The Birthday Dragon Read online

  Polo Shawcross: The Birthday Dragon

  Lee Abrey

  A version of this book was published 2011 as part of the e-book

  The Birthday Dragon by Polo Shawcross

  Published by Lee Abrey at Smashwords

  Copyright © Lee Abrey 2011-2017

  Cover Art and Design by Lee Abrey

  With massive assistance from Adobe Photoshop

  and the artists of pixabay.com

  License Statement

  This free ebook may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared, provided it appears in its entirety without alteration, and the reader is not charged to access it.

  If you can, let other people download their own copy or download one for them. Every download counts. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  ****

  For Author Notes, Other Books, and Contact Details

  See End.

  Dedicated with love to

  The Delta Reader

  Whose life I stole

  Enjoy

  ****

  Chapter 1 - Somewhere, Somewhen

  I hoped to write this without reference to sex. However, as I suspected, sex is so tightly interwoven with my story, to try to tell it with my clothes on just doesn’t work.

  Besides, you need to know exactly how shallow I was.

  ****

  It was a while before I realised I wasn’t like the commoners. They were human. Father was human.

  Grandmama Daeva, Mother, and I were only descended from humans. I was also descended from Mother, something that even before I went to school was a worry. Mother was Grandmama’s daughter, something Grandmama refused to take the blame for.

  When the stranger they said was my father came out of the army, I was two. My world had barely coalesced around me. I was very suspicious of the pair of them. If they really were my parents, why didn’t they seem to know each other?

  As Father told the story many years later, he arrived at Grandmama Daeva’s townhouse in Beech Wood, which he had visited on leaves and was the only place he thought of as home, to find we were moving. Mother had taken the lease on a farm even further from the capital than Beech Wood. Most of his possessions were already at our new place. He was twenty-three and just out of the snap and panic of the Northern Front.

  The farmhouse kitchen was scattered with half-unpacked boxes. Father was completely horrified. Mother happily bounced me on her knee. She had dark hair and eyes. Father was blonde like me, though his eyes were blue and mine were green. He shut his eyes, opened them again and shook his head.

  “Tess,” he said finally, “you took a fourteen-year lease on this place without even telling me you were thinking about it?”

  “But Evan,” Mother said, trying to make him understand, “it was too good to pass up. We’ll live in touch with the land, like your peasant ancestors. My trust fund will pay the rent and a bit more. Whatever we make we can spend.” Father groaned. Mother smiled. She knew he’d be thrilled once he understood what a good deal it was.

  “It’s only fourteen years,” she went on, “but terribly cheap. Good fertile land with permanent water. I was lucky enough to take over a lease through Cousin Perry.” Crown Prince Perry was a distant cousin, heir to the throne of our Kingdom of Sendren and duke of our Duchy of Beechwood. “Polo can grow up in the country,” said Mother in a dreamy tone, hugging me closer, looking happy, which made Father groan again.

  “Galaia preserve us,” he said, by now sounding exasperated, “fourteen years? Men get less for murder.” He looked thoughtful. “Especially if there are extenuating circumstances or provocation. Like wives going insane, that kind of thing.” Mother frowned. I wriggled to get away from her and over to Toby, the cat that came with the farm. She let me go and I slid to the floor. I loved to bury my head and hands in Toby’s belly fur and push him across the tiles. Toby, a remarkable nursemaid, tolerated it.

  “Evan?” said Mother, an eye on me in case the cat tired of the game.

  “It’s a bloody hour by horse to the nearest civilisation,” said Father, trying to make her understand. “And that’s only to your mother’s in Beech Wood, a small market town, not even a decent city. It’s another four hours to a main highway.”

  “Don’t you want to be a farmer?” said Mother, sounding shocked.

  “Tess,” said Father, getting angry, “of course I bloody don’t! I hate farming! Don’t you remember why I joined the damn army? I could have stayed up in Blackrock herding sheep, not bothered with breaking my balls to get into the damned Military Guild and giving the army five years of my life!”

  “But Evan,” said Mother, unfazed, “it won’t be horrible. I’ll make cheese.” Father breathed out. “We won’t have as many sheep, for one,” she added in a cheerful tone. Father shut his eyes and began banging his head on the table.

  On a book, Mother always pointed out, he wasn’t really trying to injure himself. I personally thought the book was just luck. My game with Toby interrupted, I sat up and watched, fascinated. The cat took advantage, hooked a claw into my romper suit and pulled me over, putting one foot on my head before beginning to clean my forehead thoroughly with its rough tongue. I began to cry.

  “Shush, Polo,” Mother said, “Toby’s only licking you.” I cried louder. She rolled her eyes but came to my rescue, wiping my forehead with a hankie. Toby purred at her.

  “And while our son’s being eaten alive,” said Father, “by some filthy feral cat-”

  “Toby’s not feral,” said Mother, trying to stay calm, “he’s a housecat. And a good mouser. I’m keeping him.” Father gave her a look.

  “As I was saying, I think I’ll go to the local inn. I saw it on the way through the village. All two bloody buildings. I’ll have a drink and wonder when my wife went completely bloody mad.”

  Mother and I played with Toby until she judged Father had enough time to get most of a drink down him, then she drove the cart back through the village and shouted through the window for Father.

  “Evan! We’re going back to Beech Wood, are you coming?” It was a ruse. She was only going back to check she hadn’t left anything at Grandmama Daeva’s place, and to return the cart.

  I wanted to stay at Grandmama’s too, but Father and I had to go with Mother.

  ****

  Grandmama often minded me though, which I enjoyed.

  “You must never think you are better than anyone, Polo,” Grandmama told me, “just because you’re Blood.” I was playing with some toy at her feet. “All men, and women, are equal. Blood or peasant, we’re all people. Blood might have some advantages but they can be as stupid as the next person. Dragon blood doesn’t stop idiocy,” she said, curling her lip a little, “just look at your mother.”

  “Shouldn’t say things like that to the boy,” said the day nanny, looking up from her book. I had nannies at Grandmama’s, servants drafted in on Polo-duty during my visits, which were often weeks long.

  “Polo’s too young to remember all the silly things Grandmama says,” Grandmama said firmly, “aren’t you?” She softened her tone. “You’re my precious boy.” Toy forgotten, I beamed up at her, held up my arms, and made it to her lap. The servant shook her head.

  “Your grandson’s precocious and precious, ladyship, don’t say I didn’t warn you. He picked up swearing before he could walk properly.”

  “Mostly from his mother,” said Grandmama, her tone sweet as she bounced me, “didn’t you, pet?” I giggled and demanded more bouncing. The servant muffled a laugh and went back to her book.

  Grandmama told good stories and never screamed, so of course I liked her more than Mother. Even at that age I knew better than to let on.

  ****

  Blue Hill Fa
rm was on the edge of the tiny village of Lower Beech, the farm named for an outcropping of blue granite at one side of the back paddock. When I say the farmhouse was a cottage, I don’t mean it was a pleasant twelve-bedroom mansion with panoramic views over a thousand-acre estate, I mean a three-room cottage comprising a kitchen and two bedrooms, with twenty acres of pasture behind and an acre kitchen garden round the house.

  The former lessee left a note asking that Toby the cat be looked after and brought inside at night, at least to the barn if we were the kind of folk who didn’t like cats indoors. Mother, happy to give Toby the best of everything, hid that note from Father. Toby was gentle with people but killed mice and rats with an insouciant efficiency, laying out their bodies for Mother to admire next to where she milked the cow.

  Father refused to so much as close a gate when it came to farm work, which had the desired effect of Mother banning him from opening any. He said he had enough of sheep, crops, and everything to do with them before he joined the army, which he only left as the result of losing an argument with Mother.

  As Grandmama Daeva put it to one of her friends some years later, not realising I was in earshot,

  “Teseraia brought that poor man back by his balls. Told him she was tired of being alone with her mother and a baby, and that several would-be beaus would see to her if he wouldn’t. Silly bugger gave up his career then gave in to her on that stupid farm. Now she thinks she owns him.”

  When Father discovered Mother tricked him into leaving one of his great loves, the army, to be a farmer, and Mother realised he didn’t want to be one, the war between my parents began. She was sure he’d come round. Oneness with the soil was his birthright.

  “Peasant,” she said, hands on her hips, surveying the vegetable garden, “is not a derogatory word, it means ‘of the soil’. We are the Blood, but the peasants are the lifeblood.” It was a quote from the Book of Thet, the “we are the Blood” bit. They both quoted it to me, despite neither of them being religious.

  However, Father didn’t come round to the idea of shepherding, even for a small flock of exotics. The chickens made him itch, and he and the cow hated each other on sight. So Mother worked the land and Father found a job as a clerk in a local law firm in Beech Wood. It gave him an hour commute by horse every morning and evening. Mother wanted him to buy a season ticket on the coach so she could get rid of the horse. Peasants didn’t keep horses, she reasoned, ignoring our peasant farmer neighbours who did indeed keep them.

  ****

  Chapter 2 – Growing Up in Lower Beech

  To me, life seemed normal. My parents snarled at each other and Father drank too much. Like everyone else in the old Dragon kingdoms both my parents smoked mindweed, but Mother grew and cured her own, often soaked in her own apple brandy then dried. She tutted over the villagers’ laziness, in going into debt to the village shop rather than growing a little garden.

  When I was about five, Father stopped smoking much and started drinking in earnest. Mother began locking her fruit and vegetable wines away, which probably saved his life, her concoctions being much too strong to be drunk on any regular basis. Father went more often to the inn, or to the officer’s mess at the small army garrison only a minute’s walk from our front gate. The garrison-next-door gave Father an extra bolthole Mother hadn’t counted on. They weren’t expecting invasion, spending time hunting outlaws in the mountains.

  Once I started school, it became obvious even to me that by local standards our household was a strange one. It wouldn’t be so radical in a city, but in Lower Beech a peasant married to a Blood woman was considered extremely eccentric. The local children were all commoners, and asked me questions.

  “Isn’t your da afraid your ma will change shape?” I didn’t know.

  “Can you change shape? Were you born in an egg? How far away is your Dragon blood?” I didn’t know anything.

  “Your ma’s got those cat’s-eyes, even weirder than yours, is she Dragon?” With Mother, I was fairly sure anything was possible but told them no, she was Blood.

  “My ma says your ma’s cousin to the king, will you be king?” Nobody had mentioned it, and I assumed it wasn’t the kind of thing one surprised a child with, so told them no, then went to the adults in my life and asked them.

  My parents refused to answer most of it, saying it was silly. They were both convinced we should ignore all differences between species, especially since I was partly both. I knew I was a half-breed, but half-breed wasn’t a kind word the way the children said it.

  Before starting school I learned to read, something Mother thought would give me a head-start but instead made me more of a freak. Grandmama Daeva was having me to stay by then for weeks at a time. Grandmama answered my questions and taught me to use the town library to find out answers to anything she didn’t know or thought it would do me good to research. Though I often missed school I learned a lot. She did confirm I wasn’t born in an egg, though we read at the library that a long way back, Dragon tried eggs as a way of having children.

  My weird eyes? They were Dragon eyes, which saw better in the dark and also shone in it. There were different markings, all with some crystalline or metallic colour. My eyes had a green iris, the outer ring a shining copper, called an orbital ring.

  Grandmama Daeva’s eyes were the colour of emeralds, with a flash of topaz fire in their depths called solid crystalline. Mother’s were a kind of opalescent. Cat’s-eyes were a throwback to our Dragon blood. Everyone was very vague about that, saying only that ‘somewhere back’ there was a pure Dragon ancestor. It wasn’t class or wealth that made the Blood, it was their genetic inheritance.

  “Only the cat’s-eyed can be king,” as Grandmama told me, “or even a duke or a lord. Only Dragon can rule.” At the time, I didn’t understand what that meant. After all, Dragon hadn’t been seen in the old kingdoms for hundreds of years. I thought she meant down south in Redoubt where Dragon lived, they could only rule there. I went on with my questions.

  “Am I in line to the throne?” I said.

  “Only if about three hundred people die,” Grandmama assured me.

  “Can I change shape?” Grandmama said yes, it was quite possible when I was bigger, if I worked hard.

  Father wouldn’t discuss it.

  Mother laughed and said it was a fairy story.

  In the library, the books were as divided as the adults’ opinions. Some said changing form was unlikely but may have happened in the past, which I thought was a shame. I would have quite liked to have turned into a dragon and chased off the village children who tormented me.

  At first the nastiness wasn’t physical, but before long I had my first black eye. The local boys might have overlooked me being half-Blood, but I also read for pleasure. Luckily Father was already teaching me games involving sparring, swords, and mounted combat, so I could fight, but unfortunately those skills meant I was attracting the attention of much older boys who could put me down with size alone.

  On Father’s advice, the next time a fight looked likely I hit the boy first. I broke his nose and was left alone for a while, then they came after me in a group.

  Mother, while dressing my wounds with many dirty looks at Father, suggested that next time I tried running away. I took her advice, but to my disappointment, I discovered I wasn’t fast even when running for my life.

  Up until then I was a firm believer in the notion, instilled in me by Grandmama Daeva, that anyone could do whatever he or she wished hard enough for. My dream of turning into a winged Dragon wasn’t looking likely if I couldn’t even will myself into outdistancing a bunch of peasants.

  The next time I was accosted, deciding that perhaps some melding of parental advice would work, I hit the ringleader very hard just before I ran. It worked, and with varying degrees of success became my usual way of dealing with trouble. Hit first then run away. I aimed to cause enough noise, blood, pain, or tears to distract the mob while I legged it for the safety of my mount, home, school, or
the library.

  Thus passed the years from about six to eleven.

  ****

  Puberty saved me. I shot up in height and put on muscle. By thirteen I was nearly six feet tall and could pass for much older. Suddenly, even in a mob, attacking Polo Shawcross wasn’t worth it. Even if they got me on the ground I hurt too many of them badly. The peasant boys suddenly did no more than jeer. I kept busy sparring with the officers at the garrison. Everyone said I was very good, and there was pressure to choose a career in the army.

  Even at that young age, caught up in the silly romantic notions boys have about being soldiers, I didn’t fancy the idea. Despite my reluctance there wasn’t much else to do in Lower Beech except train to fight. Father was talking about sending me to a military high school for intensive training but fortunately he and Mother were going through a very bad patch and forgot me, so I continued at the village school, which covered kindergarten right up to pre-guild with only four teachers.

  We still had a horse in those days and I could go riding if I finished my chores. A few months after my thirteenth birthday, I was riding in the woods one lazy afternoon and surprised two girls having some fun of the naked kind. They were older women, all of seventeen and eighteen. I may have surprised them but the shock I went into was physical.

  The horse took advantage of my distraction and shied hard sideways. I fell off, reappearing from the undergrowth blushing and apologising for crashing in on them. The girls laughed and laughed, holding clothes to their tantalising flesh.

  I stood there, clutching the horse’s reins, smiling, trying not to stare, not sure what to do or where to look, and praying to the gods I didn’t believe in that the girls would let me stay. Emma, the eldest, said,