Аврам Дэвидсон - Peregrine - primus

“So that was Isidore III! I’ve heard of him!”

Appledore smiled, thinly. “No doubt you have. He not only failed to pay the promised donatives, but was found one night wandering around Hagia Sophia with a torch in one hand, a spike in the other, gouging out the right eye from the mosaics of the Great White Christ, on the grounds that that one had taken over all the attributes of Odin the Wise, who had sacrificed the eye in return for wisdom. He was promptly proclaimed a heretic, and burnt alive in the Hippodrome between the third and fourth races being held in honor of the Feast of the Virgin Birth. Later on, however, I heard that he had been canonized by the Isaurians as a proto-iconoclast, under the style and title of Saint Isidore the Insane. Heigh-ho.”

“You were well out of it.”

“1 was very well out of it. The pickings may have been thin, back in the Sovereignty of Sapodilla (last pagan kingdom in Lower Europe), but life was a lot safer. Until there came Queen Calpurnia, the sunderer of delights, the blighter of tenure in office, and the lawfully-wedded mother of Prince Buddy, Prince

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Slim, and Prince Chuck.”

“Heigh-ho,” said Peregrine.

“Heigh-ho,” said Appledore once again.

“Heigh-ho,” said Claud, coming out of a revery.

“What is that up ahead?” asked Claud, after a moment. “Mist?”

“The weather and the time of day are not right for mist,” Sage Appledore said, consideringly. “I should estimate that the chances are one in two that ’tis the smoke of a medium-sized campfire, and one in two that ’tis the breath of a rather small dragon. Let me see,” he muttered, as he puttered in his geezlesack, “do I, amongst my geezles, include a leaf or so of—”

He was still muttering and puttering when they found themselves ascending onto a plateau, one side of which was faced with the gaunt escarpment of a rocky cleft, in the side of which was a cave. And in front of the cave, breathing lazily into the thin grey air, and looking rather as though it were observing the general effect with interest, lolled a rather small dragon, in size no larger than a common cart-horse. Peregrine reached for his sword, at once realized that such a weapon was of little use against a dragon, upon whom (it is a commonplace, known to every child) there are only three places wherein a fatal wound can be inflicted, and those only by thrusting deeply; reached for his spear, realized that the spears were with Claud, tried simultaneously to turn and beckon to his man and to keep his mule from twisting its head out of its halter and get a better look at what was crouching there—

“—of dragonbane?” muttered Appledore. And forthwith, “Ah!” he uttered, and held it up for all to see. The wind shifted, the mules screamed and reared up, all three, the Child of Abraxas issued the first half of a terrified bray, and the dragon unfolded its wings with a sound like trees whipping in a high wind, sent forth a hiss which caused the dust and rubble for ten feet before it to rise, and, with every appearance of terror and dismay, flew more-or-less straight up into the air, its feet churning frantically as though for purchase, and soared off into the distance.

The animals subsided as though more than somewhat ashamed, and, indeed, the ass, instead of issuing the other half of its bray, gave a'rather sheepish-sounding cough instead, and pre

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peregrine: primus

tended to crop a mouthful of non-existent grass. Claud leaped off his mule. “Ho, a dragon, a treasure, a hoard!” he cried, scurrying into the cave. “Ibs!”

“Dibs!” said Appledore, after he had collected his senses. “Stop, you selfish oaf, stop! It was my geezle, my dragonbane!” and he slid to the ground and followed after the lad. Peregrine gazed after the rapidly-dwindling speck in the sky, and, somewhat slowly, followed them into the cave.

But the creature had evidently been extremely new to the treasure-trove business, for all that they found in the cave in the way of a hoard were three oboli and a drachma, all of a very devaluated coinage; and one very battered bracelet inscribed Cailus loves Mariamne and made of base metal.

“So much for your ibs and your dibs,” Peregrine said, disgustedly. And added, with a lofty note, “I hope this will be a lesson to you henceforth,” and turned to leave, disdainfully, the effect being rather spoiled by his at once tripping and falling almost on his face. He cursed, and tried at the same time to nurse his stinging toe and aching wrist, gave over both attempts, and turned and scuffled angrily in the dust of the cave floor. A rather rusty iron ring had done the mischief, and he gave it an annoyed wrench. Up it flew, and attached to it was a carrying-case of moldering leather.

“What is this, what is this?” he asked, half-aloud—and, seeing his companions looking from him to it with faces surprised and expectant and abashed, he added (feeling he could, under the circumstances, do no less and no other): “Share and share alike . . .” They bowed their heads—to raise them at once.

“Pray, open it at once, dear princely Peregrine,” urged Appledore, in an all but fawning voice. “For although an archaic code may inhibit my saying Prince Peregrine, still and nonetheless your generosity is no less than princely. Ope, ope, ope,” he gestured.

And Claud, swallowing noisily, and gazing at the dusty case with glistening eyes said, “Teach us a lesson, sweet master, by leaving us see just what it is which you’re so kindly going to share, huh?”

The case was locked with a small bronze clasp of cunning craftsmanship, depicting two copulating serpents with tiny eyes of a rufous stone. Between the three of them, however, they had

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not so much as a nutpick, and Peregrine was loath to spoil the item by forcing it. He unsheathed his sword and thrust it into the crumbling leather as easily as though it had been the cloth around a ripened cheese; and there fell out, though not before he could catch it, a diadem set all around with enamels and with polished gems. For a moment they stood there, dumbstruck, Peregrine with the diadem in his hands, and Claud and Appledore with theirs outstretched still. Then he walked out into the daylight, and they hastened after him.

Appledore bent over to examine it, and then, either from awe or from a desire to examine it more closely, he knelt. After a moment, Claud did the same. Said the sage, “This is surely the very coronet of Queen Cleopatra. Unless,” he said, “it may on the other hand assuredly be the royal head-ring of the King of the Ephts—yes! yes!—that is—ah, no! no! ‘Tis the very crown worn by the Ptolemies of Upper Southeast Cyprus! Or . . . uh . . .” and he fell silent, observing the curious designs and the sparkling stones.

“What it is,” Claud said, “it is a crown, that is what it is. My dear master, you are surely meant to be a king, being of blood royal, and the Fates had a better share in store for you than piddly bitty Sapodilla, huh?”

“Huh?” said Peregrine, squinting at them, at it, at the now empty sky, and back to it again, said, “I don’t want to be a king. I want to travel around lightly and encounter adventures and have a lot of interesting fun. What’s the point of being a bastard if people are going to try to make you a king? Look at my poor dadda, King Paladrine, and his nasty old queen, him worrying where next year’s taxes are going to come from with the peasants always saying, ‘Crops poor, why you no make rain, King?’ and her always nudging him for new liveries for her new servants —look at all those half-an-obolus Caesars Augustus always wondering if a guards’ regiment is going to disembowel them because some new pretender has promised a bigger donative or a half-mad patriarch will stir up the populace on a charge of indulging the heretics—