Handbook for Dragon Slayers (11 page)

I turned away so neither Parz nor Judith could see the bitter tear that slipped down my cheek. I closed my eyes.

Something huge and warm and wet touched my forehead. I opened my eyes into the face of the silver mare, who finished her long lick with a good swipe across my hair.

“Er, thank you?”

She nickered.

“We should water them,” Parz said.

“Almost done here,” Judith said, and waved us on.

Parz went into the stable to get buckets, and I followed to help him.

The horses in turn trailed after us. Parz froze and looked behind us. “This is a little strange,” he whispered. “Try going into that foaling stall, there. . . . See if they follow you.”

I went into the wide box stall, which had an opening to an outdoor pen, and the horses came in with me. I sidled out of the stall, praying I wouldn't get squished. They didn't try to follow me back out.

“Is this it?” I asked. “Are they going to stay in the stable?”

“Maybe,” Parz said. He gave them hay, which they ignored, and water, which they played with.

“Should we remove their tack?” I asked.

Parz didn't look away from them. “Sure. Go ahead.”

“Are you—are you scared of them, Parz?”

“A little!”

“Well, I'm scared, too!” I said.

He took a deep breath, and said, “All right.” He walked into the stall and approached the silver horse, showing absolutely no fear. He unloaded the horse's saddlebags and slung them into the aisle. They thunked and clinked when they landed. Then he removed the horse's silver saddle, which he treated a little more gently.

“Amazing,” he muttered, carrying the saddle past me.

“Is it heavy as silver?” I asked.

“Not even, yet it feels like silver to the touch. And just look at these amethysts and sapphires! Those have to be real. Look at how they shine.” He glanced around and then bent over to bite at the edge of the saddle, like one would bite a coin to make sure it was the proper metal. “Ow,” Parz exhaled. He examined the spot where he'd bitten down. “It's silver all the way through.”

I stifled a laugh, then faced the stall door. I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. “All right, tell me what to do,” I said. If Parz could swallow his fear, so could I.

As Parz called out directions, I started divesting the copper mare of her tack and baggage. Her tack's gemstones were all rubies and aquamarines, and the heavy saddlebags made interesting noises when I put them down.

The saddle almost overbalanced me completely, but Parz took it from me as soon as I was free of the stall. “Do you want to bite this one, too?”

“No, thank you,” Parz said.

Once both horses were free of their gear, they shook themselves joyfully and danced around a little bit.

“Let's brush them down,” I said, grabbing up a comb and marching into the stall with the silver mare.

She nickered softly and nuzzled my cheek.

“Hey there,” I said.

I lifted the comb to her beautiful silver hair, and suddenly Parz was next to me, showing me how to curry her with circular motions from neck to hindquarters, and then how to flick away the dirt I'd raised. “If you don't throw up a plume of dust, you're not doing it right,” he said. “Instead, you're driving the dirt you curried up back under the hair.”

“Brushing a horse is more complicated than I thought.”

He nodded. “It is. But horses are easy compared to hawks.”

“Do you have a hawk?”

“No. Not currently. My father was falconer to Lord Frederick One-Eye, though, before he married my mother and became lord of Hare Hedge.”

Ah. Parz's mother was an heiress, same as me, though Hare Hedge was a minor holding compared to Alder Brook. What did that make Parz? It would be rude to ask outright, which was why I never had. But he couldn't be his mother's heir if he'd been sent off to squire for a knight as old and as powerless as Sir Kunibert. A younger son, then, of a minor lord.

We worked in silence for a time, until I began to notice some subtle color variations in the horse's coat. She had a few black hairs in among the silver, but when we brushed them, the black seemed to slough away and reveal more silver hair beneath. And there was depth of color to the silver, with faint tones of orange, blue, violet. You saw that, sometimes, in silver that had been handled a lot.

“Like old coins,” Parz murmured. “Or old jewelry.” He picked at three long tail hairs that had adhered to his clothing and held them up to the light.

“Exactly what I was thinking.” I sighed. “She's beautiful.”

“Indeed she is,” Parz said, and started pointing out her impressive features: a long, lean neck with a slight arch; well-proportioned limbs; a wide, deep chest. I had no idea why these things mattered, but I listened anyway.

After we were done brushing down the horses, I offered the silver mare a grain bucket. She put her nose politely inside, lapped out a few grains, chewed them thoughtfully—and spit them out at my feet.

“You're . . . not hungry, I guess?” I asked.

She blew warm, horsey breath into my face, and stamped a foot.

“I don't think they like grain,” I said.

Parz frowned. “They'll eat when they're hungry,” he said doubtfully.

“There you are!” Judith said from the end of the stable. She came forward into our pools of lamplight, her right arm folded up in a sling.

“Judith! Feeling better?”

“Ugh,” Judith said. “I'm tender, but yes, feeling much better.”

Once the horses were truly set, though they wanted none of the food or water we offered them, we gathered in an empty stall and flopped exhaustedly into piles of hay.

We were silent for a long moment, until Judith said, “What's in their saddlebags?”

Our heads all swiveled as if we were a family of owls to look at the bags lying in the aisle. Parz got up and dragged the two nearest saddlebags over—one copper, one silver—and threw open the first flap.

Hand to fire, the room shone brighter from the bounty inside. Heaps of precious metal seemed to be contained therein. At first I thought it was coins, but from the copper bag Parz lifted out one by one all the pieces of a full suit of mail armor: leggings, hood, shirt, collar, and mittens, and all the padding to be worn beneath it, quilted in a fabric that looked like shimmering copper silk.

From the silver bag, Parz pulled out a silver bridle first. Judith and I both said, “Ah!” at the same time, and exchanged a glance. Parz went on to remove a silver sword with scabbard and belt, and two silver daggers with sheaths, all bejeweled in amethysts and sapphires. There was a belt of silver, and a surcoat of the silky stuff in argent and purple, and a cloak to match.

We opened the other two bags and found that there were identical sets of equipment: two full suits of matching armor, two sets of weapons, and two bridles.

Parz stared at the copper-mesh armor coat in his hands. “Imagine fighting dragons with these horses.”

I said, “If they wanted to fight dragons. I think that's up to them.”

“There are three of us,” Judith pointed out. “And two of them. Regardless.”

I sighed with regret. “I'm not a fighter. Never will be.”

“One horse for each of us to fight with,” Parz said, toying with the long tail hairs he'd collected earlier. “If they want,” he added hastily.

Judith set her mouth. “The silver mare belongs to Tilda.
Both
horses belong to Tilda.”

“I don't think these horses
belong
to anyone,” I said.

“That's true,” Parz said. “But I've been watching the silver mare. She is deeply curious about the world. She likes smaller creatures—she was fascinated by the innkeeper's dog—but she does, in her horsey way, just
love
you, Tilda.”

I must have looked dubious, because he said, “You told me the story yourself. I think the silver one is the lead mare. And she knows you for a lead mare, too.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You leaped to protect me from the horses,” Judith said. “You leaped to protect the horses from the Hunter. You're the lead mare.”

“I—I—” I fell silent. We
all
fell silent, for a long moment, I think each of us considering what life with these horses might be like. Parz started weaving the tail hairs into a little braid.

“What are you going to do with all of this
stuff
, Tilda?” Judith asked.

“
I
am not going to do anything with it. It belongs to them. And they belong to themselves, maybe, or to the Wild Hunt. I wouldn't steal from either.”

“Me neither,” Judith said adamantly, and yawned again.

I laughed a little, not glancing at Parz. I could see he was restless and itchy, and wanted to decide which horse belonged to whom. But I caught Judith's yawn and realized I was so far beyond tired, I was in another country altogether.

“Let's sleep here,” I said, and almost before we had agreed to it, I was asleep.

W
E SLEPT UNTIL THE
Martinmas festivities awakened us.

Bonfires were started, and fat geese were cooked. People cheered when they saw us, and offered us roasted goose legs and hand pies filled with blackberries, and when the cordial ran out, we drank drafts of crushed grapes that hadn't even thought of turning to wine yet.

I must have eaten a dozen tiny rolls shaped like horse hooves. Saint Martin's feast always features goose and hoof-shaped bread, because when the cardinals came to offer him the job of pope, he ran off and hid in the stables with the horses until the geese honked and gave him away.

Everywhere I went, the silver mare followed. I'd thought we had latched the stable door, but obviously that wasn't a barrier to the silver mare. Though she'd refused grain, she stole cordial and juice out of my cup when I wasn't looking. She wasn't always polite about the people who wanted to touch her—I think she bit more than a few fingers, and I know she kicked someone, but she was nice to the children.

The townsfolk who had left for the three nights of earthquakes and storms started to trickle back in on the rumors that the harvest problem was over, and the celebration's pitch rose. Musicians found each other, and dancing began. The local lord came down from his high castle in the evening, accompanied by a few of his vassals, and there were speeches. A handsome knight put a wreath of bright autumn leaves and ripe grain on my head like a crown; the children tried to put another such crown on the silver mare, but she flung it off.

Parz lost all of his money in a dice game, and Judith gained it all back for him, even with her arm in a sling. I won a singing contest against some eight-year-olds who shouldn't have goaded me into it. And we all ate and laughed. I grinned so hard, I thought my face would crack open like an eggshell and my brain would drop out like the yolk.

Maybe it was the relief of the whole town we felt; maybe it was the freedom of being on our own. I just knew I'd never been so happy.

The knight who'd given me the wreath listened carefully during the third recitation of the events with the Wild Hunt and afterward introduced himself to us as Sir Egin. He was particularly charming, kissing my hand and praising my bravery.

“Would you care to dance, milady?” Sir Egin asked. He stroked his thick blond beard and smiled down at me.

I was startled by that invitation, considering I hadn't even been trying to hide my foot or crutch or anything. It had to be fairly obvious that I wasn't capable of dancing.

“Before you say no—” he said, and lifted me into his arms and spun me around three times.

It was the fastest I'd ever moved. Ever!

“Oh!” I said, half dizzy from the movement, and stumbled a little against Sir Egin when he set me back on my feet.

The silver mare came close and thrust her head under my arm, effectively removing my hand from Sir Egin's and forcing me to step back from him. Judith spoke in my ear. “Tilda, I need you.”

“Another time, Sir Egin,” I said, attempting a gracious smile.

He smiled back, equally gracious—but not before a shadow darkened his eyes for a moment. He bowed deeply and turned to leave.

I frowned. Why had there been that flicker of . . . well, it wasn't annoyance, or even anger . . . when I'd refused him? What had it been?

Jealousy? Hatred?

I shivered. He had no right to be jealous. No reason to hate.

I turned to Judith, noting that she appeared to have acquired a very fine silver-and-copper chain around her neck. Where had that come from?

“Well?” I asked. “What's the matter?”

She didn't speak until Egin was well out of earshot. “The matter is that Sir Egin just buried his seventh wife,” she said. “And he's probably looking for the eighth.”

“I'm only thirteen!”

Judith glanced at Sir Egin's retreating back. “And do you think that matters to someone who's buried seven wives?”

T
HE CELEBRATION LASTED INTO THE NIGHT, AND WE
were foolish enough to stay for the whole of it. It wasn't that we forgot about possible pursuit by Cousin Ivo; it was more that we had been through so much with the dragon and the Wild Hunt that it felt like weeks had passed instead of just a few days. But there was also Judith's shoulder to be careful of, and my foot besides.

We fell asleep in the stable, curled around goose filled bellies in the loose straw of the stall across from the horses, while bonfires burned down to cinders outside. We were warm and cozy in the stable even though the first truly cold wind of autumn began to blow.

I woke in the middle of the night to the noise of footsteps and rustling in the metal horses' stall; a sharp blow and a withering human groan preceded running footsteps that quickly faded into the distance. Judith said, “What was that?”