A Book Dragon Read online

  She was delighted with the progress of her book. As Brother Theophilus turned over the finished pages, she exclaimed over each detafl. She was properly impressed by the religious scenes that appeared in the first pages: Christ walking on the waves of the Sea of Galilee, with a bemused seagull perched on his

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  shoulder; Job sitting among the ashes, watched by his three friends, a sad-eyed mouse and two black crickets; Lot’s wife just on the point of looking back at the burning Cities of the plain. But she expressed most enthusiasm at the more recent pages with their animals among the vines. “They might be alive!” she marvelled.’ ‘How can you bear to close the pages on them, good brother?”

  ‘ ‘Creatures in my book can live without light and air, my lady,” Brother Theophilus replied, smiling gently. “They come to life again whenever the pages are opened.”

  Lady Blanche also smiled. Then she drew in her breath sharply.’ “There is a dragon hiding here! And here is another!”

  • ‘Very small ones, my lady,” Brother Theophilus replied. He did not look at Nonesuch, The tiny dragon shivered on his lamp, which swung a little, as if in a breeze.

  “Bigger ones would hardly fit on your pages,” Lady Blanche commented. “I have often heard of dragons,” she added thoughtfully, “but never seen one. Perchance they are all only a dream.”

  “I hardly think so, my lady.”

  “In any case, they’ve kept away from us; as have the wars. Perhaps we should be equally thankful for both.” Lady Blanche turned over a couple of loose pages in the cover. On one was a wedding scene, a peasant wedding with the bride and groom marching proudly at the heads of separate proces-sions. She sighed. “My bridegroom still has not come. He may be far away on other business.”

  Lady Blanche’s future bridegroom, whom she had only met a few times, was often away on other business. He was Sir Ambrose, the lord of what had once been Grimsby Castle. He was now of sufficient importance in the great world of human affairs to be considered worthy of an alliance with the

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  ancient but almost bankrupt Hungerford Castle. Lady Blanche had been greatly impressed by the stories of his energy and his rapid rise at the royal court. At their brief meetings in the presence of her parents, she had found her suitor curiously distant, though always polite, and so refined that she almost thought it strange he could do so wen in this rough world. She had been distressed by the look of pain on her father’s face, though she supposed this was because he was soon to lose her, his favorite chfld. All betrothals must be like this, she thought.

  “Other business indeed, my lady,” Brother Theophilus replied.

  Later that day, when he was alone, except for Nonesuch, who had flown down to the table from his lamp to look more closely at the book. Brother Theophihis began to speak of the nature of dragons. Many considered them completely wicked beasts, he said, but not he. If they were, surely God would not have made them so beautiful. He must have a purpose for them.

  In other lands, he said, they were called guardian spirits. They guarded springs, or lakes, or their own treasure. At these words. Nonesuch flew oS the table, circled the room, and perched on a high shelf above Brother Theophilus’s work-table, twitching his tail from side to side. The monk looked at him keenly. “Is it possible that you understand my words?” he asked. “Can it be that I am not only talking to myself, as I do so often?” He looked long at the little dragon. • ‘Well, I will imagine you can understand me,” Brother Theophilus said at last. The bell rang for Vespers. He sighed, closed his book carefully, and locked it in its box.

  CHAPTER VII

  INTO THE BOX

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  S THE DAYS PASSED, NONE- ^ SUCH CONTINUED TO WATCH

  Brother Theophflus at work. The monk was the only scribe in the abbey at present. In other abbeys, whole groups of writers and illustrators worked busily on sacred manus-cripts. Perhaps they knew, or felt, that soon their work would no longer be needed. A few years earlier, Johann Gutenberg had printed his Bible and introduced printing to Europe. In time, books were to become accessible to all, but their loving manufac-ture by hand would cease.

  Brother Theophflus, however, worked on in a tranquil spirit. He was quite satisfied to do his beautiful task as well as he could. He did not mind being alone. “We are a jealous lot,” he told Nonesuch.’ ‘Oth-ers would certainly comment on my work;

  they might say that afl these dragons have no place in the text among the holy words, but only in the margins where more liberty is permitted.”

  While he spoke. Brother Theophflus had been painting yet another dragon. This one was at the top of the page. and to see it more closely without disturbing the painter, Nonesuch left the lamp and flew to the shelf above the side of the table. The new dragon

  was unlike any that Nonesuch had seen, either in the book or in real life. It had a long, flexible body, a round face with long whiskers, and a look of deep wisdom and benevolence.

  “I have seen such a beast in a beautiful scroll that a learned traveller brought from far in the east, from the land of the Emperor of China,” Brother Theophflus said. He went on to speak of other Oriental dragons. People in their lands often worshipped them as gods, who brought storms and sunshine, rain and drought. Perhaps, he smiled, they represented the arbitrary powers of nature, signs from the Almighty to humans that they should never take anything for granted.

  Suddenly he stopped talking. Footsteps sounded outside the door, and in an instant the Abbot entered. Nonesuch, who had not had time to fly away, remained frozen on his shelf.

  ‘ ‘Are you talking to yourself again. Brother Theophflus?” the Abbot asked.’ ‘Recently you seem to be doing so more and more.” The Abbott bent over the table, as far as his ample belly would permit. “Excellent!” he sighed. “Beautiful! How you praise the Creator’s works!” He straightened up. “But what is this?” he cried. “An image of a dragon?” He was looking directly at Nonesuch, who had not stirred a whisker. The Abbot moved as close as he could and leaned forward, pressing his belly against the table. “Offinejade, witheyesof pure gold!” he exclaimed.’ ‘Where could you have found such a statue? I have never seen it before in our Treasury.”

  “It is not really a holy object, Father Abbot,” Brother Theophflus replied.

  ‘ “True,” said the Abbot.’ ‘But it is a very beautiful object, wherever it came from.”

  The bell rang for Lauds then; the two monks departed,

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  and Nonesuch was able to fly back to the heights of the church, where he reported the Abbot’s words to the bat.

  ‘ ‘Yes,” the bat told him. ‘ “The rule of our Order is much less austere than it once was. When St. Benedict founded us, only a few holy objects were permitted. But now we have become much more of the world. Our rooms for noble guests are better-furnished than most of those in the guests’ homes. Not all of the statues in these rooms are of saints, by any means. It wasn’t surprising if the Abbot, who is a tolerant man, thought Brother Theophilus had a statue of a dragon for his own pleasure. You should see some of the pictures on his walls.”

  The bat, who had spoken while hanging upside down, peered keenly at the vault above him. Three black-beetles were crawling up a curved granite rib in a single file. The bat released his hold, turned in the air, flew up swiftly, and cleaned the beetles off the stone. He returned to his perch and hung there, chewing thoughtfully.

  ‘ ‘All the other bats roost in the great cedar of Lebanon in the cloister,” he told Nonesuch at length.’ “They wonder why I choose to stay here in the church. They don’t realize how quiet it is, between services, how good and varied is the diet. Air currents and the light of the rose window seem to attract a particularly tasty land of moth. Then there are the death-watch beetles in the stalls. They’d do even more damage if I weren’t here to keep them under control. After all, it’s my church.”

  The bat began to talk of the church’s history, but had hardly got past its beginnings
as a pagan shrine before he fell asleep again, still hanging upside down.

  In the next few days Nonesuch, who was by no means content to stay inside the church at all times, learned much more about life in the abbey. He perched in the cloister, watching

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  the monks parade solemnly round and round. From a shelf in the well-stocked pantry, he watched them at meals, at the wooden trestles of the refectory, all eating well and silently, except for the monk assigned each day to read to the others. From high in the air, he saw the monks at work in the wheat and oat fields, finally gathering in the harvest. He saw the work of the bakehouse and the brewhouse, the saddlery and the cobbler’s shop.

  A few of the monks commented on the strange green bird that had appeared recently. Only old Brother Angelicus, who waved pigeons away from the herb gardens, blinked his milky-blue eyes and remarked,’ ‘We have a dragon among us.” The other monks smiled kindly at him. Thereafter, even those who had wondered at the shape of the green bird said nothing about it, for fear of being thought as witless as Brother Angelicus.

  You may think that such a life would be too quiet, too dull for a dragon, however small. Nonesuch did not find it so. He made himself the protector of the grounds. Several rabbits, who had grown fat on the abbey’s excellent green beans, carrots, and celery, found their quiet feeding disturbed by what they took to be an obnoxious insect. Finally they went back to scavenging in the gardens of the peasants, who, however, were much more vigilant than the monks. The Abbot’s pet poodle became more sober, kept to the gravel paths, and completely abandoned his favorite game of scratching up the radish beds. Nonesuch even tried to keep the wasps away from the juicy pears, just ripening now on the north wall. There were so many of these determined insects that his raids on them made little difference. Still, the monks remarked to each other that the wasps were especially restive this year, and more apt to take ofiense.

  Nonesuch saw people other than monks on his rounds. In

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  the past, the abbey had been able to supply all the skilled workers it needed from its own ranks, but no longer. A small group of weavers from a nearby village now furnished them with cloth. A tailor had set up shop almost in the shadow of the walls, for the abbey and its guests, who often needed their clothes mended.

  A skilled mason had been employed to repair one of the outer walls of the cloister. With his wife and two sons, he lived in a caravan beside the village inn, a stone’s throw from the abbey walls. The mason, known as Supple Will, was also a clever juggler who sometimes performed for the inn’s guests. Nonesuch saw him before a small crowd by a bonfire one evening, maintaining an ellipse of three golden rings in the air. The little dragon flew through the smoke, sniffed at one of the rings at the apex of its flight, immediately realized that it was only gilded tin, and flew on to perch on a branch.

  ‘ “There is a dragon!” a young voice cried. Nonesuch looked down and saw a boy staring up eagerly through the flames.

  “Ha! More of your fancies, Simon!” The speaker was a broad young man in red trousers that bulged and shone in the firelight. “Father’s foolish tricks must have made your mind wander too.” He gestured at the juggler’s flying golden rings, then added in a sour voice, “He’s more interested in the look of his precious toys than in the money they bring.”

  “That’s likely true, Hubert,” the juggler said cheerfully, adding another ring to those in the air and catching yet another on his forehead, where it shone like a diadem. The onlookers applauded and tossed some coins on the ground. The juggler bowed, skilfully kicked the coins up into the air and caught them in his hands without interrupting the flight of the shining rings.

  The broad young man sniffed and said, “Maybe you’ll ask the dragon to guard your gold. Father.”

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  “I’d be grateful to him, Hubert,” the juggler answered mildly, catching his rings one by one and dropping them in his pouch. ‘ “Though he wouldn’t find it a hard task.”

  Hubert snorted. “Dragon, indeed! There are no dragons here now that Sir Ambrose is keeping order. They’d be afraid to come.”

  ‘ ‘He brings monsters of his own,” the juggler said, but so low that only Nonesuch heard him.

  Although he realized that the juggler was a poor man, Nonesuch felt an unaccountable interest in him and his family. He found a comer of the wan, choked with vines, where he could hide and watch the juggler at work. Supple Will fitted the stones together carefully, breaking off small pieces to fill in the gaps, applying the mortar with patient skill. His young son, Simon, worked with him, seriously learning a mason’s craft. Sometimes, as Nonesuch watched them through the vines, he saw the boy’s eyes looking in his direction.

  Whenever his father could spare him, Simon walked in the cloister. He stared hungrily at the faces and the strange beasts carved on the columns. The boy had found a stone-carver’s chisel somewhere, and a crude mallet. He cut away at scraps of stone, forming them into shapes that so far only he understood. His father watched him closely. When Simon carved a sinuous shape just emerging from the stone in each of three squared blocks that were to crown the wall, he remarked, ‘ ‘It seems as if there were dragons rising out of the stone, my son. But if we put them on the wall, they will soon be covered with vines.”

  “That’s how they should be. Father,” Simon replied.

  The juggler shook his head thoughtfully. The same day, he set the three stones in a row atop the wall. Later, he spoke to one of the stone-cutters who was repairing frost damage to a cornice on the south side of the church. He volunteered to set

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  up scaffolding for him if, at the same time, his younger son could work with him as an apprentice.

  Hubert, the older son, sometimes gave his father a hand;

  but when the work became heavy, he explained that he could not help them further. He always wore’his finest clothes, which he should certainly not make dirty with sweat and mortar: he had to make a good impression on prospective employers.

  As the bat had remarked, the abbey was by no means separated from the world. It contained several rooms where travelling nobles and wealthy men might stay a night or a week. Hubert thought that one of these should be willing to employ a clever young fellow like himself, who would not scruple to take on any kind of work. He stole his mother’s pies to bribe the stewards of passing lords. He opened the gates of peasants’ pig-pens so that the lords’ soldiers could dine well round their night fires. He always carried a flagon of wine to grease the gullet of any likely serving-man. So far, he had received plenty of praise and encouragement, but nothing more definite.

  Then, one day after Hubert watched his father and Simon work on the wall for a full hour, he informed them, smiling in a superior fashion, that he was virtually certain of a position in Sir Ambrose’s personal guard. Sir Ambrose himself was now visiting Hungerford Castle on business connected with his betrothal: some minor detail of the contract that needed to be set right. Sir Ambrose was attentive to the smallest detail, Hubert said proudly. More than this, his personal secretary had passed the night only steps away, in one of the guest rooms of Oddfields Abbey. The secretary pretended he had done this to give less trouble at the castle where his lord was lodging; but really, Hubert said with a wink, it was to keep an eye on the surroundings, to learn as much as possible of the

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  sentiment of the local people. Sir Ambrose was well aware that knowledge was power. He had learned that men visiting a monastery spoke even more freely among themselves and to the monks than they would do in a tavern. The secretary, a subtle, smiling man, who turned every word into a joke, knew how to inspire confidences and to collect information that his master might use.

  Nonesuch got a good look at Sir Ambrose’s secretary when he came, as if by chance, to visit the Scriptorium. He looked at the book that Brother Theophilus was making, the book that one day would become his master’s property through Lady Blanche. He spoke pious, appreciative word
s, all the while stroking his short beard; his eyes shone gaily on the pages as if counting up their worth. Then he went away to leave an offering in the poor box of the church, leaving behind also a whiff of the perfume with which his beard was scented.

  Brother Theophilus had spoken little during his visit; this was quite different from his usual enthusiasm when others came to see his book. He remained silent for a long time afterwards. Then he took up his brushes and drew the figure of a man, a neat, cold figure, richly but quietly dressed, standing in the middle of a small grove of trees. Brother Theophilus spent much time on this figure and on its surroundings. Finally there was, beside the man himself, a number of humble small forest creatures: a squirrel on a branch who seemed to be holding himself especially still lest the man see him. There was also a rabbit trembling beneath a bush; there was an owl in the air, who did not seem to be in flight, as were all the other birds Brother Theophilus had drawn. No, this owl hovered as if frozen in place, as if he were happy to remain forever out of the sight of the quiet, well-dressed man in the center of the grove: a man who looked around him as though whatever his eye fell on became his: the trees, the grass, the sky - and even

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  the words on the page outside the forest grove. Indeed, the viewer felt that if the quiet man raised his head he would look out of the page, around the room, or through the window into te the sky, and possess all of it.