Of course that dream was now gutted like a catfish on the block.
"Maybe you'd best give him the pickle quick like and be off back to the palace. It's been a busy place of late, this yak barn has. Never know if someone new is going to show up, what with all the hush hush hullabaloo going on."
"What kind of hullabaloo?"
"Coming in at all hours. They were trying to be quiet and all. But any fool knows you can't sneak into a yak barn in the middle of the night. These animals always get to snortin' and snufflin' when they're worried, and waking them in the middle of the night worries them."
"Who was trying to sneak in?"
"Two of them. One a trooper."
"Were they going on a trip?"
"Not going on. Coming from. Brought two yaks with them." He pointed down the corridor indicating two strange yaks with their heads poking over their stall doors.
"I pretended not to be awake," he said, dropping his voice even further. "It's not my place to interrupt people sneaking around in the middle of the night, is the way I see it."
"No, I would think not. I wonder what they were doing, though."
"This morning, when I'm letting the yaks out for their early exercise, the trooper comes in. He tells me I'll find two new yaks in the barn. He and a nobleman had come in late last night, he says. After sunset. So they drove the yaks in not a skim wagon. And would I please exercise and feed them well. Says we want to take extra good care of them as they belong to the nobleman and him being such a close friend of the prince and all."
A trickle of fear sprang up in her chest and quickly grew to the size of a swollen, springtime river. The prince had some scheme underway.
They hide in the dark—these eaters of flesh—and spring when they think no one is looking. But as long as there are some few left that will fight, against all odds, I will not lose my faith in Providence, who alone is the giver of courage in the blackest of nights.
~Kindness Firtree, Meditations on the Precepts
Chapter 25
The second day in the kitchen Repentance peeled four chignets of apples for Cook's fluffy pies and cobblers. It took all day and the work was boring, but she didn't mind. She was happy to be in the warm kitchen knowing she was safe from the prince for a spot and a space.
The third day, Repentance was assigned the filling of Cook's puddingpuffs. She bent over the round, flaky pastries, spooning out pockets in the center and dollopping in the pudding.
Tigen, having a love for puddings and pastries of all kinds, had come to visit each day. His family had their own kitchen and cook on the other side of the palace, but Tigen preferred Cook's tender, flaky pastries to Goodwoman Hardscrabble's dry, clumpy crusts. And so he sat, on Repentance's third day in the kitchen, with a little plate of pudding, talking to her as she worked.
"And if I lived in the days of dragons, I'd not hunt them. I'd train them. That's what," he said. "I'd keep them in the dungeon and let them swim in the lake underneath."
"I wasn't aware that dragons liked to swim. Would they eat your old-uncle's prisoners, do you suppose?" Repentance asked.
"They loved to swim," Tigen said. "In cold water, 'specially. It cooled the burning in their bellies. And, there are nary any prisoners in the dungeons to be et. My old-uncle never locks people up. My friends and I like to play down there. You can get onto the lake under the dungeon floor."
Repentance stopped her work to stare at him. "The lake is frozen under there?" She was sure Sober said it wasn't.
He grinned. "No, we go in the boat."
She was stunned. "Why would you go out on that lake in a boat?"
"To fish. There are sawtooth fish way down deep. We drop in a hundred foot line with a slug on a hook, and those old sawteeth can't resist."
Repentance could picture the gray lake, enshrouded in fog. It was warm enough not to freeze, true, but only by a degree or two. To fall into that water would mean swift and certain death. "Tigen, that lake is dangerous," she said with a shiver.
The boy shrugged. "So are dragons dangerous. I'd still tame them if there were any to be had."
"A tall order for such a short person," Repentance said. "How would a person go about training a dragon?"
"The same way as the yaks. If you get an animal young enough, it grows up trusting you."
"And how, pray tell, would you get a young dragon?" She thought about her brothers Tribulation and Devastation—taken early. She had hoped to find out where they were, but she hadn't wanted to push the king too early. If she'd have known she would lose favor so fast, she would have made inquiry sooner. "Do you suppose the dragon's mother would give it to you when you asked?"
Tigen frowned. "I may have to kill the mother of the first litter."
She gasped. If her own parents had refused to give their sons, they too would have been killed. And then all their children would have been taken.
"That's not right, Tigen."
He sighed. "It matters not. There are no dragons left. My old-father many times back did away with the last of the lot."
"It might not work, anyway," Repentance said. "Look at your
