Handbook for Dragon Slayers (5 page)

Everyone? He had to be exaggerating. But then I thought about Aged Arnolt refusing to speak to me, and the servant girl Roswitha making the sign against the evil eye, and the game the children played that mocked my limp.

I felt like Ivo had punched me in the belly. It was true that Alder Brook was in a delicate place, monetarily speaking, but that was far from cursed. We watched every silver pfennig and gold mark and couldn't afford to lose two cows to a dragon, as Horrible had pointed out. I knew the accounts as well as anyone. Things had been hard since Alder Brook had lost its prince, my father, while he was on pilgrimage to free the Holy Land.

After he'd died, we'd had to give a large sum of money to the emperor instead of sending our knights to him for military service. If we had kept the money and sent the knights, we would have been invaded by one of our ambitious neighbors. Alder Brook might be the smallest of the empire's principalities, but it was still a ripe plum, being a freehold, owing nothing to anyone except the emperor.

And everyone—my vassals, my servants, my tenants—thought that I was cursed? That Alder Brook was cursed? That
we
were cursed?

That
was what Horrible and Father Ripertus had been talking about before I interrupted them. “The rumors do not help,” Father Ripertus had said when my mother couldn't make a betrothal for me. The rumors were about the curse.

I thought about Horrible and how he'd been so easy to convince to let me come downstream to Boar House, away from Alder Brook and the few people who might protect me. Ivo had allies on the inside. What if Horrible had known all along what was going to happen to my mother at Larkspur? Had he known when he let me go to Sir Kunibert that he'd never have to deal with me again?

Who else might have conspired with Ivo? Who else might cheer when they heard I was gone? The signs, the games, the rumors, the stares I'd received since my earliest years . . . perhaps the question was who
wouldn't
cheer?

I felt the ice mask descend on my face, and the bands of iron wrap around my heart once more. Alder Brook didn't love me, and I didn't love them. If they truly didn't want me to be their princess . . .

“You can have it,” I said dully.

I'd caught him off guard. “What?”

I swallowed against the weird lump in my throat—part anger, part a hundred other feelings I couldn't even name. “Yes. Alder Brook is yours. They hate me. They think I'm cursed. . . . So. Take it.”

I'd surprised him. His mouth was a perfect O of frozen amazement. Then his bloodless lips twisted into a grin. “Nice try, Tilda. Did you think I'd buy that speech and just let you go?”

But I was already thinking about where I
could
go. Where I
wanted
to go. I could go to a cloister and become a nun. I could write books all day, every day. And Ivo could have Alder Brook and its malcontents, its sly sign makers and its mockers. Ivo could have the prison.

I could be free.

“You couldn't possibly think that would work,” Ivo continued, and steered the boat closer to the center of the current. “I mean . . . I trust you about as far as you can run.”

I glared at him. “It's one thing to steal my lands, Ivo. It's another thing to insult me for deformities of my body that I cannot control.”

“Don't be a child,” Ivo said. “Words don't hurt. Say whatever you like about me, and I shall smile and smile!”

“Maybe you just don't understand what people are saying.”

His eyes shifted up and right, then returned to me. My words still hadn't sunk in. “All right. Here's how it's going to work: I'm going to imprison you at Snail Castle until after Christmas Day and the New Year.”

“And then what?”

“And then I'll marry you off as I see fit, as your overlord,” he said. “And instead of giving a dowry for you, I'll command a bride-price.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I'm thirteen. You aren't going to be able to marry me off for a while.”

“That might be true if I cared a jot for your happiness.” He steered us around a fallen tree. “I don't, just to clarify.”

“Your father wouldn't agree to have you marry me, I heard—what makes you think anyone else will agree to it?”

“You're still one of the Illustrious,” Ivo said. Illustrious was my rank, a title reserved for families like mine, born both free and landed. While even the free owed some service to the emperor, unfree families of great wealth and power were at the beck and call of their liege lord, and they did not truly own their lands. The service of unfree families could even be traded away to other lords.

Children claimed the free or unfree status of their mothers, no matter how property and titles were inherited. “There are any number of wealthy unfree knights, Tilda, who would pay well to have freeborn children and a princely ally with the emperor's ear.”

I choked on a laugh. The emperor's ear? He thought he could leverage becoming Prince of Alder Brook into advising the emperor? With what money, what wit, and what charm?

Ivo had no understanding of how far Alder Brook was from the emperor's court. Not in distance, but in influence. Even with two counts and nine knights in service to Alder Brook, we worried too much, day to day, about the fodder of dairy cattle to consider empire building. Court life bankrupted places with more money than Alder Brook. I might be a princess, but there were dukes and counts wealthier and more powerful than me, and they were all at court throwing around their money to curry favor.

I couldn't believe Horrible Hermannus would support this idiot, but then again, I hadn't nicknamed him Horrible for nothing.

“Can't I just join a cloister after all of this is over?”

He snorted. “Entering a cloister takes a pretty pfennig. How would you afford that? Alder Brook and all its properties belong to me now, and I'm not paying your dowry to the Church.”

“But I'm
letting
you have Alder Brook!”

“Oh, heavens, I don't believe that. Do you think I've never heard of subterfuge, little girl?”

Normally, with an opening like that, I would have held my tongue; a princess does not mock those of lesser ability and intelligence. But Ivo was a true villain.

“I'm surprised you know such a big word for ‘lying and playacting,'” I said.

He leaned forward and slapped my face. I clenched my teeth to keep from crying out. But I couldn't help but smile a little bit too. Words didn't hurt? Then why punish me when I said hurtful words?

“Why won't you believe I'm not going to make trouble for you in claiming Alder Brook?” I asked, trying to sound innocent.

“You never were a biddable girl; you've never done what you were told before. Why would you start now?”

“What are you talking about? I always do as I'm told!” I practically shouted, the injustice of this accusation hit me so hard. First this pig-hound broke my mother's leg then, when he stole my lands, refused to believe me when I said he could have them? “All I ever do is what I'm told!” The words tore at my throat, they came out of me with such force. Angry tears streaked down my cheeks.

“Ugh.” Ivo whipped a kerchief out of his sleeve, balled it up, and shoved it into my mouth. From the other sleeve came a second kerchief, which he tied into a gag, silencing me. “You
would
cry.”

I wished I could tell him to shut up.

W
E STOPPED SHY OF
the confluence of the Rhine and the Victory Rivers at Snail Castle, whose lord and lady were supposedly in service to Alder Brook, though clearly Ivo now had gained their loyalty. They bowed to Ivo and called him Prince. To me, they still bowed, but did meet my eyes or call me by name.

I had a sour realization: I was now a prisoner, but nothing had really changed since I was their princess. They treated me about as they had when they'd visited Alder Brook in the past. They had refused to look too closely at me then, too—why? In case they could catch splayfootedness through eye contact?

Ivo trailed along behind as I was locked into a high tower room. He grinned at me through the barred window of my door.

“Enjoy your stay, Tilda. I'll enjoy Alder Brook.”

“Before you go—you might want to think of what you're going to say to Farmer Everwinus tomorrow. Farmer Wecelo is going to burn the south field, but Everwinus is convinced he has a say over it.”

Ivo sneered. “Why are you telling me this? This is what the steward is for.” He turned and hurried down the stairs.

“But Sir Hermannus is—” I started to call after him. Horrible Hermannus was cousin to Everwinus. Wecelo wouldn't trust Horrible to be impartial, and Alder Brook would have a feud brewing if the judgment wasn't handled well.

But Ivo didn't want to hear it.

Not very princely of him.

S
UPPER WAS LIGHT, BEING
little more than warm broth and bread. I was given wood and a fire striker but had to build my fire myself. And then? And then, nothing. I had nothing to do.

I paced my room until my foot ached, which didn't take very long. I stared out the window until it grew dark. Then I sat on the bed.

Boethius's most famous book was written after he was imprisoned by King Theodoric the Great. I once foolishly told my mother that I was jealous of Boethius's time in prison, to write whatever he wanted without anyone bothering him. Mother had set me to calculating how much cheese we could expect to gain if we bought one, three, and five new cows, and then how much cheese we could expect to lose if we sold one, three, and five old cows. Then the same exercise with goats. It was a punishment for not being grateful for what I had.

I'd felt fairly well punished at the time, but now I really understood how foolish I had been in my jealousy.

I checked the pouch at my waist. Three silver pfennigs. Would that be enough to bribe a servant to bring me pen, ink, and parchment? And if it was enough money . . . would I be able to put aside what was happening, all the worry over my mother, over Alder Brook and my future, all my confusion and despair, and just start writing? I wasn't Boethius.

I thought about my mother lying with her broken leg at Larkspur, held captive by Ivo's vile family. Even while I worried for her, I couldn't believe she'd tried to betroth me to Ivo. She must be as confused and unhappy as me.

The thing was, I had been confused and unhappy before I found myself locked in a small tower room at Snail Castle. I didn't want to be a princess. What I most wanted was to travel the world and read in all the great libraries and write a book. Freely. Free of accounts and rents and oaths and contracts. Free of needlework, signs against the evil eye, and lectures on duty.

Free of people who thought they knew me, but who really only knew my father's death, my foot, and my empty treasury.

I curled up on the bed and slipped into an unhappy sleep, and only woke when something touched my shoulder. My eyes flew open to find a dark, shadowed figure crouched over me. A firm hand came across my mouth, just in time to stifle my scream.

“
P
RINCESS
! P
RINCESS
!”
A VOICE HISSED IN MY EAR
. “Hold! Hold still!”

I was firmly pinned by the stranger's hands, so I shot out a fist to strike at my attacker's throat with all the strength I could muster. I heard a satisfying cry of pain, but the hands did not release me.

“Please hold!” the whisper implored. “It's me! Parz! Judith sent me!”

I stopped struggling. The hand came away from my mouth.

“Parz?” I sat up. “What are you doing here?”

“I'm, um, rescuing you. When I'm not getting punched in the throat.”

I made a weird noise, somewhere between a gasp and a laugh, and almost gave myself hiccups because of it. I hadn't looked for rescue. I hadn't even
dreamed
of rescue.

“We have to stay quiet,” Parz said. “Are you ready to go?”

I hadn't taken off my clothes to sleep, because I'd been afraid my wardens might steal them in the night. “I'm ready.”

“May I lend you my arm?” he whispered.

I no more wanted Parz's help than I wanted to be helpless. I didn't want him—or anyone—to see me as weak. My parents always thought me fragile, and it was true that I'd suffered from many sores and infections on my foot, as well as the other pains by walking in such a wretched manner, and that I could not go very far, very fast, unaided. But what I lacked in speed and stamina and general well-being, I tried to make up for in every other way. Stubbornness was sometimes all I had.

But now was not the time for stubbornness, now was the time for speed. I pulled my crutch from under the bed and took Parz's arm.

We crept down the stairs with inexpert stealth, and stopped at the edge of Snail Castle's great hall. We listened to the noises of the room for a long moment, checking for movement among the sleeping retainers. But no one had seriously entertained the notion I might escape, or that a rescue might be mounted, and not a soul saw us leave.

Parz lifted the bar on the door with a struggle that made too much noise and yet woke no one. He led me from the sleeping hall, out into the night.

Snail Castle was just a keep on a hill, with no real outer perimeter. Parz led me easily off into a copse of trees some distance on. A small pool of lamplight awaited us in a clearing. As we approached, a cloaked figure strode from the shadows and dramatically threw back his hood.

Well.
Her
hood. It was Judith.

We rushed to embrace. “You're all right?” she asked, looking me over.

“I'm fine now!” I said, and shivered in the chill air.

“You're cold!” She scurried behind a tree and pulled out our clothes chest. From it she drew my cloak and swung it around my shoulders.