by Patty Jansen
He had left the door to the house open, and another animal stalked out. It was shaped like a cat but as large as a giant dog. Its pelt was creamy yellow with hundreds of little black spots. It lifted its head and surveyed the newcomers with curious interest, swishing its long tail from side to side.
“Is that a leopard?” Koby asked.
“It is.”
“Aren’t they dangerous?”
“Not to me. Lila chases away wild boars and any people I don’t want around here. She catches rabbits for me. It so happens I was just cooking one. You want a bite and some tea?”
Tea sounded good.
Gisele tied the horse to a tree, and they followed Mustafa inside. Koby made sure she kept a good distance away from the leopard, which kept looking over its shoulder.
It was very warm inside the barn. The air was humid, laced with the scent of animals. A fire roared in the hearth. A piece of meat hung on a spit on front of the fire. The smell was heavenly.
The room only had a few small windows and was quite dark. It took Nellie’s eyes a little while to get used to the low light, but she sensed other animals inside. She could smell them. The straw rustled in the dark and something very big snorted.
A table with two benches stood in the glow of the fire.
“Sit down, sit down,” Mustafa said.
Nellie, Gisele, Wim and Koby sat on the benches while Mustafa busied himself getting a stack of chipped and dirty cups and carrying the battered and blackened teapot over from the fire.
The tea was almost black.
“I have milk but no sugar, I’m afraid,” he said. “It’s not safe for me to go into town to buy things, and I have to make do with what I have and darn my gloves rather than get new ones.” He held up his woollen gloves where the fingers had been darned with different colours of wool. “I just look after myself and wait until things get better. I can survive here with my animals.”
He had sat on the bench. The spotted cat curled up at his feet.
“Why were they all running through the forest?” Koby asked.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into these creatures the last few days. I let them out of the barn because they were very restless. Normally a time spent outside calms them down, but this white horse turned up and some other horses that I’m sure belong to Lord Verdonck. I haven’t touched them, because he is very precious about his horses. I have no idea how they got out. I don’t know about the cows either. They’re not mine. They must belong to the other neighbour from across the creek. There’s something up with these animals. You can see they’re nervous.”
He got up from the bench and crossed to the dark side of the barn, where Nellie had noticed the snorts of a large animal.
A very large animal.
A massive shape moved in the dark, and a flexible, snake-like thing thicker than a man’s arm sniffed at Mustafa’s pockets. Trunk. Elephant. Nellie had seen these creatures travelling with the circus.
He pulled something out of his pocket, and the creature came out of the shadows. It was huge and grey, with wrinkled, dusty skin. It held out its nose to Mustafa.
“Ohhh!” Koby shuffled back on her bench, her eyes wide.
“This is Esme. She’s very friendly. Here, give her a carrot.” He tossed Koby a carrot from his pocket.
Koby got up from her seat, holding the carrot as if it were something dirty.
“Hold it out like this,” Mustafa said.
He produced another carrot, which the elephant grabbed with its trunk, brought to its mouth and proceeded to crunch loudly.
“Carrots,” Mustafa said. “I don’t know where that bag came from. It suddenly appeared.”
Nellie knew. The dragon. He stole bags of carrots.
Of course, that was why the horses had been so excited. The dragon attracted animals, like kittens, puppies, horses and sea cows. And elephants.
Koby held out her hand and shuffled closer. She squealed when the elephant reached out and grabbed the carrot from her hand. The carrot went crunch in the elephant’s mouth and then the trunk came out again.
“Pat her,” Mustafa said. He demonstrated, rubbing the trunk with his hand. Koby very gingerly copied him, giving little squeals when the elephant probed the sleeves of her coat.
Nellie said, “I think I might understand why the animals are nervous and running through the forest. If I’m right, it’s my fault, and I’m sorry.”
“Naw, that dopey old horse of yours is not going to stir any of my animals—excuse me.”
He rose from the table and went to the door. When he opened it, the two colourful birds flew in, screeching.
He put one on his shoulder and the other flew across the barn and landed in the middle of the table, almost upsetting Koby’s tea.
“My, they’re big,” Koby said. “Look at all those colours and the strange beak.”
The bird made a few strange noises that sounded almost like a horse neighing, and then it said, “You’re a dickhead.”
“What?” Koby squealed. “It talks. It talks!”
“Omar is a parrot,” Mustafa said. “Parrots talk.”
“It’s not very polite,” Nellie said.
“He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” Mustafa said. “They just make the sounds, not the words.”
The other bird jumped from his shoulder onto the table. It yelled, “What the fuck?”
Koby almost fell from her seat laughing.
Wim said, “I imagine that when you were in the city, the noble visitors to your park would take offence to this bird.”
“I had to keep it at the back of the park, because the rascal children from the area would sneak over the fence at night and teach the birds bad language. They used to belong to a sailor, and unfortunately I haven’t been able to teach them manners.”
“What other animals do you have?” Koby asked.
Apart from the parrots, the elephant, the leopard and the zebra horse, Mustafa had three sheep with big horns, two large horses, a spotted snake that lived in his shirt, a number of chickens and a cow.
People left him alone in the old water mill, which apparently used to belong to either the Verdonck estate or the nuns, depending on what year it was.
Apart from the occasional disagreement about the land, life was quiet here. Mustafa had lived in the farmhouse for the best part of the Regent’s reign.
“I loved the park, but I had to go,” he said. “The guards would come and accuse me of using magic to make the parrots talk. Then I got Esme. She was but a young thing about this high.” He held his hand at shoulder height. “She was born in a circus and the owner couldn’t keep her because business was bad. But the guards wouldn’t let me take Esme to my park because they said it was impossible to control a large creature without magic, and magic was forbidden.”
“I loved the park,” Nellie said.
“Why, thank you. I loved it, too.”
“It’s still there, empty and overgrown with weeds.”
He sighed.
“Would you come back if you could?”
“If I could, maybe, but I would need a bigger park, because Esme needs a nice piece of land. I would love to dress her up and give children rides through the streets.”
Koby’s eyes widened. “Really? That would be amazing.”
“A lot would need to change for that to happen, though,” he said.
“The Regent is dead,” Wim said.
“Yes, but the shepherd is still in control.”
“And you definitely don’t have magic?” Nellie asked.
He shrugged. “It’s changed so many times what they call magic. Animals feel attracted to me. Some of the circus troupes keep their animals in cages. That’s cruel. I don’t like cages. My animals can walk. The horses like walking, Esme likes walking.”
“What about the dangerous animals?” Koby asked.
“Lila? She’s not dangerous. I used to have a lioness, and had to put her in a cage when she was up to no good. But I wo
uld know when she was in a mood. I guess you could call that magic. I never had any magic like where you raise your hands and fire comes out. That’s what I call magic.”
Nellie looked around nervously and asked him where the lioness was.
“Unfortunately, she died of old age. She was very old. She’d been with me since I was a little mite and my father owned the menagerie.”
She asked, “Do you know anything about dragons?”
He gave her a sharp look. “Real dragons or magical dragons?”
“Is there a difference?”
“Real dragons are much smaller. They normally live in or near the water. I’ve seen people who have owned them. They eat a lot of bugs and they’re good to have around when you don’t want ants around the house.”
“I guess I mean a magical dragon.”
Another sideways look, guarded, suspicious. Here was the proof that his magic was real. He could feel the presence of the dragon in the area
“Magical dragons are rare, and I wouldn’t keep one, because they’re not like normal creatures and you need to be a magician to rule them. But they do help normal people sometimes, bringing them things they need.”
“Like bags of carrots.”
Another sharp look. Yes, he knew what she was talking about.
They chatted for a while. Having learned of sea cows, Koby wanted to know what an elephant ate and how Mustafa obtained those things. He shared pieces of roast rabbit with the group—caught by Lila the leopard, who lay on a sheepskin by the fire.
Nellie had to force herself to drink all the tea, since it was much too strong for her liking.
When they went back outside, an amazing sight greeted them. Madame Sabine’s white horse stood next to the cart, as well as the other horses they had seen earlier. With them were three cows, two goats and a whole flock of spotted deer. There were at least thirty of them, some with antlers and some without.
“Well, that’s interesting,” Mustafa said. “These animals are behaving ever stranger.”
“It’s because of the dragon,” Nellie said. “The dragon likes animals and he pays his dues by leaving bags of carrots. The dragon came with us into this area.”
Nellie, Gisele, Wim and Koby climbed back into the cart. Nellie assured Mustafa that they would visit again, and that they would try to bring him things he could use that he found hard to get. Like wool for fixing his gloves.
Then they went back to the main track from the nuns’ farm to Lord Verdonck’s house.
“Interesting fellow,” Wim said.
“Don’t you remember his animal park in town?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Really? We used to go there all the time as kids.”
“I went into the army when I was sixteen. Spent most of my youth marching around Estland.”
Right. And he was a year or two older than her. She didn’t remember when Mustafa had come, but it couldn’t have been long before her memories because it had been a time of discovering new lands. She wasn’t sure where Mustafa had come from. He wasn’t Phenician, but his home was somewhere in the south-east.
And so the cleansing continued. Foreigners had magic, and therefore they had to leave the city. Like Mustafa, like Madame Sabine.
“What are we going to tell the others?” Wim said.
“I don’t know anymore,” Nellie said. “I thought the nunnery looked good, but if they sell to Zelda, she will betray us.”
“Maybe we should tell Madame Sabine to leave. Then we can stay on the estate.”
“Where would she go by herself?”
“She’s a noblewoman; she has money to figure that out.”
Nellie shook her head. “She’s not rich, and she doesn’t have friends and relatives anywhere who will help her. She spoke to me yesterday and told me about an important part of her history.”
“Witchcraft?” Wim asked.
“No, she’s the Lurezian king’s cousin once removed, from a really good family, but they fell on bad times. She has always needed to work for her survival. She’s a member of the Science Guild, and when she lived in Lurezia, she was in the army and made balloons. She started making balloons in Lord Verdonck’s sheds, but the son doesn’t like it. She showed me her project. I also know that she arranged for the dragon to be stolen from the church crypts not because he is a magic creature, but because he can fly. Apparently the king of Lurezia has offered a large reward for a person who make humans fly reliably. They can do this with balloons, but the balloons are hard to steer, since they go wherever the wind blows. She tried to get the dragon to pull the balloon, in a way that sea cows pull the ship. But the dragon didn’t agree with that, and he attacked her and her lover. I believe they wanted to try again. All the equipment to make balloons is still in the shed. Lord Verdonck wants her to get rid of it.”
Gisele snorted. “Why ever would he do that? Think of being the first person to make people fly!”
“I guess he thinks it’s frivolous.”
“A lot of people think it’s frivolous! But still . . .”
“The Lurezian army paid her to make the balloons. They wanted to use balloons in war, to drop stuff on enemy camps, or something like that. The unsolved problem was, she said, to make the balloon go where you wanted it to go. That’s why she wanted the dragon.”
Wim stared at her. “Do you think Lurezia wants to attack Saardam?”
Nellie was going to say she couldn’t see why, but of course she could, because attacks had been common in the past. The sea was muddy and full of sand banks. Reliable safe harbours were rare, and Saardam had such a harbour. Wars had been fought over it before.
Gisele said, “Then we have a choice. We can stay in the barn where we are, or we can go somewhere else.”
“I don’t like Adalbert Verdonck at all, but I have more trust in him as an honest man who won’t betray us than I have in Zelda. The fact that the nuns sell to Zelda means that either the nuns have no idea what they’re doing, or they agree with Zelda’s position. I don’t think we can afford to be involved with that.”
“Then that means we stay where we are,” Wim said. “That suits me fine. I wasn’t looking forward to having to move anyway. I don’t think Yolande would survive that.” And he had taken to looking after her, since they were the oldest two people in the group.
“No, it would probably be better for the people who are not well to stay where we are,” Gisele said.
“But we have to remain careful,” Nellie said, remembering Henrik’s words about violence.
Gisele raised her eyebrows. “Isn’t that always the case?”
“I don’t trust Lord Verdonck. I don’t want him to drive out Madame Sabine. I feel that we might need her.”
Chapter 9
THE VISIT OF ZELDA to the nunnery put the group in a difficult position, because what were they going to do now? Stay at the Verdonck estate and be in the middle of arguments between Adalbert Verdonck and the palace about loans? Or go to the nunnery and risk discovery?
It could be that Zelda only came occasionally and only bought from the nuns if she needed something they sold.
Or it could be that the nuns worked with her and were part of Zelda’s moneymaking scheme.
At any rate, it would only be a matter of time before these nuns discovered that Nellie and the others were wanted by the palace.
Nellie disliked feeling like a political pawn with Adalbert Verdonck, and the Lord did not want the ragtag group on his estate, anyway. While he might allow Madame Sabine to stay for now, Nellie had no illusion that he would make it easy or comfortable for them.
Staying with the nuns, who were happy to have them, would be less safe, even if many of the women would prefer that. What would she say to the women? There is a nice, comfortable place, but we can’t go there because I don’t trust one of their customers?
Would it be possible for the women to keep themselves hidden from Zelda? Would the Abbess allow it?
In the end, they were al
l in this together.
On the ride back to the Verdonck estate, they decided to put the matter to the group. But when they arrived back at the barn, it was to the sound of raised voices from within. She could hear Agatha, and Henrik as well.
Goodness, what was going on?
While Gisele went to take the cart back to wherever she had borrowed it, Nellie opened the door.
The dragon sat at the far end breathing smoke over the floor of the barn.
Several women called, “Nellie! You’re back!” They sounded glad.
Nellie called out, “Someone tell that dragon to stop trying to set fire to the barn.” She hated to think what the Lord Verdonck could charge them if the barn burnt down. They would be bound to eternal servitude.
Then she realised that Prince Bruno was standing in front of the dragon. Henrik and Agatha had been facing him, but they now turned around to the door.
The dragon had lifted his head, and smoke no longer came out of its nostrils. That was something at least.
“What by the Triune is going on?” Nellie asked.
“I told them I want to go and see my father,” Prince Bruno said.
Henrik said, “But you can’t. No one even knows where he is.”
“I’m not going to find out if I stay in this stupid barn, am I?” Bruno’s voice sounded shrill.
Nellie said, “We are here for your and everyone’s safety.”
Agatha said, “Don’t waste your breath, Nellie. We have argued with him ever since you left.”
“You want to hide me again!” Bruno called out. “Why did you even free me when I’m not allowed to go wherever I want? This is my country. You should listen to what I say.”
Heavens, what had gotten into that boy? “Well, if you are going to behave like that, we will tell all these people that you are not Prince Bruno after all, and then no one will listen to you.”
He stared her, opened mouth, and then closed it again.
