by Mark Butler
He rode his horse out of the training grounds and through the royal yards, where exotic plants and sculpted fountains were everywhere. He kept going and soon reached the royal gardens, a marvel of nature that had been carefully cultivated and tended to for hundreds of years. The garden was designed like a maze, but the rows of flowers were only three feet high and Louis could see Isabelle near the center of the arrangement, sitting with a woman. Purple irises, white and gold lilies and rosemary bushes were all starting to bloom in the early spring weather. Louis filled his nostrils with their scent.
Isabelle was eight years old and precocious. She exasperated her tutors, who could never answer all her question or satisfy her endless curiosity. When she saw her father approach, Isabelle squealed and ran to him, throwing her body weight into his chest. Louis caught her and hugged her. They had barely seen each other in the previous days, while Louis prepared for war. He was like any other father, though, and only wanted his daughter safe and happy. She was part of the reason he was going to annihilate the Muslims.
"Daddy, what are you doing here?"
"I came to see you," Louis said, setting her down on the ground. Her auburn hair and blue eyes melted his heart, and he regretted the time that he would be away from her.
"Mademoiselle Glochure," Isabelle gestured at her tutor with her eyes, "was just teaching me about the weather. She says it rains a lot here, but in the desert—"
"Excellent, sweetheart. Excellent," Louis interrupted her. "But why are you sitting around learning about rain and deserts when you could be riding your new pony?"
"A pony?" Isabelle asked, her voice rising three octaves.
"Yes, my dear."
"My king, a pleasure to see you on this fine day," Mademoiselle Glochure approached him and knelt, kissing his hand. "I was nearly finished with today's lessons, and if you will permit me, I think Isabelle was rather enjoying the topic. Yes, Isabelle?"
"I was," she admitted, although she could hardly stand still on learning her dad had bought her a pony.
"If the king would be so generous, perhaps he will join us for this lesson?" Mademoiselle Glochure ventured.
"I can take a few moments, and then I must see my wife. Isabelle, you can ride your pony after your lessons. Mademoiselle, please, continue with your teachings," King Louis said.
The teacher led them back to the center of the garden, and Louis sat down on the stone bench next to his daughter. Bees were buzzing on the nearby flowers and the sky was cloudless and bright. Louis smiled.
"Now, Isabelle, here in Paris we have a continental climate. That means cold winters, hot summers, and rainfall all year around. But this is only one location in the world. In northern France, there are cool winters and mild summers, with heavy rainfall half the year. Many men who have grown up in the heart of France cannot tolerate the weather in the north, and they frequently become ill."
Mademoiselle Glochure brushed a strand of hair from her face and continued.
"Traveling is very difficult in Europe, but not because of foreign people. The weather, the diseases, and the air are the most formidable enemies of men and women. Surprisingly, children are better suited to traveling, because their systems can adapt quickly. Why, Isabelle, you would fare better than the men who are accompanying your father to Egypt. The climate there is harsh, with brutal heat and very little rain."
"Enough!" Louis said, "My daughter is not going to war, she is just a girl!"
"Of course not, my king, I was just saying that—"
"I don't want to hear what you were saying. I heard you say 'Isabelle' and 'Egypt' in the same sentence, and that is enough. Isabelle, when you have finished with your lessons, join your mother and me for dinner," Louis said, rising and storming off.
"What about his men who are going to Egypt?" Isabelle asked, "Won't they get sick?"
"Yes," Mademoiselle Glochure said, sighing at the fading figure of King Louis.
Chapter Six
FRANCOIS HAD NEVER IMAGINED a source of terror like the dragon. Its massive wings sent gales of wind across the mountainside, rendering the men immobile. The dragon's shrieks were the very definition of horror. Pain, Francois thought, Those are cries of pain. He dared to look skyward once, and the dragon's maw seemed to be inviting him in, calling him to enter that gaping chasm of death.
"We must take cover," Artois yelled over the cacophony. He alone was not hypnotized by the dragon's majesty and power. With a grunt of effort, Artois ran to his father and brother and pulled them to the pack of bloodhounds, which were barking and snarling at the flying beast. They were not barks of aggression, though, but feral pleadings for the dragon to leave them alone.
"He was wrong!" Raul yelled to his sons.
"What?"
"Your mother's great-grandfather! He said the dragon was yellow and blue, but that thing is dark green!"
"It's coming!" Francois yelled. The dragon, terrorizing the skies, had spun to face the group of cowering men and dogs, and it came toward them at lightning speed. They threw themselves to the ground, and the beast passed over them. Its body was hot, and Francois felt like a slab of meat that had been passed over a campfire.
The dragon got three dogs on that swoop—two in its arms, one in its mouth. Raul cried out, reaching his hands toward the receding figure of the dragon, clutching the bloodhounds. The Coquets watched as the beast perched itself on the mountaintop and finished off the dogs with two bites. The other dogs panicked and tried to run between Raul's legs, and he cursed as one of them tripped him.
"It's coming back!" Francois shouted. He backed away from the others, and they all spread out, with the bloodhounds staying close to Raul. The dragon leaped off the mountain and seemed to be falling, ready to strike the ground at any moment. Its head was outstretched and wings tucked in tight, and then it spread them out, gracefully gliding ten feet above the ground. Francois could finally get a closer look at the beast's size, and he estimated the thing to be forty feet long, with a wingspan twice as long.
It went straight at Raul, or more accurately, the bloodhounds. They panicked and ran every direction, but the trees were sparse and offered weak cover. The dragon swooped low and ate one, two, three dogs while they were running. It simply opened its mouth and collected the dogs inside, like a fishing net gathering sea breams in the Mediterranean.
Raul cried out again, his eyes watering and knees weakening at the sight of his precious hounds being taken away. He collapsed to his knees and the dragon passed a few feet over his head, and its tail smacked him in the face. Raul fell over sideways, from concussion or pain, Francois couldn't be sure. With control that belied its great size, the dragon turned in the air and located the final two dogs, running toward the mountain and the dragon's cave.
Artois had seen enough. When his father fell, he steadied his heart and ran into the open, holding his battle axe high. He yelled, "Come at me, you ugly lizard! I will cut you into little pieces and feed you to my dogs!"
Francois absurdly thought, We only have two dogs left; they couldn't possibly eat that whole dragon.
The dragon ignored Artois, not even looking in his direction. Artois threw his battle axe at the beast, and it struck the dragon's scaly side. The blade didn't penetrate and the axe fell harmlessly to the ground. The dragon still didn't react to Artois, and it raced after the two dogs that were running up the mountain. It easily snatched them up, and they disappeared into the dragon's cave a moment later. Everything calmed. No more wind, no sounds, nothing.
"Father! Father!" Francois ran to Raul, but his dad was not hurt from the dragon's tail. He was just curled up and crying; losing those dogs was forfeiting the profession of his entire adult life, almost as bad as losing one of his sons.
Night came quickly to the mountainside. The woods spooked Francois, and his father saw the wisdom in staying put until the sun reappeared. Every inch of the mountainside, every crevice, reeked of the dragon in the cave. It was a sulphuric smell, and old, as if the rocks had been
baking for hundreds of years, but the vegetation and animals still lived and died all around. The men found a quarry of stones on the far side of the mountain, and the stones were strewn down like a rocky river, probably from an avalanche years prior. None of the men were hurt, save Raul's mild head injury and broken heart. He lay close to the ground, with rocks looming on all sides, and his sons gave him privacy to grieve his lost pets. They had been a constant in his life, more reliable than any person and braver than any soldier, and now they were gone.
The dragon was sleeping in its cave. Its breaths were deep and even, though still menacing, like the thunder of storm clouds in the distance. Artois and Francois had brought a few potatoes from the hill village, and they sat in the quarry, eating and listening to their father mourn.
"We knew we could track the dragon, we just didn't know what to do once we found the damn thing!" Artois said, paring the potato with a small knife.
"Why did it only target the dogs?" Francois wondered, staring into the dark sky. "Perhaps it doesn't eat humans?"
"That sorcier, or whatever he was called, said the dragon took a horse and a man recently. I'd say that it just wanted something new to whet its appetite."
"The dragon came out of its cave as soon as we were near and it sensed our presence. Its weakness may lie in the cave, somehow," Francois said.
"What are you thinking, little brother? When the sun rises tomorrow, we are leaving, going back to the main road to Toulouse. We are going to find father's brother and we are going on the Seventh Crusade. We are done with this dragon." Artois crossed his arms and glared at nothing.
"I want my divination from that sorcier. I knew the cost would be high," Raul said, emerging from the shadows and approaching his two sons. His face was black with dirt, except for two tear-streams that started at his eyes and traveled off his face. "Fran, what were you saying about the cave?"
"I said the beast's weakness might be up in that cave."
Raul sat down and Artois put his arm around his father's shoulder. It was a simple gesture of affection, one that a sweet mother might give her son on learning that his dog had run away. At times like this, Francois envied the close relationship that his father and brother had; the time they had spent one-on-one had given them some imperceptible understanding of each other's emotions. With the sky dark and the world quiet, Francois longed for the comfort of a strong woman. His mom would be nice to see, but Olivia from Troyes really made his blood flow.
"An avalanche," Francois suddenly said.
"What?" Artois asked.
"We climb the mountain and go above the dragon's cave. There are rocks there, surely, because the beast has upset the whole mountain with its presence. We could cause an avalanche, maybe, and trap the dragon in its cave."
"Until the beast senses what is happening and comes out to finish us off," Raul retorted.
"Have either of you a better plan? Perhaps we could pile brush at the mouth of the cave and start a fire, but this beast doesn't strike me as fearful of flames. Spears and axes won't pierce its hide, even if you're lucky enough to strike it without being eaten. An avalanche could work . . . "
"Sounds better than sitting here all night," Artois said, rising and stretching. In Artois' mind, Francois was the favored son. Francois was insightful, creative, and polite—qualities that Artois had never considered vital until his little brother came along. Now, Artois' strength was his distinguishing virtue, and he embraced that virtue as a poor man might embrace a gold coin.
Raul didn't agree with the avalanche proposition, but it was truly the best idea they had. The trio left the quarry and circled the base of the mountain, always keeping an eye on the cave, set high above them. It was like a black eye, closed for now but ready to snap open at any moment, emitting agony and death. The north side was a gentler slope, with hard-scrabble brush that provided purchase in the slippery sand, and heavy boulders that might provide cover from the dragon, should it appear.
As they climbed, the first rays of light became visible in the east, revealing the countryside for hundreds of miles. The trees were thick for miles and miles, but there was emptiness beyond them to the south, where Francois suspected the forest ended and the dreadful, open plains of Poitiers and Toulouse began. That is the real fight, he thought.
By the time they reached the summit, the sun was a half-crescent on the horizon, calling the well-rested to leave their beds and toil for another day. The top of the mountain was a circular area, with rocks of all sizes and a few small junipers. The size of the area was as big as their cottage back in Troyes, and Francois urgently tried to calculate how they would seal the dragon in the cave.
"Pile up every rock you can find here," he instructed Artois and Raul. "Don't put all the heavy stones on bottom, mix them up. This is going to be top-heavy, so when we have enough, we can tip it over. The dragon's cave is fifty feet beneath us, so hopefully the stones we tumble will catch others on the way down."
Artois and Raul began working, not balking once at being ordered around by the softer, younger man. While they piled stones, Francois took a path down the side of the mountain, and then he turned on the slope, going toward the dreaded cave. As he neared the awning, the sulphurous stench became almost unbearable, and his eyes watered and he dizzied. The dragon's breath was deep and rhythmic, suggesting it was still asleep. That was a large meal that it had, Francois thought, The beast may very well sleep for days on end.
There was no easy way for a man to enter the cave. Any protruding rocks to grab, or toeholds, were smoothed down completely. Francois wondered if that was intentionally done by the dragon, using heat to sequester its resting place. When Francois had gotten as close as he could, he looked straight up, delighted to see hundreds of large and small stones above the cave entrance. With sufficient encouragement, those could be knocked loose and the dragon would be buried forever. It was with a bit of regret that he realized his plan might actually work; the dragon was a majestic thing, terrible and wonderful in its own way.
When Francois made it back to his father and brother, they were resting, taking in the view that the summit afforded.
"It can be done," he said.
Their weapons were stones, gravity, and luck. The pile that Raul and Artois erected was considerable, towering over their heads. It was thin at the base, and it widened in the middle before narrowing at the top. In the heart of it was one stone of solid black, set at an awkward angle to the stones around it, as if it was a lever for discharging them from their tentative suspension.
"Father, will you do the honors?" Artois asked. Raul nodded grimly. He was not a cruel man, dispossessed of a conscience and eagerly self-serving. He had worked hard his entire life, enduring utter poverty and earning his survival. His precious dogs had been his investment for later life, eager workers who were loyal to a fault, manageable to an infinitesimal margin. With a crack of his scarred, hairy knuckles, Raul went to the black stone.
He bent his knees and leaned into the rock. Raul closed his eyes and pushed, his arms shaking and lips pursed. Nothing moved and Artois took a half-step toward his father.
"No," Raul said, through gritted teeth. He redoubled his effort, exhaling hard and pushing with all his strength, the veins in his arms leaping to the surface. A deep, creaking groan came from beyond the black stone. It was inside the pile, some living momentum that wanted to throw the stones from the cliff, to succumb to gravity's eternal pull. The groan became louder, angrier, and then the rocks were falling.
The black stone left Raul's fingertips first, and then the stones above it were tumbling. Everything fell in less than a heartbeat, though the image of the avalanche would be seared in their minds forever. The sound was deafening and Francois looked to his father, whose eyes were still clouded with grief. This moment would not assuage his angst, but it was a start.
The dragon's shriek was louder than the rocks coming down around it. In an explosion of boulders and pebbles, the dragon surged out of the cave, flyin
g into the sky and looking back at its home. The Coquets hearts' collectively dropped into their stomachs. Their plan had failed, and if the dragon detected them, their lives were forfeited.
Francois noticed the dragon's injuries first. One wing was flapping strong while the other was weakly quaking, trying to correct the dragon's sudden asymmetry. The hurt wing was splashed with a black, tar-like substance that Francois could only guess was the beast's blood. The black blood was also on the head and neck, and the dragon roared again, not understanding what had happened.
"That will teach the bastard," Artois whispered, nudging Francois in the ribs.
"Hold your tongue," Raul said. His words were unnecessary, though, because the dragon smelled the men's breaths when they spoke, and it flew to the mountaintop, perching on a rock like a vulture on top of a dead tree, ominous and mad.
Knowing there was no escape, Francois stepped into the open, holding his hands out wide and trying to make eye contact with the dragon. It was his first good look at the beast's face, and its eyes were more intelligent than he had realized, regarding him with something akin to disappointment.
The dragon leaped into the sky again, its hurt wing flapping furiously, taking it to greater elevations. It kept going, disappearing into the clouds, the distant sound of its wings fading, and after another moment, gone.
"We're alive," Artois said, rising from his hiding spot. "We're alive, Francois, you crazy bastard! Ha! We did it!"
"Where do you suppose it's going?" Raul asked, his voice humble, like he was given another chance at life, a chance he didn't think he deserved.
"To find a new home? Like any other creature, the dragon needs shelter and food. That's all it wanted in this place; a way to survive."
"It was terrorizing that hill village," Artois said. "Do we not kill a mouse if it is in the kitchens? The dragon was our enemy, though that doesn't make it evil."
