Dragon Castle (10 page)

WHAT OLD GREGOR took from his bag surprised Pavol. Not by its appearance, for it looked to be nothing more than a worn brown leather pouch. But when Pavol took it into his hand, its feel was far different than he had expected.

It was heavy and light, thick and thin, smooth and rough, warm as sunlight and cool as ice. More than any of those seemingly contradictory sensations, that strange pouch felt familiar to the young man. Though he knew he had never before held it or seen it, it was as if it had always been his.

“Thank you,” he said.

Gregor nodded, but said nothing.

Pavol looked around at his three teachers. They looked back at him with carefully composed faces. Waiting.

“Where did this come from?” he asked.

Gregor's answer was much as Pavol might have expected. “From near and far,” the old man replied.

“And what must I do with this?” Pavol asked, sensing that such a question was expected of him.

“It is time for you to find those things that fit within it.”

Pavol tied the pouch to his belt. He had another question to ask. He suspected he already knew the answer he would get. But he asked it anyway.

“How will I find those things?”

“By looking,” Gregor replied, a small smile on his lips.

“You'll know them when you see them,” Uncle Tomas said.

“Or,” Baba Marta added with a chuckle, “they will know you.”

I RUN UP the hill, leaving Georgi behind.

As soon as I reach the outer courtyard I can see what has happened.

Trouble indeed.

Of course it's been caused by the princess's dear little pet, Laska. That vile feline's disposition is as black as her fur, which is the color of midnight, save for the one white spot in the middle of her forehead.

I'd hoped that Ucta and Odvaha could avoid notice by pretending to be docile dogs. But as soon as Laska spied them, a light had come into her red eyes. First she had walked close to their noses, trying to get them to chase her. But they simply turned their eyes away from her.

Until now they had managed to avoid her. But not today.

Today, when Laska prowled over and then tried to scratch them, at first they just moved out of the way. Then, when she snarled at them, they trotted out of the courtyard to their favorite place in the shade just inside the entrance gate.

But Laska did not give up. She waited until they were dozing and then leaped to the top of the wall that rose thirty feet above the spot where they lay. A heavy unmortared stone had been placed up there on the wall to mend the gap where an older stone had fallen into the moat. One push and the stone went hurtling down toward my canine brothers. They both had leaped aside at the last second. However, the rock shattered their bowl, spraying them with water and sharp shards of stone.

Ucta's wet muzzle is bleeding and there's a cut over Odvaha's eye. The two are managing to hold themselves back from attacking. But they are standing, shoulders hunched and feet spread wide, showing their formidable teeth as they growl at Laska. The cat, smug as a pike who has just swallowed a duckling, now lolls in the arms of Poteshenie. She's bent a bit under her little pet's weight as she stands in the doorway of our guesthouse. It's the first time today that I've seen her. As yet, Temny has still not appeared.

There's more of a glow of glamour about Poteshenie than there was yesterday. Is it possible that she has become more physically beautiful since her arrival? But her attractiveness is not alluring me. If anything, I feel more repelled. Though her face may mystically radiate loveliness, her personality is poisonous.

“Ayyyy, ayyy, ayyyy! These monsters want to hurt my precious,” she is screaming. Her voice is as harsh as a harpy's. “Someone help me!”

Ah. It's not merely her cat that's behind this little scene. Poteshenie seems as eager for the demise of my friends as is her feline cohort. Is it just part of her nature that she enjoys causing such chaos and longs for the sight of blood? Can she sense the bond between Odvaha and Ucta and me? Is this all part of whatever plan the baron has in mind?

Am I supposed to be part of whatever is about to happen?

I don't have time to ponder that now. Peklo and Smotana have drawn their swords. Two other bullies standing behind them have fitted arrows to their bowstrings.

“Prosim,”
I say, my voice calm. “Please.”

I hold up my hands and step in between the soldiers and my four-legged friends. The archers lower their weapons, the swordsmen take a grudging step back. Peklo glares at me as he does so. Smotana keeps that annoying smirk on his face.

The princess stops shrieking. An accomplished actress, she's recognized that this little scene is not going to go as she directed. Paulek didn't come running at her screams. Probably, he is still snoring in his chair. Neither her dangerous charms nor her theatrics appear to have much effect on me. So why waste her breath?

Smart, I think. And stupid at the same time. Does she believe I'm dull as Paulek? She's not even trying to hide her disappointment at failing to bring about the demise of Ucta and Odvaha.

She is not the most disappointed one, though. Her cat is positively moping. And Ucta and Odvaha furrow their brows at me.

I keep from smiling at the mental picture of what my two friends would have done if I'd not held them back. A smile right now might give me away. I have to be a better actor than the princess.

And I do have to protect Ucta and Odvaha from their own reckless bravery. I have no doubt those four men would have regretted aiming their weapons at my two friends. But there are three dozen more men behind them. Though they're still busy drinking my father's wine, they would have risen to their feet and joined in the fight. Even if Ucta and Odvaha would certainly have taken a good many enemies with them, I have no desire to see them give their lives uselessly just to preserve their dignity. And it's not yet the time to confront Temny and his daughter.

For the benefit of those watching, I speak out loud.

“
Nie,
bad dogs!”

Ucta makes a huffing sound, but settles back on his haunches and scratches his ear. Odvaha slumps to his belly and begins to lick his paw—which is bleeding slightly from one of those sharp shards of stone. They look, for all the world to see, like nothing more than two unusually large wolfish dogs.

Let them be viewed that way. Especially now that Baron Temny has come on the scene. He's finally emerged from the guesthouse and is standing in front of his daughter. Like her, he seems subtly changed. Stronger. Slightly taller, perhaps. A bit broader of shoulder.

His right hand strokes his mustache, his left caresses the hilt of the curved dagger that hangs from his belt.

“All is well?”

The friendly tone in his voice is so false that it grates like a file.

“Ano,”
I reply, avoiding his eyes. “All is well.”

“Otec!”
the princess says to the baron, putting special emphasis on that word as she caresses his shoulder. “Father! Those bad dogs wanted to hurt my little pet.”

“Ah?” Baron Temny raises his eyebrows. “They must be chained?”

His words are directed at me. Not really a question but a command.

“Of course,” I say, still looking down. “I will see to it right away.”

My quick answer surprises him. He hasn't expected me to be agreeable. He stops stroking his mustache and slides his right hand down to his chin, narrowing his eyes to consider me.

I grab Ucta and Odvaha by the loose skin at the scruff of their necks.

Ucta growls and Odvaha whimpers as I pull at them. But they also trust that I have a plan. Which I do, more or less. Their feet scrabble on the stones of the courtyard as I drag them through the gate, across the drawbridge, and down the hill.

As soon as we are well out of sight, I let go of the scruffs of their necks. They both shake themselves noisily. I understand why. Like me, they want to rid themselves of the taint of the atmosphere that hangs about the baron and his cohorts like greasy smoke.

I kneel down and put my arms around their necks. They lick my face.

“Make yourselves very scarce. I will call you if I need you.”

They trot down the slope. I watch until they disappear into the deep green of the thick brush in the rocky folds of land above the Old Forest.

Then, though I feel like one about to remove his sword and step into a room full of ruffians ready to rob him, I turn and go back up the hill to Hladka Hvorka.

PAVOL STOOD STARING at the swift-running Hron. Its waters were icy cold, coming as they did from the snows that never left the highest peaks of the Tatras.

He was not alone. Considering what he had just seen, that was unfortunate. He was with the group of young men of his age that he'd known and grown with since taking on his identity as Pavol the woodcutter's boy.

Both Uncle Tomas and Baba Marta had encouraged him to spend time with others of his own age when he was not busy doing the tasks they set him to. In fact, making friends was one of those needful tasks. Just why, he was not sure, but his guardians told him that a man with no friends is not man at all. Moreover, they added, to know how to work, one must also learn how to play

Although his young comrades had soon bestowed the name Pavol the Foolish upon him, all of them viewed him with affection. Though he was foolhardy and tended to have more accidents than most, his good nature, his kindness, and his readiness to always help a friend had made him ever welcome in their company. And as far as that nickname went, it was one that Pavol embraced with gratitude and continued to live up—or down—to. For who would ever expect thoughts or acts of treason from a simple, good-natured fool.

None of them knew him by the name that he'd left behind—so long ago that aside from dreams he'd almost forgotten it himself. Like Pavol, some of them had lost their families with the coming of the Dark Lord. When he turned up one day, he was accepted as just another like themselves, an orphaned lad taken in by the woodcutter and his wife.

“Do you think I can leap across?” he said to Janko, the boy standing behind him at a much safer distance from the chilly waters.

Janko's answer was predictable. The most careful of their small band, his approach to living was that described by his carpenter grandfather's favorite saying. Measure twice to cut once.

“
Nikdy!
Never.”

“Ano,”
Pavol replied, continuing to eye the water. If what he saw glinting below its surface was what he thought it was, he knew what he had to do.

“When you see the glitter of iron, you must bring it to your grasp!” So Baba Marta had said in her story of the hero who dared the depth of the Devil's Well to vanquish the monster and bring back a treasure.

Pavol smiled at his friends. “But how do you know for sure if you don't try?”

And with that he made a great leap. It was quite impressive. His lean legs were strong. He sailed much farther than his awed companions expected, a full two-thirds of the way across. So when he landed, it was in the deepest and swiftest section of the headwaters of the Hron River.

“Not even close!” he shouted back as he bobbed up briefly before rapidly disappearing around a bend.

His half-worried, half-amused comrades finally found him, half a league downstream. He'd managed to grasp a branch and drag himself out of the water. Although sodden and shivering, he was sitting on a log staring at something held in his fingers that looked like an iron ring.

“Ako sa mate?”
Janko called down to him from the high bank.

“
Ako ti je?
How are you?” Peter the baker's nephew shouted.

“
Zhijesh?
Are you alive?” Rudolf the tanner's boy asked.

Pavol quickly slid the object he'd been holding into the pouch that hung from his belt. Then he turned a smiling face up to them.

“Ano! Dobre,”
he called back. “Now I know for sure.”

As, they thought, so did they.

Their friend was surely well named as Pavol the Foolish.

THE FIRST PERSON who greets me as I cross back over the drawbridge is Paulek. His face is aglow with pleasure. He's carrying his favorite practice sword.

The last thing I need right now is another bonebruising match with my brother.

But that isn't what he's thinking about.

“Guess what,
Bratcek
,” he asks. “They've asked me to have a match with one of their men.”

He sweeps his hand behind him. A circle of men has formed in the courtyard. At the head of the circle are the baron and the princess. The two heaviest and most ornate chairs have been dragged out of the guesthouse. Those over-decorated, gilded, ugly, and impractically elevated seats were a gift to my parents from the Duke of the Lichotit, the farthest of the twelve realms from ours. After the duke left, my father had suggested using them as firewood. But my practical mother had decided it would be better to set them aside for guests who might wish to compensate for any feelings of inadequacy by perching in them and pretending to be regal.