Chapter 26
Frigermar had been very happy to bring along
volunteers to help dismember a dragon; a once in a lifetime experience, and
working under the direction of a couple of dragon experts I had hired to show
us what to do.
Harmana and Castovar were interested, even if Ascyla
was less so. I told her, ‘No experience is ever wasted.’
It was sententious, and I knew it, as her expression
told me.
I was paying the experts in a number of parts of the
dragon, and told the students that they might each have a couple of scales, or
a smaller tooth.
Harmana dragged one bigger boy to me; she had a black
eye and a thick lip. He had a busted nose.
“He was being greedy,” said Harmana, and spilled out
what the youth had helped himself to. As this included an eyeball, which was
one of the most costly parts of any dragon, I was not best pleased, and I had
to put it hastily under a new preservation spell, since he had not
harvested it with the proper care.
I asked Frigermar to escort him back through the
temporary gate to the school, without anything to show for his efforts
save a discipline hanging over his head, and smelly hands.
“I suppose there’s always one,” sighed Frigermar.
“I was going to offer more to those who worked most
diligently,” I said. “But greed must be nipped in the bud.”
I intended some of the wing leather to go to making a
war tent for Beretrulle; it would be resistant to spellfire, and have some
protection against missiles as well. Not
to mention carrying bragging rights with it. The wing bones would make strong,
light poles for it. The rest would make my little family good boots and cloaks.
I planned to hang on to that whilst their feet grew; they were all eleven years
old, and growing like weeds. But I would use some small offcuts to make a tiny
pair of boots for Elizelle, who was just starting to walk. And that would be a
tiny, precious keepsake of when she was small.
What? I can be sentimental, at times.
I made my apprentices draw the internal organ layout
as well; and the more sensible of the students from the academy copied this
activity. They would be unlikely to have another opportunity of studying a
dragon up close, dragons aren’t so common that you fall over them every day,
even in the wilds. The teachers of
creature lore were keen to look it over as well, and that was fine by me. It
was a minor school of magic, wrongly, in my estimation, but most wizardly interest
in magical fauna lies in what you can use them for in potions and alchemy. The wizards with a pure interest in creatures
are few and far between, largely because they fall into three categories. Beast
hunters; who tend to end up dead; those who try to communicate with magic
beasts, who tend to end up dead, only quicker; and the purely academic, who
tend only to have theoretical contact with any magical creature bigger than a
blink-mouse.
It took us three days to get the dragon rendered into
movable pieces. I cheated with the hide and used tanning spells. Yes, you can
use spells with innately magical hide, you just have to be careful which ones
you use. Which is to say, you can speed up the process and use transfigured
alum – not conjured, that won’t work – and other salts, and spreading spells to
distribute the brain matter across all the hide. Dragon brains, like deer
brains are good for tanning their own hide. I found that in one of Florisin’s
old treatises as well.
I had already sent a message to King Thorogar,
requesting a sky ship to call at the Tower for a gift I wished to send, and we
took all the meat through the temporary gate I had set up, in order to
shift it. Once through, the dwarves cheerfully loaded it, using cranes and
nets. I had a couple of parcels for Alvarek and for Thebroval; and another to
go to the capital to Sigeralv, but the greater part I sent to the king to be
eaten by him or to be in his gift, as he saw fit. I gave some to the crew as
well, as thanks for coming to the tower; they left, squabbling over the best
way to eat dragon meat. Slow cooked in one of a selection of spiced liquors
seemed to be winning. Dwarves are gourmets; it’s just that their tastes are not
necessarily the same as human tastes.
The quick side-trip to the capital left Sigeralv a
very happy dwarf, and he was muttering about browned steaks with a mushroom and
pepper sauce. I have mentioned, I believe, that some dwarven mushrooms do not
fill me with joy, but it was Sigeralv’s meat to do with as he pleased.
I knew better than to send hide for armour to Alvarek;
it would be an insult for him to wear the hide of a creature in which he had
not taken part in the kill.
Gods! I hoped he would not invite me on a dragon hunt
as a little light entertainment next time we were there!
I must avoid the Dwarven lands in early spring, which
is dragon-hunting season, when they emerge from winter hibernation. Yes, I’ve read dwarven tales of dragon hunts.
There’s a humorous drinking song which doesn’t readily translate about a
hapless drunken and short-sighted dwarf who accidentally kills a dragon by
having walked off a mountain ledge onto the top of its head, and hung on to the
horns, and finally maddened it enough with his antics that it flew head first
into a cliff face. There are many tongue-twisting verses about what happened,
which rarely survive unmangled after about five verses, as it is custom to
drink a goblet of mead between each verse.
I might have one of the horns made into a set of
goblets; sometimes the medium is the message.
Meanwhile, with everything preserved, I could take my
time deciding whether to use or sell what I had.
Next was the hoard. Chessina had already set up a gate
to that to continue her sorting. I flew the royal assayer up on the rug, in the
regular way, to work out how the division of spoils should be made.
He was an acidulated-looking little man, named Crodon,
who was surprisingly garrulous.
“I haven’t seen an actual dragon hoard since I was a
boy,” he said, rubbing his thin hands together.
“I was the junior assayer then, just learning the ropes, as you might
say. Now, as I understand it, there’s
plenty of room for negotiation; the king’s coffers are interested in coin, and
I have to trust you to put a fair value on anything magical in terms of
comparative coin value as I assume you will be interested in that?”
“Yes,” I said. “Also, I am interested in the
numismatologic value of old coins.”
“Oh, don’t let me interfere with you doing well out of
that, it’s the weight I have to care about,” he said. “Personally, I’d be
fascinated to see the old coins, but nobody in the Treasury or the Ducal
Treasury will bother to sort them. A shame, but there you are. You’ll be using
the coins as part of your history lessons to your apprentices, no doubt?”
“Yes, I thought it would make former kings live more
for them, if they could see and handle coins with his visage,” I said.
“Occasionally, quite old coins emerge in Fair Pastures, but usually no more
than a couple of hundred years old. When
someone digs up a poke buried by an ancestor, usually. Harmon used to buy them
from them, and I’ve followed his custom.”
“An admirable
idea,” said Crodon. “I might be in the
market for some of your sets when you have them sorted out.”
“I’ll bear you in mind,” I said.
“I might be able to find you some other buyers, too,”
he said.
“Then, I shall make sure I give you a favourable
price,” I said.
He beamed.
“I hoped you might,” he said.
I suspected I might be the only coin collector to have
anything close to a complete collection of coin back to Adalgrim the first by
the time we were done. And I planned to hold on to my own collection, and keep
it complete. It did make history come alive, after all; the children had been
fascinated that the silver moon was introduced in the reign of King Beregrim
the third, to replace a golden coin called the dragon, which had also been
worth five Pieces like the moon. The gold dragon had been minted smaller in the
reign of Beregrim the second, because of a scarcity of gold, and the expense of
the wars of Beregrim the first, who was expansionistic and an idiot. The moon
had been unpopular at first, not being considered good coin, but it was
eventually accepted. Copper coinage was introduced during the famine years
under Abrasind the first and only; it was considered an unlucky name because of
the paucity of grain during his reign, which wasn’t the poor fellow’s fault,
but, according to the lore of the Tower, caused by the eruption of a couple of
large volcanoes which led to some very poor harvests for a number of years.
Because of the dust in the atmosphere, blocking out the sun, obviously. But the
superstitious peasants saw it as the disfavour of the gods, and as such,
Abrasind’s heir, who was named Abragrim, changed his name to Adalgrim, and
reigned as Aldalgrim the fifth.
Surely you learned all this in your formal lessons?
Unless they left out the bit about the volcanoes, which is important. Never
underestimate the power of nature; even Silvana doesn’t interfere in things
like that.
Crodon was delighted, when we alighted, and he saw my
wife’s industry.
“Oh, this makes my life much easier,” he said. “I
won’t quibble over exact coin weights, that looks as though you have sorted it
well into even piles. What sort of magic do you have?”
“Mostly minor rings,” said Chessina. “A couple of
amulets to resist fire, presumably worn in the vain hope of avoiding becoming
crispy dragon fodder, half a dozen rings of such things as stealth, resistance
to cold, rain shield projection, and so on; mostly second-year academy crafting
level, I’d say. One sword of sharpness which I thought should go on
Beretrulle’s share, some armour which is more fit for a museum than for
wearing, and the enchantments have mostly worn off. As to items, I thought we
might trade the magic for the candlesticks and gilded helmet.”
“That sounds….” He tailed off.
“Preposterous? Nauseatingly posturing?” suggested
Chessina.
“Yes,” said Crodon.
“We met one of those, heading for the marches,” I
said. “I suspect if the wilds don’t get him, he’ll find an arrow in his back
from taking his men into undue danger.”
“Unfortunately, there are a few of that kind about,”
said Crodon. “Well, well! This all
appears to be in order; let me sign this, and if you, and Lady Beretrulle and
Lady Chessina all countersign it, I have stones to open gates to the
requisite palaces, for guards to take… dear me, it will take quite a while to
shift it all.”
It did. He
brought guards back to bag and box up the various piles, and the respective
guards of the king’s treasury, and Ogier’s treasury, were tramping back and
forth through the gates for a good three hours.
Chessina set a fire, and cooked for Beretrulle,
Crodon, and ourselves. Crodon seemed to really appreciate the courtesy; and
having a conjured sofa to sit on and eat.
Beretrulle would have her share taken to Ogier’s
castle as well, as she was now his betrothed bride. It was quite a dowry.
I hoped they would like the dragonskin war tent as a
wedding gift!
Then we must take our shares.
We cheated, and used invisible servants who
could not lift much, but they could drag little conjured carts with the
contents made featherlight. The gate negated the spell, and came out
just down the hill so that heading up the hill cancelled out the momentum.
Precise planning prevents poor performance, as Harmon was wont to say.
And Crodon was not interested at all in any
traveller’s packs, unless they contained coin or valuables. So, we took those
back to the Tower as well, to go through at our leisure, moving them into the
library with its own preservation charms, so they would not crumble after the
long preservation caused by the presence of the dragon.
I wanted to experiment, with that in mind, in making
dragonskin-lined bags for carrying food in.
After all, we had four tons of dragonskin to play
with.
And some of the bundles had held books….
We were very good, and sorted out putting the coins in
a vault before going to look at books, scrolls, and so on.
I grimaced in disgust as I emptied one pack; the
clothes were of the young scholar about town of some hundred years ago, and all
his books and scrolls were on demonology. He’d nicked one from the library of
one of the schools popular at the time, judging by the flyleaf. Well, his career in demonology had, at least,
been cut a little short.
We retrieved a spell book, several scrolls – three
spells and a recipe for cooking dragon – and a treatise on dragons, mostly
inaccurate. I noted this on the flyleaf and had the Tower file it in fiction.
The pictures were quite entertaining.
I don’t suppose you are surprised to discover that one
of the… volumes… we came upon was a rather dog-eared book of indifferent smutty
pictures.
Chessina examined one of them.
“Is this physically possible without acrobats, a charm
spell, and a lot of lubricant?” she asked.
“I’m not trying it to find out,” I said. “The children
should not see this! Burn it!”
“Don’t be a prude, Castamir,” said Chessina. “The
artist of these was quite famous… or perhaps, notorious would be a better word…
and his works were publicly burned in the square in Adalsburg. I can probably make a small fortune on these,
and I need to consult an antiquarian book seller to see if it’s worth
auctioning it as a whole book, or breaking up to sell the prints.” She whirled
off with it, leaving me wondering what sort of antiquarian book seller she
knew, and whether it was he who was antiquated, or just the books he sold.
I almost threw out the slightly wrinkled apple in the
pack with clothing from some four hundred years ago; then I asked the Tower,
‘Tower, information on the Rosy West Apple.’ The Tower obliged, and I read what
I thought I had recalled.
“The Rosy West Apple was a famed self-setting
apple, delicious as a sweet dessert apple and retaining its delicate fragrant
flavour when dried. It was also prized
as a cider apple, and was considered a profitable export both as an apple and
as cider. Every tree known died in the long cold of the reign of Abrasind the
Unlucky.”
The problem with apples is that the seeds rarely breed
true. It was a self-setter, so we might be lucky; or we might not.
Chessina returned at that moment.
“I left it with him to ask around,” she said. “Yuk, an
old bit of lunch… no?” as I snatched the apple back before she could throw it
away. I showed her the passage in the book.
She frowned.
“We could breed scions back,” she said. “And I’ll ask
Silavara if we can persuade the stalk to root and leaf and go from there. Leave
it with me; if it’s possible, we’ll be growing Rosy Wests here in the north.”
“The soil will affect the flavour, too,” I said.
“I know that,” said Chessina. “I’ll get some dirt from
the Marches to get them going, and we’ll see how it goes. This will be fun.”
And for her, it would, bless her.
I don’t have the patience for long-growing things.
But then, I haven’t been starved of green growing
things by years in the abyss.
