Dragonborn (13 page)

He handed it back to Sam. The letters faded, then disappeared.

Sam held it now, wondering if he would ever write in it again.

Days with Flaxfield were shapeless, sprawling. There was supposed to be a lot of book learning. Flaxfield would start Sam on a lesson about frogs, or steam, or the shape of sparrows, and just as Sam was about to settle into it with a book at his seat in the window, Flaxfield would call him over.

“Look at this.”

Sam would close the book, not sadly, and trot over to Flaxfield.

“See this penny?”

It was just a coin. Quite old, with the pattern very rubbed and smooth.

“What can you buy for a penny?”

“I don't know.”

Sam hadn't been to shops. Money meant nothing to him.

“String? Sausages? A long ribbon?” asked Flaxfield.

Sam waited for him to get to the point. It was better than studying.

“You're quite right,” said Flaxfield. “You can't buy much for a penny. Here.” He tipped more coins onto the table. There were silver thruppenny bits, shillings, and sixpences. More pennies. A big coin that Flaxfield said was half-a-crown, and two gold sovereigns.

“Put them in order,” said Flaxfield.

Sam lined them up, biggest on the left, smallest on the right. The half-crowns were the biggest, then the pennies, then the shillings, then the sovereigns, then the sixpences, then the thruppenny bits.

“That's one way,” said Flaxfield. “Do it another.”

Sam thought about it. He pushed the coins around, letting them slide on the smooth surface of the table.

“What are they worth?” he asked. Flaxfield explained the different values of each coin. As he did, Sam put them in line.
First the gold sovereigns, then the half-crowns, the shillings, the sixpences, the thruppenny bits, and last, the big pennies.

“Well?” said Flaxfield.

“It doesn't look as neat,” said Sam.

“Indeed not. Do it again. A different way.”

Sam put them in line again. Pennies, sovereigns, thruppenny bits, shillings, half-crowns, sixpences. They were all jumbled up for size and value.

“What sort of order is that?”

“The ones I like best first, then the others, all the way down to the end.”

Flaxfield smiled.

“The pennies are worth the least.”

“But they look so nice, and they're smooth and interesting. See how big they are, but so thin. I like the darkness of the metal and the feel of them in my hand.”

“And the sovereigns?”

“The only gold ones. They're so heavy, it's a surprise when you pick them up. I like that.”

“Poor sixpences.”

“I know.”

“Do it again.”

Sam made a circle, with the pennies at the center.

“Again.”

He spelled out an S, for Sam.

“Again.”

He found that each coin had a date on it, and he put them in a line, oldest first.

“Again.”

“You do it,” said Sam.

Flaxfield made them hover over the table and sing a song about blackbirds.

“That's cheating.”

“It is.”

But it was very funny, and they laughed till they hurt.

“Again,” said Flaxfield.

Sam tossed each coin in turn and put them in two piles, heads and tails. He did this three times, and, of course, it was different every time.

“Very good,” said Flaxfield. “Again. Take your time and think.”

Sam took the half-crown and closed his eyes. He let the coin rest in his hands. He waited for it to unfold its story. He saw a tree and two men and an argument. He felt damp earth on his fingers, heard the noise of a spade. Darkness and time and silence. He opened his eyes and put the coin to his left.

The first sovereign filled his nose with the fragrance of baking bread. He put it to the right. The next was a moon behind the clouds, the sound of sea breaking on the shingle, a dull noise of a sharp blade running into resisting flesh. The left side. The sixpence brought a child's laugh and the taste of sweetness in his mouth. Right side.

When all the coins were in place, in two groups, right and left, Sam sat back and looked at them.

“Well?” said Flaxfield.

“They have stories. These are sad stories, pain and death. These are happy.”

Sam's face was pale. He kept looking toward the door, as if waiting. His arms hung by his sides.

“A good arrangement,” said Flaxfield.

“Again?” said Sam.

“I think not.”

Flaxfield scooped up the coins and poured them into a leather bag.

“Shall I go back to my work?”

“No, go and play now.”

Sam went off, tired but delighted that he had got away with a whole morning with no work and no study. Flaxfield watched the boy and the dragon running down to the river together.

Sam turned to the page:
Coins.
As he started to read, he caught a movement at the edge of his vision. He looked up and saw the same eyes that had watched him earlier. Snapping the book shut, he rushed forward and through a door he had thought was a cupboard. A narrow, dark staircase led up. He ran, two steps at a time, and just managed to grab another door before it slammed shut. He ran through it so fast that when he emerged into the light he shouted with fear and threw himself back, banging his elbow and scraping his knee.

He was on the roof, and had nearly thrown himself off it, hurtling down to certain death on the cobbles below.

The eyes had a face now, and a body. A girl, about his own age, and a little shorter, with straight, blond hair, a squarish jaw, and the look of a mad dog, stared at him.

her first days at the College. She had arrived the same week as Smedge and Tim Masrani. Tamrin had been brought to the College by her guardian, a tailor from Cawthwaite, who paid three year's fees in advance and told them to make sure she behaved herself.

Tamrin struggled a little with the reading and counting, and was nearly not accepted. The tailor offered to pay extra and promised she would catch up. Even then they were thinking of not giving her a place, when Tamrin, upset that she was struggling with the reading, made the book turn into a flock of miniature doves and fly out of the window. It was much more powerful magic than anyone had ever seen in a child that small, and she didn't seem to know how she did it. No one had ever taught her a spell. They asked the tailor, but he refused to talk about it.

“Just make sure she's good when she leaves, that's all,” he said.

When they asked her to do more, she soon showed that she
was better than pupils four or five years ahead of her. So she started classes and soon was reading and counting as well as the best child in her class, better even.

The trouble was in making her stop doing too much magic. She caused chaos in the classroom and disrupted the lesson. If she grew bored, and she often did, she would make magic friends to keep her company, or she would make the teacher's words turn into trumpets or teacakes. Then the class would be laughing so hard that by the time the teacher had sorted it out they were too wound up to get any work done.

Tamrin was often punished for her naughtiness. As time went by, the teachers found it harder and harder to keep control. When Tamrin disrupted a class, the teacher's magic wasn't strong enough to stop her. Then, on her sixth birthday, she lost her temper in a lesson and flooded the classroom. Water gushed out of inkwells, fountains sprang up from the desks. A river of blue water burst out of the book cupboard and poured into the room. It was Dr. Duddle's class. He tried some spells to divert the water, to dry up the torrents, but it overwhelmed him and swept him away with its force. He was like a rabbit fighting a wolf. The other pupils were thrashing about, trying to stay above the surface as the water filled the room. They made magic lifejackets and dinghies, they flailed about in the swell, but nothing could turn the tide. Just as they were about to lose the battle and drown, Tamrin released the spell. The waters sucked back and the classroom was exactly as it had been, except for Dr. Duddle, who was stranded on top of a high cupboard, panting with terror.

That was her very last lesson. Duddle had demanded that she be removed from the College, and Frastfil would have agreed, but Smedge, though only six himself, persuaded them to let her stay. She'd kept an eye on Smedge ever since. She still did. Now, though, she'd been discovered by the Sam boy and he had cornered her before she was ready to talk to him.

to run to. Tamrin and Sam were together on a small turret over the dormitory. The roof was steeply pitched, with gray slates and slippery sides. The only way back out was through the door, which Sam was blocking with his body. Of course, there was always magic to escape with, and the people here didn't seem to mind how often they used it. So Sam guessed that this girl didn't have enough magic, if any, to help her run up the side of the roof and escape.

No magic, then, but enough anger and ferocity to do something else. She looked as though she might leap at Sam and bite him at any second. Her hands were trembling, and Sam didn't think it was just fear. Her lips were parted, showing small, white, sharp teeth. He hair was damp with sweat, clinging to her forehead.

Sam leaned against the door, slid down, and sat looking at her.

“You're Tamrin.”

She was wearing work clothes, not a school uniform: a thick apron, coarse shirt, and heavy boots. Her hands were grimy and her face smudged where she had rubbed her cheek and wiped her hand under her nose.

“And you're Samfire.”

“What?”

She laughed at him.

“Why are you watching me?”

“Why are you here?”

“What do you want?”

“The same as you.”

“Why did you call me Samfire?”

“Isn't it your name?”

“No.”

She laughed again.

“I suppose you have lots of names,” she said.

“Have you been looking in my book?”

“What book, Samfire?”

“My name is Cartouche.”

“If you like. Why have you come here?”

The kestrel Sam had seen from Frosty's room was circling overhead. It was hot on the turret. The late afternoon sun pooled in the small space with the high roof around it. Sam could feel sweat beginning to trickle down his face.

“Why are you watching me?”

“I'm not watching
you
. I'm just doing my jobs and you're there.”

Tamrin sidled across the turret and found herself a patch of cool shade. She squatted there, feet tucked underneath her, and smiled. She was trapped. But she was comfortable, and Sam was baking. The kestrel swooped and perched on the rim of the turret wall, head turned sideways, one eye fixed on Sam.

Sam felt that it was important to keep Tamrin there. He felt he needed to know why she had been following him, who she was, and what she could tell him. And he could only do that if he stayed in front of the door.

He frowned. The lines from his forehead knitted together, left his face, and formed a network of darkness that spread and thickened and cast him into its shadow. At the same time, a breeze tumbled down the slate roof and cooled him, drying his hair and lifting it slightly from his brow.

“You were a pupil here once,” he said. “What happened?”

Tamrin undid the knots in her bootlaces, retied them, and undid them again, winding the cord in her fingers over and over.

“It's my first day,” said Sam, though he knew that Tamrin knew that anyway. “What's it like?”

“How much magic can you do?”

The kestrel stepped off the parapet, opened lazy wings, and soared down out of sight.

“I don't know,” said Sam.

She nodded.

“They have books here,” she said. “So you know how much magic you can do by what book you are on. Every book is harder than the last one. Book Three is stronger magic than Book One.”

“How many books of magic are there?”

Tamrin stared at him.

“How many do you think?” she said.

Sam thought about it. There were several answers to this question, and he wondered which one to give her. He could say
twenty,
or whatever number he chose, and she could say
right
or
wrong.
But then there were three
real
answers.

“How many years does it take to finish school here?” he asked.

“Twelve.”

“Then there are twelve books of Canterstock Magic,” he said.

Tamrin smiled.

“That's right,” she said.

“How many books of magic are there?” he asked her again.

“How many do you think?”

“There is no end to the number of the books of magic,” said Sam.

“That's right,” she said.

“How many books of magic are there?” said Sam.

“How many do you think?”

Even under his shade Sam felt the closeness of the air on the turret, the captured heat of the sun, the caged atmosphere.

“I have answered twice,” he said. “You answer this time.”

Tamrin stopped playing with the bootlace. She tied it for the last time, thinking as she did. Then, as though she was stepping off the parapet after the kestrel, trusting herself to the empty air, she said, “Magic is not to be found in books, only the echo of magic, only its footprints where it has trodden, only the traces it has left behind, only the signposts it places for those who follow, only the map for those who travel.”

Sam stood up, moved away from the door, and sat down in the shade next to Tamrin. His cloud dissolved and the breeze moved with him to cool them both.

“You were a pupil here once,” he said. “What happened?”

 

TREES KNOW MORE THAN YOU THINK. The poplar knows how to bend in the wind. The oak knows how to plant itself wide and deep so that the wind has to go around it. But even the oak lets its furthest branches, its slenderest shoots, bend to the wind. The trunk of a willow is so slight that only a little damage will destroy its strength. A willow that has been damaged will live, perhaps, but it will be twisted and stunted. An oak can live and spread even after the trunk has half rotted away, leaving a cleft big enough for a man to walk through.