Handbook for Dragon Slayers

by Merrie Haskell

  WE SLEPT UNTIL THE Martinmas festivities awakened us.

  Bonfires were started, and fat geese were cooked. People cheered when they saw us, and offered us roasted goose legs and hand pies filled with blackberries, and when the cordial ran out, we drank drafts of crushed grapes that hadn’t even thought of turning to wine yet.

  I must have eaten a dozen tiny rolls shaped like horse hooves. Saint Martin’s feast always features goose and hoof-shaped bread, because when the cardinals came to offer him the job of pope, he ran off and hid in the stables with the horses until the geese honked and gave him away.

  Everywhere I went, the silver mare followed. I’d thought we had latched the stable door, but obviously that wasn’t a barrier to the silver mare. Though she’d refused grain, she stole cordial and juice out of my cup when I wasn’t looking. She wasn’t always polite about the people who wanted to touch her—I think she bit more than a few fingers, and I know she kicked someone, but she was nice to the children.

  The townsfolk who had left for the three nights of earthquakes and storms started to trickle back in on the rumors that the harvest problem was over, and the celebration’s pitch rose. Musicians found each other, and dancing began. The local lord came down from his high castle in the evening, accompanied by a few of his vassals, and there were speeches. A handsome knight put a wreath of bright autumn leaves and ripe grain on my head like a crown; the children tried to put another such crown on the silver mare, but she flung it off.

  Parz lost all of his money in a dice game, and Judith gained it all back for him, even with her arm in a sling. I won a singing contest against some eight-year-olds who shouldn’t have goaded me into it. And we all ate and laughed. I grinned so hard, I thought my face would crack open like an eggshell and my brain would drop out like the yolk.

  Maybe it was the relief of the whole town we felt; maybe it was the freedom of being on our own. I just knew I’d never been so happy.

  The knight who’d given me the wreath listened carefully during the third recitation of the events with the Wild Hunt and afterward introduced himself to us as Sir Egin. He was particularly charming, kissing my hand and praising my bravery.

  “Would you care to dance, milady?” Sir Egin asked. He stroked his thick blond beard and smiled down at me.

  I was startled by that invitation, considering I hadn’t even been trying to hide my foot or crutch or anything. It had to be fairly obvious that I wasn’t capable of dancing.

  “Before you say no—” he said, and lifted me into his arms and spun me around three times.

  It was the fastest I’d ever moved. Ever!

  “Oh!” I said, half dizzy from the movement, and stumbled a little against Sir Egin when he set me back on my feet.

  The silver mare came close and thrust her head under my arm, effectively removing my hand from Sir Egin’s and forcing me to step back from him. Judith spoke in my ear. “Tilda, I need you.”

  “Another time, Sir Egin,” I said, attempting a gracious smile.

  He smiled back, equally gracious—but not before a shadow darkened his eyes for a moment. He bowed deeply and turned to leave.

  I frowned. Why had there been that flicker of . . . well, it wasn’t annoyance, or even anger . . . when I’d refused him? What had it been?

  Jealousy? Hatred?

  I shivered. He had no right to be jealous. No reason to hate.

  I turned to Judith, noting that she appeared to have acquired a very fine silver-and-copper chain around her neck. Where had that come from?

  “Well?” I asked. “What’s the matter?”

  She didn’t speak until Egin was well out of earshot. “The matter is that Sir Egin just buried his seventh wife,” she said. “And he’s probably looking for the eighth.”

  “I’m only thirteen!”

  Judith glanced at Sir Egin’s retreating back. “And do you think that matters to someone who’s buried seven wives?”

  chapter 12

  THE CELEBRATION LASTED INTO THE NIGHT, AND WE were foolish enough to stay for the whole of it. It wasn’t that we forgot about possible pursuit by Cousin Ivo; it was more that we had been through so much with the dragon and the Wild Hunt that it felt like weeks had passed instead of just a few days. But there was also Judith’s shoulder to be careful of, and my foot besides.

  We fell asleep in the stable, curled around goose filled bellies in the loose straw of the stall across from the horses, while bonfires burned down to cinders outside. We were warm and cozy in the stable even though the first truly cold wind of autumn began to blow.

  I woke in the middle of the night to the noise of footsteps and rustling in the metal horses’ stall; a sharp blow and a withering human groan preceded running footsteps that quickly faded into the distance. Judith said, “What was that?”

  “Thwarted theft, I think,” Parz said with a smile in his voice. “Well, a burned child avoids the fire. They won’t be back.”

  I fretted. “That thief might not be, but what about other thieves?”

  “There might be a dozen more thieves, and I wouldn’t want to be stuck in their skins for anything. Those horses are strong as bears and twice as ornery, Princess. They’ll be fine.”

  WE WOKE TO A cloudy morning and the tolling of church bells. We felt obligated to go to mass, but as soon as that duty was done, we returned to the stables and loaded the horses up again with their tack and baggage.

  “Whether or not they continue to follow us, we can’t carry this stuff,” I said.

  What we couldn’t quite work out, though, was where we were going. We had discussed it on the way to mass, and then again on the way back, and still hadn’t agreed. Parz wanted to find another dragon slayer to talk to, but the only one he knew of besides Sir Kunibert lived far to the south in the Alps. Judith bit her lip and said we should consider returning to Alder Brook, since dragon slaying hadn’t worked out the way we thought, but she had to admit that she didn’t have a plan for avoiding capture by Ivo.

  I held my breath and hoped she wouldn’t ask when we were going to go back, if not now.

  I argued for research in a cloister library. Parz sighed. “Well, you were right, Princess. We need a lot more information. We need the Handbook. To Saint Disibod’s Cloister, then.”

  “It seems the best choice,” I said, my stomach asquirm with nervous anticipation. Saint Disibod’s might very well be my future home. I was planning to ask the cloister to overlook my lack of dowry and take me in based solely on my family name and skills as a scribe. It was where I would reveal that I would not be returning to Alder Brook by Christmas, then say farewell to Parz and Judith.

  “So we’d want to go up the Rhine and take the ferryboat to Confluence,” Parz said. “It’ll take us maybe a week to get there if we walk. Longer if—”

  “I don’t think I can walk that far,” I said bluntly.

  Parz nodded. “We agree.” He pointed past me.

  The silver mare was standing directly behind me, staring down at me with a piercing gaze.

  “What? What do you want?” I asked her.

  Judith had also already figured it out. “She wants you to ride her.”

  “I’m sorry,” I told the waiting silver mare. “I can’t. I can’t ride you.”

  She flicked an ear at me.

  “You can ride,” Parz said.

  “No, Parz. I can’t. I’ve never been taught.”

  “Yes,” he said gently, his voice quiet but strong in the utter silence. “It will be uncomfortable, possibly painful, but you can. I’ll instruct you.”

  I hated him in that moment, for knowing my pain and asking me to meet it. But I gritted my teeth and faced the horse. She nickered at me. I held out my hand, and she nuzzled it. “I can ride you?” I asked.

  She didn’t say no.

  Parz came around and boosted me to her back. I clutched the amethyst-and-sapphire pommel, thinking how this tiny portion of her saddle alone was worth a queen’s ransom, and how it was the only thin
g that was going to keep me from death.

  “Don’t hold on to the pommel—hold on to her mane,” Parz said. “If you start to slip, the mane will keep you on the horse; the saddle might want to slip just as much as you.”

  “Oh.” I removed my right hand from its death grip on the pommel and lightly touched the mare’s mane.

  “Get your fingers in there. Pull it all you want—you can’t hurt her that way.”

  I knotted my fingers gently into her mane, then took my left hand off the pommel and did the same.

  “Now, feet in the stirrups.”

  I slid my straight foot into the left stirrup. My crooked foot and the right stirrup, however, did not make so pleasant an arrangement.

  “I don’t know if I can,” I said. “My . . . foot.”

  “The issue is the angle or the pressure?” Parz asked.

  “Both.”

  “Then we will simply teach you how to ride without that foot in a stirrup, until we come up with a better way.”

  I was, as usual, embarrassed whenever any special attention was paid to my foot, but at the same time . . . I wasn’t a sack of turnips. I was riding. I was riding the silver mare.

  I grinned with excitement until it occurred to me: I was riding a horse of the Wild Hunt . . . alone.

  Fear gripped my belly, and I clutched at the mare’s mane.

  “You’re doing very well!” Judith called. Parz stayed at my side and put one stabilizing hand on my right leg.

  “I’ll catch you if you fall, so you don’t need to worry,” he said. “You ready?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Judith, can you lead?”

  The silver mare tossed her head and started forward, as if to prove she needed no one to lead her. She executed a perfect circle around the stable yard. Parz jogged alongside, explaining little things, his hand warm and comforting on my calf.

  My head was a jumble, and everything was moving too fast—oh, not my mare, who was ambling along no faster than I went with a crutch, but the whole thing. I’m not allowed to ride horses.

  But here I was.

  By myself.

  On a horse.

  Alone!

  I’d always been told I couldn’t—and shouldn’t—ride. I’d always been told I couldn’t dance, either, and I’d nearly danced with Sir Egin the night before.

  And, well! I had run away from my imprisonment at Snail Castle and joined up with a group of dragon slayers. A group that consisted of a failed squire and my handmaiden, but a group of dragon slayers nonetheless.

  What else couldn’t I do?

  I wanted to go try everything immediately. I thought about pulling out a sword and riding into battle beside Judith and Parz, and almost laughed out loud.

  “So, what’s her name?” Judith called as the mare took me around the circle again.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Tilda, what are you going to call her?”

  “I’m concentrating!” I hollered. I was learning the things Parz was saying, about telling the horse where I wanted to go with my body’s weight and small pressures and the reins.

  “I think you have it,” Parz said at last. “She’s a smart horse, which isn’t always a good thing for a new rider, but she’s sweet on you, so . . . I think it will be all right.”

  “Now that you don’t have to concentrate so hard, what’s her name?” Judith asked.

  “She hasn’t said,” I replied.

  They both laughed, but I hadn’t really been joking.

  Parz understood, though, in spite of his laughter. “I think she’ll let you know if you’re wrong,” he said, once his chuckle died away. “What do you want to call her?”

  “Joyeuse.” It meant “joyful” in the language of the northern Franks, and it was, in some ways, the word I’d been thinking since getting onto the mare’s back.

  An astonished and pleased look lit up Parz’s face. “Perfect!”

  “Why is that perfect—?” I began, and then remembered that Parz loved naming horses after swords. I racked my brain. “Oh, yes. Emperor Charlemagne’s sword was Joyeuse.”

  “And Sir Roland’s sword was Durendal”—Parz’s eyes swung toward the copper horse—“forged from the same steel.”

  “All right then,” I said, and patted the silver mare. “How do you feel about the name Joyeuse, my dear?”

  The mare snorted a little, and the earth suddenly moved up, down, and sideways rapidly. “What just happened?” I asked.

  Parz and Judith were staring at me. Or rather, at my horse.

  “I think your horse just danced,” Judith said.

  I tried not to look smug as I patted the mare again. “Joyeuse is clever like that.”

  “My turn,” Parz said, wearing a devilish grin.

  Judith shook her head. “Should I call in the bonesetter?”

  “Not yet,” Parz said, and attempted to leap onto the copper mare’s back.

  I never saw the mare move, and I guess Parz didn’t either. One second Parz was halfway into the saddle; the next he was flailing and falling to the ground, and the copper horse was standing behind Judith.

  And, hand to fire, the mare was laughing.

  “Oof,” Parz said in a tiny voice, face smashed into the courtyard muck, and now I was laughing, too. I clapped my hand over my mouth, immediately chagrined and horrified to be laughing over someone who might be hurt. But Judith giggled as well, so hard she snorted, which made the guffaws burst forth uncontrollably from me. And beneath me, Joyeuse was still dancing with joy—and amusement?

  Parz got to his feet, trying to wipe the muck and mud from himself, which somehow made us laugh all the harder. Judith tried to help him, but she was nearly incapacitated by her giggle-snorting.

  Parz was not appreciative. “You laugh like a pig,” he told her.

  “I know!” she wheezed. “And Tilda laughs like a horse!”

  “I do!” I said, and horse-laughed even harder. “Are you—are you hurt?”

  “No,” he said, and the sullen look on his face was almost enough to start us off again.

  While Parz washed up in a bucket of water, Judith approached the copper mare with a slice of apple. The horse sniffed the air above her hand for a moment, then reached out with delicate teeth and ate the slice.

  “Hi there,” she said breathlessly. “Durendal? Can I call you Durendal? Will you let me . . .?”

  Some silent communication passed between them, and they went together to the mounting block, and Judith clambered up into the high saddle. Durendal pranced back and forth a few times. “Tilda!” Judith called. “I’m—do you see?”

  “I do see!”

  A serious expression fell over her face, and she kneed the horse closer to me. “Do you—is it all right, Tilda? I mean, they both sort of belong to you, if to anyone.”

  I stroked Joyeuse’s gleaming neck. “I’m telling you, they don’t belong to me. This isn’t my horse. I am her girl.”

  Judith nodded, a crooked smile stealing across her lips.

  I watched Parz carefully when he returned from his washup, damp and still annoyed. His eyes flickered to Judith on the copper horse. But he wasn’t angry, nor even jealous—resigned was the word that came to mind.

  “Fine. I’ll walk. I know when I’m not wanted as a rider.”

  I patted the silver mare between the ears. “Joyeuse?” I said. “Will you let Parz ride with me? We need to travel a long way.”

  Joyeuse tossed her head, but it didn’t seem to be a no. A moment’s hesitation, then Parz mounted up behind me—pillion, though. I was no sack of salt to be balanced in front of him anymore.

  SIX HOURS LATER, I sat alone at the front of the ferryboat to Confluence, wedged between strangers. Parz and Judith were with the horses, being better able to stand for the whole of the voyage. When we arrived, I watched the maneuvering of the boat into its slip, occasionally glancing up to scan the crowds waiting at the docks.

  That’s when I saw Horrible Hermannus. />
  chapter 13

  RECOGNITION AND FEAR WENT THROUGH ME LIKE an arrow.

  Horrible was standing in the crowd at the edge of the ferry dock. I thought I must be mistaken, but then he turned and I was sure.

  How could he be here?

  “Oh, no,” I moaned, rising to my feet and clutching the rails of the ferry tightly. I wondered if I was going to faint, but suddenly—a figure cut through the crowd, swirled his cloak around my shoulders, and turned me around abruptly so I no longer faced the docks.

  “Th-thank you!” I said, stunned, and stared up into a handsome face I recognized from Upper Folkstown. “Sir Egin?”

  “Lady . . . Agilwarda,” he said, his arm tightening slightly across my shoulders. He smiled down at me.

  “Sir Egin! I wasn’t expecting you on this ferry.”

  Sir Egin quirked his mouth at me, half frown, half smile. “My lands are across the Rhine from my liege lord’s. Forgive me, my lady, but you look like you’ve seen the Wild Hunt.”

  Most people would have said, “like you’ve seen a ghost” there, and the odd turn of phrase gave me pause.

  Sir Egin said casually, glancing over his shoulder, “There’s a man on the docks looking right at you.” All the strength went out of my knees with that, and I started to fall. Sir Egin caught me neatly.

  “Stay calm,” Egin said mildly, helping me reestablish my footing. “We don’t know that he’s seen you, whoever he is.”

  “I’m calm!” I snapped. I willed myself upright, willed myself likewise not to panic, or faint, or do any of the stupid things that it was occurring to me to do. For one thing, those actions were far, far beneath my dignity as a princess.

  For another, there was absolutely nothing I could do about the matter, and losing control of myself would only make things worse.

  “What’s going on?” Egin asked softly in my ear. “Why are you frightened of that man?”

  “I’m not frightened!” I objected, though in truth, I was. I could think of only two reasons that Horrible Hermannus would be on that dock: he was working for Ivo and coming to take me back to Snail Castle, or he was working against Ivo and coming to take me back to Alder Brook.