The Dragon Book Read Online Free PDF

with straw. There was only one bed, and that small. Her eyes went to the doorway, where half a dozen children hung in the opening, watching her wide-eyed.
    She turned to her sister. “Are your children—”
    “I lost my little girl in the winter. It was hard.”
    “Oh, no. Your husband?”
    “He’s dead,” her sister said. She picked up the knife again, to cut the bread. “Do you want more? We have plenty of food.”
    “But—he didn’t go with us to Dragon’s Deep,” Perla said.
    “He died when Marco took the men up to the highway,” her sister said. She laid the loaf down on the board and hacked off another slab. “That’s how we have lived, Perla, we rob the highway. And, at last, we have enough.”
    Perla gave a shudder, horrified. “Until the Duke comes,” she said, but she remembered that she had heard that he had gone away.
    “Why should we not?” her sister said. “Have we not been everybody else’s prey?” Her eyes glittered. “When the Duke comes, Marco will have a plan. Marco always has a plan.” She thrust out the piece of bread. “He brought me this bread. The men all follow him, and he makes sure all of us widows are fed. Just obey Marco. Everything will come well.”
    Perla took the bread. “I hope you are right.”
    Later, when the men came back, they gathered together in the evening. The men saw her and cheered, and Marco came and hugged her, and she endured also the sweaty hugs of Ercule, and they all shouted her name. “How did you get home? Where have you been?”
    She sat down in the circle to tell them her story. They had built a bright fire, and all their faces shone in the light. She began, “You remember how we set off to the north, to Dragon’s Deep, to fish there. Because the Duke had come and stolen all our food.”
    They murmured, agreeing, and looked at one another. Marco, beside her, leaned forward, a little frown on his face. She fought off the feeling that he was not liking this.
    “And we got there, you remember, and the fish were thick as grass on the meadow, and we hauled in one great catch—”
    “And then the storm came,” Marco said.
    The listeners gave a louder rumble of agreement, and Ercule called out, “One boat after another foundered.”
    Juneo said, “The sky was dark as night, and the lightning flashed—”
    “No,” Perla said, astonished.
    “I made it to the shore,” Grep said. “I don’t know how, and then I saw Marco trying to carry Ercule in, and Juneo hanging to both of them, and went to help them.”
    “No,” Perla said.
    “We don’t want to talk about it anymore,” Marco said, and the other men loudly agreed with him again, and the women gestured and nodded and agreed, and Perla sat there dumb and amazed.
    They sang some songs, which she had known from her babyhood, and she came near tears to hear them. Then someone told the old story about how Pandun had gotten his eye put out, looking through the hole in the bathhouse wall at the women.
    After, she saw Marco to one side, and went to him. He wrapped his muscular arms around her again. “I’m glad you’re back. I was sure you were dead.” He kissed her hair.
    “Marco,” she said, “what is this about a storm?”
    “We were wrecked in a sudden storm,” he said, smiling. “I don’t know how you got through it. I really don’t know how I did.”
    “Marco, there was a dragon.”
    He laughed. “You don’t say. Aren’t you a little addled, maybe, from all that time alone? That must be it.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “There. See? Ercule is watching you. Go to him, he’s missed you too.”
    “I hate Ercule,” she burst out.
    “Well, you’re going to marry him,” said Marco. He was still smiling. Nothing seemed to bother him. She supposed if he had already swallowed the storm story, then he was ready for anything.
    She said, “What about the Duke?”
    “Hah,” he said.
    “My sister told me what you’re doing.”
    His eyebrows jacked up and down.