Handbook for Dragon Slayers

Home > Other > Handbook for Dragon Slayers > Page 12
Handbook for Dragon Slayers Page 12

by Merrie Haskell


  “When this dries, it will align your foot faster than just stretching alone,” she said.

  “Am I—is my foot going to be normal?”

  Hildegard shook her head. “If we had gotten to you when you were an infant, perhaps. But even so you will be able to walk a little better by the time your friends are healed from their injuries.”

  THREE WEEKS LATER, I no longer dreamed of a peaceful cloister life.

  It turned out that at Saint Disibod’s, I had no more time to attend to the Handbook than I would have had at Alder Brook—in fact, I had less time, between my treatments and the daily work of the cloister. And the interruptions to pray were near constant. I had made the mistake of telling Hildegard I was contemplating a life of religious devotion. Judith and Parz, as secular patients of the infirmary, were not expected to follow the nuns’ schedule. I was awakened in the middle of the night to pray and read scripture. Then I was sent went back to bed, only to wake at dawn and begin needlework, which was hourly interrupted by prayer.

  I began to dream of a writing desk in a remote cave, far from any nuns or monks. With, perhaps, a mute servant to do all the heavy work, to bring me food and empty my privy pots, and to mix my ink.

  What little time I spent in the library was excellent, though.

  I got to look into a copy of a book by Pliny, one of the heathen natural philosophers I’d only heard of; I also found a bestiary that cataloged all species of serpent from basilisk to boa to dragon. But the most thrilling thing at Saint Disibod’s was a book I’d never expected to read, Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae. It was supposed to contain practically everything that it was necessary to know about everything.

  I paged through the volumes of Etymologiae eagerly, but with thoroughness. There were many fascinating subjects in it, including a note scrawled in the margins about how wearing specially gathered succory plants could turn you invisible.

  My hand itched as the idea came to me: Wouldn’t invisibility be a great tactic for fighting dragons? You could just sneak into their caves without them seeing you, and slice-stab: dead dragon. Like Siegfried hiding in the ditch at Drachenfels, but with much less mess.

  The Handbook took shape only slowly, even though Sister Hildegard helped me with the organization of the book and the sorting of important information from random facts. She was no simple healer, being a fine musician and singer as well as a writer. We talked most often at night, when I found myself burning candles to read when I should have been sleeping, and after she finished her nightly rounds in the infirmary.

  “What have you learned today?” she always asked, and I would tell her.

  “What about invisibility?” I asked, and showed her what I’d copied down about succory plants.

  She glanced at my copy, and rattled off six other ways to turn invisible.

  “Wait, wait!” I cried, writing as fast as I could. “A tiny horn filled with turnsole . . . What was that about mistletoe? And fern seeds?”

  She repeated herself patiently until I had written it all down. “Of course, dragons have excellent senses of smell,” Sister Hildegard said, watching me write PLANTS WHICH CONFER INVISIBILITY across the top of the list. “And excellent hearing as well.”

  My pen faltered. “Invisibility isn’t enough, then.”

  “Perhaps not. What other ideas do you have?”

  I shoved the useless invisibility list aside and flipped through the Handbook. “Most of the stories I find have some saint-in-the-making just defeat the dragon by being holy enough. Trying to make Parz holy isn’t an entirely lost cause, but . . . Well, I’m beginning to think that dragons aren’t all evil. Maybe. Do you know? Are they?”

  “Are all hawks evil?”

  “Of course not.”

  “What have you observed of dragons that would make you believe they are evil, that you have not observed in a hawk?”

  “I’ve not observed very much of dragons at all,” I said slowly, assembling my thoughts. “But from my direct observation, I have only seen dragons protecting their homes, or being good parents—protective, like a swan with her cygnets or a hen with her eggs.”

  “I have observed the behavior of many animals,” Hildegard said. “And I’ve seen no instance where an animal acts from pure evil. But I have seen men who are selfish, men who rob the world of beauty and joy for the sake of pride and vanity, men who scorn duty to follow their own pleasure.”

  I nodded, looking down at the book. I closed the cover softly and traced the binding. “Women, too,” I said softly. I cleared my throat. “Perhaps this handbook is folly.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be killing dragons at all. They’re just animals, and we can’t, or won’t, even eat them. That’s wasteful, and a sin.”

  “When they threaten our crops and herds, what then?” Hildegard asked.

  “Birds threatened our crops, and we put up scarecrows,” I said.

  “What about when dragons threaten our maidens and children? Don’t people require and deserve protection?”

  “Sure,” I said, in agreement but frustrated. “But who can tell when it’s a true threat? Who makes that call?”

  “Well, isn’t that part of being a dragon slayer? Like a knight who determines when to joust and when to leave the field. . . . Isn’t there a measure of judgment in dragon slaying, as in all things?”

  I felt so stupid. Of course dragon slayers did not just go around killing every dragon they ever heard of. They weren’t trying to wipe out the whole race of dragons. Sir Kunibert had had a contract for every single one of his kills.

  It was thoughtless and irresponsible of Parz, Judith, and me to blunder around, thinking all dragons were evil and needed to be destroyed, when we didn’t know the first true thing about dragons.

  I thought of the Wild Hunt. What had the Hunter said? I hadn’t thought it very important at the time, but now . . . now I felt it most keenly, and it stung: Ignorance does not make the wrong choice into the right one.

  IT WAS HARD TO speculate who was most bored with our time at Saint Disibod’s—Parz, Judith, or the horses. Another reason I had so little time to work on the Handbook was because if I didn’t visit the horses twice a day, they would free all the other horses. They didn’t even have to kick the doors down; they were experts at opening latches with their teeth and lips. What was worse was that they started teaching the cloister’s horses how to do this, too.

  Judith was bored, but she had also been in service since the age of seven, and there was a part of her that I think enjoyed lying in a bed and letting others wait on her. Some of my free time had to be spent entertaining her. I tried to hit two flies with one slap by reading to her from my day’s work on the Handbook.

  Parz amused himself by weaving more of his horsetail-hair necklaces, carving whistles out of tree branches, and asking the monks about bookbinding. Once he was healed enough to be out of bed for long stretches of time, he came to watch me work on the Handbook.

  I was copying down the story about the dragon that the Roman emperors had kept chained in a pit to eat Christians. That story didn’t have a helpful ending at all; Saint Sylvester had just descended into the pit, preached at the dragon a bit, and then sewn a cross into the dragon’s lips, which utterly incapacitated it. But I copied it anyway.

  The flame on my candle flickered as Parz came into the room. He looked down at my work. “I don’t know how you manage to do that without mistakes,” he said.

  “Concentration,” I said. “Practice. And understanding the price of new parchment.”

  “It’s a talent,” he said, hooking a stool with one foot and dragging it over to sit beside me.

  I could feel the heat from his arm next to mine, he was so close. Back at Alder Brook, I would have been delighted with this. Back at Alder Brook, I would have let my thoughts drift to the daydream that he would take my ink-stained hand in his. Right now, it just seemed like an interruption. I had hardly any time in the library.<
br />
  But I showed him what I’d written. “Can you imagine a dragon letting you sew its mouth shut? I think this might be a fabrication.”

  Parz shrugged. “If it’s written down, it must be true.”

  I laughed then. I could not help it; my horse laugh burst unprincesslike from me like a sneeze. Parz looked puzzled, like a cat who has been swatted in the nose for trying to eat the Lenten fish.

  “I cry your pardon,” I said. “I did not mean to laugh in such a manner. It’s just that I have copied manuscripts, and have spent time with monks who have copied their whole lives. I have made mistakes, and I have seen mistakes, and I have copied things that make no sense, and I do not believe that writing things down makes a lie or a mistake any truer than if it was just spoken.”

  “Sure, but . . . ,” Parz said, and ran his finger down the margin of the book. “But this is in Latin.”

  “Tilda,” he said after I was done laughing at him. He reached into the pouch at his waist and held out a coiled necklace of braided silver and copper tail hairs. “I finished making this for you.”

  I leaned forward to touch the necklace cupped in his hand. “It looks like proper chain. Even more so than the necklace you made for Judith.”

  “Here,” Parz said, and held the necklace by its ends. I turned my back and scooped my hair out of the way. I must not have gotten it all, though, because his hand brushed my neck before he started knotting the ends of the necklace together. I felt myself flush slightly, and stared ahead. I was used to servants helping me dress—but only female servants.

  “Thank you,” I said, touching the necklace where it lay against my chest.

  “Tilda?” Sister Hildegard poked her head around the corner. “You have a visitor. Father Ripertus?”

  “Father Ripertus?” I was shocked. “How did he . . .?”

  “The abbot wrote to let your priest know you were safe.”

  “He did what?”

  Sister Hildegard’s face was gentle but implacable. “A perfectly rational thing to do, when a dispossessed princess shows up on the doorstep. Did you think we were going to keep it a secret?”

  chapter 18

  “FATHER RIPERTUS!”

  My teacher looked older but still kind, still wise. Seeing him provoked such a wave of homesickness that I almost sat down on the flagstones of the receiving room.

  He held open his arms and swept me up in a big, woolen, incense-scented hug. “We were so worried!”

  I pulled back, not sure what to say to him, or how.

  His eyes swept over me, from the cast on my foot to my chopped-off hair. “You have been busy, haven’t you?” he asked mildly, and brought me to sit down next to him on a bench.

  “I—I—” I didn’t know where to start. I also didn’t know what to tell the truth about. But if he’d had a letter from the abbot, there was no telling what he knew.

  It’s probably a bigger than usual sin to lie to a priest, anyway.

  So, proceeding cautiously, I told him everything that had happened since I’d last seen him. Well, almost everything. Though it was on the tip of my tongue to mention it time and time again throughout the story, I did not reveal the important fact that I no longer wanted to be the Princess of Alder Brook.

  “And then we ended up here,” I said. “Parz and Judith are all but healed. And I’m . . .” I shrugged, not knowing how to finish that sentence.

  I waited for Father Ripertus to say something.

  “I’m disappointed in you, Mathilda,” he said at last. “Dragon slaying? How reckless! How foolish! I understand the others sustained injuries, and well-deserved ones. Parz, perhaps, learned a little caution from his. And Judith, perhaps, learned that bravery is no substitute for experience. But what injury did you sustain, Tilda, that could teach you what you need to learn about responsibility?”

  His words stung. “I know plenty about responsibility,” I said. “And I have had plenty of injury to deal with through my life.”

  “You are a liege lord, and you have a duty to those who follow you. Even so far from Alder Brook, you are still a princess,” Father Ripertus said. “You have done poorly for Parz as his friend by letting him run around the countryside—but what you have done to Judith?”

  “Judith wanted to come! She wanted to slay dragons!”

  “Many people want many things, but it is your duty as Princess of Alder Brook to give people what they need, not what they want!”

  “Well! Isn’t it fortunate that I will no longer be a princess after Christmas Day! I’ll be no one’s liege when Alder Brook passes to Ivo!”

  Father Ripertus looked grim, but before he could speak, Judith hurried into the room. “Father Ripertus, Tilda, don’t argue. I’m sorry I persuaded Tilda to come play at dragon slaying before we came back to Alder Brook, but it seemed like the best way to stay clear of Ivo—”

  “I’m not going back.” I stood. “Ever. I’m letting Ivo have Alder Brook.”

  Judith gaped. “You can’t give up like that! Ivo doesn’t just get to win—”

  “I’m not giving up! I’m doing what’s best for Alder Brook. They think I’m cursed. They think I can do nothing for Alder Brook. And I can’t! I told Ivo when he kidnapped me, he could have it!”

  “Well,” Father Ripertus said heavily. “And I thought Ivo was lying about that.”

  Judith’s eyes widened with disbelief. “Then . . . then why did we rescue you?”

  “I never asked you to rescue me!”

  “So that’s it?” Judith cried. “You just give up on your duty, you abandon Alder Brook and turn your back on it?” Judith asked.

  “But I don’t want that life!” I said. I didn’t know what life I wanted, but I still said, “I want to become a nun. I want to write books. I can’t write at Alder Brook. I want to write like Boethius.”

  “Father Ripertus just told you! I heard him! It’s your duty to deal with need, not want, and you need to rule Alder Brook—and Alder Brook needs you.”

  I dashed away angry tears, unable to explain any of the thoughts whirling around my head. My father had left Alder Brook, hadn’t he? He hadn’t let his duty to us stand in the way of his plans for the Holy Land—why should I be any better than him?

  But how could I think that about my father? He had died a hero . . . hadn’t he?

  When I didn’t respond to her, Judith turned to Father Ripertus. “I don’t care what she wants or needs anymore. I’m leaving. I’m going home. I know my duty. May I travel with you, Father? I’m well enough to go.”

  “If we still have a home to travel to, child, then yes.” He turned to me again. “Ivo is selling off every movable possession he can—linens, furniture, clothing, books, dishes, silverware, dogs, horses. . . . And when Christmas Day comes, and you are not there to assert your claim, he will bequeath Alder Brook to another lord and join his retinue.”

  “But why?” I exclaimed. Alder Brook’s free status was its only true power. Its prince had no masters but God and the emperor.

  “Ivo has been promised a very large number of gold marks for his allegiance,” Ripertus said. “And gold is its own stepping-stone.”

  “Of course,” I muttered. “Greedy pig-hound.”

  It would be like an earthquake, to start thinking of my future as Princess of Alder Brook again. I didn’t want to. So many things had hurt me there. I had learned how to wear ice on my face and iron over my heart there.

  But I had been trying to believe I didn’t care about Alder Brook. I had tried to believe it was just a place: the place I’d been born, the place I’d lived, the place that my father had left.

  And I had tried to believe I could leave it, too. Without a backward glance, like my father. I had gathered this coldness close and tight within me.

  “There’s more,” Father Ripertus said. “Ivo is punishing those who speak against his rule.”

  “Who?” Judith burst out. “Who is he punishing?”

  I thought about Judith’s parents suffering
under Ivo. The cold, mean spirit within me drained away, thinking about Aleidis and Ditmar in danger.

  “Oh,” I said, in a tiny voice.

  Ripertus rubbed his nose. “Sir Hermannus was put in the stocks for three days.”

  “Why?” Judith asked.

  “First, for protesting the sale of Alder Brook’s allegiance. He was told if he did not recant his protest, he would be put to the ordeal of boiling water. But second, because he disappeared for days, looking for Princess Mathilda.”

  So, it really had been Hermannus I’d seen at the ferry dock! I’d begun to think I imagined it.

  “Poor Hermannus!” Judith cried. I stared at her, my mind in turmoil.

  “He recanted, right?” I said.

  Ripertus shook his head. “He did not. He faced the ordeal, and plucked the stone from the boiling water.”

  We were all silent. “Is he all right?” I whispered.

  “God was with Sir Hermannus, and his wound was healing, not festering, when I examined it ten days ago; however, that has not changed Ivo’s mind, and now Hermannus is in the dungeon.”

  I had thought Hermannus would provide an important check on Ivo’s ambitions, but that hope was gone. Ivo was destroying Alder Brook.

  No one wanted to become some other principality’s second-best holding, to be drained by extra taxes and fees, to face losing sons to constant warfare. Alder Brook had a long history of relative peace; we guarded our borders but stayed out of most local conflicts. My father was the first ruler of Alder Brook in generations to feel the urge to fight, and he took only volunteers and traveled far away to wage war. Not that our people had been pleased by that choice, either—far from it.

  “My own protest has remained limited to coming here,” Father Ripertus said, almost drily. “Someone had to remain free.”

  “Did anyone else get the ordeal?” Judith asked.

  “No. All of the other protesters recanted, against their consciences,” Ripertus said. “But at my counsel.”

  “I thought . . . Ivo would be better for Alder Brook,” I said slowly. “I thought . . . he was uncursed, uncrippled. . . . He’d find a wealthy wife and save Alder Brook.”

 

‹ Prev