seventeen

Don’t look so cautious, Brother—I’ll not bite off your head today. I’m sorry for my ill humour yesterday, and some of the things I said. They were not meant, and were certainly not deserved, after all your kindnesses to me. And you are doing well with all your writing: the Abbot told me that he read what you’ve done so far, and he likes it very well. He also likes the bits about the monastery, for they record a part of history as well, so he says. I suspect, between you and me, that he rather likes the idea of having his own name in a book. So you’d better write it: Abbot Dominic, of the Monastery of St. Edmund at Minstan, in the year of our Lord 1356. Perchance he’ll be famous one day, for he’s doing a newfangled thing: he’s building a school for ordinary folks, so they can learn to read and write. Learning shouldn’t be only for the rich, he said. And he’s started a goose farm for the quills, to keep your writing brothers well supplied. He’s offered me paid work looking after the geese, and I’m thinking on it, for it sounds a pleasant way of life. He offered Jing-wei work, too. He’s most impressed with the fact that she can read and write in her own language, and has offered to teach her to read and write in English, if she will afterwards become a teacher in his school. However, she won’t say if she will or no. She is quiet these days, and I think that, for some reason beyond me, I have offended her. She spends much of her spare time with Chen. But enough of my woes . . .

I woke at dawn the next day, and lay listening to the strange breathing of the sea as it came and went upon the beach. I would have stayed long abed, for it was pleasant there with Lizzie, but she leaped up right quick once she woke, to watch for the dragon’s return. Well after sunup it came, flying low and with its belly full. It went straight to its cave, and we did not see it again all day.

All morning Lizzie worked on the cut pieces of her mother’s dress, sewing them with Lan’s needle and threads into a long silken sheath. Right cunningly she sewed, and quick. I helped when I could, holding the pieces of silk together so the seams stayed true while she stitched.

Near the middle of the day we drank the last of our water. Lizzie asked me to carry her down to the shore when the tide went out, and I watched as she upturned rocks at the water’s edge. She stood up, smiling, with a devilish-looking creature caught between her forefinger and thumb. She said it was a crab, good to eat. I gave her my knife, and she dealt swiftly with it, pulling off its claws and sucking the flesh from them. “The Gypsies ate these,” she said. “There are other sea-foods, too, if we can find them. Most are fine uncooked.”

She offered me one of the creature’s evil-looking claws, but I shook my head, the bile rising in my throat. Truth to tell, I felt constantly sick in that place. I think it was the smell of it, the bitter air, the knowing that we were in our enemy’s domain. I shook in fear the whole time we were out there, while Lizzie hunted for her grotesque food.

Back in the shrine, Lizzie began to sew again. She was making a long sleeve-like thing, and I couldn’t for the life of me see its resemblance to a fish or a dragon. Trusting her, I said nothing, save that I would go to Seagrief that afternoon to look for the sticks she needed.

“This will be ready by the time you get back,” she said. “I’ll slide the sticks where they need to go, and we can fly it tonight.”

“Tonight?” I cried, alarmed. “So soon?”

“Just to see if it works,” she said, with her lips curved. “Nothing to get ruffled about. The dragon will be safely gone while we try it.”

“I’m scared, all the same,” I confessed. “All the time I’m scared, in this place. I’ve tried to have faith in myself, Lizzie, but I can’t. I keep seeing the dragon, and Doran.”

“Why are you afraid at this moment?” she asked.

“The dragon might fly out of its cave. It might come here and burn us out. Do to us what it did to that soldier out there.”

“Aye. And a shipload of mad pirates might land in the cove, and cut us to pieces. Or the stars might fall, or you might tumble down and break your stupid neck, or—”

“’Tis not funny, Lizzie!”

“I’m not jesting!” she said, standing up. “Is it likely that the dragon will fly down here in broad daylight, just to sniff inside this shrine?”

“No,” I said, doubtfully. “I suppose not.”

“Then what are you afraid of? I’m busy with my sewing. The dragon’s asleep in its lair. You’re standing safe and sound inside a stone shelter. What’s to be afraid of?”

I sighed, and half smiled at her. “Only an angry maid,” I said.

Picking up one of our bags, she emptied it of all save our two water skins. “Fill these while you’re in Seagrief,” she said. “And make sure you collect sticks that are light and strong. Willow, if you can find it, for it will bend without breaking.”

“I think everything will be scorched dry,” I said, taking the bag, “but I’ll do my best.”

“I have no doubt you will,” she said, and to my surprise reached up to kiss my cheek. “Take care,” she added. “I need you, Jude of Doran.”

My heart sang all the way up the cliff path, and even the burned walls of Seagrief couldn’t cool my joy. I found the well, lowered the bucket, and filled our water skins. The water was grey with ash, for the little roof over the well had burned and fallen in, but it didn’t taste too foul. I drank deeply there, then went to look for the sticks Lizzie needed.

It was terrible to rummage about in those devastated homes, searching strangers’ sorry rubble. I found several blades from knives, and though the handles were burned away and the steel was black, they were still sharp. I wrapped them in a scrap of scorched leather, to take back for Lizzie to put in the fire-dust with the flint and metal shards. I found other things as well, too terrible to talk about. Twice I near spewed, and I ached, thinking on Doran. I felt displaced, unreal, like a lost phantom poking about in some forgotten part of hell. It was strange to look up at blue skies and realise that the rest of the world was still there, sound and ordinary in parts.

At last I discovered pieces of a wattle fence behind a blackened clay wall, and some of the willow sticks were undamaged by the fire. I pulled them out, and found them still supple; the fence must have been built just afore the dragon came. I got all the sticks that were available, binding them into a bundle that I could carry on my back, and returned to the beach.

Partway down the cliff path I stopped to rest, and looked to where the lair was. In a moment of pure, mad defiance, I lifted my right hand and jabbed two fingers in the air. “I’ve still got my bow fingers, you old lizard!” I yelled, and the words echoed around the cove like an abbey bell. Then I scrambled down the path and raced to the shrine. But that small act of boldness had done my soul good.

When Lizzie saw me, she laughed. “I heard your battle cry,” she said. “The dragon must be mortal scared.”

“Aye,” I replied, smiling, handing her a swollen water skin. “Only it’s not my fingers it needs to worry about, but yours, as you do that sewing there.”

“It’s done,” she said, “and needs only the sticks to give it shape, to hold it open so the wind can fill it.”

“’Tis wondrous work, Jing-wei,” I said.

She looked at me strangely, a smile playing about her lips. “You called me by my true name,” she said.

I was flustered a moment or two, because of the pleasure on her face. “Well, it fits you better than Lizzie,” I said. “Besides, only a brave maid from Hangchow could sew a silken flying-thing, and use it to slay a dragon.”

She lifted the water skin to her lips, but not before I saw the red blush on her cheeks. I swore to myself that I would never again call her by any name save her own true one.

As she drank, I dropped the sticks on the floor beside her, and unbound them. “There was little left,” I said. “I got these from a fence that had been only partly burned. They’re supple, still.”

Marvelling, I watched as she slid the sticks down some of the seams she had sewn, then stitched the silk around the frame to make it stable. She gave me two of the longer, more supple sticks and asked me to soak them in the sea, to make them softer. I did as she said, all the while keeping a wary eye on the lair above. Back in the shrine, I watched as Jing-wei slid the wet wands into the wider end, curving them into a hoop, binding them into place within the silk. Then she spread her work along the floor. Like a long hollow snake it was, wide at the end supported and held open by the willow frame, and tapering to several silken tails. The main body of the thing stretched the full length of the shrine; the tails were as long again. For size and colour, I suppose a half-blind dragon might perceive it as a fledgling of its kind, though a fatally deflated one.

Jing-wei saw my doubt, and smiled. “It will come alive in the wind,” she assured me. Then she took one of the balls of cord Lan had given her, cut off several lengths, and fixed them to the silken sleeve, near the willow hoops at the wide end. One of the cords she did not cut, but left attached to the ball. “With this we’ll control the silk dragon, even when it’s far in the sky,” she said. “Don’t look so forlorn, Jude; I know what I’m about.”

I went and leaned on the window ledge, looking at the sea. The wind still came in, strong and steady, and I did not ask what she would do if that night the air was still.

“I have another task for you,” she said, from behind me. “Will you go out and fetch that sword you saw? We’ll need it, if the beast is only wounded.”

I turned to face her. She was bent over the ashes on the floor, mixing water into them with a stick.

“Lan said our weapon cannot fail,” I said.

“Aye, so she did. And it won’t. The beast will be torn apart. But it might not die at once, and I will not leave it suffering. Please fetch the sword.”

“His hand was still about the hilt,” I said, faltering. “I don’t . . . I’m not . . .”

She said nothing, but dipped one end of a willow stick into the sooty paste. Then carefully she began painting eyes on the silken thing she had made, near the larger end.

Full of dread, I went out to do as I was told. But the corpse was gone, dragged out by the waning tide, or burned to nothingness by the beast. I found a strip of leather, metal-studded, caught between the rocks, and knew it was the soldier’s belt. It seemed familiar, with those studded bits, and I supposed I had seen another like it in a different place. The sword I found at last, black as the stones it lay among, half buried in sand. I was afraid to touch it, lest some part of the dead soldier’s flesh still clung to it, with dragon’s blood; but it was clean save for the soot that covered it. I scoured it with sand, taking off most of the blackness, then lifted it by the hilt, feeling its awful weight, and raised the blade to the sky.

Again a strange memory stirred in me, and I stared hard at the handle, the fine work etched along the blade. Then it hit me: this sword was Tybalt’s! And the moment I knew that, there crowded into my head a dozen other things: the image of Richard that night the minstrel told us where the dragon was, and how Richard’s face had shone, as if he heard a summons; words Richard had spoke, and how he longed to slay a dragon the way his forefathers had; how the soldier here upon the beach had worn no armour, no helmet, and had only this sword. And the studded belt I had seen abandoned in the rocks—it was the belt Richard had worn. I remembered, too, another thing, so awesome and powerful that I scarce could take it in: I remembered that the soothsayer had told Richard that this sword—this sword I held now in my hands—would be the sword to slay the last dragon.

I cannot tell the feeling I had as I stood there on the beach that moment, with that sword held high, and in my mind and heart a sense so strong of destiny before me, and a thousand souls behind me, like angel-guards gathered about, and saints, and all the company of heaven, to help me do this thing that was ordained for me. I thought on what Old Lan had said about my destiny, and how Jing-wei and I were bound by fate to find her place; and I thought on the sword and its history, and how all things had come together here, on this ashen shore, with a strange weapon only Jing-wei understood, and this star-fated sword, and a dragon to be slain. And I swear, Brother Benedict, there was then no fear in me, no doubt, but only a sense of destiny, and a steel-strong will to win.

I felt Jing-wei beside me, and lowered the sword point to the stones, for my arms were mortal tired.

“’Tis a long while you’ve been out here, Jude,” she said. “The sun is going down. Come back to the shrine, afore the dragon flies.”

“This is Tybalt’s sword,” I said.

She limped a little way past me, looking to where the body had been, her hand shading her eyes from the low sun. “Then Tybalt should be buried,” she said, very low. “At least, a pile of stones should be raised over him, and a cross placed where he lies.”

“The body’s gone,” I said. “And it wasn’t Tybalt. It was Richard. I saw his belt caught in the rocks, the studded belt he wore.”

She went very quiet, thinking; then she said, with a look almost of relief: “I didn’t kill him, then, that night in the forest.”

There was a movement high in the sun-gold cliff; we looked up to see the dragon emerge, slow, from its lair. It stopped in the entrance, only its head and neck visible to us. Seemingly unaware of us, it looked out to sea.

“Don’t move,” warned Jing-wei.

“I wasn’t about to,” I said, visions still blazing in my head. “Let it come down here now, if it will, and I’ll do battle with it.”

But it flew away, not even coming down to drink. Straight towards the sun it went, barely moving its wings, gliding in the golden wind; then it turned and flew inland, and was lost in the twilight skies beyond the cliff.

When I went back to the shrine Jing-wei was already gathering up the silken dragon she had made. I noticed that she had placed a little willow raft within the sleeve, fixed to the sticks along the seams, and the leather bag of fire-dust was sewn firmly onto it. A long twist of silk emerged from the bag, and I asked her what it was for.

“It will catch alight before the leather does, and take the fire straight to the heart of the dust. Then it will blow apart, flinging out the metal shards and the sharp flints.”

“I brought back some knives from Seagrief, too,” I said, putting down the sword, and helping her.

“I found them. All are inside, carefully placed. I’ve been busy while you were out there dreaming.”

“You remember what Richard’s seer said about the sword, don’t you?”

She smiled at me across the shining length of silk, plum-red in the purple dusk. “Aye, I remember,” she said. “But don’t let dreams replace your wits, Jude. You need both. That was Richard’s trouble; he had visions, but lacked knowledge.”

Down to the sand we went. The tide had been sucked out towards the world’s end, leaving fatal rocks exposed, their jagged points black against the sun’s last light. Between the rocks, where the sea had withdrawn, lay long stretches of wet sand.

Out on that shining sand, with the wind to our backs, Jing-wei and I faced the towering cliff and the dragon’s cave. She gave me the silken sleeve to hold, telling me to raise it high, the open end towards the wind. The silk streamed from my hands, tugging with the force of the breeze, and Jing-wei held the ball of cord still attached to it.

“Let it go!” she cried.

I did. Of a sudden, like a child’s strange toy leaping into life, the scarlet silk writhed and unfurled, swelling with the wind, blossoming, bursting into shape. Like a living thing it rose, leaping in the warm wind that swept up the face of the cliff. Higher and higher it rose, tugging and tossing, bright as fire against the first stars. Oh, Benedict, it was grand! Never have I seen such a fine thing made by human hands! As I watched Jing-wei feeding it more cord, letting it fly higher, freer, I thought of what she had said about her father standing in such a contraption, being flown like a falcon above hills and valleys, beyond earth and trees, and I longed to do the same.

So enthralled I was, I almost forgot the purpose of our task. But Jing-wei had not: she flew the silk high near the dragon’s lair, holding it there by the cord, watching as it rose and dipped in the growing dark.

“’Tis magic!” I breathed.

“Nay, ’tis no more cunning than a windmill’s blades, or the sails of a ship,” she said. “It is only a thing harnessing the wind.”

“So if the wind drops, all is lost?” I asked.

“Nay, but we would have to try again another time,” she said. “But it’s flying well now, and the wind is strong. If I bring it down it may be damaged on the stones. We’ll leave it where it is, to wait for morning, and the dragon.”

And that is what we did. She placed the ball of cord on the beach, and weighted it down with a rock. Then she got more crabs to eat, which I shared this time, out of my stomach’s dire need, and we sat with our backs against the little shrine, to wait. Close at hand, gleaming in the moonlight, lay Tybalt’s fateful sword. And all the while the silken dragon soared outside the lair, splendid and defiant, with its cargo of spiked death.

And that, Brother, is a splendid note on which to end this day’s work!