The Shining Wyrm

3.3

“Can you really set fire to horseshoes?!”

Jewel was starting to think this was not worth the good will of the visitors.

“Can I have a ride?!”

Surely a little bit of hate was not so bad?

“Your mane is so pretty! Can I braid it?!”

Muriel must have been a star-sent fiend in disguise. That was the only reason she could have come up with this horrible, torturous plan.

“Da said that Uncle told him that he heard from old Sue that you eat five oxen a day! Are they really tasty? I’ve never had Oxen before but Ma says their really tough and stringy when its time ta kill da ones that pull the plow.”

Jewel had just about given up on answering every question, and instead just picked some at random and stayed as carefully still as she could while the few visiting children joined the local kinder in scrambling all over her.

However, sometimes their requests turned into arguments with each other.

“If anyone gets to ride Lady Jewel it’s gonna be me! She came by last winter and cleared out all the snow to the privy! That makes us sisters! Pa said so!”

Who in their right mind traveled across the barony with children?! Jewel did not let out a sigh of frustration, she kept her amused and friendly smile (no teeth). And occasionally offered a wing, arm or leg to help catch an over adventurous youth from falling too hard when they found her scales had significantly less purchase then they had expected.

“Oh I’ve had ox once, and your ma is right they grow tough and stringy from the work. But no I hardly ever eat them and shining heavens about NO I don’t eat five oxen a day! I have a bowl of porridge in the morn for breakfast and a round of bread at noon and maybe another before supper with a pot of stew for the evening.”

The lucky kinder that had asked her about the outrageous rumors of Jewel’s dining habits seemed quite affronted by the simplicity of her diet and groaned in disappointment.

“Why that’s hardly more then pa and big Ovah eat on days they fix the fence. Not even as much when it was cutting day!”

Well there was an opportunity and it was getting close to noon and she’d missed her usual snack.

“Well I didn't say how big a round it was! In fact I am feeling a mite peckish. A moment little ones!”

She raised her head much to the dismay of those that had not waited for her permission to braid her mane. Turning her head to look across the bemused crowd of parents, elder siblings, grandparents, uncles, aunts and other sundry guardians.

Finally she spotted one of the footmen at the edge of the courtyard near the entrance to the family quarters and after staring intently, finally caught the eye of one of the footmen and mouthed out ‘food’ with just a bit of a wide desperation to her eyes.

This got a few muffled chuckles from those that had been amusing themselves with the novelty of the daughter of the Baron, a Lady and a so-called Devil Wyrm acting as an impromptu dry nurse for the children of the peasantry.

Her noonday meal secured, Jewel lowered her head back down so curious hands could grab at her horns and the more crafty could fiddle with her mane. A few enterprising girls complained loudly that she had spoiled their careful braid work but they were soon diligently setting it right so that she would be ‘prettier then auntie’s best stallion’ or other such vaguely not quite demeaning comparisons.

She glanced around at the collection of nearly a dozen of the younger children. Most were hardly much more than four summers old, but one of them was actually almost certainly a year older than Jewel.

However unlike Alexander she seemed to be not at all keen on shouldering the responsibilities of an adult like a young lady or lord would.

Jewel wondered just what this girl’s parents were thinking, foisting her off like an infant onto a Lady of the barony.

“Kor tell of happen on hunt the Pig!?”

Jewel froze at the question and looked down to find the speaker, but did not immediately spot who it was.

A quiet had settled over the other kinder at her reaction and she realized she had to pull her smile back into place but it felt far too brittle to be convincing.

The little fingers still worked at her mane weaving hair in handfuls and binds but all the murmuring had fled their little throats.

Ah there they were!

The extra short one at the back looking so shy!

Having finally sussed out who it was, Jewel peered down at the toddling little black-haired child, barefoot and in a peasant babe’s smock that, if not for her nose, would have made it a trial to discern if it was male or female.

But since she was a Lady and a wyrm of impeccable senses, Jewel knew this was a particularly young boy.

Maybe three Summers at the most.

Jewel’s voice came out much less sure then she wanted, there was even a creak and buzz that seemed to draw every eye.

“I think the minstrels and knights all tell it better then I could, of the honor and the bloodshed tha-”

“No! Won’t kor hear you! Was there yo wor Jewel? Tell it true no fancy”

The child that was either too young (or too rough-mannered) to know better than to interrupt had a fierce tone to him.

He even had stamped his foot in the hard packed dirt of the courtyard!

Really, what were her subjects teaching their kids?! Was this just a youth thing? Or some deficiency in their peasant-rearing practices?

It was just so baffling that this child thought to interrupt his Lady and Liege’s Daughter.

Every eye among the children was on her and quite a few adults turned with interest. That she was present could not be omitted from the ballads, but at her own request to lessen the discomfort a lot of her part in it had been left out.

And the specifics of her Brother’s foolishness. But those eyes... so many curious eyes just wanting to know.

On Muriel’s head this would be!

They reminded her too much of Alexander from years ago.

Defeated by the curiosity of babes, she surrendered. Jewel began speaking into the gaping void of their attention.

“We were out hunting, you see. It was Alexander’s first time sporting a bow on the hunt.”

One of the older children piped in with a gleeful adoration.

“My da hunts with a bow come autumn! You Lord’s Son went out to take down the boar first hunt?!”

Jewel shook her head and laughed a bit, silencing the boisterous girl that was currently sitting on one of her shoulders so she could pull the mane there out into separate strips for braiding with one hand while the other was holding a fist full of flowers.

“Nae nae! Alexander, my brother was out to shoot Rabbit.”

That caught quite a number of the children aghast and confused.

“Rabbit?!”

One simply shouted in dismay.

“Everyone knows you don’t shoot rabbits! You snare them! Even big Kob knows that and he's fool as bristle flour!”

Said another who seemed suspicious of this part of the story, like Jewel was trying to pull a wool over their eyes with this obvious falsehood.

Jewel found herself laughing a bit at their incredulity.

“Well we were out to shoot rabbit, I don’t hunt myself”

A few more gasps of shock at that.

”So I’m not sure why it was the proper way but Sir Kraok told my brother it was the thing to do. And we did set snares for them too of course but my brother was supposed to shoot them.”

She was starting to get a feel for this story telling thing. Maybe it was all the times she had heard minstrels, knights and the like extol events over a boisterous feast getting ever deeper into their cups but…

In a fit of inspiration she had a thought of how to keep to the truth while also saving her brother’s honor!

“But there was a wicked curse to the winds that day, I think maybe it was the wild wind of the Boar itself perhaps?”

The mention of a wicked magic drew attention from all the kinder though, after all if the Lady and Wyrm was saying it was so then surely it was, and honestly she was hardly saying anything different then how it happened. Just embellishing perhaps a mite bit.

But compared to what the Minstrels sang? This was practically the utter sworn truth.

“No matter how sure my brother, who is skilled in the bow, let fly with his arrow, every last one was twisted and turned from its chosen mark.”

She continued on with the story, soon the parents and other guardians were also there to sit and listen as she told what had happened that day.

Softened not to disparage or dishonor her dear brother, but keeping close enough that every missed shot and foiled arrow brought winces from hunters who had felt the bite of such cursed hunts.

“Such was the curse that my brother who stuck every eye in archery just the day before was left bereft, so wrought was this ill wind that by mid day every coney was so unperturbed by the lack of danger presented by my brother’s arrows they did not even fright for how absolutely his shots were sent to a field of them.”

She leaned in close then, having pulled in all their interest.

“And it was then at last that my brother and I first came upon the great Terror boar. Having been chasing another stray arrow, hoping that it would be at least left unbroken rather then sundered as so many others had been and then in seeing its terrible mein did we both turn and realize the nature of the day’s trial and ills was there before us so-”

She had planned to stop here, the thick heavy smell of her noon-meal bread was tickling her nose and filling her mouth with enough drool she had to swallow hard a few times to cover it.

So the interruption came just before she had to get to the painful and difficult parts of the story.

“Ah and there is my mid-day bread at last.”

Which brought first groans of dismay at the interruption of her story, but then wide gasps of amazement when they saw the scale of the two rounds of bread that had been baked for Jewel.

Their eyes nearly popped out with shock and awe.

It was almost as big from end to end as the shortest kinder was tall and about as tall as the eldest child was thick around the middle.

There was also a nice clay bowl of butter already going soft in the summer heat.

She took the first round between her fore claws, then dipped her head down to tear a good bit out from the side, cracking the wonderful golden crust and filling the courtyard in the smell of fresh pale flour bread. The scent mingled deliciously with the air of smoked meat and peasantry.

A little shimmy brought her hind leg over to grab the bowl of butter, half as wide as any of the kinder’s heads and then daintily scooped a heavy smear of butter up with her bread before she tossed back her head and began chewing with great satisfaction.

The crisp crunch of the golden baked rind between her teeth was almost as satisfying as the delicious flavor of Sheep’s butter and steaming inner bread-flesh.

Only after clearing her throat did she smile down at her audience/attendant children and then tilted the wheel towards them with a delicate swooping bow of her head.

The point of this fair was the generosity of her family after all, in particular Father but why not add it from her own ‘table’ as it were.

“Have a meal with me, good kinder of Rochford?”

The crack of bread and spray of crumbs filled the air around Jewel as children tore off their own pieces of bread and with some coaxing even scraped out dollops of their own butter to stuff their faces with and (of course) get the fat and crumbs smeared all over themselves.

Jewel was not overly concerned, even with so many small mouths to feed she barely had to surrender more than half of her first round to fill their bellies to bursting.

Much to the jealous longing from some of the adults that were loitering around her.

But to them she would not share and Jewel made certain they knew it with a look heavily laden in meaning.

Why yes this was the fine noble wheat flour, near pale as snow and with a crust of golden brown your kinder were getting to enjoy with your Lord’s Daughter.

No she would not be sharing with any of the adults that had foisted their offspring onto her.

And it was clear that many were receiving that implication well. She smiled softly and beneficently to them to further drive home her point with nobility and grace.

Internally though? Jewel was chortling.

She liked to imagine they also heard the undercurrent of her thoughts too.

Maybe being a bit more civil to her in future would be best if you wanted to get the benefit of such a generosity, you baked mud barley roll gobbling curs.

She smiled serenely and properly as any lady should while tearing another hunk out of her noon-meal and pointedly got some butter on her own snout, scraping up a truly egregious dollop of sheep butter infront of everyone before licking it clean like a particularly satisfied hound.

It was from the colder deep cellars where her family’s best dairy reserves were kept.

With any luck after she stuffed these little scamps full they would forget she never finished the rest of the story about the hunt.

Maybe they would even be too full to stay awake and clamber all over her?