Handbook for Dragon Slayers
DedicationFor my mother,
Beverly Cook,
who taught me the keywords for this book:
RESILIENCE
and
TRANSFORMATION
and
LOVE
(and many other words besides,
as well as how to spell them)
W
HOSOEVER STEALS THIS BOOK
shall
BURN
in the
Fiery Conflagration
of a
Dragon's Breath
and will also
Lose Their Nose
to
Putrefaction.
It is advised, therefore,
that you take your
nose home intact
,
and leave this
HANDBOOK
for the study of proper
Dragon Slayers.
chapter
1
“
T
HAT'S THE SIXTH KNOCK THIS MORNING
. I
WISH
I lived in a cave!”
“Because caves don't have doors?” asked Judith, my handmaiden, rising to answer the knock.
I nearly threw down my pen in disgust, but that would have splattered my parchment and ruined hours of work. It also wouldn't be behavior suitable for a princess.
“Yes,” I said, and settled for tucking my pen behind my ear in the exact way that infuriated my mother because it left large ink blotches on my neck. “I'm never going to finish this copy in time.”
“Ahem,” Judith said. “You do realize that even with your mother gone for a week, I'm still going to scrub you pink and inkless on bath day.”
I rubbed the numb spot where my braids pulled my scalp, hoping my inky fingers left a blotch there, too. “I do realize it.”
“Well, take pity on your ink scrubber, then,” she said, and opened the door to reveal Horrible Hermannus, landed knight, estate steward of Alder Brook, and my life's bane. He was wearing a tunic of goose-turd green, a color that no cloth should ever be dyed.
Horrible Hermannus nodded to Judith and bowed to me. “Princess Matilda, I've a message from Sir Kunibert of Boar House. He begs Alder Brook's assistance with the coming tax.”
I wiped my fingers on my blotting rag, trying to hide my sudden despair.
“Sir Kunibert needs help?” I asked with forced calm. “How much help?” Alder Brook had no coin to spare for Sir Kunibert's coffers, no matter how desperate he might be.
“He needs assistance with his record keeping, as I am sure there hasn't been any in years,” Horrible said. “He would need two days' worth of aid, perhaps? But of course that is impossible with your mother gone. I will relay to Sir Kunibert that we cannot consider his request until Princess Isobel returns on Friday.”
My despair seeped away like rain soaking into dry earth, to be replaced by growing excitement. “No,” I said, sitting straighter on my stool. “I'll go. I'll help Sir Kunibert.”
Two days at Boar House! Boar House meant ParzâI hadn't seen Parz in
weeks
. I tried to hide the eagerness I now felt by putting on a studied frown.
“I'll start packing,” Judith said immediately, and bustled off to pull out a traveling chest.
“Princess, wait,” Horrible said. “Even if Alder Brook could spare youâwhat about the emperor's gift? I would be remiss not to point out that you have less than nine weeks till New Year's.”
My excitement was checked, and my gaze fell on the half-finished page on my desk. I was copying
On Horsemanship
as Alder Brook's New Year gift to the emperor. While I loved copying books, even ones about horses, the constant interruptions had turned this pleasure into a burden.
“Rationally speaking, if I copy early in the mornings at Boar House, without the interruptions I experience here, I might well
gain
pages, not lose them, by being away.”
I spoke calmly and thoughtfully, even as my mind raced ahead, coming up with argument and counterargument. We
had
to go to Boar House. It was the only chance to see Parz until maybe Christmas.
Horrible glanced down at my sloped writing desk, clearly weighing issues in the balance. “Sir Kunibert may not owe allegiance to Alder Brook, but he is our neighbor,” he said. “And he is the closest dragon slayer by far; Alder Brook would suffer if the emperor imprisoned him. But Princess, if you think someone should go to Boar House before your mother returns, let it be me or the chamberlain. I don't know if your motherâ”
“My mother isn't here,” I saidânot sharply, but serenely, as befits a princess.
Horrible's lip twitched in annoyance, but he bowed his acquiescence. I tried to hide a smile. “There's been a new dragon sighted at Mount Lorelei,” he said. “And we can't afford to lose even two cows to a dragon. One, maybe. But not two. I'm sure Princess Isobel will see the urgency.”
“Yes, of course,” I said, satisfied but deflated all at once. “We can't lose any cows.” I sighed. Why did being a princess always come down to taxes and cows?
“I'll see to your boat,” Horrible said, dashing off another stupid little bow and going out. I scowled at his retreating back.
“Don't make that face, Tilda,” Judith said, tucking freshly laundered chemises into the chest. “He was very nice to you just now. Your mother is going to question him thoroughly about why he let you go.”
True. My mother didn't like me to travel, saying it was too dangerous, and bad for my foot besides; in fact, I had only ever journeyed a day up and down the Victory River by boat.
“Horrible's not going to wait for her questions,” I said, corking my inkhorn. “He's going to tattle as soon as Mother returns. He has all the sense of fair play of a three-year-old child.”
“
Sir Hermannus
is obligated to keep you safe,” Judith said, lifting a sleeping cat off my fur robe and cuddling the cat briefly. “And he's obligated to obey your mother in all things.”
Also true, but it didn't make me like Horrible any better. He had an uncanny knack for getting me in trouble with my mother. When I was younger, I thought he kept a hearthgoblin to spy on me.
I slid from my stool, testing my leg and foot after the morning's inactivity. My leg trembled briefly, wanting to cramp, but it held. The pain on the walking surface of my foot was tolerable today; I had been sitting a lot, with all the copy work, and my latest sore had healed.
I left my crutch at the desk and hitch-stepped over to Judith, lifting my arms so she could help me remove my ink-splotched, donkey-gray gown.
Judith bent her head over the side ties on my gown, but even at that awkward angle, I caught the expression on her face. “You're smirking,” I accused.
“Only because
you
were blushing from the moment Sir Hermannus mentioned Boar House.”
Oh. “I wasn't,” I mumbled. But Judith had been my handmaiden since she was nine and I was seven; even with six years of practice, I sometimes failed at hiding my stronger emotions from her.
“Your cheeks are still rosy.” She pulled the gown over my head. “I guessed rightâyou want to see Lord Parzifal!”
I took a deep breath to steady my voice. “Lord Parzifal will doubtless be busy with his training.”
“Even Sir Kunibert doesn't train his squires in the dark.” Judith laced me into a pretty robe of celestrine-blue silk. “And Lord Parzifal will have to come in for supper. And that might very well lead to a
conversation
.” She grinned at me.
I wrinkled my nose at her. “I have to pack my writing box now.”
“I'm not stopping you,” she said, and busied herself with our toiletries.
I turned back to my writing corner. The private rooms of a prince's keep performed double, if not triple, duty. This room was my mother's bower and ran half the length of the great hall below it. Here I slept with my mother and our principal servants; I wrote letters and copied manuscripts at the window; and my mother's ladies sewed all day by the fire, from tapestry work to the plainest mending. The bower was large, as befitted a principality of Alder Brook's statureâand yet it felt terribly crowded most of the time.
With Mother gone for a week, I luxuriated in sprawling bed space, with Judith my only roommate. It felt shameful to waste any of our last few days alone by going to Boar House, where we'd have to sleep cheek by jowl with the female servants.
But I had enjoyed my mother's absence for more than just bed space in the bower. Until I married or turned twenty-one, I had to defer to my mother as my regent. This week was the first time I had been free of her constant instruction since . . .
Since before my father left on pilgrimage to take back the Holy Land.
For the first time in two years, I hadn't had to endure a morning lecture on my duty.
Everything
, as it happened, was my duty, from balancing accounts to writing flattering letters to emperors and archbishops to wearing my hair in two neat plaits. Basically, my duty consisted of just about everything I didn't want to do and nothing I did want to do.
Since I
wanted
to go to Boar House, it couldn't possibly be the right thing to do. But I was going anyway.
I tidied up my little work corner, shuffling parchments into piles, putting away extra pens, knives, inks, and sands that I wouldn't take to Sir Kunibert's. I closed up the book I had been copying from, worried how it might fare on the boat.
Anxiously, I triple-wrapped the book: first in linen, then in two layers of oilcloth. Alder Brook could never afford to replace
On Horsemanship
without an exceptionally good harvestâwhich this year had not granted us. I had a momentary twinge of guilt at the thought of endangering the book. ButâHorrible hadn't told me no.
Once the original book was wrapped, I looked over my page of copying. I wondered if I really was going to be able to finish the copy by New Year's with the small time I was allowed to devote to it and all the interruptions I'd encountered. It had been my suggestion to send a book to the emperor. I still wasn't sure why my mother had agreed, other than that the gift would look much more expensive than anything else Alder Brook could give.