Wings of Fire Part 20

"Moooooooore," said the dragon. "With meat!" The nail extended, just as it had the day before, and caught under the pot handle. There was a horrible screeching as the pot was lifted several inches into the air, then slowly withdrawn into the recesses of the cave. There were strange scrabbling noises as if the dragon were sorting through its possessions, and then the clanking resumed. The claw returned and dropped something at Artos's feet.

He looked down. It was a book, rather tatty around the edges, he thought, though in the cave light it was hard to be sure. "Wissssssssdom," said the dragon.

Artos shrugged. "It's just a book. I know my letters. Father Bertram taught me."

"Lettersssssss turn matter into sssssspirit," hissed the dragon.

"You mean it's a book of magic?"

"All bookssssss are magic, boy." The dragon sounded just a bit cranky.

"Well, I can read," said Artos, stooping to pick up the book. He added a quick, "Thank you," thinking he should seem grateful. Old thorns and old dragons... he reminded himself.

"You can read letters, my boy, which is more than I can say for your castle contemporaries. And you can read words. But you must learn to read inter linea, between the lines."

Edging backward to the cave's mouth, Artos opened the book and scanned the first page. His fingers underlined each word, his mouth formed them. He turned the page. Then he looked up puzzled. "There is nothing written between the lines. Sir."

Something rather like a chuckle crossed with a cough echoed from the cave. "There is always something written between the lines. But it takes great wisdom to read it."

"Then why me, sir? I have little wisdom."

"Because... because you are here."

"Here?"

"Today. And not back at Ector's feeding his brachet or cleaning out the mews or sweating in the smithy or fighting with that pack of unruly boys. Here. For the getting of wisdom." The dragon made stretching noises.

"Oh."

There was a sudden tremendous wheezing and clanking and a strange, "Oh-oh," from the dragon.

Artos peered into the back of the cave nervously. It was all dark-ness and shadow and an occasional finger of firelight. "Are you all right? Sir?"

A long silence followed during which Artos wondered whether he should go to the dragon. He wondered if he had even the smallest amount of wisdom needed to help out. Then, just as he was about to make the plunge, the dragon's voice came hissing back. "Yessssss, boy."

"Yes what, sir?"

"Yessssss I am all right."

"Well, then," said Artos, putting one foot quietly behind the other, "thank you for my wisdom."

A furious flame spat across the cave, leaping through the darkness to lick Artos's feet. He jumped back, startled at the dragon's accuracy and suddenly hideously afraid. Had it just been preparation for the dragon's dinner after all? He suddenly wished for the sword he had not yet purchased, turned, and ran out of the cave.

The dragon's voice followed him. "Ssssssssilly child. That was not the wisdom."

From a safe place alongside the outside wall of the cave, Artos peeked in. "There's more?" he asked.

"By the time I am through with you, Artos Pendragon, Arthur son of the dragon, you will read inter linea in people as well." There was a loud moan and another round of furious clanking, and then total silence.

Taking it as a dismissal and holding the book hard against his chest, Artos ran down the hill. Whatever else he thought about as he neared the castle walls, topmost in his mind was what he would tell Mag about the loss of the gravy pot. It might mean another kiss. That was the fell thought that occupied him all the way home.

Artos could not read the book without help, he knew it at once. The sentences were much too long and interspersed with Latin and other languages. Perhaps that was the between the lines the dragon had meant. The only help available was Old Linn, and he did not appear until well after dinner. Unfortunately, that was the time that Artos was the busiest, feeding the dogs, checking the jesses on the hawks, cleaning the smithy. Father Bertram might have helped had he still been alive, though somehow Artos doubted it. The dragon's book was neither Testament nor commentary, that much he could read, and the good father had been fierce about what he had con-sidered proper fare. The castle bonfires had often burned texts of which he disapproved. Even Lady Marion's Book of Hours, which had taken four scribes the full part of a year to set down, had gone up in Father Bertram's righteous flames because Adam and Eve had no fig leaves. This Artos had on good authority, though he had never seen it himself, for Lady Marion had complained to Lady Sylvia who had t.i.ttered about it to her serving girls who pa.s.sed the news along with the gravy to young Cai who had mentioned it as a joke to his friends in the cow shed when Artos, who had been napping in the haymow, overheard them.

No, the good Father Bertram would never have helped. Old Linn, though, was different. He could read four tongues well: English, Latin, Greek, and bardic runes. It was said his room was full of books. He could recite the "Conception of Pyrderi," a tale Artos loved for the sheer sound of it, and the stories about the children of Llyr and the Cauldron and the Iron House and the horse made for Bran. Or at least Linn used to be able to tell them all. Before he had been taken ill so suddenly and dramatically, his best piece had always been the "Battle of the Trees." Artos could not remember a time when dinners of great importance at the castle had not ended with Linn's declaiming of it. In fact, Lord Ector's Irish retainers called Linn shanachie, which, as far as Artos could tell from their garbled and endless explanations, simply meant "storyteller." But they said the word with awe when coupling it to Old Linn's name.

The problem, Artos thought, was that the old man hated him. Well, perhaps hate was too strong a word, but he seemed to prefer the young gentlemen of the house, not the impoverished fosterling. Linn especially lavished attention on Sir Cai who, as far as Artos was concerned, long ago let his muscles o'ertake his head. And Sir Bedvere, slack-jawed and hardhanded. And Sir Lancot, the pretty boy. Once Artos, too, had tried to curry favor with the trio of lordlings, fetching and carrying and helping them with their schoolwork. But then they all grew up, and the three grew up faster and taller and louder. And once Sir Lancot as a joke had pulled Artos's pants down around his ankles in the courtyard and the other two called out the serving maids to gawk. And that led to Mag's getting sweet on him, which was why he had grown to despise Mag and pity the boys, even though they were older and bigger and better placed than he.

Still, there was a time for putting aside such feelings, thought Artos. The getting of wisdom was surely such a time. He would need help in reading the dragon's book. None of the others, Cai or Bedvere or Lancot, could read half as well as he. They could only just make out the prayers in their psalters. Sir Ector could not read at all. So it would have to be Old Linn.

But to his despair, the apothecary could not be found after dinner. In desperation, he went to talk to the old man's best friend, the smith.

"Come now, young Art," called out Magnus Pieter as Artos ap-proached the smith. "Did we not have words just yesterday? Some-thing about a sword and a stone?"

Artos tried to think of a way to get the conversation around to Linn's whereabouts, but the conversation would not move at his direction. The smith willed it where he would. At last there was nothing left to do but remove the leathern bag around his neck and take out the jewel. He dropped it onto the anvil. It made a funny little pinging sound.

Magnus sucked on his lower lip and snorted through his nose. "By G.o.d, boy, and where'd you get that stone?"

To tell the truth meant getting swat for a liar. He suddenly realized it would be the same if he showed the book to Linn. So he lied. "I was left it by... Father Bertram," he said. "And I've..." The lies came slowly. He was by inclination an honest boy. He preferred silence to an untruth.

"Kept it till now, have you?" asked the smith. "Well, well, and of course you have. After all, there's not much in that village of ours to spend such a jewel on."

Artos nodded silently, thankful to have Magnus Pieter do the lying for him.

"And what would you be wanting for such a jewel?" asked the smith with the heavy-handed jocularity he always confused with cunning.

Knowing that he must play the innocent in order to get the better bargain, Artos said simply, "Why, a sword, of course."

"Of course!" Magnus Pieter laughed, hands on hips, throwing his head way back.

Since the other two smiths he had met laughed in just that way, Artos a.s.sumed it was something taught.

The smith stopped laughing and c.o.c.ked his head to one side. "Well?"

"I am old enough to have a sword of my own," said Artos. "And now I can pay for a good one."

"How good?" asked the smith in his heavy manner.

Artos knelt before the anvil and the red jewel was at the level of his eyes. As if he were addressing the stone and not the smith, he chanted a bit from a song Old Linn used to sing: And aye their swordes soe sore can byte, Throughe help of gramarye...

From behind him the smith sighed. "Aye," the old man said, "and a good sword it shall be. A fine blade, a steel of power. And while I make it for you, young poet, you must think of a good name for your sword from this stone." He reached across Artos's shoulder and plucked up the jewel, holding it high over both their heads.

Artos stood slowly, never once taking his eyes from the jewel. For a moment he thought he saw dragon fire leaping and crackling there. Then he remembered the glowing coals of the forge. The stone reflected that, nothing more.

"Perhaps," he said, thinking out loud, "perhaps I shall call it Inter Linea."

The smith smiled. "Fine name, that. Makes me think of foreign climes." He pocketed the stone and began to work. Artos turned and left, for he had ch.o.r.es to do in the mews.

Each day that followed meant another s...o...b..ry kiss from Mag and another pot of stew. It seemed to Artos a rather messy prelude to wisdom. But after a week of it, he found the conversations with the dragon worth the mess.

The dragon spoke knowingly of other lands where men walked on their heads instead of feet. Of lands down beneath the sea where the bells rang in underwater churches with each pa.s.sing wave. It taught Artos riddles and their answers, like As round as an apple, as deep as a cup, And all the king's horses can't pull it up, which was a well, of course.

And it sang him ballads from the p.r.i.c.kly, gorse-covered land of the Scots who ran naked and screaming into battle. And songs from the cold, icy Nors.e.m.e.n who prowled in their dragon s.h.i.+ps. And love songs from the silk-and-honey lands of Araby.

And once the dragon taught him a trick with pots and jewels, clanking and creaking noisily all the while, its huge foot mixing up the pots till Artos's head fair ached to know under which one lay the emerald as big as an egg. And that game he had used later with Lancot and Bedvere and Cai and won from them a number of gold coins till they threatened him. With his promised new sword he might have beaten them, but not with his bare hands. So he used a small man's wiles to trick them once again, picked up the winnings, and left them grumbling over the cups and peas he had used for the game.

And so day by day, week by week, month by month, Artos gained wisdom.

It took three tries and seven months before Artos had his sword. Each new steel had something unacceptable about it. The first had a hilt that did not sit comfortably in his hand. Bedvere claimed it instead, and Magnus Pieter was so pleased with the coins Sir Bedvere paid it was weeks before he was ready to work another. Instead he shoed horses, made latches, and built a gigantic candelabrum for the dining room to Lady Marion's specifications.

The second sword had a strange crossbar that the smith swore would help protect the hand. Artos thought the sword unbalanced but Cai, who prized newness over all things, insisted that he wanted that blade. Again Magnus Pieter was pleased enough to spend the weeks following making farm implements like plowshares and hoes.

The third sword was still bright with its tempering when Lancot claimed it.

"Cai and Bedvere have new swords," Lancot said, his handsome face drawn down with longing. He reached his hand out.

Artos, who had been standing in the shadows of the smithy, was about to say something when Old Linn hobbled in. His mouth and hair spoke of a lingering illness, both being yellowed and lifeless. But his voice was strong.

"You were always a man true to his word," he reminded the smith.

"And true to my swords," said Magnus Pieter, pleased with the play.

Artos stepped from the shadows then and held out his hand. The smith put the sword in it and Artos turned it this way and that to catch the light. The watering on the blade made a strange pattern that looked like the flame from a dragon's mouth. It sat well and balanced in his hand.

"He likes the blade," said Old Linn.

Magnus Pieter shrugged, smiling.

Artos turned to thank the apothecary but he was gone and so was Lancot. When he peered out the smithy door, there were the two of them walking arm in arm up the winding path toward the castle.

"So you've got your Inter Linea now," said the smith. "And about time you took one. Nothing wrong with the other two."

"And you got a fine price for them," Artos said.

The smith returned to his anvil, and the clang of hammer on new steel ended their conversation.

Artos ran out of the castle grounds, hallooing so loudly even the tortoise dozing on the rusted helm lifted its sleepy head. He fairly leaped over the two rocks in the path. They seemed to have gotten smaller with each trip to the dragon's lair. He was calling still when he approached the entrance to the cave.

"Ho, old flametongue," he cried out, the sword allowing him his first attempt at familiarity. "Furnace-lung, look what I have. My sword. From the stone you gave me. It is a rare beauty."

There was no answer.

Suddenly afraid that he had overstepped the bounds and that the dragon lay sulking within, Artos peered inside.

The cave was dark, cold, silent.

Slowly Artos walked in and stopped about halfway. He felt sur-rounded by the icy silence. But that was all. There was no sense of dragon there. No presence.

"Sir? Father dragon? Are you home?" He put a hand up to one of the hanging stones to steady himself. In the complete dark he had little sense of what was up and what was down.

Then he laughed. "Oh, I know, you have gone out on a flight." It was the only answer that came to him, though the dragon had never once mentioned flying. But everyone knows dragons have wings. And wings mean flight. Artos laughed again, a hollow little chuckle. Then he turned toward the small light of the cave entrance. "I'll come back tomorrow. At my regular time," he called over his shoulder. He said it out loud just in case the dragon's magic extended to retrieving words left in the still cave air. "Tomorrow," Artos promised.

But the pattern had been altered subtly and, like a weaving gone awry, could not be changed back to the way it had been without a weakness in the cloth.

The next day Artos did not go to the cave. Instead he practiced swordplay with willow wands in the main courtyard, beating Cai soundly and being beaten in turn by both Bedvere and Lancot.

The following morn, he and the three older boys were sent by Lady Marion on a fortnight's journey to gather gifts of jewels and silks from the market towns for the coming holy days. Some at Ector's castle celebrated the solstice with the druids, some kept the holy day for the Christ child's birth, and a few of the old soldiers still drank bull's blood and spoke of Mithras in secret meetings under the castle, for there was a vast warren of halls and rooms there. But they all gave gifts to one another at the year's turning, whichever G.o.ds they knelt to.

It was Artos's first such trip. The other boys had gone the year before under Linn's guidance. This year the four of them were given leave to go alone. Cai was so pleased he forgave Artos for the beating. Suddenly, they were the best of friends. And Bedvere and Lancot, who had beaten him, loved Artos now as well, for even when he had been on the ground with the wand at his throat and his face and arms red from the las.h.i.+ngs, he had not cried "Hold." There had been not even the hint of tears in his eyes. They admired him for that.

With his bright new sword belted at his side, brand-new leggings from the castle stores, and the new-sworn friends riding next to him, it was no wonder Artos forgot the dragon and the dark cave. Or, if he did not exactly forget, what he remembered was that the dragon hadn't been there when he wanted it the most. So, for a few days, for a fortnight, Artos felt he could, like Cai, glory in the new.

He did not glory in the dragon. It was old, old past counting the years, old past helping him, old and forgetful.

They came home with red rosy cheeks polished by the winter wind and bags packed with treasure. An extra two horses carried the overflow.

Cai, who had lain with his first girl, a serving wench of little beauty and great reputation, was full of new boasts. Bedvere and Lancot had won a junior tourney for boys under sixteen, Bedvere with his sword and Lancot his lance. And though Artos had been a favorite on the outbound trip, full of wonderful stories, riddles, and songs, as they turned toward home he had lapsed into long silences. By the time they were but a day's hard ride away, it was as if his mouth were bewitched.

The boys teased him, thinking it was Mag who worried him. "Afraid of Old Garlic, then?" asked Cai. "At least Rosemary's breath was sweet." (Rosemary being the serving wench's name.) "Or are you afraid of my sword?" said Bedvere.

"Or my lance?" Lancot added brightly.

When he kept silent, they tried to wheedle the cause of his set lips by reciting castle gossip. Every maiden, every alewife, every false nurse was named. Then they turned their attention to the men. They never mentioned dragons, though, for they did not know one lived by the castle walls. Artos had never told them of it.

But it was the dragon, of course, that concerned him. With each mile he remembered the darkness, the complete silence of the cave. At night he dreamed of it, the cave opening staring down from the hill like the empty eye socket of a long-dead beast.

They unpacked the presents carefully and carried them up to Lady Marion's quarters. She, in turn, fed them wine and cakes in her apartments, a rare treat. Her minstrel, a handsome boy except for his wandering left eye, sang a number of songs while they ate, even one in a Norman dialect. Artos drank only a single mouthful of the sweet wine. He ate nothing. He had heard all the songs before.

Thus it was well past sundown before Lady Marion let them go.

Artos would not join the others who were going to report to Lord Ector. He pushed past Cai and ran down the stairs. The other boys called after him, but he ignored them. Only the startled ends of their voices followed him.

He hammered on the gate until the guards lifted the iron port-cullis, then he ran across the moat bridge. Dark muddy lumps in the mushy ice were the only signs of life.

As he ran, he held his hand over his heart, cradling the two pieces of cake he had slipped into his tunic. Since he had had no time to beg stew from Mag, he hoped seed cakes would do instead. He did not, for a moment, believe the dragon had starved to death without his poor offering of stew. The dragon had existed many years before Artos had found the cave. It was not the size of the stew, but the fact of it.

He stubbed his toe on the second outcropping hard enough to force a small mewing sound between his lips. The tor was icy and that made climbing it difficult. Foolishly he'd forgotten his gloves with his saddle gear. And he'd neglected to bring a light.

When he got to the mouth of the cave and stepped in, he was relieved to hear heavy breathing echoing off the cave wall, until he realized it was the sound of his own ragged breath.

"Dragon!" he cried out, his voice a misery.

Suddenly there was a small moan and an even smaller glow, like dying embers that have been breathed upon one last time.

"Is that you, my son?" The voice was scarcely a whisper, so quiet the walls could not find enough to echo.

"Yes, dragon," said Artos. "It is I."

"Did you bring me any stew?"