Here There Be Dragonnes (52 page)

"A magic mirror. You saw what she wanted you to see. She told you you had a face like the arse-end of a pig with a curling snout, and that's what you saw in the mirror. You were conned, my flower, conned good and proper." He flung a couple more sticks on the fire and I leant forward to dry my hair the better. "Not surprising really."

"Why?"

"Why convince you you were ugly? She could see even then that you would grow into the beauty she could never be, save by sorcery. Number one: jealousy. Number two: even if you were unconscious of your attraction, those morons in the village would soon have sought you out as you grew. Notoriety of any kind she did
not
want. So, you became her hunched and ugly familiar, a Thing to be avoided by outsiders and ignored by her, for masked you were as anonymous as the furniture . . .

"Have you told him who you are?"

I blushed. "Not yet. We—we didn't have much chance . . ."

"Chance enough now." He dropped the stick he had been using to poke the fire as Conn came striding up towards us, his hair still darkened and wildly curling from the water. "Come, Sir Knight, and be properly introduced to your affianced!"

"I'm not—"

"She hasn't—" we said together, and then would not look at one another.

"Come, come now!" said The Ancient, absent-mindedly throwing a handful of some pungent powder on the fire so that we all started back, eyes smarting from the smoke. "Damnation and pestbags! Wrong one . . . Never mind. Chaudy-froidy then, you two?"

"Pardon?"

But apparently Conn understood his jargon. "Not exactly. Not as far as I'm concerned. But she—" he hesitated. "Her, Thingy I mean, er—She's different."

"Not at all! You agreed to give your name to a person, not a pretty face. You too, flower."

"That's another thing!" I said, glad to snatch at any excuse to change the course of this embarrassing conversation. "You knew my real name all along, didn't you? All that business of flowers and flora and fauna and things . . ."

"Flowers?" echoed poor Conn, the only one not in the know.

"Of course I did! What's the use of being unusually gifted—" He failed to look modest, "—if one doesn't use the gift? Come on now, tell him your real name . . ."

I remembered my manners and curtseyed formally in Conn's direction. "My name, Sir Knight, is Fleur de Malyon, only child of the late Sir Ranulf de Malyon of Cottiswode and his wife, Julia Flavia, second daughter of Claudius of Winkinworth . . . So my blood is just as good as yours!" I added childishly and glared at him.

"I never—"

"I know you didn't! But that's not the point . . ."

"Well what is? I still—"

"Not really!
Really,
really . . . It's just like buying a hen that lays one a month and then finding it performs every day instead. Or twinned lambs from a barren ewe . . . All of a sudden you develop a special affection for your liability—"

"I never said you—"

"I know you didn't! But that's not the point—"

"Well, in Heaven's name what is, then?"

"You thought it, even if you didn't say so!"

"I did not!"

"Anyway, I'm
not
, so
there!" I left Conn standing with his mouth open and ran towards the river, angry tears rolling down my new-old face, not even sure why I was behaving this way. Was it because everything seemed to be going right, that now I had a reasonable face I also had bargaining power? Had I really wanted to be ugly, to make a martyr of Conn and a victim of myself? Wasn't I glad he would have a pretty face to look at? Did this mean that perhaps he would no longer want me, except as a plaything? Had my ugly security vanished? I didn't know, I didn't understand myself and, blinded by the futile tears, I ran straight into Snowy. "Sorry!"

"No bones broken, Fleur," he said mildly, and nuzzled my cheek. "Come now, no tears: life is for enjoying, my little one, and what seems an insurmountable mountain one day will be a molehill the next. No, don't try to explain—" for I had opened my mouth to sick-up my troubles, "—there is no need. Come, we shall pay a visit together . . ."

"A visit?"

"To a place I know nearby. I have a tryst to keep. Are you too ladylike to ride astride once more?"

"I'm no lady . . ."

"You will be some time, whether you wish it or no. We must all grow up."

So I vaulted to his back and clung to his mane as we splashed through the stream and moved into the dark forest on the other side. His coat was damp, so he, too, must have bathed in The Ancient's Pool of Truth. He carried me swiftly down a path that snaked among the cool, pale trunks of conifer that crowded in on either side, his hooves making no sound on the deep carpet of old needles. Although here it was dark, and the spring sun seemed far away, there was a sense of stealthy movement, of trees stretching and yawning from their sleep, and the slow stir of sap. Once or twice there was the russet flash of squirrel and roe deer, but for the most part only the soft beat of our passing. We emerged into a bare clearing, where the trees drew back into a circle—winter-blackened grass, a few scrubby bushes, a cloudy sky now visible above.

Snowy halted so smartly that I slid from his back.

"Are we here?" I said, struggling to my feet.

"We are . . . Come, I want to show you something." He paced slowly to the northernmost corner of the clearing and stopped. There was a bare patch, moss and lichen scraped away but recently, a space surrounded by rock and stone, about as wide and long as a man. Just like a grave—

"Look!" said Snowy. "Come and look close . . ."

I looked, and saw what seemed like a sheet of dirty ice, but as I knelt down the substance cleared when my breath touched it and it seemed as though I was staring down into a deep, transparent pool.

"Oh, dear Gods!" I cried. "There's a body down there! Snowy, Snowy, help me drag him out! He may not be quite drowned. See, there is colour still in his cheeks, and—"

"No, my dear one," said Snowy sadly. "There is no life there, not as we know it. Do not break your nails, child, it is useless . . ." For I was scrabbling vainly against what I first had taken to be ice, then water, and now knew to be neither. It seemed like some thick, diamond-clear glass, and yet the hair of the drowning boy waved with the weeds and if only I could—I looked wildly round for a rock, a stone.

"It is enchantment," said Snowy. "And one of her best."

"Her?" I questioned, but there was no need for the question. I knew at once who he meant. "You mean you fell foul of Her, too? But how?"

And then he told me of the dance of death his beloved prince had performed to her bidding, how he and the witch had battled and how the prince now lay in everlasting sleep, locked in the crystal pool. I gazed down at the long limbs, slim hips, broad chest, tapering fingers; at the cloud of fair hair that framed the handsome, perhaps too handsome face.

"But—but there must be
some
way of releasing him!" I said. "The spell she laid on us was dispelled by the dragon, that on Conn by a twist of words . . ."

"Oh yes, there is a way. But it means death, death to both of us. If I strike the crystal with my new golden horn, the one the dragon restored, then I cease to live in this world; I choose death, as mortals have to die. And my prince? Now, see, he dreams, and could be left forever in a kind of immortality. If I break the spell he dies also, for he is mortal like you. Do I choose that for him, or am I content to leave him to his dreams, and find my brethren in the west?"

"But how can you know what he dreams? See, he frowns, even now, and turns his head . . ."

Snowy reared up, and struck his front hooves hard on the crystal tomb. There was a hollow ringing, but no sign of a crack. "How do I know whether she locked away nightmares in that living death?" I put my arms around his neck, but what could I say? How could I, with my petty temper and uncertainties, console this faery creature whose agony was so much greater than mine had ever been? How could I reconcile the love of human being and immortal, when apparently I couldn't even manage a mortal affair myself?

When we reached the camp again it was dusk. I slipped down from Snowy's back and joined the others round The Ancient's fire, but no one asked where we had been, or what we had done.

There was a vegetable stew for supper and rye bread, and then a truffle cake, tasting sweet and warm and earthy all at once and we all, even Snowy and Moglet and Pisky, had generous helpings. It was strange, it seemed to answer all the needs for taste in the world. In a way it reminded me—

"Mouse-Dugs!" I accused, sitting bolt upright and glaring at The Ancient. "And something else . . ."

"Maybe. Maybe not," he answered mildly, tapping the side of his long nose. "And then again, perhaps."

"But you know it makes us all act funnily . . ." I giggled, remembering Tom Trundleweed and as suddenly sobered, recalling Conn's proposal.

"Does no harm. After all, it's our last meal together: you won't need me any more after tonight."

"Last meal?" said Conn. "Why, are you going away?"

"Away? Where's away? You knew I could not stay with you once the quest was completed. There
are
other little crises here and there, you know, and also with increasing age I need my sleep. A hundred years perhaps, and then something interesting might turn up . . ." His voice trailed away and he poked the fire until it burned blue.

I looked at him, it seemed for the first time. The trouble was, he kept shifting; like three or four people playing peep-and-hide all at the same time. One moment there was a very, very old man with cheeks wrinkled like a forgotten russet and wearing a silly hat, the next a young helmeted warrior sat there, dark and grim-faced; again, a merry-eyed child with inquisitive eyes and snapping fingers, or a mild-faced middle-aged man with receding hair and protruding teeth . . . I shut my eyes: it was too confusing. Which
was
The Ancient? Or was he all of them? Or they all part of him?

I must have dozed off. When I opened my eyes again the fire was pale green with crackling silver sparks. The Ancient was an old man again, answering some question of Conn's of which I caught the echo but not the sense.

" . . . a question of a different dimension," The Ancient was saying. "And only those who have been there could understand. They don't very often come back. It is, I suppose, very much like a vivid dream; you are real and there and experiencing everything as though it were here and now, but when you return you have to re-adjust to now as if
now
were the dream . . . It's confusing, especially if something momentous is involved: sometimes you wish to stay too long, and then you are trapped in that time forever . . ."

Time-Travel. I dozed again, and then someone else must have asked a question—Moglet?—for The Ancient was answering again.

"No, once they have gone, let them go. They have a journey to make and are only confused if you try and call them back, and might lose their way. You would not wake a smiling child from dream, nor yet a peaceful kitten, would you? No, let them go: in peace, and with your blessing."

Suddenly I did not like all this talk about "going"—was he talking about death? I sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

"You say we don't need you anymore, now we have completed our quest—but we haven't." I tucked my feet under me and glanced round at the others. Snowy's long mane hung down, hiding his eyes; Corby was preening, Puddy's throat moved up and down; Pisky's fins, beautiful now, waved gently from side to side; Moglet was purring with her eyes shut and Conn—Conn was looking across the fire at me, his eyes bright and soft at the same time: I took a deep breath and looked away. "What I mean is this: we have lost our burdens, thanks to you and the dragon, and you told us that once this was done we should be healed—which we are—" I stretched, feeling with pleasure the way my spine arched back, "—but you also said we should find our own destinies, or words to that effect, and you made us bathe in that pool over there to clear our minds. Well, has it? Cleared them, I mean?"

The fire was now a soft, rosy pink and the cinders gold and purple.

"Oh, I think they all know what they want," said The Ancient. "But let's ask them, just to make sure . . ."

"Well, now," said Puddy, "let me consider . . ." He made up his mind. "I have a picture in my mind of a low heath topped by a wood and dotted with broom, furze, gorse and thickets of bramble. There are two or three ponds—nothing too grand, you understand—and there is a jumble of rocks to hide amongst when the sun is too hot or the wind too cold. And there are others there of my kind, to exchange reminiscences with during the long days . . . A toad could grow old there, with pleasure."

"And I sees a bit of countryside, nothing too grand neither, with a bit of a village with fields and woods behind and cliffs in front," said Corby. "Something like that place of the White Wyrme. A place where the wind stretches your wings and there's food when you seek it and company in plenty and shelter if the going's tough. But the great thing is to have the fellers to natter to and the youngsters growing up to be taught to take your place . . ."

"A lake," said Pisky. "Full of bright shallows and deep crannies, so you may have the sun and the shadow when you wish it. People to come down and feed you and trail their fingers in the water, which warms at their touch; and they call you by name and there are other, lesser fish, who need a king, a consort. By and by the lake runs with your kind and your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren come to you for your wisdom . . ."

"A fire and fish and milk and a cuddle," said Moglet. "Mice to catch, the run of the rooftops, a length of twine to chase, a basket full of milky kittens . . ."

And they lapsed into their dreams again, dreams that now had a purpose.

I thought, jealously, that I could find them their sandy heaths with pond, cliffs and woods, a small lake, a warm fire; they didn't have to sound as if it would all have nothing to do with me.

"And you, Flora?" said The Ancient. The fire was gold, all gold.