Dragon's Boy (2 page)

“Shush boy, and listen. I will pay for your visit.”

Artos sat, plunking himself down on a small riser of stone. It wasn't greed that kept him there. Rather, it was the thought that if he was to be paid, then hunger
wasn't
the dragon's object and therefore he, Artos, was
not
to be dinner.

“So, young Artos of Sir Ector's castle, how would you like to be paid—in gold, in jewels, or in wisdom?”

A sudden flame from the center of the cave lit up the interior and, for the first time, Artos could see that there were jewels scattered about the floor amongst the rocks and pebbles. Jewels! But then, as suddenly as the flame, came the terrible thought:
Dragons are known to be the finest games players in the world. It has named itself The Great Riddler. Perhaps if I don't answer correctly, I'll be eaten after all.

Artos could feel sweat running down the back of his neck. His feet, so long forgotten, felt squishy and cold inside the wet boots. He had a strange ache at the base of his skull, a throbbing at his temple. But then cunning, an old habit, claimed him. Like most small people, he had a genius for escape. Rarely had the bigger boys played more than one trick on him, though he'd never gotten his own back against them.

“Wisdom, sir,” he said. It was the least likely to appeal to a greedy sort, and therefore most likely to be the right answer, though he'd really rather have had gold or jewels. “Wisdom.”

Another bright flame spouted from the cave center. “An excellent choice,” the dragon said.

Artos let himself relax but only a little, for he hardly expected the game would be won this easily.

“Excellent,” the dragon repeated. “And I've been needing a boy just your age for some time.”

Not to eat!
Artos thought wildly.
Perhaps I'd better point out how small I am, how thin.

But the dragon went on as if it had no idea of the terror it had just instilled in Artos. “A boy to pass my wisdom on to. So listen well, young Artos of Sir Ector's castle.”

Artos didn't move and hoped the dragon wouldn't notice how everything—
everything
—about him had suddenly, inexplicably, relaxed. Perhaps the dragon would take the silence to mean that Artos was listening when Artos knew it really meant that he couldn't have moved now even if he wanted to. His hands were limp, his feet were limp, even his nose felt limp. He could scarcely breathe through it. All he
could
do was listen.

“My word of wisdom for the day,” the dragon began, “is this:
Old dragons like old thorns can still prick.
And I am a very old dragon. So take care.”

Limply, Artos whispered back, “Yes, sir.” But a part of him worried over that wisdom, picking away at it as if it were a bit of torn skin next to a fingernail. It was familiar, that wisdom.
Why was it so familiar?
And then he had it: The dragon's wisdom was very similar to a bit of wit he'd heard often enough on the village streets, only there it went slightly differently. It was old priests, not old dragons, the villagers warned about. He couldn't for the life of him think why the two should be the same.
For the life of him.
That, he knew, was a bad phrase at a time like this. Aloud, all he said was, “I shall remember, sir.”

“Good. I'm sure you will,” the dragon said. “And now, as a reward…”

“A reward?” He spoke without thinking.

“A reward for being such a good listener. You may take that small jewel—there.”

The strange clanking accompanied the extension of a gigantic scaled foot. The foot had four toes each the size of Artos' thighs; there were three toes in the front, one in the back. The foot scrabbled along the cave floor, clacketing and rattling, then stopped close to Artos.

Too close,
he thought, but he was too terrified to stand up and run, though inside he drew himself as far away from the foot as was possible, a kind of mental shrinking.

The nail from the center toe began to extend outward. It was a curved, steel-colored blade, reflecting in the light of the dragon's fiery breath. It stopped with an odd click, then tapped a red jewel the size of a leek bulb.

“There!” the dragon said again. “Go on, boy. Take it.”

Wondering if this were yet another test, Artos hesitated and the dragon made a garumphing kind of sound deep down in its throat. Fearing the worst, Artos stood and edged toward the jewel and the horrible sword-sized nail that hovered right above it. Leaning over suddenly, he grabbed up the jewel and scuttered back to the cave entrance, breathing loudly.

“I will expect you tomorrow,” the dragon said. “You will come during your time off.”

Turning, Artos asked over his shoulder, “How do you know I have any?”

“Half an hour after breakfast and two hours at midday and all day every seventh day for the Sabbath, except right before the evening meal,” said the dragon.

“But how…?” Artos was astonished because it was true; those
were
the hours he had off.

“When you become as wise as a dragon, you will know these things.”

Artos sighed.

“Now listen carefully. There is a quicker path back than the way you came, clambering over the hags and half up to your navel in cold water.”

Artos did not ask how the dragon knew about his earlier journey.

“Turn right when you leave the cave and go around the big rock. There is a path straight to the Cowgate. Discover it. And tomorrow, when you come again, you will bring me stew. With
meat!
”

The nail was sheathed with a grinding sound, and the flame from the dragon's hidden mouth flared up one last time as if to light Artos' way out. Then the giant foot withdrew into the darkest part of the cave, clattering as it went.

Just as Artos turned to dash into the light, the wheezy, booming voice came again, filling the cave with echoes.

“Promise, boy. Toooooooomooooooorow.”

“Tomorrow,” Artos cried back. “I promise.” But he didn't mean a word of it.

A
S HE HURRIED FROM
the cave, Artos' mind was a maelstrom of thoughts. Dragon and jewel were topmost of course, swirling about in a red fury. But right below, he worried about the brachet hound in a kind of gray mist. Hidden farther down in the blacker shadows were his anxieties about the long, uncomfortable journey back across the hummocky fens. And beneath it all was the black fear that he'd be punished for staying away so long from his duties. Not once, however, did he reconsider the promise he'd made to the dragon. Made in haste and under terrible duress, it wasn't the kind of promise one needed to keep.

He tucked the red jewel into the leather bag he wore around his neck on a leather string. The jewel clinked against the little gold ring he kept hidden there, the only keepsake he had from the mother he'd never known.

As it turned out, the journey back was as easy as the dragon had foretold. Somehow Artos hadn't expected that, but his feet found the path—turning naturally where moss and stone had been worn away by years of heavy travel. He wondered briefly why he hadn't come upon it before, but then he remembered that he'd found the cave by clambering up the tor's back side.

The path traversed the fens easily and comfortably, avoiding the wettest places and the cold, meandering stream. He was back within sight of the castle in minutes, feeling only slightly foolish to have been so mistrusting, and also greatly relieved.

Artos grinned broadly at the castle. He was happy to see it but, at the same time, he was amused at its presumption, squatting there in the middle of nowhere. When he'd been younger, he'd thought Sir Ector's
Beau Regarde
a grand place.

He could imagine nothing finer. But now, from conversations overheard—if not from any actual experience of other places—he understood how small and unimportant the castle really was. There weren't even any high walls around it, the commonest sign of a castle's power. That was because no one would actually
want
to capture it, or so Cai had said during one of his major pouts.
Beau Regarde
was neither strategically important nor filled with treasure. Just a “small, out-of-the-way, backwater, do-nothing place” Cai had said, groaning, with Bedvere and Lancot agreeing. Still, Artos suddenly realized how much he loved it, how it
suited
him, for he was small and insignificant himself. (
Only now,
his mind reminded him,
we both have a Dragon! So what does small matter?
)
Beau Regarde
boasted two large square towers and a splendid gatehouse at the center of the southern entry, as if Sir Ector had begun the place with rather grander plans than he'd finished it with. Or else he'd grown tired of building it halfway through. But it was those towers and gatehouse that Artos was especially fond of. And Lady Marion's garden, with its clipped lawns and the herbaceous border filled with roses blooming till nearly the winter solstice, was Artos' special place to dawdle and dream. He used to climb the high wall between the towers and perch on the parapet (much to Sir Ector's nervous complaints), staring across to the tree-capped horizon. He'd been certain he could see a faraway kingdom. His own kingdom. Where his mother and father waited, grieving for their long lost son. Now, of course, he knew that he had no kingdom. He was a fosterling. And those trees were only a small wood known as Nethy where the best mushrooms grew, for he'd traveled there once with Cook. At Nethy he'd learned that tree trunks weren't always brown, no matter what the poets said. Birch had silver trunks, beech a pewter color, walnuts black, plane trees gray and yellow, and oak trees had trunks that were green with lichen. He was glad to know such things, for he enjoyed knowledge for its own sake, whether it was useful or not.

When he reached the Cowgate he started to run, and he raced into the kennelyard at full tilt because the fear of punishment was suddenly the most real fear of all. As he ran he tried to cobble together five or six alibis, one of which would surely satisfy the Master of Hounds. But surprisingly no one noticed him. Skidding to a stop, he looked around warily, but the Master of Hounds was fast asleep in his great wooden chair, his thin-lipped mouth agape and his long, bandy legs stretched toward the fire. The brachet Boadie lay serene and comfortable by his feet, looking as if she hadn't moved all day.

“You…you…” Artos whispered at her, but as he couldn't think of a word bad enough to call her, he was silent. She looked up at him then with such certain love in her dark eyes, he knelt down and buried his head into her bulging side. The unborn puppies kicked and squirmed under his cheek and he grinned, fear and anger all forgotten. Boadie smelled so doggy and warm and he was so very tired, he didn't think about dragons anymore but closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Bedvere found him an hour later.

“Slug!” he cried, kicking Artos on the right leg. “Never where you're needed, never where you're supposed to be. Always messing about with dogs and things. Ever a fellow has to search you out. Slug!”

Artos woke with a start and looked up, aggrieved. For a moment he thought of telling Bed about the dragon and showing him the jewel. But only for a moment. Bed would just think the dragon a lie and the jewel stolen. With his slack jaw growing well ahead of the rest of him, Bed looked as unimaginative as he was, and he disliked Artos exactly because Artos
had
an imagination.
No use,
Artos thought,
sharing a dragon with Bed. He'd only want to go and kill it. Kill it! As if that giant docketing, fire-roaring Master of Wisdoms could be killed by a mere boy.

It wasn't often that he thought of Bed as a boy, since Bed was fully as large as a man and already had the beginnings of a mustache on his long upper lip. But Artos liked the thought so much, he whispered it to himself again:
mere boy.

Then, getting to his feet, his right leg still shining with the pain of Bedvere's kick, Artos mumbled, “What do you want, anyway?”

But whatever Bedvere had wanted he'd satisfied with the kick. He'd just come to tell Artos it was time for their supper and was angry at being made a messenger boy for someone he considered well beneath him. Lady Marion had insisted on it and even Bed couldn't refuse to do her wishes, though he didn't have to enjoy it. The message delivered along with the kick, Bedvere was content that he was a messenger boy no longer and left.

Supper was quieter than usual, for Lady Marion was dining with her maids in her chambers and Sir Ector was still out stalking a white deer that had occupied him and his men for the better part of the month. The
Ghost Stag
everyone in the castle called it. Though Sir Ector was a notably poor hunter, he loved nothing better than to be out on the chase with his companions, drinking more than Old Linn, his apothecary-physician, had warned was good for him, and forgetting the manners that Lady Marion insisted upon at home.

The boys made do with a small table by the hearth and told one another lies about their day: comfortable lies, the kind that could be believed honorably. Cai spoke of having almost bested the Master of Swords in one mock battle, Bedvere of having done nearly twenty-seven one-arm pushups; and Lancot, with his face wreathed in smiles, hinted at having kissed one of Lady Marion's maids, and she all-willing.

The only thing Artos mentioned was the chase after the hound. But when it was clear no one was listening to him, he let the rest of the story dribble away into silence, drinking his well-watered wine with a puckered forehead and an unreadable stare.

Cai rose from the table first. As heir to
Beau Regarde
it was his right.

“Let's play some draughts,” he said, stretching his arms wide and looking like a lean, young version of his father.

Bedvere got up and took a carved box out of a great wooden cupboard. He shook it and the game pieces rattled. Lancot took out the playing board. Then the three of them began to play, pointedly ignoring Artos.