Page 48 of Dragon Slayer

11

A BRACE OF HARES

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“It’s because of what you are,” Mother explained one sunny afternoon. She was in the kitchen garden, gathering sprigs of herbs and laying them gently in the basket she carried hooked over one arm. In her simple blue dress, hair bound in a loose braid, she looked more like a palace maid than the mother of two princes. Which, Val conceded with a pang of sadness, was exactly what everyone beyond the household wolves thought she was. He hated the charade, hated it for her most of all, but whenever he expressed concern, she brushed it off.

“Do you see that rosemary?” she asked, pointing to the raised bed situated behind the tomato stakes. “Fetch me a pinch of that, darling.”

Though six now, Val was still helplessly tiny, and he slipped right between the stakes, sure-footed as a deer. Vlad’s friends called him a fairy. Mother called him beautiful, and perfect, and golden, so it was no small wonder he’d sought her out in her garden, rather than accompany Vlad into town.

Also, he’d had questions.

His day’s language lesson had concluded with his tutor leaning back in his chair and blinking at Val in obvious surprise. “Your progress is…remarkable. For someone your age,” he’d said.

Was it? Val had been brought up speaking Romanian in the palace, the informal, unwritten dialect of Wallachia. But he could also speak and read Slavic, French, Hungarian, Greek, and Italian. He could read Old Church Slavonic and was fluent in spoken Slavic. He could speak Russian, and was working on his Cyrillic letters now. Vlad had the same gift for languages, and they tested one another, holding conversations that flitted from one language to the next, probing and teasing and searching for weak spots, for badly conjugated verbs and mispronunciations. Mircea had been taught the same languages, but he struggled at times, especially with Greek and Italian.

“Isit remarkable?” he asked his mother.

He returned to her side and laid the rosemary sprig gently in the basket, on top of bundles of sage, and lavender, and lemongrass.

Mother raked her long nails through his hair, tidying the pieces that had slipped from the loose knot gathered at his nape. “You’re a vampire, darling,” she said, fond and patient, smiling down at him brighter than the midday sun. “One day you’ll be much stronger, and faster, and agile than any human. It only stands to reason that you learn quickly, too.”

He cocked his head to the side. “I never thought of that.”

She rested her palm on the top of his head. “That’s because you’re humble, darling, and that’s a very good thing.” Her hand shifted to his shoulder and squeezed. “We’re different from humans, but we aren’t better. Always remember that.”

He nodded. “Yes, Mama.”

She looked at him a long moment; he had the sense she was really trying to drive the point home. Then her hand fell away and she turned back to her thriving plant life. “Come,” she said in Russian, “let’s hear what you’ve been learning.”

~*~

Where he excelled at languages, swordsmanship was another matter entirely.

The next afternoon, he sat on a wooden bench in the practice yard, sweat gathering beneath his dirt-smudged tunic, watching Vlad spar with Fenrir’s son, Vali.

The boys were mismatched in size, Vali a good head taller than Vlad, but when the blunted practice blades clashed together, Vlad more than held his own when it came to strength.

Sunlight flashed along the steel. A parry, a block. A step forward, a step back. The bright ring of metal meeting metal again and again. Dust kicked up around their boots, clung to the shiny sweat on their arms and faces.

Vlad’s braid kept coming loose, one wisp at a time, and he reached up impatiently to swipe his arm across his forehead. Hair clung to his temples; a muscle in his jaw clenched as he lunged again, powering past Vali’s intended block and catching the wolf boy in the arm with the blunted edge of his sword.

“Agh!” Vali’s arm went limp – Val knew from experience the awful pins-and-needles sensation that came with being struck there – and he staggered back, clutching at his wrist with his free hand. His face was red, and he breathed in ragged bursts. “Yield, yield!” he exclaimed when Vlad made to advance again.

Vlad nodded, quietly pleased, and let his sword arm fall to his side. He smoothed the loose hair back from his face with his other hand and a stable boy hurried forward with a water bucket and a ladle.

“Excellent,” Fenrir said, hands propped on his hips, beaming. Then he turned to Val. “Alright, young sir.”

“Ugh,” Val groaned.

“Come now, let’s see a little enthusiasm.”

Val dragged himself upright, his sword weighing heavy on his arm and shoulders. Or maybe that was just the dread.

Vlad passed him on his way to the bench, and knocked their shoulders together. “Don’t be a baby,” he said lightly.

Val kicked dust at his retreating back.

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