Dragon's Boy by Jane Yolen Page B

gentle and caring tones. Fortunately, Lady Marion changed the subject. Not, Artos suspected, to spare his feelings but because the subject had been exhausted.
    â€œNow there is to be a market fair in Shapwick next week and another three days after in Woolvington. Since it’s but a short autumn till the Holy Days are here, we must start thinking about gifts. Remembering, always, that not everyone here at Beau Regarde is Christian as Sir Ector and I and all of you are. We have some who still follow the Druids…”
    â€œOld Linn,” Cai whispered out of the side of his mouth.
    Lady Marion ignored him, “…and some of the old soldiers, bless them, still drink bull’s blood and worship Mithras, though I believe they do it less out of religious fervor than out of companionship. Old boys together. They think I don’t know about their little meetings under the castle in that rabbit warren of rooms down there, but I do.”
    She seems to be saying it as a kind of warning, thought Artos. But Cai whispered to him, “Father has promised to take us all.”
    Artos glanced at him. Us all. Did Cai mean to include him, too?
    â€œWe shall therefore need silks and jewels and some good Scottish wool,” Lady Marion concluded.
    Lancot nudged Artos. “I thought all Scots went naked,” he whispered.
    â€œOnly into battle, Lancot,” said Lady Marion smoothly. “They are perfectly well clothed at other times and their wool is the best in the known world.”
    â€œYes, Ma’am,” Lancot said, dimpling a smile at her.
    â€œNow your father is out after that stag again, Cai.” She rolled her eyes as if to admit silently that sometimes men could be a terrible burden. “And probably drinking himself into another attack of the gout, which he will blame on the weather or the wiliness of the white beast. So I daren’t accompany you. Someone has to see to the running of this household. And poor old Merlinnus is bedridden with the miseries. He can’t take you boys as he did last year. But you, Cai, are quite grown-up now. Can I expect you to guide these other three gentlemen as befits the son of Sir Ector and the heir to Beau Regarde ?”
    Bed nudged Lancot. “Good Old Linn, going sick like that.”
    Lancot bit his lips thoughtfully before nudging Artos.
    But Cai, under his mother’s direct scrutiny, stood straight and tall. “Yes, mother, you can count on me.” He knelt and kissed her hand.
    â€œAnd promise me you will be especially careful of young Artos. He’s not been away from this castle since…since being brought here all those years ago. I would not have him lost or hurt for anything.”
    â€œNot for anything, Mother,” Cai assured her.
    Artos didn’t like the way he said it.
    They managed to get out of Lady Marion’s room with only one other nudge from Bed and several winks from Cai as he turned toward them, ushering them out with quick waves of his hands. They filed out as they had come in, with Cai in the lead and Artos at the tail.
    When he looked over his shoulder for one last glance, Artos noticed a strange expression on Lady Marion’s face. In that moment, he realized that she’d seen all the nudges and winks and yet was prepared to ignore them because there was a time in a young man’s life when he had to make choices on his own. Yet that expression also said that she knew her son for a wastrel, Bed for a bully, and Lancot for a generous fool. She nodded gravely at Artos, as if they’d a secret between them, as if she were saying to him—only to him—
    â€œThey’ll be boys all the rest of their lives, but I know I can trust you. ”
    He didn’t understand how he knew all that from a single glance, but he did. He nodded gravely back at her. Then one of the maids—the one with all the perfume, Sylvia—closed the door and Lady Marion was shut off from his