Handbook for Dragon Slayers

chapter 1

"THAT’S THE SIXTH KNOCK THIS MORNING. I WISH I lived in a cave!"

Because caves don’t have doors? asked Judith, my handmaiden, rising to answer the knock.

I nearly threw down my pen in disgust, but that would have splattered my parchment and ruined hours of work. It also wouldn’t be behavior suitable for a princess.

Yes, I said, and settled for tucking my pen behind my ear in the exact way that infuriated my mother because it left large ink blotches on my neck. I’m never going to finish this copy in time.

Ahem, Judith said. You do realize that even with your mother gone for a week, I’m still going to scrub you pink and inkless on bath day.

I rubbed the numb spot where my braids pulled my scalp, hoping my inky fingers left a blotch there, too. I do realize it.

Well, take pity on your ink scrubber, then, she said, and opened the door to reveal Horrible Hermannus, landed knight, estate steward of Alder Brook, and my life’s bane. He was wearing a tunic of goose-turd green, a color that no cloth should ever be dyed.

Horrible Hermannus nodded to Judith and bowed to me. Princess Matilda, I’ve a message from Sir Kunibert of Boar House. He begs Alder Brook’s assistance with the coming tax.

I wiped my fingers on my blotting rag, trying to hide my sudden despair.

Sir Kunibert needs help? I asked with forced calm. How much help? Alder Brook had no coin to spare for Sir Kunibert’s coffers, no matter how desperate he might be.

He needs assistance with his record keeping, as I am sure there hasn’t been any in years, Horrible said. He would need two days’ worth of aid, perhaps? But of course that is impossible with your mother gone. I will relay to Sir Kunibert that we cannot consider his request until Princess Isobel returns on Friday.

My despair seeped away like rain soaking into dry earth, to be replaced by growing excitement. No, I said, sitting straighter on my stool. I’ll go. I’ll help Sir Kunibert.

Two days at Boar House! Boar House meant Parz—I hadn’t seen Parz in weeks. I tried to hide the eagerness I now felt by putting on a studied frown.

I’ll start packing, Judith said immediately, and bustled off to pull out a traveling chest.

Princess, wait, Horrible said. Even if Alder Brook could spare you—what about the emperor’s gift? I would be remiss not to point out that you have less than nine weeks till New Year’s.

My excitement was checked, and my gaze fell on the half-finished page on my desk. I was copying On Horsemanship as Alder Brook’s New Year gift to the emperor. While I loved copying books, even ones about horses, the constant interruptions had turned this pleasure into a burden.

"Rationally speaking, if I copy early in the mornings at Boar House, without the interruptions I experience here, I might well gain pages, not lose them, by being away."

I spoke calmly and thoughtfully, even as my mind raced ahead, coming up with argument and counterargument. We had to go to Boar House. It was the only chance to see Parz until maybe Christmas.

Horrible glanced down at my sloped writing desk, clearly weighing issues in the balance. Sir Kunibert may not owe allegiance to Alder Brook, but he is our neighbor, he said. And he is the closest dragon slayer by far; Alder Brook would suffer if the emperor imprisoned him. But Princess, if you think someone should go to Boar House before your mother returns, let it be me or the chamberlain. I don’t know if your mother—

My mother isn’t here, I said—not sharply, but serenely, as befits a princess.

Horrible’s lip twitched in annoyance, but he bowed his acquiescence. I tried to hide a smile. There’s been a new dragon sighted at Mount Lorelei, he said. And we can’t afford to lose even two cows to a dragon. One, maybe. But not two. I’m sure Princess Isobel will see the urgency.

Yes, of course, I said, satisfied but deflated all at once. We can’t lose any cows. I sighed. Why did being a princess always come down to taxes and cows?

I’ll see to your boat, Horrible said, dashing off another stupid little bow and going out. I scowled at his retreating back.

Don’t make that face, Tilda, Judith said, tucking freshly laundered chemises into the chest. He was very nice to you just now. Your mother is going to question him thoroughly about why he let you go.

True. My mother didn’t like me to travel, saying it was too dangerous, and bad for my foot besides; in fact, I had only ever journeyed a day up and down the Victory River by boat.

Horrible’s not going to wait for her questions, I said, corking my inkhorn. He’s going to tattle as soon as Mother returns. He has all the sense of fair play of a three-year-old child.

"Sir Hermannus is obligated to keep you safe, Judith said, lifting a sleeping cat off my fur robe and cuddling the cat briefly. And he’s obligated to obey your mother in all things."

Also true, but it didn’t make me like Horrible any better. He had an uncanny knack for getting me in trouble with my mother. When I was younger, I thought he kept a hearthgoblin to spy on me.

I slid from my stool, testing my leg and foot after the morning’s inactivity. My leg trembled briefly, wanting to cramp, but it held. The pain on the walking surface of my foot was tolerable today; I had been sitting a lot, with all the copy work, and my latest sore had healed.

I left my crutch at the desk and hitch-stepped over to Judith, lifting my arms so she could help me remove my ink-splotched, donkey-gray gown.

Judith bent her head over the side ties on my gown, but even at that awkward angle, I caught the expression on her face. You’re smirking, I accused.

"Only because you were blushing from the moment Sir Hermannus mentioned Boar House."

Oh. I wasn’t, I mumbled. But Judith had been my handmaiden since she was nine and I was seven; even with six years of practice, I sometimes failed at hiding my stronger emotions from her.

Your cheeks are still rosy. She pulled the gown over my head. I guessed right—you want to see Lord Parzifal!

I took a deep breath to steady my voice. Lord Parzifal will doubtless be busy with his training.

Even Sir Kunibert doesn’t train his squires in the dark. Judith laced me into a pretty robe of celestrine-blue silk. "And Lord Parzifal will have to come in for supper. And that might very well lead to a conversation." She grinned at me.

I wrinkled my nose at her. I have to pack my writing box now.

I’m not stopping you, she said, and busied herself with our toiletries.

I turned back to my writing corner. The private rooms of a prince’s keep performed double, if not triple, duty. This room was my mother’s bower and ran half the length of the great hall below it. Here I slept with my mother and our principal servants; I wrote letters and copied manuscripts at the window; and my mother’s ladies sewed all day by the fire, from tapestry work to the plainest mending. The bower was large, as befitted a principality of Alder Brook’s stature—and yet it felt terribly crowded most of the time.

With Mother gone for a week, I luxuriated in sprawling bed space, with Judith my only roommate. It felt shameful to waste any of our last few days alone by going to Boar House, where we’d have to sleep cheek by jowl with the female servants.

But I had enjoyed my mother’s absence for more than just bed space in the bower. Until I married or turned twenty-one, I had to defer to my mother as my regent. This week was the first time I had been free of her constant instruction since . . .

Since before my father left on pilgrimage to take back the Holy Land.

For the first time in two years, I hadn’t had to endure a morning lecture on my duty. Everything, as it happened, was my duty, from balancing accounts to writing flattering letters to emperors and archbishops to wearing my hair in two neat plaits. Basically, my duty consisted of just about everything I didn’t want to do and nothing I did want to do.

Since I wanted to go to Boar House, it couldn’t possibly be the right thing to do. But I was going anyway.

I tidied up my little work corner, shuffling parchments into piles, putting away extra pens, knives, inks, and sands that I wouldn’t take to Sir Kunibert’s. I closed up the book I had been copying from, worried how it might fare on the boat.

Anxiously, I triple-wrapped the book: first in linen, then in two layers of oilcloth. Alder Brook could never afford to replace On Horsemanship without an exceptionally good harvest—which this year had not granted us. I had a momentary twinge of guilt at the thought of endangering the book. But—Horrible hadn’t told me no.

Once the original book was wrapped, I looked over my page of copying. I wondered if I really was going to be able to finish the copy by New Year’s with the small time I was allowed to devote to it and all the interruptions I’d encountered. It had been my suggestion to send a book to the emperor. I still wasn’t sure why my mother had agreed, other than that the gift would look much more expensive than anything else Alder Brook could give.

My other reasons for wanting to make the copy were selfish, however. I wanted a chance to work with all that pristine parchment, of course, and the chance to lay out a book. And I also wanted the leftover materials that such a large undertaking would surely supply.

Something horrifying caught my eye:

A damp and smooth floor may be the ruin of a naturally good hoof. A damp and smooth floor may be the ruin of a naturally good hoof.

I gasped. I’d written the same sentence twice. And there was no going back and scraping just that sentence out—it was right in the middle of the page. And scraping a whole page after the ink had dried—there was no hope for it. You could always see the ghost of the words you’d written underneath the new lettering, and that would never do in a gift for the emperor. I groaned and put a hand over my eyes.

What’s wrong, Tilda? Judith asked.

I ruined a page, I said tightly. "The whole leaf, really, because if we cut out the bad page, it will look so obvious when the book is bound. It wouldn’t have happened if I weren’t interrupted all the time." I wanted to ball the parchment up and throw it, but that would be beyond wasteful. Even if this leaf couldn’t go into the book, we would use the parchment to write a letter or something, after we scraped it.

But saving the parchment didn’t save the work. Hours of effort—wasted. Gone.

I swallowed my anger and disappointment and scraped quickly at the words, destroying my morning’s work. What I couldn’t remove now would have to be pumiced off later.

Tilda, aren’t we going? Judith asked. She pointed to the clothes chest. She had left just enough room for my writing box.

I can’t leave this for two days, I said. The longer the ink sits, the deeper it sinks into the parchment. You go on ahead—take the book and the clothes chest down to the boat. I’ll bring my writing box in just a moment.

She nodded, closed the chest, and hoisted it to her shoulder, then tucked the book under an arm. Another half bow, and she was gone.

I scraped carefully with my curved knife, silently seething . . . and couldn’t help but think that life would be so much easier if I lived in a cloister. I could copy every day in a silent, spacious scriptorium. Even if I ruined a page, a day like today wouldn’t seem so bad if there were a hundred tomorrows of peace and quiet.

Eventually, the page was as bare as I could make it. I packed up the rest of my writing box and headed out.

I had just cracked the door when I heard Father Ripertus’s voice on the stairs. I’d been unable to run around as a little child, so Father Ripertus had taught me reading and the methods of scribes so that I might not sit idle. He was my confessor, and one of my favorite people.

—the Illustrious Isobel’s true mission has failed, Father Ripertus said. He was talking to Horrible and scanning a letter in his hand. The lord of Larkspur will not betroth his son to Princess Mathilda.

I froze, the door but inches open. A betrothal! Thank heaven nothing had come of it—my cousin Ivo was an idiot I had no use for—but why had my mother told me the purpose of her trip was to check on the grape harvests upriver?

The foot, of course, Horrible said in a sour voice.

Father Ripertus coughed slightly.

Not the foot? Horrible sounded surprised.

"Not just the foot. Those rumors don’t help anything," Father Ripertus said.

Ah, yes, Horrible said, and I thought I could not have hated him more than at that moment. He spoke so resignedly, as though he knew all about all the rumors, whatever they were—I could only assume they were about Alder Brook’s bare treasury. I shifted my weight uncomfortably off my foot and tried to hope people weren’t saying stupid things about it instead. Princess Isobel is coming home early, then? Horrible asked.

Father Ripertus’s shoulders hunched. No—here’s what I really came to tell you: She has broken her leg! The bonesetter will not let her stir from Larkspur until after Christmas.

I veered dizzily between urgent worry and sudden glee that my mother would finally understand what it was like to be unable to trust her feet. Like me.

Worry won out, though, and easily. It had been too few months since the day we received word from the Holy Land about my father’s death in battle; the thought of my mother lying injured and alone reopened the cold, empty spot that had hollowed me out that day.

I sucked in my cheeks and smoothed the wrinkles of concern off my face before opening the door wider. The first rule of princessing is to be in control of oneself at all times. A princess never shows unnecessary emotion.

Horrible and Father Ripertus jerked around to face me as I came through the door.

Is my mother all right? I asked, and cursed inwardly when my voice proved less reliable than my face. It must be pretty bad if she doesn’t insist on a litter to bring her home. . . .

Tilda, Tilda, Father Ripertus soothed, folding his letter and slipping it into his sleeve. Your mother is choosing for the first time to take the advice of a physician for herself. That is more a cause for celebration than alarm.

It was unlike her to do what a physician recommended, no matter how much pain she was in. The only reason she might do that was if it served another purpose. She has been saying she needs to spend more time overseeing the eastern holdings, I said slowly. Maybe this is partly an excuse. I didn’t mention overhearing their discussion of my betrothal. Or nonbetrothal, as it stood.

Ah. There. You have guessed her motivations, I’m sure quite accurately, Father Ripertus said.

Horrible hesitated, mouth half open as if he wanted to say something, but then he bowed, backing down the stairs. Forgive me, Princess. I only came to say your boat is ready. He swiftly departed.

I was left alone at the top of the stairs with Father Ripertus, who had managed to summon up a reassuring and kindly expression.

"She will be fine, Tilda, Father Ripertus said, putting a warm hand on my head. She’s still on Alder Brook lands—she’ll come to no real harm." I wanted to lean into his hand and accept his comfort; I also wanted to believe him. It was a nice fairy story, to think that our borders marked the line between safety and danger.

I forced a smile. Of course she’ll be fine. Thank you. We nodded to each other, and he went back down the stairs, a dissatisfied cast to his lips.

I leaned against the bower door, clutching my writing box, and closed my eyes. I imagined myself in a clean cloister scriptorium. Life would be so much easier there. To spend every day alone with acres of parchment and rivers of ink—in a place like that, bad news would seem far away, like it didn’t matter.

I drew in a deep breath, opening my eyes. My mother was going to be all right. Everything was going to be fine. Nothing would be made better by either staying here or rushing off to Larkspur. Nothing would be solved by leaving Sir Kunibert’s accounts in turmoil.

All right, then, I breathed, and went downstairs.

I had to descend slowly, one step at a time like a child, to avoid pain or, worse, falling. Stairs always made me feel ungainly, and I hated them.

In the great hall, a wave of silence spread before me as my presence brought all conversation to a halt. Alder Brook’s various retainers and servants looked up from their whetstones, from their preparations for the day’s dinner, from all the little tasks that had brought them to the great hall, and watched in silence as I toiled across the room.

One servant, a girl named Roswitha, made the sign against the evil eye as I passed.

I made my face smooth like ice, and pretended not to see.

chapter 2

I AM SURE ROSWITHA TRULY THOUGHT I DID NOT SEE her; she made the sign, flicking her fingers over and over, until Frau Aleidis grabbed her hands. Someone in the hall stifled a cough, or maybe a snort.

A hot-cold flash of emotions swept over me—embarrassment, shame, rage. I summoned the memory of my mother’s voice in my ear, reminding me that Alder Brook was my freehold and my responsibility, that Alder Brook’s people were my people, even if they thought my lame foot brought down the evil eye.

But the memory of my mother’s voice wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough to allow me to ignore Roswitha. The mask of ice I imagined on my face only saved the world from me; to save me from the world, I had to imagine iron bands around my chest to protect my heart.

Once outside the keep, the pressure on my heart did not ease. In the distance, a group of small children played a variety of tag—only one boy had a tree branch shoved in his armpit, and he was pretending to limp as he chased the other shrieking children. He was pretending to be me.

I couldn’t get to the boat landing fast enough. When I climbed into Aged Arnolt’s boat, my lame leg shivered and gave out. I crumpled gracelessly into the bow.

Judith