, had somewhat of an evil reputation. But this hillock was hardly that. He needed to get his bearings and sight the castle walls or at least a tower.
He was halfway up the tor when he saw the cave.
It was only an unprepossessing black hole in the rock, as round as if it had been carved and then smoothed by a master hand. He stepped in, being careful of the long, spear-like, hanging rocks, and let his eyes get used to the dark. Only then did he hear the breathing. It was not very loud, but it was steady and rumbling, with an occasional pop! that served as punctuation.
He held his breath and began to back out of the cave, hit his head on something that rang in twenty different tones, and said a minor curse under his breath.
“Staaaaaaaaaay,” came a low command.
He stopped. And so, for a stuttering moment, did his heart.
“Whoooooooooo are you?” It was less an echo bouncing off cave walls than an elongated sigh.
The boy bit his lip and answered in a voice that broke several times in odd places. “I am nobody. Just Artos. A fosterling from the castle.” Then he added hastily, “Sir.”
A low rumbling sound, more like a snore than a sentence, was all that was returned to him. It was that homey sound which freed him of his terror long enough to ask, “And who are you?” He hesitated. “Sir.”
Something creaked. There was a strange clanking. Then the voice, augmented almost tenfold, boomed at him, “I am the Great Riddler. I am the Master of Wisdoms. I am the Word and I am the Light. I Was and Am and Will Be.”
Artos nearly fainted from the noise. He put his right hand before him as if to hold back the sound. When the echoes had ended, he said in a quiet little voice, “Are you a hermit, sir? An anchorite? Are you a Druid? A penitent knight?”
The great whisper that answered him came in a rush of wind. “I am the Dragon.”
“Oh,” said Artos.
“Is that all you can say?” asked the dragon. “I tell you I am the Dragon and all you can answer is oh?”
The boy was silent.
The great breathy voice sighed. “Sit down, boy. It has been a long time since I have had company in my cave. A long time and a lonely time.”
“But … but … but.” It was not a good beginning.
“No buts,” said the dragon.
“But …” Artos began again, needing greatly to uphold his end of the conversation.
“Shush, boy, and listen. I will pay for your visit.”
The boy sat. It was not greed that stayed him. Rather, he was comforted by the thought that he was not to be eaten.
“So, Artos, how would you like your payment? In gold, in jewels, or in wisdom?”
A sudden flame from the center of the cave lit up the interior and, for the first time, Artos could see that there were jewels scattered about the floor as thick as pebbles. But dragons were known to be great games players. Cunning, like an old habit, claimed the boy. Like most small people, he had a genius for escape. “Wisdom, sir,” he said.
Another bright flame spouted from the cave center. “An excellent choice,” said the dragon. “I’ve been needing a boy just your age to pass my wisdom on to. So listen well.”
Artos did not move and hoped that the dragon would see by his attitude that he was listening.
“My word of wisdom for the day is this: Old dragons, like old thorns, can still prick. And I am a very old dragon. Take care.”
“Yes, sir,” said Artos, thinking but not saying that that was a bit of wit often spoken on the streets of the village nestled inside the castle walls. But the warning by the villagers was of priests and thorns, not dragons. Aloud he said, “I will remember. Sir.”
“Go now,” said the dragon. “And as a reward for being such a good listener, you may take that small jewel. There.” The strange clanking that Artos had heard before accompanied the extension of a gigantic foot with four enormous toes, three in the front and one in the back. It scrabbled along the cave floor, then stopped not far from Artos. Then the nail from the center toe extended peculiarly and tapped on a red jewel the size of a leek bulb.
Artos moved cautiously toward the jewel and the claw. Hesitating a moment, he suddenly leaned over and grabbed up the jewel. Then he scuttered back to the cave entrance.
“I will expect you tomorrow,” said the dragon. “You will come during your time off.”
“How did you know I had time off?” asked Artos.
“When you have become as wise as a dragon, you will know these things.”
Artos sighed.
“There is a quick path from the back bridge. Discover it. And you will bring me stew. With meat!” The nail was suddenly sheathed and, quite rapidly, the foot was withdrawn into the dark center of the cave.
“To—tomorrow,” promised the boy, not meaning a word of it.
The next morning at the smithy, caught in the middle of a quarrel between Old Linn the apothecary and Magnus Pieter the swordmaker, Artos was reminded of his promise. He had not forgotten the dragon—indeed the memory of the great clanking scales, the giant claw, the shaft of searing breath, the horrendous whisper had haunted his dreams. But he had quite conveniently forgotten his promise, or shunted it aside, or buried it behind layers of caution, until the argument had broken out.
“But there is never any meat in my gravy,” whined Old Linn.
“Nor any meat in your manner,” replied the brawny smith. “Nor were you mete for battle.” The smith rather fancied himself a wordsman as well as a swordsman. And until Old Linn had had a fit, falling face first into his soup in the middle of entertaining the visiting High King, the smith had been spitted regularly by Old Linn’s quick tongue. Now Linn was too slow for such ragging and he never told tales after meals anymore. It was said he had lost the heart for it after his teeth had left prints on the table. But he was kept on at the castle because Lord Ector had a soft heart and a long memory. And because—so backstair gossip had it—Linn had a cupboard full of strange herbs locked up behind doors covered with deep carved runes.
Artos, who had been at the smithy to try and purchase a sword with his red jewel, was caught with his bargaining only just begun. He had not even had time to show the gem to Magnus Pieter when Old Linn had shambled in and, without any prelude, started his whining litany. His complaints were always laid at the smith’s door. No one else in the castle was as old as the pair of them. They were best of friends by their long and rancorous association.
“My straw is ne�
��er changed but once a se’nnight,” Linn complained. “My slops are ne’er emptied. I am given the dregs of the wine to drink. And now I must sit, if I am to be welcomed at all, well below the salt.”
The smith smiled and returned to tapping on his piece of steel. He had stopped when Artos had begun his inquiries. In time to the beat of the hammer, he said, “But you have straw, though you no longer earn it. And a pot for your slops, which you can empty yourself. You have wine, even though you ne’er pay for it. And even below the salt, there is gravy in your bowl.”
That was when Old Linn had whined piteously, “But there is never any meat in my gravy.”
It was the word meat and Magnus Pieter’s seven or eight variations on it, that rung like a knell in Artos’ head. For meat had been the dragon’s final word.
He slunk off without even the promise of a sword, that shining piece of steel that might make him an equal in the eyes of the other boys, the gem still burning brightly in his tightly clenched hand.
He brought a small pot of gravy with three pieces of meat with him. Strolling casually out the back gate as if he had all the time in the world, nodding slightly at the guards over the portcullis, Artos could feel his heartbeat quicken. He had walked rather more quickly over the moat bridge, glancing at the gray-green water where the old moat tortoise lazed atop the rusted crown of a battle helm. Once he was across, he began to run.
It was difficult not to spill the stew, but he managed. The path was a worn thread through a wilderness of peatmosses and tangled brush. He even clambered over two rock outcroppings in the path that were studded with stones that looked rather like lumps of meat themselves. And actually climbing over the rocks was easier than wheedling the pot of stew had been. He only had it because Mag the scullery was sweet on him and he had allowed her to kiss him full on the lips. She hadn’t noticed how he had held his breath, hoping to avoid the stink of her garlic, and closed his eyes not to see her bristly mustache. And she sighed so much after the kiss she hadn’t had time to ask what he needed the stew for. But what if the dragon wanted gravy every day and he had to give Mag more kisses. It didn’t bear thinking about, so Artos thought instead about the path. The dragon had been right. There was a quicker route back to the mount. Its only disadvantages were the two large rocks and the old thorny briar bushes. But they, at least, were safer than the peat pools which held bones enough way far down.
He got to the cave rather quicker than he had bargained. Breathless, he squinted into the dark hole. This time he heard no heavy dragon breathing.
“Maybe,” he said aloud to himself, his own voice lending him badly needed courage, “there’s no one home. So I can just leave the gravy—and go.”
“Staaaaaaaaay,” came the sudden rumbling.
Artos almost dropped the pot.
“I have the gravy,” he shouted quickly. He hadn’t meant to be so loud, but fear always made him either too quiet or too loud. He was never sure which it was to be.
“Then give it meeeeeeeee,” said the voice, followed by the clanking as the great claw extended halfway into the cave.
Artos could tell it was the foot by its long shadow. This time there was no stream of fire, only a hazy smoldering light from the back of the cave. Feeling a little braver then, he said, “I shall need to take the pot back with me. Sir.”
“You shall take a bit of wisdom instead,” came the voice.
Artos wondered if it would make him wise enough to avoid Mag’s sweaty embrace. Somehow he doubted it.
“Tomorrow you shall have the pot. When you bring me more.”
“More?” This time Artos’ voice squeaked.
“Moooooooore,” said the dragon. “With meat!” The nail extended, just as it had the day before, and caught under the pot handle. There was a horrible screeching as the pot was lifted several inches into the air, then slowly withdrawn into the recesses of the cave. There were strange scrabbling noises as if the dragon were sorting through its possessions, and then the clanking resumed. The claw returned and dropped something at Artos’ feet.
He looked down. It was a book, rather tatty around the edges, he thought, though in the cave light it was hard to be sure.
“Wissssssssdom,” said the dragon.
Artos shrugged. “It’s just a book. I know my letters. Father Bertram taught me.”
“Lettersssssss turn matter into sssssspirit,” hissed the dragon.
“You mean it’s a book of magic?”
“All bookssssss are magic, boy.” The dragon sounded just a bit cranky.
“Well, I can read,” said Artos, stooping to pick up the book. He added a quick, “Thank you,” thinking he should seem grateful. Old thorns and old dragons … he reminded himself.
“You can read letters, my boy, which is more than I can say for your castle contemporaries. And you can read words. But you must learn to read inter linea, between the lines.”
Edging backward to the cave’s mouth, Artos opened the book and scanned the first page. His fingers underlined each word, his mouth formed them. He turned the page. Then he looked up puzzled. “There is nothing written between the lines. Sir.”
Something rather like a chuckle crossed with a cough echoed from the cave. “There is always something written between the lines. But it takes great wisdom to read it.”
“Then why me, sir? I have little wisdom.”
“Because … because you are here.”
“Here?”
“Today. And not back at Ector’s feeding his brachet or cleaning out the mews or sweating in the smithy or fighting with that pack of unruly boys. Here. For the getting of wisdom.” The dragon made stretching noises.
“Oh.”
There was a sudden tremendous wheezing and clanking and a strange, “Oh-oh,” from the dragon.
Artos peered into the back of the cave nervously. It was all darkness and shadow and an occasional finger of firelight. “Are you all right? Sir?”
A long silence followed during which Artos wondered whether he should go to the dragon. He wondered if he had even the smallest amount of wisdom needed to help out. Then, just as he was about to make the plunge, the dragon’s voice came hissing back. “Yessssss, boy.”
“Yes what, sir?”
“Yessssss I am all right.”
“Well, then,” said Artos, putting one foot quietly behind the other, “thank you for my wisdom.”
A furious flame spat across the cave, leaping through the darkness to lick Artos’ feet. He jumped back, startled at the dragon’s accuracy and suddenly hideously afraid. Had it just been preparation for the dragon’s dinner after all? He suddenly wished for the sword he had not yet purchased, turned, and ran out of the cave.
The dragon’s voice followed him. “Ssssssssilly child. That was not the wisdom.”
From a safe place alongside the outside wall of the cave, Artos peeked in. “There’s more?” he asked.
“By the time I am through with you, Artos Pendragon, Arthur son of the dragon, you will read inter linea in people as well.” There was a loud moan and another round of furious clanking, and then total silence.
Taking it as a dismissal and holding the book hard against his chest, Artos ran down the hill. Whatever else he thought about as he neared the castle walls, topmost in his mind was what he would tell Mag about the loss of the gravy pot. It might mean another kiss. That was the fell thought that occupied him all the way home.
Artos could not read the book without help, he knew it at once. The sentences were much too long and interspersed with Latin and other languages. Perhaps that was the between lines the dragon had meant. The only help available was Old Linn, and he did not appear until well after dinner. Unfortunately, that was the time that Artos was the busiest, feeding the dogs, checking the jesses on the hawks, cleaning the smithy. Father Bertram might have helped had he still been alive, though somehow Artos doubted it. The dragon’s book was neither Testament nor Commentary, that much he could read, and the good father had been fierce
about what he had considered proper fare. The castle bonfires had often burned texts of which he disapproved. Even Lady Marion’s Book of Hours, which had taken four scribes the full part of a year to set down, had gone up in Father Bertram’s righteous flames because Adam and Eve had no fig leaves. This Artos had on good authority, though he had never seen it himself, for Lady Marion had complained to Lady Sylvia who had tittered about it to her serving girls who had passed the news along with the gravy to young Cai who had mentioned it as a joke to his friends in the cow shed when Artos, who had been napping in the haymow, overheard them.
No, the good Father Bertram would never have helped. Old Linn, though, was different. He could read four tongues well: English, Latin, Greek, and bardic runes. It was said his room was full of books. He could recite the “Conception of Pyrderi,” a tale Artos loved for the sheer sound of it, and the stories about the children of Llyr and the Cauldron and the Iron House and the horse made for Bran. Or at least Linn used to be able to tell them all. Before he had been taken ill so suddenly and dramatically, his best piece had always been the “Battle of the Trees.” Artos could not remember a time when dinners of great importance at the castle had not ended with Linn’s declaiming of it. In fact, Lord Ector’s Irish retainers called Linn shanachie which, as far as Artos could tell from their garbled and endless explanations, simply meant “storyteller.” But they said the word with awe when coupling it to Old Linn’s name.
The problem, Artos thought, was that the old man hated him. Well, perhaps hate was too strong a word, but he seemed to prefer the young gentlemen of the house, not the impoverished fosterling. Linn especially lavished attention on Sir Cai who, as far as Artos was concerned, long ago let his muscles o’ertake his head. And Sir Bedvere, slack jawed and hardhanded. And Sir Lancot, the pretty boy. Once Artos, too, had tried to curry favor with the trio of lordlings, fetching and carrying and helping them with their school-work. But then they all grew up, and the three grew up faster and taller and louder. And once Sir Lancot as a joke had pulled Artos’ pants down around his ankles in the courtyard and the other two called out the serving maids to gawk. And that led to Mag’s getting sweet on him, which was why he had grown to despise Mag and pity the boys, even though they were older and bigger and better placed than he.