Land of the Silver Dragon Read Online Free PDF Page A

slightly sheepish. It was as if only now, as the echo of his words faded away, did he realize how loudly he had spoken. ‘We’ve only got what everyone else like us has, and yet two of my daughters’ dwellings, and now our own family home, have been searched as roughly and as thoroughly as if we possessed the riches of King William himself.’
    Nobody spoke for a moment. Then Zarina, newest member of our family, cleared her throat. Quietly and, I thought, tentatively, she said, ‘You do have treasure, Father.’ I love the way she calls her father-in-law
father
. She once told me her story, and it was very sad; her own father had been a terrible man, and I’m glad she has found a better one. Her eyes going from my father to my mother and back, she whispered, ‘You’ve got a house full of love. That’s the best treasure of all, believe me.’
    My father looked embarrassed for a moment, then reached for Zarina’s hand, giving it a quick squeeze.
    Squeak gave a noise that sounded like someone trying not to be sick. Haward leaned over and lightly cuffed him.
    Then, of all people, little Leir spoke up. ‘We’ve got Lassair’s stories,’ he said. ‘I like Lassair’s stories.’ He grinned up at me, his sweet face still round and babyish. He’s growing tall, and sometimes I forget he’s only six.
    My mother grabbed her baby boy and settled him on her lap. ‘Lassair’s tales, eh, Leir?’ He nodded solemnly. ‘You reckon they’re a treasure?’
    Leir nodded again. ‘They’re our family treasure,’ he said.
    It was a lovely thing to say. Had he not looked so comfortable on our mother’s capacious lap, I’d have grabbed him and given him a hug.
    Squeak, further disgusted by all the sentiment flying around, made another being-sick noise and muttered, ‘I’d rather have a sword.’
    Squeak is thirteen. From both his own and everyone else’s viewpoint, it’s a ghastly age for a boy.
    I had hoped that, since our house had now received the attentions of the giant intruder and presumably he’d finished with us, I might be allowed to return to Edild’s. I remarked in an offhand way, over breakfast in the morning, that I’d probably stay with my aunt that night, hoping my father would just say
all right, then
.
    He didn’t. He stopped eating, fixed me with a penetrating stare and said, ‘One more night with us, Lassair.’
    I was about to protest, but then his expression softened and he added, ‘Please?’
    I’ve always found it very hard to disobey my father, especially when I know that to do so would mean hurting or disappointing him. Meekly I nodded. ‘Very well.’
    Â 
    Edild and I had a hectic morning. Spring might be on its way, but nobody had told the elements, and the raw day was one of misty rain blown on a spiteful easterly wind. By midday we had treated so many people for the usual phlegmy cough that afflicts fenland people – it’s the perpetual damp that causes it – that we had run out of Edild’s expectorant medicine. I knew then how I would be spending the remainder of the day: in assembling all the ingredients and preparing them so that Edild could work her magic on them and turn them into a healing elixir.
    On the shelves where we store our ingredients I found most of what I needed. We were having to rely on dried herbs, which in the main lack the potency of fresh-picked plants. Nothing much was growing yet; another reason why we were all longing for spring.
    One element was missing. Recently Edild had passed on to me an unlikely piece of medicinal lore, which she herself had been taught by a very old woman who claimed she was from Viking stock. In the far north, the old woman said, the people used a special lichen to treat chest ailments; a lichen that was the food of a deer that lived in the snowy wastes where little else grew.