frequently looking back. 'Real pretty blade there.'
'I had it from my father.' If his hearers believed that, Mark expected them to draw the wrong conclusion from it. No one would be much surprised to find a nobleman's bastard out on the road, hiking in poverty, carrying along some gift or inheritance that was hard to translate to any practical benefit. Now Mark repeated the story about his armorer-uncle being in the employ of kind Sir Andrew. He couldn't be sure how much his audience believed, though they nodded politely enough.
Ben wagged his large head sympathetically. 'I'm an orphan myself. But it don't worry me any more.' From behind the seat he pulled out the lute he had been holding earlier, and strummed it. Mark thought that it sounded a little out of tune. Ben went on: 'I'm really a minstrel. Just 'prenticing with Nestor here till I can get a good start at what I really want to do. We got an agreement that I can quit any time I'm ready.'
Nestor nodded as if to confirm this. 'Good worker,' he remarked. 'Hate to lose you when you go.' Ben strummed again, and began to sing:
The song was… No, this song is
The ballad of gallant young Einar
Who was walking as free as…
The singer paused. 'Hard to find a rhyme for that name.' He thought for a moment and tried again:
Young Einar was walking the roads
As free as a lark one day
Along came two men
Who wanted…
'That's not quite how it ought to go,' Ben admitted modestly, after a moment's thought.
'Must be hard to play while were bouncing,' said Barbara understandingly. There had in fact been one or two obvious wrong notes.
Mark was thinking that Ben's was not really one of the best singing voices he'd ever heard, either. But no one else had any comment about that, and he sure wasn't going to be the first to mention it.
Throughout the rest of the day Nestor kept the wagon rolling pretty, steadily. He showed his wish for concealment by expressing his satisfaction when a belt of fog engulfed the road for a kilometer or so. He was always alertly on watch, and he had Barbara and Mark take turns riding in the rear of the wagon, next to the dragons cage, keeping an eye out to the rear for the soldiers of the Duke, Mark assumed, though Nestor never actually said so. From inside the covered, swaying cage, the unseen small dragon squealed intermittently. It reminded Mark of the odd noise that a rabbit would sometimes let out when an arrow hit it. Beside the cage was the earthen crock, with a weighted net for a top, that held live frogs. Mark was told that these were the dragon's food, and he fed it one or two. It's tiny breath, too young to burn, steamed at his hand. It's toy eyes, doll-eyes, glittered darkly.
'When do we leave Duke Fraktin's territory?' Mark asked at one point in the afternoon. By now the foothills had been left behind, and the road was traversing firmly inhabited land under a cloudy sky. Fields almost ready for harvest alternated with woodlands and pastures. Nestor had driven through one small village already.
'Sometime tomorrow,' said Nestor shortly. 'Maybe sooner.' The fog had lifted completely now, and he was busier than ever being sharp-eyed. When Mark asked some more questions about the dragon, he was told that they were taking it to the fair on Sir Andrew's green, where it ought to earn some coin as an exhibit. It would also, Mark gathered, serve to advertise Nestor's skill in the hunt. Sir Andrew was a Fen Marcher, which meant he had territory abutting the Great Swamp. He and some of his tributary towns, Mark was told, had chronic dragon problems.
Mark, thinking about it, had trouble picturing one man, however strong and skilled and brave, just going out and hunting dragons as if they were rabbits. From the stories he'd heard, real dragon hunts were vast enterprises involving numbers of trained beasts and people. And Nestor might be brave and skilled, but he didn't look all that strong. Ben, of course, looked strong enough for two at least.
As the afternoon passed, Nestor drove more slowly, and appeared to be even more anxious about seeing what was on the winding road ahead of him. Passing a pack toting peddler who was coming from the other direction, he slowed still more to ask the man a question: 'Soldiers?'
The wink and faint nod that he got in return were apparently all the answer Nestor needed. He turned off the road at the next feasible place, and jounced across an unfenced field to a side lane.
'Just as soon not meet any of the Duke's soldiers,' he muttered, as if someone had asked him for an explanation. 'There's a creek down this way somewhere. Maybe the water's low enough to ford. On the other side's Blue Temple land, if I remember right.'
There was no problem in finding the creek which meandered across flat and largely neglected farmland. Locating a place where it could readily be forded was somewhat harder. Nestor sent Ben and Barbara to scout on foot, upstream and down, and eventually succeeded. Once on the other side, he sighed with relief and drove the wagon as deep as possible into a small grove, not stopping till he was out of sight of Duke Fraktin's side of the stream. Then he announced that it was time to set up camp. Ben and Barbara immediately swung into a well- practiced routine, tending the loadbeasts and starting to gather some wood for a fire.
As Mark began to lend a hand, Nestor called him aside. 'Einar, you come with me. We need some more frogs for the dragon, and I've a special way of catching them that I want to show you.'
'All right. I'll bring my bow, maybe we'll see a rabbit.'
'It'll be getting dark for shooting. But fetch it along.'
From the back of the wagon Nestor dug out what looked to Mark like a rather ordinary fishnet, of moderately fine mesh. On the wooden rim were symbols that Mark supposed might have some magical significance, though often enough such decorative efforts had no real power behind them. With Nestor carrying the net beside him, Mark trudged into the trees, an arrow nocked on his bow. They followed the general slope of the land back down to the creek bed.
As they walked, Nestor asked: 'Einar, what's your uncles name? The one who's armorer for Sir Andrew. I might know him.'
'His name's Mark.' At least he said it quickly; this was one answer he hadn't thought out in advance.
'No. I don't know him.' A cloudy twilight was oozing up out of the low ground. They had reached the creek bank without spotting any rabbits or other game, and Mark put away his bow and arrow.
'Anyway,' said Nestor, 'that sword of yours didn't look like it needed a lot of work.' He was studying the stream as he spoke, and it was impossible to tell from his voice what he was thinking. Stepping carefully now from one stone to another, he worked his way out near the middle of the stream, where he positioned his net in a strong flow of water, catching the wooden frame on rocks so it would be held in place. He straightened up, stretching his back, still seeming to study the water's flow. 'Didn't you say that your uncle was going to work on it?'
Mark hesitated, finally got out a few lame words.
Nestor did not seem to be paying very close attention to what he said this time. 'Or, maybe you've given some thought to selling your sword at the fair. That would be a good time and place, if you mean to sell it. Honest business dealings are more likely under Sir Andrew's eye than elsewhere. There might even be one or two people there who could buy such a thing.'
'I wouldn't know how to sell it. And anyway, I wouldn't want to. It was my father's.' All of that was the truth, which made it a relief to say.
'A sword like that, I suppose it must have some special powers, as well as being beautiful to look at.' Nestor was still gazing at the stream.
Mark was silent.
Nestor at last looked at him directly. 'Would you get it now? Bring it here, and let me have a look at it?'
Mark could think of no decent way to refuse. He turned away wordlessly and trudged back to the wagon. He could grab his sword when he got there and run away again; but sooner or later he was going to have to trust someone.
He found Ben and Barbara engaged in what looked like a tricky business. They had removed the dragon's cage from the wagon and were cleaning the cage while its occupant shrilled at them and tried to claw and bite them. They looked at Mark curiously when he climbed into the wagon, and again when he emerged with his wrapped sword in hand. But they said nothing to him.
Darkness was thickening in the grove when Mark brought the sword back to Nestor, who was sitting on a
