Dragons of the Watch - Donita K. Paul [58]
Bealomondore obliged. “He sure seems to like this idea.”
Ellie shook her head in bewilderment. “He has always been a friendly goat, but since I found him by the road after we had begun our trip to Ragar, he’s developed an uncanny ability to be useful.”
“Pushing you into the bottle?”
She laughed. “Well, not that, but other things.”
“Considering we are living in an enchanted city, imprisoned in a bottle under some mysterious spell and dealing with children who stay children and an Old One who doesn’t want anything to do with us, I can accept a goat’s sudden propensity to observe, reason, and deduce.”
“I don’t think I’m ready for that. If he starts mindspeaking to me, you are going to have to lock me up somewhere where I can’t hurt myself or anybody else.”
Bealomondore raised his eyebrows. “Planning to go berserk?”
“Fearing the probability, not planning.”
Bealomondore patted Tak on the rump. The goat understood the signal and started forward. “Let’s go before he asks us to read to him as we go along.”
The load jostled a bit, and Ellie reached up to balance the basket of eggs more securely in a nest of daggart packages. The diaries lined the wagonload, extending the sides of the wagon bed up a few inches. One was in her hand.
She and Bealomondore took turns reading aloud, not to Tak but to each other. Ellie took the first few pages of the diary, holding the book open with one hand and resting her free hand on top of the piles of daggarts wrapped in packets of a dozen each.
“Do you think you can keep them from falling?” asked Bealomondore tilting his head toward the wagon’s load.
Ellie looked up and laughed. “I think I’m keeping me from falling. I can feel when the road is rough beneath the wheels.”
“Very clever. You shall be useful to have around.”
She smiled at him, not quite sure how to respond to that statement. In lieu of saying something clever, she went back to reading.
They learned the girl’s name in the next entry.
“Mother says, ‘Tilly, do something useful.’ But when I ask what I can do, Father says, ‘Stay out of the way, Tilly Genejolly.’ ”
“A couple more syllables and Tilly Genejolly would make a good tumanhofer name,” Bealomondore said.
Ellie read the part about two women dying on board the ship, one in childbirth, and one just wasting away, too seasick to eat. Ellie cried, and Bealomondore took the book and read a couple more entries. The third entry after the unfortunate deaths revealed that the baby had survived.
“Now why didn’t she say that right away?” asked Ellie.
“She’s young,” Bealomondore said. “In all likelihood, it was her first experience with death but not with someone in her circle of friends having a new baby in the family. She wrote about what touched her the most.”
Ellie stretched out her palm and wiggled her fingers. Bealomondore placed the book in her hand. She turned back a few pages and read again the page that had upset her.
“Mistress Cannust hasn’t left her bed for over a week now. I don’t really know how many days. My mother says ten days, and Porta’s mother says fifteen. My mother is probably right. Porta’s father says if she doesn’t get up soon, she’ll die, just like when an animal on the farm goes down. He says Mistress Cannust will be the first death we’ve had on the ship. ‘Halfway to Chiril and only now losing one of our own.’ That’s what he said. Those words.
“My father grumbled at him. Two sailors have died. Though they aren’t one of us, my father says it is uncaring not to count them.”
Ellie turned the page.
“Mr. Mellow is right. It’s horrible. Kimbin Erllee screamed a lot. Her baby was coming. I went up on deck so I wouldn’t have to listen. I could still hear her some, so