A Dragon-Lover's Treasury of the Fantastic

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A Dragon-Lover's Treasury of the Fantastic Page 20

by Margaret Weis


  An hour later, Raspiudus was showing off his magical sanctum. With obvious interest, Eudoric examined a number of squares of dragon hide spread out on a workbench. He asked:

  “Be this the integument of one of those Pathenian dragons, whereof I have heard?”

  “Certes, good Baldonius. Are they extinct in your part of the world?”

  “Aye. ’Twas for that reason that I sent my young friend and former pupil, of whom I’m waiting to tell you, eastward to fetch me some of this hide for use in my work. How does one cure this hide?”

  “With salt, and—unh!”

  Raspiudus collapsed, Eudoric having just struck him on the head with a short bludgeon that he whisked out of his voluminous sleeves.

  “Bind and gag him and roll him behind the bench!” said Eudoric.

  “Were it not better to cut his throat, sir?” said Jillo.

  “Nay. The jailor told us that they have ingenious ways of punishing homicide, and I have no wish to prove them by experiment.”

  While Jillo bound the unconscious Raspiudus, Eudoric chose two pieces of dragon hide, each about a yard square. He rolled them together into a bundle and lashed them with a length of rope from inside his robe. As an afterthought, he helped himself to the contents of Raspiudus’ purse. Then he hoisted the roll of hide to his shoulder and issued from the laboratory. He called to the nearest stableboy.

  “Doctor Raspiudus,” he said, “asks that ye saddle up those two nags.” He pointed. “Good saddles, mind you! Are the animals well shod?”

  “Hasten, sir,” muttered Jillo. “Every instant we hang about here—”

  “Hold thy peace! The appearance of haste were the surest way to arouse suspicion.” Eudoric raised his voice. “Another heave on that girth, fellow! I am not minded to have my aged bones shattered by a tumble into the roadway.”

  Jillo whispered, “Can’t we recover the mule and your armor, to boot?”

  Eudoric shook his head. “Too risky,” he murmured. “Be glad if we get away with whole skins.”

  When the horses had been saddled to his satisfaction, he said, “Lend me some of your strength in mounting, youngster.” He groaned as he swung awkwardly into the saddle. “A murrain on thy master, to send us off on this footling errand—me that hasn’t sat a horse in years! Now hand me that accursed roll of hide. I thank thee, youth; here’s a little for thy trouble. Run ahead and tell the gatekeeper to have his portal well opened. I fear that if this beast pulls up of a sudden, I shall go flying over its head!”

  A few minutes later, when they had turned a corner and were out of sight of Raspiudus’ house, Eudoric said, “Now, trot!”

  “If I could but get out of this damned gown,” muttered Jillo. “I can’t ride decently in it.”

  “Wait till we’re out of the city gate.”

  When Jillo had shed the offending garment, Eudoric said, “Now ride, man, as never before in your life!”

  They pounded off on the Liptai road. Looking back, Jillo gave a screech. “There’s a thing flying after us! It looks like a giant bat!”

  “One of Raspiudus’ sendings,” said Eudoric. “I knew he’d get loose. Use your spurs! Can we but gain the bridge…”

  They fled at a mad gallop. The sending came closer and closer, until Eudoric thought he could feel the wind of its wings.

  Then their hooves thundered across the bridge over the Pshora.

  “Those things will not cross running water,” said Eudoric, looking back. “Slow down, Jillo. These nags must bear us many leagues, and we must not founder them at the start.”

  “…so here we are,” Eudoric told Doctor Baldonius.

  “Ye’ve seen your family, lad?”

  “Certes. They thrive, praise to the Divine Pair. Where’s Lusina?”

  “Well—ah—ahem—the fact is, she is not here.”

  “Oh? Then where?”

  “Ye put me to shame, Eudoric. I promised you her hand in return for the two yards of dragon hide. Well, ye’ve fetched me the hide, at no small effort and risk, but I cannot fulfill my side of the bargain.”

  “Wherefore?”

  “Alas! My undutiful daughter ran off with a strolling player last summer, whilst ye were chasing dragons—or perchance ’Twas the other way round. I’m right truly sorry.…”

  Eudoric frowned silently for an instant, then said, “Fret not, esteemed Doctor. I shall recover from the wound—provided, that is, that you salve it by making up my losses in more materialistic fashion.”

  Baldonius raised bushy gray brows. “So? Ye seem not so grief-stricken as I should have expected, to judge from the lover’s sighs and tears wherewith ye parted from the jade last spring. Now ye’ll accept money instead?”

  “Aye, sir. I admit that my passion had somewhat cooled during our long separation. Was it likewise with her? What said she of me?”

  “Aye, her sentiments did indeed change. She said you were too much an opportunist altogether to please her. I would not wound your feelings.…”

  Eudoric waved a deprecatory hand. “Continue, pray. I have been somewhat toughened by my months in the rude, rough world, and I am interested.”

  “Well, I told her she was being foolish; that ye were a shrewd lad who, an’ ye survived the dragon hunt, would go far. But her words were: ‘That is just the trouble, Father. He is too shrewd to be very lovable.’”

  “Hmph,” grunted Eudoric. “As one might say: I am a man of enterprise, thou art an opportunist, he is a conniving scoundrel. ’Tis all in the point of view. Well, if she prefers the fools of this world, I wish her joy of them. As a man of honor, I would have wedded Lusina had she wished. As things stand, trouble is saved all around.”

  “To you, belike, though I misdoubt my headstrong lass’ll find the life of an actor’s wife a bed of violets:

  Who’d wed on a whim is soon filled to the brim

  Of worry and doubt, till he longs for an out.

  So if ye would wive, beware of the gyve

  Of an ill-chosen mate; ’tis a harrowing fate.

  But enough of that. What sum had ye in mind?”

  “Enough to cover the cost of my good destrier Morgrim and my panoply of plate, together with lance and sword, plus a few other chattels and incidental expenses of travel. Fifteen hundred marks should cover the lot.”

  “Fif-teen hundred!. Whew! I could ne’er afford—nor are these moldy patches of dragon hide worth a fraction of the sum.”

  Eudoric sighed and rose. “You know what you can afford, good my sage.” He picked up the roll of dragon hide. “Your colleague Doctor Calporio, wizard to the Count of Treveria, expressed a keen interest in this material. In fact, he offered me more than I have asked of you, but I thought it only honorable to give you the first chance.”

  “What!” cried Baldonius. “That mountebank, charlatan, that faker? Misusing the hide and not deriving a tenth of the magical benefits from it that I should? Sit down, Eudoric; we will discuss these things.”

  An hour’s haggling got Eudoric his fifteen hundred marks. Baldonius said, “Well, praise the Divine Couple that’s over. And now, beloved pupil, what are your plans?”

  “Would ye believe it, Doctor Baldonius,” said Jillo, “that my poor, deluded master is about to disgrace his lineage and betray his class by a base commercial enterprise?”

  “Forsooth, Jillo? What’s this?”

  “He means my proposed coach line,” said Eudoric.

  “Good Heaven, what’s that?”

  “My plan to run a carriage on a weekly schedule from Zurgau to Kromnitch, taking all who can pay the fare, as they do in Pathenia. We can’t let the heathen Easterlings get ahead of us.”

  “What an extraordinary idea! Need ye a partner?”

  “Thanks, but nay. Baron Emmerhard has already thrown in with me. He’s promised me my knighthood in exchange for the partnership.”

  “There is no nobility anymore,” said Jillo.

  Eudoric grinned. “Emmerhard said much the same sort of thing, but I c
onvinced him that anything to do with horses is a proper pursuit for a gentleman. Jillo, you can spell me at driving the coach, which will make you a gentleman, too!”

  Jillo sighed. “Alas! The true spirit of knighthood is dying in this degenerate age. Woe is me that I should live to see the end of chivalry! How much did ye think of paying me, sir?”

  SAINT WILLIBALD’S DRAGON

  Esther M. Friesner

  From the wrath of the Norsemen, dear Lord, deliver us!

  I, Brother Theobald, write this. It is not an original thought, but it is an immediate one. Indeed, inescapable as the singular love of God and the several weaknesses of Man. Heaven be my witness, I would escape it if I might.

  From the wrath of the Norsemen, dear Lord, deliver us!

  So rings the cry through the halls of this, our humble monastery. Sane men are driven mad by force of having to bear this constant pummeling of the auditory sense, and madmen wish the heathen fiends would come at last to put an end to such unseemly caterwauling. Dragon-prowed ships have been sighted off the coast; there is no doubt who comes.

  Why must they always favor Ireland? Is not the world wide enough? I wish I might shout in their hairy faces, Invade some other land for a change! Hispania, Italia, Arabia Deserta! The weather is reputed to be better there. But there is no reasoning with Vikings.

  Like as not the holy places will be their first targets; not out of any conscious wish to desecrate the cross, but because they know that our churches are rich in silver, gold, and jewels. A wooden cup was good enough for Christ, but for us who serve Him…? At times I think our Lord is trying to tell us something.

  I wish Him luck trying to make Himself heard over the to-do going on here. A man can scarcely think on Heaven—which no doubt awaits us all instantly, the key a Viking sword—what with all this yammering.

  At least I am not guilty of adding to the row. My lord abbot would tell me that it is a mark of my fallen nature that I spend these, my last moments, here in the scriptorium. And I would be sinful enough to tell him in turn that if a martyr’s death guarantees us Paradise, why are my brothers weeping over the summary prospect of their faith’s reward? Saint Willibald would think them loons, and his judgment in such matters must be accepted as expert. As for what he’d make of me…Ah, well, saints understand much and forgive more! I scribble, my brethren pray, but in the end it will all be the same: what’s a little spilled ink amid so much imminently spilled blood?

  Besides, I have already made petition of individual salvation to Saint Willibald.

  Will that help me? I doubt it. God Himself may have to ask, “Saint who?” when my prayers reach the Throne. I am the only human soul on earth who knows enough to pray to such a saint, and even I would not be wise enough to do so if he were not my cousin; many generations removed, to be sure. The diligent scholar will find no mention of him in any churchly calendar, wherefore it behooves me now to write his story while yet I may. I am the last of his legitimate line, and with me dies the tale; dies soon, by the feel of the wind and the look of those longships.

  (There is the chance that some few of Saint Willibald’s bastard offshoots might know the legend too, and preserve it, but one should never depend on the priorities of the illegitimate.)

  So:

  In the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, wrongly called the Divine, the True Faith was persecuted with severity. Gone was the monster Nero, with his quaint methods of martyrdom, but only the uneducated believe that the early Church had a holiday after his death. Nero fancied himself a musician, while Aurelius was a self-declared philosopher. Of the two, I prefer the honest sadism of the former. Philosophers are always finding excuse for being just as loathsome as the rest of us, but for better reasons.

  Aurelius was a sober, austere man. His wife despised and dominated him. He was a Stoic, which school of thought preached submission to all things the Divine Will might visit upon Man, pain included. This is an especially easy tenet to follow when the pain is another’s. True, he never ordered Christians strapped to poles, soaked in pitch, and set alight to illuminate his banquets. That was Nero’s style. Perhaps Aurelius had a delicate digestion or viewed meals as a time for nourishment without the frivolity of human converse, even if that converse be only shrieks.

  On the other hand, he was the first to throw our martyrs to the lions, a triply pragmatic means of disposal that must have appealed to Aurelius’ frugal heart. He rid Rome of religious dissidents, entertained the mob, and kept the arena beasts sleek, all for the same outlay. Scratch a philosopher, find a skinflint.

  The times of Aurelius were the times of easy martyrdom. Not so now. Word from our brothers in Christ on the mainland often treats with the complaint that it has become nearly impossible to die for the Faith these days. When a church is despoiled, a convent ravished, a monastery sacked, nine times out of ten it is other Christians doing it, they say, and for political or economic reasons. Lucky the abbot who can perish by the pagans sword, a martyr, they cry! They should be here this day if they want some luck of that sort. We will have plenty for ourselves and more to spare.

  Saint Willibald was more fortunate than we. Things were different in the olden days. The martyr’s crown lay well within the reach of all. How many young converts, full of adolescent zeal, pictured themselves torn to pieces by the beasts while a swarm of admiring angels descended from on high to welcome them into the Kingdom of Heaven with songs of praise? How many more spat on Jupiter’s pediment solely to invoke the imperial displeasure and make their parents sorry ex post facto for some domestic slight? And wouldn’t they feel full of holy righteousness afterward, when they gazed down from the celestial mansions and saw scornful sweethearts and unappreciative friends weeping copiously over their well-gnawed remains and wishing aloud that they had been nicer to poor Saint Gaius when the chance afforded!

  The martyrdom of Saint Willibald did not spring from any such venial motivation. The young Willibald—often called Willi—was a stripling from the Germanic tribes north of the Danube. Rome was pleased to call these wild folk her subjects, under the equivocal term foederati, but no one asked the Germans. Truly has Honorius Hibernicus written that subjugation is a sometime thing.

  At the time that young Willi was growing up, his particular tribe had decided to go along with the Romans for a spell. Goods, money, culture, philosophy, religion, and slaves were exchanged. One of these slaves, bought by Willi’s father, happened to be a Christian. He had converted on the ox-cart ride over the Alps, at a point when frequent avalanches convinced him that he had nothing further to lose. Once a member of the Faith, he proceeded to spread the good word with a vengeance. He was whipped to death for it—proselytizing when he should have been slopping the pigs—but not before his zeal infected Willibald.

  Faith is frightening in the young. I have seen it often enough within these walls to testify to that. Even as I write, I hear a measured chant coming from the chapel. Our younger brethren and our novices have all gotten together to welcome the swords of the rampaging Norsemen into Christ’s bosom with music. It would sound better with some mature baritone and bass voices, but those are all busy praying at the top of their lungs for someone to save us. What makes these young men so eagerly expectant, while their elders quiver and quake? What great truth do they anticipate discovering at the moment of death that we greyer heads prefer to put off yet a while? This I do not know, but I have seen enough dead men to say that the startled look in their staring eyes has nothing to do with a pleasant surprise.

  Willibald must have known similarly perfect faith and perfect ignorance. He embraced Christianity with a whole heart. During the secret meetings of the faithful he was one who shuddered most deliciously when news from Rome of further fatalities in Christ’s name reached the congregation. He wept for the dead bodies, joyed for the freed souls, and prayed for the day when he might share their fate.

  He was a long time praying. Nothing ever happened to the faithful in Germany. To begin with,
there were too few of them to notice. Unless one was a slave, and using the Faith as an excuse to slough off work, martyrdom was only a wild dream of glory. The worst that Willi had to endure for his Lord was his mother’s constant inquiries as to when he was going to give up all that foolishness and take a wife. He was seventeen and not getting any younger, as she once observed in a fit of philosophy to rival the Meditations of Aurelius himself.

  Willi ignored her. He knew that he was meant for better things. So do we all, at seventeen. When I was that tender, foolheaded, wondrous age, I thought I was going to be a great scholar of the Church whose works would bring me to the notice of Rome. I was supposed to be Pope by now, not meat for a northern blade. What went wrong?

  If Willibald did not ask himself that same question, I know nothing of human nature. Clearly the fault was not his, but in his situation. If martyrdom would not find him, he would seek it out. He would go to Rome and preach in the emperor’s teeth! He would be bold, fearless, unafraid of death or torture! He stole from his father’s house in the dead of the night and took the southward road. He also stole three loaves of bread, a handful of coppers, and his brother’s best cloak to get him started on his journey.

  Willibald performed his first miracle simply by not getting himself killed on the road to Rome. He was a fine figure of a lad—big-boned, blond, husky, broad at the shoulders and narrow at the hips—but even the tale that has come down through his descendants admits that there was very little insight or cunning behind those big blue eyes. Fools are the fodder of all the predators who stalk the highways of the world, yet Willi came on foot to Rome with little worse than a Cisalpine tavern wench who had conceived a passion for him that would not die or detach. Her name was Julia, and she was his first convert.

  Having made a convert so easily, Willi arrived in the Holy City quite sanguine about his chances for winning the blood-stained palm of martyrdom. Julia was privy to his plans, of course. By the time they reached the outskirts of Rome there was little of his thoughts to which she was not privy. The tale recounts how she used every art of rhetoric—including a few overlooked by Aristotle—in trying to convince her soul’s savior that he should not race to meet his fate.

 

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