Handbook for Dragon Slayers (16 page)

I felt so stupid. Of
course
dragon slayers did not just go around killing every dragon they ever heard of. They weren't trying to wipe out the whole race of dragons. Sir Kunibert had had a contract for every single one of his kills.

It was thoughtless and irresponsible of Parz, Judith, and me to blunder around, thinking all dragons were evil and needed to be destroyed, when we didn't know the first true thing about dragons.

I thought of the Wild Hunt. What had the Hunter said? I hadn't thought it very important at the time, but now . . . now I felt it most keenly, and it stung:
Ignorance does not make the wrong choice into the right one
.

I
T WAS HARD TO
speculate who was most bored with our time at Saint Disibod's—Parz, Judith, or the horses. Another reason I had so little time to work on the
Handbook
was because if I didn't visit the horses twice a day, they would free all the other horses. They didn't even have to kick the doors down; they were experts at opening latches with their teeth and lips. What was worse was that they started teaching the cloister's horses how to do this, too.

Judith was bored, but she had also been in service since the age of seven, and there was a part of her that I think enjoyed lying in a bed and letting others wait on her. Some of my free time had to be spent entertaining her. I tried to hit two flies with one slap by reading to her from my day's work on the
Handbook
.

Parz amused himself by weaving more of his horsetail-hair necklaces, carving whistles out of tree branches, and asking the monks about bookbinding. Once he was healed enough to be out of bed for long stretches of time, he came to watch me work on the
Handbook
.

I was copying down the story about the dragon that the Roman emperors had kept chained in a pit to eat Christians. That story didn't have a helpful ending at all; Saint Sylvester had just descended into the pit, preached at the dragon a bit, and then sewn a cross into the dragon's lips, which utterly incapacitated it. But I copied it anyway.

The flame on my candle flickered as Parz came into the room. He looked down at my work. “I don't know how you manage to do that without mistakes,” he said.

“Concentration,” I said. “Practice. And understanding the price of new parchment.”

“It's a talent,” he said, hooking a stool with one foot and dragging it over to sit beside me.

I could feel the heat from his arm next to mine, he was so close. Back at Alder Brook, I would have been delighted with this. Back at Alder Brook, I would have let my thoughts drift to the daydream that he would take my ink-stained hand in his. Right now, it just seemed like an interruption. I had hardly any time in the library.

But I showed him what I'd written. “Can you imagine a dragon letting you sew its mouth shut? I think this might be a fabrication.”

Parz shrugged. “If it's written down, it must be true.”

I laughed then. I could not help it; my horse laugh burst unprincesslike from me like a sneeze. Parz looked puzzled, like a cat who has been swatted in the nose for trying to eat the Lenten fish.

“I cry your pardon,” I said. “I did not mean to laugh in such a manner. It's just that I have copied manuscripts, and have spent time with monks who have copied their whole lives. I have made mistakes, and I have seen mistakes, and I have copied things that make
no sense
, and I do not believe that writing things down makes a lie or a mistake any truer than if it was just spoken.”

“Sure, but . . . ,” Parz said, and ran his finger down the margin of the book. “But this is in
Latin
.”

“Tilda,” he said after I was done laughing at him. He reached into the pouch at his waist and held out a coiled necklace of braided silver and copper tail hairs. “I finished making this for you.”

I leaned forward to touch the necklace cupped in his hand. “It looks like proper chain. Even more so than the necklace you made for Judith.”

“Here,” Parz said, and held the necklace by its ends. I turned my back and scooped my hair out of the way. I must not have gotten it all, though, because his hand brushed my neck before he started knotting the ends of the necklace together. I felt myself flush slightly, and stared ahead. I was used to servants helping me dress—but only female servants.

“Thank you,” I said, touching the necklace where it lay against my chest.

“Tilda?” Sister Hildegard poked her head around the corner. “You have a visitor. Father Ripertus?”

“Father Ripertus?” I was shocked. “How did he . . .?”

“The abbot wrote to let your priest know you were safe.”

“He did
what
?”

Sister Hildegard's face was gentle but implacable. “A perfectly rational thing to do, when a dispossessed princess shows up on the doorstep. Did you think we were going to keep it a secret?”

“
F
ATHER
R
IPERTUS
!”

My teacher looked older but still kind, still wise. Seeing him provoked such a wave of homesickness that I almost sat down on the flagstones of the receiving room.

He held open his arms and swept me up in a big, woolen, incense-scented hug. “We were so worried!”

I pulled back, not sure what to say to him, or how.

His eyes swept over me, from the cast on my foot to my chopped-off hair. “You have been busy, haven't you?” he asked mildly, and brought me to sit down next to him on a bench.

“I—I—” I didn't know where to start. I also didn't know what to tell the truth about. But if he'd had a letter from the abbot, there was no telling what he knew.

It's probably a bigger than usual sin to lie to a priest, anyway.

So, proceeding cautiously, I told him everything that had happened since I'd last seen him. Well, almost everything. Though it was on the tip of my tongue to mention it time and time again throughout the story, I did not reveal the important fact that I no longer wanted to be the Princess of Alder Brook.

“And then we ended up here,” I said. “Parz and Judith are all but healed. And I'm . . .” I shrugged, not knowing how to finish that sentence.

I waited for Father Ripertus to say something.

“I'm disappointed in you, Mathilda,” he said at last. “Dragon slaying? How reckless! How foolish! I understand the others sustained injuries, and well-deserved ones. Parz, perhaps, learned a little caution from his. And Judith, perhaps, learned that bravery is no substitute for experience. But what injury did you sustain, Tilda, that could teach you what you need to learn about responsibility?”

His words stung. “I know plenty about responsibility,” I said. “And I have had
plenty
of injury to deal with through my life.”

“You are a liege lord, and you have a duty to those who follow you. Even so far from Alder Brook, you are still a princess,” Father Ripertus said. “You have done poorly for Parz as his friend by letting him run around the countryside—but what you have done to Judith?”

“Judith
wanted
to come! She
wanted
to slay dragons!”

“Many people want many things, but it is your
duty
as Princess of Alder Brook to give people what they
need
, not what they want!”

“Well! Isn't it fortunate that I will no longer be a princess after Christmas Day! I'll be no one's liege when Alder Brook passes to Ivo!”

Father Ripertus looked grim, but before he could speak, Judith hurried into the room. “Father Ripertus, Tilda, don't argue. I'm sorry I persuaded Tilda to come play at dragon slaying before we came back to Alder Brook, but it seemed like the best way to stay clear of Ivo—”

“I'm not going back.” I stood. “Ever. I'm letting Ivo have Alder Brook.”

Judith gaped. “You can't give up like that! Ivo doesn't just get to win—”

“I'm not giving up! I'm doing what's best for Alder Brook. They think I'm cursed. They think I can do nothing for Alder Brook. And I can't! I told Ivo when he kidnapped me, he could have it!”

“Well,” Father Ripertus said heavily. “And I thought Ivo was lying about that.”

Judith's eyes widened with disbelief. “Then . . . then why did we rescue you?”

“I never asked you to rescue me!”

“So that's it?” Judith cried. “You just give up on your duty, you abandon Alder Brook and turn your back on it?” Judith asked.

“But I don't
want
that life!” I said. I didn't know
what
life I wanted, but I still said, “I want to become a nun. I want to write books. I can't write at Alder Brook. I want to write like Boethius.”

“Father Ripertus just told you! I heard him! It's your duty to deal with
need
, not want, and you need to rule Alder Brook—and Alder Brook needs you.”

I dashed away angry tears, unable to explain any of the thoughts whirling around my head. My father had left Alder Brook, hadn't he? He hadn't let his duty to us stand in the way of his plans for the Holy Land—why should I be any better than him?

But how could I think that about my father? He had died a hero . . . hadn't he?

When I didn't respond to her, Judith turned to Father Ripertus. “I don't care what she wants
or
needs anymore. I'm leaving. I'm going home. I know
my
duty. May I travel with you, Father? I'm well enough to go.”

“If we still have a home to travel to, child, then yes.” He turned to me again. “Ivo is selling off every movable possession he can—linens, furniture, clothing, books, dishes, silverware, dogs, horses. . . . And when Christmas Day comes, and you are not there to assert your claim, he will bequeath Alder Brook to another lord and join his retinue.”

“But why?” I exclaimed. Alder Brook's free status was its only true power. Its prince had no masters but God and the emperor.

“Ivo has been promised a very large number of gold marks for his allegiance,” Ripertus said. “And gold is its own stepping-stone.”

“Of course,” I muttered. “Greedy pig-hound.”

It would be like an earthquake, to start thinking of my future as Princess of Alder Brook again. I didn't want to. So many things had hurt me there. I had learned how to wear ice on my face and iron over my heart there.

But I had been trying to believe I didn't care about Alder Brook. I had tried to believe it was just a place: the place I'd been born, the place I'd lived, the place that my father had left.

And I had tried to believe I could leave it, too. Without a backward glance, like my father. I had gathered this coldness close and tight within me.

“There's more,” Father Ripertus said. “Ivo is punishing those who speak against his rule.”

“Who?” Judith burst out. “Who is he punishing?”

I thought about Judith's parents suffering under Ivo. The cold, mean spirit within me drained away, thinking about Aleidis and Ditmar in danger.

“Oh,” I said, in a tiny voice.

Ripertus rubbed his nose. “Sir Hermannus was put in the stocks for three days.”

“Why?” Judith asked.

“First, for protesting the sale of Alder Brook's allegiance. He was told if he did not recant his protest, he would be put to the ordeal of boiling water. But second, because he disappeared for days, looking for Princess Mathilda.”

So, it really had been Hermannus I'd seen at the ferry dock! I'd begun to think I imagined it.

“Poor Hermannus!” Judith cried. I stared at her, my mind in turmoil.

“He recanted, right?” I said.

Ripertus shook his head. “He did not. He faced the ordeal, and plucked the stone from the boiling water.”

We were all silent. “Is he all right?” I whispered.

“God was with Sir Hermannus, and his wound was healing, not festering, when I examined it ten days ago; however, that has not changed Ivo's mind, and now Hermannus is in the dungeon.”

I had thought Hermannus would provide an important check on Ivo's ambitions, but that hope was gone. Ivo was destroying Alder Brook.

No one wanted to become some other principality's second-best holding, to be drained by extra taxes and fees, to face losing sons to constant warfare. Alder Brook had a long history of relative peace; we guarded our borders but stayed out of most local conflicts. My father was the first ruler of Alder Brook in generations to feel the urge to fight, and he took only volunteers and traveled far away to wage war. Not that our people had been pleased by that choice, either—far from it.

“My own protest has remained limited to coming here,” Father Ripertus said, almost drily. “Someone had to remain free.”

“Did anyone else get the ordeal?” Judith asked.

“No. All of the other protesters recanted, against their consciences,” Ripertus said. “But at my counsel.”

“I thought . . . Ivo would be better for Alder Brook,” I said slowly. “I thought . . . he was uncursed, uncrippled. . . . He'd find a wealthy wife and save Alder Brook.”

“He thinks of nothing but his own desires and comfort,” Ripertus said. “He is no true prince.”

There was an awful, squirming moment of silence, and I knew Ripertus and Judith were both thinking that
I
had thought of nothing but my own desires and comfort.

It was what
I
was thinking, anyway.

And it was true. Horrible Hermannus had served Alder Brook better than I had. Far better.

I was frozen in a deadlock of shame and guilt and horror, and a strange sort of tenderness for Hermannus, too. I had no idea what to feel, let alone to say or do. I stared at the floor, thinking hard.

The silence was broken by Judith's fury. “Say something!” she shouted. “You could harden butter in your armpits, you're so cold!”

All the times I'd looked away from people's spite, I had just turned away so they could not see how much they hurt me—time upon time upon time. I had never been cold, never! Not once. And how could Judith, of all people, not know this truth about me? I stared at her, wounded.