The Little Dragons

by Rowan Starsmith

  Gleve blushed hard as he continued. "I had thought of that expedition before, when I was wondering how you came to be in the Foothills Spring campsite, but then I would always think it just couldn't be. The men chosen for an expedition into the mountains would have been the roughest, strongest fighting men the King had. I don't mean you're not strong …" Gleve glanced at Keiran to see if he had offended. Keiran simply looked deeply lost in his own thoughts. "… but you are fine boned, your hands always make me think 'musician' or …"

  "Artist," Keiran finished the sentence.

  "Would the King have sent an artist to record what they found?" Lynna asked.

  "I wish I could remember!" Keiran scrunched his face in the effort to come up with something more.

  "Don't try too hard," Father Mallory told him. “Memories come in their own time."

  "Don't I know that!" Keiran smiled at him.

  Chapter 56: Maida

  Maida and Liandra sat under a lantern in the yard shelling peas. Mother Peg and Rafe were gone on yet another journey to Heal and ask questions. Liandra glanced around, then bent forward and kissed Maida on the lips. She giggled. Maida smiled, then returned to the work. Liandra sighed. “What’s wrong, Maida?”

  Maida opened a few pods in silence, letting the peas rattle into the bowl in her lap. When she looked up, the lantern light shone on the wetness in her eyes. “Liandra, I can’t let myself love you like this. Every time I look at your belly getting larger, it reminds me that our time will soon be over. When you go your way and I go mine, we will probably never see each other again.” Suddenly Liandra’s eyes, too, filled, and she returned without comment to her task.

  Sometime later she asked, “Maida, why aren’t you a Healer? I thought that’s what you were when I first came here. Your voice is more soothing than hers.”

  “She can be soothing when she wants to be. In fact, she can put people into a trance so deep they can’t feel her stitching a wound or setting a bone, just using her voice.”

  “I think you could do that.” Maida paused with an open pod of peas, but did not look up. “So why aren’t you a Healer?”

  Maida blinked hard, surprised by the anger that rose in her to meet Liandra’s question. She did not try to keep it out of her voice. “Because Mother Peg refuses to believe that anyone who does not come from a long line of Healers can become one. At the School I was examined by the oldest of the Old Ones and she said I could be a Healer, but Mother Peg just laughed at that.”

  “So why don’t you go back there, to the School?”

  Maida sighed. “It’s not that easy.”

  “You ran away once.”

  “From my family, which ended my Apprenticeship as a cheesemaker, but if I ran away from Mother Peg the School would have to discipline me for disobedience. They would never accept me as an Apprentice then.”

  “I don’t understand why they don’t discipline her, the old witch!” Maida was very still, said nothing. “But you are angry about it, aren’t you?” Maida nodded, her eyes blurring. She blinked again to clear them. “So isn’t there anything you can do?”

  “Wait. She’s very old. If I serve her well, the School will assign me to someone else when she dies, hopefully as an Apprentice.”

  “But she might live to be really, really old.”

  “I know. I do try to learn everything I can. I hope if—when—I become an Apprentice I’ll already know a lot.”

  Liandra snorted and popped a pod so vigorously that the peas jumped out of the bowl and scattered on the ground. “You’re a lot more patient than I am. Some day you’ll just explode, rebel in some way no one could imagine.” She bent to pick up the peas but couldn’t reach them over her large belly. “When I am Queen of the Southlands,” she said, “I will send for you to come and be my personal Healer.” Maida laughed and began gathering the peas scattered on the ground.

  Suddenly, a man’s voice shouted from well down the eastern path. “Mother Peg! Where is Mother Peg?” Maida set her peas aside and stood up. Now she could see a lantern coming down the path, bouncing and twisting.

  Two men came into the clearing, disheveled and wild-eyed. Between them they carried a third man, cut and bleeding. Liandra, too, had risen to her feet. “Mother Peg,” one of the men said through his gasps for breath. “He was attacked by a Dragon. We’ve carried him all the way from Tummel.”

  “Mother Peg isn’t here,” Maida said.

  “But you’re her Apprentice, aren’t you? You can take care of him.”

  “I’m just …” Maida began but Liandra cut her off.

  “We’ll take care of him.”

  Maida stared at her, shocked, but the confidence in Liandra’s voice carried her forward. She ran into the house, pulled out the pallet and laid it on the floor in front of the hearth. The injured man groaned as his friends set him down upon it and continued to whimper as he lay there. He had been slashed and bitten all over his chest and legs. Like all Dragon wounds, the gashes were puffed up and bright red. Liandra stood over him studying the cuts, her face pale.

  Maida found some bread and cheese and poured a flagon of milk. She sent the two men out to the yard with them to eat and rest. “What are we going to do?” Maida whispered to her.

  “I know exactly what he is feeling,” Liandra said. “His cuts are burning like fire.” She looked up at Maida. “What would Mother Peg do?”

  “Cut off his clothes,” Maida whispered. “Cover him with a sheet and wash him very carefully with warm water.”

  Maida and Liandra finished washing his wounds, working slowly because he winced and whimpered each time they touched one of the bloody gashes. “Now, a salve,” Maida said. “But I have no idea which one.”

  Liandra closed her eyes for a minute, then rose and went to the storeroom. She came back with a pottery jar. Maida read the label. “Licorice?”

  “It will work. Watch.” Liandra scooped out some of the salve, warmed it for a moment in her hand, then began to smooth it on the terrible wounds. As she worked, the man began to calm.

  Maida joined Liandra in smoothing on the silky cream. When she looked at the first gashes Liandra had salved, she thought the redness was already fading.

  “How did you know?” Maida asked.

  “Rafe told me.”

  Chapter 57: Melisande

  A Librarian quietly tapped Melisande’s shoulder. “You have a visitor, Lady.” She looked down at her fingers holding the quill, stained with ink. “You are to come quickly,” the Librarian said. No time, then to clean her hands. A Sister waited to guide her to the visiting room.

  When they entered, a man in a full, roughly made cloak sat in one of the wooden chairs, his back to them, his large hood pulled forward over his head. He was slumped in the chair but this could not disguise his height. He did not turn to greet them.

  The Sister bowed and left. Melisande had a sudden urge to go with her, or at least ask her to stay, but it was too late. Her footsteps disappeared down the hallway outside. She knew the woman could have stayed to spy through the large keyhole, she had heard of others doing this, but apparently this Sister had other duties to attend to.

  Perhaps the man knew about the keyhole too, because he still did not turn. “Sir?” Melisande addressed him. A hand emerged from the cloak and beckoned her to come around to the other side of the chair. The moment her eyes fell on those long calloused fingers, Melisande’s heart leapt into double its previous rhythm. How is it he could still affect her like this? “My Lord,” she whispered.

  The hand beckoned again and she came around the chair, beginning to kneel in front of him. “No, no,” he whispered and reached forward to grab her forearm. Her skin warmed under his touch. “You are no longer required to do obeisance to me. In fact,” and his eyes crinkled just as they always had in laughter, only with more creases, and deeper ones, than there used to be. “You are no longer even alive. And I am some rough journeyman come to speak to the Lady Widow in the Women’s Retreat House.” r />
  He rose and brought a chair forward, setting it close in front of his own. Melisande sat. When he was seated again, they studied each other’s faces for a long time, in silence.

  “This is a terrible risk,” she said, finally. “Why?”

  “I need to know,” he said, and paused. “Do you hate me?”

  What a storm of emotions rose up to meet his question—anger, sadness, longing, nostalgia, even love, but not hate. “No,” she told him.

  He nodded. “And are you happy here?”

  “I am happy here.”

  He studied her again, seeming to search for truth or lie in the depths of her eyes. He nodded slightly, affirming that he had found truth. “I wanted to tell you before you hear—I am going to marry Thalassa Rodolph.”

  This was not a surprise politically, but at the level of the heart? “And are you content to do so, when you know I am still alive?” she asked him.

  “No, but I must.”

  “And the Warrior God? “

  “It is not the first time I have disappointed Him. I hope, when the time comes, He will understand. He, too, was a King.”

  She nodded. “And our son? How does he respond?”

  “He does not yet know. I’m sure he will be angry. I am looking for another young woman for him, equally highborn, equally beautiful, equally …” She knew the missing word--sexy—was glad that he didn’t say it.

  This was the cynical, power-craving King. She did not want to talk to him.

  “And I want to ask,” he said, returning suddenly to her Anglewart again, “Is there anything I can do toward your happiness here?”

  Her eyes jumped to his. “Yes,” she said.

  Chapter 58: Gleve

  As Father Mallory predicted, Keiran’s memories did come, some of them painful. The men on the expedition were the roughest fighting men the King had. The beating in the Foothills Spring campsite had not come out of the blue. Father Mallory had time to listen, and his healing presence drew the poisonous memories from his young patient. Keiran shared the taunts the King’s men had heaped on him, the tricks they had played on him, the dangers they had exposed him to just to hear him scream, only to pull him back to safety at the last moment, laughing at him.

  One evening he ran to the hearth and pulled a piece of partially burned wood out of the fire so quickly he singed his fingers. He ignored the heat in his haste to sketch the image in his mind's eye on a large flagstone. The rest of the household watched, fascinated, as the picture took shape--a female dragon curled protectively around her clutch of eggs.

  Later Father Mallory approached Gleve. "Those new Journals you brought from the School, did you not tell me that one of them is for information we discover on the Little Dragons? Should we give it to Keiran as a sketch book, to record his memories of the Dragons as they emerge?"

  "Give a Healing Journal to one of the King's People?" Gleve reacted with instinctive hesitation. Even the existence of the Healing Journals was considered a secret kept from the King's People. They had burned so many important books during the conquest.

  "He will never go back to his people," said Father Mallory. "You know that."

  "But he will never be one of us either."

  "No, he must find his destiny somewhere in between. However, I have a feeling that his memories of King Anglewart's expedition, as they continue to emerge, will bring important new information." Gleve considered for another moment. "I'll take full responsibility for the decision," Father Mallory added.

  "All right. We have one of the large Journals, intended for illustrations. Let's give him that."

  When Gleve put the Journal in Keiran's hands, the artist fell silent and his eyes filled briefly with tears. Then he began to explore its textures, reverently running his fingers over its soft leather cover, it's neat stitching. He opened it and touched the smooth surface of the paper. His brow creased in concentration, an expression the household had learned meant more memories about to emerge. Suddenly he looked up, his eyes wide, staring into the distance. "A sketchbook," he said. "I had one." He thought again. "It was with me on the expedition. It was wrapped in leather and carried in a special pocket inside my oiled leather jacket to keep it dry."

  Gleve looked at Father Mallory. "You don't suppose …"

  "The Foothills Spring campground," Keiran completed the thought.

  "Yes, you must go and look," Father Mallory agreed. "Lynna is a capable young woman and an able Apprentice. She and I will be all right on our own."

  “Do you mean…both of us?” Gleve looked uncomfortably at Keiran, who looked away.

  “It would hardly be safe for Keiran to make a journey like that alone,” Father Mallory frowned at Gleve. “And maybe, as you travel,” he turned his gaze to Keiran, then back to Gleve, “You can come to some better way of dealing with the feelings between you.” Both young men blushed fiercely.

  "But what if you must travel to Heal someone? Gleve fretted.

  "They'll just have to come to me, or send someone to carry me to them. Don't worry."

  And so it was that Keiran and Gleve departed soon after sunset the next night, dressed and provisioned for a long journey.

  Chapter 59: Melisande

  Four women jostled and bumped over the rough road. Head Mother Mabonne had given Melisande permission to make the journey, but not before pacing furiously back and forth across the carpet in her study. “I don’t know how you managed this,” she said, “An order straight from the King. You’re a fool. He’s a fool. The risk of your secret, and his, getting out is great. Or you’ll be eaten by Dragons out there or the Earth People will eat you themselves.” Melisande restrained herself from laughing.

  The Head Mother objected to Melisande’s choice of servants. “The one has tried to escape before. What if she leaves you high and dry in some backwoods inn? And the other wouldn’t know a rule if it bit her hand.”

  “I will take responsibility for them,” Melisande told her.

  “Well I suppose it would be little loss to this House if they do become a Dragon’s breakfast …” Head Mother Mabonne abruptly clamped her mouth shut, as clear a statement as any that she knew she had gone too far.

  The Men’s Retreat House usually organized any travelling done by residents of the Women’s Retreat House, but Mother Mabonne wanted to attract as little notice to this journey as possible. She had one of her own trusted servants quietly rent a small, battered carriage and hire a driver and guard from a livery stable on the edge of the town. The rest of the arrangements were left to Melisande.

  Melisande noticed that Ev and Jessa sat as far apart as they could. They stared out of opposite windows, excited by every tree, every stone, every cottage caught briefly in the light of the lanterns swinging on the corners of the carriage. Neither had been outside of the Retreat House since they had been taken into it, Ev nine years ago, when she was an eight-year-old, and Jessa when she was newborn.

  When the sky began to pale, the carriage stopped. It’s four occupants stepped down, exhausted and bruised, in front of a small inn. The carriage turned down an alley close by. The men would sleep in the stable with the horses.

  The women sat at a table in a quiet corner of the inn’s main room long enough to eat a simple meal, but it was uncomfortable. The locals, almost all men, stared openly at them. Women dressed in the plain grey robes and dresses of the Women’s Retreat House were a rare sight in such a rough place. Ev and Jessa were not sitting apart now, Melisande noticed. In fact they leaned together, their shoulders touching. They seemed torn between fear and curiosity, their eyes now fixed to the top of the table, now flicking up and around at the crowded room. Of course, she thought, they were so very sheltered at the Retreat House. Jessa would only have ever seen men from a great distance, if at all, in her life, and Ev had seen only her male relatives since the age of eight. As soon as possible, she asked the innkeeper’s wife to show them upstairs to their rooms, two small wooden chambers, not terribly clean, each with a barely
adequate bed.

  Before Melisande and Imelda disappeared into their room for the day, Melisande asked Jessa and Ev to attend them for a few minutes. The two young women stood, because there was nothing but the edge of the bed to sit on, and Melisande and Imelda occupied that. They fidgeted nervously. The Widow Merrit had proved strange indeed.

  “Ev,” Melisande addressed the young Earth Woman. “This is Theta’s Well.”

  “Oh!” Ev gasped, as her friend looked at her in surprise and puzzlement.

  “And when night falls again, there will be a couple of people arriving to see you, your Aunt Marle, and with her, Mother Tess .” Ev’s breath caught in her throat with a little squeak.

  I plan to tell the men from the livery that I am unwell and we must stay over here a night and another day before we go on. I will ask the innkeeper’s wife to make up a packet of food, and then the two of you will be free for the night. It is indeed the time, Ev, to see if your poem does describe a real place. It may mean something completely different, of course, but if it does lead to something, something the Healers should have or know about, you can give that information to Mother Peg.”

  “Mother Peg?” Ev was almost in shock.

  “That is where we are going, to see Mother Peg,” Melisande told her. “You must not tell anyone—not now and not when we get home. Can I trust you?”

  Ev nodded vigorously, her eyes wide. Melisande turned her attention to Jessa. She was clearly puzzled. Ev must not have told her about the poem inherited from her mother. But Jessa, too, was nodding.

  “Good. I wouldn’t have brought you if I didn’t think I could trust you completely. And,” the Lady looked meaningfully from one to the other, “Whatever has come between you, I would like to see your friendship healed.”

  “Yes, my Lady,” both girls said in unison, and then looked cautiously at one another.

  Chapter 60: Maida

  Maida could not sleep. She lay on one side for awhile, then the other side, then tried lying flat on her back. Everything was equally uncomfortable. Liandra, curled around her large belly, seemed oblivious to Maida’s restlessness.