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dragon’s cave, first taken by accident, then in fear, became something Artos looked forward to each day with positive delight. He still stole out of the Cowgate carefully, unwilling to share the dragon’s whereabouts with any of the boys. But he didn’t care if the guards at the back gate noticed him. If they did, they could hardly guess his destination. One or another usually waved him on, then turned back sleepily to chat with a companion. They were, Artos knew, guards in name only. Sir Ector’s Beau Regarde really was a little place, as small and as insignificant as Cai had always made it out to be. This much wisdom he’d already gained from his time with the dragon.
    The dragon had spoken knowingly of other lands, lands that Artos was sure it had flown over while hunting for a proper cave of its own.
    â€œThe world is round like an apple,” the dragon had said, “and so in the Far East, which is on the bottom side of the world from us, are the Indies where men walk upon their hands instead of their feet.”
    Artos had tried that when he returned to the kennelyard, but only succeeded in wrenching his shoulder so badly he was of no use to the Master of Hounds when later that afternoon Boadie gave birth to a litter of nine pups.
    Another day the dragon had informed him, “In Jerusalem, where the Pilate washed his hands of your Jesus, men wear dresses and turbans and have faces as black as mud.”
    Artos had examined his own face carefully that evening in a bowl of scented water. But even in the flickering candlelight, his face was as pale as the milk Boadie’s pups licked so eagerly. He thought he could love a friend with a face the color of rich earth, so different from his own.
    Each day the dragon doled out its wisdoms, sometimes from the book it had given Artos and sometimes letting him read from other books bound in leathers as variegated as a summer posy, with illuminations in cinnabar, rubric, cobalt blue, and daffodil gold. And sometimes it dropped the books onto the cave floor and simply spun him tales, golden threads of story that wove inevitably into a tapestry of knowledge. He heard about lands beneath the sea, drowned cities where the bells of churches still sounded with each passing wave; about lands where stone beasts with the faces of women ruled over the desert sands; about lands where men could ride on woven carpets high in the temperate air; about a land where a king might hold together a group of unruly knights by the simple magic of making them sit at a round table where no one was below the salt, where no one was higher, where all could be equal in the sight of their lord.
    The dragon sometimes sang him ballads, too, in a voice made soft by music. He sang songs from the prickly, heather-covered lands of the Scots who ran naked and screaming into battle; and sagas from the cold, icy Norsemen who prowled the coasts in their dragon-prowed ships; and songs of love from the silk-and-honey lands of Araby.
    It even told him riddles and their answers, like:
    As round as an apple, as deep as a cup,
    And all the king’s horses can’t pull it up
    which Artos guessed as “a well,” correctly as it turned out, so wise he was becoming.
    The best day, though, was the sunny spring day when he ran all the way with four lumps of meat in the pot (Mag had been especially susceptible to his kiss) to be greeted by a jolly “Halloooooo, Artos!”
    â€œHalloooooo, sir,” he called back. “Four lumps of meat, not three!”
    There was a chuckling from the inner cave. “And I have something particular for you as well, my boy.”
    With an especially loud clanking and creaking, a noise that now seemed so comfortably familiar Artos scarcely heard it anymore, the dragon pushed forward three pots, the one from the day before and two it must have secreted in its hoard. All three pots were exactly alike. Carefully the foot chose out a very large green