by Resa Nelson
“They stuck. I just haven’t met a woman who wants to be with me for reasons other than telling her friends she’s been with a dragonslayer.” Skallagrim wrapped his hands around his mug of mead. “Do you know what happened to Master Benzel? I ask every winter when I visit Bellesguard, but no one knows where he is.”
The look in Bruni’s eyes turned serious. “Everyone in Bellesguard knows where he is. They just don’t want to talk about it. Especially not with you.”
Confounded, Skallagrim said, “What? Explain.”
“It began with the War of Bellesguard.”
“The what of what?” Even more confounded, Skallagrim said, “When did this happen?”
Bruni counted on her fingers. “At least twenty-five years ago. Maybe more. We were alive when it happened, but we were children. Some merchants from the Far East had been peddling in the Southlands for years. But one day a small army of men from the Far East showed up, and they drove out the master of the manor on the estate where we trained. They drove everyone away and took over the manor. They took over all of Bellesguard for months until the Southlanders fought them.”
“Why didn’t we know about this when we trained at Bellesguard?”
“I think no one wanted to talk about it.” Bruni gave a little shrug. “I imagine getting kicked out of your own home is embarrassing. Especially if it takes a few years to kick the invaders out and get your home back.”
Skallagrim tried to wrap his head around the idea that something so important had never been discussed with the dragonslayers while they were studying with Master Benzel. “But no one ever said anything. None of the people who lived on the estate. None of the servants. Not even any of the townspeople.”
“Maybe they wanted to forget it had ever happened.” Bruni took a long sip of mead. “Although now that I think about it, everything was right in front of our noses the whole time.”
Skallagrim scoffed. “Now you’re talking in riddles.”
“Not at all. Remember all the times we were invited inside the manor for holiday feasts?”
Skallagrim smiled at the thought. The master of the manor and his family would often welcome the young dragonslayers into their home for bone-warming food and drink. The meals would last for hours in the large dining room that brimmed with happy conversation and belly laughs. “That’s one of my best memories.”
“Remember the tapestries on the walls?”
“Sure. They were everywhere.”
Bruni lowered her voice so only Skallagrim could hear her speak. “Remember the biggest one? It resembled a map, but it was filled with Southlanders and Far Easterners fighting each other.”
“I know the one you mean. I remember seeing Tower Island on it.”
Bruni nodded. “That’s the one. Once when I got hit the head with a waster, one of the maids in the manor tended to me. We struck up a friendship. She told me about that tapestry. It was made decades ago, and some of the women who created it were alchemists.”
“Oh,” Skallagrim said happily. “Like Auntie Thurid.”
“They wove magic into the tapestry. Someone knew Bellesguard would be attacked one day, and the maid said the magic helped to protect the manor once the Far Easterners took it over. She thinks that particular tapestry acted as a spy or somehow lulled the invaders into a sense of complacency. She wasn’t clear on the details. But she pointed something out that I hadn’t taken seriously.”
Skallagrim didn’t know whether to believe Bruni’s story or not. Any moment, he expected her to laugh and poke fun at him for believing such a wild tale. But until that happened, he decided to play along. “What did your maid point out on the tapestry?”
“Dragons.” Bruni’s eyes gleamed in the soft candlelight that illuminated the tavern. “There were dragons everywhere, but neither the Southlanders nor the Far Easterners appeared to be fighting them.”
Skallagrim gazed at Bruni, waiting for her to laugh and ridicule him.
She didn’t. Instead, she continued. “Eventually, the Southlanders won and reclaimed the estate, the town of Bellesguard, and all the land surrounding it. By the time we got to Bellesguard, all the Far Easterners had gone back to their own country and never returned.”
Skallagrim paused. “Except for Mistress Po.”
“She wasn’t part of the war,” Bruni said. “The only reason people tolerated her was because Master Benzel stood up for her. It wasn’t until after we left Bellesguard that I found out that ours was the only group of trainees that he taught.”
“Ever?”
Bruni nodded. She drained the final drops of mead from her mug. “He’d trained at Bellesguard, so everyone knew him. That’s why they were happy to have him teach, but he arrived the day before you did. And after we finished and started our first year in the field, Master Benzel and Mistress Po vanished. Some people said they must have gone to the Far East, because no one has seen them in the Northlands, Midlands, or Southlands.”
Skallagrim’s spirits sagged. “I’m sorry to hear that. I wish I could see them again.” He brightened with a new thought. “But I’m happy to see you and learn about Seph and your son.”
“I’m heading for the Midlands in the morning with a fur trader. Once I gather up my family, we’ll go to the Southlands for the winter. If you need a ride, I can ask the fur trader if his ship can take one more.”
“No need. I’ve made my own arrangements.”
Bruni yawned. “My ship leaves early. I need to get some rest.” She stood and clapped a friendly hand on Skallagrim’s shoulder before leaving the tavern. “See if you can get assigned to the route ending at Bellesguard this year. We could meet up again.”
Although Skallagrim recognized some familiar faces in the tavern, the encounter with the giggling Northlander women left him wanting to spend time alone before bedding down for the night. He left the tavern and wandered along the boardwalk. Dozens of ships crowded the dock, filling the night air with sounds of their wooden sides and decks creaking and groaning while the harbor waves splashed against them. With their sails taken down, the ships’ masts looked like leafless trees in a winter forest.
Skallagrim looked up at the clear but moonless sky, full of sparkling stars.
A woman’s voice spoke up behind him. “Dragonslayer.”
His heart sank. In his first year or so, Skallagrim had loved the attention. Now, he hated the way it interfered with his life. He drummed up the willingness to be polite but firm. Turning around, he said, “How can I help you?”
A cloaked woman stood several paces behind him. A hood shrouded her face. A sudden breeze lifted wisps of her long hair up like curling smoke. She spoke with an accent he didn’t recognize. “My sister should have arrived by now. I worry about her.”
Normally, Skallagrim would have approached the woman, but a peculiar feeling about her held him back. “Maybe something—or someone—caught her fancy.”
Skallagrim thought he heard a hiss.
“My sister is in trouble and needs help,” the mysterious woman said. “I can feel it in my bones.”
“I see. Where is your sister?”
The mysterious woman pointed southward. “Down the coast.”
“There’s nothing down the coast. What is she doing there?”
After a brief pause, the woman said, “She wanted to buy some of those purple carrots that have gained such fame in your Northlander country. None of the merchants had any.”
He believed that. The few merchants who offered purple carrots throughout the growing season always sold out within a matter of hours. A few of the villages on Skallagrim’s route grew the delicacy, and they loved to offer him meals featuring them. For that reason, he knew the growing season for purple carrots had ended a few weeks ago. “There aren’t any to be had. You missed the last harvest.”
“A merchant told us they grow wild just a day’s ride south of here. She left three days ago. She should have come back by now.”
Skallagrim once heard a similar sto
ry about wild carrots.
Maybe she’s telling the truth.
He still had a peculiar feeling about the woman—as if merely being in her presence wasn’t quite safe.
Still, he didn’t have the heart to leave a woman stranded if he could do something to help.
His thoughts must have shown on his face, because the mysterious woman said, “I’ve made arrangements at the stable for you to take two horses. Tell the stable boy you’re picking up the horses reserved by Fiera.”
Before Skallagrim could respond, she slipped away so quickly into the night that she might as well as have evaporated like smoke from a dying fire.
CHAPTER 9
Later that same night, Frandulane walked into the port city of Gott with two of his Scalding cousins. They traversed the empty boardwalk and passed by the few ships left at the dock.
Although a cold night wind blew hard enough to chill most people to the bone, Frandulane didn’t mind. The winds on Tower Island had acclimated his bones and blood to the bite of icy air at this time of year. He didn’t worry about the cold. He didn’t consider that Sven and Snip Scalding might be concerned that Frandulane—their one son who shared their blood—had left the island without telling anyone.
All Frandulane cared about was hunting down his so-called brother Skallagrim and showing him up.
Since the day Skallagrim left Tower Island many years ago, Frandulane’s life had fallen apart. He never forgave his mother and father for choosing Skallagrim for dragonslayer training, because being a dragonslayer led to fame and fortune. A dragonslayer could have a girl in every village. He could get anything he wanted, because the lives of the villagers he protected rested in his hands.
From what Frandulane had learned, most dragonslayers were fools. They bent over backwards to help villagers instead of making demands of them. Most dragonslayers settled for payment of weapons, food, and shelter when they could have insisted on so much more. Granted, every dragonslayer’s sword was worth a fortune due to the expense of iron and the talent required to forge such a weapon. But a dragonslayer’s sword was a necessity, not something one could trade for luxuries.
Frandulane hungered for luxuries. He’d spent his life on an island dominated by a tower covered in gold. The wealth of the Scaldings made it easy for them to hire farmers to grow crops and tend livestock so the Scaldings could relax and enjoy their lives. Only his silly mother insisted on growing her own vegetable garden. Frandulane considered her hobby demeaning, not only to her but the entire family. She embarrassed him.
To redeem himself, Frandulane considered the options most likely to earn respect. Two occupations were honored everywhere: blacksmiths and thatchers, because everyone had constant need of them. Frandulane first tried blacksmithing, but he couldn’t get the hang of building fires or working the iron at the right temperature.
Next, he attempted an apprenticeship with Tower Island’s thatcher. But the weaving of thatch-work befuddled Frandulane. He couldn’t make sense of how to piece it together so the thatching would hold and work as expected. Once again, he gave up.
That left nothing for Frandulane to do on Tower Island. If he didn’t have the patience or talent to become a blacksmith or thatcher, the only work left to do was farming—and no Scalding lowered himself to that form of labor. Instead of working, he idled his days away brewing his resentment of Skallagrim.
Fortunately, Frandulane found solace spending time with his cousins, who bore the same resentment. One day, they overheard an uncle make a peculiar reference by asking if they knew how the Scaldings came by the family name.
The boys assumed the uncle to be too old and infirm, so they ridiculed him.
The uncle spat back that he’d like to pour scalding water on the boys just as his elders had done to anyone who tried to harm the family.
His response captured the boys’ attention, and they goaded him into revealing a family history they’d never heard before. The uncle claimed all Scaldings of his generation had taken a vow to never discuss the past—but he no longer cared about vows. The uncle recalled stories of past exploits by the Scaldings before they acquired Tower Island. Stories about acquiring wealth by taking it from others too weak to hold onto it. Stories about using Northlander ships to sail the rivers so they could attack and be gone in a short time. Stories about pillaging villages and setting up a fortress to pour boiling water on anyone who dared to attack. Stories about murder and mayhem. Those stories enraptured the boys, and they began to wonder if the family life of luxury came at too high a price.
Frandulane imagined following in his ancestors’ footsteps. He fantasized about wealth and power and glory. He daydreamed about the thrill of killing, even though he’d never done anything more heinous than wring a chicken’s neck.
It had been easy to persuade his cousins to take one of the small family ships from the Tower Island dock and slip away. After all, one never knew when extra muscle might come in handy.
Cousin Einarr pointed at a building at the end of the boardwalk. “What do you think that is?”
“One way to find out,” Frandulane said.
The young men marched toward a tavern and entered to find it bustling with boisterous men and women. Until now, their travels had taken them on rarely-used roads and through abandoned villages. Being a family compound, Tower Island had no taverns, and the boys had never encountered one before.
Frandulane thought about the rings and bracelets of silver Uncle had advised them all to wear.
He said it’s how you get things you need when off island.
Cousin Tungu pointed at a few old men leaving a corner table. The young men claimed it and stared in wonder at all that surrounded them.
“Should we attack them now?” Cousin Einarr said. He rested one hand on the pommel of his sheathed sword.
A middle-aged woman funneled her way through the crowd and placed three mugs of mead on the table. “Except for water, mead’s all we’ve got.” She looked at the silver each young man wore on his hands and arms. “For food, we’ve got a few lamb shanks left and a bit of winter-root stew. The cook’s done for the day, so those are the only options.”
Cousin Tungu sat back with a proud air, as if he owned the place. “Your cook ought to cook special for dragonslayers.”
The woman laughed. “He does. But all the dragonslayers save one have left on the winter route.”
“One dragonslayer?” Cousin Tungu gestured toward his cohorts. “Don’t you know how to count?”
Cousin Einarr moved as if to draw his sword, but the woman put a knife to his throat.
“I count one dragonslayer upstairs in his bed,” the woman said. “I count three strangers who don’t know that all dragonslayers are well known in these parts. Not to mention the fact that we all know how to recognize a dragonslayer’s sword. Your short swords don’t begin to compare to the kind of sword a dragonslayer carries.”
Cousin Einarr’s eyes blazed with anger.
“Enough,” Frandulane said.
This woman has value. She can tell me what I need to know.
With a warm smile, Frandulane removed a couple of silver rings and placed them on the tabletop. “Our apologies,” he said to the woman. “Some people say our sense of humor is hard to detect.”
The woman met his gaze with no trust in her eyes. “Sense of humor? Trying to pass as dragonslayers can get you killed.”
Frandulane pushed the silver rings across the table toward her. He knew their value could keep a small family fed for a month. “I beg your pardon and forgiveness.”
The woman’s gaze dropped to the silver rings but then met Frandulane again. She studied him for a minute and then released her knife from where it rested against Cousin Einarr’s neck.
However, when she pulled the knife away, its blade nicked his skin. Moments later, droplets of blood beaded in a straight line.
“Ow!” Cousin Einarr said. He touched his neck and almost fainted when he saw the blood that came away on his
fingers.
The woman smiled and spoke sweetly. “I’m so sorry. What a terrible accident.”
Cousin Tungu became riled. “That’s no accident!” He looked at Frandulane. “I say we take the place now!”
Frandulane laughed. “What a jest!”
His laughter silenced Cousin Tungu.
The woman gave a stern look. “This is no place to stir up trouble. Our cook may be done making food for the night, but he’ll be happy to toss you out.”
“No trouble.” Frandulane removed a silver bracelet that had ten times the value of the rings not yet accepted. He placed the bracelet on the tabletop next to the rings. “Although we’d be grateful for some information.”
Cousin Tungu grumbled. “And some lamb shanks would be nice.”
The woman crossed her arms. “What do you want to know?”
“The dragonslayer,” Frandulane said. “By any chance, might it be Skallagrim? He’s our cousin, and we’ve traveled a long way to bid him a good journey for the winter.”
The woman picked up the silver rings and bracelet. After examining them, she placed them in the pouch hanging from her belt. “It’s him. He leaves first thing in the morning for the Southlands.”
“Then we’ve caught him just in time.” Frandulane grinned. “It’s been years since we’ve seen him, and we want to surprise him. Where can we find him?”
The woman paused and glared at the young men with such dark suspicion in her eyes that Frandulane thought she’d call the cook over to throw them out on the street.
She fingered the pouch on her belt as if making sure the silver inside was still there. “Upstairs,” she said, nodding toward a set of stairs at the back of the main room. “He’s in the last room at the end of the hallway.” Before walking away, she said, “I’ll bring out the lamb shanks in a minute.”
When his cousins began to stand, Frandulane signaled them to stay seated. He watched the woman until she walked into a back room, out of sight. “Now,” he said.
Frandulane led his cousins up the stairs and then down a narrow hallway. They passed a handful of rooms before reaching the one at the end. Gesturing for his cousins to stay silent, Frandulane found the door unlocked and eased it open.