Dragonspeaker Chronicles Box Set

by Patty Jansen

  Gisele had to be mistaken. She had to be.

  But, as the fishermen woke up outside and she could hear them talking on the quay, and the light that peeped underneath the barn door slowly turned grey, she thought about the things Gisele had told her. Gisele would not lie about the things the monks did to her. She could blame the Guentherite order, but they were ultimately part of the same church, and if the church did something bad and the order covered it up, or the other way around, they were both wrong.

  There was no way she could shape or bend it. If there was a boy locked in the church crypt, that was unspeakably evil.

  She got up early, because pretending to be asleep was a waste of time, and started making the fire. She hung a pot over the fire to boil.

  While she waited for the fire to spread across the chunks of wood she had thrown in the pit, she stared over the water. A couple of sea cows stuck their heads above the surface and looked at her with their sad eyes.

  She felt utterly miserable. It had taken her all this time, since she had received her father’s book, to realise that the world that was the foundation of her very essence was a lie. She had always believed kings and barons and dukes existed solely to enrich themselves, and that the church existed to keep them honest and make sure they didn’t abuse the people. But they were all in bed with each other. They sat at the same table and shared the same wine.

  There was a soft sound behind her. She turned around to see the dragon coming out of the storeroom. He did this by dissolving into sparks and reforming into a dragon once he got into the barn, because otherwise he wouldn’t fit through the door. He came up to the fire and blew a gust of hot air over the flames, fanning them into a roaring inferno.

  “That was useful, thank you. But be careful. We don’t want to start a fire in there.”

  The dragon turned his head to her, with his ears flat against his neck.

  Nellie patted the warm skin.

  “You are a silly dragon.”

  He made a soft purring sound. Maybe he had taken too much notice of the kitten.

  “You want to free your master, don’t you?”

  The dragon looked up at her, giving no sign that he understood what she said.

  Nellie patted his warm neck, seeing the inside of the barn and the dragon’s golden skin through a haze of tears.

  Everything was broken. Everything she had ever believed in was gone. She had always found strength in her inner peace, and now even that was gone.

  Was there anyone left in this place she could trust?

  But she would give the truth one more chance.

  Nellie hadn’t seen Shepherd Adrianus since she had left the palace. In fact, she hadn’t seen him since he had stood by while Shepherd Wilfridus evicted the poor people from the church. Since it had turned out that some of those poor people were not quite as poor as they looked and some were there because that was their way of life, Nellie could see some of Shepherd Wilfridus’ reasoning.

  The church was for worshippers. There were other places where homeless people could sleep. With so many of the houses in the city empty, it shouldn’t be hard to find somewhere. It did not need to be the church.

  It was just that . . . many of those, especially the women and children, were church people, looking for help and being turned away.

  Nellie might understand it, but agree with it, no. Shepherd Adrianus wouldn’t agree with it, either. To her, it felt like he might have known of some disturbing facts he was too scared to become involved in. That he was scared of falling foul of Shepherd Wilfridus, who was his ultimate superior.

  She wanted Shepherd Adrianus to know that whatever happened in the next few days, she still loved the church and she understood and forgave him, and that she would continue to worship the Triune and carry out His word.

  It was with a certain trepidation that she entered her beloved church, expecting . . . she didn’t know what. To be banished? To be called a witch? To be asked about the dragon?

  The muffled sound of her footsteps in the church vestibule, the achingly familiar smell of incense mingled with the musty smell of dust and dry stone made her eyes prick. She longed for the good times that she had come here, times in which she had utter trust in this organisation.

  Her footsteps echoed in the empty space when she walked down the aisle to the statue of the Triune behind the altar.

  This statue looked a lot kinder than the one in the main church, and its faces, that were so contorted in the statue in the main church, were almost friendly. You could imagine the Father as an old man visiting your house, the Ghost as a patient friend who always stood behind you, and the Holy God as a shepherd who led the way.

  There were no more candles in the box next to the altar, and she had no coin to drop into the donations box, but she went up to say a prayer anyway.

  She prayed that the Triune would forgive her for all the things she would do. She prayed that He would see that her intentions were good, and that she was only angry with the selfish people who took the word of the Book of Verses and twisted those words to suit their own means.

  She prayed that the Holy Triune would see that she only wanted to expose those powerful men who wanted to enrich themselves and used the church to do so. And this, incidentally, was one of the major accusations they had levelled at the Belaman Church.

  She prayed that they would see their errors and return to the good intentions of the Triune.

  She prayed that the church had a very good reason to hold someone prisoner inside the crypt. She prayed that the person down there wasn’t Prince Bruno, but was a poor altar boy who had committed some transgression and that all the times that Gisele had heard about this person, it had really been a number of different people.

  It might even be that being locked up in the dark for several days was part of an obscure ritual that the church liked to put naughty boys through.

  She prayed that she had been mistaken, that she had misread her father’s notes, and that everything could go back to normal, the prisoners would be freed and she wouldn’t have to risk everyone’s lives by carrying out that ridiculous plan.

  When she finished her prayer, she got up, and walked through the side door of the church to the courtyard, on the other side of which the shepherd’s house stood.

  It looked so familiar. She had lost count of how many times she had walked up these steps to find Shepherd Adrianus and his warm friendship. The clean windows, the neatly painted door, the slightly worn door handle: she could picture it all.

  For moment Nellie thought everything would be as it was before. The shepherd would see her argument and would be able to convince everyone in the church she was right. The witch drownings would be cancelled and the prisoners released, because people were good, weren’t they?

  But when she tried to enter the door, it was locked.

  She knocked. “Shepherd, it’s me, Nellie.”

  There were some sounds from inside the home, and moments later the door opened. But the person inside was not Shepherd Adrianus. It was one of the deacons who used to work in the main church. Nellie didn’t remember his name. He was tall and lanky, towering over her, and regarding her with a flat expression. His face was unpleasant.

  “Yes? You knocked?” He sounded annoyed.

  “Oh. I’m here to see Shepherd Adrianus.”

  “He does not live here any more.” His voice was cold and the tone chilled Nellie.

  “What do you mean? I was here just a few days ago, and he—”

  “He doesn’t live here anymore. Simple as that. This is not his house. It belongs to the church.”

  Yes, she knew that, but Shepherd Adrianus was the church. “What happened? Where is he now?”

  “Believe me, child, it would be better for you not to worry about it. The shepherd needed some time apart from the church and the congregation, and he has gone away for a while. When he has finished his deliberations, he will be back.”

  “When will that be?”

&
nbsp; “I can’t tell at this point in time. The Shepherd Wilfridus has the final say over that.”

  “I just want to know what happened to him,” Nellie said. “He’s my friend. He’s all right, isn’t he?”

  “He is in fine health,” the deacon said.

  “Then where is he? I want to see him.”

  “The shepherd has decided to relieve him of his duties for a limited time.”

  “He hasn’t done anything, has he?”

  “He needs to reconsider his position. Look, it’s nothing serious. We all do this from time to time, to reconnect our bond with the Triune.”

  Nellie was really starting to dislike this man. Avoiding her questions and making out like Shepherd Adrianus had done something wrong. She knew she should probably give up, but she wanted to show that Shepherd Adrianus had supporters. She straightened her back.

  “Well, I hope he comes back soon, because he’s a very good man. He always looks after the poor people. We all like him very much.”

  “That’s very nice to know, child. The church makes their own decisions, however. But I can ask the shepherd if he will take it into consideration.”

  And then Nellie left because there was nothing more to say. She had her answer.

  If the church appreciated good men, they would not send shepherd Adrianus away.

  She had no more excuse. She would need to act. And that meant a lot of things she dreaded doing, but they had to be done.

  While walking through the city, she felt cold and inadequate. She was just Nellie, a kitchen maid, always a servant to someone else. She had put into motion this ridiculous plan, but did she really have the skill to carry it out? She knew she would have to do it, because many people had pinned their hopes on it. For one, Jantien’s children deserved their mother back.

  But inside she felt so small and useless. She was old, she was a woman, not even someone’s mother. She had no family left in the city. She was utterly alone, and all the people who had tried to help her, people like Henrik and Dora, she had rejected.

  While she walked, tears welled into eyes, blurring her vision.

  She would not cry. She would not give in. She would come back and clear the suspicion that hung over her.

  She jammed her hands deeper in her pockets, trying to keep the emotion inside.

  The bottom line was, she was no hero. She was just Nellie, who would serve the dinners and clean the rooms and pick up everybody’s laundry and hang it out and take it inside when it rained and feed the pigs and the chickens and whatever else needed to be fed.

  That had been her life.

  This thing called freedom didn’t sit well with her.

  While she walked, she noticed from the corner of her eye that a trail of sparks followed her.

  Had the dragon turned back to his magical form?

  When she looked at them, the sparks vanished. And then when she kept walking, they reappeared.

  She stopped in the entrance of an alley between two houses.

  The sparks crept up the wall next to her.

  “If you’re going to follow me around, can you at least do something useful?”

  The sparks detached from the wall, twirled through the air and settled on her coat. Nellie tried to brush them off.

  What was this?

  But then the sparks touched the bare skin of her hand and filled her with warmth.

  The dragon couldn’t speak. But because she had forgiven him, he wanted to help her. He seemed to want to let her know that he cared and would be there for her.

  Fate had brought them together, and he hadn’t forgotten that he had regained freedom because of her.

  She had to be strong.

  When she came to the market place, a crowd of people stood at the steps to the church door.

  Someone had affixed another declaration to the door of the church.

  Nellie already knew what it was before she could hear the yelling and shouting. Sixteen people were to be drowned in the harbour in two days’ time for engaging in witchcraft.

  “They’re almost all women,” a man shouted. “How dare he drown mothers and daughters and wives?”

  “What about giving us the time to prove their innocence?”

  “It’s the mayor’s fault.”

  “Down with the mayor.”

  Nellie wrestled her way through the crowd until she could read the names on the list. They included Jantien, Josie, Emmie, Yolande and Wim.

  Behind her, the crowd in the market square was getting more agitated. A couple of guards had come in, and people yelled at them.

  “My son was accused of stealing,” a man called out. “He’s done nothing wrong.”

  Others agreed and added their grievances.

  This was getting nasty. These people would be talking to each other in the taverns and they would organise themselves into angry mobs that the guards would have to deal with unless they could bring in enough men to scare the citizens.

  When the sentence was carried out, there was sure to be a large crowd watching. That could be a good thing, or they could get in the way.

  In the barn, the women had attracted a few more sea cows to the shallow part of the water so that they could lure them into the harness. This required one person to stand in the water. One of the children was attempting to attach the harness to the creatures while another fed them carrots.

  “How is it going?” Nellie asked.

  “We’ve got three so far,” Mina said, standing at the quayside with a handful of carrots.

  That was better than last time, but still not enough. They had two days to get this part of the plan in order.

  With Nellie’s help they managed to catch another two more animals. Nellie also helped pack up some oiled sheets they would use to cover themselves. The shields were all ready, and Floris the fisherman would bring the boat around tonight.

  Some of the children had been watching the Guentherite order’s ship, and had found that people visited it during the day to deliver or pick up things, but that there was generally no one on board overnight.

  “But one thing you haven’t yet mentioned,” Mina said. “Where are we going to go after we escape?”

  “There’s a farm on the other side of the delta,” Nellie said. “I know some people there who have an apple orchard. We can offer to work in return for staying in their barn.”

  “But that land floods all the time. I know, I have a cousin who lives there, and they sometimes have to move out and can’t get to the house for weeks. Winter and spring are the worst.”

  “If the weather is bad, we might go up the river,” Nellie said. “There is a village where my cousins live.”

  Now Hilde said, “Last I heard, that area was unsafe, because of bandits.”

  “Yes,” Agatha said. “I don’t want to escape the city just so we run into bandits. They are not nice people.”

  Mina said, “You win prizes for stating the obvious.”

  “Well, it’s true,” Agatha said. “This adventure is already the most ridiculous thing I have taken part in. I don’t want to make it any more ridiculous by putting ourselves and the children into any more danger than necessary.”

  “I will find a way to see which place is safe.” Nellie said. Add that to the long list of things she had to do.

  “How are you going to do that?” Agatha said. Her voice sounded suspicious.

  “I will ask some people.”

  “People with magic.”

  “Yes. Do you see another way?”

  She snorted. “Magic got us into the trouble we’re in. If there hadn’t been any magic—” She glared at the door to the storeroom where presumably the dragon lay sleeping. “—then none of this would have happened. I’ve tried to shield my children from magic so that they don’t become victims of this witch hunt, and you’re undoing all my efforts.”

  There were many things Nellie could say. That Anneke was born with magic and it would come out whether Agatha shielded her or not. That she
needed a magical person to talk to her about it, not to be shielded from it. But unless Agatha could see that for herself, Nellie would be wasting her breath.

  She knew. She had been like Agatha for much of her life.

  Chapter 17

  BUT WHO SHOULD Nellie see to ask about safe places?

  She didn’t care much where they went after they escaped. She had dealt with bandits before. They usually moved in small groups and were easily distracted. If the plan succeeded, their group would number more than thirty, which made it too big to be an easy target for cheap thieves.

  But she understood that Agatha wanted assurance—which could only be given by a magician.

  There was a time that Nellie had known a wind magician. He used to work for Mistress Johanna’s father, then he had become a shepherd of the church and last she heard he had left the city to study religion in the holy southern city of Senoza, which was the most holy place of the Belaman Church.

  Nellie didn’t want to go back to Mistress Julianna if she could avoid it because the old woman frightened her. She would talk about predictions again and imply that Nellie should hand the dragon over to people who knew what to do with him, and try to make her feel guilty for not giving him up.

  Most of the other people who had magic had left town.

  So she went to see Gisele because she might know other people with magic that Nellie didn’t know about. She needed to talk to Gisele anyway.

  She found Gisele at the table in the middle of the warehouse, busy filling bottles with clear fluid from a metal jug. She looked up when Nellie came in.

  “Oh, Nellie. This is a coincidence. I wanted to come and see you. You remember when we last talked about poisoned gin?”

  Nellie nodded, although that seemed such a long time ago.

  Gisele continued, “I was just handed a bottle that has contained a magical substance.” She set down her jug and picked up an old bottle that sat on the side of the table.

  Nellie recognised it. It was the old square bottle she had seen in Lord Verdonck’s room, complete with the goat on the label.

  “That’s the one. Who gave it to you?”

  “It came from Mr Oliver, who sells to the palace. Every week, he collects empty jars and bottles so he can refill them. He puts the ones that are not from his business in a crate out the side door of his shop. We get a lot of our bottles there.”