Liam started to shout as the group of boys neared Philip, but Angus tackled him. “Be quiet. If Philip is hiding, I don’t think he wants us announcing our arrival!”
“Oh. Right. Good thinking.”
“Yeah. Good thinking… when you don’t think, I guess any evidence of thinking is good,” Angus muttered as he climbed up to meet Philip.
“Anything new?”
“I think they’re pirates. I think they do have stuff in caves here. They didn’t go where the dragon is. They came up the other side— I didn’t know you could come up that side. Anyway, they came up the other side, and then vanished, so there must be an opening or something over there, and I think I see a big ship out there. The mists are hiding it, but I think—”
“But aren’t caves usually connected inside?”
“Maybe they walled up an entryway with rocks or something.” Philip shrugged. “All I know is that the cave you usually see from here is where the dragon and her eggs are, but that’s not where the men went, and they had packs to their backs.”
“So, what are we going to do?” Liam sounded as though held at sword point and interrogated for information.
“Nothing.”
Everyone looked incredulously at Philip. “Nothing?” Angus shook his head. “And you’ll just ignore that they brought those packs in there, right?”
“I didn’t say ever. We just can’t do anything until we know that they’re gone.”
Sarcasm sliced through the salt spray as Angus rolled his eyes and said, “Oh really? Don’t you think it’d be easier to go up and ask the men what they brought and if we can take it home?”
Chapter 12
Treasure
One by one, the other boys wandered back to their home or their master’s home for supper. Disappointment visibly crept over each one as they left, until Philip and Angus sat alone on the rocks, listening for the men to leave and shivering in the cooler night air. Eventually, Angus stood. “Well, one of us has to stay. You run home and grab some food. I’ll watch just in case, but Gwen will get upset if I’m too much later.”
Philip knew what that meant. The smith was known as a hard man and sometimes, bruises and split lips decorated Angus’ face after a late afternoon with the other boys. His own brother, Will, had sported black eyes and split lips on a semi-regular basis when he’d been an apprentice. “I’ll hurry. Would you like me to bring enough for you to eat on the way back? Maybe if you don’t ask for food…”
Angus shrugged. “Maybe. It can’t hurt anyway. If Gwen is mad, I won’t get breakfast, so extra food will help.”
Despite his nonchalance, Angus’ voice held a tinge of concern. Philip, unsure what to do, tried once more. “Do you want to go now? I’ll be fine without food.”
“Just get out of here!”
The sun slowly sank in the sky until darkness crept in behind it. Angus listened to the occasional crack of the skiff on the rocks and the shouts of the men as they carried their loads into the cavern. Philip was right; you couldn’t see where they disappeared into the side of the cliff. For just a moment, he hoped it would be easy to find and then sighed as he remembered that it’d be Sunday before he could hope to explore.
The men’s words floated to his side of the jetty just as Phillip arrived again. The boys looked excitedly at each other. In just a few minutes, the sailors would row out to their ship and disappear into the night leaving them able to explore. “Oh, I want to stay and go with you….”
“I’ll have to go get a torch anyway. Maybe if you asked—”
Angus interrupted him abruptly. “That’d be like asking for a face full of fist. I’d better go home. Come tell us what you found tomorrow.”
“I’ll share if it’s anything valuable. You know that.”
A shell flew from beneath Angus’s foot as he kicked it along the shore. The tide was receding and leaving all sorts of debris along the beach. “I know you will. There’s something about you. It’s almost as though you can’t help but do what is right. My modor is always saying, ‘Why can’t you be more like Philip?’”
Philip’s face fell. What was meant as a compliment, sounded like an insult with that kind of comparison. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t want to hear that.”
“You wouldn’t say it either. Doesn’t it ever get tiresome doing the right thing all the time?”
“Not as tiresome as the consequences of doing the wrong thing.” As tempted as he could be to do what he wanted, Philip hated the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach when he knew he wanted to do something wrong.
At the smithy, Angus squared his shoulders and slipped into the little lean-to he shared with the chickens. Philip followed the road home, refilled Una’s water bucket and the fire pile, before taking a torch and slipping out with it. No one seemed to notice Philip as he rushed back to the cliffs and spent the next hour trying to find a way down the side. After a while, he went around, over the jetty, and crawled up the face of the cliffs.
The entrance was impossible to see without standing directly in front of it. A rock jutted out over the front of the entrance overlapping the opening just enough to hide it. Only someone who stepped to the right of that rock would see the two-foot gap between it and the face of the cliff. This explained why the dragons chose the other opening. They wouldn’t have fit.
Once inside, Philip no longer felt as excited. Dread overcame him as he edged through the wet-floored cavern. He felt stifled, smothered by the darkness. The torch, chosen because of its size and weight, was too small to give much light, creating shadows in the minuscule areas of light that it produced. What wasn’t black and smothering seemed eerie in the shadows produced by his torch. Minutes ticked by with each foot that he advanced through the narrow and low cavern.
Philip wasn’t as tall as his father, but he was tall enough to feel uncomfortable ducking as he crept through the cave. Time became meaningless as he followed the hole in the earth through the rock, through the dirt, and around a bend, until he finally found a chamber shored up with beams and a raftered roof. This spot was man-made and filled with hundreds of the packs that the boys had seen earlier that day. Philip, curious beyond self-control, untied one of the bundles and sank back on his heels as he unwrapped a roll of silk. The next parcel held several jars of what seemed to be spices. There were several bales of fur, a small chest of coins, and even several golden goblets.
“There truly are pirates that bring their goods here, and there truly is treasure in here!” He shouted excitedly, to no one, but it felt wonderful to do it. Then, as he waved the torch over the opened bundles, Philip sank to the dirt floor. “Is it stealing to take what someone else stole?”
The next morning, shouts brought the villagers out of cottages, gardens, and shops. Women raced to greet a group of men climbing the road to the village. Philip watched as his mother, carrying his little brother, flew through the village toward the men. His father was home.
It took several hours of celebration and stories of their voyage before Philip’s father, John, had time to take a walk along the shore and hear what Philip had to share. Philip confided about the afternoon of watching and waiting, too engrossed in his own story to notice that his father didn’t reply. At last, they reached The Point, where the jetty thrust into the ocean for a dozen yards or so.
“See, you have to go over from this side. I tried getting down from the top, and you just can’t do it.”
“And you went in that hole there?”
“Not yesterday— a while ago. There’s a dragon in there.” John Ward didn’t look as surprised as Philip expected, but eagerness to show what he’d found overrode his curiosity.
At the entrance to the cave, Philip slipped inside and then groaned. “I forgot— it’s going to be dark in there during the day too.”
“Never mind, son. I think we should go see your modor, and we’ll talk about this later.”
Disappointment washed over him. His father didn’t seem excited at all. In fact, he seemed
irritated. Philip was sure this meant that appropriating pirate treasure was just as dishonorable as stealing such treasure in the first place. He’d hoped that it wasn’t true.
As they walked back to their cottage, Philip described his meeting with Dove and the dragon, told about their night under the stars waiting for the dragon’s mate to soar over the sky, and how they’d overheard the plot to kidnap Lady Aurelia. He was just about to share the news of his lessons, the ownership of their cottage, and how Dove had been rewarded as well, when the town crier raced past ringing his bell and shouting, “Lady Evaline is dead!”
As if to prove the veracity of his statement, a lone bell rang mournfully from the castle’s bell tower at just that moment. Villagers all stood in motionless shock and grief as they realized what this loss meant to Lord Morgan and his young daughter. Broðor Clarke stepped outside the chapel, listening to the announcement before disappearing inside once more. Minutes later, the single chapel bell sang a dismal song in discordant unison with the castle.
Soft weeping around them grew into deep wails by some of the women. Lord Morgan’s wife, though rarely seen, was much beloved by the local people and distant nobles. They considered her almost as a patron saint of charity and kindness. Though she was sickly and had crawled her way back from death’s door many times, her passing came as a shock to all.
Philip slipped through the crowd, whispered something into his mother’s ear, and then tore through the streets, across the green, and into the forest, calling for Dove as he reached the tree line. In her little clearing, the child waited with an air of disgust about her, despite the covered face and cloaked body. He stood before her, hands on knees, gasping for air and grinning, regardless of his bad news.
“Did—” he gasped between great gulps of air, “did you hear the bells?”
“I heard one bell and then later, I heard another one. The second one sounded closer— the chapel bell, I presume?” She smiled beneath the shelter of her hood. “I started to go see what was happening, but then I realized you’d come tell me if you could.”
“Lady Evaline died.” The words sounded cold and heartless, spoken as they were with no preamble or anything to prepare her for them, but he knew instinctively that this was what she’d prefer.
“I cannot imagine what it must be like to have a modor you know and love and then lose her.” Dove’s voice sounded choked and strained as she spoke. “It seems almost too unbearable to consider.”
“It isn’t unexpected…” Even as he said it, Philip knew it sounded as ridiculous to her as it did to him. No matter how expected something wonderful is, it is still wonderful when it happens, and that is no less true of something terrible.
“I wish I could see her.”
It was somewhat unfamiliar for her to have wishes or desires. Dove had never allowed herself the luxury of wanting what wasn’t possible. With so much of life denied to her, the disappointment of lost dreams was too painful— until tonight. Somehow, when wished for another, it seemed less hopeless and the child embraced that for the grieving little mistress of Wynnewood Castle.
“I think maybe you could. Not yet,” Philip added quickly, “but after…”
Abruptly, she changed the subject, her words sounding choked and forced. “So, I hear the sailors have come back.”
“They have! My fæder is with them. They lost no one at sea, and their cargo was prosperous.” He glanced at her as he lay on his back in the center of the clearing. “I told him about you.”
“Were you warned to avoid the demon in white?”
With an expression innocent enough to fool the most astute person, Philip shrugged. “He’s accustomed to seeing you in gray, so…”
“Did you tell him about the dragons?”
Philip sat up alert and eager to talk. “That is what was so strange. When I mentioned them, he didn’t blink. I think he already knew they were there.”
“Did you tell him about our adventure at the castle?”
Nodding, Philip dropped back to the earth, his hands behind his head as he watched the clouds float by and tried to find discernable shapes in them. “Yes, but I didn’t get to tell him about the lessons or the cottage. Modor probably will, though. Tonight. They’ll talk until it’s time to get up again. That’s what they do every time he comes home.”
This fascinated Dove. She lay down, head to head in what was rapidly becoming their usual resting position and pointed toward the east. “Look, it’s an angel!”
It took him a moment, but finally Philip nodded. “I see it. The robe is squatty, but the wings and head are perfect.”
“I wish I could see an angel.”
Something Broðor Clarke had mentioned once, poked at the back of his memory until he remembered the gist of it. “Broðor Clarke said something about meeting angels and not even realizing it. That’s why we’re supposed to be kind and hospitable to everyone. I mean, maybe you’re an angel.”
“Hardly. If I walked through town without this cloak, I guarantee they’d call me a demon instead.”
“My fæder suggested,” Philip admitted tentatively, “that maybe you have a skin condition. He said he saw a man once with some kind of horrible skin condition. He said there were bumps and distortions all over the man’s hands and face— bumps of all sizes.” Philip hesitated. Was it the time to ask? “I told him that I didn’t think so, but he pointed out that you cover your hands with the gloves as well as the cloak and hood.”
“So, your true question is whether I am disfigured by some kind of skin condition?”
“Well, not just that—more of a disfigurement.”
“I don’t think that what I am is what he thinks I am. I can almost guarantee it.”
“Well,” Philip insisted emphatically, “I think you’re more angel than demon. You saved me from a real demon—that dragon.”
“Look, a sheep.”
“Dove, most of them look like sheep. The ones that don’t are the interesting ones.”
“Well, I like sheep. I like them in big groups just like I like clouds- white and fluffy.”
“Sheep are rarely white. They’re usually matted and full of mud and twigs.”
“You know what I mean.” Dove sounded annoyed.
They talked long after the sun went down, first about the cave, the treasure, and then about his lessons and how he was going to learn to read Latin. “I can teach you the letters. Once I learn it, Broðor Clarke says he’ll teach me to read and write our native tongue as well.”
Dove’s voice was quiet with a longing Philip couldn’t possibly understand. “I envy you.”
“You do? Why?” Philip thought Dove had the ideal life, besides the social rejection she experienced, which, in his growing opinion, was probably created by Bertha rather than a true concern.
“The stories, the archery lessons, the language and reading lessons… What more could you want?”
“To be able to hit the target, remember the letters, and learn the trade that my parents chose for me in the first place,” he admitted. “And then there’s the excitement of wandering through the woods whenever you like, befriending dragons…”
“Who said anything about that?”
“I saw it, Dove; you can’t tame a beast like that without making friends with it.”
“Maybe it’s my evil eyes.”
Philip laughed. “I doubt your eyes are black with lightning bolts shooting from them.”
“Maybe they’re red with flames flickering in them then.”
“Maybe it means that you have the time on your hands to be able to mesmerize the beast with your voice.”
Unaware of how accurate his guess truly was, Philip continued with his conjecture about the adjacent cave. “And think about it; that fire breathing—”
“She only breathes fire when she feels threatened or feels that her egg is threatened. She can’t conjure it at will. It is similar to how a cat cannot purr on command.”
“Is it? Interesting. Well, even
so, I threatened that dragon, or at least it probably thought I did, and the thing could have burned the rafters down onto everything if it got through the walls of the caverns.”
“I think I know where the connecting tunnel is. It is close to the entrance of the main cave. If you feel the wall, it is solid rock until one place where it is stone upon stone. I think that is where the caves connect.”
This made much sense to Philip. “That would explain how the stones haven’t been disturbed. The dragon doesn’t go near the mouth of the cave very often, I would imagine.”
“No, but her mate does frequently.”
“But he’s focused on getting food to her….” Even as he said it, Philip realized his argument was weak at best. “I guess that doesn’t make sense. That dragon was big enough to push through rocks easily enough. Why hasn’t it broken through yet?”
“Well, maybe it doesn’t want to? Why should I look for a place in a rock wall to kick out a bunch of stones? What would tempt it to do something like that?”
“But, coming and going,” Philip persisted. “Wouldn’t a few stones get loosened and fall over time?”
“Perhaps they do. Perhaps the men replace them when they bring things to the caves.”
“And inside the dragon’s lair?”
Dove smiled beneath her hood. Philips dogged determination to discover how the dragon and pirates coexisted in the same cliff amused her greatly. “Perhaps Sir Dragon cleans up the rubble for her,” Dove paused, her grin showing in her voice, “or for himself, like a man.”
“Like a man! What made you say that?”
“Because Bertha says that all problems in this life are caused by men.”
His laughter rang through the clearing. “That contradicts what God says.”
“What do you mean?” The child sat up expectantly. She’d grown to love it when Philip mentioned the stories about his God.
The Annals of Wynnewood Complete Series Page 10
