The Hunting of the Last Dragon Read online

  “Are you a seer now?” I asked.

  “Nay, not me,” he said, “but I met an old woman once who was a soothsayer. It was five summers past, but I have not forgot. She foretold a plague of fires that would herald the coming of another dragon, the last of them all. And she said this sword would kill the beast. One of her prophecies has come true.”

  His eyes wore a strange gleam, and I got away as quick as I could, thinking he was mad.

  One day soon after, we smelled smoke, and the sweltering skies turned hazy bronze. Tybalt went riding out with several men to see the cause of the fire, and came back saying it was far on the other side of the river, and seeming to rise from one place. “’Tis no small village this time,” he said. “This time it’s a large town.”

  “It weren’t the Scots, then, playing games,” said a woman. “They’d not take on a town.”

  Tybalt shook his head and looked very grave, but said no more. We stayed where we were, and were quiet, and lit as few fires as possible.

  One afternoon a lone horseman came. We were all afeared it was the lord who owned the land we were on, and that Richard would hang for poaching his game; but it was a travelling minstrel, and he stayed with us the evening, and broke the jaded hours with thrilling songs. He also had stories that disturbed: accounts of towns and villages and harvest fields turned utterly to ash. These he had seen with his own eyes. People were fleeing to the hills to hide, he said, or else digging burrows in the earth, or making boathouses for themselves in marshy land, which would not burn.

  “We know, now, what is the cause of it,” he said, and I held my breath. “There have been several accounts of a winged beast. Then there was a sighting by twenty sailors all at once, and every man swore on holy writ that what he said was true. I know; I was in the port when they told it to the priests. They told of a beach on the western coast, with rugged cliffs and sands of greyish white, like ash. It was sunset when they sailed past, and they saw, flying low along the shore, a beast with wings. While they watched they saw it rise up and disappear into a cave in the cliff. It is St. Alfric’s Cove, they said, for there is a little shrine there where once the saint had been shipwrecked, and was led ashore by seals. He lived there, a hermit, for more than fifty winters, eating fish the seals brought him.”

  “There must have been a dragon egg missed during the great searches,” said Tybalt, his face grave. We were sitting around a single fire, for the children had gone to bed, and we were picking the last of the bones and drinking ale. “My father said dragons are fifty years in the shell, and the young beasts are fledglings a dozen years or more, afore they can fly any distance. There must have been just one egg that survived. Perchance even more.”

  “There is only one dragon,” said the minstrel. “All accounts are the same: all tell of a winged beast with a tail bent partway along, as if it did not form properly in the egg. ’Tis red-gold, so they say, and huge, with a neck as long as a tower, and wings like a ship’s sails, and teeth like plough blades. Myself, I doubt the size; the dragons of old were generally small, though no less deadly for that.”

  I looked at Richard. He was staring into the flames, his head bent, but I saw the glitter of his eyes, and could guess his thought.

  “Could a lone beast burn a whole village?” a woman asked.

  The minstrel picked up a handful of dust, letting it trickle through his fingers in the firelight like golden sand. “In the heat that plagues these present days,” he replied, “a burning straw could set a whole city alight. The land is tinder dry. And if the summer goes on like this, and a dragon is about, then it has the power to burn half the kingdom.”

  “But our good king will send his finest soldiers to kill it, for sure,” said someone else. “Mayhap they’re on their way, as we speak.”

  “Alas, there’s no such plot,” said the minstrel. “The king is busy at war with the French and the Scots, and has more than enough to worry on. The dragon won’t be crushed until after the wars. Not unless there’s a mighty hunter among us ordinary folk, with the courage and cunning to slay the beast.”

  Gloom fell on us all, but I saw Richard’s face lit up by the flames, transfixed and radiant, as if he heard a summons.

  “Where is St. Alfric’s Cove?” Richard asked. “Near what town?”

  “’Tis about two days’ walk beyond the city of Twells,” said the minstrel, “through the villages of Crick and Seagrief. Seagrief itself is on the edge of the cliff overlooking St. Alfric’s Cove, and the folk there keep a fire burning every night, to warn ships away from the rocks. ’Tis a remote place, not often visited.”

  Talk turned to other things. Soon after, I went to bed, curled up under Tybalt’s wagon, and I was glad that Richard went on watch again. My dreams that night were terrible.

  The next day the heat was worse. Not a breath stirred the leaves or the dust, and the air was taut as a bowstring just afore the arrow is released. Tybalt said he smelled a storm, so one of the lads climbed a tree and looked beyond the woods, and spied black clouds brewing on the edge of the world.

  The air grew tenser still, and even breathing parched my throat. All our nerves were overstretched, for there were several fights, mothers were sharp-tongued with their children, and the dogs were snappish. Everything shimmered in the heat, and the floor of Lizzie’s cage was too hot to touch. I took her buckets of water, and she tipped them slowly over herself and became cleaner than ever, as well as cool awhile. I begged a spare dress from one of the women, and Lizzie changed from her grey rags to a chestnut-coloured garment that suited her well, though it was too big. Then, herself content, she craved me to look after the bear and cat as well. One of the younger lads had the task of tending them, but he was lazy about it, and I suppose the beasts were suffering. The bear, especially, was in bad shape. It would not drink, even when I risked life and limb, for Lizzie’s sake, and reached through the bars of its cage with a cup and poured water onto its lolling tongue. It did not move. There were maggots in its eyes and lips, and its mangy fur crawled with lice.

  “It’s dying, I think,” I said to Tybalt.

  “Aye,” he agreed, when he had been to inspect it. “It will be better killed, and we’ll eat its meat.”

  Lizzie was sorely upset when I told her. “It will be better for it to be killed today, Lizzie,” I told her, “for ’tis suffering something terrible in this heat, and otherwise will die slowly, of starvation and thirst.”

  The lads cheered when Tybalt said the bear would be used for food that night, for they were all wrought up and in fine fettle for some fun. Led by Richard, and with much crowing and laughing, they tied ropes about the bear’s neck and dragged it from the cage. It hardly fought, it was already so far gone. They tied it up between two trees, and set the dogs on it. I’ve seen bearbaiting before and never liked it much; but this, with a bear helpless and sick, was hard to look upon, and I wondered that Tybalt allowed it.

  Seeing the bear suffer so drove Lizzie from her wits. She howled worse than the bear, and threw herself against the side of her cage as if she would break herself free to rescue it. By the time I opened her door and pulled her from the bars, her brow and arms were bruised. Like a fiend she fought, cursing and screaming in her own language. Suddenly she went limp against me, sobbing as if her heart would break. At last the bear was dead, and she grew quiet. I sat with her on the cage floor and held her while she wept, stroking her hair the way I had, in times past, comforted Addy or the twins when they were woebegone.

  While we sat that way a shadow passed overhead, and black clouds covered up the sun. The heat eased a little, and thunder rolled. I looked up and saw Richard watching us. He had a feverish look these days, as if a secret, huge and mad, consumed him. Now malice and scorn were added to the frenzy, and it worried me.

  Soon after, while I was alone down by the river washing Lizzie’s food bowl, he came and stood beside me and said, very soft, “She’s a comely maid, when she’s polished up.”

  I said
nothing, for I smelled evil on its way.

  “You must be letching for her, Jude,” he went on.

  “And you must be daft,” said I.

  “Come on, I’ve seen the way you are with her! ’Tis nought to be shameful of. You’ve had a maid before, haven’t you?”

  “Aye.” I bent over the bowl, scouring it again with sand, though it was already clean.

  He crouched down by me, and I could feel him looking at my face, laughing. “Liar, Jude of Doran. But Lizzie—well, there’s a maid for your first! Hapless and helpless, and right grateful to you. She’d need no persuading.”

  I stood up to walk away, but he gripped my sleeve. Smiling, he was full of villainy. “If you won’t take her, Jude, I may be tempted to myself. I’ve a mind to have a maid, afore I face hell.”

  The bit about hell I didn’t understand, but the rest of it was clear. A kind of rage befell me, and I lifted Lizzie’s metal bowl and banged it down hard on the top of Richard’s head. He didn’t fall, but he looked mighty surprised, then he hit me in the stomach. I collapsed like a puppet, and lay curled on the dirt while he kicked me. People came to watch, some telling him to stop, others laughing and saying that, for all his size, Jude of Doran was a right milksop. At last someone stopped Richard, and I was left alone to recover. I bled and spewed a bit, then cleaned myself up in the river, collected Lizzie’s bowl, and staggered back to her cage. She said nothing at first, until I handed her the bowl, and she saw the dent in it. Then she said, straight-faced as a nun: “’Tis a pity you had not gone down to empty my privy bucket, Jude. It would have fit over his head nicely, and not been dented.”

  “Richard isn’t worth a turd,” I said, and she laughed. I laughed with her, and it was good, that mirth, for it eased the hurt in both of us. And while we laughed the storm broke and rain began to fall, heavy and hard. I locked her cage door—a small act I had grown to loathe—and pulled the cover across. One corner I left folded up, so she could watch the children dancing in the downpour.

  Everyone went mad in that thunderstorm. By God’s soul, it was a blessed relief! I stood out in it, face upturned and washed of dust, cool water on my tongue and throat, and all of me baptised with rain.

  All evening it rained, and I went to bed in Tybalt’s wagon, with his family, since the ground outside was running mud. Richard said he would go on watch that night, though his father said there was no need. “A dragon wouldn’t see past its own smoke, in this storm,” Tybalt said, but Richard got his knife and bow anyway, and a heavy cloak, and went out into the teeming dark.

  At some time in the night I woke, and for one blessed moment thought I was at home again, with my family breathing all around. But the rain, instead of landing quiet on the thatch, was drumming on a wooden roof; and that made me remember, and the pain crushed down on me again. I slept, and had a dream that Richard came inside and bent over me to strangle me. I woke sweating and hot, and needing to let out some of the evening’s ale. Quiet, I pulled on my boots and went outside.

  All was hushed, for the rain had passed and a full moon sailed, ship-like, between the rolling clouds. I went down to the river, and on my way back looked over to Lizzie’s cage. The cover had been pulled off, though I could see little else in the shadows beneath the trees. My hand reached for her key tied to my belt. It was not there. The leather thong was sliced through, smooth and neat, as with a knife. So it was no dream I had, of Richard! He had been there right enough, but thieving instead of throttling.

  I ran then, slithering in the mud, and found Lizzie’s cage empty, the door open. I wanted to call her, but I dared not. What if she wanted to go with him? Mayhap they often stole away together, and I would but make a fool of myself by following. In an agony of doubt I stood listening, but could hear only the thumping of my own heart. Then a call. Shrill and afraid; a maid’s voice.

  ’Twas all I needed. I went into the trees, towards the sound. It was pitch-black in the shadows under the trees, though in parts the moonbeams poured through, bright almost as the day. Water dripped all around, and my feet squelching in the mud must have been heard a mile away. By corpus bones, I was afraid! Afraid of finding them, and afraid of not finding them. And if they were found, what would I do? Never would I beat Richard in a fight. I stopped, thinking to go back and call Tybalt. But would he laugh, and tell me to leave his son to his wenching? If he cared nothing for the sufferings of the bear, why should he care for Lizzie?

  Hardly breathing for terror, and wishing I had brought my bow, I went deeper into the woods. I stumbled on a root and fell heavily, sliding some way in the mud, and making more noise than a pig in a panic. As I got to my feet I had half a mind to go back anyway, and trust to fate that Lizzie was willing with him. At that moment I heard a voice, muffled and low, and full of threat. Richard’s voice. But no sound from Lizzie. Quiet, I crept forward. I could see nothing in the shadows, but I heard Richard speak again. Of a sudden I noticed, in a pool of moonlight on the muddy ground, a patch of scarlet, dark as blood. I picked it up; it was Lizzie’s silken dress, that I had washed. I looked up, peering through the dark. And then I saw them, two blacker shapes against the darkness of a tree. Lizzie stood against the trunk, and he was pressed against her. Uncertainty flooded over me again. If she were unwilling, would she not call out? I dropped the dress and was about to creep away; but then I saw a flash of steel near Lizzie’s throat. Without thought I rushed at Richard to haul him off. Hearing me, he swung around, the knife still in his hand. I saw his teeth glimmer as if he laughed, and he slashed towards me so quick, I heard the whistle of the blade. Somehow it missed, and I stepped backwards and fell. Then he was on me, and I was holding his arm with the knife, but the point was cruelly close to my face. His other arm pressed across my throat, so hard that I could not breathe, and for an age all was suffocating pain and fear; then I saw stars and fire, and thought the dragon and death and hell had come.

  Then of a sudden the weight across my throat was gone, though something heavy fell across the rest of me; and I drew in breath at last. It was Richard across me, limp as a sack of flour. I threw him off and got to my feet. Lizzie was close, a stump of wood in her hands. In the moonlight her face was parchment white, and her eyes shimmered and were full of fear. She dropped the wood and backed away, wiping her hands on her skirts as if to clean them.

  “Sweet Jesus—I’ve killed him!” she said.

  I bent down and put my hand upon Richard’s chest. All seemed deadly still. Blood matted his hair above his right ear, and ran from his nose. I dared not put my hand upon his parted lips, to see if there was breath. Standing, I asked Lizzie if she was harmed. She shook her head, then spied her silken dress, and hobbled across the muddy ground to pick it up.

  “He told me he was setting me free,” she said. “That’s why I brought my mother’s dress, and wore my shoes. He said you had given him the key to my cage, and would be waiting for me, to take me away. He said I would never live in the cage again. His words were sweet, and he was kind. That’s why I came quietly with him. And then, when we were here, afar off in the trees . . .”

  “I’d made no plot with him,” I said. “He cut your key from my belt while I slept. But I woke after, saw your cage open, and came to look for you.”

  At that moment we heard a shout and the barking of dogs. I looked towards our camp, but could see nothing. Had Tybalt found her cage unlocked, and thought she had escaped? God’s soul, there’d be a hunt now, for sure, and blame laid somewhere! And as for Richard, lying like a corpse—

  “They’ll hang me for murder!” whispered Lizzie, looking at him. Richard groaned just then, and moved a little. Dogs barked and howled, coming nearer.

  Without thought, I swept Lizzie up into my arms and ran. And as I ran clouds covered up the moon again and rain began to fall, and I remember thanking God, for it meant my footsteps would be lost in mud, and no one could hunt us down.

  Like a nightmare it was, that flight. I could see nothing for the darkness and the ra
in, and though Lizzie was a little thing, she was heavy after hours of carrying, with the wetness in our clothes weighing us both down, and the mud ankle deep at times. Sometimes I could have sworn I saw wolves’ eyes shining at us through the rain, and once we heard something huge—a bear, possibly—crashing through the woods alongside of us. We stumbled into trees and rolled down banks, and a hundred times I slipped and fell, hurting us both, and all the while we were driven on by the dogs howling like fiends in hell.

  And on that fiendish note I think I shall end for today, Brother Benedict. I hear the bells tolling for prayers—a peaceful note, after my tale’s terror. What? You want me to go on? Well, it is tempting to, and such kindly devotion to your task is most commendable; but I did plight my word to the Abbot that I would never keep you from your prayers. So off with you! Godspeed! I swear I shall not start again without you.

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