Dragon Magic Page 10

  Artie trailed half a block behind the other two, who had joined forces. Yes, they were heading for the old house. They had stopped by the wall, were looking around. Moved by an impulse he did not understand, Artie crouched down behind a rubbish can. It did not hide him very well, but he guessed they did not see him, for they were going on in. Suddenly he was determined to follow them. If Sig had found something he should have told Artie, not that dope! After all, Artie had been with him that first time. Maybe Sig thought Artie was too chicken because he had not stayed. Well, he would go in behind them, see what they had found, then let them know he’d watched them. That would show Sig!

  He watched Sig climb through the window, Ras slipping in after him. Artie, still holding the football, followed. They had a flashlight, he did not. But today there was enough light for him to find his way. He heard the murmur of their voices, but not their words.

  They had gone right to the room Sig had wanted to open that first time. Artie slipped along the wall of the hall as quietly as he could, trying to hear.

  “Heads takes the red—that fair?” Sig asked.

  “Right!”

  There was a moment of silence and then Sig said, with disappointment, “Tails. Well, are you going to try?”

  There was another period of quiet and then Artie heard Ras say in a very excited voice, “You saw that, didn’t you? It—it moved right away from my fingers!”

  “Let me try!” Sig sounded impatient.

  “See? It does that for you, too!”

  “Let’s try the yellow one then.”

  Red what? Yellow what? Artie was so curious he almost went to the doorway to see.

  “It’s no good,” Sig said. “That first time, the pieces went together as if they wanted to, like I was hardly working at it. Was it the same for you?”

  “Yes. But now it won’t. See, I can’t even hold a piece, it slips right away from me. Sig, do you suppose that means we are not going to be able to finish it?”

  “But why not? What good is it only half done? There is no reason—”

  “There might be one we don’t know. I—I think we ought to leave it alone now, Sig, I really do.”

  “It’s darn queer. Maybe it’s just today, maybe if we came back some other time—”

  “Maybe, Sig, but somehow I don’t think so. And don’t you feel queer now, as if we shouldn’t be here at all? I didn’t feel that way before.”

  There was a long moment of quiet and then Sig answered, “Yeah. I wasn’t going to say that, you might think I was a kook or something. But—let’s get out of here—right now!”

  Artie was confused. Somehow he did not want to face them at this moment. He looked around a little wildly, tugged open the nearest door, and swung into a closet, keeping his hand on the doorknob and the door open a crack. He did not even see them go by, but he heard their footsteps echoing through the big rooms. When it was quiet again he came out, determined to see what was in the room, what this red-yellow thing might be.

  At first glance he saw nothing at all but a table and a chair. Then the light from the window showed him color on the table, which drew him closer.

  The football dropped from his loosened grasp and he was not even aware he had lost it. A puzzle—a jigsaw puzzle! Why had Sig and Ras been so excited about a stupid old puzzle? There was a box there, too, with a lot of pieces in it. Some were turned up to show brilliant red or gleaming gold. There were a few red pieces lying by themselves to one side. How they glowed!

  He could see the picture on the lid of the box, with a big silver dragon at the top and a queer blue one at the bottom, just like the finished two on the table. Then there were two more, a red dragon on the left and a gold one on the right. He hardly looked at the gold one. It was the red which caught his full attention.

  It was—it looked so real! Artie put out a finger and touched one of the red pieces. It moved a little and—why, it actually seemed to snap into place beside another, interlocking smoothly. But Sig and Ras, they had talked as if they couldn’t get the pieces together at all! What did they mean—this was easy!

  One of the pieces was lying face down and there was black writing on it, the letters thick and blocky. “R-e-x—Rex,” Artie spelled out.

  Uncle Jim had had a dog named Rex once, he said it meant “king” in Latin.

  Artie flipped the piece over. Yes, it went in here. Say, this was smooth. He began to sort out the rest of the red pieces. Why, he could do this, even if Ras and Sig could not. This went here, and that there—Forgetting everything else, Artie settled down in the chair.

  Red dragon, a red dragon up against a blue sky—Pendragon! That was it, he knew it as well as if someone standing at his elbow had told him—the Pendragon!

  ARTOS, SON OF MARIUS

  It was harvest time and most of the war host were scattered, out in the fields where the barley stood high and ready for the cutting and the grain was as golden as the sun was hot. A good harvest, as all had hoped, for it had been a bad year earlier with the cold, and there had been scant gleanings from a too-wet summer last year. Men had gone with empty bellies through the last of that cold and had sown grain they would joyfully have crammed by fistfuls into their mouths and chewed raw, even as they threw it into the waiting earth.

  Not only in Britain had hunger pinched, but over-water, too. So that all men knew the winged-helmed invaders were on the prowl, and a coast watch had to be kept even though the men were needed in the fields.

  Artos smeared the back of his hand across his forehead and tried not to wince as he straightened his aching back. Field work was harder than the training in the war band, though he had not had too much of that yet, just enough to prove how much he had yet to learn. He glanced now to where his shield mates were strung out in a straggling line along the field. It did not matter if one’s father was Marius, troop commander under the Dragon himself. A man was matched against his own deeds, not by what his father, or his father’s father, had done before him.

  Artos had been named for the High King, Caesar of Britain, but he took his turn in the fields all the same. Just as he suffered the hard knocks of the wooden training sword when he was awkward or unlucky, or stupid enough not to be able to defend himself against Drusus’ attack. Drusus was old now, but he could remember seeing the last of the Legions go down to the sea, taking the might of Rome with them, leaving Britain open to the sea wolves.

  The High King had ridden north five days ago, to visit the posts manned against the Scots and the painted men in the north. And he had taken most of the Companions with him. Modred ruled here in Venta.

  Artos scowled and kicked at a clod so that it crumbled under the toe of his boot. It was the High King (though Father always called him Caesar) who held Britain together. He had been just an army officer at first, but he had been loyal to Aurelianus, whom the real Caesar overseas had made Count of Britain. They had called Artos “Pendragon” and “Dux Bellorum” (Commander of Battles). Artos shaped the words though he did not speak them aloud; they had a ring to them. Men did not speak the true Latin of the empire any more, but added British words to everyday speech. Marius, like the High King, believed they should remember the past, and one way of doing that was to keep the language of men who had lived in cities and known the old lost days of peace.

  For years now life had been only fighting. Men kept swords ever to hand, listened always for the roar of war horns. It was do that, live armed, or die under a Saxon ax—or worse, live a Saxon slave. The cities the Romans had built were mostly destroyed. Saxons hated cities and, when they could, reduced them to ruins. But Venta was where a Roman governor had once lived, and there were hill forts from the old days, which the King’s men had rebuilt, forts which had once sheltered men from attack long before the coming of the Roman Legions.

  Modred did not believe in keeping to the old ways. He smiled sneeringly behind backs—yes, and even to the faces of such as Marius and others of Caesar’s men who wore short hair, went shaved of cheek a
nd chin, carried the old Roman shields and armor. His men said openly now that it was better to forget Rome, to make peace with the Winged Helms, maybe even to give them some coast lands and swear blood-brother oaths with them, rather than fight forever.

  Modred spoke only the British tongue, pretended not to understand Latin. He feasted the petty kings and chieftains of the north and the tribes. Marius, and the others like him, watched Modred with care. But many of the younger men treated Modred with deference, listened to him.

  Artos bent back to his work. He hated the field more with every hour he was forced to spend in it. Why could he not have ridden north with Caesar’s guard, with his father? He swung the harvest knife as if it were a sword, cutting the stalks raggedly. The furrows were endless and the sun hot, the day long.

  One of the house slaves brought around the leather bottle of vinegar and water, and Artos drank his share. It was then that he saw the riders on the sea road. Their vividly colored cloaks were bright, thrown well back on their shoulders, in this heat they must be wearing them only for show. There was no mistaking Prince Modred as their leader.

  Artos watched as they passed. But he was startled to see what the Prince wore about his arm just below the edge of his summer tunic’s short sleeve. He would take oath that it was the Dragon armlet of the High King! But only Caesar, Artos Pendragon, had a right to that, and he had worn it himself when he had ridden out of Venta.

  And Modred was not even the High King’s heir by right, though men whispered that by some chance in the past he was truly the King’s own son. But he was unlike Caesar in every way.

  For Artos Pendragon was as tall as one of the forest trees, or so he looked among lesser men. And his hair, though he was now nigh an old man, was still the color of that rich gold which comes from the Western Isles. He wore his hair short and he shaved as did the Romans, which made him look younger than his years.

  Whereas Modred was a good handsbreadth or more shorter, and dark of hair, the locks curling to his shoulders. Also he had wings of mustache curving on either side of his thin-lipped mouth, so that he looked as any of the tribal kings. He wore also their brightly colored clothes, cloaks woven in checkered patterns of green, red, and yellow, with like tunics and breeches, wide belts of soft leather studded with gold, a jeweled dagger, and a long sword.

  Artos watched the party move on until they were hidden in the dust cloud. He longed to be ahorse and riding with them. No man could deny that Modred was a good fighter, and now he had been chosen by Caesar himself to hold Venta. He commanded all the forces except the Companions, who remained here, and the school for their sons, both of which were under the orders of Kai.

  At the thought of Kai, Artos bent to work again, his shoulders hunching as if he already felt the sting of a willow switch laid smartly across them. Kai was a fighter, one of whom Marius thoroughly approved. You never won more than a grunt of half-satisfaction from Kai. But a grunt from that battle-scarred warrior was perhaps equal to half a Roman Triumph. Artos grinned. But still he remembered that armlet shining on Modred’s darkly tanned arm and it cast a small seed of uneasiness into his mind.

  It was his turn that night to wait upon the high table, bring in the drinking horns, set out the spoons and table knives. Modred’s chair remained empty, as did two others, those of his close officers. Only Kai and Archais (who had come from overseas and was much learned in the healing of wounds) and Paulus, the priest, were there.

  Artos listened to their talk, but there was little new to hear. Paulus was old and thought of little but the Church, and he disliked Archais, as he made very plain, because the healer did not believe what Paulus taught. But this the priest could not say openly, because the High King had long since made it plain that what god a man chose to serve privately was his own business. This made the priests angry and they muttered a great deal, though there was naught they could do. However, lately they had been very bold about the need for peace, and Modred had those among them who talked so—too much, Marius said.

  When the thin beer of the past year had been poured and the platters taken from the table, Archais spoke: “Our Lord Modred rides so far abroad that he cannot return for the evening meal?”

  Kai shrugged. “That is his affair,” he replied shortly. But the tone in his voice made Artos listen closely.

  “The Winged Helms have been reported offshore. That fisherman from Deepdene reported sighting at least ten ships. It must be a raider with reputation to bring such a fleet. One thinks of Thorkiel—”

  “No, no.” Paulus shook his head. “Thorkiel would not dare. Did not our Lord King give him so grievous a beating yesteryear as to send him in fast flight?”

  “These Winged Helms,” growled Kai, “are like ants, Father. One can stamp out a scurry of them here, another there, yet there are always ants, and no end to them! They are only quiet when they are dead, but that takes a deal of doing. Good fighters they are, with their berserkers and their shield walls. Our Lord King knows the way to deal with them. Men sometimes laughed straight to his face in the beginning. But he went ahead with it, by Aurelianus’ favor. He got horses, big ones—mostly before that we had just ponies, nothing to mount a grown man. And he found how to make armor for them and for their riders. He did not gather a big army such as is hard to feed and easy to ambush—even the Legions learned that there were newer and better ways of fighting, good as they had been in their time.

  “No, he took the horse companies and he was here, there, riding hard. We were so much in the saddle in those days that we got hard skin on our bottoms like calluses on the hands. And where the Saxons came, there we were—before they could expect it. Yes, the horse and the Companions cleared the land and kept it cleared.

  “I remember the day they brought him the Dragon banner. It was new, a queer strange thing. Let the wind catch it rightly and it snapped out like a great red worm, its claws reaching for you. With that over a man’s head, he got heart in him. Yes, we had the Dragon—’til it was cut to pieces. Seeing it seemed to send the heathen wild, and they would aim spears at it every time. But we just got us another, and another—all made the same. When the war horns call, the Dragon answers them!”

  Artos knew the banner. There was a small one like it that flew from the watchtower of Venta when the High King was here and was carried with him when he traveled. But the big Dragon was kept safe until needed for battle. They called Caesar “Pendragon”—even just Dragon. And some of the people who did not know much actually thought he had a real dragon to help him in battle.

  “But for all your valiant efforts, still these Winged Helms come,” Archais observed.

  “They come and they die.” Kai pushed away from the table. “Always they come—it is a way of life.”

  “But need it be?” Paulus’ voice sounded thin, almost like a whisper after Kai’s deep-chested tones. “There is a way to keep peace and all men living in fellowship.”

  Kai laughed. “Cry ‘pax’ to a Winged Helm who has just beaten in your door, Father—one who has his ax ready to cut you down. There is only one pax for such.” His head swung to Artos, who had been very still and thought he was forgotten. “Youngling, get to your bed. Before cock’s crow you’ll be needed in the field again. With luck we’ll be able to get in the rest of the barley before nightfall.”

  “With God’s grace,” Paulus corrected him. But Kai paid no attention to the priest as he stretched wide his hard-muscled arms.

  Only, Artos was never to work in that barley field again. And it all came about because of the need for a drink of water.

  He was tired enough to sleep soundly, but he roused out of a confused dream which afterward he could never remember; only, it left him feeling afraid. He sat up on the pallet which was his bed, feeling thirsty. Around him was the heavy, even breathing of the other sleepers. A thin sliver of moonlight shone in the hall without.

  Once this maze of rooms, hallways, courtyards, had been the home and headquarters of a Roman governor. Now it was a
rather badly kept palace, which few living within had ever totally explored.

  The nearest water was in the great hall and Artos debated going after it. He ran a dry tongue over cracked lips and thought that he must. He had worn his breeches and leggings to bed, he had been so tired, and he did not wait now to pick up his tunic as he padded across the chamber, careful to avoid the pallets of the others.

  In the hall the moonlight came through the window. There was another source of light, too, a dim glow in another chamber. Artos was curious. Who could be there? It was well away from any place where the guard were on watch duty. That curiosity sent him to see, creeping up with caution toward the half-open door.

  He passed the shut door of Kai’s chamber. Beyond it were two empty rooms, usually occupied by men who were now riding north with the King. That left only the arms room. But why—?

  Artos edged his way along, close to the wall. He could hear a very faint murmur of voices, sounds of men moving about. He reached the place where the door swung out, shielded himself behind it to peer through the crack.

  Modred—there was no mistaking the young man who sat at the table where the armorer kept his supply lists. But beyond him were three men wearing the scale armor of the Companions—young men. Artos knew two of them by name as clansmen who had been recruited a couple of years ago. The third was Argwain, who prided himself on being blood-kin of Modred through one of the complicated clan reckonings.

  Artos could not believe what he saw. They had opened the dragon chest. Its lock was broken—Kai had the keeping of the key. And now they were pulling out the coils of the Red Dragon, folding the banner with more haste than care, to cram into a bag Argwain held ready. Torchlight glinted on Modred’s arm as he changed position. Artos saw his guess proven true. That was a king’s royal arm ring, twin to the one Caesar wore.