Dragon Business, The (7 page)

Reeger busied himself around the camp. “We’ve got our own work to do and business to attend. We’ll get your lands and your orchards back one of these days, Dalbry.” He grinned, showing off his bad teeth. “And we’ll have fun while we’re at it.”

W
HEN REEGER FOUND
an abandoned graveyard on their way to King Norrimun’s castle, he could barely contain his glee. Neither Cullin nor Sir Dalbry could drag him away from the treasure trove. “Bloodrust, never waste resources! A good skull and a rib cage are worth their weight in . . . well, in bone. And every cemetery’s got plenty to spare.”

Sir Dalbry indulged him. “Do what you need to do, Reeger. It is a distasteful but important part of our business.”

Reeger bent over the rough grave markers, the worn stones, and the uneven mounds that indicated double-decker sites, communal family-style graves from times of heavy plague. Occasionally, witches and hanged men were also buried in a jumble to keep them from stinking up the forest, unless ambitious medical researchers cut them down first.

Reeger bounded from one grave to the next, counting. “What a haul! This makes my day.”

“We all have to dream big, Reeger,” Dalbry said.

Reeger pulled out two hand spades from the mule’s saddlebags and handed one to Cullin. “Come on, lad. You’re well practiced by now.”

“A well-practiced grave robber.” The young man still felt squeamish, although he had long since crossed the line of things he thought he would never be willing to do. “Once I put that on my business card, just imagine the prospects I’ll have.”

“It’s not grave robbing—it’s harvesting materials no longer being used by their original owners. A sort of recycling.” Reeger was cheery about the work. “Acquiring items necessary for our trade, thus guaranteeing us gainful employment. Rust! Even the stingiest lord should applaud that.”

“Let’s not put the question to the test.” Dalbry looked cautiously around. “Do your excavations so we can be on our way.”

The old knight would not soil his fingers with grave robbing; he made that plain from the outset. Instead, he stood by the mule and took inventory of the saddlebags, ate more dried apricots, and prepared his armor. Though he wouldn’t wear his full knight regalia until he appeared in public, Dalbry liked to keep his possessions in good order.

Cullin found a likely mound, stuck the hand spade into the ground, and began digging, sure he would strike yellowed bones soon enough. Early on, when he first started helping Reeger, the young man had eagerly chosen a fresh mound where the dirt was brown, soft, and loose. He thought the task would be easier than digging into one of the older, packed graves. Offering no advice, Reeger had hidden his knowing smile and let Cullin dig wherever he wished. When the young man did strike a body that had been in the ground only a week, the putrid worm-infested mess was such an unpleasant shock that Cullin slipped and ended up covered with worms and rotting flesh.

“Why didn’t you warn me?” he had demanded.

“Best way to learn a lesson, lad. Now you’ll never fall for that again.”

Cullin had not appreciated his uncouth companion’s instructional methods, but he did learn. . .  .

“Put your back into it. The best bones are usually deep.” Reeger began to fling dirt in all directions. “If you work hard, you’ll build up those scrawny arms, get yourself some muscles.”

Cullin felt his bicep, which was tough if not overly large. “I’ve already got muscles. So far, you haven’t given me the pampered life I was hoping for.”

“You’ll want bigger muscles, lad. Girls like muscles.”

Cullin blushed. “What makes you think I’ve been looking at girls?”

“Because I was your age once.” He kept digging.

The girls in King Ashtok’s court certainly hadn’t snubbed him, and Cullin knew he was halfway handsome once he cleaned himself and put on his best squire clothes. But by digging down into a muddy grave, there wasn’t much chance of him getting cleaned up.

When he was just a boy, back when his father was still alive at the mill and his uncle chopped down trees that were not infested with killer bees, Cullin had been content, with few aspirations. His future had looked clear and stable, and he was sure he’d grow up to be the town’s next miller. By age seven, he had learned how to haul sacks of grain, how to watch the millstones, and how to pinch just the right amount of flour from a customer’s load so the loss would never be noticed.

Now all that had changed, though, and Cullin had different dreams—none of which included digging up old graves to acquire bones for a long-running scam.

“Found a femur!” Reeger said. “That’s a good start.”

Cullin kept digging, loosening the dirt with his shovel and then moving clods with his fingers. He realized he had uncovered a skull when he accidentally stuck his hand into the bony mouth and knocked loose an old tooth. “Skull here! That trumps your femur.”

“I’ve got three rustin’ vertebrae and a pelvis—ha!”

They both continued digging while keeping score.

“Now that we’ve got the reward money from King Ashtok,” Cullin mused, “what should we do with it—so we don’t spend it all commissioning songs from minstrels?”

“One song,” Dalbry said. “Hardly an extravagant expense. We’re still wealthy.”

At the moment, busy digging up a broken skull, Cullin didn’t feel wealthy. He often mused about taking his share of profits from the dragon business and going to the port city of Rivermouth, where he would book passage to the New Lands—not volunteer as a cabin boy, but pay for a real stateroom and his very own chamber pot to puke in if he got seasick. Cullin longed to seek his fortune in the New Lands, where the whole continent was free and available, with plenty of homesteads for the taking.

Someday, he wanted to have his own farm, set up his own cottage, plant his own fields, find himself a wife, and lead a happy and comfortable life. But such a sea passage was expensive, and dragon slaying—especially when the proceeds were shared with two others—wasn’t as lucrative as most people thought it was.

Sir Dalbry was in charge of the budget. First and foremost, he set aside a portion for their own needs; afterward, because it could never be washed out of him despite his many disappointments, the old knight gave some of their coins to genuinely poor and desperate peasants or orphans. After his years of experience with cons and scams, Dalbry was no longer so easily fooled.

Reeger was more interested in hitting each town’s taverns. He would talk to the innkeepers, the barmaids, and the patrons—and not just as part of setting up their next scheme. He was interested in the business aspects of tavern administration. “Someday I might settle down. No harm in that. I want an inn of my own, and I’ll need to know how to manage it.”

Neither Cullin nor Dalbry believed it would come to pass, but the young man didn’t mock his friend for having unrealistic dreams, because he had plenty of his own.

While excavating his second grave, Cullin yelped with delight. “A full rib cage—intact!”

“Skull, too?” Reeger asked.

“Skull, too.”

The other man came over to pat him on the back, getting graveyard dirt on his tunic. “You are my true protégé, lad. Crotchrust! Someday you’ll be just like me. Every young man needs high hopes.”

Cullin wanted to aim higher than that, but since it was a happy moment, he didn’t complain.

Reeger retrieved the large sack from the mule’s saddlebags and held it open. “Put the femurs on the bottom and then the rib cage. Skulls go on top.”

Cullin was no longer squeamish at all. “How did you get to be so good at this, Reeger?”

“Plenty of practice. Been doing it a long time.” Although his hands were covered with grave dirt and a few smeared earthworms, he plucked something from between his teeth. “Where do you think all those bones of Saint Bartimund came from? The ones we sold to your old town of Folly.”

“I suppose they had to come from somewhere,” Cullin admitted.

“The world is full of opportunities.” He tossed up another skull and a fibula that might prove useful. “Never pass up a good skeleton.”

By the mule, Sir Dalbry watched the activity. “Sometimes one must do what has to be done.”

“A job is a job.” Reeger spat. “I’ve been a ditchdigger, a manure hauler, even a manure hauler in a
swamp
, which is far worse—take my word for it.”

Cullin rearranged the bones in the large sack. “I’d think being a ditchdigger in a swamp would be worse.”

“Done that, too, lad. Bloodrust and battlerot, it’s no fun, believe me. One of the worst jobs, though, was my stint as a latrine refurbisher.”

Cullin wiped his hands on his trousers. “Sounds exciting. What is it?”

Reeger put his hands on his hips. “Oh, some lord has a nice latrine in a perfect place—maybe with a good view from the wooden seat, or a confluence of fresh breezes that makes the entire latrine-going experience a pleasant one. But lords, being lords, are so full of shit that they fill up those latrines faster than you might imagine. Rather than having a new one dug, which would upset the feng shui of the outhouse placement, they hire a professional—someone like me—to empty and refurbish the latrine, good as new.”

Cullin understood. “And that’s how you got a job as a manure hauler.”

“Rust! Not just any manure either. I only sold guaranteed
noble
manure. I even advertised that it smelled like roses and was filled with little gold flakes, if a customer took the time to sift through it.”

“Was there gold in it?” Cullin asked. “Did you sift through it yourself?”

“I wouldn’t fall for that, but I did convince quite a few customers to try. Ah, you should have seen the looks of disappointment on their faces.”

Dalbry said, “Reeger, you sound nostalgic. Are you trying to say those were the good old days?”

“Not at all.” He cinched the bone sack tight, adjusted the saddle on the mule, which brayed in either appreciation or complaint. “I’m just saying this job is no worse than other career opportunities I’ve had.”

“The castle and town are just ahead. It’s about time we make our separate ways,” Dalbry said. “I shall learn the politics at court, and how best to sell our services to King Norrimun the Corpulent. Cullin will acquire provisions—nothing too expensive.”

“And what are you going to do, Reeger?” Cullin asked.

“Got some reconnoitering to do, ply the peasants for information, spread some rumors. First, though, I’ve got to find a suitable dragon’s lair.”

In order to drum up business at the Scabby Wench, Reeger and Wendria advertise live music on Saturday nights. Wendria wants to attract a different sort of clientele for the tavern, while Reeger’s just interested in selling more ale and questionable meat pies. (The pies are fine, but the meat is questionable. Still, we ate plenty of unusual game when our group traveled the land; we settled for whatever we could catch or dig up in between alleged dragon slayings.)

Tonight, this is going well. I’m just getting to the part of my story about Princess Affonyl, King Norrimun the Corpulent, Duke Kerrl, and that whole business with dragons and treachery. I don’t mind the few eavesdroppers listening to my tale, but they are all restless for the minstrel to arrive.

Hob Nobbin is set to play tonight.

On weekday afternoons, Reeger endures minstrel auditions, lining up acts. Since the Scabby Wench pays half a pittance for each performance, he can only book minstrels who aren’t ready for prime time on the main stages inside a king’s court—even my own court.

As the hour grows later, the people in the tavern are emptying their tankards slowly, drawing the ale out so it lasts until the performance starts. And the minstrel is late, which does not please Reeger at all. He has little patience for prima donna acts, minstrels with some talent but questionable punctuality. Wendria is in the back making more pies and scraping leftovers from wooden plates (to make more pies).

Because of Hob Nobbin, many of tonight’s customers are younger women, buxom bakers’ girls, seamstresses, candlemakers’ daughters. Though I’ve never heard of him before, I realize the minstrel must be one of those teen idol acts—not my favorite, but then most minstrel songs are a load of crap, sometimes sweetened with flecks of gold . . . like the noble manure Reeger once sold.

Hob Nobbin finally throws open the tavern door and casually strolls in. He’s a wisp of a boy with stringy tangled hair, pale skin, and altogether too much angst, but the young girls seem to find that attractive.