Dragon's Boy

by Jane Yolen

  He got to the cave much quicker than he’d bargained. Breathless and unprepared (Indeed, how does one prepare for a dragon? he thought), he squinted nervously into the dark hole. It was much less inviting than yesterday. He listened hard but this time heard none of the heavy dragon breathing.

  “Perhaps,” he said aloud to lend himself courage, “perhaps there’s no one at home. Perhaps I can just leave the pot of gravy and go.”

  “STAAAAAAAY,” came the sudden rumbling.

  Artos almost dropped the pot.

  “I…I have the gravy,” he shouted. He hadn’t meant to speak so loudly, but fear always made him either too quiet or too loud, and he was never sure which it was going to be.

  “Then give it meeeeeeee,” said the voice, somewhat modulated and followed immediately by a clanking as the great claw extended halfway through the cave.

  Artos could tell it was the foot by its long shadow, for this time there was no illuminating gout of fire. There was only a hazy smoldering from the far end of the cave. All of a sudden—things seeming fairly familiar—Artos felt a little braver. “I shall need to take the pot back with me. When you are quite done with it. Sir.”

  “You shall take a bit of wisdom instead,” the dragon said.

  “Please, sir, I’d rather have the pot.” But fear had made his voice so quiet, he could hardly hear it himself. At the same time, he wondered if the dragon’s wisdom would make him wise enough to avoid Mag’s garlicky embrace. Somehow he doubted it was that kind of wisdom.

  “Tomorrow you shall have the pot,” the dragon said. “When you bring me more meat.”

  “More?” This time Artos’ voice squeaked unaccountably. He could already smell Mag.

  “MOOOOOOOORE.” The nail on the dragon’s foot extended just as it had the day before, catching under the handle of the pot. There was a hideous screeching as the pot was lifted several inches into the air and slowly withdrawn into the recesses of the cave. Then came strange scrabbling noises, as if the dragon were sorting through its various possessions, before the clanking resumed. When the claw returned, it dropped something at Artos’ feet.

  He looked down. It was a book, rather tatty around the edges. The cave light was so dim, he couldn’t read its title.

  “Wisssssssdom,” hissed the dragon alarmingly, like a kettle almost out of water yet still on the boil.

  Artos shrugged. “It’s just a book. And anyway, I already know my letters. Father Bertram taught me.”

  “Letterssssss turn matter into ssssspirit.”

  “You mean it’s a book of magic?”

  “All books are magic, boy.” The dragon sounded a bit cranky and that made Artos begin to get very nervous again.

  “Well, I can read,” Artos said quickly, hoping to soothe the agitated beast. He stooped and picked up the book, very much aware of the claw near his head. Then, looking hopefully in the dragon’s direction and trying to pierce the darkness and read the dragon’s expression, he said, “Thank you.” Old thorns and old dragons, he reminded himself.

  “You can read letters, my boy, which is more than I can say for your thick-headed castle contemporaries. And you can read words. But in order to gain wisdom you must learn to read inter linea, between the lines.”

  Edging backward toward the light of the cave entrance, but not so quickly as to alert the dragon, Artos opened the book and scanned the first page. His fingers underlined each word while his mouth formed them aloud. He turned the page, then looked up puzzled. “You must have given me a damaged book, sir. There is nothing written between the lines.”

  Something rather like a chuckle crossed with a cough echoed around the cave. The dragon was laughing.

  “There is always something written between the lines, boy, but it takes great wisdom to read it.”

  “Then why me, sir? As you have already noted, I have very little wisdom.” He added uncertainly, afraid he might have issued an invitation to eating, “In fact, sir, I am very little all over.”

  “Because…because you are here.”

  “Here?”

  “Today. And not back at Beau Regarde feeding the brachets or cleaning out the mews or sweating in the smithy or cowering before that pack of unruly, bulky, illiterate boys. You are here, Artos. For the getting of wisdom.” The dragon made stretching noises.

  “Oh!” It was a temporizing sound. He’d originally thought that coming back to the cave was a mistake. Now he was beginning to wonder what had really brought him. Not fear of the dragon, surely. As long as the dragon was in a cave and he’d been at the castle, there was nothing to fear. Or so he thought. Could he really have come back to get the wisdom the dragon had promised? He liked knowing things, and knowing was certainly a part of wisdom. But at least Father Bertram wouldn’t eat him if he missed a word. The dragon might. The getting of wisdom from dragons could be a very dangerous game.

  There was a sudden tremendous wheezing and clanking and a strange Uh-oh from the dragon. Then silence.

  Artos peered nervously at the back of the cave. He could see nothing but blackness streaked with an occasional quick finger of fire. The silence lasted a long, long time. Finally Artos ventured, “Are you all right, sir?”

  An even longer silence followed in which he began to wonder if he should make his way through that awful blackness to the back of the cave. He wondered if this were another test and if he had enough courage to pierce that darkness. And he wondered if he had even the smallest amount of the wisdom necessary to help out if something really were wrong with the dragon. Then, just as he was about to try, the dragon’s voice came hissing back.

  “Yessssssssss, boy.”

  “Yes, what, sir?” He’d forgotten the question in his nervousness.

  “Yesssssss, I’m all right.”

  “Well then,” Artos said, putting one foot quietly behind another, “thank you for my wisdom and I’ll be going, sir.”

  A furious flame spat across the cave, leaping through the darkness to lick Artos’ feet. He jumped back, startled at the dragon’s accuracy and suddenly terribly afraid. Had it all just been preparation for the dragon’s dinner? Did the dragon season his prey with anticipation and fear? Had the stew gravy with the three lumps of meat been a small appetizer before the main course, which was to be an Artos roasted slowly on that gleaming nail over the dragon’s own fiery flames? Artos’ imagination worked double time, and he could already feel the searing agony of the fire, could already smell his flesh burning, could already hear the sizzling of his hair. Suddenly he wished above all things that he’d stayed at the smithy, waiting out the argument between Old Linn and Magnus Pieter to claim a sword. Any sword. Even a full-on-the-mouth kiss from Mag would be preferable to being a dragon’s dinner. If he got out of this, he promised himself to be nicer to Mag in the future. Taking a deep breath, he turned and ran out of the cave.

  Only the dragon’s voice followed him.

  “Ssssssssilly child, that was not the wisdom.”

  From a safe place outside the cave, Artos called out. “There’s more?”

  “By the time I am through with you, Artos Pendragon, Arthur son of the dragon, you will read inter linea in people as well.” There was a loud moan and another round of furious clacketing, and then total silence.

  Taking the silence as a dismissal, and clutching the book hard against his chest, Artos ran down the hill. Artos Pendragon. Why ever had the dragon called him that? He worried that particular bit of dragon wisdom over and over until the castle was in sight. After that, he’d only one thought in mind: What can I tell Mag about the loss of the gravy pot? It might mean another kiss. Actually, the dragon’s fires would have been preferable. And, comfortably forgetting his promise to be nicer to Mag, he ran all the way back home.

  6

  The Getting of a Sword

  THE MINUTE HE WAS back in the castle, Artos found a quiet corner and opened the book. He looked at it grimly, turning page after page. There were no pictures in it, only writing; and it was imm
ediately clear he wouldn’t be able to read it without help. The sentences were much too long and interspersed with Latin and other tongues whose letters were totally foreign to him. He could only guess at their meanings. He wondered if that were the between the lines the dragon had meant. Closing the book with a bang—which caused a great amount of dust to get up his nose, tickling him into three mighty sneezes—Artos was filled with disappointment. After all his courage in facing the dragon again and the kiss he’d bravely given to Mag, the least he’d expected was the promised wisdom. So much for promises!

  He couldn’t ask Father Bertram for help in reading it. The priest (prickly as an old thorn bush, he thought) would never approve of any book other than the Testament or commentaries. The good father was fierce about what he considered proper fare for Christians, especially new Christians like the castle folk, still prone to backsliding. Artos remembered the great bonfires when Father Bertram had first arrived, into which the priest had personally flung book after book. Even Lady Marion’s Book of Hours, with its gold leafing and colored miniatures, a gift from the High King that had taken some four scribes the better part of a year to set down, even that had gone into Father Bertram’s righteous flames. And Lady Marion, who’d insisted they all become Christians in the first place, could not argue. Rumor had it that the book was burned because Adam and Eve wore no fig leaves and there weren’t any scribes in such a small place as Beau Regarde who might paint them in. Artos smiled at the thought. He wished he’d seen the pictures before the flames had gotten to it. In the interest of wisdom, of course.

  He’d seen neither the Book of Hours nor the flames to which it had been consigned, but he’d had the story on good authority when, some years later, Lady Marion had sighed in mentioning it to her maids and they passed the sigh along with the gravy down to young Cai, who’d mentioned it as a joke to Bed and Lancot in the cowshed where Artos, unbeknownst to them, was trying to nap in the haymow.

  No, he couldn’t ask Father Bertram for help in reading the dragon’s book. Pictures or no, he doubted the dragon’s wisdom was the same as the good father’s and another book would be consigned to the fire. His only recourse, he knew with a slow, sinking feeling, was to ask Old Linn, that whiney, hunched-over, ancient embarrassment. He’d have to wait until suppertime of course, after the rest of his chores. Then he’d make an appointment with the old man, out of the hearing of the other boys; an appointment to visit Old Linn in his tower room.

  At the thought of the tower room, Artos shivered. He’d never been up there. None of the boys had. It was rumored to be filled with bottles of poison and beakers of strange-colored liquids. The door itself, so he’d heard, was set about with runic warnings and enchantments.

  But Old Linn was his only hope, tower room or no. The apothecary could read four languages well—English, Latin, Greek, and bardic runes. It was said his room was piled floor to ceiling with books, the only ones Father Bertram hadn’t been able to burn because the old man wasn’t a Christian. Old Linn had known great stories, many of them from those very books, like “The Conception of Pryderi” and “The Battle of the Trees” and the ones about the children of Llyr and the Cauldron and the Iron House and the horse for Bran. Artos suddenly wished he’d had one of those books instead of the dragon’s useless book of wisdom. Especially since Old Linn was now too enfeebled to recite the tales.

  Artos hoped, sincerely, that the apothecary was at least well enough to help him read the dragon’s book but not well enough to ask him how he’d secreted such a treasure away from Father Bertram’s fires. If asked, he’d say it was a present from his mother. Unconsciously, his hand strayed to the leather bag around his neck. Yes, he thought, old men are often sentimental. He’ll believe that. Then he added, quickly, I hope.

  Of course, there was a further problem. Artos knew that Old Linn hated him. Well, perhaps hate was too strong a word, but he certainly preferred the other young gentlemen of Beau Regarde—the heir Cai and his two cousins Bedvere and Lancot. Preferred them to the impoverished fosterling who’d been taken in as an infant by the kindness of Sir Ector and the tenderness of Lady Marion. The old man especially lavished attention on Cai who, as far as Artos was concerned, had long ago let his muscles overtake his head. And Bed, whose hand was as heavy as his long jaw. And that pretty boy Lancot. Even though they were all—and here he recalled the dragon’s words with pleasure—unruly, bulky, illiterate boys.

  Once, of course, he’d tried desperately to curry favor with them, fetching and carrying and helping them with their letters. But after Lancot, as a joke, had pulled Artos’ hose and pants down around his ankles in the courtyard and the other two—with great gasps of laughter—had called out Lady Marion’s maids to gawk, Artos had tried to ignore them whenever possible. Or had tried to make them ask him for help, which happened all too rarely.

  Still, whether Old Linn hated him or preferred the others, it didn’t matter. Surely the getting of wisdom was a time for putting aside feelings of hurt. He’d need a lot of help in reading the dragon’s book. And since none of the other boys could read even half as well as he and Sir Ector couldn’t read at all and Lady Marion must never know about such frightening things as dragons and Father Bertram would burn his book, Old Linn was his only hope.

  As Artos grimly climbed the stairs to the tower, the book weighed heavily under his arm. He rehearsed his speech at each step.

  “Old Linn,” he whispered to himself. “Sir Linn.” That was better. “I feel a great need at this time in my life to get wisdom and…” Would he believe that? “I met this dragon the other day and he thought I needed to…” No, best keep the dragon secret. After all, old dragons like old thorns…“I came upon this book and…” Surely Old Linn would know the list of books left over from the Father Bertram’s fires. It was no good. Each step closer to the tower room made the excuses seem feebler.

  There were 113 steps in all. Artos counted them between speeches. 113. A magical-sounding number. The last few steps he had to take in utter darkness because the torch at the top of the stairs by the door had guttered out. When he touched it, he found it so cold he knew it had been dead for hours.

  Because of the darkness, he couldn’t see the many runes on the door. Indeed, he couldn’t see the door, only feel its hard wood under his hand. He found a great metal knocker by feel as well and used it to tap lightly on the door.

  When there was no answer, he hammered more loudly.

  After thirteen loud knocks (Another magical number, he told himself), he knew there was no one inside. He couldn’t tell if he were unhappy or immeasurably relieved. Trotting down the stairs, he was too late for dinner and too upset to be hungry. So, chancing a whipping by ignoring his after-dinner duties, he went instead to speak to Old Linn’s best friend, the smith.

  “Come now, young Art,” the smith called out. “And wasn’t you here just this morning with a grim and gruesome look? What is’t?”

  Artos smiled, all the while trying to think of a way to introduce Old Linn seamlessly into the conversation, but failing.

  “Shouldn’t you be at work, boy? Shouldn’t I?” asked the smith. “The ayes (bang) have it,” he said, turning back to his anvil and starting out on another round of word jokes.

  In order to stop the jokes and, partially because it seemed as good a time as ever, Artos reached up and took the leather bag from around his neck. He fingered it open and drew out the red jewel, dropping it onto the anvil, where it made a funny little pinging sound.

  Magnus Pieter sucked on his lower lip and snorted solemnly through his nose. “God’s truth, boy—where’d you get that stone?” He let the hammer down slowly till it rested by his boot.

  To tell the truth would mean getting swat for a liar, that much Artos knew. So he borrowed the lie he’d prepared to tell Old Linn who was, at any rate, a great deal sharper than the smith.

  “I was left it by my mother. Same as this ring.” He lifted out the little golden circle, which could only rest on the tip p
art of his pinkie, being so tiny and perfect. The lie, using his unknown mother as a base, sat uneasily in his mouth. He was, by inclination, an honest boy though his imagination sometimes led him into a storyteller’s exaggerations. But the smith didn’t seem to notice.

  “Kept it till now, have you?” Magnus Pieter asked. “Well, well, and of course you have. There’s not much in Beau Regarde to spend such a fine jewel on.”

  “Is it fine then?” asked Artos quietly. Up until then he’d no idea if the jewel were real or only colored glass.

  Magnus Pieter nodded, his head moving up and down several times. “Very fine.”

  Artos found himself nodding back, the silence between them stretching their agreement.

  At last Magnus Pieter could stand no more silence. “And why’d you be showing this special jewel to Old Magpie, eh?” It was the boys’ name for him, and Artos was surprised he knew it. “Because you know I’d appreciate fine craft?” He spoke with the heavy-handed jocularity he always confused with cunning.

  Guessing the smith would give him a better bargain if he played the innocent, Artos replied simply, “Why, I thought I might buy a sword, Magnus Pieter.”

  “Of course,” the smith said, throwing his head back and bellowing a laugh. “A sword!” Then he stopped and cocked his head to one side, eyeing Artos and, Artos thought, looking very much like a large magpie indeed. “Well?”

  “Well, I am old enough now to have a sword of my own,” Artos said. “And if the jewel from my…mother…”—his voice dropped suddenly at the lie—“is as fine as you say, perhaps I can buy a good sword, too.”

  “As fine as I say—you say—but I be no great judge of jewels.”

  “But a judge of swords,” said Artos, adding in a whisper, “and words.” The last felt like the worst lie of all, which is why he whispered it, but it appealed greatly to Magnus Pieter, whose chest positively swelled.