The Hero and the Crown (11 page)

“Good for you. I assume you planned to go soon?”

“I—yes. You mean you’ll let me?”

“Let you? Of course. There’s little within a day’s ride of the City that will harm

you.” Momentarily his face hardened. Time had once been, before the loss of the

Crown, that any sword drawn in anger within many miles of the City would

rebound on the air, twist out of its wielder’s hands, and fall to the earth. “Talat

will take care of you. He took excellent care of me.”

“Yes. Yes, he will.” She stood up, looked at the mess on (and around) her plate,

looked at her father. “Thank you.”

He smiled. “I will see you tomorrow. Mid-afternoon.”

Aerin was early at Talat’s pasture the next morning. She groomed him till her

arms ached, and he loved every minute of it; he preferred being fussed over even

to eating.

Maybe she should hang a bridle on him. She’d mended the cut rein on his old

bridle the night before, and brought it with her today. But when she offered the

bit to him—he who had so eagerly seized it two years before, knowing that it

meant he would be really ridden again—he looked at it and then at her with

obvious bewilderment, and hurt feelings. He suffered her to lift the bar into his

mouth and pull the straps over his ears, but he stood with his head drooping

unhappily.

“All right” she said, and ripped the thing off him again, and dropped it on the

ground, and picked up the little piece of padded cloth that passed for a saddle

and dropped it on his back. He twisted his head around and nibbled the hem of

her tunic, rolling his eye at her to see if she was really angry. When she didn’t

knock his face away he was reassured, and waited patiently while she arranged

and rearranged the royal breastplate to her liking.

Arlbeth came before she expected him. Talat had felt the tension in her as soon

as she mounted, but he had cheered her into a good mood again by being

himself, and they were weaving nonchalantly around several tall young trees at a

canter when she noticed Arlbeth standing on the far side of the stream that ran

through the meadow. They forded the water and then halted, and Arlbeth gave

them the salute of a soldier to his sovereign, and she blushed.

He nodded at Talat’s bare head. “I’m not sure this would be such a good idea

with another horse, but with him ...” He paused and looked thoughtful, and Aerin

held her breath for fear he would ask her how it had begun, for she hadn’t

decided what to tell him. He said only: “It could be useful to have no reins to

handle; but I’m not sure even our best horses are up to such a level of training.”

His eyes then dropped to Aerin’s feet. “That’s a very pretty way to ride, with your

legs wrapped around his belly, but the first pike that came along would knock you

right out of the saddle.”

“You’re not in battle most of the time,” Aerin said boldly, “and you could build

a special war saddle with a high pommel and cantle.”

Arlbeth laughed, and Aerin decided that they had passed their test. “I can see

he likes your new way.”

Aerin grinned. “Pick up the bridle and show it to him.”

Arlbeth did, and Talat laid back his ears and turned his head away. But when

Arlbeth dropped it, Talat turned back and thrust his nose into the breast of his old

master, and Arlbeth stroked him and murmured something Aerin could not hear.

Talat did not like the fire ointment at all. He pranced and sidled and slithered

out of reach and flared his nostrils and snorted, little rolling huff-huff-huffs, when

she tried to rub it on him. “It smells like herbs!” she said, exasperated; “And it will

probably do your coat good; it’s just like the oil Hornmar put on you to make you

gleam.”

He continued to sidle, and Aerin said through clenched teeth: “I’ll tie you up if

you’re not good.” But Talat, after several days of being chased, step by step and

sidle by sidle, around his pasture, decided that his new master was in earnest; and

the next time Aerin ran him up against the fence, instead of eluding her again, he

stood still and let his doom overtake him.

They went on their overnight journey a fortnight after Arlbeth had watched

them work together, by which time Talat had permitted Aerin—sometimes with

more grace than other times—to rub her yellow grease all over him. Aerin hoped

it would be a warm night since most of what looked like a roll of blankets hung

behind her saddle was a sausage-shaped skin of kenet.

They started before dawn had turned to day, and Aerin pushed Talat along

fairly briskly, that they might still have several hours of daylight left when they

made camp. There was a trail beside the little river, wide enough for a horse but

too narrow for wagons and this they followed; Aerin wished to be close to a large

quantity of water when she tried her experiment; and not getting lost was an

added benefit.

She made camp not long after noon. She unrolled the bundle that had looked

like bedding and first removed the leather tunic and leggings she’d made for

herself and let soak in a shallow basin of the yellow ointment for the last several

weeks. She’d tried setting fire to her suit yesterday, and the fire, however

vigorous it was as a torch, had gone out instantly when it touched a greasy sleeve.

The suit wasn’t very comfortable to wear; it was too sloppy and sloshy, and as she

bound up her hair and stuffed it into a greasy helmet she thought with dread of

washing the stuff off herself afterward.

She made camp not long after noon. She unrolled the bundle that had looked

like bedding and first removed the leather tunic and leggings she’d made for

herself and let soak in a shallow basin of the yellow ointment for the last several

weeks. She’d tried setting fire to her suit yesterday, and the fire, however

vigorous it was as a torch, had gone out instantly when it touched a greasy sleeve.

The suit wasn’t very comfortable to wear; it was too sloppy and sloshy, and as she

bound up her hair and stuffed it into a greasy helmet she thought with dread of

washing the stuff off herself afterward.

Talat came up to the edge of the fire and snorted anxiously. The fire was

pleasantly warm—pleasantly. It tapped at her face and hands with cheerful

friendliness and the best of good will; it murmured and snapped in her ears; it

wrapped its flames around her like the arms of a lover.

She leaped out of the fire and gasped for breath.

She turned back again and looked at the fire. Yes, it was a real fire; it burned

on, unconcerned, although her booted feet had disarranged it somewhat.

Talat thrust a worried nose into her neck. “Your turn,” she said. “Little do you

know.”

Little did he know indeed, and this was the part that worried her the most.

Talat was not going to walk into a bonfire and stand there till she told him to

come out again. She’d already figured out that for her future dragon-slaying

purposes, since dragons were pretty small, Talat could get away with just his

chest and legs and belly protected. But she would prefer to find out now—and to

let him know—that the yellow stuff he objected to did have an important use.

She reached up to feel her eyelashes and was relieved to discover that they

were still there. Talat was blowing at her anxiously—she realized, light-headedly,

that in some odd way she now smelted of fire—and when she swept up a handful

of kenet he eluded her so positively that for a bad moment she thought she might

have to walk home. But he let her approach him finally and, after most of his front

half was yellowish and shiny, permitted her to lead him back to the fire.

And he stood unmoving when she picked up a flaming branch and walked

toward him. And still stood when she held the branch low before him and let little

flames lick at his knees.

Kenet worked on horses too.

SHE RODE HOME in a merry mood. The time and the soap (fortunately she had

thought to bring a great chunk of the harsh floor-scrubbing soap with her) it had

taken to get the yellow stuff out of her hair could not dampen her spirits, any

more than had the cold night, and she with only one thin blanket.

Even another dreadful court affair, with an endless diplomatic dinner after it,

could not completely quell her happiness, and when the third person in half an

hour asked her about her new perfume—there was a slightly herby, and a slightly

charred, smell that continued to cling to her—she couldn’t help but laugh out

loud. The lady, who had been trying to make conversation, smiled a stiff smile and

moved away, for she resented being laughed at by someone she was supposed to

pity and be kind to.

Aerin sighed, for she understood the stiff smile, and wondered if she were

going to smell of herbs and burning—and slightly of clean floors—forever.

There was an unnatural activity at her father’s court at present; Thorped had

been only the precursor of a swelling profusion of official visitors, each more

nervous than the last, and a few inclined to be belligerent. The increasing activity

on Damar’s northern Border worried everyone who knew enough, or cared to pay

attention; there was more traveling among the villages and towns and the king’s

City than there had been for as long as Aerin could remember, and the court

dinners, always tense with protocol, were now stretched to breaking point with

something like fear.

Aerin, after the morning her father had given her permission to take Talat out

alone, had begun to visit the king at his breakfast now and then, and always he

looked glad to see her. Sometimes Tor ate with the king as well, and if Arlbeth

noticed that Tor joined him at breakfast more often now that there was a chance

he would see Aerin as well, he said nothing. Tor was home most of the time now,

for Arlbeth had need of him near.

So it was the three of them lingering over third cups of malak one morning

when the first petitioner of the day came to speak to the king.

The petitioner reported a dragon, destroying crops and killing chickens. It had

also badly burned a child who had accidentally discovered its lair, although the

child had been rescued in time to save its life.

Arlbeth sighed and rubbed his face with his hand. “Very well. We will send

someone to deal with it.”

The man bowed and left.

“There will be more of them now, with the trouble at the Border,” said Tor.

“That sort of vermin seems to breed faster when the North wind blows.”

“I fear you are right,” Arlbeth replied. “And we can ill spare anyone just now.”

“I’ll go,” said Tor.

“Don’t be a fool,” snapped the king, and then immediately said, “I’m sorry. I

can spare you least of all—as you know. Dragons don’t kill people very often any

more, but dragon-slayers rarely come back without a few uncomfortable burns.”

“Someday,” said Tor with a wry smile, “when we have nothing better to do, we

must think up a more efficient way to cope with dragons. It’s hard to take them

seriously—but they are a serious nuisance.”

Aerin sat very still.

“Yes.” Arlbeth frowned into his malak. “I’ll ask tomorrow for half a dozen

volunteers to go take care of this. And pray it’s an old slow one.”

Aerin also prayed it was an old slow one as she slipped off. She had only a day’s

grace, so she needed to leave at once; fortunately she had visited the village in

question once on a state journey with her father, so she knew more or less how

to get there. It was only a few hours’ ride.

Her hands shook as she saddled Talat and tied the bundles of dragon-proof

suit, kenet, sword, and a spear—which she wasn’t at all sure she could use, since,

barring a few lessons from Tor when she was eight or nine years old, she was

entirely self-taught—to the saddle. Then she had to negotiate her way past the

stable, the castle, and down the king’s way and out of the City without anyone

trying to stop her; and the sword and spear, in spite of the long cloak she had

casually laid over them, were a bit difficult to disguise.

Her luck—or something—was good. She was worrying so anxiously about what

she would say if stopped that she gave herself a headache; but as she rode,

everyone seemed to be looking not quite in her direction—almost as if they

couldn’t quite see her, she thought. It made her feel a little creepy. But she got

out of the City unchallenged.

The eerie feeling, and the headache, lifted at once when she and Talat set off

through the forest below the City. The sun was shining, and the birds seemed to

be singing just for her. Talat lifted into a canter, and she let him run for a while,

the wind slipping through her hair, the shank of the spear tapping discreetly at

her leg, reminding her that she was on her way to accomplish something useful.

She stopped at a little distance from the dragon-infested village to put on her

suit—which was no longer quite so greasy; it had reached its saturation point,

perhaps—and then adapted, as well-oiled boots adapt to the feet that wear them.

Her suit still quenched torches, but it had grown as soft and supple as cloth, and

almost as easy to wear. She rubbed ointment on her face and her horse, and