Daughter of Dragons

Chapter 7-5

“Is true,” she said instead, a stunned admission. She stood up, then staggered a step to catch her balance. In the next instant, she went wide-eyed with surprise again.

“My legs work now.”

“They would have worked before if you had really wanted them to,” Liselle said, an undercurrent of amusement in her tone. “But never mind, that’s another day’s lesson. Let’s get out of here.”

Lathwi waved her on. “You go, I follow soon.”

A concerned frown rumpled Liselle’s forehead. “Do you want some help?”

“No. You go, no worry. I come quick.”

“All right,” Liselle said, drawling her reluctance, “but if you’re not out in a minute or two, I’ll be back. And if I catch you practising—”

“I no practice,” she assured her.

Robbed of all excuses to stay, Liselle grudgingly left the room.

Lathwi waited until she was sure that she could not be heard, then stole over to the shelf where the black jar was resting and eased its lid aside. To her vast disappointment, it was empty.

Liselle was smart, she thought, and then went in search of a nap.

G

The next few days passed as a blur for Lathwi. When she was not practising in the laboratory, she was either gorging on the side of fresh meat which Pieter had purchased for her, or sleeping in the attic which he had swept out. She would not have noticed the trapper’s considerations if Liselle had not pointed them out to her. The whole of her attention was centered on her budding magical skills.

She was on her way to the pantry after another day of obsessive practising when she spied Liselle sitting in the rocking chair next to the hearth. There was an unfamiliar object in her lap. Instantly curious, she hurried over for a closer look. It was a thin stack of yellowing, leaf-thin skins contained within a leather jacket. Each of the skins bore marks like chicken scratchings on its back.

“What that?” she asked.

“A book,” Liselle replied, and turned from one page to the next.

“What do?”

“It tells me things.”

“How?”

The sorceress loosed an impatient nasal sigh. She was in no mood for conversation tonight. All she wanted was to be left alone with her research. But it was clear that she would have no peace until she placated Lathwi’s curiosity.

“Look here,” she said, tracing a fingernail along a line of script. “See these markings? Each one of them represents a different sound. When these sounds are strung together in specific patterns, they form words. These words in turn form specific thoughts. The ability to draw these marks is called writing. The ability to decipher them is called reading.”

Lathwi grinned. If she understood Liselle correctly, then books were collections of other peoples’ thoughts. And that meant that reading was like eavesdropping—only better. She could not wait to give it a try.

“You teach me reading,” she said.

“I suppose I could,” Liselle granted, and then hastily added, “But not tonight. I’ve got work to do.”

Before she could return to her book, though, Pieter came striding out of his room and toward them. There was a spring in his step, and a glint in his eyes.

“Good evening, ladies.” He planted a bewhiskered kiss on his aunt’s cheek, then turned to Lathwi and said, “Where have you been hiding these past few days?”

“I not hiding,” she replied, perfectly deadpan. “I be practising magic.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Have you found a buyer for your furs yet?” Liselle asked.

“As a matter of fact, I’ve found several,” he told her, grinning with obvious relish. “All that needs to be done now is the haggling.”

“How long will that take?”

“A day or two. At worst, a week.”

“I see.” A frown tugged at the corners of her mouth, but she twitched it aside. “There’s a stew on the fire if you’re hungry.”

Lathwi rolled her eyes. What was it about these people and stew?

“Thanks,” Pieter replied, “but I was planning to take my dinner at the inn tonight.”

“Must you?” Liselle blurted, and then hastened to put a mundane face on her secret fears. “Compara can be dangerous after dark, especially for a man alone.”

Resentment flashed within him then. Here he was, almost thirty years old now, and yet his aunt still treated him like a schoolboy in knickers. But as much as that griped him, he loved Liselle too much to hold it against her, and so made an effort to humour her.

“All right then, I won’t go alone,” he said, and turned to Lathwi. “Do you want to come to the inn with me? It will be my treat.”

Although Lathwi had no idea as to what an inn might be, she decided that it had to be more fun than staying here and watching Liselle do something that she herself could not. So she flashed the trapper an adventurous grin.

“We go.”

Liselle was not pleased to hear that. But she could not make them stay without revealing her fears, and she could not do that because then Pieter would want to stay in Compara and try to protect her, and that simply would not do. She wanted him to return to his home in the backwoods. He would be safe there, safe from fears which she could not yet name.

“Then go already,” she told them, snappish now because she hated being so powerless. “And don’t forget your keys. Otherwise, you’ll find yourselves sleeping in the street.”

They ducked out of the house and into a starry spring night. Lathwi breathed deeply, glad to be under open skies again. Pieter did likewise for different reasons.

“Has she been that moody all day?” he asked, as they started on their way.

Lathwi shrugged. She paid little attention to anyone’s mood but her own. He nibbled on the fringes of his mustache, then tried again.

“How are you two getting along?”

“Good.”

“Do you like her?”

“She smart like mother.”

Her mother was the last thing he wanted to talk about tonight, so he abruptly changed the subject. “Since we’re out, and it’s on the way, let’s stop in at the stable. You ought to know where you’re keeping your horse.”

The suggestion took her by surprise. In her eagerness to learn new things, she had completely forgotten about the stallion. But now that he had mentioned it, she supposed it would be useful to know the beast’s whereabouts.

“You smart, too,” she told him.

“I hope you’re paying attention to the way we’re going,” he said, as they strode from street to street. “I don’t plan on getting separated, but accidents happen from time to time; and it’s no fun being lost in Compara at night.”

“I no get lost,” she confidently assured him. Years of hunting in vast tracts of mountain and forest had honed her sense of direction to a fine point. And while it might seem otherwise, she was taking careful notice of her surroundings.

They came to a broad building which smelled mightily of horse dung and dried grasses. Pieter ushered her through its wide, half-open doors, then planted his hands on his hips and called out in a falsely belligerent tone.

“Raffi, quit molesting your mares and get out here. I’ve brought a friend for you to meet.”

A short, incredibly fat man with the scruffy beginnings of a beard came shuffling out from one of the stalls with a dung-clotted shovel in his hands.

“Who dat with da big mouth?” he demanded, squinting in their direction. “Could it be dat crazy trapper—” Then, catching sight of Lathwi, his broken-fence of a grin chasmed into a disbelieving ‛O’. “Good Goddess, Pieter! Who da hell is dat with you?”

“This is Lathwi,” the trapper replied. “She’s here to check on her horse. And if she doesn’t like the way you’re taking care of it, she’ll eat you.”

“Which one her horse?”

“That bay stallion I brought in with my mare and Buck.”

The stabler made a disparaging face. “Figures. Dat one nasty horse, you betcha. Chomp me good right here, he did.” He patted the roll of fat that girded his hips, then laughed. “He not like it when I chomp him back. You remember dat when you think you hungry for Raffi,” he said to Lathwi, wagging a chubby finger at her. “Now come, see you crazy horse.”

He led them to the back of the barn, then gestured at a stall to his right. As Lathwi strode forward to investigate, he said, “Lemme know if you got complaints. I not be sorry to see dat ingrate go elsewhere.”

The bay snapped at her as she entered his stall. In one fluid move, she sidestepped his lunge and grabbed his halter; in the next, she punched his nose. He grunted irritably when she let him go, but made no further attempt to bite her. She did not blame him for being in a bad mood, for while he had a clean nest and plenty to eat, there was no sky over his head and no place for him to run.

“You satisfied?” Raffi asked, when she stepped back into the center aisle.

“He need run,” she replied.

“You want, I exercise dat horse,” he said. When she did not answer him right away, he added, “I do free for da friend of my friend.”

She shrugged, giving the man leave to do as he pleased. Then, hungered by the concentrated smell of horseflesh, she turned to Pieter. “We go now.”

Raffi’s doughy face sagged with hurt and surprise as she started toward the door, then rebounded back into a wan smile as Pieter clapped him on the back.

“Many thanks, my friend,” he said to the stabler. “Come to the inn when you’re done with your work and I’ll stand you a beer.” Then, when he caught up with Lathwi, he took her to task for her rudeness. “It wouldn’t have hurt you to be nice to Raffi. After all, he did offer to exercise your horse.”

“I not ask him to do.”

“That doesn’t matter. When someone does something nice for you, the least you can do in return is say ‛Thank you’.”

“What ‛thank you’ do?”

“It’s an expression of appreciation.”

She hissed. “More words with no meaning. Why people talk so much? City noisy enough without them flapping their lips all the time.”

“Perhaps,” Pieter said. “But just remember this: you’ll catch more flies with honey than sour wine.”

Now what was that supposed to mean? Why would she want to catch any flies at all? She shook her head then. People had the strangest habits.

The inn was one street down from the stables. It was a large brick building full of windows and flickering lights. The most notable thing about it was its unfenced courtyard.

“It’s busy tonight,” Pieter commented, as they passed a hitching-post crowded with mud-spattered horses. “I hope we can get a table.”

They strode up a set of scarred wooden steps and past a trio of men who were lounging on the porch. The air reeked of tobacco and gish, a stench which grew worse as Pieter led them into a dimly lit room. There were men everywhere here. Some leaned against the long, shelf-like table which spanned the length of the wall to her left. The rest were seated at a hodge-podge of smaller tables. Seated or standing, though, they were all staring at Lathwi. She did not blame them; she would’ve been surprised to see a dragon in a place like this, too.

Pieter nudged her in the ribs, then pointed toward the fireplace. “I think I see an open table over there. Let’s grab it before someone else comes in.”

He began feeling his way through the crowded room. She followed. But she was more of a bull than a conger in tight spaces, and so banged into several obstacles that the trapper had deftly avoided. One such collision sent a comber of beer splashing out of a brawny, bearded man’s cup.

“Watch where you’re going, b***h,” the man snarled, and then gave her a retaliatory shove. She paid no attention to his challenge. She was too busy wondering why Pieter wanted to come to this wretched place. And her bafflement soared to even greater heights when she saw the table that he’d been so eager to grab. It was slick with smears of coagulated grease in some spots, and sticky from spilled gish in others.

“I know it’s not the most elegant place in the world,” he said, responding to her look of disgust, “but the food is good, and the price is right. And speaking of food—do you want something from the spit? Or are you dedicated to a diet of strictly raw meat?”

Under any other circumstances, she would’ve waited until they returned to Liselle’s house to feed. But her day in the laboratory had left her famished, and time weighed heavily on a hungry dragon’s mind, so she decided to try the inn’s fare. After all, how much worse than jerky could it be?

“I take from spit,” she replied.

A short time later, a reed-thin man dressed in greasy linens shuffled up to their table. He had snow-white hair, and skin to match. His eyes were a delicate shade of pink. Lathwi was immediately intrigued.