The Little Dragons

by Rowan Starsmith

  “Hello? Is someone here?” Lantern light touched the wall over the bed. Peg tried to speak but her voice, unused for several days, came out as a croak. Martha opened the door and shone her lantern inside. “Mother Peg! Are you all right?” Martha stepped over to the side of the bed. There was a young man with her.

  “Yes, yes, I’m all right. Just help me up.”

  Peg had to admit they were efficient. In minutes they had gently lifted her to a sitting position, straightened her blouse and re-tied her bodice. Martha even took out Peg’s braid, brushed her hair, tangled from days of travel, and neatly braided it again. Well, they should be efficient, Peg thought. They’re Healers, after all.

  “Mother Peg,” said Martha, indicating the young man, “This is Katten, my new Apprentice.” Katten bobbed his head politely. He was cutting slices from the loaf Peg had left on the bench the night before. Martha continued. “Are you travelling alone? Where is Maida?”

  “Someone has to take care of those noisy chickens and goats.” Martha raised her eyebrows, took a breath as if to say something, but Mother Peg cut her off. “Also, we have a young man living with us, one of the King’s People. I could hardly bring him here.”

  “Living with you?” Martha looked startled.

  “He’s very young, and …” Peg tapped the side of her head.

  Martha understood immediately. “Oh. They left him out for the Dragons.” Peg nodded and Martha grimaced. “However did he escape?”

  “I don’t know. A pair of shepherds found him, near collapse from exhaustion, and brought him to us. He had some Dragon scratches on him, but not very deep.”

  “A young man, you said?” Peg nodded. “I wonder how he lived long enough to grow up.”

  “Hidden, I suppose. He can speak a few one-syllable words, but he is silent most of the time, and he is used to going about his work in the dark with no lantern. At first sight or sound of a stranger approaching, he disappears, hides until they leave. Maida and I think it must have been his mother who hid him, and two other people. At first he kept looking around and asking after ‘Ma,’ ‘Kee’ and ‘Ric.’” Peg paused to accept a plate of bread and cheese from Katten. “We’re stuck with him for now. It’s annoying, but what else can we do? I guess he’s a help to Maida, with the goats and garden and all. Always hungry, though.”

  “Good thing you have the goats and garden then,” Martha said.

  “All a bother,” Mother Peg sniffed.

  Martha wrinkled her brow. There was a pause before she spoke again. “I worry about you travelling alone, Mother Peg.” Peg sniffed again, handed her plate to the waiting Katten.

  Katten tidied up while Martha helped Mother Peg to her feet. Voices outside announced the arrival of more Healers coming along the trail. Sister Edda and Brother Klaus, a married couple of Healers from the boundary between the Westlands and the Northlands, travelling with Father Mallory’s Apprentice, Gleve. He came from even farther north, in the foothills of the Mountains.

  Everyone greeted and kissed everyone else, in the fashion of the People of the Land. “Mother Peg,” said Brother Klaus, “I wish you had waited another day. We stopped and spent the night with Maida. You could have travelled with us.”

  When Peg greeted Gleve, he caught her glance over his shoulder. “No, Father Mallory is not here. He is well, but getting stiffer and slower. He didn’t feel he could walk so far.”

  How many of her generation would not make it to this gathering? Peg wondered. Would she ever make the trip again? She brightened with her next thought. For years, every time Peg proposed that the Healers spend more time interviewing Elders, or searching the older Healing Journals stored in their vast library, it was Father Mallory's voice raised in opposition. "Why spend time on that? We know all we will ever know about the Dragon Priestesses, and we put ourselves in danger if the Kings find out we are asking questions. We are Healers; we should spend our time Healing and learning more about Healing." This time Father Mallory was not here and she was. Maybe this was her chance.

  The whole party started off across the Barrens together. Mother Peg refused their offered arms, insisting on hobbling along on her stick. Katten walked beside her carrying her pack and holding her lantern so that its light fell just in front of their feet. After a little while, he spoke. “Mother Peg, people are saying that King Anglewart has captured a Dragon. Is it true?”

  “Just because I live in the Westlands doesn’t mean I take tea with the King,” Peg snapped.

  Katten looked chastened and shrank further when Martha rebuked him as well. “We’ll ask Peg to tell us anything she knows when she’s settled in front of the Hearth at the School.”

  The others were happy to travel at Peg’s slow pace. They had much news to share with one another. Just past midnight, Peg began to hear the calming swish, swish of the sea caressing stoney beach. An hour later, they emerged from the forest and decended into the cliff-top clearing that held the Healers’ School. Brightly lit windows welcomed them, outlining a cosy circle of buildings--dormitories, the Teaching Hall, Clinic, Dining Hall and Library--all surrounding the heart of the School, its circular stone Gathering Hall. Lanterns bounced along pathways, each held by a Healer walking between buildings or working in the pastures, gardens and barns.

  Peg longed for the small bed she would occupy in the Women’s Dormitory, but the group headed first for the Dining Hall. When they entered, a group of Apprentices were setting the long tables that filled the centre of the room. The clatter of meal preparation echoed from the Kitchen at the far end of the building. Many greetings came her way. Katten guided her to a circle of chairs in front of the Hearth where several other Old Ones were already settled. He offered to take her pack and lantern to her room.

  Mothers Nell and Tess, along with Father Rob, rose to take her hand and kiss her on both cheeks. Mother Sarah moved to rise but made it no further than the edge of her chair. She reached out for Peg’s hand instead. Sarah was now the oldest of the Old Ones, Peg realized, with a shock, because she herself was only six years younger.

  They began to share news. Father Donnell had died three months before, leaving Rob and Mallory as the only males among the Old Ones. Mother Janua was too ill to travel. She had retired from her Healing practice a year earlier and was living with her son and daughter-in-law. Like Mallory, Lea and Orsa did not attempt the trip from their cottages far off in the Northland, but sent their Apprentices. Both had asked for the School to assign younger Healers to replace them. Lea would move in with a neighbour, a widow who would care for her. Orsa would come back to the School to live out her days, as Sarah had when she retired two years ago. There were Senior Healers now who were twenty-five years younger than they were, Peg mused.

  As word of Peg’s arrival spread, Healers of all ages arrived in the Dining Hall to greet her. Many asked the same question Katten had asked on the path.

  “I know little more than the rumours,” Peg told them.

  “Tell us what you do know, then,” said Mother Nell.

  Peg harumphed. “Just what everyone knows: Anglewart sent some soldiers into the mountains to search for Little Dragons. Most of them became Dragons’ breakfast, as everyone knew they would. The few that made it back brought a Dragon’s egg with them, stolen from a nest, although how they did that, I don’t know.

  “Anglewart had his servants keep it warm, and it hatched. He tried to keep the baby Dragon in a courtyard, with a collar and chain like a dog, silly man. Apparently they even let the palace children play with it, if you can imagine!” Several of the Healers groaned and shook their heads. “Of course,” Peg continued, “It became wilder and wilder as it grew. I gather it finally flew into some kind of rage, killed a couple of the children, including the King’s own daughter, broke its chain and flew away”

  “I can’t believe they let children anywhere near the thing,” said Mother Tess.

  “Well, I guess it was pretty small and harmless at first.”

  “So they d
idn’t see any Little Dragons, I gather,” said Sheil, an Apprentice of Sister Kendra’s.

  Peg shrugged, “Would they tell us if they had?”

  The group fell silent, each wrapped in his or her own thoughts, sadness written on their faces. No one alive could remember living safely and happily, in the open, in the daylight. The Kings had come in the Old Ones’ Grandparent’s time, and the Terror began in their Parent’s day. She knew there were Brothers and Sisters memorizing the Story, but could they tell it like the Old Ones could? What knowledge was disappearing, not only Healers’ knowledge, but that of the People? Was there information out there somewhere--something said to a child long ago, something written and hidden in a wall, something coded into a song that someone still sang--something that would lead to the precious lost secrets of the Dragon Priestesses?

  Mother Peg stretched her back, wincing as pain ran through her. She saw one of the Librarians notice. The woman rose quietly to her feet and began to glide in Peg’s direction. What was her name? Holly, yes. Sister Holly.

  Part of the Sacred Trust of the Healing Order was the collection and preservation of Knowledge. All Healers kept journals, recording what they learned throughout their lives. These precious leather-bound books were made in the Bindery, a building attached to the Library. They were issued to Healers and later returned to the Library, where they were kept and read, compared and discussed, analyzed and summarized. Peg sat at a small table, one of several grouped in the open centre of the room. The rest of the space was taken up with shelves, row upon row, from floor to ceiling, filled with generations of Healers’ Journals. The room smelled of old paper and leather.

  Holly sat down across the table. She did everything silently, from long habit, even through there was no one besides the two of them in the room. “Mother Peg? Are you all right?”

  “Of course I’m all right. Just a little stiff. Sat here longer than I intended to.”

  Holly paused a moment at Peg’s tone, but then continued on, in her professional way. “Is there anything special you’re looking for? Anything I can help you find?” She glanced down at the Journals Peg had spread out on the table.

  “Mother Calla,” Peg prompted. “She was a friend of my Grandmother’s.”

  “Really?”

  Don’t be so surprised, girl, thought Peg. It may be the ancient past to you, but some of us go back that far.

  “She had her Healing Practice in the Westlands, didn’t she?” Sister Holly said.

  Well then, Peg thought. You know your Journals. She began to regret her sharpness with the younger woman. She barked at people too often nowadays. It was not the soft, patient tone that Healers learned for the practice of their craft.

  “Yes, several people have gone through that material,” Holly continued. “In fact, haven’t you read it before, last year at Gathering, or the year before?”

  “I know, I know.” Peg could hear her voice getting sharp again, but couldn’t stop herself. “I just can’t help hoping that there may be something we’ve missed, something that could be a clue.”

  Holly nodded, ignoring the impatience. “There are lots of stories, as you know.”

  Peg knew, of course. Holly was talking about the old rumours that some of the fleeing Dragon Priestesses, knowing they were doomed sooner or later, dictated their secret knowledge to the Healers who sheltered them. Mother Calla’s name was associated with these rumours, as was Sister Liotra and Sister Terra. All were killed in the early days of the Kings, their possessions burned.

  “So much lost,” Holly said. A moment later, she turned her head toward the main door, clearly expecting someone to appear there. Peg silently cursed her failing hearing, but in a few moments, she too could hear slow footsteps on the broad wooden planks of the hallway floor, syncopated by a lighter click which must surely be a cane. One of the Old Ones. Then the steps halted.

  Chapter 4: Mother Tess

  Mother Tess leaned heavily on her stick in the hallway outside the library. What am I doing here? she thought. I should be going in the other direction, toward my bed. She had slept little the day before, troubled by a dream.

  Ah yes, the dream. That was why she had started out toward the library in the first place, to check the Dream Journals, see if she could get help interpreting this spectre that was troubling her rest. The dream had come to her five times now, or was it six? That made it important, a Command Dream of some sort. But what was it asking her to do?

  It always began with a young woman, standing in front of Tess, her back turned. She was dressed in the purple cloak of a Dragon Priestess, never seen now, but who would need a purple cloak to recognize a Dragon Priestess? In the dream Tess’s eyes were held irresistibly by the Little Dragon on the girl’s shoulder. It was looking back, studying Tess intently, and it was beautiful. Its scales picked up the light and reflected it back in glimmering shades of blue. Its eyes were filled with rainbow colours, whirling slowly in a spiral. It had glowing, thick whisker-like things curling back from its head and the middle of its back. No, thicker than whiskers, more like the antennae of an insect, only elegant, moving lazily in the sun.

  Sun! Yes, the dream took place in the daylight. They stood fully lit and unafraid on a path somewhere, outside. And then came another shock. The girl turned and she was not a Woman of the Earth. She was round faced, not tall, but her skin was white and pink, a Woman of the King’s People. How could that be?

  There was no time to wonder, though, because as soon as the young woman saw Tess, she stepped forward, saying something. With an effort, Tess pulled her eyes from the Dragon and focused on the girl’s face. She was trying hard to communicate but there was no sound, just her mouth moving, repeating something over and over again, urgency in her large brown eyes.

  Tess found her heart pounding, just as it did each time she awoke from the dream. Surely it was almost echoing down the hallway outside the library. Tired or not, she must see if she could find any references in the Dream Journals.

  As she entered the library, Tess squinted her eyes in the light of many lanterns. As they adjusted, she started. Mother Peg and one of the Librarians sat at a table staring at her. Had they heard her heart beating in the hallway? No, no, of course not, surely just her footsteps.

  The Librarian rose. “Mother Tess, please take a seat.” She pulled out the chair she had been sitting in. Now Tess wished she had headed to her bed for a nap. She didn’t want to talk about anything to do with the Dragon Priestesses in front of Peg. The woman was obsessed. But what could she do? Here she was.

  She sat and scanned the open journals on the table. “Mother Calla,” she said, and smiled at Peg. “Surely if you comb these pages any finer they’ll start falling out of their bindings.” Peg scowled back. Tess could feel her smile fading. “I have a family connection to her, you know.”

  Peg’s eyebrows folded together.“I’d forgotten that. What exactly was the relationship?”

  Oh dear, not where Tess wanted the conversation to go. Peg had become so sharp in her old age, not like when they were young and Peg had made her reputation as the best midwife in all the Realms. Surely she would never speak to a labouring woman in this tone? Tess sighed. “My uncle, my father’s brother he was, married one of Calla’s daughters. She had several daughters, you know.”

  “Five,” Peg snapped.

  “Yes, five, and many, many descendents from there.”

  “I know there is a line of Healers from her daughter Yolande into the present. I’ve spoken to them all. They have no clues as to what might have happened to Calla’s knowledge from the Dragon Priestesses, if it ever existed. But I haven’t given much thought to the other daughters. What happened to those lines? There must be Healing Gifts there.”

  “I suppose there are, but her other daughters were scattered in the time of terror. We’re into her granddaughters and great-granddaughters now. I’m sure there are Healing Gifts among them, but none have found a way to return and receive training.”
<
br />   “Could you find out who and where they are?”

  “Oh Peg,” Tess said. “You’re relentless.”

  “Of course I’m relentless!”

  “I would have to do some research,” Tess tried to avoid the intensity in Peg’s eyes.

  “And will you?”

  “Some of them may be lost into the world of the King’s People, you know. Most of them became servants in wealthy households. I know at least one line of Calla’s daughters went to your King Anglewart’s capital city.”

  “Hardly my King Anglewart!”

  “They may well have taken the Kings’ world into their heads by now, become just like them.”

  Peg snorted. “Pretty hard to become just like them when your skin is dark.”

  “Skin colour doesn’t stop the Kings’ ways from getting inside our heads.”

  “True,” Peg admitted, her voice softening a little.

  Tess relented as well. “For all my teasing, my dear, I know how important this quest is. I will do what I can.”

  “Well,” said Peg. “Well then.”

  Chapter 5: Mother Peg

  The circular Gathering Hall, heart of the School, was dug into the ground and walled with stone. Inside, tiers of benches circled a central Hearth. Huge wooden beams held up the roof, framing a round hole where the smoke could escape. During each night of the retreat, this space was filled with teaching, learning, decisions and plans.

  As always, Mother Peg put her name on the list of Proposers. When her turn came, she once again suggested that the Healers organize a project, a systematic search for clues among the oldest living People of the Land, in the Journals they already had, in any place a Journal might have been hidden during the years of Conquest and Terror. This time she added a new argument: King Anglewart had sent an expedition to the Mountains to search for Little Dragons. This could mean that the Kings regretted their destruction of the Dragon Priestesses and were now openly searching for their secrets. People would soon get the message that anything they might know about the Dragon Priestesses could earn them a reward. The Kings would use what they learned to increase their own power for their own war-like ends. It was crucial that the Healers get to any new information first, and use it for the wellbeing of the People.