King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

“Move on!” said Dhuoda. A young woman stepped forward to take Alain’s place, so Alain had no choice but to do as he was told.

He found the stables and was at once put to work at a job any idiot could manage: filling a cart with manure and hauling it out to the fields. His only companion at this task was a halfwit called Lackling, a boy of about his age who was as thin as a stick, with bandy legs and a misshapen jaw through which he could not form true words. He was skittish and as likely to stare at the clouds or stroke the donkey as to keep to his work, but Alain did not have the heart to be angry at him, poor creature.

“I see you get along well enough with our Lackling,” said Master Rodlin that evening after the two boys had been given a hasty supper of cheese and bread and an onion. “You can share the loft with him. Make sure the new lads don’t tease him too much. He’s a harmless creature and the animals trust him, for I suppose they know he’s as dumb-witted as they are.”

Lackling made an odd snuffling noise and picked up the crumbs of bread from the dirt floor of the stables. With his treasure in his hands he went just outside and stood, hand out and open, staring at the sky and shuffling nervously back and forth.

Master Rodlin grunted, not without pity. “Thinks the birds will come and feed from his hand,” he said. “But Deacon Waldrada says it is our duty as good Daisanites to shelter the weak. And the lad was born here, in the shadow of the fort. His mother died birthing him, for it was a hard birth and perhaps it would have been best had the child died as well, poor dumb creature.”

“I was born here,” said Alain. “In Lavas Holding, I mean.”

Rodlin looked at him with a keener interest. “Who was your mother?”

Now Alain flushed. “I don’t know.”

“Ah,” said Rodlin knowingly. “Fostered out, were you? In a town like this there’s always a woman or two who can’t admit whose child she bore and so gives it away.”

“She didn’t give me away. She died birthing me.”

“Had she no kin? What about your father?”

Alain hung his head, seeing the expression on Master Rodlin’s face change from curiosity to a thin incurious smile: identified and dismissed as some whore’s unwanted bastard.

“Go on, then,” continued the stable master. “You’ll do well enough in the stables. Just don’t go into the kennels.”

“There’re no hounds in the kennels.”

“But there will be when Count Lavastine returns. They’d as soon kill you as pass you by, lad. Don’t forget it and don’t get in the habit of going by there, for your own good. See this scar.” He pointed to a ragged white scar that ran from ear to shoulder. “They gave me that, and more besides. Stay well away and you’ll be safe.”

“Why would the count keep such vicious hounds?” asked Alain, but Rodlin was already walking away, intent on more important duties than chatting with a motherless stableboy.

Lackling, crumbs still in hand, came back inside, looking disconsolate. Alain sneezed and wiped the dust of hay from his lips. “I don’t suppose you know about the hounds,” said Alain.

“Moewr,” said Lackling. “Hroensgueh lakalig.”

Alain smiled sadly at the halfwit. Wasn’t it only self-pity to feel sorry for himself when faced with this half-grown manboy no longer a child and yet incapable of becoming a true man? In Osna village he had been Bel’s nephew, and that counted for a great deal. Here he was just a village boy from the outlying lands who didn’t know swordcraft and had nothing further to recommend him and no kin to come to his aid. So they made him a stableboy and ordered him to shovel manure. But he had his wits and his strength and a whole body.

“Come,” he said to Lackling. He took the halfwit by the elbow and led him outside where dusk shaded the stone tower in a wreath of shadow and the last glint of sun sparked off the banner riding above the palisade gate: two black hounds on a silver field, the badge of the counts of Lavas. “Open your hand. Here, I’ll cup your hands in mine. Now we must just stand still enough….”

So they stood as dusk lowered down and the beasts thumped and rustled in the stables and the outer court quieted as day passed. A sparrow came, flitting out of the twilight, and perched on Alain’s forefingers where they peeped out from underneath Lackling’s smaller hands. It took a crumb. Lackling crowed with delight and the bird fluttered away.

“Hush,” said Alain. “You must remain quiet.” They waited again, and soon another sparrow came, and a third, and ate all the crumbs off Lackling’s hands while the halfwit wept silently with joy.

Master Rodlin proved indifferent to Alain as long as the boy did as he was told. In fact, that first month while Sergeant Fell prepared his new soldiers to march out, everyone proved indifferent to Alain. He watched while the other boys got into feuds that escalated to fistfights and once to a knifing. He stared, shamed and yet shamefully curious, while the young men-at-arms flirted with the servant girls and slipped away with them to a dark corner of the loft. He studied the more experienced men as they readied their weapons and honed their fighting skills.

On St. Kristine’s Day, she who was the holy martyr of the city of Gent, a woman cloaked and badged as a King’s Eagle rode in to deliver a message to the count. That night at supper in the hall, sitting at the lower tables, Alain watched in astonishment as the Eagle’s conversation with Chatelaine Dhuoda, at the upper table, degenerated into an argument.

“This is not a request,” said the Eagle with obvious indignation. “King Henry expects Count Lavastine to attend his progress. Are you telling me that the count refuses?”

“I am telling you,” said Dhuoda calmly, “that I will send a message to the count with Sergeant Fell and his company when they march out in two days’ time. When Count Lavastine returns at the end of the summer, I am sure he will act as soon as he is able.”

“If you send this sergeant and his company back with me, it would go a good way toward convincing King Henry of the count’s loyalty.”

“Only the count can make that decision.” Dhuoda gestured for more ale to be brought. Alain recognized by now that wine was reserved for the most favored visitors, which this King’s Eagle clearly was not. “The Eika burned a monastery and two villages already this spring. The count needs every able man in his county to strike back and protect his lands. But of course I will include all that you have said in the message my clerics write to him.”

But it was clear to everyone present, and especially to the Eagle, that although Dhuoda’s answers were perfectly legitimate, they were also evasive.

The Eagle left the next day, still looking angry. And the day after that Sergeant Fell and his company marched out. The remaining horses and cattle—except for a few workhorses, the donkeys, one old warhorse, and a lame cow who still gave milk—were taken out to the summer pastures. Most of the village worked out in the fields, labored in their vegetable gardens, or gathered fruit in the forest beyond the cultivated land. The few servants left in the holding went about their business with an efficiency that left them plenty of time to drink and dice in the long pleasant evenings.