Hobby

THE CASTLE WAS INDEED OLD. ITS KEEP, FROM the time of the Romans, stood mottled and pocked. The newer parts of the building, while colorful, were of shoddy material and worse workmanship. Ambrosius remarked on it quietly as they passed along the corridors.

  "The sounds of construction we heard are not from here but for a brand-new castle," he said. "One hopes it is better built than this."

  But when they reached the kitchen, the cook—with a stomach as round as a drum and a mouth that seemed always open—told them how badly that building was going. "The lady's father, the old Duke, fair beggared us fighting off imagined invaders. But then he married off his daughter to the worst invader of all, a man who fancies himself king. At least the Romans knew how to build roads and baths. We still use those that stand. But now..." He made the sign of horns with his right hand and spat through his fingers to ward off bad luck. "Now the countryside's in tatters from armies marching through; and the crops are hardly planted before they're thrashed down by the horses; and the new Duke making it worse building a great new house on the site of the old Roman barracks."

  Viviane appeared not to listen but Ambrosius urged the cook on to more revelations. Hobby stopped attending after a while and turned his mind to the food, which was plentiful and rich. He ate so much he nearly made himself sick and curled, like a dog, three times around before settling on a cushion near the hearth. The cook's voice followed him where he lay.

  "The foundation doesn't hold. What is built up by day falls down by night," the cook was saying as Hobby drifted into sleep.

  A hand on his shoulder roused him, though he was still partially within his dream.

  "The dragons..."he murmured, opening his eyes.

  "Hush," Ambrosius said. "Hush, my boy, and remember. You called out many times in your sleep—of dragons and castles, water and blood. Remember the dream and I will tell you when to spin out the tale of it to catch the conscience of Carmarthen in its web. If I am right, there will be many coins in this." He winked and touched his finger to his nose.

  Hobby closed his eyes and forced himself to remember every inch of the dream. Suddenly his hair was pulled. "Ow!" he cried, opening his eyes again.

  "You are a sight!" Viviane said. "A smudge on your cheek from the hearth cushion and hair in tangles. Let me comb it." And without waiting for permission, she began running her comb through his hair.

  He let her do it, of course, but it bothered him, so he tried to concentrate instead on the incredible bustle of the kitchen. The cook was now too busy to gossip with them, working at the fire: basting, stirring, turning the spit, calling out a string of instructions to his overworked crew.

  "Stephen—here—more juice. Wine up to the tables and hurry, Beth, Mavis, Gwen! They are pounding their feet on the floor. That's not a good sign. The soup is hot enough—run the tureens up, and mind the handles! Use a cloth, Nan, stupid girl! And where are the sharp knives? These be dull as Saxon wit. David—step lively! The pies must come out of the oast now or they burn!"

  Ambrosius stood in a corner, well away from the busyness, limbering up his fingers. Viviane began tuning her harp, concentrating with a passionate intensity that shut out everything else. "Come, mage."

  Hobby turned at the voice. It was the same soldier who had brought them to the castle, his broad, homely face now split with a smile, wine having worked its own magic.

  "Come, mage. And you, singer. Her ladyship asks you to begin."

  Ambrosius pointed to his baskets of apparatus. "Will you bring them up?"

  Grunting, the soldier returned to his earlier gruff form, but hefted the baskets anyway. "Why not have the boy carry and fetch?"

  "He can carry if he has to," Ambrosius said, "but he is much more to us than that."

  The soldier laughed. "You will have no use for a tambourine boy here."

  Ambrosius stood very still, letting his voice drop to a low whisper. "I have performed in higher courts than this. I know what is fit for fairs and what is fit for the Great Hall. The boy does not spill out his tricks for peasants." He moved to Hobby's side and put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "He is a reader of dreams. What he dreams comes true."

  "Is that sor" the soldier asked all of them.

  "It is so," Viviane said, smiling at him intimately.

  Hobby closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again they were the color of an ocean swell. "It is so."

  11. DREAM-READER

  VIVIANE SANG FIRST, A MEDLEY OF LOVE SONGS that favored the Duke and his lady equally. Such was her ability that each took the songs as flattering, though Hobby thought he detected a nasty undertone that made him uncomfortable. But Viviane was roundly applauded.

  Deftly beginning his own performance at the moment Viviane ended hers, even cutting into her applause, Ambrosius started with silly tricks. He plucked eggs, coins, even a turtle from behind an unsuspecting soldier's ear. Hobby recognized the turtle; it was the one Ambrosius had caught when they were fishing.

  Then the mage moved on to finer tricks, like guessing the name of a soldier's sweetheart, or discovering the missing red queen from a card deck under the Lady Renwein's plate. Finally he made Viviane disappear and reappear in a series of boxes, the last of which he had the soldiers thrust through with their swords. The final trick caused the soldiers much consternation, for blood appeared to leak from the boxes, though it was—Hobby knew—juices from the meat they'd had for dinner, which Viviane had kept concealed in a flask.

  When she was revealed whole and hale, the hall resounded with huzzahs. The Duke smiled, whispering to Lady Renwein. She covered his hand with hers and when he withdrew his hand he held a plump purse, which he jangled at them.

  "We are pleased to offer you this, mage."

  "Thank you, my lord," said Ambrosius, "but we are not done yet. I would introduce you to my boy Hobby, who will tell you of a singular dream he had this day."

  Hobby was led by the mage into the very center of the room. His legs trembled, but the mage whispered to him, "Do not be afraid. Simply tell the dream. Leave the rest to me."

  Hobby nodded, closed his eyes as if he dreamed still, and began. "I dreamed a tower of snow that in the day reached as high as the sky but at night melted to the ground."

  "The castle!" the Duke gasped, but Lady Renwein placed her hand once more on his.

  "Hush, my lord," she whispered. "This is a magician's trick. They have been in Carmarthen these three days and surely they have heard of it. It is hardly a secret."

  Eyes closed, Hobby seemed not to hear them but continued on. "And then a man—a mage I think—advised them that the melted water left in the morning should be drained away. It was done as he wished, though the soldiers complained bitterly of it. At last the pool was gone and there in the mud lay two great stones, round and speckled as eggs.

  "Then the mage drew a sword and struck open the eggs. In one was a dragon the color of wine, in the other a dragon the color of maggots."

  There was a collective gasp from the audience, but Hobby could not stop speaking. It was as if a fever had hold of him.

  "When the two dragons saw they were revealed," he said, "they turned not on the soldiers nor on the mage, but on one another. Screaming and breathing fire in the mud, they rose into the air belching smoke. At first the white had the best of it, then the red, turning over and over in the lightening sky. At last with a final clash, breast against breast, the white gashed a great hole in the red's neck and it tumbled end over end down to defeat."

  At that, Hobby opened his eyes and they were the sudden green of gooseberries.

  The Lady Renwein's face looked dark and disturbed. "What does that dream mean, boy?"

  Ambrosius stepped between Hobby and the high table. "The boy dreams, my lady, but leaves it to me to make sense of his dreams, just as did his dear, dead mother before him."

  Startled, Hobby turned to Viviane. She rolled her eyes up at the ceiling and held her mouth still.

  "His mother was a dream-reader, too?" the Duke aske
d.

  "She was," Ambrosius said, "though being a woman she dreamed of more homey things: the names of babes, the color of their eyes, and whether they be boys or girls."

  Lady Renwein leaned forward. "Then say what this dream of towers and dragons means, mage."

  "I will, my lady. It is of course not unknown to us that you have a house that will not stand. All the town speaks of it. However, our young Hobby has dreamed the reason for the failure. The house does not stand—in dream images it melts—because there is a pool beneath it, most likely a conduit that the Romans built for their baths. With your construction there has been leakage underground. Open the foundation of your house, drain the pool, remove or reconstruct the Roman pipes, and the building will remain whole."

  "Is that all?" The Duke sounded disappointed. "I thought you might say that the red dragon was the lady's and the white mine, or some such."

  "Dreams are devious, my lord," Ambrosius said, putting his hand once again on Hobby's shoulder. "Truth on the slant."

  But Lady Renwein was nodding. "Yes, that makes sense, about the conduits and the drain. You need not have done all this folderol with dreams in order to give us good advice."

  Ambrosius smiled, stepped away from Hobby, and bowed deeply. "But, my lady, would you have listened to a traveling magician on matters of ... state?"

  Lady Renwein smiled back, a look of perfect understanding passing between them.

  "Besides," Ambrosius said, "I had not heard the boy's dream till this very moment. The cook will vouch for that. Nor have I given thought to your new home or anything else in Carmarthen, excepting the fair. It was the boy's dream that instructed us in what must be done. Like his mother, of blessed memory. She, the minx, never mentioned she was carrying a boy. Though when she had him, she said, ‘He will be a hawk among princes.' And thus saying, she died. So I named him Hobby. A small hawk, but mine own."

  At that Hobby started. All this talk of mothers had merely irritated him. But the fact that Ambrosius called him "mine own" made him flush with a combination of pride and embarrassment. Was there nothing the mage would not say for a prize?

  12. A DIFFERENT READING

  IT WAS TWO DAYS LATER THAT A MESSENGER arrived at the green wagon with a small casket full of coins as well as a small gold dragon pendant with a faceted red jewel for an eye.

  "Her ladyship sends these with her compliments," the messenger said. "There was indeed a hidden pool beneath the foundation. And the pipes, which were grey and speckled as eggs, were rotted clear through. The Duke begs you to stay for yet another dream. He says the boy is indeed a hawk among princes."

  Ambrosius smiled. "Thank them both from us and say that we will let the boy dream tonight and come tomorrow with him."

  After the messenger had departed, Viviane laughed. "Hawk among princes indeed!" She ran her fingers through the coins. "Here, hawkling," she said, placing the pendant's chain over Hobby's head.

  The thing lay like a cold supper on his stomach and he shivered. He had been thinking for two days about all the lies Ambrosius had told the Duke, one atop another. Yet some were lies even he wanted to believe in. A mother and father who loved him and named him. How could he be angry with the mage when that was what he most desired? Still, he had to say it, had to ask.

  "You made it all up," he said. There was accusation in his voice and—to be truthful—a bit of a whine. Twelve years was not yet too old for whining. "About my mother. About the dream."

  "About your mother, yes," Ambrosius admitted. "But not the dream."

  "You lied."

  Viviane shrugged and picked up the casket of coins. "And what of that? All magecraft is a lie," she said. "All performance. A lie, if done well, becomes truth." She placed the casket under an embroidered cloth.

  "No lie in her performance that night," said Ambrosius. "Did you see how she managed them?" He blew her a kiss.

  Viviane came over to him and touched his cheek fondly.

  Hobby felt cold. They seemed quite giddy with themselves. "But you lied about the dream. It meant nothing like that." He wondered how he knew such a thing, but it was as if he suddenly had been given a gift of understanding simply by mentioning the dream. "Nothing."

  "What do you mean?" Ambrosius asked cautiously. There was a slyness—and a fear—in his eyes that he could not disguise.

  Hobby weighed his words carefully. He thought his entire future might lie in what he said next. "The dream, Ambrosius. It was not about drains."

  "Ah..." Ambrosius let out only one small syllable.

  "It was a dream about ... armies, about the Duke's losses to come. There will be a battle, and his army will be defeated. He was right in a way. And you dismissed him."

  "I did not dismiss him," Ambrosius said. "I sidestepped him. To tell a prince to his face that you have dreamed his doom invites your own. The greatest wisdom of any dreamer is to live to dream again." He smiled, but it sat on his mouth and never reached his eyes. Unaccountably his brow was spotted with sweat.

  "The only duty of the dreamer is to tell the truth," Hobby said. "About the dream."

  "You do not listen well," Viviane said.

  "He does not listen at all," Hobby retorted, suddenly sure that Ambrosius had never understood the dream's meaning. The man was a charlatan through and through. The actual dream had never mattered. He would have told the Duke the same whatever the dream. Lady Renwein had the right of it. And Hobby suddenly knew something else as well: Ambrosius was afraid of both the dream and the dreamer. "You are jealous and afraid," he spat out. "You know yourself to be nothing more than a sleight-of-hander. I am the true dream-reader."

  Ambrosius did not answer, his face drawn.

  "I am sorry," Hobby said quickly. "I should not have said that." But whether he meant he was sorry for his tongue's sharpness or for saying out loud what they all already knew, none of them was sure.

  Ambrosius turned and gave Viviane an unreadable look. "The boy is right about one thing. My hand is quicker than my mind. We go from here at once.

  "Tomorrow is soon enough."

  "Now."

  "Boy," Viviane said, turning a smile on Hobby that made him flush all over. "Take these coins. Go into town. Buy yourself some token of the place. Kiss a pretty wench. Twelve years is none too soon for that." She reached into the pocket that hung from her belt and fetched out a handful of coins, much too much for an evening's entertainment. "Come back in an hour or two. No sooner. I will change this stubborn old man's mind that we all may have a good night's rest."

  Hobby took the coins and went. Not to buy a token. Not to kiss a town maid. But to think long and hard about the power he had, this dreaming. And to think what it had to do with the matter of truth.

  13. RESURRECTION

  THE TOWN WAS QUIET, THE STALLS SHUT DOWN, the players all in their beds. The tubs and trestles on which goods had stood all day were pulled in for the night.

  Hobby wandered through the empty town, sitting at last with his back to a stone watering trough, meaning to think. Instead he fell asleep and dreamed.

  He dreamed three dreams. The first was of a hand pushing up through earth, as if someone long buried sought the light. A revenant, a shadow, a ghost to haunt him. He cried out and his own cry wakened him for a moment.

  The second dream was not so frightening as the first. There was a bear, not much more than a cub, padding through the woods with a crown upon its head.

  The third was a dream of a tree and in the dream he slept, dreaming.

  A rough hand shook him awake. He swam up into the light of the torch, thinking, It will be one of the guards. Or Ambrosius. Or Viviane, though the touch was too rough for hers.

  But when he heard the low, familiar growl of a dog, he knew that his first dream had, in its own way, come true. "Fowler," he whispered, meaning both the man and his breath. "I thought you were dead."

  "You left me unconscious, boy. And we such good friends," Fowler said. "I heard about you when I arrived. Quite a perform
ance, I was told. The Duke wants more. He's not yet satisfied."

  "How did you know it was me?"

  "Oh, a duke's spy has his little ways." The man laughed. "But a strange boy with eyes like gooseberries was a sign. That horse and cow a surety. You picked my pocket."

  "I never . . Hobby's voice was more vehement than an innocent's should have been. It was because he had considered—if only for a moment—stealing from the foul man.

  "At least you left me my boots."

  "Master Robin's boots, you mean."

  "Master Robin, is it? I heard his name was Ambrosius. He has as many names as you, young Hawk." Fowler smiled. In the torchlight his one good eye gleamed, the scarred eye was black as an empty socket. "I shall have to speak to your master for recompense. He took my boy, my horse, my cow. He shall have to pay me or I take it out in blood. Your blood for mine. Blood, they say, makes great bargains."

  Hobby twisted in the man's hand but could not shake his hold. The dog growled.

  "Up, hawkling." He yanked the boy to his feet and they marched through the shadows toward the castle on wheels.

  But the green wagon was gone. Gone were the mules. And gone as well were Goodie and Churn.

  Hobby wrenched free of Fowler's hand, scouring the darkness. But he did not bother to call out. He knew, from the hard stone sitting in his chest, that they had fled long since, taking his horse and cow with them. All he had of them, his new family, was the Lady Renwein's pendant and a handful of coins. Viviane had not overpaid him after all.

  The chapel bell tolled midnight and Hobby willed himself not to cry.

  "So they have flown the dovecote, leaving the little pigeon behind," Fowler said, his hand once more heavy on Hobby's shoulder.

  Hobby did not bother to answer. Indeed, what could he have said? That he had been cozened by Viviane's smile and an evening's worth of coppers? That he had believed Ambrosius wanted him for a son? That they had run off in the end because they were afraid of him, afraid of his dreaming?