Meghan's Dragon

by E. M. Foner

  “Come on. I won’t ask you for anything else the rest of the day.”

  “Horse manure,” Meghan grumbled, but she dug in her purse and gave him two coppers, which were immediately transferred to the barker.

  “In through the gate you go, contestants only. Your little brother can watch from the rail.”

  After twenty additional contestants entered the gate, and a long delay, followed by a great deal of shouting, Bryan emerged from the mob at the finish line and found Meghan sitting on the rail.

  “They must have all been cheating,” he blustered, brushing the dust off of his clothes. “I should go and demand my two coppers back.”

  “Your two coppers? And all of them were cheating?”

  “Just the ones that finished ahead of me,” he said, managing a grin.

  “That would be all of them,” the girl replied, unable to suppress a smile of her own. “I hope you learned something, anyway.”

  “I did, so you don’t have to rub it in.”

  As they left the race area and headed into the market, the barker began calling for contestants to compete in a strongman competition. Bryan snuck a sideways glance at Meghan, but she was pretending not to hear.

  Chapter 71

  “Where do they get all this stuff?” Bryan asked, devouring the display of edged weapons with his eyes. “Back home I could sell these to historical reenactors for a fortune.”

  “Weapons? They’re made by smiths. What did you think?”

  “I don’t know, magic maybe.”

  “You’ve been here almost two months and you haven’t noticed that people make everything by hand? From what you told me about Dark Earth, most of the stuff you bought came from the Far East in giant ships. The only things we get from there are silk and jade, occasionally tea. The luxury items that are worth transporting.”

  “Doesn’t seem very efficient,” he objected.

  “Efficient? You’ve seen how much the horses eat, so if you’re going to fill a wagon with goods, it had better be worth it. Other than weapons like this and other high value objects, there isn’t even that much trade between the dukedoms.”

  “But what about the clothes from Old Land we were talking about last night?”

  “The latest fashions are high value, as are spices and precious metals. The kind of things that dragons like,” she added, hoping it would sink in that way.

  “Is there anything you want?”

  “Really? You’d let me spend what’s left of my savings on something for myself?”

  “Don’t be sarcastic,” Bryan replied mildly. “It makes you sound like an adolescent boy.”

  Meghan elbowed him hard, catching her funny bone on one of his ribs and nearly collapsing from the resulting shock that traveled up her arm and left her momentarily paralyzed. The fact that she had inflicted the injury on herself only made her madder, and she stalked off in the direction of the clothing stalls, doing her best to ignore her companion.

  “What did I do?”

  The girl set her lips in a thin line and ostentatiously looked the other direction.

  “I shouldn’t have said you sound like a boy,” Bryan apologized, remembering too late that she was a bit touchy on the subject. “I know you’re tired of walking around pretending all the time, but Simon told me that after the tour, we’ll go back to their winter site and you can dress any way you want. Besides, I like your Elstan voice.”

  This last unexpected compliment brought Meghan up short. “You’re weird,” she said, but she stopped looking away from him and slowed her steps. “Will you look at dresses with me? We can tell them that I need something to wear on stage.”

  “Sure, I love shopping for women’s clothes,” Bryan lied, figuring he owed her that much for losing her money in the race. Besides, it was getting near lunch and there were some food stands he hoped to talk her into visiting.

  Chapter 72

  “I thought this was a day off,” Bryan complained as he followed Rowan to the practice area behind the wagons.

  “I never take a day off from sword practice, even if I’m too sore to move properly. Fighting is as much about mental preparation as it is about physical conditioning. Your enemies will never ask if you’re taking the day off.”

  “I don’t have any enemies,” Bryan countered. He ducked under the rope that was tied to the tops of a number of wooden stakes, forming a square reminiscent of a boxing ring, except the rope didn’t go all the way around. “Was the rope too short?”

  “No, that’s today’s lesson,” Rowan responded. “You may never have to fight in a prize ring, but this is how the noblemen settle scores. It should be eight sword lengths to each side for a proper duel.”

  “I don’t see how it makes a difference. You always stand in one spot and barely move when I attack.”

  “That’s because you don’t force me to move. But you’ve been improving rapidly and I don’t want you to get into the habit of thinking that your adversaries are immobile. Starting today I’ll be bringing the fight to you.”

  “So you’ll be attacking me as a favor,” Bryan summarized. “I guess it can’t be any worse than—hey!”

  Rowan’s sword might have cleaved Bryan into two halves if he hadn’t gotten his own up in time to block the blow. Both swords emitted a shower of sparks, as they always did when meeting for the first time in a bout. Bryan tried to spare a corner of his concentration to maintain his sword’s enchantment with his own magical force.

  The attacks were continual and relentless, and for the first time while fighting Rowan, Bryan found he was continually retreating, often until he felt the rope against his back. At that point, he would put all of his efforts into turning the angle of the big man’s attack so he could escape to the side and continue backing. Just when he was beginning to wonder how long he could parry the endless blows, Rowan pulled up and rested his sword on his shoulder.

  “You calling it quits?” Bryan huffed, pretending a cockiness he didn’t feel.

  “No, you did,” Rowan replied with a smile. He pointed to the opening in the rope, which was now in front of his opponent. Bryan realized that he had backed out of the ring.

  “I didn’t know,” he admitted. “So that’s when a duel is over, when one swordsman backs out of the ring?”

  “No,” his instructor replied. “A duel is over when one of the fighters is dead. Maneuvering your enemy into leaving through a gap in the rope is my own invention.”

  “What for? Your opponent can escape without having to duck under, which would give you an easy chance to kill him.”

  “Exactly. But I’m only fighting you.”

  “I realize I’m not a match for you at swordplay and never will be, but you don’t have to rub it in.”

  “You don’t understand,” Rowan replied with infuriating patience. “If you’re fighting more than a single opponent, your goal must be to kill or disable them as quickly as possible to keep them from encircling you. If you’re fighting one man, you only need for him to run away. If you don’t provide a way out, every fight will be to the death.”

  “But if you let your enemy run away, won’t he come back and kill you later?”

  “It’s possible. It’s also possible that your sword will break or you’ll get a bug in the eye and an inferior swordsman will take advantage. Stopping fights quickly by leaving your enemy a way out may be the most important lesson I teach you. Just don’t try it with a war mage because he’ll be more dangerous out of sword reach.”

  “I liked the trick with the pommel better.”

  Chapter 73

  “Why do we have to wait for our last night before doing anything?” Bryan asked. “Don’t you want to get working on the fourth clue?”

  “You heard what Isabella said. If rumors about my opening a passage to Dark Earth and bringing you here have reached the dragons in Old Land, surely the king and his dukes know as much. I’ve been talking to the women about the Black Duke’s castle, and I think I already know where we h
ave to go.”

  “To the traitor’s sack. What’s the big deal?”

  “And where would you look for a traitor’s sack in a castle?” Meghan shot back.

  “I don’t know, I’d ask somebody I guess. It worked in the last place.”

  “The last place was a brewery, and you got the one piece of information that man actually had to trade. Where do you suggest we go to ask about a traitor’s sack? The dungeons?”

  “Sounds like an idea.”

  Meghan stared at him in disbelief. “The whole point of dungeons is to keep prisoners inside and rescuers outside.”

  “So nobody will expect us to try it,” Bryan persisted. “That’s the element of surprise.”

  “I think those games you keep talking about affected your brain. Do you think you can just slip into a dungeon, interview the prisoners, and then leave through some magical back exit?”

  “It worked in the Red Duke’s tower, sort of.”

  “I don’t know what to—it doesn’t matter,” Meghan cut herself off. “The point is, there’s a bronze statue in the courtyard of the Black Duke’s castle commemorating the alliance between the two traitor dukes and the prince from Old Land who assassinated the king.”

  “Who would want a statue like that?”

  “The Black Duke’s father, apparently, since he was one of the traitor dukes. Anyway, it’s the usual sort of thing for a big bronze, the duke sitting on a rearing mount with his sword drawn for battle. But people say that if you look at the rock the horse is standing on, you’ll see that it’s actually a sack bulging with coins.”

  “The traitor’s sack. But why would the traitor duke pay for a statue like that?”

  “Apparently the sculptor made the duke look better in bronze than he did in real life, and there’s a trick to balancing statues that made a rework too expensive. If anybody had noticed at the unveiling the sculptor would have spent his life in the dungeon, but who pays attention to the rock?”

  “So you admit that checking the dungeon was basically a good idea.”

  Meghan shook her head and continued. “I’m practicing the untying spell every day so I can do it as fast as possible, but the statue is right in the middle of the courtyard. I don’t know if we can count on the area emptying out at night and they may be on the alert for us. We could end up sneaking into a trap.”

  “What we need is a diversion,” Bryan said decisively. “When everybody is looking the other direction, they won’t notice you opening the sack and taking whatever it is.”

  “I don’t want you running around with your sword killing people.”

  “I guess that would work too, but I was thinking of something less bloody.”

  “Like what?”

  “An illusion.”

  Something about his broad smile made Meghan nervous, and she wondered if taking their chances with sneaking in at night wouldn’t be the better option after all.

  Chapter 74

  The troupe’s final performance of the festival was The Traitor, and the audience seemed more restless than usual. Some of the parents with small children disappeared during the intermission, and the empty spaces on the amphitheatre grass were quickly filled with hard-looking men who were clearly the worse for drink. A few of them tried jeering at the actors, but the players assigned to crowd control removed them quickly and efficiently.

  When Bryan brought the light up on Bethany, struggling across the front of the stage with her baby in the shaman’s made-to-order snowstorm, a fight broke out in the crowd. While some people began singing a patriotic New Land song, others were clearly trying to start a riot. Most of the audience was sensible enough to flee, and Rowan and the rest of his veterans quickly waded into the scrum. By the time Bryan got there, the fighting was mainly over, and a few dozen men were sleeping it off in the grass.

  “We’ll break down the stage tonight and get on the road first thing in the morning,” Rowan announced. “Whoever got these men drunk and sent them to disrupt the play must know we’ve been expecting a move, and they’re hoping we’ll think this was it. I won’t be surprised if they try an attack in force tomorrow.”

  None of the players seemed particularly surprised by the change of plans, and with the help of lighting globes supplied by Theodric and Bryan, they set about dismantling the stage and packing the wagons.

  Isabella sought out Meghan where the girl was helping to pack the props wagon for the road, though there wasn’t really all that much to do since the players were experts at keeping ready to move on short notice.

  “Rowan sent me to tell you that if you and Bryan need to go somewhere, you shouldn’t let packing up stop you.”

  “Where would we go?” Meghan asked, reflexively trying to maintain the secrecy of the quest, but Isabella just smiled. “Well, we may be planning on a quick visit to the castle, but we were going to wait until the wagons got moving, since we pass it on the way out of here.”

  “My husband is expecting trouble tomorrow, so it would be better for you not to fall behind. Just be careful, and if something goes wrong, send a signal. We’ll have people keeping an eye on the castle tonight in any case.”

  Bryan found Meghan right after Isabella left. “Rowan came and replaced me on the stage break-down saying that you were looking for me.”

  “I guess I am now,” the girl admitted. “Isabella basically told me that if we’re going to make an expedition to the Black Duke’s castle, we’d better get going.”

  “That’s fine by me. It’s been a long day, though. Do you have enough energy saved up to stay sharp?”

  “I’ll be fine as long as I remember not to fall asleep in a wagon when we get back. How about you?”

  “I had a big dinner,” Bryan replied by way of explanation. “If we’re going to be sneaking in, I’m bringing my sword.”

  “Just don’t pull it out unless you really have to.” She paused and kindled a small light to peer into his face. “You look pretty angry about something already. Did somebody hit you in the fighting after the show?”

  “I didn’t get there in time,” he complained, clearly regretting the fact that he had missed his chance.

  “And you’re mad about that?”

  “I’m mad that those thugs scared off the crowd, so we didn’t get any tips!”

  “Never mind that and listen. If they’re looking for us, they’ll expect a tall young man and a girl dressed as a boy, so I’m wearing my Elstan dress tonight.”

  “As long as you don’t expect me to wear a dress too, I’m fine with it,” Bryan replied.

  Chapter 75

  “It must be some kind of party,” Meghan whispered, crouching next to Bryan on the wall-walk. He had scaled the wall without the use of any magical aides and then hauled her up with a rope. She peered down into the courtyard where hundreds of men and women were mingling, some of them obviously very familiar with one another.

  “There are guards patrolling the wall in pairs, but they passed just as I was getting to the top, so we have a little time. I guess they aren’t trained to look down.” Bryan finished coiling the rope around his midsection, covered it with his jacket, and then took his sword belt from his shoulder and buckled it around his hips.

  “They probably aren’t expecting trouble. Either that or it’s a trap.”

  “You worry way too much. I’ve already seen two couples head into the shadows in the corner, and a little further up the wall-walk are stairs that must come out in that area. We can head right into the courtyard and everybody will assume that we’re just another couple who’ve been rolling around in the dirt.”

  “Why would people want to roll around in the dirt?” Meghan whispered back before the meaning of the phrase came to her. She felt her face get hot when he gave her one of his superior looks. “Let’s just go, then. I don’t think anybody down there will see us moving as long as you keep your head below the level of the battlement openings. The moon is up on that side, so it might catch somebody’s eye if you pass in f
ront.”

  He smiled rather than replying, letting her know that he was still thinking about her last question. Bryan enjoyed not being the naïve one for a change, and he would have liked to take the time to tease her about it, but the patrol was already heading back in their direction. He led the girl stealthily to the stairs.

  “Quiet,” the girl muttered, and Bryan correctly guessed that she was calling on some magical stealth technique as opposed to giving him instructions. His feet seemed to tingle unnaturally, but he couldn’t hear even the slightest scrape as they descended the stairs. He made a mental note to ask her how she learned that trick, then he flashed forward to some long, boring explanation and decided not to bother.

  The silence was broken by a woman’s soft moaning and a man saying something in a strained voice. Meghan gripped Bryan’s arm as he wound his way through amorous couples with his superior vision. As they moved out of the shadows, they encountered a final couple who seemed to be engaged in a wrestling match, and then she had to draw Bryan forward because he paused to watch.

  “Whoever is in charge of the lighting here sucks,” the freshly minted stage illumination expert commented. He looked up at the magically suspended orb with disdain. “I would have gone with a grid of globes closer to the ground, but this clown is trying to do it with one big fireball that’s more yellow than white.”

  “All the better for us,” Meghan reminded him. “If you were doing the lighting, we wouldn’t have made it in unseen.”

  “I have my professional pride,” he retorted, which struck the girl as so irrelevant that she didn’t see the need to respond.

  They joined the general flow of couples meandering around the square, and despite being inside of the castle, most of the men wore swords on their hips. The conversations were surprisingly subdued, and it reminded Meghan of the leave-taking parties back at her own castle before the soldiers headed off to war.