The Dragon King

by Patty Jansen

  She pushed open an intricately carved door, letting them into the chapel.

  The circular space beyond was full of light and warm colours, from the wood of the pews that stood in a circle around a basin with a statue in the middle of the chapel to the bright colours of the paintings on the walls. Wooden beams with intricately carved panels supported the roof.

  The walls were painted red, golden-yellow drapes graced the sides of the windows, and each pew contained a neat row of embroidered cushions.

  Nellie said, “Wow.” This room was the product of years and years of loving craftsmanship.

  “We built this room for the Triune all by ourselves.”

  “But certainly you had people from the city come in to make all of these things, like the furniture and the buildings?”

  Sister Louisa lifted her chin. “Nobody from the city ever touched this building. We made it all with our hands and our tools.”

  Nellie was amazed. She felt like she had stepped into a dream. This was where she wanted to spend the rest of her days. She wanted to learn to make all these things with her hands. What a way to live away from the city and all its crazy nobles.

  “There is no altar,” she said.

  “No, we believe that all are equal. We will sometimes hold readings, but we take turns delivering them. No priests tell us what to do or how to interpret the verses. Now, let us pray.”

  She led the small group into one of the pews and kneeled. Nellie kneeled next to her, then Gisele and Wim, and Koby at the end. It was clear that Koby didn’t know what she was supposed to be doing. She looked around nervously. Good grief, had that girl never been inside a church?

  Nellie prayed to the Triune that all the refugees would be safe, that they would not be punished for taking the ship, and that no one would find them here until the end of winter.

  Sister Louisa sprinkled some water from the basin into Nellie’s face.

  She gasped with the icy cold.

  “You’re lucky it isn’t frozen.”

  Then the sister showed them the guest dormitory rooms where they could stay.

  “Normally we would have girls here from the city whose parents send them to us to make them into obedient girls, but we don’t get many girls these days.”

  “I know a monastery where they do that with noble boys,” Nellie said.

  “It’s not always an easy task, but we do it to give back to the community.”

  It seemed generally that the community didn’t really appreciate this beautiful place.

  Sister Louisa agreed that the group could come, and walked with Nellie and the others back through the maze of hallways and workshops to the main entrance. It was windy and cold outside, and Nellie rugged up in the cart as it went through the fields back to the forest.

  First, they came through the garden of little plots. Having seen the rooms where lotions and ointments were made, Nellie now recognised the herb garden. “They’re growing a lot of different types of plants.”

  “Yes, this garden is full of wild plants in summer. It’s very pretty and smells really nice. Most of the herbs that you will see in the city are grown here. The most famous product from the herb garden is a healing tea.”

  “Did you sense any magic being used in the preparation rooms?” Nellie asked Gisele.

  “No. Why? They’re nuns. They wouldn’t use magic.”

  “A lot of herb sellers use it.”

  But as the cart trundled in the direction of the forest, another cart turned from the main road into the lane that led to the farm. A donkey, not a horse, pulled the cart. Nellie knew only one person who had a donkey: Zelda.

  Chapter 8

  * * *

  “DID YOU SEE? That was Zelda,” Nellie said to Gisele as the cart made its way through the fields.

  “Who is Zelda?” Gisele asked.

  Nellie explained to her how, when the dragon had taken her from the palace, she had found a group of old friends and other outcasts living in a warehouse in the artisan quarter, and how Zelda was using the women to help her sell her magic tea to merchant wives with more money than sense.

  “It’s plain quackery,” Nellie said. “There is nothing special in the tea, and the fact that she says she gets it from Mr Oliver doesn’t make it any more special. It’s just chamomile and a number of herbs from the meadows around here. I’ve seen what she puts in it. I’ve seen how she makes ointments and then charges ridiculous prices for them. I’ve seen how she sets the children to beg. I don’t want her to know that we are anywhere in this area. She’ll betray us like she betrayed us before. She will sell the knowledge of where we are to the guards, because she’s only interested in money.”

  “Yes, you can’t trust that one,” Wim said.

  “Do you know her?” Nellie asked.

  “I caught her trying to sneak into the palace stores once. When I asked her what she was doing, she gave me a story about her poor children and having no money.”

  “She has no children,” Nellie said.

  “A few days later she was trying to butter up the guards by giving them biscuits. They seemed happy about it, too. Just an old woman, they said.”

  “Did they eat the biscuits?”

  “What else would you do with biscuits?”

  “You didn’t test them first?”

  “No. I would only test what the Regent ate.” He frowned at her. “Do you think there was a problem? None of the guards complained about the biscuits. They were only biscuits.”

  “They may have been part of a larger plan. I know why the nobles of the city have been so placid about the Regent’s excesses and have allowed themselves to be insulted by him. Shepherd Wilfridus is a magician. For many years, since the Regent came to power, the shepherd has controlled the citizens through the food they ate, using the Regent as a front. At first he only needed to control the nobles, because the nobles own the businesses and they have the influence. But because of the winter and because not much produce is coming into the city, the citizens are becoming unhappy, so he told the Regent to open up the stores; and he’s been distributing food laced with magic to all the citizens of the city so that they would do whatever the Regent told them.”

  Both Gisele and Wim frowned at her.

  Wim said, “I never got sick from any of the food. I tested all of it.” He looked distinctly uncomfortable.

  “This wasn’t magic to make you sick, but magic that made people numb and more likely to believe what the shepherd and the Regent said. Haven’t you noticed that you’ve asked a lot more questions since leaving the palace?”

  “Being convicted of a crime I didn’t commit has that effect.”

  “Not just you, everyone who has left the palace. I don’t know how and where the magic entered the palace and what he used to spread it. I do know that Zelda sells magical concoctions to merchants. I know they all think she’s wonderful. I know she is an informant for the palace.”

  Wim’s eyes met hers. “But I never saw any foul play in the kitchens.”

  “That’s why I think the magic went into the food before it reached the kitchen, and that Zelda may have had something to do with the spreading of it. And Zelda comes to the nunnery to buy her supplies. I’m not sure I want to come here anymore.”

  Gisele gave her sideways look. “I don’t understand. There are remedies against magic. They will involve dandelion, anise or blackberry. I don’t know the recipe, but I’m sure someone will know how to use these ingredients, especially if the magic isn’t strong.”

  “The problem is, you have to believe it enough to realise that a potion will help you. If you don’t see the problem, you won’t see the need for taking a remedy.”

  So much magic had been used on everyone, and none of the other nobles saw the problem either. Except Adalbert Verdonck, who would never eat in the palace. But his father had. He must have been taking a potion against magic.

  The weather had turned windy. Gisele sat at the reins hidden in the cowl of her habit. Wim an
d Koby were huddled up inside Wim’s cloak. Nellie had pulled a shawl over her head to protect herself from the biting wind that howled through the barren branches.

  Probably because of the bad weather, they didn’t hear the thunder of the approaching horse’s hooves until the horse ran past. It galloped past them through the forest, followed by a number of other horses all in different colours, manes and tails flying. At the front was Madame Sabine’s white stallion; it was followed by a black horse, a brown horse and a dappled horse, as well, as a bit later, a cow, a couple of goats and a most peculiar squat pony that was white- and black-striped.

  “Whatever by the Triune is that?” Wim called out.

  All of a sudden everyone was alert. Gisele sat up and ordered the cart horse to stop.

  The troupe of animals disappeared into the forest. The thundering of hooves and cracking of branches faded in the distance.

  “They’re going to the old water mill over there,” Koby said.

  It was true. And now Nellie heard the loud whistle like a shepherd calling his flock.

  From the barren trees came an ear-splitting screech, a sound that brought Nellie back to her youth.

  She’d been fourteen or fifteen when the man named Mustafa opened his animal park in the artisan quarter of the city. He owned a couple of squat black- and white-striped ponies called zebra horses. They were cranky things and you couldn’t ride them. He also owned two red-and-blue birds with enormous curved beaks. They would screech so loudly that you could hear them even in the street outside the park.

  She had wondered where Mustafa and his animals had gone. They had just discovered the place, but what was he doing all the way out here? People wouldn’t come all this way to look at his animals. “Let’s go and have a look.”

  Gisele turned the cart into a narrow, bumpy track that went in the direction of the water mill.

  It was a most idyllic place with a small lake upstream from the mill and weeping willows standing by the side. The house overlooked a meadow, now brown but which would be green and filled with flowers in summer.

  When the cart came down the driveway, a man came out of the house. He was quite short and stocky, smoked a pipe and wore a beret.

  He had aged a lot, and his face was not as dark as it had seemed back when he was the first dark-skinned person she had seen, but Nellie recognised the owner of the animals, Mustafa.

  “Why, I seem to have visitors.”

  Nellie said, “I just noticed your zebra horse running through the forest. I hope it didn’t escape.”

  “Naw, it’s fine. I feed the animals here so they always come back.”

  “What are you doing here with this menagerie? Last time I saw you, you had a park in the city.”

  “Those were the good days, when all I had to worry about was the ladies getting upset about the parrot’s language. I’ve been minding my own business lately,” he said. “It’s no longer safe in the city, so I’ve moved my troupe here where I can wait until there are better places to go. It’s a nice place, isn’t it?”

  He had left the door to the house open, and another animal stalked out. It was shaped like a cat but as large as a giant dog. Its pelt was creamy yellow with hundreds of little black spots. It lifted its head and surveyed the newcomers with curious interest, swishing its long tail from side to side.

  “Is that a leopard?” Koby asked.

  “It is.”

  “Aren’t they dangerous?”

  “Not to me. Lila chases away wild boars and any people I don’t want around here. She catches rabbits for me. It so happens I was just cooking one. You want a bite and some tea?”

  Tea sounded good.

  Gisele tied the horse to a tree, and they followed Mustafa inside. Koby made sure she kept a good distance away from the leopard, which kept looking over its shoulder.

  It was very warm inside the barn. The air was humid, laced with the scent of animals. A fire roared in the hearth. A piece of meat hung on a spit on front of the fire. The smell was heavenly.

  The room only had a few small windows and was quite dark. It took Nellie’s eyes a little while to get used to the low light, but she sensed other animals inside. She could smell them. The straw rustled in the dark and something very big snorted.

  A table with two benches stood in the glow of the fire.

  “Sit down, sit down,” Mustafa said.

  Nellie, Gisele, Wim and Koby sat on the benches while Mustafa busied himself getting a stack of chipped and dirty cups and carrying the battered and blackened teapot over from the fire.

  The tea was almost black.

  “I have milk but no sugar, I’m afraid,” he said. “It’s not safe for me to go into town to buy things, and I have to make do with what I have and darn my gloves rather than get new ones.” He held up his woollen gloves where the fingers had been darned with different colours of wool. “I just look after myself and wait until things get better. I can survive here with my animals.”

  He had sat on the bench. The spotted cat curled up at his feet.

  “Why were they all running through the forest?” Koby asked.

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into these creatures the last few days. I let them out of the barn because they were very restless. Normally a time spent outside calms them down, but this white horse turned up and some other horses that I’m sure belong to Lord Verdonck. I haven’t touched them, because he is very precious about his horses. I have no idea how they got out. I don’t know about the cows either. They’re not mine. They must belong to the other neighbour from across the creek. There’s something up with these animals. You can see they’re nervous.”

  He got up from the bench and crossed to the dark side of the barn, where Nellie had noticed the snorts of a large animal.

  A very large animal.

  A massive shape moved in the dark, and a flexible, snake-like thing thicker than a man’s arm sniffed at Mustafa’s pockets. Trunk. Elephant. Nellie had seen these creatures travelling with the circus.

  He pulled something out of his pocket, and the creature came out of the shadows. It was huge and grey, with wrinkled, dusty skin. It held out its nose to Mustafa.

  “Ohhh!” Koby shuffled back on her bench, her eyes wide.

  “This is Esme. She’s very friendly. Here, give her a carrot.” He tossed Koby a carrot from his pocket.

  Koby got up from her seat, holding the carrot as if it were something dirty.

  “Hold it out like this,” Mustafa said.

  He produced another carrot, which the elephant grabbed with its trunk, brought to its mouth and proceeded to crunch loudly.

  “Carrots,” Mustafa said. “I don’t know where that bag came from. It suddenly appeared.”

  Nellie knew. The dragon. He stole bags of carrots.

  Of course, that was why the horses had been so excited. The dragon attracted animals, like kittens, puppies, horses and sea cows. And elephants.

  Koby held out her hand and shuffled closer. She squealed when the elephant reached out and grabbed the carrot from her hand. The carrot went crunch in the elephant’s mouth and then the trunk came out again.

  “Pat her,” Mustafa said. He demonstrated, rubbing the trunk with his hand. Koby very gingerly copied him, giving little squeals when the elephant probed the sleeves of her coat.

  Nellie said, “I think I might understand why the animals are nervous and running through the forest. If I’m right, it’s my fault, and I’m sorry.”

  “Naw, that dopey old horse of yours is not going to stir any of my animals—excuse me.”

  He rose from the table and went to the door. When he opened it, the two colourful birds flew in, screeching.

  He put one on his shoulder and the other flew across the barn and landed in the middle of the table, almost upsetting Koby’s tea.

  “My, they’re big,” Koby said. “Look at all those colours and the strange beak.”

  The bird made a few strange noises that sounded almost like a horse neighing
, and then it said, “You’re a dickhead.”

  “What?” Koby squealed. “It talks. It talks!”

  “Omar is a parrot,” Mustafa said. “Parrots talk.”

  “It’s not very polite,” Nellie said.

  “He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” Mustafa said. “They just make the sounds, not the words.”

  The other bird jumped from his shoulder onto the table. It yelled, “What the fuck?”

  Koby almost fell from her seat laughing.

  Wim said, “I imagine that when you were in the city, the noble visitors to your park would take offence to this bird.”

  “I had to keep it at the back of the park, because the rascal children from the area would sneak over the fence at night and teach the birds bad language. They used to belong to a sailor, and unfortunately I haven’t been able to teach them manners.”

  “What other animals do you have?” Koby asked.

  Apart from the parrots, the elephant, the leopard and the zebra horse, Mustafa had three sheep with big horns, two large horses, a spotted snake that lived in his shirt, a number of chickens and a cow.

  People left him alone in the old water mill, which apparently used to belong to either the Verdonck estate or the nuns, depending on what year it was.

  Apart from the occasional disagreement about the land, life was quiet here. Mustafa had lived in the farmhouse for the best part of the Regent’s reign.

  “I loved the park, but I had to go,” he said. “The guards would come and accuse me of using magic to make the parrots talk. Then I got Esme. She was but a young thing about this high.” He held his hand at shoulder height. “She was born in a circus and the owner couldn’t keep her because business was bad. But the guards wouldn’t let me take Esme to my park because they said it was impossible to control a large creature without magic, and magic was forbidden.”

  “I loved the park,” Nellie said.