Dragonmaster (3 page)

T
here was a smidgeon of cold hare left to eat the next morning, but nothing else, and only water with which to wash it down.

“Perhaps we will be able to find food and lodging today in exchange for work,” Norl said as he and Hhana made ready to go. “This is a well-travelled path, there must be an inn somewhere along it.”

“I would like that,” Hhana said. “Would we sleep in a bed, do you think? I have never slept in a bed.” She had scrubbed her face in the stream, but that had only caused the dirt to smear around the edges. As usual, she kept her cap on and made certain that no strands of hair escaped it. Norl wondered at the care she took with this, but made no comment.

They walked all day. The land rose gradually, but the going was not difficult. Towards evening, as they rounded a bend in the road, an inn came into sight. Its sign swung and creaked in the early spring breeze.

THE CAT’S EYE,
a cracked and faded painting of a disreputable one-eyed cat proclaimed.

Catryn would be most disdainful of this place
, Norl thought with a wry smile, remembering the care with which she groomed herself whenever she was in her cat form.

They entered and found a table in a corner of the room near the hearth. The evening was cool and the blaze of the fire welcome. Norl sat down, but kept his cloak on. Hhana made no move to take off her cap. She wore leggings and a long-sleeved tunic and looked like the boy Norl had originally mistaken her for.

Just as well,
Norl thought, as he surveyed the room. The men sitting around them were as ragged and unkempt as the inn itself.

A meal is all we will have here,
he decided.
This is no place to spend the night.
Hhana seemed to have come to the same conclusion, as she looked around with uncharacteristic meekness.

“I imagined such places to be much nicer than this,” she whispered.

“Many are,” Norl answered.

The innkeeper approached, but suddenly stopped. He was staring at Hhana. As she gazed wide-eyed around her, her eyes shone golden. Despite her care, one lock of hair had escaped from her cap and it gleamed strangely.

Without warning, the innkeeper’s hand darted out.
With one swift gesture he ripped the cap from her head. A flood of heavy hair tumbled down over her shoulders.

Green.

It rippled and shone, deep, silvery-emerald in the firelight.

The innkeeper backed away, hands raised in front of him, fingers working madly in the sign against evil.

“I knew it!” he cried. “Devil child, that’s what you are!”

At his words and at the sight of Hhana every man in the room jumped to his feet. They surged toward her.

“Look at her eyes!”

“Look at her hair!”

In another moment they would have been upon her. Norl grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to the door. They were out of it and running as fast as they could before anyone could lay a hand on them. They did not stop until they were away from the village and deep in the woods again.

“We will have to sleep here tonight,” Norl said. His voice shook and he willed himself not to stare at the girl. “Tomorrow we will surely find another inn.”

Despite himself, he could not help sneaking a sideways glance at her. She had pulled her cap back on, but tendrils and curls of that impossible green hair escaped from it and cascaded down her back. He made a move as if to touch them, then caught himself.

“You had best tuck your hair up,” he said.

She hastened to do his bidding.

“Has no one seen your hair before?” he asked. It was only one of the many questions crowding his tongue, demanding to be given voice, but he held them back.

“The woman who turned me out,” she answered. “That was what frightened her. After that, even young as I was, I had the sense to keep it covered, but she had spread rumours about me and sometimes the village boys tried to rip my cap off. Louts they were, but I fought back and they learned to leave me alone.”

“How did you make them do that?” Norl asked. “You must have been much smaller than they.”

“They bullied me, but they were afraid of me, too, so I pretended to put a hex on them. At first they didn’t take me seriously, but then something happened…” She stopped, as if unsure about going on, but Norl’s curiosity was provoked.

“What?” he asked, insistent.

“One boy was worse than the others. He wanted to do more than just torment me—he wanted to truly hurt me. He laid hold of me one day when I was alone in the woods and threw me to the ground. I screamed at him and told him he would burn in fire if he did not let me go. He was just fearful enough that he loosened his hold on me for a moment and I wriggled free.” She stopped again. “That night he tripped and fell into the hearth in his hut.”

“He was burned?” Norl asked.

“Badly.”

“Naught but a coincidence,” Norl said. “It must have been.”

Hhana did not answer him at once. She picked up a stick and poked at the fire, more deliberately this time.

“Probably,” she agreed, but she did not meet Norl’s gaze. Then she lifted her chin and faced him directly. “But the boys kept away from me after that. At least, at a stone-throw’s distance.”

There was something in her manner as she held the stick, which had caught fire by now, that disconcerted Norl. By some trick of the firelight, as she stared at him her golden eyes seemed to gleam with a flame of their own deep within.

“I am not a stray animal to be treated badly and then cast aside,” she said.

Was there a threat in the words? But before Norl could say anything further, she tossed the burning brand into the fire and curled herself up on the ground with her back to him.

They slept under the trees again that night without even a morsel of roasted hare to settle their empty bellies. Norl stared long at the sleeping maid before settling himself down as well. In the darkness he could persuade himself that he had let his imagination run away with him. She was not much more than a child. A child who had been mistreated and who had had to make up stories to defend
herself. Her hair was just a trick of nature. It must be. And her eyes…Most likely she came from a place far away where everyone looked like her.

The fire died down and the chill of night was settling in. Obeying an impulse that he did not really understand, Norl took off his cloak and wrapped it around her.

The next day they walked in silence. The path climbed more steeply now. Hhana tried her best to keep up, but she stumbled often. Norl fretted at their slow pace.

I could be making much better time were I alone,
he thought, and then could not suppress a crooked smile. Was he in such a hurry to die? It would not hurt to let her accompany him for a while longer. Truth be told, he really did not know what to do with her. Could he abandon her in another village to be mistreated yet again? He knew he could not bring himself to do that. But why should he care what happened to her? She was nothing to him and, surely, he was not disconcerted by her implied warning of the night before. That was no more than a child’s threat, made more in fear and worry about being left alone than anything else. He shrugged the question off. No need to make any decision about her yet.

When they found another inn, he hesitated. Should they attempt it or not?

Hhana seemed to read his mind.

“Please, Norl,” she pleaded, a child again, with no trace of the defiance of the night before. “I am so hungry. Can we not try once more? I promise to keep my cap on and my hair well tucked in.”

“Then keep your eyes lowered,” Norl said. “They give you away as much as your hair. And do not speak. They must think you a boy.”

“What is it about my eyes?” Hhana asked.

Norl was taken aback, then he realized: of course Hhana could not know the colour of her eyes. In all probability she had never seen a clear reflection of herself.

“They…they are as different as your hair,” he began slowly.

“Different?” Hhana echoed. “In what way? Are they green, too?”

“No,” Norl answered. “Green eyes would not be so unusual. My teacher, Catryn, has green eyes. Your eyes are golden.”

“Yellow?” Hhana gasped. “I have
yellow
eyes!”

“No, not
yellow,
” Norl said. “Golden.”

“What is the difference?” Hhana asked. “Only beasts have yellow eyes!”

Norl drew a deep breath. It seemed he had offended this prickly maid now. How to explain?

“Your eyes are not like the yellow eyes of a beast,” he said. “They have a shine to them. They gleam as of gold.”

“I have never seen gold,” Hhana said. She did not seem mollified.

“Gold is…gold is beautiful,” Norl said. “It has a radiance all of its own.”

“So my eyes are beautiful?” Hhana asked, taken aback.

“They are,” Norl replied. And he was as amazed as she at his words.

Hhana fell silent again and they resumed their path. She tugged at her cap until every tendril of hair was covered. She gave one last look at Norl as he pushed open the door of the inn, then cast her eyes down.

They were greeted by a wall of noise, smoke and smells of cooking. Hhana kept silent, but Norl could see her nose twitching. His own stomach rumbled at the odour of stewing meat that wafted out to greet them.

Men sat at tables crowded into the small space. They glanced up briefly as Norl and Hhana entered, then bent back to their food and their pipes. A small orange cat basked in the warmth of the hearth. It stared at Norl for a moment, then set itself to grooming its fur.

Norl and Hhana found a table back in the shadows of a corner. When they had settled themselves, Norl allowed himself to relax slightly. Aside from the cat, no one had seemed to take any notice of them at all. A maidservant appeared.

“Good even to you, my lads,” she burbled. “What will you be wanting?”

“Some of that stew that is teasing my stomach,” Norl replied with a smile that he hoped would mask his nervousness. “And ale, if you please. But I have no coins with which to pay you. May my brother and I work for our meal and perhaps a corner to sleep in?” he asked. “We can put our hand to almost anything you would wish.” He widened his smile.

“I’ll ask,” the maidservant said, with a flirtatious glance back over her shoulder and a twitch of her hips as she turned away.

She returned almost immediately with two brimming bowls of stew. Chunks of meat swam in the greasy broth. It was thick with turnips and carrots and the white root called pauny that was the staple food of Taun. She set down a slab of brown bread, then flounced off, to return with two brimming mugs of ale.

“The master says you and your brother can stay in the stable as long as you muck it out in payment. The boy who usually does that has run off. And mind,” she added sternly, “he will inspect it in the morning and if it is not cleaned to his satisfaction he’ll have his horsewhip to the pair of you.” Her attempt at severity was somewhat lessened by the quirk of her lips and the sparkle of her glance as she looked at Norl. She seemed much taken with what she saw.

To his discomfort, Norl found himself blushing. He was thankful for the shadows that hid his crimson face.

“She has an eye for you, I think,” Hhana remarked after
the maid had gone on to serve some others. The words were muffled by an enormous mouthful of bread and meat.

“You promised not to talk,” Norl said.

They set to their work in the stable with a will, their bellies comfortably full. There were several horses in stalls along the walls. The beasts snorted and stamped their feet as Norl and Hhana worked, but they were not threatening. Norl found himself breathing in the warm, animal smell of them. It was not unpleasant. He stopped to put a hand to the soft muzzle of one tall, brown horse. The horse snuffled into his hand and Norl wished he had something to give it to eat.

“There are some apples on the ground under a tree in the stable yard,” Hhana said, seeming to read his mind again. “I’ll fetch some for the horses.”

She darted out and came back with an armful.

“Hold your hand flat when you’re feeding them,” she commanded.

Norl did as she ordered. The brown horse nipped the fruit off the palm of his hand delicately. Norl flinched, then laughed, brushing his hands off on his leggings. “How is it you know so much about feeding horses?” he asked.

“Oh, there were often horses in my village,” she said. “I liked to share apples with them when I could.”

“Gudruna’s apples, I warrant?” Norl asked.

“Of course,” Hhana replied.

Hhana and Norl worked together in silence. Finally, they were finished. Every horse in the stable had been watered, brushed down and fed, and the stalls had been thoroughly mucked out, with fresh straw replacing the soiled. Only then did they turn to the business of making a place for themselves for the night. Norl chose a corner where the winds did not winkle in, and spread his cloak over a bed of fresh, sweet-smelling straw. He threw himself down and motioned for Hhana to sit beside him.

“Not exactly a bed,” he said, “but comfortable enough, and warm.”

“Better than under the trees,” Hhana agreed. “Especially in the rain.”

Norl had been thinking hard while they worked. For several moments they sat in silence, resting. Finally he spoke. “I think we should talk,” he said.

Hhana looked up at him. She began to say something, but Norl stopped her with a quick motion of his hand.

“No, I meant
I
should talk. Not you. Not yet, anyway. When I have finished I will hear what you have to say. It may well be that you will want to leave me when I am finished and go back to where you came from. It might be less dangerous for you.”

Hhana made as if to interrupt, but again he waved her silent.

“I must tell you where I go and why,” he said. “You should know that.”

Hhana closed her mouth, but with obvious difficulty.

Norl drew another breath.

“Three years ago, when I was not much older than you must be,” he began, ”I lived with my mother in a small village not too very far from here.” He stopped for a moment as if considering what to say next, then continued. “Her name was Mavahn. But she was not really my mother. I had been given into her care for safe-keeping. I come from…” He hesitated. “A very faraway place,” he finished.