The Birthday Dragon Read online

  Although a peasant, Father joined the Military Guild and graduated in the top ten, against the cream of his generation, every one of them stronger Blood. He served, was promoted as far as captain, and given an honourable discharge after two years in the north.

  Mother didn’t think peasant or Blood meant much either. After all, she said, human was what Dragon once were and intellectually we were all equal. The physical enhancements of Dragon didn’t detract from us all being people. Of course, the locals considered Mother and Father to be radicals, each married to the other side.

  As one of the villagers explained it to me, they didn’t understand why Mother was slumming it, wedded to a peasant and pretending to be a farmer, or why Father persisted in trying to rise above his station in life. His family were wealthy commoners, wasn’t that enough for him? Why had he gone to officer school and married into the Blood?

  I didn’t care about class or race. I did think they were both mad. Now, abandoned by my father, trapped in the kitchen with Mother, the lecture began. The subject was how I was a trial to her and an embarrassment to her good name, as if Father wasn’t enough.

  For a bleary moment, I thought that my school report had arrived already, then realised it was only the usual. Leaning against the kitchen counter, I tried not to yawn as she warmed to her theme. The shame of me was so great she could barely hold up her head in polite society. If she listened to all the gossip she’d have to leave the kingdom and go somewhere news of her son’s shenanigans didn’t precede her.

  Mother never left the farm and none of her friends cared what I did, but I didn’t correct her. She listed what I must do, which involved learning to keep my pants up at all times and ignoring the invitations of women, and men.

  With escape impossible, I surrendered and went for more toast and coffee, saying mmm or grunting on occasion, just so she knew I was listening. I also made some more willow bark tea, this time in the proper manner, and eventually helped myself to her mindweed again because she hadn’t stopped talking and it was making my head hurt.

  She didn’t say anything sarcastic as I took the mindweed, which should have been a sign, but I was too hungover to appreciate signs. I think a giant raven could have landed in the yard with “I’m an omen!” painted on its forehead, holding a sign in one huge claw, something like, “Look out, Polo! Dark events are afoot!” and I probably would have walked past it. My mind drifted, though I kept an ear on Mother’s outpouring in case I need to grunt or show penitence. I was ready to say almost anything to shut her up.

  ****

  By the time she let me go, she was feeling better. I was feeling quite joyous to be away and even the freezing wind on the barn roof didn’t bother me much. Mother didn’t like heights so couldn’t get up there to talk at me. I saw her heading round the house with a hammer and hoped it wasn’t another job she needed me for.

  After I replaced a faulty panel in the array and cleaned it up I climbed down out of the wind and into the barn. It was pretty bad, but I’d kept the stalls mucked out over winter, every day removing the manure and any wet straw with it, so with a hose I was able to wash out the rest, just using a stiff broom to sweep out the excess water before leaving the building open at each end to air.

  ****

  Chapter 4 – Happy Families

  When the cleaning lady arrived, I was heading into the bathhouse for the second time. Molly winked at me as she went into the house. I could hear Mother giving her orders. Aside from the faulty cell, I’d switched off the array while working on it, so the water was cold, but cold water ceased to matter so much when covered in manure and mud slurry.

  Despite the chill, when I came out of the bathhouse and saw Mother heading into the village, I felt a definite urge to steal a few moments with Molly. She was sweet, with dark curls and creamy-skinned curves, a bit older than me, about to turn twenty-two, with two children and a husband, not that any of that bothered us.

  We had a rule, no messing around while she was working, but there was no truth to cold water being helpful in stopping those urges, unless perhaps one dunked oneself in a pool of it and stayed there until the other person left the country. Even then it only stopped the act, not the thoughts about it.

  “Your ma’s gone to the village,” said Molly, as I came in, towel round my hips, heading for my bedroom and clothes, “she’s got a fitting at the dressmakers’. Reckoned she’d be a while.” Molly gave me a saucy grin. “Put some pants on, help me get the cleaning done, we’ll have time for some fun.”

  For Molly’s kind of fun, I’d do more than my share of the chores. We hurried through making the beds and dusting then I swept the floor before Molly mopped. She shooed me firmly away until we finished.

  “That’s work done,” she said finally, and grinned. “Now, laddie, shall we go make a mess of your bed? Just a quick one, mind, and I’ll see you tonight. Rob’s gone playing darts. It’s their tournament.”

  “How about here,” I said, and pointed to the kitchen table. “Want to be a good girl and bend over?”

  “I didn’t think we’d get to see each other before tonight,” she said, flipping her skirts up to show me a plump and completely bare arse. Molly hated knickers. It was one of her many charms. I turned her round, kissed her, and admired her cleavage in front, before turning her round and admiring her cleavage from behind.

  ****

  All was going well, better than well, and my headache was completely gone. I closed my eyes, focusing on sensation. I don’t know what I heard. Perhaps some exhalation of breath that wasn’t part of the rhythm I was lost in.

  I opened my eyes. Molly must have done the same, because we both made squawking noises and hastily separated, smoothing our clothes, pretending we’d bumped into each other.

  Our act wouldn’t have fooled a two-year-old and Mother had been watching long enough to light up a smoke and lean back against the doorframe. I hadn’t heard the match at all. Gods, I thought, how long was she there? How long were my eyes shut? Minutes?

  Mother had stepped into the room to get to the sideboard where the mindweed and her pipes lived, as she didn’t carry them with her. How had I not noticed? My all-over blush intensified. Mother breathed out smoke and stood up straight.

  “Molly,” she said. “you’re fired. Polo, go to your room, you’re grounded. I’m going to talk to you in a moment. Right now I need to pay Molly out.” Glad to get away, I began to move, thinking I might follow my father’s example and run, but Molly grabbed my arm. Bewildered, I looked at her.

  “No, Polo,” she said, looking fierce and very dramatic.

  Finally I understood an omen. This boded ill. Worse even than anything that had happened so far today, which I would have thought was impossible for a young man with a bad hangover, busted sneaking in from an illicit late night, grounded on the first day of the school holidays after having been kicked in the groin and nearly drowned by a suicidal sheep, and let’s not forget, just caught doing the cleaning lady - the ‘married and nearly seven years older than me’ cleaning lady - by my own mother, who, to make things worse, was even now laughing at me. So much she was crying.

  Right on cue, my headache came thumping back. After a little thought, I decided now was not the time to steal some more mindweed, probably the only sensible thing I’d done in a week.

  “Um,” I said aloud and mumbled, “I have to go to my room.” Mother sniggered. I hated her with a passion. “Molly?” I feebly raised my arm and Molly held on. I looked at Mother, who was giggling and wiping her eyes with a handkerchief while she put the kettle on.

  “You tell her,” said Molly. I looked blank. I looked at Mother, who shrugged. I looked back at Molly and shrugged at her. It was still morning and I wasn’t even awake properly.

  “Polo and I love each other,” said Molly, turning on Mother, pulling me closer. I stumbled in that direction, not yet prepared to resist and lose that much skin. “I’m going to divorce Rob,” Molly said, waving her other hand, “we’re g
oing to marry, and you can’t stop us!” My jaw dropped. Mother grinned and headed for the ashtray on the dresser.

  “Actually,” she said, obviously enjoying herself, “I can, Molly. He’s only fifteen, had you forgotten?” Molly obviously had. I felt her fingers tighten on my arm enough that I tried to pry them off me. I wanted some distance from both Mother and Molly before I spoke. Molly was only five feet tall but I knew enough to know any woman spurned was dangerous. Size really didn’t matter. I was going to do as Mother said so Molly was going to be angry. She was already sputtering. Mother was enjoying herself. Still. “You’ll end up in gaol, Molly,” she said, “and I’ll be glad to testify against you.

  “Polo,” Mother repeated, “go to your room. Molly and I have business to discuss.”

  Mother was likely to use one of Father’s military throws if I didn’t shift it. I wasn’t the only one he’d taught them to. And she was Blood like me, so strong, plus I couldn’t hit her. She on the other hand, had no such compunction over clobbering me. Now she paused, gave us a bright smile. “Unless you’d both like me to call the polis in?” she said. “I prefer not, it will end up in the papers, you know what they’re like.” I shook my head vigorously and redoubled my efforts. It would have been easy with a man but, hamstrung by manners, I couldn’t break a woman’s fingers.

  “Will you wait for me, Polo,” said Molly, finding her voice, and the glimmering of a plan, “if they gaol me?” At first I was so engrossed in trying to get away politely that I didn’t realise she was talking to me. “Polo?”

  “What? Me?” I said and looked blank again. Mother rolled her eyes. Molly wouldn’t let go. Mother wasn’t going to leave. I was trapped. I was being forced to have to have The Conversation in front of Mother. It was going to be ghastly. Was a meteorite about to hit the house and save me answering? I looked hopefully upwards but it didn’t seem likely.

  “Praying won’t save you,” said Mother, grinning. “Imagine if I hadn’t forgotten my purse.” I hated her from the depths of my soul.

  “I’m an atheist,” I said automatically. “Mother’s right, Molly, I’m under age.” I took a breath. Having started, it wasn’t so bad. Screw Mother, as Father would say. I remembered my trump card. I tried to be a man and look Molly in the eyes. “And I don’t love you. Sorry.” I wondered why I was saying sorry.

  Molly had never mentioned love before. She hadn’t mentioned something else before either, leaving Rob. I had the feeling she meant to saddle me with Rob’s two children, which was a little more than I was hoping for out of the relationship, being as I was fifteen and only there for the sex. However, I didn’t want the polis there.

  ****

  The local senior constable had mentioned if there was any more trouble from me doing married women, they’d let the husbands at me.

  “Which means you’d have to leave town,” he told me.

  “That’s not fair,” I said, “you’re sworn to protect all the people.” He laughed.

  “Tough, young Polo. We don’t get paid enough to get into love triangles.”

  “But,” I said, “I don’t love her.” It was a different her then. I always had at least one spare woman in case, as Father put it, one threw a shoe.

  I was honest about my multiplicity of partners, thinking if the women knew there were others then they wouldn’t fixate on me. It hadn’t worked well so far. I was beginning to understand that life wasn’t that simple and women were endlessly complicated.

  “They obviously see you as a ticket to coin, lad,” the senior constable had said, his tone kind, as if to an imbecile. He was a peasant, I was Blood. Didn’t I understand how people saw me, how the world worked? “Women like that,” he explained, “they like the idea of riches.”

  “But we’re quite poor,” I said. “I have dirt under my fingernails. You make more than the farm does in a year, and you get free meals.” I knew that because I had considered a career in the polis but was put off by the idea that the local criminals would run a sweep on who would break my nose first, with a bonus to anyone managing it in the initial year, month, or even day. Nothing personal, they did it to all the constables, but me being Blood would definitely made it special.

  ****

  I focused on the present. Molly was looking at me with angry brown eyes. Not like Mother’s or mine, hers were brown and long-lashed, normal human brown. Eyes that didn’t shine or see well in the dark, but pretty eyes, combined with silky skin I had been lost in. She finally let go of me, throwing my arm away from her like a gnat swatting a horse. I took a hasty step back, one eye on Mother in case she tried to outflank me.

  There were only two exits, three if one counted the kitchen window. I was edging towards the door that led deeper into the house. In a pinch, the lock on my bedroom door should hold them long enough for me to get the window open and escape that way. Molly took a step towards me.

  “So I’m just a tumble to you, Polo?” she said. I paused in my edging away and shrugged.

  “No, of course not. But you said it was for fun.” I felt childish, saying ‘you said’, and it was excruciating talking to her in front of Mother, but the last thing I wanted was an angry husband on the doorstep. Again. I looked at Mother, who waved me away. I bolted. Coward? Of course.

  In my room, I realised that strange feeling was the condom I was still wearing. Once cleaned up, I opted against bravery and hid there with an ear against the wooden wall, thinking it was fortunate we weren’t rich like the peasants thought we were. In Grandmama Daeva’s house I wouldn’t have been able to hear the conversation.

  “I’ll make it eight golds,” Mother was saying, her tone icy. “And you and Rob pack up the kids, leave Sendren. I want you well away from Polo.”

  There was a pause. I was open-mouthed. It was a huge amount of money, two year’s wages for Molly if she worked six days a week, something that in Sendren in those days was the norm, though thanks to Rob working, Molly only did a few days for Mother. “You don’t see the boy again,” said Mother. The boy, I thought disgustedly, it’s as if I was a parcel.

  “Make it ten,” said Molly, matching Mother’s tone, “after all, we’ll be leaving family. You pay more for everything as newcomers. Then there’s Rob, he’s going to take some talking into it, especially as I’ll have a time finding a way to do it without letting on the real reason we’re leaving or why I got the coin.” Another pause.

  I reflected how little I knew any of the women in my life. I did know our household budget to the copper, thanks to doing my part of the bookwork when I brought coin back from the market. Us holding ten golds was unheard of.

  “Maybe I gave it to you,” said Mother, “but as a gift. In the circumstances.” I wasn’t sure what those were and wondered what they’d been saying before I started eavesdropping. Did she mean instead of calling the law? But that didn’t make sense.

  “That could work,” said Molly, who a few minutes ago said she loved me and was now negotiating her fee to leave me forever. “Come to think of it,” she said, “make it fifteen.” At least that was a decent amount of coin. Three years’ wages for love seemed reasonable.

  “Ten and I’ll give you a glowing reference,” said Mother, “that’s all the savings I’ve got, Molly, except the rent money. You know I don’t have much coin.”

  “Twelve,” said Molly, “only because I know your ma won’t mind fronting you two golds for the rest of the rent and your cousin won’t mind waiting on it. Thanks, I’ll take the reference. Can you do one for Rob?” Pause. I heard Mother say,

  “Deal,” and then Molly gave the reply,

  “Deal it is,” which meant it was like a contract. They must have shaken hands.

  “Excellent,” said Mother, sounding pleased. Then I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  The back screen door closed. As she went across the yard Molly’s footsteps sounded light, almost skipping. And that was that.

  ****

  I got out my diary, lay on my bed, and began to
write about the fickleness of lovers’ hearts bought with gold and how I was a worn shoe, to be discarded. I was trying to work it into a poem but the shoe metaphor wasn’t working, as you could often mend a shoe. I sighed. Mother walked in without knocking, as she always did.

  “Mother!” I said, affronted, as I always was. “Can’t you knock? A man likes a bit of privacy.” I held my diary to my chest so she couldn’t see. She pushed her way onto the bed next to me and I realised she was staying, so closed the book and slid it under the pillow. We sat with our backs against the wall and I waited.

  “A man,” she said, and poked me in the arm, “doesn’t do other men’s wives. Or let his mother end his relationships for him.” I tried to protest that I’d spoken up and said I didn’t love Molly, but Mother wasn’t listening.

  “Honestly, Polo, can’t you find any single women? She’s a damn good cleaning lady and if we weren’t leaving Lower Beech I’d be very angry with you. Pissing on your own doorstep. On the bloody kitchen table.” Mother began to slump down the wall.

  “We never did that before,” I lied, Mother slouching beside me. I was waiting to see how angry she was, which would be shown by how much swearing was incorporated in her speech. I reckoned if I was sitting forward a little I could beat her to the door.

  “I bet you damn well wouldn’t have wiped it down afterwards,” she said. I sat up on the bed. Then it registered. I shook my head.

  “What? Mother? What was that?”