The Dragon of Handale Read Online Free PDF Page A

reader. “But I’ve only just arrived!”
    “N-no, I mean, in a case you should decide to take a walk in the woods. If the weather improves,” he added.
    “A walk?”
    “It is not safe.”
    She raised her eyebrows to encourage him to continue. He looked uncomfortable and seemed to be finding it difficult to be more forthright.
    Hildegard took pity on him. “I should tell you, sir priest, I am very used to taking care of my own safety.”
    He drew back, a look of alarm on his face. “Not against the beast, ma donna, ” he gasped in a shocked tone. “No- one is safe. A man has been killed. None of us now walk there. The masons have to work outside the precinct walls because of the prioress’s new works, but even they go armed at all times.”
    “Beast?” she frowned. “What sort of beast?” She vaguely recalled the remark concerning a dragon before she left Swyne. “Is it a wild animal of some sort?”
    He shook his head. “Human, we believe, or at least partly human.”
    “Walk with me.” Hildegard put her arm in his, a freedom she would never have taken had she still been wearing her nun’s habit.
    Unresisting, he allowed her to lead him back into the empty cloister, at a distance from the busy domestic offices, close to the warming house, where they were sheltered from the rain by the ribbed vault that ran the length of it. “Now,” she encouraged, “what do you mean by part human?”
    “I may be trusted to speak the truth. Let me assure you of that. I’m a priest from the Abbey of Whitby. My ancestors owned Kilton Castle. I am here to wait on the lawyers to give judgement on our claim to ownership just as my father and his father waited on the law. Until then, I suffer and pray in this hellish place. I tell you this because you will understand that I know the woods of Handale as well as anyone living. It has long been a story told by the ignorant that a dragon has roamed here since the time of the Northmen.” He hesitated.
    “Please continue.”
    “They say the dragon was killed by a hero named Scaur. Until now, I regarded it with all the scepticism of an educated man”—he gave a deprecating smile—“but even I begin to fear there might be truth in the stories. Not the story of a dragon, of course, nor even a wild dog or wolf, but of something evil out there at least. Some monstrous thing with no name.”
    He gave a fearful glance towards the trees spearing above the precinct walls. They were black with rain. Tight-packed, they grew up to the walls themselves, except for the clearing near the main gate, and seemed to draw on the stones for sustenance. For a moment, he seemed in thrall to their menace, but eventually he dragged his glance away. “ Ma donna, you should know that a man has been killed out there.”
    “Long ago?”
    He shook his head. He seemed terrified. Hildegard asked, “So why does this suggest a dragon of some sort? Why not a more familiar danger?”
    He gave her a steady stare. “Because of the nature of the dead man’s wounds.” His hands, she noticed, were trembling, although whether it was with cold or some emotion, she could not tell.
    “The dragon makes its presence known at night with a terrible howling, like nothing you will ever hear again. It turns the blood to ice.” His face twitched. “They say it’s a nun and her devil helpmate from long ago, one who was turned out of the precinct for her sins and was left to die. It was only by means of a pact with the devil she saved herself and was turned into a dragon, and now she roams the woods, looking for human blood on which to gorge.”
    “Why does someone not find her and bring her in?” Hildegard suggested sensibly. “That would be the kindest deed.”
    “Because she is not of human form. They are in terror of meeting her. They say she has lived on human blood for over a hundred years.”
    He lowered his voice. “I am not a free man. I have no choice but to stay here until my family’s inheritance is