Handbook for Dragon Slayers

by Merrie Haskell

  I put it on.

  Immediately, it felt like I had uncrossed my eyes. Or surfaced from rinsing my hair too long in the bath. Or stopped holding my breath until spots hovered in my vision.

  Sir Egin was wooing me. Sir Egin intended me to be his eighth wife.

  And probably—one had to assume—he was going to kill me.

  Because a man didn’t just end up widowed seven times over. Not one as young as Sir Egin. He had to be killing them. But why?

  I paced the tower room, tried the door a few times, and wondered what was being done to my friends.

  When Frau Dagmar brought me my dinner, I asked, “You’ve served at Thorn Edge for a long time, have you?”

  “All my life. Sir Egin hasn’t always been master here, though.”

  “You’ve probably seen a lot of weeping maidens at the castle since him.”

  “Most don’t weep. Most are pleased to marry him. He’s a charmer. The only ones who weep are the ones who haven’t met him yet. You’ll see.”

  I shivered. It was bad enough to dread the marriage, to dread my likely death; it was worse to dread the thought that I might welcome it.

  “I hope I won’t see,” I said, and my finger traced the line of my necklace.

  “I didn’t bring your bags,” Frau Dagmar said. “I didn’t have a chance.”

  I shrugged. It had been a lot to hope for. The Handbook would have been a nice distraction; as it was, I was nearly going out of my mind with worry. I was going to be married and killed soon. And I had no idea whatsoever what was happening to my friends. I was afraid to ask after them.

  I paced the room, looking for weaknesses. I thought of a hundred ways to escape, and a thousand reasons none of them would work. The biggest problem was this room. The door was too thick, too well made; and the hinges were on the other side. The windows were impossible—even a baby wouldn’t have been able to slide out those narrow slits.

  I would ask for the liberty of the grounds, then, and see if I could figure out a way to climb over a wall. Or maybe there was someone I could bribe. Or maybe—

  Maybe it didn’t matter, until I got out of the room.

  I paced some more, until my foot tired.

  I had absolutely nothing else to do. Nothing to read. Nothing to write on—not permanently, anyway. I might have asked for some sewing, but by God, I wasn’t going to thank Thorn Edge for my imprisonment by supplying them with darned stockings. Pretending I wanted to sew might give me some weapons . . . well. Sewing needles. They were probably too smart to leave me scissors.

  I gave up on sewing and counted the boats plying the Rhine.

  That grew boring in short order, so I practiced my penmanship with a splinter from the kindling and soot from the fireplace, on the surface of the small table in my room. I’d write out rows of even letters in perfect minuscule. My favorite practice was writing out the declension of minimus: minimus, minimī, minimō, minimum, minimō, minime. . . . The pattern of the downstrokes in the m’s and n’s and i’s was soothing and regular.

  It was a strange way to wait for one’s doom, I knew, but what choice did I have? I couldn’t seem to pray. I could tear my hair, weep, and cry. But that wasn’t in my character. I was a princess. Every time I was tempted to cry, I thought of new words to practice writing in soot.

  Mostly, I tried not to think of Parz or Judith or Alder Brook, and how badly I was failing them.

  It was easier that way.

  ONCE MORE, SIR EGIN seemed less handsome, though his hair was still as bright and he was still as tall. His pleasant appearance in the doorway of my chamber didn’t make me like him any better, though.

  His smile was full of toothy charm, and he bowed gracefully to me. “A pleasure to see you again, Agilwarda,” he said.

  “I’m too young to marry you,” I said bluntly.

  “On the contrary! Girls your age get married all the time, and to men much older than me.”

  “The contracts may be signed between men and girls in those situations, but we both know that the marriages are not true ones until the girl is older,” I said. “And I don’t think that waiting is your intention, since you’ll just kill me in the end, like the rest of your wives.”

  Sir Egin’s charming smile twisted into an expression cruel, cynical, and deeply entertained.

  “Further,” I said, “I do not consent to this marriage.”

  “I already have consent, Mathilda,” he said, reaching inside his purse to pull out a scroll that dangled with seals. “Straight from your cousin’s hand.”

  My jaw dropped. “You know my name.”

  “I know your name,” he agreed. “After we met for the second time, on the ferryboat, and you were so frightened of the man you saw, I took the time to discover who you were. . . . Imagine my surprise when I visited Alder Brook and met your cousin—he so easily consented to our impetuous marriage! It seems he finds you inconvenient.”

  “Our ‘impetuous’ marriage—and when is that going to take place?”

  “It’s lucky to marry at the dark of the moon,” he said. “Just a few days before Christmas. It is the perfect day for our wedding.”

  “I’ve never heard that the dark of the moon was lucky before.” I frowned, perplexed. What was this game?

  “You’re very young,” Sir Egin said. “You’ve not heard of a lot of things.”

  And he left.

  Once he was gone, I practically fell onto the bed, deflated and defeated.

  FRAU DAGMAR BROUGHT MY saddlebags the next day.

  “Oh—thank you!” I exclaimed. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. . . .” I pawed through the first one, and then the second, looking for the Handbook. It wasn’t there. “There’s something missing,” I said.

  She shrugged.

  “Why aren’t you speaking?” I asked.

  “He can’t take all my words,” she said. “Just the—” and she stopped with an abrupt choking noise. She coughed for a long moment, then tapped her throat with her forefinger. “Just the important ones.”

  “I’m missing a book,” I said. “Smallish, handbook-sized . . .”

  “A book,” she said. “You’re a reader, then?”

  “Of course.”

  She shrugged. “Haven’t seen a book. Sorry.”

  After she left, I went through the saddlebags again, hoping against hope that I’d find the Handbook folded into a dress or something. But there was nothing.

  I kicked the bags and sat back down at my table, disgusted and annoyed.

  I thought about the croaking and choking when Frau Dagmar was about to say certain things. “He can’t take all my words.” Was she was under a spell? Did Sir Egin have that kind of sorcery at his command?

  What had he done to Judith, Parz, and Ripertus to keep them quiet and subdued—the same spell? Or set of spells? I thought about my behavior the first night, how I had accepted so many things he’d said, and not thought twice about things that had seemed so urgent. . . . It had been like a fog cast over my mind. How much time had passed in that fog, before I—?

  In the distance, I heard a neigh like a silver trumpet. It wasn’t terribly far. It was within the castle.

  Joyeuse.

  I had to get to Joyeuse.

  I leaped out of bed, stumbled on my bad foot, regained my balance, and tried the door. Just in case.

  Locked.

  I went back to bed and put my head on my knees, threading the long horsetail necklace through my fingers.

  I lifted my head and stared at the necklace.

  Could it be the necklace that stopped Sir Egin’s enchantments?

  chapter 21

  “TELL ME AGAIN THE STORY OF HOW YOU TRAPPED the metal horses,” Egin demanded the next day.

  I deliberately set the necklace down on the bed beside me, to where my hand would naturally fall if it weren’t in my lap. Then I laced my fingers together and looked at Sir Egin.

  I smiled fatuously at him, suddenly so pleased to be in his company. �
�It was Saint Martin’s Eve. We were sleeping in a barn up in the vineyards. We heard a great roaring noise, and the whole barn began to shake—”

  “Skip to the horses. What did you do to the horses to make them notice you?”

  I couldn’t stop smiling. “I stopped them from trying to kill Judith,” I said. I felt like the world was blurry behind him, and he was the only thing truly visible to me. “When we are married, will this still be my bedroom?”

  “What? No. Tell me about the iron bridles again.”

  “Well, I wanted to take the bridle off, and so I asked Judith how, and she told me how, and then I took it off—” My hand dropped to the shiny necklace that lay beside me on the bed. Immediately, the sense of blurriness faded. I shook my head. “And I—and eventually I—sorry, what was I saying?” I clutched the necklace and decided I was done with the experiment.

  “About the iron bridle,” Egin said through gritted teeth.

  “Right. You know, being trapped in this room is bad for my leg.”

  He ignored that. “When you met the other horses of the Wild Hunt, did they seem interested in you?”

  “I’m going to limp a lot on our wedding day if I don’t get some time to walk outside.”

  “I don’t particularly care about your foot,” he said.

  From any other bridegroom, that might have sounded loving.

  He pounded his fists together, knuckle to knuckle, then lifted them to his mouth and bit them. I stared at him. “Tell me about the Hunt,” he whispered.

  “Well,” I said thoughtfully, “it’s hard to remember it all when my foot hurts so badly from inactivity.”

  “I would have thought inactivity was the proper treatment for your foot,” he said.

  “Not according to Sister Hildegard,” I said, which was mostly true.

  He smiled. “Fine. I grant you the freedom of the inner garden for two hours a day. Enjoy it. It’s about to snow.”

  “Thank you,” I said with quiet calm, as though my heart did not sing at the thought of being closer to freedom.

  “Now. Tell me about the Wild Hunt. Tell me about the Hunt leader.”

  Emboldened by my success, I added, “I also want to talk to my confessor, on my walk.”

  “Gaugh! Fine! Tell me about the Hunter.”

  So I told him. Again. His face was closed and scowling, no matter what I said. I couldn’t figure out what details he really wanted to focus on, or why, but he’d had me talk about my meeting with the Hunter more than any other part.

  He stalked around my small chamber as I described the moment again. He heard nothing to his particular liking, and stormed out.

  FRAU DAGMAR SHOWED UP about an hour later, and she guided me down to the garden. When I skidded on frost-slicked flagstones, she grasped my arm with both of her hands, holding me upright. Before we broke apart, she passed to me under the cover of our cloaks an oilcloth-wrapped package, just the right size and shape to be the Handbook. Then she nodded to me.

  Moving as stealthily as she had, careful that no one watching us should know what I had, I slipped the book inside my robe and enjoyed how it felt pressed against my ribs.

  I walked around the garden, holding tightly to the stone walls. Sir Egin was not wrong—snow was coming. A chill wind bit my cheeks, and the trees thrashed restlessly beyond the castle wall. The world smelled rich with earth and fresh with snow. I took a deep breath and despaired. Winter was no longer on its way—winter was here. It made escape even more unlikely and infinitely more difficult.

  I strove to stay upright as I wandered farther into the garden. Eventually, I made it to the edge of the wall overlooking the drop-off, but instead of gazing down at the steep, forested hill that lay between the castle and the Rhine, I faced the garden gate.

  “Tilda?”

  I turned at Father Ripertus’s voice, unable to believe it was really him. We embraced.

  “Are they treating you all right?” I asked.

  “Sir Egin is a delightful host!” Father Ripertus said.

  Oh, no. Father Ripertus was enchanted. Like I was when I didn’t wear the horsetail necklace.

  A trio of squirrels ran toward us, playing a game halfway between chase and follow-the-leader. The two lead squirrels veered off nimbly when they approached me, but the one in last place stopped, confused, then tried to go two ways at once. I laughed a little, noticing this squirrel was much smaller than the other two. A late-born baby, perhaps? But not a baby any longer—Judith and I had raised a squirrel from blind, pink puphood on goat’s milk, and this was no pup. She was about half grown—my age, in squirrel years.

  The squirrel shook her fuzzy little tail at us thrice and ran off, over the garden wall and up into a small window. The squirrel chattered—and then I heard Joyeuse respond with an interested nicker.

  The stable was right there, behind that wall!

  “Father Ripertus, take my arm. I want to go over toward that gate. . . . Careful, the stones are slick.”

  Ripertus guided us to the gate that led into the stable yard. “Joyeuse?” I called.

  With a noise like an earthquake, Joyeuse destroyed the stable wall. Shining like the Christmas star, my horse bounded over to me and knelt.

  Another earthquake, and out popped Durendal.

  Neither had their saddles. I swung onto Joyeuse’s back with ease born of need. I yanked at Father Ripertus’s robes, shouting at him to mount the horse with me. Whatever Egin’s enchantments were, the horses were immune and made us immune, too; as soon as Father Ripertus touched Joyeuse, he was yelling in my ear, “Go!”

  Joyeuse rose to her feet and we were practically airborne, she took off so fast over the low garden wall to the courtyard, across the courtyard to the castle gate.

  A mass of men-at-arms was forming up before the gate, facing this way and that, seeming not to know where the threat was coming from, just that there was a threat. Durendal dived into the knot of men and started kicking indiscriminately. There were cries of pain, and I buried my head in Joyeuse’s neck.

  I thought Durendal would kick down the castle gate for us—what couldn’t these horses kick down, after all?—but the spiked iron portcullis must have been too daunting, because the next thing I knew, Joyeuse was in the air, leaping over the gate. I was holding on with just my knees and fingers, and I really couldn’t scream long enough or loud enough to fully exhibit my terror at finding myself so high in the air on Joyeuse’s back. Father Ripertus’s arms clutched my waist, and his screaming was even louder than mine.

  But then we were on the ground, and Durendal was beside us. The horses ran out into the forest. Behind us, in Thorn Edge, hounds bayed and men shouted. A clamor rose—warning bells, hunting horns. I leaned backward and urged Joyeuse down, down, down toward the Rhine.

  chapter 22

  WE’RE FREE. I WANTED TO SHOUT IT ALOUD, BUT I was keenly aware that it would be a very short freedom if I did not spend every moment of it wisely. And if I did not hold on very, very tightly.

  The horses dashed between the trees almost as if the trunks didn’t exist. Not a single branch brushed us in our passing, Joyeuse was so adept at weaving in and out even in her headlong rush. She leaped a stream; I nearly screamed as my rear end came off her back for a long moment, even though it was as nothing compared to the leap over the gate. Then we were down again, as lightly as a bird landing to catch a worm.

  We crossed a path, then another path. The horses jumped a fallen log, then bolted over a road. And then we skidded to a halt at the narrow, stony beach of the great river.

  The Rhine flowed with winter sluggishness, though it was hard to see the thin floes of ice that churned up to the surface. It was still faster than any other river I’d seen.

  Father Ripertus gasped in my ear. “We have to get to Alder Brook!”

  “Yes—get down, take Durendal. Tell me—Parz and Judith?”

  “Both alive and well, last I saw them,” Ripertus said, sliding to the ground.

  My sigh o
f relief came out a little ragged, and I closed my eyes. “All right. Alder Brook. Horrible is our only hope now.” Even in the thick of things, Father Ripertus had time to give me a disappointed look for that nickname.

  Joyeuse’s ears scanned the forest. Castle Thorn Edge perched high above us, and I could see no activity near it—but the trees obscured much. I strained to listen.

  Father Ripertus climbed creakily onto Durendal’s back. “Are you ready?”

  “No—we’re splitting up. Egin is going to come after me. He wants to know something I know about the Wild Hunt. Don’t wait for me. I’m going to try to draw him off. Get to Alder Brook as fast as you can. Make sure Horrible—Hermannus, I mean—ransoms Judith and Parz from Egin. And me, too, if I get recaptured.”

  “But Tilda—”

  “Go!” I shouted.

  I think he might have argued more, but Durendal listened to me, not him.

  I leaned low over Joyeuse’s neck. “Let’s give Egin the chase of his life, love.”

  She wheeled to the left and we pelted back up toward the castle, while Durendal and Ripertus headed north.

  We had been under way for less than five minutes when Joyeuse seemed to pivot on one hoof and whisked us in a new direction. Moments later, I heard dogs baying behind us. We had been about to run into an ambush.

  “Dumbhead!” I muttered beneath my breath. Joyeuse’s ears flattened. “Me, not you,” I said. “I should have been expecting that!”

  Joyeuse was fast, but the thickness of the forest slowed her, and the hounds remained close on her heels. The noise of our passage and the yelping of the dogs obscured any other sounds, and I couldn’t tell how many humans and horses pursued us. Then the sound of a hunting horn filled the air, low and dulcet and frightening.

  We were on the path upward, away from the Rhine, and the sounding of the horn seemed to come from all around us. Was it ahead or behind? I couldn’t tell. I panted in fear, in time with the bellows breath of the running horse beneath me.

  “Whoa, whoa, don’t go this way, that’s back to the castle.” Joyeuse slowed but didn’t stop. The baying of the hounds grew closer.