The Hunting of the Last Dragon Read online

  Greetings, Brother! You are ready early today, your quill neatly sharpened, I see, and candles already lit, and a merry fire in the grate. A good day for writing, this, with rain outside and a cold autumn wind a-blowing! You have the better task, I think: I just saw Brother Nicholas out in the yard trying to round up the geese and head them into the barn. The Abbot wants their feathers kept in fine fettle, since they’re his only supply of quills. He’s very determined to have a pile of books copied out, so he can begin his dream of teaching every soul to read. I’m not sure that the geese will be right thrilled about it; they’ve few enough tail feathers already.

  All right, I’ll continue! God’s truth, you monks have lively ways of getting across your wants, despite your vows of silence!

  I did not rest that night. I followed the river upstream, knowing it would take us from the woods and back to the town. A little after cockcrow we left the trees, to find a sunny day. I was mortal weary but dared not stop, knowing Tybalt valued Lizzie and would likely be out on his horse, searching. But I changed the way of carrying Lizzie, and took her on my back, as I oft had carried little Addy. It was easier that way, and Lizzie could hold on with her arms about my neck. Travelling northwestwards, we avoided the town, skirting the tilled fields and the meadows, then kept to the tracks through the moorlands. We passed villages and farms, and saw people shearing sheep while others washed the fleeces in the streams. I thought of my mother twisting yarn upon her distaff, and my heart ached. All of me ached, from memories and weariness, and from the beating Richard had given me the day before.

  Near the middle of the day I stopped to rest. We had been walking through stony moors following a stream, which I supposed would lead to villages further ahead, where we might get food and shelter for the night. We stopped by an old oak tree, and I set Lizzie down in the shade. “I need to sleep,” I said. “I can’t walk night and day without rest.”

  Crouching by the water, I drank deeply. It was brackish but quenching. Lizzie crouched nearby to drink.

  “Would you like a swim?” I asked, thinking of the day I had danced in the river with her and raised Tybalt’s ire.

  “I think not,” she said. I was sorry, for I would gladly have carried her in again.

  When we had finished drinking she got her mother’s silken dress from where she had dropped it on the grass, and washed it in the shallows, cleaning off the grime from last night in the woods. I offered to help her, but she shook her head and went on with the washing, dipping the scarlet folds in the stream, then rubbing them carefully to get off the stains. I wondered that she held the silk so dear, then remembered it was all she had of her old life, all she had of her family. And I thought how I would have given much to have just one little thing my parents had owned, some tiny link, something I could touch that was of them.

  The washing done, she limped up to the tree and hung the silk across a branch to dry. Then she stood at the edge of the shade, looking out across the rolling wastes we had crossed. Very still she stood, her eyes like polished ebony, her gold-brown skin as glowing as the day. I had not often seen her on her feet, for she had been always sitting in her cage, or else lying on the ground while I cleaned it out; and it was odd to see her standing free like that, beside the wild moors. Looking at her, I felt awkward of a sudden, for her skirts were wet and clinging, and she was willow-slender and graceful, and pleasing to the eye.

  Limping back, she came and sat at my feet, close, her arms about her knees, her gaze still on the moors. “Do you think Tybalt will find us?” she asked.

  “He’ll not find us now,” I said. “The rain has washed away our tracks, and his dogs will never get the smell of us.”

  “If Richard dies, what then? Will they look again for us, and hang me on a gallows?”

  “Nay. Richard won’t die. ’Twill take more than a chip of wood to kill him off—’twill take a falling oak.”

  She laughed a little. “What will we do, Jude?”

  “Find a village and beg some food and a place by a fire tonight. On the morrow we’ll seek a place for you to stay. A nunnery, mayhap, where you’ll be looked after.”

  Frowning, she asked, “What will you do?”

  “Find a farmer to hire me for work. The lords pay people well to have their land tilled these days, since the Black Death killed off so many of their workers. I heard that some of the larger estates are going to ruin, from want of men to work them.”

  “I could work on a farm.”

  “I think not, Lizzie. Maids either marry or they become nuns. Unless they’re highborn, and then they might live in lord’s houses, and serve the ladies there.”

  “I’m highborn.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Why?”

  “Our highborn maids are not made lame.”

  “Then there’s no place for me.”

  “I didn’t say that. I think a nunnery would be best. It doesn’t mean you have to be a nun; the nuns would look after you until you found something else to do. It would not be an unpleasant life.”

  “How do you know? Have you lived in a nunnery?”

  “No. But it would be better than a cage, I’ll warrant.”

  “It would be a different kind of cage. I don’t want to live in a nunnery.”

  “By God’s soul, Lizzie, give me peace! I don’t want to discuss this now! I’ve walked all night and half today, and I’m bone weary. I’m tired of fretting about my own fate, let alone yours. Let me sleep for now, and we’ll talk on this later.”

  I lay down in the shade. Lizzie didn’t move, but she made a little sound as if she wept, and I was sorry I had spoken sharp with her. Remorseful, too tired to make amends, I put my arm across my eyes and tried to sleep. But although it was pleasant there by the stream, and I was weary to the bones, I found I could not rest. My nerves were jangled, and a worm gnawed at my conscience, over Richard, and because I had stole a maid well paid for by her owner. Also, as the full import of what I’d done began to dawn on me, there were other worries.

  I’d had little to do with a maid before, apart from my sisters and the taunting Prue. How would it be between Lizzie and me, now that we were fugitives and wayfarers together? What would people think of us, her plainly not my kin, nor I her husband? How would we sleep together in the fields? Close for safety, or decently separate? And what of all the ordinary things I would normally do in private—like picking my teeth or my nose, or scratching myself, or farting, or moving my bowels? ’Tis all very well for you to laugh, Brother Benedict, but all these things were mortal worrying to me, at the time. I even felt discomforted trying to sleep that afternoon, knowing Lizzie sat nearby, mayhap watching me. It is one thing to feed and tend for a maid in a prison, another to live with her in liberty.

  I slept at last. When I awoke, the sun was on its downward journey, and Lizzie was gone, the red dress with her. Alarmed, I leaped to my feet, thinking Tybalt had come and snatched her off. But then I spied her stumbling and limping further on, still following the stream.

  Cursing, I ran after her. I got to her at last, and grabbed her arm. Her face was wet with tears and sweat, and she must have been in agony from walking all that way.

  “What are you doing, dimwit?” I asked.

  “I’m going on alone,” she said, trying to walk on, sobbing with every step. Her shoes and bandages were red.

  “Why alone?” I asked.

  “Because I won’t be a nun. And I won’t be a millstone around your neck, neither. You have no duty to help me out.”

  “Oh, Lizzie, ’tis not from duty!” I said.

  “What is it, then? Do you think on me as Richard did?”

  “No! Never that!” Taking both her shoulders, I made her stop. She stood with her arms crossed over her mother’s dress, her eyes downcast. She looked so small, so all undone, that I near wept myself, from pity.

  “Truth to tell, Lizzie,” I said, “you remind me of my sister Addy. More, I have no home, no family, and I feel . . . well
, I feel akin with you. It helps me to help you, for it gives me a reason to live. I’ll not put you in a nunnery, nor make you do anything you are against, I swear. Now, can we travel on together, in peace?”

  She smiled a little, and climbed onto my back again, and we went on. The stream was a good guide, for it kept us watered, and took us to more fields of yellow wheat ripe for harvest, then to a village. We spied some fresh-baked oaten cakes cooling in a window, and I’m ashamed to confess that I stole them, for we were hungry.

  I felt stronger after we had eaten, and walked more quickly, following the lane out of the village, still heading west, my eyes lowered against the sinking sun. I had no idea where I was, or what villages we passed, since I could not read the milestones on the roads. I thought only to put as many miles as I could betwixt ourselves and Tybalt. Sometimes on the lanes between the villages we passed other wayfarers, all travelling on foot: pilgrims on their way home after visiting shrines, or black-gowned friars, or peddlers with pots and pans, charcoal sellers, traders, and lepers. But by sunset the tracks and lanes were deserted, and I began to be haunted by fears of demons and ghosts. And I remembered that the dragon was said to fly at dusk and dawn, and now was a devilishly dangerous time to be out. I wished I had looked sooner for a house to stay.

  There was a village near, for I could see its church tower above the trees. I cut across a meadow full of rye, and came to the tiny hamlet just as the sun went down. It was a village such as Doran had been, too small for an inn, with only a square-towered Norman church and a few thatch-and-mud houses crouched either side of the dirt lane. Behind the houses I could just make out, in the gathering gloom, the crofts with summer vegetables well grown, and tiny farm buildings, and a cart and plough or two. I stood Lizzie on her feet and she waited in the darkling lane as I approached a house.

  Firelight glowed inside and smoke came out the windows, smelling of beans and vegetable broth. From within came sounds of running feet, children shrieking with laughter, boys quarrelling, and a dog barking. Above it all a baby bawled lustily, and a woman shouted for peace. I banged on the door, and there was instant silence inside.

  “You’d best open it, Edwin,” said the woman’s voice. “Well, go on! You’re the man of the house now.”

  There was the sound of a bolt cautiously drawn back, and the door opened a crack. I glimpsed part of a face and one wary eye, before the door was slammed shut again. “It do be a maid and a lad, Ma,” said a lad.

  “Well, don’t stand there pop-eyed, let them in.”

  The door was opened wide, and I went back to Lizzie, and she leaned on me as we entered in. The lad who admitted us stood on the threshold a moment, scanning the evening skies; then he banged the door shut and bolted it again.

  For long moments there was total quiet, but for the yelping of a small dog as it jumped around Lizzie and me. Little could I see, for smoke, but the boy threw a bundle of wood on the fire, and in the leaping flame-light I saw three little children go and cling to their mother’s skirt. Their eyes, as round as plates, were fixed on Lizzie’s face. Two other children moved closer to a boy of about ten summers, who crouched on the dirt by the fire and stirred a cauldron of broth. Pigs and poultry roamed in the rushes on the floor, and a cow with large curving horns was tethered in one corner. The smells, the homeliness, awoke a deep longing in me.

  “You’ve brought the freak,” said the woman, holding her babe closer, and making the sign of the cross. “The freak from the fair. Like Old Lan. God help us all.”

  “Her name’s Lizzie,” I said. “I beg of you, good mother, let us stay. And give us, if you will, a bite of food each, and we’ll be gone by morning. We’ll not harm you or rob you, I swear by Jesus’ blessed tree.”

  “It’s not robbing I’m worried on,” she said, jiggling the babe to keep it quiet. “The freak’s an evil maid, a heathen. I’ll not have her in this house. Nor you. It’s not right, you travelling alone with her. I’ll thank you to leave, and right quick.”

  I began to plead with her, but the eldest boy edged past us and opened the door again, and began to push me out. Lizzie clung to my sleeve, and I was still begging for a bed for the night, when the woman started to scream.

  “Out! Out!” she shrieked. “Out, afore I call the priest to chase you out, and your devils with you! Out!”

  I picked Lizzie up and backed out into the night. Still the woman yelled, and people began to come out of the other houses. Hearing the woman’s shouts, and doubtless thinking we were thieves, they all started screaming, and some threw stones. One hit Lizzie, making her cry out. A man came out and set his hound on us. I ran then, raising dust in the shadowy lane, while people shouted and cursed, and stones rained all around, and the hound snapped and snarled at my heels. I don’t know how far I ran, trying to get away from the damned thing, while Lizzie nearly choked me with her arms, and I shook all over from terror and fatigue. We left the dog at last, and I stumbled on down the pitch-black road. A silver moon was rising, and I could see wheat on either side, and trees black against the starry sky, but little else. Then somewhere in the fields a wolf howled, and I glimpsed yellow eyes in the darkness to my left, and was sure a pack was after me. I started running again, gasping and blind, half choked by Lizzie’s arms about my neck. Then something flew out of the wheat beside the lane, its wings whirring in the quiet dark, and I near lost my wits from fright. I ran again, and tripped and fell. I remember that, as I went down, I tried to turn so I would not fall on Lizzie. There was a sharp pain in my foot, and I suppose I smashed my head upon a stone, for all became bright stars and blackness, and that is the last thing I remember of that night.

  And that, I think, is enough to write for now. It must be almost time for bells, Brother, and a mug of mead.

  nine

  Straight to our tale today, and no meandering! It was daylight when I came to. My left foot burned and ached, and my head throbbed as if it were being hammered by a fiend. I opened my eyes and saw a brilliant light shaped like a man, and thought it was an angel. I closed my eyes and dreamed that I had died and St. Peter was stabbing his finger at my skull, trying to knock some sense into me. When I opened my eyes again I saw that it was not an angel before me, but a silver robe. And later still, I saw that I was in a room with sunlight pouring in the door and falling on a soldier’s armour that hung on a hook. And beside me was an old woman, brown and shrivelled as a nut, with wispy white hair pulled back in a knot, and white whiskers on her chin. And her black eyes, half lost beneath the wrinkles, were the same shape as Lizzie’s eyes.

  “Sweet Jesus save me,” I said. “I’ve died and gone to Lizzie’s heaven.”

  The old woman cackled like a hen, and I saw she had but two yellow teeth. “By all the powers, ’tis no heaven!” she said. Then, looking behind her, she called, “Come and see him, child. The boy’s awake.”

  I looked beyond the woman’s shoulder and saw a doorway with bright sunlight shining through. And through that light came Lizzie, transfigured, wearing a dress of crimson and green, and with her hair brushed and braided smooth as ravens’ wings. Right lovely she was. And she was walking, wearing ordinary shoes, though small ones.

  “I have died,” I said, and fainted again.

  Then someone was pouring cool water onto my tongue, and washing my hot face. After a time I woke fully, and began to look about me. I was lying on a pile of straw, a blanket over me. Between my bed and the open door crouched the old woman, lighting a fire in the middle of the floor. The air was still and hot, and the blue smoke rose about her, ascending to the rafters where hung sacks of grain, beside two pigs and several fish on hooks, smoking. There were bunches of herbs hanging on the walls, and strings of onions and garlic. My eyes travelled around the walls, and I saw more clearly the mail armour on its hook, with its helmet nearby in a little alcove, and a great sword shining across two pegs above. There were shelves too numerous for me to number, laden with freakish things. Through the smoke’s blue veil I made out jars
of feathers and claws and oddly shaped sticks, shadowy carvings, and whitish objects that might have been bone. There were wizened roots, glowing stones, carven boxes such as I had never seen before, and other things, foreign and mysterious, I could not name. And in the sun on the step, and at the foot of my straw bed, were two cats, both black as coal.

  The old woman came over to me, lifted the blanket at my feet, and pressed something hard against my sore ankle. I tried to pull away, but she was strong, for all her littleness.

  “’Tis an arrowhead, boy,” she said. “’Twill ease the swelling, and your pain.” Then she sang a charm: “Come out, worm—out from the marrow into the bone, from the bone into the flesh, from the flesh into the skin, from the skin into this arrow.”

  I whispered amen, to cover the spell with the Church’s blessing, just in case.

  No need to snort like that, Brother, nor to frown so disapprovingly. I know what you are thinking, and that you must blame me for staying in that house. But I had no choice about it. When I asked Lizzie later how I came to be there, she said that when I had fallen in the lane she saw firelight in a house, and went to it. I suppose the flickering flames were what I had mistook for wolves’ eyes. Anyway, the old woman came out to the lane with Lizzie and together they dragged me to the house. Once there I could not move for the pain in my head, nor could I have walked for the soreness in my ankle, and I was forced by fate to stay for good or ill. And that’s the naked truth, as God is God.

  The crone was called Old Lan. She was Chinese, the same as Lizzie, and she too had had bound feet. Hers she had straightened, and could walk almost normally, except that she hobbled with age. She must have been near ninety, but from what I could tell, there was nothing wrong with her hearing or her sight, and her mind was sharp as a knife. She was a scold, too, and I soon learned not to argue with her, even when she poured her nasty potions down my throat. She dosed me up right well, in those early days, and I have to say that her concoctions gave great ease. My ankle, that I had twisted bad, she mended with the arrow. I had a bad cut on my head, which she put cobwebs on and healed.