Of Limited Loyalty cc-2

by Michael A. Stackpole

  From that point forward Mugwump needed no encouragement, but followed no direction. He wandered through the field, sometimes taking the fences, other times just leaping into the air as if a cat pouncing on a mouse. He’d stop, nibble the forward edge of a wing, then trot off again. His behavior bordered on playful, but he pursued it with a concentration that bespoke far greater intelligence than most people knowledgeable about wurms would allow.

  Perhaps wurms are intelligent, or, rather, dragons are. Most wurmwrights considered wurms to be on an intellectual par with draft horses. For as long as Mugwump had been in his care, Vlad would have pegged him as being a bit smarter than that. Since the chrysalis, however, the dragon had been brighter. Prince Vlad would have matched him to a dog and yet, the way he approached testing his wings, took him further than that. Vlad had seen his son exhibiting similar self-awareness.

  Vlad flicked the reins. “Time to go home, Mugwump.”

  The dragon came about and started trotting back toward the wurmrest. As he went he would spread his wings and give one solid beat. His body rocked and got a little lift, but not nearly enough to sustain flight. He stopped trying to fly as he came back into the yard and he shied from where Miranda and Richard were running around-something not terribly easy for a sixty-foot-long lizard to manage.

  Prince Vlad remained in the saddle until Baker caught up and took charge of the dragon. He watched the dragon return to the wurmrest, then began to think. At the battle of Anvil Lake, Mugwump had scaled a sheer cliff as if it was nothing. If he were to gain height that way, then leap into the air, he might be able to glide or actually fly. Bats, who had similar wing designs, roosted upside down in attics and caves, allowing them to drop into the air before they had to begin flying.

  That gave the Prince one area of inquiry to pursue. Then he turned back to the question of intelligence. At the time Mugwump had entered his cocoon, Msitazi of the Altashee had arrived with a gift to celebrate the dragon’s birthday. That day, correctly predicted, was really the day he emerged from the cocoon. It occurred to the Prince that he’d been judging intelligence incorrectly simply because the wurm was almost seven centuries old. In any other creature, that would have established his being an adult and fully grown.

  But what if the clock started anew when he emerged from the cocoon? If that were true, then Mugwump was, in effect, only three years old. Given the likely timescale of a dragon’s life, he was, for all intents and purposes, still an infant. Assuming his intelligence was developing at a rate that roughly paralleled that of his physical development, he might quickly work his way past the intelligence of a dog and on up to a small ape. Or even a man?

  Part of Vlad wanted to dismiss that idea out of hand, but another more tantalizing thought tempted him to go beyond it. No one truly knew the limits of a dragon’s lifespan. While stories told of repeated raids by the same dragons over a number of centuries, old bards’ tales were hardly reliable sources of empirical data. Still, if dragons could outlive men by a factor of ten, who was to say that they could not also become ten times smarter than a man? Judging by skull volume alone, Mugwump’s brain had to be at least ten times the size of a man’s.

  The implications of what he’d seen and was thinking made Prince Vlad want to retreat to his laboratory and scribble copious notes. He wanted to set up some experiments to determine just how smart Mugwump really was. He had Richard for comparison, and Miranda. He could pose problems for them, measure how well they solved them, then offer the same problems to the dragon. He would do these things. Science demanded it.

  Then he stopped. He could gather his data, test his theories, but then what? He couldn’t possibly share them with anyone else. Others would want to duplicate what he had done, which meant creating more dragons, or having Mugwump taken away from him. An intelligent creature, capable of flight, capable of carrying small swivel guns could terrorize cities and towns. People feared wurmriders and they would find dragonriders infinitely more terrifying.

  The greater moral dilemma struck him. He owned Mugwump. The dragon was chattel. But if Mugwump proved to be as intelligent as a man, or even more intelligent, did Prince Vlad have any right to own him? The Prince and all civilized nations had long since repudiated the horror of slavery. Indentured servitude often amounted to the same thing, though the contract did contain limitations which, in theory, prevented abuse. And what would become of all the wurms whose growth and development had been stunted by their long captivity? Could a thinking man condone their enforced infantilization?

  He looked up and saw his wife out with the children. She’d told him that he’d train Mugwump, but would educate his children. How will you take it, my dear, if Mugwump needs educating?

  A cold chill ran through him. He wished, just for a moment, that both he and dragon were stupid. He literally had no choice. He had to educate Mugwump and determine just how smart he truly was. He would have to encrypt all the records, and likely needed to create two sets containing disparate data that he could untangle with the proper key. They would send anyone who stole his information off in the wrong direction.

  Gisella approached him, her brow furrowed. “What worries you? Have you had bad news?”

  “No, good news, I think.” I think. Is that what Mugwump can do? He slipped an arm around her slender waist and watched his son bend down to pick something off the lawn. It appeared to be a twig, which the boy peered at closely, then immediately attempted to stick into his nose. Madeline took it from him, which appeared on the cusp of starting him crying, but Miranda presented him with a yellow flower, which distracted him.

  “Are you going to tell me, husband?”

  He smiled. “Nothing to tell yet, darling. When there is, I will let you know.”

  She leaned her head on his shoulder. “And did Mugwump take well to his training?”

  “Dashed one fence to pieces, and did more hopping than flying, but his landings became less and less jarring.” He kissed the top of her head. “Which reminds me that I’ll likely need a pillow on my chair for the next several days. If a bruise comes up, you must promise not to laugh.”

  Her blue eyes flicked up and she smiled. “I would never…”

  “…laugh aloud?” He squeezed her tightly. “As long as you keep it a secret, darling, I think we will do just fine.”

  Chapter Nine

  18 April 1767 Plentiful, Richlan Mystria

  Out of respect for Prince Vlad, Nathaniel Woods had done his best to reserve judgment on Colonel Rathfield. The Norillian officer didn’t shy from hard work and took to paddling a canoe pretty easily. Even though he carried a smooth-bore musket, he proved a fairly good shot with it. Of course, that meant he was still the worst shot on the expedition, but he was worlds-away better than most Norillians straight off the boat.

  There were things about him, however, that just stuck in Nathaniel’s craw. One was how he addressed all of them by their last names, save for Count von Metternin and Kamiskwa. Those two he treated with a certain amount of deference, but he still spoke down to them. And he treated Hodge Dunsby as his own personal servant. Hodge didn’t seem to mind very much, his having been a soldier in the Queen’s Army until not long ago, but it didn’t sit right with Nathaniel.

  Still, if Hodge had no complaints, Nathaniel wasn’t going to step in for him. Hodge had been in Mystria long enough to know that he could speak his mind. Nathaniel and the others would back him in that. Nathaniel figured that until Hodge decided to change his family name to something more Mystrian perhaps that message hadn’t quite sunk fully in. Still, he was willing to bet Hodge would take a stand before the journey was up.

  The expedition had worked its way west to Grand Falls, then started an overland trek toward the southwest. The journey took them across countless small lakes and small rivers, all part of the watershed of the Westridge Mountains. The mountains began roughly where the Bounty and Richlan Colony borders met at the western edge of their grants, and extended off to the southwest and north
west. They cut the coast off from the Misaawa River valley, which, if Tharyngian and Shedashee tales were correct, roughly split the continent in half.

  Within the first two days they’d left most Colonial settlements behind. Rathfield had referred to it as “abandoning civilization.” Nathaniel and Kamiskwa had exchanged glances, since the Shedashee had nations and tribes all throughout the land. Nathaniel had found them much more civilized than most Mystrians, and figured he might make that point to Rathfield. Then he figured that Rathfield wasn’t ever going to understand, so he resolved to hold his tongue.

  As they traveled toward the mountains and into Richlan, they came across scattered settlements in small valleys with good water and fields. The people generally had constructed a big log blockhouse in the center, with a town green that they jointly worked. Barns had been raised and flocks of sheep wandered over hillsides. The individual homes appeared small, but clustered in small groups.

  Plentiful was such a town and fairly new. At the last town, Wisdom, they’d been encouraged to bypass Plentiful since the people there had split from Wisdom over doctrinal issues a decade earlier. While the people of Wisdom had been full of forgiveness for their former colleagues and family members, the word “wicked” got thrown around a lot more than made Nathaniel comfortable.

  The expedition entered the small valley on foot, having abandoned canoes on the shores of the last lake. The Snake River, which eventually caught up with King’s River to the east and flowed to the sea at Kingstown, ran too shallow in the foothills to be navigable. The people of Plentiful found it a convenient source of fresh water and had built closely on both sides of it. They’d even raised a couple of footbridges, though most folks just happily splashed through it at low points.

  Nathaniel and the others had walked a day and a half in, and brought with them a ten-point buck, which Rathfield had shot and insisted on carrying after basic field dressing-as opposed to butchering it and letting each man carry a piece. Nathaniel figured that was the man trying to show how strong he was. The Mystrian would have been more impressed if the load had been shared out, since that was the smarter way to travel.

  A man in the valley rang the alarm bell in front of the blockhouse when they came out of the woods, but without the enthusiasm of someone reporting real danger. A large man wearing a white shirt, black woolen pants, and a tall, round-brimmed hat with a buckled hatband emerged from the blockhouse and headed toward them, cutting around the green. Nathaniel stayed on the road and raised his right hand, keeping it away from his rifle’s firestone, in a sign of peace.

  The man bowed and spread open hands. “God bless you and welcome you to Plentiful, friends. I am the Shepherd, Arise Faith.”

  Makepeace Bone stepped up. “I am your servant, Makepeace Bone. My companions and I would welcome comfort and counsel, as the Good Book dictates.”

  Faith’s blossoming smile set Nathaniel’s stomach at ease. “Please, friends, know you are welcome. It is fortunate you arrived when you did, for the Sabbath begins at sunset, and we would have been forbidden even greeting you until Monday dawn.”

  Nathaniel nodded. “We’re truly grateful for your welcoming, Shepherd Faith. I’m Nathaniel Woods. This here is Kamiskwa of the Altashee. Count von Metternin is from Kesse-Saxeburg only four years back. That’s Hodge Dunsby and the man with the deer is Colonel Rathfield. The Queen done sent him. And that there is Captain Owen Strake, hero of Anvil Lake.”

  Faith nodded to each man in turn, but his face betrayed zero recognition. He covered himself well, but Nathaniel found him as easy to read as fresh tracks in stiff mud. While Faith knew there was a Queen, he didn’t know a place called Kesse-Saxeburg existed. Nathaniel caught a flicker that suggested he’d heard of Anvil Lake, but whatever he knew didn’t have Owen’s name attached to it.

  Plentiful’s Shepherd pointed toward the blockhouse. “You will be quite welcome to stay in our Spiritual Hall, but you must understand that no profane or lascivious behavior will be tolerated. There is no hard liquor allowed. We will have services, and you are welcome to attend, and then we shall have our communal meal after that. You are welcome to share, though this early in the year the fare can be somewhat meager.”

  Rathfield stepped up and dumped the buck at Faith’s feet. “Please, Goodman, accept this meat as a gift from Her Imperial Majesty, Queen Margaret. She wishes the best for all of her subjects.”

  Faith looked down, and then back up. “Are you certain, Colonel? I would not have thought the Queen…”

  Rathfield smiled. “My dear sir, by my reckoning, Plentiful is still within the bounds of Richlan, which marks you as loyal subjects of the Crown. If she cannot show her beneficence here, at the very edges of the empire God has granted her, to God’s most faithful servants, what kind of a ruler would she be?”

  “I see. This is most unexpected but most welcome.” He clasped his hands together. “Please, friends, I will see to your accommodation and get people to prepare your gift. Follow me.”

  Shepherd Faith led them to the blockhouse, which had been solidly built of logs. Longer than it was wide, it rose to two stories, with a loft that extended halfway in from the door. Bark had been skinned from the interior, making the room appear lighter and larger than it might have otherwise. The far end had a small pulpit carved from a single log. Trestle tables and benches filled the main floor, but people had already begun to break most of the tables down and arrange the benches for the coming service.

  Faith took them up the steps to the loft, which clearly served as community storage during the winter. A few sacks of grain remained, along with a collection of items from spinning wheels to scythes that required repair or sharpening.

  “Please, friends, make yourselves at home.”

  Nathaniel smiled. “Already feel at home, but I reckon you can do me a favor.”

  “Yes?”

  “Point me to an ax and a pile of wood that needs splitting. I hain’t worked an ax good in a while, and I am sadly feeling the need of that exercise.”

  “Of course. Around back is our shed. You can chop all you want until sundown.”

  “Much obliged.”

  Nathaniel waited for Shepherd Faith to descend from the loft before he turned to Colonel Rathfield. “Mighty nice of you just to up and give them your deer.”

  “Calculated risk, really. Thank goodness they were not like that other place several days back-Restraint, was it? — which had its list of proscribed foods. I determined it was a good way to gain entry and a certain amount of trust.”

  Owen, who crouched over a pack, glanced back at them. “But offering it in the Queen’s name could have caused a problem.”

  “You think so, Strake, really?” Rathfield snorted. “Thing of it is this: either they are loyal subjects or they are subjects who have to be reminded that they are subjects. Let us face facts. While many of these settlements are based in religion, and the Virtuans came to Mystria to escape the wrath of the Church, these settlements are not fleeing the Queen’s power, but the perfidy of the settlements from which they have split. The Shepherd of Wisdom suggested the people of Plentiful were cannibalistic slave-drivers who believed in plural marriage and baptism in blood. I’d be concerned, but that’s what the people of Contentment said of the people of Wisdom, and everyone has said of the people of Restraint.”

  Owen straightened up, his journal in hand. “I think you’re missing my point, Colonel. We’re a long way away from any Norillian troops. If we faced opposition…”

  Rathfield laughed. “Surely you jest. Why Dunsby and I could pacify this settlement without blackening a firestone.”

  “I ain’t so sure you’re right, Colonel.” Nathaniel pointed at the nearest window, which stood four times as tall as it was wide, and it was fairly narrow to begin with. “These windows ain’t just for letting light in. Get all your people in here with muskets and short of bringing up some cannon, you ain’t dislodging them.”

  “And if they chose to defy the Crown, I wou
ld just order the building fired.” Rathfield raised his chin. “It would be a prelude to the hellfire reserved for those who defy God and oppose his anointed one.”

  “I reckon that might be one way of handling it.” Nathaniel shucked his tunic and left the loft, making his way to the woodshed out back of the blockhouse. Logs had been dragged from wood yards and piled up. Residents had sawed many of them down into foot and a half lengths. Nathaniel hauled one of them onto a chopping block, split it with a hammer and wedge, then used an ax to cut it down further.

  It wasn’t easy work, but wasn’t terribly complicated, either. He worked up a sweat quickly enough, and attracted the attention of a few young boys whom Shepherd Faith scattered to chores quickly enough. That behavior didn’t surprise him. Nathaniel likely had more scars on him than could be found in the whole of Plentiful. His long hair and the beadwork on his clothes marked him as an intimate of the Shedashee. Woods wasn’t a recognizable Virtuan name and though Nathaniel could be found in the Good Book, it wasn’t common among Virtuans either. Shepherd Faith likely didn’t see Nathaniel as being as bad as a horde of demons, but he reckoned the older man didn’t see him as being far off from that, either.

  Shadows crept through the valley as the sun began to set. Nathaniel buried the ax in the chopping block and started to stack wood. Shepherd Faith summoned the boys back to help in that task, then tried to pull the ax from the block. Nathaniel helped him before the boys could begin to laugh at his struggles.

  The red-faced man smiled. “It might seem a little thing, but we let our tools rest on the Sabbath, too. There it was working, but here, hung on the wall, it enjoys rest.”