The Hero And The Crown d-2

by Robin McKinley

  Then Talat was there again, and he bit the dragon above its small red eye, where the ear hole was; and the dragon twisted its neck to spout fire at him, but it was still dazed by its fall, and only a little fire came out of its mouth. Talat plunged his own face into the trickle of smoke and seized the dragon by the nostrils and dragged its head back; and still farther back. Its forefeet and breast came clear of the ground, and as the dragon thrashed, Aerin’s leg came free, and she pulled the dagger from her boot and thrust it into the dragon’s scaleless breast. The dragon shrieked, the noise muffled by Talat’s grip on its nose, and Aerin stumbled away to pick up her sword.

  Talat swung the dying dragon back and forth, and slashed at its body with one forefoot, and the muscles of his heavy stallion’s neck ran with sweat and smudges of ash. Aerin lifted up the sword and sliced the dragon’s belly open, and it convulsed once, shuddered, and died. Talat dropped the body and stood with his head down, shivering, and Aerin realized what she had done, and how little she had known about what it would involve, and how near she had come to failure; and her stomach rebelled, and she lost what remained of her breakfast over the smoking mutilated corpse of the second dragon.

  She walked a few steps away till she came to a tree, and with her hands on its bole she felt her way to the ground, and sat with her knees drawn up and her head between them for a few minutes. Her head began to clear, and her breathing slowed, and as she looked up and blinked vaguely at the leaves overhead, she heard Talat’s hoofbeats behind her. She put out a hand, and he put his bloody nose into it, and so they remained for several heartbeats more, and then Aerin sighed and stood up. “Even dragons need water. Let’s look for a stream.”

  Again they were lucky, for there was one close at hand. Aerin carefully washed Talat’s face, and discovered that most of the blood was dragon’s, although his forelock was singed half away. “And to think I almost didn’t bother to put any kenet on your head,” she murmured. “I thought it was going to be so easy.” She pulled Talat’s saddle off to give him a proper bath, after which he climbed the bank and found a nice scratchy bit of dirt and rolled vigorously, and stood up again mud-colored. “Oh dear,” said Aerin. She splashed water on her face and hands and then abruptly pulled off all her dragon-tainted clothing and submerged. She came up again when she needed to breathe, chased Talat back into the water to wash the mud off, and then brushed and rubbed him hard till she was warm and dry with the work and he was at least no more than damp.

  She dressed slowly and with reluctance, and they returned to the battlefield. She tried to remember what else she ought to have thought of about dragons. Eggs? Well, if there were eggs, they’d die, for new-hatched dragons depended on their parents for several months. And if there were young dragons, surely we’d have seen them—?

  With much greater reluctance she tied together some dry brush and set fire to it from her tinder box, and approached the dark foul-smelling hole in the rock. She had to stoop to get inside the cave at all, and her torch guttered and tried to go out. She had an impression of a shallow cave with irregular walls of rock and dirt, and a pebbly floor; but she could not bear the smell, or the knowledge that the grisly creatures she had just killed had lived here, and she jerked back outside into the sunlight again, and dropped her torch, and stamped out the fire. She didn’t think there were any eggs, or dragon kits. She’d have to hope there weren’t.

  She thought: I have to take the heads with me. The hunters always bring the heads—and it does prove it without a lot of talking about it. I don’t think I can talk about it. So she picked up her sword again and whacked off the second dragon’s head, and then washed her sword and dagger in the stream, re-sheathed them, and tied her spear behind the saddle. The dragons looked small now, motionless and headless, little bigger and no more dangerous than rabbits; and the ugly heads, with the long noses and sharp teeth, looked false, like masks in a monster-play for the children during one of the City holidays, where part of the fun is to be frightened—but not very much. Who could be frightened of a dragon?

  I could, she thought.

  She tied the heads in the heavy cloth she’d carried her leather suit in, and mounted Talat, and they went slowly back to the village.

  The villagers were all waiting, over a hundred of them, gathered at the edge of town; the fields beyond the village were empty, and men and women in their working clothes, looking odd in their idleness, all stood watching the path Aerin and Talat had disappeared down only an hour ago. A murmur arose as the front rank caught sight of them, and Talat raised his head and arched his neck, for he remembered how it should be, coming home from battle and bearing news of victory. The people pressed forward, and as Talat came out of the trees they surrounded him, looking up at Aerin: Just the one girl and her fine horse, surely they have not faced the dragon, for they are uninjured; and they were embarrassed to hope for a sol’s burns, but they wished so sorely for the end of the dragon.

  “Lady?” one man said hesitantly. “Did you meet the dragon?”

  Aerin realized that their silence was uncertainty; she had suddenly feared that they would not accept even the gift of dragon-slaying from the daughter of a witchwoman, and she smiled in relief, and the villagers smiled back at her, wonderingly. “Yes, I met your dragon; and its mate.” She reached behind her and pulled at the cloth that held the heads, and the heads fell to the ground; one rolled, and the villagers scattered before it as if it still had some power to do them harm. Then they laughed a little sheepishly at themselves; and then everyone turned as the boy who had announced Aerin’s arrival said, “Look!”

  Seven horsemen were riding into the village as Aerin had ridden in. “You weren’t supposed to get here till tomorrow,” she murmured, for she recognized Gebeth and Mik and Orin, who were cousins of hers a few times removed and members of her father’s court, and four of their men. Gebeth and Orin had been on many dragon hunts before; they were loyal and reliable, and did not consider dragon-hunting beneath them, for it was a thing that needed to be done, and a service they could do for their king.

  “Aerin-sol,” said Gebeth; his voice was surprised, respectful—for her father’s sake, not hers—and disapproving. He would not scold her in front of the villagers, but he would certainly give Arlbeth a highly colored tale later on.

  “Gebeth,” she said. She watched with a certain ironic pleasure as he tried to think of a way to ask her what she was doing here; and then Orin, behind him, said something, and pointed to the ground where the small dragons’ heads lay in the dust. Gebeth dropped his gaze from the unwelcome sight of his sovereign’s young daughter rigged out like a soldier boy

  , who has seen better days, realized what he was looking at, and yanked his eyes up again to stare disbelievingly at red-hatred Aerin in her torn leather suit.

  “I—er—I’ve gotten rid of the dragons already, if that’s what you mean,” said Aerin.

  Gebeth dismounted, slowly, and slowly stooped down to __stare at her trophies. The jaws of one were open, and the sharp teeth showed. Gebeth was not a rapid nor an original thinker, and he remained squatting on his heels and staring at the grisly heads long after he needed only to verify the dragonness of them. As slowly as he had stooped he straightened up again and bowed, stiffly, to Aerin, saying, “Lady, I salute you.” His fingers flicked out in some ritual recognition or other, but Aerin couldn’t tell which salute he was offering her, and rather doubted he knew which one he wanted to give. “Thank you,” she said gravely.

  Gebeth turned and caught the eye of one of his men, who dismounted and wrapped the heads up again; and then, as Gebeth gave no further hint, hesitated, and finally approached Talat to tie the bundle behind Aerin’s saddle.

  “May we escort you home, lady?” Gebeth said, raising his eyes to stare at Talat’s pricked and bridleless ears, but carefully avoiding Aerin’s face.

  “Thank you,” she said again, and Gebeth mounted his horse, and turned it back toward the City, and waited, that Aerin might lead; an
d Talat, who knew about the heads of columns, strode out without any hint from his rider.

  The villagers, not entirely sure what they had witnessed, tried a faint cheer as Talat stepped off; and the boy who announced arrivals suddenly ran forward to pat Talat’s shoulder, and Talat dropped his nose in acknowledgment and permitted the familiarity. A girl only a few years older than the boy stepped up to catch Aerin’s eye, and said clearly, “We thank you.”

  Aerin smiled and said, “The honor is mine.”

  The girl grew to adulthood remembering the first sol’s smile, and her seat on her proud white horse.

  Chapter 11

  IT WAS A SILENT journey back, and seemed to take forever. When they finally entered the City gates it was still daylight, although Aerin was sure it was the daylight of a week since hearing the villagers1 petition to her father for dragon-slaying. The City streets were thronged, and while the sight of seven of the king’s men in war gear and carrying dragon spears was not strange, the sight of the first sol riding among them and looking rather the worse for wear was, and their little company was the subject of many long curious looks. They can see me just fine coming home again, Aerin thought grimly. Whatever shadow it was that I rode away in, I wish I knew where it had gone.

  Hornmar himself appeared at her elbow to take Talat off to the stables when they arrived in the royal courtyard. Her escort seemed to her to dismount awkwardly, with a great banging of stirrups and creak of girths. She pulled down the bundles from behind Talat’s saddle and squared her shoulders. She couldn’t help looking wistfully after the untroubled Talat, who readily followed Hornmar in the direction he was sure meant oats; but she jerked her attention back to herself and found Gebeth staring at her, frozen-faced, so she led the way into the castle.

  Even Arlbeth looked startled when they all appeared before him. He was in one of the antechambers of the main receiving hall, and sat surrounded by papers, scrolls, sealing wax, and emissaries. He looked tired. Not a word had passed between Aerin and her unwilling escort since they had left the village, but Aerin felt that she was being herded and had not tried to .escape. Gebeth would have reported to the king immediately upon his return, and so she must; it was perhaps just as well that she had so many sheepdogs to her one self-conscious sheep, because she might have been tempted to put off the reckoning had she ridden back alone.

  “Sir,” she said. Arlbeth looked at Aerin, then at Gebeth and Gebeth’s frozen face, then back at Aerin.

  “Have you something to report?” he said, and the kindness in his voice was for both his daughter and his loyal, if scandalized, servant.

  Gebeth remained bristling with silence, so Aerin said: “I rode out alone this morning, and went to the village of Ktha, to ... engage their dragon. Or—um—dragons.”

  What was the proper form for a dragon-killing report? She might have paid a little more attention to such things if she’d thought a little further ahead. She’d never particularly considered the after of killing dragons; the fact that she’d done it was supposed to be enough. But now she felt like a child caught out in misbehavior. Which at least in Gebeth’s eyes she was. She unwrapped the bundle she carried under her arm, and laid the battered dragon heads on the floor before her father’s table. Arlbeth stood up and came round the edge of the table, and stood staring down at them with a look on his face not unlike Gebeth’s when he first recognized what was lying in the dust at his horse’s feet.

  “We arrived at the village ... after,” said Gebeth, who chose not to look at Aerin’s ugly tokens of victory again, “and I offered our escort for Aerin-sol’s return.”

  At “offered our escort” a flicker of a smile crossed Arlbeth’s face, but he said very seriously, “I would speak to Aerin-sol alone.” Everyone disappeared like mice into the walls, except they closed the doors behind them. Gebeth, his dignity still outraged, would say nothing, but no one else who had been in the room when Aerin told the king she had just slain two dragons could wait to start spreading the tale.

  Arlbeth said, “Well?” in so colorless a tone that Aerin was afraid that, despite the smile, he must be terribly angry with her. She did not know where to begin her story, and as she looked back over the last years and reminded herself that he had set no barriers to her work with Talat, had trusted her judgment, she was ashamed of her secret; but the first words that came to her were: “I thought if I told you first, you would not let me go.”

  Arlbeth was silent for a long time. “This is probably so,” he said at last. “And can you tell me why I should not have prevented you?”

  Aerin exhaled a long breath. “Have you read Astythet’s History?”

  Arlbeth frowned a moment in recollection. “I ... believe I did, when I was a boy. I do not remember it well.” He fixed her with a king’s glare, which is much fiercer than an ordinary mortal’s. “I seem to remember that the author devotes a good deal of time and space to dragon lore, much of it more legendary than practical.”

  “Yes,” said Aerin. “I read it, a while ago, when I was ... ill. There’s a recipe of sorts for an ointment called kenet, proof against dragonfire, in the back of it—”

  Arlbeth’s frown returned and settled. “A bit of superstitious nonsense.”

  “No,” Aerin said firmly. “It is not nonsense; it is merely unspecific.” She permitted herself a grimace at her choice of understatement. “I’ve spent much of the last three years experimenting with that half a recipe. A few months ago I finally found out ... what works.” Arlbeth’s frown had lightened, but it was still visible. “Look.” Aerin unslung the heavy cloth roll she’d hung over her shoulder and pulled out the soft pouch of her ointment. She smeared it on one hand, then the other, noticing as she did so that both hands were trembling. Quickly, that he might not stop her, she went to the fireplace and seized a burning branch from it, held it at arm’s length in one greasy yellow hand, and thrust her other hand directly into the flame that billowed out around it.

  Arlbeth’s frown had disappeared. “You’ve made your point; now put the fire back into the hearth, for that is not a comfortable thing to watch.” He went back behind his table and sat down; the weary lines showed again in his face.

  Aerin came to the other side of his table, wiping her ashy hands on her leather leggings. “Sit,” said her father, looking up at her; and leaving charcoal fingerprints on a scroll she tried delicately to move, she cleared the nearest chair and sat down. Her father eyed her, and then looked at the ragged gashes in her tunic. “Was it easy, then, killing dragons when they could not burn you?”

  She spread her dirty fingers on her knees and stared at them. “No,” she said quietly. “I did not think beyond the fire. It was not easy.”

  Arlbeth sighed. “You have learned something, then.”

  “I have learned something.” She looked up at her father with sudden hope.

  Arlbeth snorted, or chuckled. “Don’t look at me like that. You have the beseeching look of a puppy that thinks it may yet get out of a deserved thrashing. Think you that you deserve your thrashing?”

  Aerin said nothing.

  “That’s not meant solely as a rhetorical question. What sort of thrashing are you eligible for? You’re a bit old to be sent to your room without any supper, and I believe I rather gave you your autonomy from Teka’s dictates when I let you and Talat ride out alone.” He paused. “I suppose you needed to get far enough away from the City to build a fire big enough to test your discovery thoroughly.” Aerin still said nothing. “I can’t forbid you Talat, for he’s your horse now, and I love him too well to deny him his master.”

  He paused again. “You seem to be rather a military problem, but as you have no rank I cannot strip you of it, and as you do not bear a sword from the king’s hands he can’t take it away from you and hit you with the flat of it.” His eyes lingered for a moment on Aerin’s eighteenth-birthday present hanging by her side, but he did not mention it.

  This time the pause was a long one. “Will you teach the makin
g of the fire ointment if I ask it? “

  Aerin raised her head. He could command her to explain it, and knew that she knew he could so command her. “I would gladly teach any who ... gladly would learn it,” and as she recognized that he did not command her, he recognized that she said gladly would learn from me, the witchwoman’s daughter; for he knew, for all that it had never been spoken in his ears, what his second wife had been called.

  “I would learn.” He reached for the sack of ointment that Aerin had left lying on his table, took a little of the yellow grease on his fingertips, and rubbed thumb and forefinger together. He sniffed. “I suppose this explains the tales of the first sol’s suddenly frequent visits to the apothecaries.”

  Aerin gulped and nodded. “I would—would be honored to show you the making of the kenet, sir.”

  Arlbeth stood up and came over to hug his daughter, and left his arm around her shoulders, mindless of the sleek fur of his sleeve and the condition of her leather tunic. “Look, you silly young fool. I understand why you have behaved as you have done, and I sympathize, and I am also tremendously proud of you. But kindly don’t go around risking your life to prove any more points, will you? Come talk to me about it first at least.

  “Now go away, and let me get back to what I was doing. I had a long afternoon’s work still ahead of me before you interrupted.”

  Aerin fled.

  A week later, when she finally dared face her father at breakfast again, which meant sitting down at the table and risking such conversational gambits as he might choose to begin, Arlbeth said, “I was beginning to feel ogreish. I’m glad you’ve crept out of hiding.” Tor, who was there too, laughed, and so Aerin learned that Tor knew the dragon story as well. She blushed hotly; but as the first rush of embarrassment subsided she had to admit to herself that there was probably no one in the City who did not know the story by now.