The Dragon King

by Patty Jansen

  The little girl who had her hand on the box shook her head. “He isn’t really in there.”

  “He is so,” Anneke said. “You can feel the magic in the lid. The same as when you touch Boots.”

  “He is only warm,” the other girl said.

  “No, it’s magic,” Anneke said.

  Meanwhile, the adults were talking while seated around the fire.

  Nellie listened with half an ear to how some of the women wanted to stay here because it was warm and dry, and how some others didn’t like being guests of a noble family.

  “Before we know it, we’ll be drawn into servitude,” Agatha said.

  “What do you want then, to freeze to death out in the forest where there is nothing? I have no interest in being a martyr for some sort of noble cause.”

  “You don’t understand what these rich people can do to you,” Agatha said. “And what they can do to your children.”

  She glanced at her daughter and son, who were still with Bruno and Henrik. Anneke was still arguing with the other girl about whether you could or could not feel magic. Prince Bruno had moved to the other side of the group, glaring across the barn with his arms crossed over his chest.

  Nellie left the group of adults, and went to him. “Did the children say anything to upset you?” she asked.

  “They know nothing.” His voice sounded angry.

  “Nobody can know everything. They are only young children.”

  “This is my dragon.”

  “No one ever said he was anyone else’s.” She tried to make her voice soft and soothing, but he didn’t even look at her.

  “They said he was yours.”

  “He’s not. I looked after him, but he’s yours.”

  “He listens to you better than he listens to me.”

  “Maybe you need to give him time to get used to you.”

  “He has to listen to me. I want to use him to punish those who punished me.”

  “Punishing is not always the best thing to do.”

  “Not even when they hit me for no reason at all, and they made me sit in the chapel without clothes on in the middle of winter until I was so cold that I fainted? Not even if they made me cite the Book of Verses off by heart and lashed me each time I got something wrong? Not even if they killed my mother and stepfather and told my father to go away and never come back?” His voice was shrill. “And they killed my sister and said she was evil, and this stupid fat man sits on the throne where my stepfather should be, and he talks to the priests that hit me, and pretends they are good people. Shouldn’t those people be killed?”

  “Punishment is only good if it teaches people a lesson. If those people won’t do it again—”

  “They won’t if they’re dead.”

  “Or if other people can see it and they know the punishment was just and they know that whoever ordered the punishment is a just and not a vengeful person.”

  “I think it’s fair. I suffered for many years. They will only suffer for a short time.”

  “But if they’re dead, they can never apologise or tell other people how wrong they were.”

  He had to think about that for a while. “You said yourself that the priests should be punished. Why are we here in this barn listening to the stupid man in the big house up the lane when we should be in the city fighting the stupid monks? I want the dragon to kill all of them.”

  “The dragon is a gentle creature. He won’t kill someone just because you say so.”

  “See? He listens to you, not to me.”

  “He listens to himself and decides what is right.”

  “That makes no sense. He has to listen to me.”

  His anger disturbed her. Sure, she would be angry if she had been locked up, but he had gone from an injured, timid boy to a really angry adolescent in a very short time.

  “We will go back to the city and you will get your revenge, I promise.”

  He pressed his lips together, but said nothing.

  “We need to get ourselves better organised, because there is no way we can escape the guards with just this small group. We need to wait until spring when we’re all strong again.”

  He still said nothing, so she suggested that he go to sleep, although that wouldn’t solve anything. But morning made everything so much better. She would know what to say to him in the morning. Tonight, the Triune would touch her in her sleep and tell her what to say.

  Bruno sat down in the straw, and when the children asked him to play a game he played with them.

  Nellie was somewhat reassured by this, but to be honest, he didn’t really belong with the children anymore, if he ever had. He seemed to like Koby, so maybe she should talk to Koby about keeping an eye on him.

  Nellie returned to the fire with the adults, where people discussed what they should do next.

  Jantien wanted to travel to Florisheim to see if she could find her husband. “Now that the Regent is dead, he’ll be coming back to Saardam and if he finds us gone, he’ll be beside himself with worry.”

  “You could go back to Saardam,” Agatha said. “A couple of us want to go.”

  “You can’t ask Jantien to go back there,” Floris said. “She almost got killed.”

  “I’ll go back,” Yolande said from where she lay in the straw. Her voice was rough and, after she had spoken, a hacking cough racked her body. “I’m dying anyway. I’ll die on the bastard’s doorstep and he can dispose of my body. Which is easy because I’ll be in the church anyway.” She chuckled and her voice faded in another coughing fit.

  “I think Yolande is the reason we should stay here,” Hilde said. “She is too ill to travel. I don’t understand why you’re all so keen to leave again. Lord Verdonck is friendly, he is happy to have us stay, the barn is comfortable, it’s warm here and we have enough food. What more do you want?”

  “He says that if we want to stay here, Madame Sabine can’t stay here. Since we rescued her and she has come here with us, I think we should all either stay or go. I don’t want to make any exceptions.”

  “If you wish, I can go with Sabine and take her to one of the order’s monasteries,” Brother Martinus said.

  Everyone turned to him. He rarely said anything.

  Hilde spread her hands. “See? The solution is easy.”

  But Nellie didn’t want that at all. She was sure that if Brother Martinus reached any of the monasteries along the river, he would tell them where to find the missing ship and there would be all kinds of trouble. Besides, she didn’t trust either him or Madame Sabine not to betray the group.

  So she told the women what she and Gisele had already discussed, that a few people would go to the nearby nunnery to see if they could house a group of thirty-five people for the winter in return for work.

  Gisele then explained what sort of place this nunnery was, that she had been there and that it was very comfortable and not very far.

  And finally everyone agreed that it was at least worth investigating. Gisele said that she would ask the groundsman for a wagon tomorrow.

  Chapter 7

  * * *

  “I’VE BORROWED A HORSE and cart,” Gisele said at breakfast the next morning.

  Nellie had just risen, her head still fuzzy from sleep, and she sat on one of the hard benches in the fruit picker’s kitchen, eating porridge. As usual when she worried, she’d lain awake until well into the small hours, listening to Yolande’s coughing; but, unlike Yolande, she couldn’t sleep in.

  Gisele looked far too awake, her cheeks rosy from the cold.

  “It’s not far to the nuns’ farm,” Gisele said. “There is a forest in between the Verdonck estate and the main road. The farm is just the other side of the forest.”

  They could easily visit in a day.

  Next was the question of who should come. Nellie, obviously. Gisele, to introduce them and steer the cart. She wanted to take Henrik, but he said it would be best for him to stay in case there was trouble. That could be trouble from outside as well as
within the group.

  Bruno ate at the table by himself, with his dragon box, still with an angry expression on his face. Apparently he wanted to come.

  Henrik had to promise him to teach him to shoot with a bow and arrow.

  “I can come,” Brother Martinus said.

  That was the second time now that he’d offered to do something that took him away from the group. No, he was definitely staying here.

  Nellie chose Wim as their last companion. He had found a heavy cloak with a sheepskin lining on the ship. It was so big that he almost disappeared in it. Despite tasting all the Regent’s food, Wim was a skinny man.

  The cart stood outside the barn, a simple flatbed affair with a single bench and a tray. The horse was very big and looked dopey.

  Nellie, Gisele, and Wim got in. Gisele took the reins, Nellie sat next to her and Wim climbed into the tray.

  Just as they were about to leave, Koby came from the barn.

  “Oh, Gisele, can I come, please?”

  “Come on then, hop on.”

  Koby climbed into the tray with Wim, and they were off.

  First they travelled through the estate’s fields, now fallow because it was winter. A frosting of ice dusted the stubble on the ground. It would probably thaw out later, but for now the world was frozen in silence. The cows moped over a soggy pile of hay and the sheep nosed around in the dead grass. Not a single bird gave a peep.

  They crested the low ridge. Ahead lay a grazing field—the grass now brown—interspersed with corpses of willow trees. The road wound through this field, occasionally avoiding wet marshy areas. They came to the edge of the forest.

  For Nellie, having travelled through the forests of the east, this was not a real forest. The willow trees were not very tall, and the leafless branches let through plenty of light.

  In the middle, they passed another marshy area surrounding a pond, where a number of deer took flight. It was quite soothing and pretty.

  Only some of the willows were harvested, to make baskets from their supple branches. Most of the trees had their natural shape. Being winter, the branches bore no leaves, and the grass between the trees was dead.

  It was because of this sparse vegetation that Nellie spotted what looked like a hut in the middle of the forest. And then another one. She also thought she could see a wagon, and a grazing horse.

  She pointed. “What’s that?”

  Gisele squinted. “I don’t know. The map said nothing about a village.”

  She unrolled the map on her knees just to be sure. “Oh, I see. It’s a water mill. I guess the miller keeps some horses.”

  They could now see the house as well. A plume of smoke rose from the chimney.

  “All this land belongs to the church,” Gisele said. “Adalbert Verdonck is not happy about it, because his mother gave it to the nuns when she found out that his father was cheating on her.”

  “With Madame Sabine?”

  “Long before that time. Lady Verdonck has been dead many years. She was a very generous and devout woman. Ronald Verdonck was a habitual cheater.”

  Nellie wondered how well “devout” would have gone down in a household where the men openly declared hatred of the church.

  “At the end of her life, Lady Verdonck lived at the farm. You can still see her rooms if you ask the nuns. They maintain the flower garden as well. The rumour goes that Adalbert wants to repossess the land and is offering the nuns good payment. Unfortunately for him, the nuns care little about payment. They grow everything they need and sell the rest to people who take it to the markets.”

  Gisele knew such a lot about people’s lives. It was sad that she didn’t appear to have had much of a life of her own.

  The cart trundled through another field and up another low hill, and when they got to the top they could see a couple of buildings along the creek. The buildings were surrounded by small plots of land, with empty bean stakes and cabbages still growing, an orchard of leafless trees, barns and fields with horses and cows.

  No people were in sight, but trails of smoke drifted from several chimneys in the sprawling complex of buildings. When they came closer, Nellie could see the chapel tower and the entrance of the building with columns around the front.

  They were coming to the farm from the back entrance. A lane lined with trees led from the buildings to the main road between Saardam and Burovia, which was visible in the distance, as well as the church tower of a village.

  The cart turned into the long driveway through empty paddocks. A bit further along, a horse clopped to the fence, looking curious. When they entered the grounds, someone came onto the porch, a middle-aged woman dressed in a light-brown habit.

  Nellie had heard of the nuns but, unlike the monks, they did not usually come into the city.

  “That’s Sister Anna,” Gisele said.

  She came down the steps and met the cart in the middle of the forecourt.

  “Brother Gerard, Fancy seeing you here.”

  “Well met, Sister Anna. May the holy Triune be with you.”

  “You are welcome at our humble abode. Who are these guests you have brought?”

  “These are people from the city. There has been unrest, and as we all know, the poor people are living a very hard life in the city. I’ve come with a number of women and children to Lord Verdonck’s estate, but he doesn’t want to house all of us. We’re looking for a safe place to stay the winter. The women are all good people, no thieves or charlatans.”

  The nun looked at Nellie.

  Nellie self-consciously flattened her hair.

  Sister Anna snorted. “And the Lord Verdonck would rather have all his food spoil before he gives it to the poor people.”

  Clearly, there was no love lost between the neighbours.

  “Come in. You must warm yourselves by the fire. Our monastery is not as luxurious as a castle, but you will have everything you need.”

  Nellie, Koby, Gisele and Wim followed her inside.

  It was very dark inside the building. A long corridor stretched into the darkness, lit only by the light from the single torch. The walls and floors were made of plain stone, the floors without any covering. A number of doors opened into the passage. Most of them were open, giving Nellie little glimpses into rooms for cheesemaking, processing wool, preserving jams, and smoking sausages.

  The smell made Nellie’s mouth water.

  By the broad hips underneath the sister’s habit, Nellie judged that hunger, at least, was not one of the problems in this place. They seemed well provisioned and well organised.

  The passage opened into a room where a number of nuns sat at tables, drinking tea. When Sister Anna came in, they all turned to the door.

  “We have visitors,” Sister Anna said.

  The women got up and came to meet the newcomers. They were young and old, most local but one or two with dark skin. A middle-aged woman greeted them.

  “Welcome to our humble place,” she said. “My name is Sister Louisa. I am the abbess of this monastery.”

  “Thank you for receiving us,” Nellie said.

  Sister Anna explained, “Brother Gerard here told me about a group of women and children who have fled from the city. They’re looking for a place to stay for the winter.”

  “We are most all strong and healthy,” Nellie said. “We can work in the fields and many of us have experience in cooking and cleaning and craft.”

  The sister looked her up and down. “Are they all your age?”

  “No. Most of the women are younger, but some are older. Some have children. Most of us are healthy and everyone is willing to work.”

  Another look. “What about you? Where did you come from?”

  “I was born in Saardam. I have worked as a servant for many different families.”

  Nellie chose not to mention the palace or the Regent or the queen, because she didn’t know what that would make these women think of her.

  “Do you have any men with you?”

  �
�Only four. And there is one boy who is fourteen.”

  Nellie expected her to say that men weren’t welcome, but she gave Nellie another look. “We do a lot of hard work here. We work in the fields in summer and in winter we produce craft. We have a tannery and we make shoes and leather belts and jerkins. We bring wood to the sawmill and do carpentry. We weave carpets. We dye and spin wool. We make lotions and teas and ointments from plants we grow in the garden.”

  “Some of us have experience with that.”

  “We can always use hands to help us, if the people are honest.”

  “We are.”

  “We also require prayer twice a day. Would you come and pray with us?”

  “That would be good. My father used to work for the church, and I could recite entire services.”

  Sister Louisa gave a small nod. Whether that signified approval or not Nellie didn’t know. “Very well. I will show you to the chapel.”

  She preceded Nellie through a maze of corridors that went through high-ceilinged halls, workshops where women in light-brown habits were weaving, past a smoking room where sausages hung on the ceiling, and a quiet room where nuns could study the verses and a library.

  “This is amazing,” Nellie said.

  “I told you this place is nice,” Gisele said in a low voice.

  Sister Louisa turned to Nellie. “Life is hard in the city these days, is it?”

  “Have you heard that the Regent is dead?”

  “No, I haven’t. The Triune’s judgement is final. I’m sure he will be replaced. We choose to live away from the madness of the city. The rich men jostle for power and corrupt each other’s thoughts with greed and gluttony. It’s of no importance to us.”

  “But you sell your produce to the city?”

  “A few merchants come to collect food and bring it to the city. With the money, we pay the sawmill and buy items for the farm. We have built a church in town. We support poor families who have met with misfortune. We don’t care for games of power. Money is of no importance to us. We can survive very well without it. It is nice to be able to buy new tablecloths of the finest fabric, but we can survive without them as we have for hundreds of years. We can weave our own fabric, we can make our own sausages, we grow our own food. We have nothing that we want from the city. It is a place of sinners and wasteful excess.”