by Mary Brown
"Well, it seems all turned out for the best," said Matthew comfortably. "Feel well enough for a game of chess, Mistress Summer?"
* * *
Through the colored glass of the window in the solar I watched the sun climb higher in the sky every day as the celebrations of Candlemas gave way to the rules of Lent. Matthew and Suleiman still insisted on convalescence, so I brought out my Boke, one of the few things I had managed to save, and wrote out my adventurings as best I could, but the version for my eyes only. When I had finished, the fine vellum Matthew had insisted on buying stood elbow to wrist high and my fingers ached. And even then the story wasn't complete.
It ended when the Wimperling "died," for there were still some things I couldn't bring myself to write down, or even think about.
Matthew and Suleiman brought out their maps, planning the year's trade and seeking a faster route to the spices of the East. I studied the maps too, fascinated by the lands and seas they portrayed, so far from everything I knew. At one stage Suleiman mentioned the difficulties of coinage barter and exchange between the different countries and I bethought myself of my father's dowry gift, bringing the coins to show him.
To my amazement and delight he recognized them all and spread out the largest map in the house, weighing it down at the four corners with candlesticks.
"See, these coins all belong to different countries: Sicilia, Italia and across the seas to Graecia. Then Persia, Armenia . . ." and he placed the coins one by one across the map so they looked like a silver and gold snake. South by east, east, east by north, northeast; all tending the same way. "Your father must almost have reached Cathay. . . . He did: look!" And he held out the last and tiniest coin of all, no bigger than a baby's fingernail and dull gold. "Either that, or he was friendly with the traders who went there. These coins follow our trade routes almost exactly. . . . Don't lose them: they might come in useful some day."
I offered the coins, my precious dowry, to dear, kind Matthew when he tentatively proposed marriage to me just before Easter, but he closed my hand over them. "No, I have no need of them; you are enough gift for any man. Keep them in memory of your father."
It was agreed we would be wed when he returned from a two-week journey to barter for the new season's wool in advance. He and Suleiman set off together one fine April morning and I waved them out of sight, clutching Matthew's parting gift, a purseful of coins, to buy "whatever fripperies you desire."
He had kissed me a fond good-bye, and as his lips pressed mine I remembered Gill's urgent mouth on mine. And another's . . .
"Well, then: that's settled," said Growch by my side, tail wagging furiously. "Home at last, for both of us. When's lunch?"
Part 3: A Beginning
Chapter Thirty.Three
“Gotcha!"
I awoke with a start to find Growch trampling all over me, tail wagging furiously. Night had fallen early with lowering cloud, but I was snug in the last of the hay at the far end of the barn, wrapped in my father's old cloak, and had been sleeping dreamlessly.
"D'you know how long I been lookin' for you? Four days! Four bleedin' days . . . Fair ran me legs orf I did. You musta got a lift. . . ."
"I did. Yesterday." I sat up. "How did you know which way I'd gone?"
"Easy! Only way we ain't been. 'Sides, I gotta nose, and that there ring of yours got a pull, too."
I glanced down at it. Warm, but pulsing softly.
"Got anythin' to eat? Fair starvin' I am," and he pulled in his stomach and tried to look pathetic.
I gave him half the loaf I had been saving for breakfast. "And when you've finished that you can turn right round again and head back where you came from!"
He choked. "You're jokin'!"
"No, I am not. I left you behind deliberately. I even asked Matthew in my note to take care of you while I was away. . . ."
A note he wouldn't find yet, not for a couple of days at least, and by that time I should be aboard a ship for Italia, cross-country to Venezia and ship again for points east. And then to find Master Scipio and present myself to the caravan-master as Matthew's newest apprentice . . .
* * *
Once the merchant and Suleiman had disappeared I had had plenty of time to think.
Before, there had always been someone hovering, in the kindest possible way of course, making sure I wasn't hungry/cold/thirsty/tired/bored. I hadn't realized how constricted I had felt until they were both gone: the first action of mine had been to run from room to room, down the stairs, round the yard and then back again, flinging cushions in the air and the shutters wide open. Free, free, free! I sang, I danced, I felt pounds lighter, almost as if I could fly. Growch thought I was mad, so did the cat and surely the servants.
Once I had calmed down I asked myself why I had acted like that, and I didn't particularly like the answers I came up with. One of them was obviously that a year or more traveling the freedom of the roads had left me with a taste for elbow room; another that I was obviously not ready to settle down yet. The third answer was, in a way, the most hurtful: I obviously didn't care enough for Matthew to marry him—at least I didn't return his affection the way he would have wished.
And why should you expect to love him? I could hear my mother's voice like a dim echo. Marriage is a contract, nothing more. You are lucky in that you don't actively dislike him. Just look around you, see what you will have! A rich husband who will grant your every wish, a comfortable home, security at last . . . A little pretense on your part every now and again: is that so much to ask?
Yes, Mama, I answered her in my mind. You had my father, don't forget, you knew what real love felt like. You, too, had a choice. Didn't you ever regret not flinging everything aside and following him to the ends of the earth and beyond? A cruel and unjust death took him away from you, but at least you had your memories. And what have I got? A taste, just the tiniest taste, of what life could really be like, what love meant.
If I married Matthew now, feeling the way I did, I should be doing him a grave injustice and he was too nice, too kind a man for that. He would know I was pretending. Whereas if I tried to find what I was seeking and failed, then I could return and truly make the best of things. If he would still have me, of course. And if I succeeded . . . But I wouldn't even think of that, not yet. Besides, the odds were so great, maybe ten thousand to one, probably more. But I was damn well going to try!
That letter to dear Matthew had been difficult to write, for I knew how it would hurt him.
I know you will be upset to find me gone, but I find I cannot yet settle down, much as I am fond of you and am grateful for your many kindnesses. I hope you can forgive me. I am not sure where I shall go, but I hope to return within a year and a day, all being well. By then, of course, you may well have changed your mind about me, but if not I hope I shall be ready to settle down with you.
I have taken the bag of coins you gave me so I shall not be without funds, although I know you intended them for more frivolous purposes. Thank you again for everything. Please, of your goodness, take care of my dog till I return. . . .
There were two things—three—that I didn't tell him. I had spent a few coins in kitting myself out in boy's clothes: braies and tunic, stockings and boots. Also, I had cut my hair short. At first I had been horrified at the result, for now my hair sprang up round my head in a riot of curls, but I soon became used to the extra lightness, and it would be much more convenient. I had taken the discarded tresses with me, for there was always a call for hair to make false pieces and they might be worth a meal or two.
Another thing he wouldn't know was that I had copied his maps showing the trade routes, and the last way I had taken advantage was to use his seal and forge his signature to a letter of introduction to one of his caravan masters, the same one who had engaged young Dickon. Having memorized, unconsciously at the time, the schedules of the routes, I now knew I had a couple of days more to make the twenty miles or so to the first rendezvous. And now here came trouble
on four legs just to complicate matters. . . .
"I locked you in deliberately to stop you following! You can't come with me! I'm not even sure where I'm going. . . ."
"Why can't I come? S'all very well tellin' the servants as you're goin' visitin', but I ain't stupid! They tried to keep me in, as you ordered, but I jumped out a window, I did. You ain't goin' nowheres without me. You knows you ain't fit to be let out on your own. Din' I get us to that fellow's house?"
I admitted he had.
"Well, then! There's gratitude for you. . . . I don' care where you're goin', I'm comin' too. Try an' stop me."
"I thought all you wanted was a comfortable home. Matthew would take good care of you. And all that lovely food . . ."
"I can change me mind, can't I? You have. Don' know what you wants do you? Well, then . . . Where we goin'?"
I gave up. "To sleep, right now. In the morning . . . east."
"Where the little fluffy-bum bitches come from? Cor, worth a walk of a hundred miles or so . . ."
Nearer thousands, I thought, as I lay down again. It was a daunting prospect, thought of like that. But otherwise how could my mind and body ever be rid of the ache, the questioning, the unknown, engendered on that never-to-be-forgotten night when my world had turned upside down?
Growch had been wrong there: I did know what I wanted.
Somewhere a dragon was waiting. . . .
Master of Many Treasures
Prologue
It was a difficult journey.
Once in the air he had thought the flight would be easy; after all, he would be flying higher than all but the largest raptors. The thermals, currents of air, clouds, and winds provided his highways, hills and vales, and the skyscape freed him from the pedestrian pace of those on the earth beneath. In that other skin he had once worn ten or fifteen miles a day had been enough, but now he could easily manage a hundred in one stint, though he usually cut this by half. After all, there was no hurry.
No problems with the route, either. Like all of his kind the ways of the air were etched into his brain as a birthright, a primitive race memory he shared with birds, fishes and some of the foraging mammals.
At first the wind aided him on his way and the sun shone kindly at dawning and dusk, for he preferred to return to land during the day for food and rest, ready for the guidance of the stars at night. The sleeping earth rolled away beneath his claws, and his reptilian hide adapted to the cold better than he had expected, not slowing him down with his reduced heartbeat as he had feared.
Rivers glinted in serpentine curves beneath the moon, hills reared jagged teeth, tiny pinpoints of light showed where those wealthy enough burned candles and tapers in castle or church, and he grew complacent, so much so that when the Change came, he wasn't ready for it.
It was that comfortable time between moondown and sunrise and he was cruising at about a thousand feet, ready to do a long glide down in search of breakfast, when he suddenly became aware that something was terribly wrong. Although his wings were beating at the same rate, he was losing height rapidly and feeling increasingly cold.
Glancing from side to side, he was horrified to see that his wings were almost transparent, were shrinking; his heartbeats were quickening, his legs stretching in an agony of tendons and muscles, his clawed forefeet turning into . . . hands?
Then he remembered.
She had kissed him, not once but three times, and so as part of those accepted Laws—Laws that until now he had dismissed as mere myth, though he had jokingly told her of them as truth—he would now have to spend part of his life as a human, earthbound as any mortal.
All right, all right, so he was going to be a man for a minute, two, five, but why no sort of warning? He was falling faster and faster, but all he could think about was there should be some way of delaying the Change, or of controlling it—
He landed plump in the middle of a village rubbish dump, all the breath knocked out of him but otherwise unhurt. For a moment he lay dazed and winded, then the stench was enough to make him stumble to his feet and stagger drunkenly down the main (and only) street, shedding leaves, stalks, bones and worse. Halfway down he realized he was not alone.
A small boy, perhaps five years old, clad only in a tattered shirt, was watching him with solemn brown eyes in the growing dawnlight. By his side was a smaller child, perhaps his two- or three-year-old sister, in a smock far too short for her, thumb stuck firmly in her mouth.
He thrust his hands out in a useless gesture of friendship. "Sorry, children: didn't mean to scare you. Just passing through. . . ."
Fiercely he concentrated on his real self—though what was real anymore?—and to his relief he began the awkward pain of changing back. In the midst of his discomfort he became aware of the children still watching him, their eyes growing rounder and rounder with amazement, and the humor of the situation struck him even as he took a running leap into the air, as clumsy as any heavy water fowl.
"Good-bye," he called, but it sounded just like the rumble of thunder, and he could see now the terrified children beneath him rush for the nearest hut and safety. Never mind, they would have a tale to tell that would keep the village buzzing for months.
After that the weather became more hostile, and not only was he battling against his "changes," which took time to recognize and regularize, but also strong easterlies, snow, and sleet, so it was well after the turn of the year before he saw in the distance his objective, four thousand miles from the Place of Stones of his transformation: a small conical hill set proud on a plain, a hill that shone softly blue against the encircling mountains. . . .
Part One
Chapter One
Venice stank. For the loveliest city in the world (so I had been told), center of Western trade, Queen of the Adriatic, she certainly needed a bath. One would have thought with all that water around the smells would have been washed away, but the reverse was true: it made it worse. The waters in the canals were moved only by the water traffic, which stirred but did not dissipate, and all the slops and garbage merely settled a few feet further on.
The city was certainly busy with trade and teeming with merchants and dripping with gold, but she was only beautiful at a discreet distance. Pinch one's nose and one could admire the tall towers, fine buildings, richly dressed gentry; one could feel the sun-warmed stone, listen to the sweet dissonance of bells and the calls of the gondoliers; watch the bustle at the quays as the laden barques and caravels were rowed in the last few yards . . . but keep one's nostrils closed.
I moved restlessly from bed to window and back again: three paces and then another three. It was hot and stuffy in this little attic room, but when I had opened the window some time back the stench had made me gag, so it stayed shuttered. Consequently it was not only stifling but also dark: I had trodden on my dog twice, but couldn't keep still.
Mind you, I was lucky to have a room to myself. Apart from Master Adolpho, the trading captain, all the others—horse master, interpreter, accountant, guards, cooks and servants—had to share. And why was I so privileged? Because I bore papers that proved I was under the personal protection of the wealthy merchant who had financed the expedition, Master Matthew Spicer.
And I was the only one who knew the papers were forged. By me.
I had a couple of other secrets, too, and secrets they must remain, else this whole journey would be jeopardized, and that mustn't happen. I had left too much behind, risked too much, hurt too many people to fail now. This was the most important journey of my life, and to justify what I had done, it must succeed.
A bad conscience and a real fear of pursuit had kept me glancing over my shoulder during our journeying the last couple of months, but at least then we had been moving, whereas for the last two weeks we had been stuck in this stinking city. No wonder I couldn't keep still. I—
Feet on the stairs, a thumping on the ill-fitting door.
"Hey, boy! Wake up there. . . . Cargo's in, we're going down to the quay. Coming?"<
br />
Action at last! Telling my dog, Growch, to "stay," I jammed my cap on my head, grabbed my tally sticks and clattered down three flights of wooden stairs to the street below. Outside it was scarcely less hot than my room, but at least there was shade and a faint breeze off the sea. Master Alphonso, the interpreter, and half a dozen others were milling around, but as soon as I appeared we set off for the quay, through the twists and turns of narrow streets, across the elegant curves of bridges, through the busy thoroughfares, all the while having to contend with the purposeful and the loiterers; carts, wagons, riders, pedestrians, children, dogs and cats impeded our progress. Watch out for the overhead slops—forbidden, but who was to see?—and be careful not to trip over that heap of rags, a sudden thin hand snatching at your sleeve for alms. Keep your hand on your purse and your feet from skidding in the ordure. . . .
Matthew's ship was already being unladen. Because of the press of the sea traffic she was anchored some way out, rowing boats busy ferrying the cargo ashore. A couple of our guards stood over the deepening piles of bales on the quayside, and our accountant started setting out paper, pens and ink on his portable writing desk, ready to itemize the cargo.
I tugged at Master Alphonso's sleeve. "How soon before it is all unladen? When can we go aboard? When do we sail?"
He twitched his sleeve away impatiently. "How many times do you have to be told, boy? When all the cargo is on dry land and checked by description against the captain's listings, then it is taken to a warehouse, opened and itemized, piece by piece. Then, and only then, will it be distributed as Master Spicer wishes. In the meantime the ship will take on a fresh crew and fresh supplies, the new cargo will be listed and loaded aboard. Then if the weather is fair, the ship sets sail. If not, it waits. Satisfied? I shan't tell you again."
