Marmeluc straightened up and laughed. “Not eating that cheese would be insanity.” He returned to the pile of bread ends and the goopy, pungent cheese.
Jeanne and Jacob leaned over their own stinking serving of the stuff. Jeanne poked it with her finger. It was soft and sticky, almost like honey. Disgusting, putrid honey. “You’re not going to eat it?” Jacob asked her.
Jeanne stared at the cheese balefully. “On the one hand, I’m still hungry. On the other hand, it smells like my cow’s butt.”
“You could just eat bread. I’m just going to eat bread.”
Jeanne looked again at Marmeluc. He and his brother had nearly finished their cheese and were now scraping their wooden container with the stale rinds of bread.
How could they be enjoying it so much? Jeanne wondered. She was curious. And, like she said, still hungry.
So, facing the cheese like a condemned man faces the gallows, Jeanne reached for a crust. She brought it to the goopy surface of the cheese. She touched the bread to the orange rind. A dab of white, surrounded by orange, appeared on the bread.
“Oh, come on!” said Marmeluc, catching sight of her. “Are you afraid of cheese?”
Jeanne’s nostrils flared like a bull’s. “No!” she snapped. She drove her bread to the bottom of the container and scooped up a drooping, goopy mound of it. She brought it to her face. Jacob watched in horror. She tore off a huge bite.
Marmeluc and Haye leaned over to see.
As Jeanne chewed, tears formed at the corners of her eyes. Her nose began to run.
“What’s it like?” Jacob asked.
Still chewing, Jeanne said, “It tastes like being punched in the face.”
Haye laughed. Marmeluc waved a hand at her dismissively.
“Also,” she went on, still chewing with her mouth open, “feet.” Haye slapped the table, grinning. Jeanne kept chewing. “And—and butter.”
Marmeluc raised an eyebrow. Jacob stared.
“Feet and butter . . . and, and grass,” Jeanne said, chewing, chewing, chewing. “Now it tastes like a cow pasture . . . a sunny cow pasture.”
“Wait . . . really?” said Jacob.
Jeanne was nodding. Tears were now streaming down her face. Then she swallowed.
She looked at Marmeluc.
We awaited her verdict in silence.
Finally she announced, “I have never tasted anything more disgusting in my entire life.”
Haye chuckled. Marmeluc rolled his eyes.
“I think I liked it,” she added.
Marmeluc’s scowl transformed into a smile.
Jacob took a piece of bread and reluctantly reached for the cheese. Jeanne popped the rest of the Époisses-coated crust into her mouth.
As she chewed, she said, “You know what it really tastes like?”
Jacob’s hand hovered over the cheese. “What?” he asked.
“It tastes like life.”
“What?”
“Rotten and strange and rich and way, way too strong.”
Jacob was looking between Jeanne and the soupy cheese. Then he said, “I’ve had enough life these last three days. I’m sticking to the bread.”
Marmeluc was gazing across the table at Jeanne. When he finally looked away, he caught me watching him. He said, “That is some kid.”
And you know what? He was right.
• • •
The next morning, the six knights and the two children crouched in a circle at the edge of Lord Bertulf’s wood. I was there, too—for whether these children conquered the dragon or, as was much more likely, died trying, I would not miss it for all of Christendom. It would make a great chapter for my chronicle.
Sir Baldwin the Bald turned to his leader, Sir Fabian, and said, “So, what’s the plan?”
Fabian shrugged his bony shoulders. “This is the girl’s show, not mine. We just have to make sure the kids don’t run away. Though I would like to know how exactly she plans to fight a dragon.”
So we all looked to Jeanne.
But she merely said, “Jacob’s going to defeat it.”
“Why do you keep saying that?” Jacob demanded.
She smiled slyly. “Remember when I said there was a sickness in the land?”
“You were wrong there, little peasant.” Fabian smirked.
“No, I wasn’t,” Jeanne rejoined. “There is a sickness. It’s in the dragon.”
Jacob furrowed his brow. His dark curls fell into his eyes.
Jeanne turned to me. “Didn’t you say that the farts were a ‘diabolical new development’ or something?”
“Indeed, they are.”
Marmeluc cut in. “You know, Baldwin’s always had the power of deadly farts.”
All the knights laughed except Baldwin, who said, “You’ve been waiting on that joke all day, haven’t you?”
“Couldn’t have made it in front of the lord and lady, could I?”
Baldwin threw a fistful of dirt at Marmeluc. The knights laughed harder. Jeanne watched them and, to my surprise, she was grinning, too.
But Jacob was staring into the dirt, his lips pursed. The knights fell quiet. They watched him, half skeptical, half wondering whether this little Jewish boy was as strange and potent as his companion. Finally he said, “I can’t cure it until I see it.”
Fabian grunted. “Seems plain, then. We gotta attract the dragon, and then make it—well, fart.” He hesitated, and then he looked to Jeanne. “Right?”
The little peasant girl forced herself not to smile. Fabian was asking her? She just said, “Right.”
Fabian began ordering people about. He sent Baldwin and Haye to go get bait for the dragon. Then he and Georges and Robert scouted out trees to hide in. Jacob went off on his own, looking for I don’t know what. Marmeluc watched him. I stayed with Jeanne.
The tree was found, and Jacob returned; Baldwin and Haye came back with an old, lame sheep—half dead already, it seemed to me.
The idea was to scare the beast, because that’s when it unleashed its diabolical flatulence. So while everyone climbed up the tree, two knights were to stay hidden near the sheep and, when the dragon came, jump out and startle it. This was by far the most dangerous task. But the dragon had adopted the strategy of running away, leaving its weapon hanging in the air behind it. We figured that if the knights leapt out and startled it, and then immediately dove back into hiding, they would survive unscathed. Probably.
As you might imagine, though, no one wanted that task. So Fabian took six long pieces of dried grass, cut them to the same length with his sword, and then cut two of them shorter. Then he gripped them in his fist so the short ones looked like all the rest. The knights drew. Marmeluc and Haye got the short straws. “The brothers!” cried Sir Fabian.
The other knights looked very relieved. But Jeanne grabbed Marmeluc by his sleeve. He crouched down beside her. She whispered, “Be careful.” All the knights were staring. Marmeluc didn’t care.
He said, “I will be. Thank you.”
And he followed his brother into a thick copse of fern and gorse.
We all clambered up into the chosen tree, straddling the big, damp branches. Beneath us, the old sheep, her wool in dirty clumps, cropped wild herbs.
The day was gray but not cold. Time passed.
And then, Jacob pointed skyward. I followed the line of his finger. There, circling above us, were the scavenging birds. Ravens and vultures. Circling. Circling above our heads.
The hair on my neck stood on end. I whispered, “I think the dragon is near.”
Fabian, sitting with his back against the oak’s trunk, put two fingers in his mouth and whistled, long and low. After a moment, the whistle came back through the trees.
I saw Jeanne shift her weight, trying to get a better view of the clearing and the old ewe. S
he put her hand on the wet bark and lifted her leg up over the branch—and lost her balance. I saw her, like an instant frozen in time, her leg in the air, her body angling out away from the branch, her face frozen in surprise—and then she went tumbling right out of the tree.
Jacob shouted. She hit the ground with a thud. Luckily, the earth was soft, for the day was wet.
“Someone go get her!” I cried. “Before—”
But it was too late. Out of the nearby trees came the dragon.
• • •
He’s bigger than I’d remembered. His body is a patchwork of black skin like a seal’s and green and blue scales like a snake’s. His legs jut out from his body at right angles. His eyes are a sickly yellow. And his lips are curled back around teeth as long as carving knives.
He had been coming for the ewe. But the sheep runs around to the other side of the tree, and Jeanne is just sitting there.
The dragon sees her. He stops. He stares.
Jeanne decides to slide backward away from him.
Not smart.
In an instant, the dragon has bounded across the turf. His huge eyes are within a finger’s length of hers. He sniffs at her. We can smell him from where we sit. The stench is awful. Unbearable.
The dragon’s teeth part, and a long, lavender tongue slithers toward Jeanne. It explores her face, traces her chin, her jaw, to her ear, across her cheek.
I shudder just to see it.
The dragon’s mouth opens wider, and Jeanne cannot move back, cannot go left, cannot go right. The dragon has turned his head, and his teeth are on either side of her neck.
“BLAR!” someone screams.
Marmeluc and Haye leap out of the foliage. “BLAR! BLAR! BLAR!” they shout, brandishing their swords above their heads. “BLARRRR!”
The dragon is terrified. He snaps his jaws shut—just shy of little Jeanne’s neck. He flips around, lashing his fleshy tail at the knights, and then darts into the trees from which he’s come.
“Watch out!” screams Jacob. Too late. Marmeluc and Jeanne have both dived to the side. But Haye is standing there, brandishing his sword and screaming, “BLAR!” Which is when the fart hits him.
For an instant, he smells it. I know, because I see his eyes go wide with shock and his face begin to contort in utter, stomach-wrenching disgust—and then the flames leap to life all over his body.
He lets out a horrible scream and falls to the ground, fire consuming his flesh.
“Roll!” Marmeluc cries. Jeanne is on her feet already, sprinting toward Haye. The knight writhes on the wet earth, the flames enveloping him like a dancing, burning blanket. Jeanne plants her shoulder into his side and begins rolling him over. Marmeluc arrives an instant later, his tunic already half over his head. One end is caught in his belt. He yanks and yanks and finally it’s free and he’s smothering Haye with it, and he and Jeanne beat at the flames through the damp wool of the tunic.
We’re all at Haye’s side a moment later. The flames are gone, but now, suffusing the clearing is the sickening smell of the dragon’s fart—and the more frightening smell of charred skin, hair, and flesh.
Jacob has leaves in his shirt—that’s what he was collecting. He thrusts them at the knights. “Chew this!”
“We’re not the wounded!” Fabian barks.
Jacob ignores him. “Chew it and spit it into my hands! Now!”
The knights hesitate. For just a moment. And then Fabian—yes, Fabian—grabs a handful of leaf and shoves it into his mouth. He winces at the taste, but he’s working his yellow-bearded jaws until the leaf begins to break down. We all follow his example. Jacob runs to a nearby tree and begins pulling up the moss at its base. “Jeanne, help!” he cries. So she does.
They carry armfuls of mossy soil back to Haye, whose moans are dying now. “Spit it out! Here!” Jacob commands the knights, holding out his hands. So the knights disgorge the bitter leaf, black with saliva, into Jacob’s small palms. “Take off the tunic!” Jacob cries. Marmeluc obliges, revealing charred flesh and clothing burnt into Haye’s skin. Georges turns away to be sick. But Jacob sets his jaw and begins smearing the wet pulp onto Haye’s burns. The moaning starts up again.
“You’re hurting him!” Marmeluc cries.
“I have to!” Jacob barks back. He smears the masticated leaf all over Haye’s body, and then packs it with mossy soil. He steps back, takes a deep breath, and wipes his brow. Finally he kneels and prays.
The words are strange, but soothing somehow. To all of us.
After a little while, Jacob rises.
We all stare at him.
“Now what?” Marmeluc asks.
“Now we lure the dragon back.”
“What?” we all say at once.
“Why?” Jeanne wants to know.
And Jacob says, “I know how to cure it.”
• • •
We moved Haye to a secluded bank by a nearby brook. Marmeluc tended to him, cupping cool water into his unmoving mouth. Jacob searched in the shade of the ferns for something.
Meanwhile, Georges and Robert pulled the old ewe back into the clearing.
Jacob returned from his search, apparently satisfied. He said a prayer over the ewe, a prayer of sacrifice, and then asked Fabian to slaughter it. Once that was done, he told Fabian to poke holes in the sheep’s flesh. Finally Jacob revealed what he had been searching for this time: foxglove buds, small and round like purple fists. He poked them into the puncture wounds, like rosemary into a chicken.
We found a new tree to hide in, far away from Marmeluc and his brother. Georges and Robert laid the sheep carcass at the base of the tree.
“No need to ambush it this time,” Jacob told us.
We clambered up onto a high, wet branch. The cold had made all our noses red. I turned to Jeanne, but before I could speak she said, “Don’t worry. I’m not letting go.”
We waited and waited and waited. Georges and Robert, sitting beside each other on the thick branch, began to thumb-joust. The sun sank in the sky. The wet began to seep into our bones. Fabian put his fingers in his mouth and whistled.
No answer.
I caught my breath.
And then, from a great distance, two whistles came in answer. I exhaled. Marmeluc’s sign. All was well.
Until it wasn’t. Baldwin pointed to the sky. The vultures and crows were gathering. The birds always know.
Indeed, not long after, the dragon reappeared. He slunk stealthily from the shade, as if he were as afraid as we were. He looked around—though not up, thankfully. When he felt it was safe, the dragon tore at the sheep’s flesh with his teeth, leaning his head back and coaxing the meat down his gullet. He tore again and again at the stomach, until the soft innards of the sheep rolled out onto the green earth. The beast buried his head in the ewe’s soft underbelly, periodically coming up for air, his black-and-green face drenched in the sheep’s blood.
And then, he coughed. He coughed again. Jacob reached out for Jeanne’s hand, and she gave it to him. The dragon coughed again. Its gorge started working, back and forth, back and forth, like a cat trying to cough up a hairball. And then, it opened its jaws and unleashed a mass of chewed sheep flesh onto the forest floor. We all covered our noses and mouths as quickly as we could. The smell was horrific.
Jacob was the only one not to cover his face. He just watched.
The dragon raised his head. Toward us.
I made ready to jump from the tree.
But he didn’t seem to see us.
His eyelids drooped, his breath became labored. He began limping around the clearing. Suddenly, he convulsed again and let go a long, goopy train of yellow liquid from his throat. The liquid poured and poured onto the green ground. The dragon pulled himself backward along the grass, letting the yellow fluid flow in a long, viscous trail.
I ne
arly threw up right then. But I held it in as if my life depended on it. Because it very well might have. It’s not often your life depends on not throwing up. But this was such a time.
The stench became worse and worse. We cupped our hands over our mouths—even Jacob now—and tried not to pass out.
Finally the dragon was spent. He collapsed to the ground, heaving, surrounded by a long, thick trail of yellow vomit.
“Give him a while,” Jacob whispered.
We did. We waited. Baldwin’s head was between his legs to prevent himself from throwing up or passing out. Fabian pinched his rat-like nose so hard it turned purple. Georges and Robert had covered their faces with their shirts.
But at last, Jacob said, “On the count of three, scream as loud as you can.”
Baldwin said groggily, “That shouldn’t be too hard.”
Jacob whispered, “One . . . two . . . three!”
The scream shook the birds from the trees and chased the scavengers from the sky.
The dragon leapt to his feet, spun around a few times, and then dashed from the clearing. Behind him, a tiny burst of fart squirted out. A twig caught the brunt of it, burst into weak flame, and then the flame died.
The clearing lay quiet and still and completely putrid.
“What just happened?” I asked.
Jacob said, “I cured the dragon. No more deadly farts.”
“Why not?”
“See all that yellow goop down there?”
We all nodded—while trying not to actually look at it.
“That’s Époisses.”
Then we did all look. I was still confused.
“When I first smelled the dragon, I recognized it right away. It smelled like old, digested cheese. And didn’t you say the deadly farting began when it passed through Burgundy? After attacking that inn? Cheese creates bile in some people. Makes them spend all night squatting on the dung heap. My mom is like that.”
“Does she fart fire, too?” Jeanne asked. We all laughed. Except for Georges and Robert, who actually wanted to know.