A Natural History of Dragons (2 page)

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak again lest the flood pick up where it had left off.

He sighed. “Your behaviour was not appropriate for a young lady. Do you understand that?” I nodded. “Let’s make certain you remember it, then.” With one hand he turned me about, and with the other he administered three brisk smacks to my bottom that started the tears afresh. When I had myself under control once more, I found that he had left me to compose myself and gone to the wall of his study. The shelves there were lined with books, some, I fancied, weighing as much as I did myself. (This was pure fancy, of course; the weightiest book in my library now, my own
De draconum varietatibus,
weighs a mere ten pounds.)

The volume he took down was much lighter, if rather thicker than one would normally give to a seven-year-old child. He pressed it into my hands, saying, “Your lady mother would not be happy to see you with this, I imagine, but I had rather you learn it from a book than from experimentation. Run along, now, and don’t show that to her.”

I curtseyed and fled.

Like Greenie, that book still sits on my shelf. My father had given me Gotherham’s
Avian Anatomy,
and though our understanding of the subject has improved a great deal since Gotherham’s day, it was a good introduction for me at the time. The text was only half comprehensible to me, but I devoured the half I could understand and contemplated the rest in fascinated perplexity. Best of all were the diagrams, thin, meticulous drawings of avian skeletons and musculature. From this book I learned that the function of the wishbone (or, more properly, the
furcula
) is to strengthen the thoracic skeleton of birds and provide attachment points for wing muscles.

It seemed so simple, so obvious: all birds had wishbones, because all birds flew. (At the time I was not aware of ostriches, and neither was Gotherham.) Hardly a brilliant conclusion in the field of natural history, but to me it was brilliant indeed, and opened up a world I had never considered before: a world in which one could observe patterns and their circumstances, and from these derive information not obvious to the unaided eye.

Wings, truly, were my first obsession. I did not much discriminate in those days as to whether the wings in question belonged to a dove or a sparkling or a butterfly; the point was that these beings flew, and for that I adored them. I might mention, however, that although Mr. Gotherham’s text concerns itself with birds, he does make the occasional, tantalizing reference to analogous structures or behaviours in dragonkind. Since (as I have said before) sparklings were then classed as a variety of insect, this might count as my first introduction to the wonder of dragons.

I should speak at least in passing of my family, for without them I would not have become the woman I am today.

Of my mother I expect you have some sense already; she was an upright and proper woman of her class, and did the best she could to teach me ladylike ways, but no one can achieve the impossible. Any faults in my character must not be laid at her feet. As for my father, his business interests kept him often from home, and so to me he was a more distant figure, and perhaps more tolerant because of it; he had the luxury of seeing my misbehaviours as charming quirks of his daughter’s nature, while my mother faced the messes and ruined clothing those quirks produced. I looked upon him as one might upon a minor pagan god, earnestly desiring his goodwill, but never quite certain how to propitiate him.

Where siblings are concerned, I was the fourth in a set of six children, and, as I have said, the only daughter. Most of my brothers, while of personal significance to me, will not feature much in this tale; their lives have not been much intertwined with my career.

The exception is Andrew, whom I have already mentioned; he is the one from whom I pinched the penknife. He, more than any, was my earnest partner in all the things of which my mother despaired. When Andrew heard of my bloody endeavours behind the hayrick, he was impressed as only an eight-year-old boy can be, and insisted I keep the knife as a trophy of my deeds. That, I no longer have; it deserves a place of honor alongside Greenie and Gotherham, but I lost it in the swamps of Mouleen. Not before it saved my life, however, cutting me free of the vines in which my Labane captors had bound me, and so I am forever grateful to Andrew for the gift.

I am also grateful for his assistance during our childhood years, exercising a boy’s privileges on my behalf. When our father was out of town, Andrew would borrow books out of his study for my use. Texts I myself would never have been permitted thus found their way into my room, where I hid them between the mattresses and behind my wardrobe. My new maid had too great a terror of being found off her feet to agree to the old deal, but she was amenable to sweets, and so we settled on a new arrangement, and I read long into the night on more than one occasion.

The books he took on my behalf, of course, were nearly all of natural history. My horizons expanded from their winged beginnings to creatures of all kinds: mammals and fish, insects and reptiles, plants of a hundred sorts, for in those days our knowledge was still general enough that one person might be expected to familiarize himself (or in my case, herself) with the entire field.

Some of the books mentioned dragons. They never did so in more than passing asides, brief paragraphs that did little more than develop my appetite for information. In several places, however, I came across references to a particular work: Sir Richard Edgeworth’s
A Natural History of Dragons
. Carrigdon & Rudge were soon to be reprinting it, as I learned from their autumn catalogue; I risked a great deal by sneaking into my father’s study so as to leave that pamphlet open to the page announcing the reprint. It described
A Natural History of Dragons
as “the most indispensable reference on dragonkind available in our tongue”; surely that would be enough to entice my father’s eye.

My gamble paid off, for it was in the next delivery of books we received. I could not have it right away—Andrew would not borrow anything our father had yet to read—and I nearly went mad with waiting. Early in winter, though, Andrew passed me the book in a corridor, saying, “He finished it yesterday. Don’t let anyone see you with it.”

I was on my way to the parlor for my weekly lesson on the pianoforte, and if I went back up to my room I would be late. Instead I hurried onward, and concealed the book under a cushion mere heartbeats before my teacher entered. I gave him my best curtsy, and thereafter struggled mightily not to look toward the divan, from which I could feel the unread book taunting me. (I would say my playing suffered from the distraction, but it is difficult for something so dire to grow worse. Although I appreciate music, to this day I could not carry a tune if you tied it around my wrist for safekeeping.)

Once I escaped from my lesson, I began in on the book straightaway, and hardly paused except to hide it when necessary. I imagine it is not so well-known today as it was then, having been supplanted by other, more complete works, so it may be difficult for my readers to imagine how wondrous it seemed to me at the time. Edgeworth’s identifying criteria for “true dragons” were a useful starting point for many of us, and his listing of qualifying species is all the more impressive for having been assembled through correspondence with missionaries and traders, rather than through firsthand observation. He also addressed the issue of “lesser dragonkind,” namely, those creatures such as wyverns which failed one criterion or another, yet appeared (by the theories of the period) to be branches of the same family tree.

The influence this book had upon me may be expressed by saying that I read it straight through four times, for once was certainly not enough. Just as some girl-children of that age go mad for horses and equestrian pursuits, so did I become dragon-mad. That phrase described me well, for it led not only to the premier focus of my adult life (which has included more than a few actions here and there that might be deemed deranged), but more directly to the action I engaged in shortly after my fourteenth birthday.

TWO

Blackmail — Reckless stupidity — An even more unfortunate incident with a wolf-drake — The near loss of off-the-shoulder dresses

We knew disgracefully little of dragons in those days, as there were no true dragons in Scirland, and the field of natural history was only beginning to turn its attentions abroad. I was very conversant, though, with the available information on those lesser cousins of dragons which may still be found in our own lands, and no command nor sum of money could have persuaded me to pass up an opportunity to learn more firsthand.

So when word came that a wolf-drake had been sighted on our property, not once but several times, by several different witnesses, and that it had been savaging sheep, you may well imagine how my interest soared. The name, of course, is a fanciful one; there is nothing wolflike about them, save their tendency to view livestock as their rightful meal. They are scarce in Scirland now, and were not abundant then; no one had sighted one in our region for a generation.

How could I forgo the chance?

First, however, I had to contrive a way to see the beast. Papa immediately set about organizing a hunt, just as he would have for a wolf that made a nuisance of itself. Had I asked for permission to ride along, though—as Andrew did, without success—I would absolutely have been denied. I had enough sense to realize that riding out on my own in hopes of sighting the wolf-drake would be fruitless, and highly dangerous if it were not; gaining my desire, therefore, would require more serious effort.

Credit—or perhaps blame—for what followed belongs at least in part to one Amanda Lewis, whose family were our nearest neighbors during my youth. My father and Mr. Lewis were good friends, but the same could not be said of my mother and Mrs. Lewis, and this created a degree of tension whenever social occasions threw us together—especially given Mama’s disapproval of their daughter.

Amanda was one year my senior, and the only girl of near age and equal status anywhere in the Tam River Valley. To my mother’s unending distress, she was also what young people nowadays would call
wing
—very improper in what Amanda thought to be fashionable ways. (I have never been wing; my impropriety has always been decidedly unfashionable.) But as I had no one else with whom to socialize, Mama could hardly forbid me to visit the Lewises, and so Amanda was my closest friend until marriage took us both away.

On the day we learned of the wolf-drake, I walked two miles to her house to share the news, and my situation immediately fired her fruitful imagination. Clutching a book to her chest, Amanda drew in a delighted breath and said, eyes sparkling with mischief, “Oh, but it is
easy
! You must dress yourself as a boy and ride with them!”

Lest it be thought that I slander the name of my childhood friend by laying this incident at her feet, I must assure you that I, not she, was the one who found a way to put her idea into practice. This has often been the way with me: notions too mad for another to take seriously are the very notions I seize upon and enact, often in the most organized and sensible fashion. (I say this not out of pride, for it is a very stupid habit that has nearly gotten me killed more than once, but out of honesty. If you do not understand what my husband has called my deranged practicality, very little of my life will make the slightest bit of sense.)

So Manda’s declaration was the spark; the tinder and kindling which built it into a blaze were entirely my doing. It went thusly.

There were a number of lads who did odd jobs around our estate, mostly out of doors. I was not generally on close terms with these, but there was one, Jim, over whom I had a hold. Specifically, I had once come upon him in highly compromising circumstances with one of our downstairs maids. I myself had been on my way to hide a small and fascinating skull I could not identify, but as I had it concealed in my skirts, Jim did not know my own compromising circumstances. He therefore owed me a favor, and I determined that now was the time to redeem it.

Bringing me along on the hunt was, of course, an offense for which he could be turned out with no references. I could have achieved the same by telling of his dalliances with the maid, though, and while I would not have done so, I led him to believe I would. You may think it dreadful of me, and I blush now to recall my blackmail, but I will not pretend I had such scruples then. Jim, I insisted, must bring me on the hunt.

Here the chilly distance between my mother and Mrs. Lewis served my purposes very well. Amanda told Mama that she had invited me to her house for an afternoon and evening, to be returned on the morrow, and Mama, little desirous of corresponding with her neighbor, gave permission without asking questions. Therefore, on the morning the hunt was to begin, Amanda stopped by our estate with a manservant, on the pretense that I would be spending a few days with her family.

A small distance down the road, we reined in, and I inclined my head at her from my saddle while her manservant looked on, mystified. “Thank you, Manda.”

Her eyes fairly danced. “You must tell me
all
about it when it’s over!”

“Certainly,” I replied, though I knew she would probably grow tired of the story in short order, unless I contrived to have a thrilling romance while on the hunt. Amanda’s taste in reading ran to sensational novels, not natural history.

I left her to deal with the manservant by whatever means she found appropriate, and rode by back ways to the field where the hunt was gathering. Jim was waiting for me by a sheltered spring, as we had arranged.

“I’ve told them you’re my cousin, here for a visit,” he said, handing over a stack of clothing. “It’s a madhouse down there—people in from all over. No one will think it strange if you join us.”

“I’ll be just a moment,” I told him, and shifted to a spot where he could not see me. Casting looks over my shoulder all the time in case he should have followed me, I changed out of my own riding habit and into the much rougher boy’s clothing he had brought me. (Words cannot express, I might add, how alien it was to wear trousers for the first time; I felt half naked. I have worn them on many occasions since—trousers being far more practical for dragon-chasing than skirts—but it took me many years to adjust.)