In other circumstances, Hal might have laughed off this time-honored misperception and launched into a lecture about the feeding habits of dragons. But Earth was in trouble, so the knight was not amused. “Not this dragon!” he snapped. He waved an abrupt hand. “See there? A goat and a boy within easy reach and he makes nary a move, though he’s fainting with hunger.”
“Maybe he prefers an older meal . . .”
Hal was outraged. “He saved your life, man! Would he do that if he was going to eat you?”
Ralf raised a defensive palm. “Well, they say, my lord . . .”
“Well, they’re wrong!”
Erde tossed a glare Hal’s way. This was no time to argue the interpretation of lore. Earth was not entirely inert after all. He was engaged in some kind of discussion with the she-goat that he would not let her be privy to. She went to work trying to convince him otherwise. She told him she could not be his guide if he was going to keep secrets from her.
Hal blunted the edge on his voice. He helped Ralf rise shakily to his feet. “Forgive me, old man. I’ve had much longer to get used to him. Of course you were scared, of course you made the wrong assumptions. How is anyone to know, if they haven’t met a real dragon? Believe me, all he needs are a few fat sheep, or even a few scrawny ones. Or maybe you know of someone with an old milch cow hidden away?”
Ralf tested his balance, then shook his head. “Everything on four legs was rounded up days ago, by Baron Köthen’s order.”
“Is there no food anywhere in Erfurt?”
The old man shrugged. “An army travels on its stomach.”
“Then I’ll take what I need from Köthen!” the knight declared angrily. “Where’s he keeping it all?”
“The king’s stronghold, milord.” Eyeing Hal’s worn red leather jerkin, Ralf awaited the expected response.
Predictably, Hal started to pace. “The king’s . . . how dare he! That pup! That treasonous cur! Wait till I get my hands on him! Does he wear the king’s crown as well?”
Ralf’s bruised mouth twisted. “Not yet, milord. Though I imagine he tries it on now and then before he goes to bed nights.” He peered again at the dragon, limping around to the side to study him, careful to keep a healthy distance. “A dragon, it is indeed. I never thought to have the privilege.”
Hal calmed and joined the old man so that the two of them gazed at the dragon side by side. “Nor did I.”
“Not and walk away from it, I mean. Pardon my asking, milord, but . . . well, a big thing like that . . . How did you ever get it in here?”
Hal caught his eye and held it solemnly. “Magic. Dragon magic, and if we find him something to eat, you can see that magic for yourself. This dragon can take us safely out of here, out of Erfurt entirely, along with the woman I spoke of and the stranger-knight.”
“All of us?”
“All of us, safe and sound. If he can eat, and if you can bring them to me.”
Ralf nodded, then turned away. “I’ll go, then.”
“You? You can hardly walk, and the streets are crawling with Köthen’s swordsmen. Tell me where and I’ll go for them.”
Ralf cracked a real smile for the first time, showing pink and empty gums. “Each of us has our secrets to keep, milord.”
Hal dipped his head. “Of course. Your discretion does you credit.”
“Only way I know of to get to be as old as we are.”
Hal chuckled. “Indeed. Go then, and Ralf . . .”
The old man stopped, glanced back.
“Remember me to His Majesty if you see him before I do.”
Ralf laughed soundlessly, and slipped around the door. Almost immediately, he was back. “You might want to remove the evidence, milord, before they come looking for him.”
“Ah. Right. I’d quite forgot.”
Erde made sure the old man had gone before she showed Hal her slate. IS HE DEAD, THE MAN OUTSIDE?
“Oh, yes. Very.”
A NECESSARY SACRIFICE?
“Um, well . . . yes.”
She knew and he knew it had not been truly necessary, but she nodded, erased, and wrote again. THE GOAT HAS GIVEN PERMISSION.
He didn’t understand at first, and then he did. “What? No! He can’t do that!”
Erde underlined the whole sentence brusquely and held it up in front of his face.
“But she’s his friend!”
She’d known he’d react like this. She recalled his argument with Raven about Margit’s suicide device. But how could he be so self-righteous about a willing sacrifice when he was ready to die at any moment in the service of his king, or when he’d just killed a man he didn’t even know because it was—there was that word again—expedient. She rubbed the slate briskly against her sleeve.
SHE KNOWS HE’LL DIE OTHERWISE.
“Die? No, I think he’ll only go back to sleep. Dragons are immortal, milady.”
She glared at him. MY ANCESTORS SLEW DRAGONS.
“Of course. Mine, too, the fools. A dragon can be destroyed with a weapon or a spell. But they don’t just up and die on you.”
HE WON’T TALK TO ME!
“He’s hungry and tired.”
HE SAID HE WAS DYING!
Erde didn’t care what Hal’s lore told him. Earth had told her he was dying. It was the only thing he’d had the strength to say to her, and now she felt him receding from her mind like an ebb tide. She would miss the goat, but she knew she could not live without the dragon. She erased the slate, scrawled DYING! in the largest letters that would fit, then grabbed Hal’s arm and propelled him toward the door. Finally, to calm her, he gave in and let himself be led outside, granting the she-goat and the dragon the privacy appropriate to the gravity of their task. Just outside the door, Erde turned back. She ran to the goat and kissed her on the head. Then she followed Hal out into the snow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Outside, the wind had dropped. The snowfall was finer and steadier. Though the yard was a stretch of solid white, Erde saw no trace of Ralf’s path of retreat. She wondered how he’d managed to cross without leaving any prints. The dead soldier was a long white lump beside the brick kilns. Erde regarded the body uneasily.
Hal had not expected to be scolded for doing what he considered to be his duty, especially when he’d accomplished it so cleanly and efficiently. “Leave him there a little longer, he’ll look like just another dirt pile,” he remarked sourly. Erde frowned and he shook his head. “I suppose you want me to give him last rites and bury him.”
She kept her eyes steady on him, the way she remembered her grandmother looking when she’d done something wrong.
“Are you to be my conscience now? You don’t think my own is active enough already?” He got very still, his jaw tight. “I thought you understood, milady, when you insisted on coming along, that this is war.” He gestured sharply toward the yard. “That man was my enemy. He’d have killed me without a thought. You, too, though if what Ralf says is true and he’d seen you’re a woman, he’d have had another use for you first!” He turned and stalked away to retrieve the soldier’s body, brushing the snow off his red jerkin as it fell, as if loath to let it gather for even a moment.
He might as well have slapped her, and finally, Erde decided she deserved it. She had insulted him deeply with her naive disapproval of a skill he’d spent a lifetime perfecting. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to be anything else but naive, if being worldly required an acceptance of murder as a common expedient. She wondered if it had anything to do with being a woman. Was this why women retreated into convents, or why Rose and her companions had withdrawn to the seclusion of Deep Moor, despite their self-sufficiency and their obvious relish for the more sensual aspects of life?
She turned her musings to the dragon in the barn. There he was, devouring—though with the greatest possible grace and mercy—a fellow creature he’d spent the last month traveling with. He was probably in the midst of it now, for as she reached out to him, his mind was shut to her. An
d in his case, it really was an issue of survival. Hal could have shown the soldier mercy, but the only mercy the dragon could afford right now was to do it quickly. Erde sank into a huddle in the snow against the wall of the barn. She felt as confused and alone as she ever had since the night of her flight from Tor Alte. Brushing tears from her eyes, she watched Hal grasp the dead soldier by the armpits and drag him toward the nearest of the brick kilns.
She owed him at least a gesture of apology. She’d started across the yard to help him when she heard the horsemen on the street. The snowfall had muffled their approach and they were clattering through the archway into the yard before either Hal or Erde had time to react.
Hal did not even try for his sword. He backed against the kiln, gesturing Erde to him. “Get behind me, lad!”
As she ran, she called to the dragon. He was still not answering. Across the yard, the mule shuffled into a less conspicuous position and began working his way around the perimeter.
There were six of them. The first three men were off their horses with their swords drawn before the others had pulled up inside the yard. They formed a quick semicircle around Hal, then looked to the fourth, a pudgy young man who remained astride his stout gray. He was not wearing Baron Köthen’s yellow and blue, but some more garish colors of his own. A younger son of some minor lord, Erde decided, gone into service with Köthen for lack of any more promising future. Reading the insecurity in him, she had a moment of pity. She had known someone in service once . . . or so she thought. But the faint wisp of memory faded before she could identify it.
The last two men dismounted to see to the body. “Dead, my lord.”
The lordling regarded Hal worriedly. His small, defensive eyes took in Hal’s venerable red leathers and the well-used soldier’s sword swinging easily at his hip. Hal drew himself to his full height and faced the young man calmly, as if he had every right in the world to be where he was, hauling around the corpse of their comrade.
“Your name, sir!” barked the younger son, playing at confidence but not taking the risk of forsaking his manners.
“That honor is for your superiors,” Hal returned, not so politely. “Who are you?”
The other men murmured and made gestures with their swords that suggested they didn’t care a whit about manners.
“I must ask you to surrender your weapon,” said the lordling.
“Am I taken prisoner? If so, what is my offense? I demand the privilege of rank.”
“You are not on the battlefield, sir knight.” He pointed at the body. “That is your offense, just to begin with.”
“Him?” Hal shrugged at the corpse as if it had just appeared in front of him. “Poor man, he was all stiff with the cold. I was helping him to a bit of shelter. Devilish weather, isn’t it?”
The lordling scowled belligerently. “He’s dead. You killed him. Are you claiming you did not?”
Hal shrugged again, a calculated annoyance. Would he have lied, Erde wondered, if he felt himself in any real danger?
“Your sword, sir, or I will have it taken from you.”
Hal gave up his sword, as if it hardly mattered to him.
The lordling beckoned one of his men over and whispered briefly. The man swung up on his horse and cantered out of the yard. Then the lordling crossed his wrists on the pommel of his saddle and leaned in with a trace of bravado. “So tell me. What is a King’s Knight doing in this town?”
Hal let his eyes widen. “Are we not in Erfurt? Am I mistaken? I thought the king ruled in Erfurt.”
“Very funny.”
“It was not intended as a joke.” Hal grinned at him.
“Your king is the only joke.”
Hal’s grin died. “What would you know about such things?” He looked away and very deliberately, spat into the snow.
The lordling reached blindly to regain the advantage. “For all I know, it might have been you who snatched the witchwoman. I wouldn’t have thought a man your age would be capable. Did she magic you?”
“Speak in comprehensible sentences, lad. What are you talking about?”
Erde was grateful for the anonymity of servants. She huddled behind Hal, observing the details of his performance. Meanwhile, she isolated careful images of the events for the dragon and sent them off into the ether, not knowing whether he received them or not. She worried that the she-goat alone might not be enough of a meal to restore his strength. She begged him for a sign.
The lordling brushed snow from the fringe of blond hair cutting straight across his brow. “Yes, I think it must have been you. Where is she? Where have you hidden her?”
Hal spread his arms. “There are no women here about, my boy, much to my regret. Is she good-looking, your witchy-woman? If so, send her my way, I do implore you.” He threw a fraternal glance at the men surrounding him. “I’ve been a long time out in the East, you see, where cold as it is, the women have no need of clothing, so thick is the pelt on them.”
One man suppressed a smile, another snorted. All three relaxed their sword arms a trifle.
“In fact, you wouldn’t believe. One time I . . .” Hal continued, and the soldiers leaned in to listen.
“Quiet! This is not a tavern!” The men smirked and the lordling stiffened his jaw. “The barn. She’s probably in the barn. You and you, search that barn!”
The two idle men took off at a trot. They found a recalcitrant mule between them and the doors.
Hal relaxed back against the brick kiln, looking unconcerned. “Is he any better yet?” he murmured to Erde. “I’ll give him every second I can manage.”
Imperceptibly, she shrugged, shook her head.
He bent to dig snow out of his boot. “Perhaps he should reconsider his prohibition against eating human flesh. Like right now.”
The mule squealed and lashed out, striking the sword from one of the soldier’s hands. The man swore in pain and hugged his wrist.
Hal straightened, suddenly smiling and helpful. “Oh, he’s a real killer, that one. My boy here can’t even handle him. I don’t know why I keep him. Here, I’ll do what I can.” He went toward the mule, dragging Erde with him. He made a lengthy show of being unable to calm the spooked and violent animal while Erde stood in the snow silently pleading with the dragon to listen, to respond, to give her just one sign that he was alive and well and aware of what was happening.
But the lordling soon lost patience. “Quiet him down or he’s a dead animal, never mind the baron’s order!” He signaled his men. “Get those doors open!”
The mule allowed himself to be driven off to one side, but would let no one touch him. The soldiers hauled open the heavy doors and rushed inside. Erde heard them thrashing about, slamming bin lids and rustling through the straw. She heard no exclamations of horror or surprise. She exchanged a quick glance with Hal and as soon as both could casually do so, they peered around the edge of the doorway. The soldiers stood at a loss in the middle of an apparently deserted barn. One of them was searching the mule packs. All he came up with that interested him was a second sword wrapped in linen. He tore off the bindings, examined it possessively, then set it aside. Alla’s little carved box he opened and tossed back in the pack when he found it contained only a strip of paper. Erde was glad she wore the dragon brooch pinned to the inside of her shirt. She sent praise to Earth, even though he never responded when he was being invisible. At least he’d found the strength to do that.
The lordling rode his horse into the barn and looked around. “You’ve hidden her well, sir knight.”
“I’ve hidden no one,” Hal replied truthfully.
“Perhaps she’s hidden herself. A vanishing spell. A witch can do such things.”
Erde shuddered to think how close to reality he’d stumbled.
Hal rolled his eyes as if the young man were raving. “So I’m told. But then, why would she hide out in a barn? She could simply vanish and walk right out of town.”
The lordling drew himself up in his saddle. “She w
ouldn’t get past. The holy brother has an acolyte at every gate to sniff out any unholy witchcraft.”
“Is that so?” replied Hal, as one might to soothe a lunatic.
“Besides, you are her loyal minion who saved her from the stake. She will come back for you, and we will be waiting. You there! Bind his hands!”
One man scurried for rope. Another yanked Hal’s arms around his back and held them ready as his companion tied them tightly.
Hal looked up at the man on the horse. “Are you sure you’re ready to face the Powers of Darkness all by yourself?” When the young man blanched, he returned an avuncular chuckle. “Really, lad, there is no ‘she.’ I’ve got no woman hidden. I’m hungry, you’re probably thirsty, we’re all of us freezing our asses off, and what you should really do is take me to Baron Köthen right away. I’m sure his hospitality will prove superior to this drafty old barn.”
“Superior, no doubt, and a lot more secure,” said a dry voice behind them.
The lordling slid quickly off his horse.
“Ah. At last.” Hal turned easily. “Still so light on your feet, Dolph.”
Baron Köthen stood in the doorway, snow melting on his bared blond head. His arms folded and his stance hip-slung, he looked both edgy and satisfied. “Well . . . I learned from the best.”
“Just searching about town on your own, eh?”
“Oh, please, I came as soon as I heard. How many King’s Knights are there left running about loose, after all?” Behind him, a large party of soldiers swooped into the yard amidst the multiple clinkings of harness and armor. Köthen moved in from the doorway, casually but in full enjoyment of his authority. His clothing was plain but well-cut, with just the right amount of swagger. His beard was neatly trimmed. His eyes, Erde noted, were dark, belying his lighter coloring. He spotted Hal’s peculiarly stiff posture, bent to glance behind him, then turned on the lordling in a rage. “What? You’ve bound him? Fool, where are your manners? Release him immediately!”
The lordling himself jumped to untie the ropes. Hal rubbed his wrists ceremonially. “So. You come to me, Dolph? I’m honored.”
The Book of Earth Page 32