Worse even than the fangs was the tongue: gore-coated grey, thick as his arm. It flicked out, once, twice, almost touching Cador, and he shuddered. Every breath he drew brought him the metallic tang of blood; the blood of his squire, the blood of those helpless horses, and who knew what other victims. He would take vengeance. He was a knight. And so he peered out from behind his rock and studied the dragon’s scales.
The neck stretched up, too high for Cador to see the head (which was fine with him), so he looked at the underbelly, where the silver scales were tightly meshed as fine chainmail. Chainmail. That he knew. Chainmail had weaknesses. It was good against slashes, weak against jabs. Cador ignored the tongue as it flicked him for a third time. He had to aim well. Mail was weakest between links. He saw a few battered scales, perhaps where his spear struck, showing milk-white instead of silver, as if they’d been chipped. There.
He raised his shield to fend off the fangs, leapt, and thrust his sword forward. His shoulder jerked as the blade made contact and he pushed, until the serpent pushed back – its weight crushing him. He fell and rolled away. The ground shook as the dragon collapsed.
CHAPTER TWO
Naught but embers remained in the hearth; their orange-gold glow provided the barest of illumination, enough for me to see the silhouette of the empty wine pitcher, the dark hump of my stranger in their chair. It had grown so still, just Silence’s voice in the inn’s darkness. And now that had gone quiet, too. A mouse skittered across the floorboards, found some crumb and began to gnaw. That simple sound brought me back to myself: I had been in the sun-dappled forest, I had heard the shriek of an awful dragon in my ears. My stranger slumped, so still I thought they might have lapsed into sleep.
I leaned close, taking a lungful of air, and I swear, dear listener, I swear I tell you the truth, that I smelled for a moment the sour sweat of a terrified knight, the rotten stink of a corpse-eating serpent, right there in the inn. Then Silence stirred and stood up, and the sourness I smelled was nothing but spilled wine, and the rot was just the odour of the night-soil pot.
‘It has grown quite late,’ they said.
‘But …’ I fumbled for something to make them sit back down. ‘How is this the start of your story?’
‘Evan was so pleased with my father, he let him choose any woman to be his wife.’
‘Ah! A love story? This is where you begin? So we have only reached the start!’
My beautiful stranger rubbed at their eyes. ‘I can’t tell a story to save my life. They’re all like dreams. They make perfect sense in my head, utter gibberish when I try to explain. God keep you. Good night.’
I grabbed their arm – an arm as strong and firm as oak – and said, ‘You can’t leave. I must have … I must hear … please. Tell me your story.’
They pulled away from my grasp easily and said, with a voice that sounded amused, though it was too dark to tell if they smiled, ‘Very well. I’ll return, but I must use the jakes first. And check on my horse.’ Their footsteps barely made a sound; a brief gasp of fresh air marked their departure. Alone in the dark, I feared they would not return.
Isolde pushed open the kitchen door; carrying a taper in front of her, she peered down at me. ‘What’re you doing, still awake?’
‘Could you tell me of the person who has lately been talking with me? Silence?’
Isolde settled one hand on her hip. She wore her night cap, a grubby beret from which a few strands of her brown hair straggled out. ‘Silence. Leave that one well enough alone.’ She stared at me, her brown eyes level and grim.
Couldn’t she spare a modest hint? A he or a she? A man or a woman? No. That one. ‘I’m in the midst of hearing a most unusual story, and I find myself wondering if it is true.’ I offered her my best smile. ‘Do you know anything about Silence?’
‘If I do, it’s not for me to say.’
‘Fair enough, mistress. But what about Earl Cador? Do you know his story?’
‘Which part?’ she said.
I hoped that Silence would be a while with their horse. ‘Ah. The part about the dragon. And what follows.’
‘Who doesn’t know the story of Cador and the dragon!’ she said, her voice full of scorn.
I settled on a stool and gestured for Isolde to do the same. ‘I am not from these parts,’ I said.
‘What parts are you from, not to have heard of Earl Cador?’
I shrugged. Every piece of the earth that I have visited (and I’ve visited quite a few) thinks it is the most important. It does no good to dispel them of this notion. ‘I’m from nowhere. So Cador killed the dragon. And then …’
‘Cador killed the dragon, all by himself. And King Evan, may God keep him, was so pleased that he told Cador he could have the pick of any woman of the kingdom, so long as she wasn’t promised to another.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘A most generous gift from the king.’
‘King Evan is known for his generosity. Have you not heard of his feasts? Of the gifts he gives to his faithful knights?’
I held up my hands in surrender. ‘Mercy, mistress. King Evan is known far and wide for being generous. And most just.’
This earned a grunt in reply. ‘Justice is different to fairness.’
‘You possess wisdom as well as beauty!’ I said.
She leaned across the table towards me. ‘I am no beauty, you liar. I never have been and I never will be. Your flattery does you no good. So just tell me what you want, and I’ll decide if I ought to give it to you.’ She reached down and placed a log on the fire. The flames took to it hungrily, casting enough light that Isolde blew the taper out.
I looked down at the table. Ashamed. She was no beauty. She must have had a bad case of the pox when she was young; her face bore the scars, and the disease left her skin mottled, so that she looked like a bowl of porridge with currants. I thought of telling her that true beauty lies beneath the surface, but I didn’t want to risk my space at her hearth, so I simply said, ‘Which woman did he choose?’
King Evan led his knights and lords out of the woods of Gwenelleth. They were a diminished company, it is true, but joyous at Cador’s success. The one remaining squire rode in the vanguard, Evan’s banner hoisted aloft once again, the evening breeze making it stutter. They had bickered over whether to bring the whole of the serpent back to Winchester, or at least a part. Lord Fendale had wanted to take the head, but the stench was so foul, they decided to leave it in the forest. In the end, Lord Fendale extracted one fang to hang as a trophy in the castle’s great hall.
So they rode, the squire at the head, King Evan behind, flanked by the Duke of Greenwold (who still thought they had killed a wyvern) and Lord Fendale, the fang lashed to his saddle. Cador rode further back still, though the king often turned to urge him forward, to tell them again of how the dragon had writhed, of how Cador had charged, of the killing blow to the heart.
But Cador waved them off. His mind was full of the battle, true, full of the king’s generous promise. But he was troubled by Merlin – he had mentioned the old wizard in his retelling of the story, explaining that Merlin had given him the insight into how the dragon might be slain. But he hadn’t mentioned Merlin’s promise, nor his prophecy, and he mulled these now.