Dragon! Book One: Stealing the egg

CHAPTER THREE

Fields plowed and other chores completed, Gareth had left Odd’s farm waited for Faring under the shade of a sour apple tree in the late afternoon. The tree grew within sight of the village tannery, a spot where his friend was sure to appear sooner or later because it was on the path to Faring’s home. He sprawled on the late summer grass and nibbled an apple, tongue tingling with numbness from the sour juice. He ate several more, knowing too many would make his stomach ache, but also knowing the last fruit of the season was hanging on the tree. Hands clasped behind his head, he laid back and kept watch on the tannery fat the bottom of the hill for Faring, ignoring the putrid smells emanating from the place.

The warm afternoon and soft breezes worked their magic, and he drifted off to sleep, not waking until he heard harsh voices a dozen paces away. His eyes opened to find three of the workers from the tannery approaching, along with Faring’s Da, who wore an irritated expression.

Leading the way strode Bindle, a mean, cantankerous old man who feinted a kick in Gareth’s direction, before flashing a yellow-toothed grin devoid of humor. The second man, called Jessel, was Bindle’s best friend. The two seldom went anywhere alone. Jessel had beaten Gareth a dozen times in years past, usually for the pure pleasure of doing so, and to the taunts of Bindle. Two summers earlier Gareth had finally grown large enough to repay Jessel with a beating neither of them would forget. Therefore, his dislike of Gareth remained obvious.

Jessel snarled, “How’s it we work all day and you lay around and sleep the afternoon away, but you look as well-fed as us?”

Gareth continued to lay in the grass as he feigned a smile, determined to appear friendly and agreeable. “You’re right. I am both fatter, and better looking than you.”

“I say you’re just a lazy ass, sleeping away the day when you should be working like honest men.”

“Jessel, a man has got to have his beauty sleep if he expects to have all the pretties chasin’ him,” Gareth smiled, watching the man ball fists from the corner of his eye. Gareth didn’t react, other than to close his eyes again. He’s too scared to fight me these days, but he still lets his mouth take control.

Seth, the third man, the one who hadn’t spoken yet, chuckled at Gareth’s answer. “Two or three coppers in your pocket and nothing to spend them on will help you with the pretties, too.” His voice held none of the venom of the others, and he always treated Gareth fairly, even acted friendly at times.

Faring’s Da had said nothing during the verbal exchanges, but the dislike in the glare he cast in Gareth’s direction said it all. He didn’t like strangers, and he didn’t like Gareth showing up in the village at age five looking different and acting different. He had never approved of Gareth or offered friendship.

Gareth listened to the footsteps of the men crunch on the dry ground while they walked away, as he’d known they would. It was all predictable. He didn’t even smile at his small victory.

When they were out of hearing, Gareth opened his eyes and stretched, then climbed to his feet in time to see Faring trudging up the hill in his direction. Faring’s face lit up when he saw Gareth, his toothy grin appearing as it always did. “Waiting for me, are you?”

Gareth nodded, “That, and sharing a few pleasant words with your Da and the other good men he works with.”

“You be careful of Bindle. His mean streak is showing more each day. Workin’ at the tannery sometimes does that to a man. Cow dumps are better smelling than the stinking hides we suffer with all day, and a leaky roof at night is my reward. Is Odd looking for another hand on his farm? I’m ready to move on where I don’t have to work so hard.”

“Things not going well?” Gareth asked, sensing concern in Faring’s tone.

“These days the price of leather hardly covers the cost of buying the skins and working them. Da says we can’t keep on like this.”

“But the tannery’s the biggest business in the village.”

“No more, if things don’t change.”

Gareth took a few moments to consider Faring’s words. Most people in the village earned money from the tannery in one fashion or another. All benefited. The implications scared him. “Does your roof really leak?”

“No. A little water seeps down one wall when it rains, is all.” He punched Gareth on the shoulder, “Come on, I wasn’t trying to make you sorry for me with my hard luck story.”

“If it makes you feel better, the roof on my hut leaks in a dozen places. I forget to fix it when the sun is out.”

“Sounds like you.” Faring plucked an apple from a low hanging branch, examined it, and tossed it aside as if he found a worm hole. He selected one hanging on a lower branch and took a bite that consumed almost half the apple. Between chewing he turned to Gareth, he said, “Did you come here to complain about a little water now and then?”

“No.” Gareth paused, then decided to plunge in and ask his questions. “Some new teachers came to speak with me today. They talked about us hunting the dragon egg. Who did you tell about us going up there to the mountain?”

“Tell? Me? I said nothing to anyone. My Da would put a strap on my butt if he knew.”

“Yet, they knew about it.”

Faring reached for another apple, his third. He sat in the soft grass and looked up at Gareth. “They know everything. At least, they like to act like it.”

Gareth sat down, facing him. “Three sour apples will make you sick. And teachers do not know everything. Today they ordered me to stop hunting for an egg. I asked them to pay me for not hunting dragon eggs.”

“You mean they’ll pay you for hunting an egg?”

“No, I asked them to pay me for not hunting or gathering dragon eggs. They said it was too dangerous, so I asked them for payment if I stay away from the nest.”

“Pay you for doing nothing? That’s crazy talk. I didn’t want to hunt any of those eggs anyhow, so they should pay me too,” Faring said, anger clear in his voice. “But, for you, they pull you away from your farm work and spend whole days teaching your dull mind subjects you don’t need to know. They make a special trip to talk to you up here in the upper end of the valley where nobody lives, and where the dragon lives. Then, they decide to pay you for not going egg hunting.”

“I wasn’t trying to upset you, Faring. Besides, they haven’t decided to pay me, or not.”

“If they do pay you for not goin’ after eggs, you should share half of it with me.”

Gareth looked off into the distance, allowing his thoughts to simmer. Finally, he continued, “Why do they only talk to me? Only teach me? Have you ever heard about them talking or teaching anyone else?”

“No. They always watch you, too.”

“Really?” Gareth paused. This was a subject neither had discussed. For his part, Gareth saw the teachers much as he saw the workers at the tannery, the local farmers, and those who worked at the inn. Dun Mare was a small village, and he saw everyone, sooner or later--usually sooner. The teachers were like the people he’d see daily in his life, and he accepted them as he had the trees, hills, and mountains beyond. They were ever-present, and he’d grown accustomed to them. Faring suggested a path he’d never wandered. “They watch me? How? Different from everyone else?”

Faring nodded and said between chewing, “Since you came to Dun Mare when you were little, they watch you all the time. I’ve never seen a teacher about unless you’re near, and nobody had ever seen one of them before you came along. At least, that’s what elders in the village say.”

“Like they’re connected to me?”

“Listen, all I can say is if I see one of them green robes skulking about, I know you can’t be far off. Chances are, there’s one or two near us right now.”

Gareth glanced around but didn’t see any. But, Faring’s words held the ring of truth. He took a few heartbeats to think back. “A long time ago, when I slipped and fell into Dead Horse Pond and almost drowned, a teacher rushed out of nowhere, jumped in and rescued me.”

“See?” Faring said. “That’s what I’m sayin’. They’re always about when you are.”

“I remember that day clearly. I thought I was alone, and he showed up. Like magic.”

“Remember when you hurt your leg on the path to the high orchards a few winters ago? You couldn’t walk, and the night was coming on, fast. You’d have frozen up there.”

“Except a teacher came along and helped me limp back to Odd’s farm,” Gareth said, almost in wonderment. “I guess I’ve been so used to them being around over the years I never spent the time to think about them, instead of just the lessons.”

Faring tossed the apple core. “You’re supposed to be so smart, but everyone else in the village knows about it.”

“So you think they’re more than teachers? You think they’re here to protect me?”

“Seems so.”

Gareth considered. It made sense. There were others things, too. It had been the teachers who worked out the deal with Odd that provided work on the farm and the hut he lived in. Also, there were the “gifts” he sometimes found at his door. Meat or vegetables. Sometimes fruit, and a maybe even a new shirt if he needed one because of acid holes from dragon spit on the old one. All of these things had been a part of his life for as long as he could remember, and he had accepted them as normal, but they were not. At least, not normal for others. Just him.

Faring waited, watching his friend think.

Gareth finally said, “Everyone sees things I don’t. Makes me feel stupid.”

“Fact is, sometimes you are stupid. Like right now. You’re asking yourself all the wrong questions.”

Leaning closer, Gareth said, “What would you ask?”

“I would ask the ‘whys.' That’s what’s really important. Why are they here? Why do they watch you? Why are you so important that teachers come all the way from down-valley to teach you, and why are there probably ten of them here in Dun Mare to watch you all the time? That’s a lot of whys.”

Abruptly, Gareth stood. “I want to see something in the tannery.”

“You’ve been in there a hundred times, and don’t like the smell of it.”

Gareth held out a hand to help the younger boy stand. “Get off your lazy butt and lead the way. This is important.”

Faring stood, but hesitated. “It’s about that dragon egg again, isn’t it? You hate the stink down there in the tannery, so what other reason is there to go?”

They walked together, down the well-used path at the edge of the forest and to the unlocked tannery door. The stench increased with each step, but neither commented on it. Once inside the dim interior of the large stone building, Gareth said, “Show me the acid you use to eat the hair off skins, and makes them soft.”

“In the back.” Faring led the way and pointed outside to stone-lined vats containing thick, dark liquids emitting foul smells, surrounded by hundreds of hairless hides hung to dry in the sun on wood racks and stretcher frames. Some were bare skin on both sides while others still held fur. Faring waved an arm. “The hides with hair on them soak in a mixture of water and ash, then we scrape them clean and stretch them in the sun. The bare leather has been soaked in acid to get the last of the hair off, or to soften it.”

Gareth took it all in, recognizing horse, cow, sheep, and the skins of other small wild animals trapped in the area on the stretchers. The skins turned his stomach at the death they represented. No matter how hard Odd made him work on the farm, it was a better to grow plants and raise animals than this place of death. He pointed. “After you soak those skins, and the acid softens them, how do you stop the process? I mean, the acid would eat away the whole skin if you did nothing, right?”

Faring pointed to other vats set in neat rows, each large enough for three or four people to bathe at the same time if they held water.

“What’s in them?” Gareth said.

“The first vat in each row is called blue acid. The next has a kind of soda water mixture, usually with ash. The next vat’s a milder acid to soften skins further. Then more soda and water and, of course, a few other things depending on what kind of skin. We just pour the right jars in the right vat with the skins. They clean and soften the hides so the leather doesn’t get too hard and stiff while drying.”

“How do you know what goes into which vat? I mean there’s a system, right?”

Faring pointed to splashes of color painted on the stone sides of each vat, then to clay jars neatly lined up on racks standing alongside the building. Each jar had a splash of color matching one on the vats. Some red, some blue, or green, and others brown. Each jar was large enough to weigh as much as a small boy.

Gareth walked the few steps to the first vat, one with a blue slash of color, and nearly gagged from the putrid stench. “If I place my finger in there, what happens?”

“It burns like hell while the acid eats your flesh off the bone.”

“If I put my finger in there and then quickly move it into the next vat?”

Faring drew a deep breath, obviously understanding where the questions were going. “If your finger’s already hurting from the acid, it’ll still hurt. Soda in the next vat won’t heal nothin’. But, if you get acid on you and splash on some water mixed with soda fast enough, nothing happens. Probably.”

“Probably?” Gareth reached for a stoneware ladle and carefully scooped some acid, then he peered closely at it. The mixture moved like thick cream. He glanced at his friend and gave him a reassuring smile. Gareth knelt and poured a measure on the flat surface of a dry pave stone. He watched. There was no visible reaction. No hiss or smoke. He looked at the second vat.

“Don’t do it,” advised Faring.

Gareth emptied the remainder of the ladle back into the vat containing acid, then moved to the second vat, the one that stilled the action of the acid according to Faring. He ladled another measure and poured the soda mix onto the same pave stone, covering the acid and stirred the two. There was a hint of steam and a slight hiss. A few small bubbles formed, then nothing. He placed his finger near the acid and looked at Faring.

“It shouldn’t hurt you, Gareth. But who knows?”

Gareth dipped his index finger and moved to the vat of soda water in one motion. He held his finger above the surface, waiting for the first hint of pain, or, at least, the heated tingling he’d felt at the base of the dragon’s nest when he’d touched the dragon spit.

Nothing happened.

“Fool,” whispered Faring.

Both waited.

Gareth examined his finger. No redness. No pain.

“That’s just part of the problem solved,” Faring said. “There’s still a mother dragon who’s goin’ to eat you. No amount of gold’s worth that.”

“I wonder what your Da will say about that if you hand him enough silver and gold to keep his tannery open.”

Faring touched the wetness on the pave stone with his index finger to test it himself, and shrugged.

Gareth said, “We still need to know more about the teachers. When and why they follow me, but I don’t think they’re going to tell me if I ask I’ve been thinking about what you said. The teachers seem to follow me everywhere. Let’s change things up. How about you follow them? See where they go and what they do.”

“Why follow them? I might as well just follow you, and make it easier on all of us.”

“Listen to me, Faring. I doubt if they’ll watch to see if they’re followed because they’re too keen doing the following, themselves. I want you to find how many of them are around me at different times of the day. Are they always there? Are there times when I can sneak off without them? If they followed us all the way to the nest, we need to change our plans, or they might try to prevent me from going, again.”

“You think they allowed you go to the nest the first time. Why did we get away with it?” Faring said.

“We took them by surprise. By the time they figured out where we were going, we were already there, and the dragon flying overhead must have kept them standing still to avoid being seen by it while we went higher to the nest. They’ll make sure it doesn't happen again.”

“If too many of the teachers are following you, you’ll have to quit this crazy egg stealing idea, I’m thinking. So, I’ll do it.”

“Deal,” Gareth grinned and spit in his palm to shake on it.