Chapter 6. The Business Venture

The travelers were making rapid progress, but even so, Magda began to wonder about the duration of the journey. She knew that they had passed well into the New Year. She reckoned that it might be close to Equinox by the time they would reach the region where they would search for the Bird Spring. And even then, who knows how long it would take them to find the mysterious Spring and whether it would turn out to be the right one. Despite all the marvels that she saw along the way, she missed her home and her family. Besides, there was a practical concern that was starting to weigh more and more heavily on her mind. They had spent close to half of the gold they brought with them, yet they certainly had more than half of the trip still ahead of them.

The biggest expense by far was buying provisions for Bookworm. Now that he spent so much of his time on the wing and had to generate all that extra heat to keep himself and his companions warm in the freezing weather, his appetite became enormous. It used to take him a couple of days to finish a book. Now, he could swallow a good-size tome in a few hours. Yet Magda was reluctant to bring up the matter to him: she was so happy to see him in good health and did not want to say anything that may spoil his zest for food. The dragon himself was oblivious to the problem, since it was Magda who did all the buying and selling.

At last, as they were setting up the camp one morning, Magda broached the subject of their dwindling gold supply. Bookworm was surprised and taken aback. Having read countless books about human affairs, he was, of course, well aware of the role of money in shaping human lives, and of the endless toil that most people had to undertake to keep themselves fed and supplied with necessities. He knew, in a theoretical sort of way, that books cost a lot of money; that the supply of gold they had with them was finite; and that Magda had been gradually spending it to buy their provisions. But he never before had to worry about such trivialities as money. All the necessities had always been supplied by the people around him without a murmur, and he simply took it as his due.

Bookworm picked up the two saddlebags that Magda was pointing to. He weighed them in his paws. They were noticeably depleted. He did not doubt Magda's words, but simply needed to give physical reality in his mind to her concern. He lowered the bags and stared at his companion. "So, what are we going to do?" he asked, more with curiosity than with alarm.
"Well, we either have to figure out a way to earn money as we travel, or turn back now."

"Earn money?!" roared Bookworm, scaring a flock of small birds from a nearby tree. The notion of a dragon earning his keep struck him as absurd. "Dragons don't go around working for hire! We live by our claws and our flames! Seven Hills was glad to supply me with what I needed, and I do not see why we cannot find another town to do the same now!" Magda looked up at him and her lips quivered: "You want to settle in another town?" she asked. "You do not want to find the Spring, and write that poem, and then go back to Seven Hills?"
"Of course I do! Seven Hills is home!" he said in a conciliatory tone (he could not stand the idea of making Magda cry). "But in the meantime, we can just find a good sized town — plenty around here do not have a dragon — and get them to supply us with gold and then we’ll be back on our way."
"But Bookworm, why would they do that? They do not know you, you have never helped them. Why would they give gold to you? They would just be scared of you and try to drive you off!"
Bookworm raised his wings in a shrug: "Too bad for them then, I will simply take the gold."
"But all the cities we have passed for weeks and weeks have knights and armies. I am sure that there would be a major fight if you just dropped on a city and demanded gold." 
"So what? That's how most dragons get their food anyway. I am now in better fighting shape than I have ever been."  He flapped his wings, showing off the bulging wing muscles on his back and chest that he acquired during the last two months of travel. "We’ll pick a town with an army that’s not too big. I will make my move suddenly — just break into some palace and tell them to hand over a few sacks of gold.  I should not have any trouble at all."

Magda was both startled and appalled by this flare-up of the most base dragon instincts in Bookworm. Among the essential qualities of being the Dragon Maiden was the ability to face the dragon without fear and to engage him in a debate. Magda now showed that she possessed it in full. She argued passionately and eloquently against his proposal which, in her view, amounted to little more than a bandit raid. When she compared his plan to the actions of the cutthroats who had nearly killed her a few weeks back, Bookworm blubbered in indignation, but could find no coherent reply and finally sat down quietly.

"Well," he grumbled, "do you have a better proposal?" 
"I've been mulling it over for days," Magda admitted. “So far, all I can think of is that you could mix fireworks, and I could take them to towns and set them off and collect money for the show. You know, like the sword-swallowers and the flame-jugglers I saw at the markets. I am not sure how much money I can make this way; it seemed to me those people were mostly getting copper coins. But I think that your fireworks are a lot more exciting than just juggling burning sticks. Besides, I could probably sell some as well…" Now it was Bookworm's turn to be appalled. "Magda, I have told you many times that these things are dangerous. It is one thing for you to keep them for use in case of dire trouble, that I hope will never come. It is quite another matter for you to go from market square to market square setting them off to amuse the crowds. Sooner or later you will burn yourself or set a town on fire! Besides, people will either think that this is witchcraft or else decide that this stuff would make a good weapon. You would be in a pickle either way." Magda was abashed. She had not thought of all these problems.

They spent the next few hours brainstorming intensely, proposing and rejecting a number of plans. Those that were reasonably safe and could generate sufficient income to buy books had the disadvantage of being so time-consuming that their travels would come to a virtual halt. The various "get rich quick" schemes had the usual disadvantage of their ilk: they were either highly risky or else completely impractical. By noon they ran out of steam and decided to go to sleep.

Magda woke up after sunset with the unpleasant heavy feeling in her head that follows bashing one's mind against a thorny problem while sleeping. Unfortunately, she was no closer to the solution than before. Bookworm also apparently got up on the wrong paw. He was leafing through the book destined to be his breakfast, giving the pages an unfriendly glance. Finally, he bit into the book and immediately began to complain. Bookworm was a discerning reader and a keen critic of books. But when he was in a bad mood, he could descend into sniping and nitpicking. This is precisely what he was doing now. The book was a recently written chronicle of several generations of the local royal dynasty. Bookworm complained about the style (stilted and sycophantic), composition (disorganized and illogical), historical accuracy (a number of dates and descriptions of events were implausible, contradictory, or disagreed with his own memories of what was happening in the world more than 100 years ago), and spelling (haphazard).

At first, Magda was amused by his ill natured, but witty carping. But eventually it grew wearisome. In the meantime, he got to a large map that was embedded in the book. It was four times as big as the individual pages and folded out of the covers. To Magda's eyes it was beautiful — detailed, colorful and bordered with delicate golden curlicues. But the dragon was unimpressed. Examining it by the light of his own nostrils, he proceeded to point out all kinds of inaccuracies — misplaced small islands in the river, exaggerated size of the nearby town, claims that a dragon had lived in a cave that Bookworm knew to be too small for a dragon lair. Forbearance was yet another essential quality of a Dragon Maiden, but Magda was really losing her patience now. She had wild fantasies of ripping the wretched map out of the book and stuffing it down the dragon's gullet to stop the infuriating whining. Instead, she simply asked: "Well, if you had to draw a map, would you do any better?"
"Of course, I would!" Bookworm replied. "I remember all the places I see when I fly over them, just like I remember the books I read. If you want to know, I can make far better maps than any I have seen yet in any books!"
"Well, maybe we should go back to the man who sold me this one and offer to sell him a better version!" quipped Magda. Then, suddenly, she leapt up, her eyes bright with excitement: "Maybe we can!" she exclaimed. "Perhaps that is what we can sell to get gold — we can make maps!"

At first, Bookworm was not comfortable with this idea.  He still fretted that doing something for the purposes of earning money would undermine his dragon dignity. But his heart was set on finding the Springs of Inspiration, and he recognized that they would need a steady source of gold to proceed. So, he finally consented to trying out this idea.

Bookworm was not bluffing when he said that he could make more accurate maps than anyone else in that trade. As he pointed out himself, he had the advantage of being able to survey the land from the air and of remembering every detail of what he saw. It also turned out that he could wield quills and delicate brushes with great precision to reproduce exactly what was stored in his memory. Using the words of our own age, I would say that he was able to produce aerial surveillance maps, only far more beautiful than what we get with our machines. Magda, who had good handwriting and some skill in painting, took upon herself the task of labeling the major features, coloring the maps and decorating their borders. She risked investing some of their dwindling gold in excellent vellum parchment and the highest quality ink and pigments. The maps that came out of their makeshift workshop in the forest were a marvel of accuracy and a pleasure to look at.

Magda was concerned initially that there would be few people who would want to buy maps — just the merchants who traveled a lot along the river and maybe some of the richest landowners. But their new business venture was a smashing success from day one. She had no trouble finding customers. People of means and rank paid handsomely for Magda's maps, regardless of whether or not they had a practical need for them, simply because these objects were of the quality that clearly made them rare and precious. Despite Bookworm's initial resistance to the idea of earning money, he soon developed a real pride in his craftsmanship and in the high prices that his work commanded.

After a while, Magda and Bookworm perfected a smoothly functioning routine. Whenever they came across a large and wealthy city, they would find a nice, sheltered spot either in a forest or in a cave nearby and set up their workshop. Bookworm would take a few flights over the area, either at twilight or on overcast days, to survey the land. He had to be careful, of course, to stay out of eyesight, while flying low enough to see the details of the landscape. They produced their first map and Magda would take it into the city. There she looked for a knowledgeable person who spoke Latin and who was willing to tell her the names of all the major landmarks that had to be labeled on the map: rivers, villages, bridges and castles. People she approached were, as a rule, impressed by the remarkably educated, poised young girl who produced such excellent maps, so they were pleased to be of help to her. Frequently, the physician, priest or abbess who was Magda's source of information about the local geography ended up being her first customer as well, buying that first map and then recommending Magda to further customers. Magda took orders and bought the necessary supplies. Then, she and Bookworm went to work. When she delivered the finished maps and collected the gold, there were more customers clamoring to place orders, and they were disappointed to learn that the young map-maker was now leaving town.

All this business activity slowed their journey by a lot, but now they did not have to worry about running out of gold.


CONTINUED IN THE NEXT CHAPTER


[ The illustration for "The Book of Bookworm" was created by Barbara "Yuhime" Wyrowinska. You can see the work of this artist here: https://www.deviantart.com/yuhime

I am grateful to the artist -- it is fascinating to see my characters through her eyes. ]