Chapter 3: Cracks in the Masquerade

The next morning, Eragon had to forgo his hunting trip. The sun was just coming up, reflecting from the dawn mist as he and Roran left the cottage together, Roran coming to see him off. Suddenly, he thought that he heard a mewling. He looked around, thinking that it must be a cat. "Did you hear that?" He asked Roran. Roran looked at him oddly. "Nope, nothing."

"Oh, that's strange. I thought I heard a cat."

"A cat? Eragon, just in case you've been living somewhere else for the last 17 years, we don't have a cat. Unless there's one living in your head, chasing the mice eating what's left of your brain."

Eragon gave him a flat stare. Roran grinned.

"Oh no! It's the Gonny-gonny dea -"

"Shut up! There it is again!"

He turned and ran round to where he thought the sound was coming from. It happened again, and he followed it around to the back of the cottage, where part of the forest came near to the boundary. The mewling came again. Looking closely, he spotted a shadowy shape lurking under some bushes. His heart sank.

"Spring! What are you doing here?" She ran out to meet him. Automatically, he reached his hand down and she nuzzled it. "You shouldn't be here. I'll be caught, we'll both be, with you this close to the farm. Get back to the forest!"

Spring merely crouched and looked at him pleadingly. Eragon could hear Roran coming round to see what he was up to. Putting more urgency into his voice, he tried again. Roran was getting closer. Desperately, Eragon tried to push her away, but she would not move. Thinking quickly, he picked her up and dumped her in his bag. Turning, he was just starting on his way back when Roran came round the corner.

"So, did you find your cat?" Roran's voice was jovial, with no hint of suspicion.

"Yep, her name was Flopsy and she says she wants to be your best friend. I told her that there wasn't much competition."

Roran grabbed him and knuckled his forehead. "Yeah? Well come on Jester, you need to go."

Eragon, very conscious of the weight in his bag, felt a little butterfly of fear, which quickly disappeared as Roran turned away. It came back almost immediately as Roran turned round "Do you still have the egg?"

Eragon thoughts ran like lightning. "Egg? What egg?"

Roran slapped his head, in what seemed like a very fake way to Eragon's now-suspicious eyes. "Oh, I mean the stone. It was kind of egg shaped, wasn't it? D'you mind if I have a look at it again?"

"Er, no, I'd prefer it if you didn't." Eragon replied

Roran gave him a level look for a second, and then turned away. "As you wish."

Eragon said goodbye to Garrow, and was completely unsurprised when Roran said that he was coming too. Garrow gave Roran a couple of copper coins to buy some supplies. "Be careful when bartering that," he said to Roran. "That's most of what we have. Get my money's worth."

Roran grinned to him. "Don't worry father. I'll get Eragon to threaten to break their legs. You know the fear he instils in people."

Garrow laughed and went back inside and the boys set off down the path towards the village.

The day was bright and sunny, birds were whistling in the trees and bushes on either side of the track as they walked down the hill towards the village.

Roran decided to wait until they were a little way down the path, out of all possible earshot, before he confronted Eragon. His little brother seemed nervous, twitchy. This corroborated what he thought, as Eragon never really showed fear. If his little brother looked a bit nervous, it was probable that he was terrified; or possibly feeling guilty. He said nothing, waiting, knowing what would happen.

Eragon could finally stand it no longer. "You know!" He burst out.

"Really? What do I know?" He replied, feigning innocence.

"You know about the egg, you know she hatched." Eragon's tone was accusative, passion writ large on his face.

At the noise, Spring poked her head out of his bag, where she'd been having a nice nap.

Roran drew his breath in sharply. He hadn't been completely prepared for his suspicions to be confirmed.

"I didn't know, actually," he said "Not completely. I knew something had happened. I thought it looked like a big egg when you showed it to us. I heard the chipping sound, and I heard you get up; oh, and I heard you talking outside. I noticed how the egg mysteriously disappeared. It wasn't there when I looked through your stuff while you were out hunting, and it isn't as if you'd have taken a heavy thing like that with you."

Eragon looked indignant at hearing that Roran had looked through his belongings. Spring growled dangerously at him. Roran ignored them both. "I then used what I knew to get you to admit the rest right now."

They both looked at Spring. Roran didn't need to say what the final proof was. "She's called Spring. She's a baby dragon," Eragon said. Spring looked at Roran and gave a big yawn. He reached his hand out and tickled her ear stubs, Spring shutting her eyes and making a sound very like a purr. Eragon seemed to relax slightly.

"So when were you planning on telling the rest of us about this dragon? Or were you just planning on keeping it a secret?" Roran asked, an edge of anger creeping into his voice.

"I didn't want to worry anyone. What would telling you about her achieved? The only safe thing to do would have been to kill her, and I won't accept that."

"So it didn't occur to you that anyone might come looking for her? That it might result in the deaths of all of us?"

"If people found out, we'd be dead anyway, whether you knew or not. The only way to keep us safe was to keep her secret. Publically taking a dragon into the village would get us all arrested and killed, you know that. An egg is one thing, but a dragon something else. No-one saw me find it. There might be people looking for it, but why would they search here?"

"Dragon-fire and ashes Eragon! Who gave you the right to control our fates? You'd be willing to risk all our lives over this creature? Without even consulting us? Who do you think you are?"

Eragon flinched, but did not retreat. "Look! I'm sorry, ok? But I can't countenance killing her, and I thought that if I told you, you'd panic. I originally wanted to leave her to live in the woods, but she came back. She isn't going to leave and I won't hurt her."

Roran's expression softened. He looked with pity on the younger man. Slowly, he reached his hand out again to the dragon. Spring shut her eyes and extended her neck, inviting him to tickle her chin. "Kill her, Eragon? Why would I kill her?"

Eragon was nonplussed. "What? So you've been chewing me out for the last five minutes because?"

Roran grinned and shook his head. "You can be so dumb sometimes. I'm not angry with you for keeping her alive, I angry with you for keeping her secret. You should have trusted us, Eragon. Aside from that, I think you're right. I don't think anyone knows where she is either. Together, we'll keep her secret. You'll have to tell Father when we get back though."

Eragon looked like he was about to refuse, but Roran put an edge back in his voice and said, "If you don't, I will. I'd quite happily risk my life for you, and for Spring, and I know father would too; but it has to be by our choice."

Eragon held up his hands in surrender. "Alright, fine. I hope he won't panic about it."

"I think you'll find that he's tougher than you think. It'll all be fine."

"I hope so." Eragon relaxed and carried on walking down the path, Roran paced him. No longer needing secrecy, Eragon picked Spring out of his bag and she perched on his shoulder. Her claws dug in, slightly painfully, but he could tell that she enjoyed sitting there. Her head swept round, taking the vistas that had been unavailable to her from her usual twelve inches off the ground. He turned to his brother. "Thanks, Roran."

Roran smiled at his little brother. "You're welcome. You are the baby of the family after all; someone has to keep you out of trouble."

Eragon punched him in the arm. Roran ran off down the road laughing, Eragon in close pursuit with Spring clinging to his shoulders, chirping her excitement.

As they approached the village, Spring returned to Eragon's bag, settling down to sleep off the rabbit that she'd caught on the way. The village was laid out around a oval shaped green, which had a large oak tree in the centre. The green was often uses for celebrations and festivals, and was also where the Empire's tax gatherers came to collect the region's contributions. It was bounded by the main street, unpaved, which ran out of the village and down through the Carvahall Pass, the gap in the hills, down to the Palancar Valley proper. The street was lined with the shops of various craftsmen and the houses of some of the richer farmers, whose fields and pastures surrounded the village. The Village Hall sat at the end of the green opposite the road's entrance, with the village stocks in front of it. The buildings were all of wattle and daub construction, with thatched roofs. Some of the more prosperous owners had found whitewash for their houses, which lent colour to the otherwise drab buildings.

As the brothers entered, Roran called out greetings to various villagers as they went by, and stopped to talk to some of the craftsmen who had their shops there. He was well respected by people in the village, being especially attractive to various mothers with marriageable daughters. His friendly manner put people at their ease. Eragon occasionally felt jealous of his brother over this. He was not as happy around people and generally preferred his own company. His manner was a lot less friendly, and although people were polite to him, as he was to them, he was not liked in the same way that Roran was.

Roran sent Eragon off to pick up the flour from the mill while he himself set to haggling with the blacksmith over the cost of the spade. Eragon followed a small pathway from the village, up to a short rise where the mill was. The river running past the village had had a small off-shoot dug here, the flow of which pushed the big mill-wheel round. The mill itself was of stone with a lightly built thatch roof. The distance from the village might have made it inconvenient to use, but the danger of flour-dust fires made it a necessity. The mill had burned down at least once in the past, hence the stone construction.

Master Galstaff the miller came out to meet him. He was a short man with a balding blond head and a thin, wispy beard.

"Ho Eragon," he called, his voice friendly. "Here for your flour are you?"

"It's ready?"

"Yes. Come this way."

He lead him into a small wooden shed, set a little distance from the mill proper and pointed to a pile of full sacks.

"Those three at the front are yours," he said, pointing to three sacks marking with yellow coloured strings around them.

Eragon did not move. "Where is the fourth? You promised five sacks, with one as payment."

Galstaff shrugged. "Times is hard. I never promised four sacks, and three is what you're getting."

"So you're just going to steal our flour? Is that it?" Eragon said indignantly.

At those words, Galstaff's demeanour changed. In the shadowed interior, he looked threateningly at Eragon. "Listen boy, I have no need to explain myself to you. I said three and I meant three. Now take them and go."

Picking them up, he started forward, forcing Eragon backwards into the daylight and threw the sacks to the ground of the yard. One of them burst open and flour spilled over the ground. Shaking with rage, Eragon struck him as hard as he could. Galstaff fell away, blood flowing from his broken nose like a fountain.

Galstaff's two sons, Harol and Mortin, large men who worked in the mill, came out at the disturbance. Eragon may have been impulsive, but he was not stupid. Picking up the sacks, he beat a hurried retreat back down the path towards the village. As he looked back, he saw the two men; one was helping up their father, the other was staring after him.

Eragon bumped into Roran, who was just coming out of the blacksmith's, their spade over his shoulder. "Eragon. You're back."

"Roran, we need to go. Now." Eragon said, with urgency in his voice.

Roran picked up on it and frowned. "What happened?"

"I'll tell you on the way, let's go."

"Eragon, we can't. You need to drop that flour off at the baker's and there's still some stuff to buy."

"We can come back. We need to leave."

Roran signed and followed him. They hurried through the village, Eragon constantly trying to go faster. Leaving the village outskirts, the path entered the woodland. Once out of sight of the village, Eragon slowed down. He said nothing, but Roran guessed something of what had happened.

"Does your urgency to leave have anything to do with the fact that you are carrying three bags, when father clearly said that there were four to pick up?"

Eragon nodded and carried on walking, saying nothing.

"There's blood on your knuckles. You hit someone."

Again Eragon nodded his confirmation.

"Three bags when there should have been four, and some sort of fight. Did Master Galstaff cheat you out of a bag?"

Nod

"And then you hit him?"

Nod

"And now you want to leave quickly because Harol and Mortin are both big men who could make mincemeat of you without trying, and they saw you leave?"

Eragon nodded again and looked about to say something, but before he could speak, Harol and Mortin stepped out from the trees at the side of the path and blocked their way.

"There you are," Harol, the more talkative of the duo, said. He pointed at Eragon. "We have a debt to repay to you."

Eragon bristled, but Roran stepped forward in front of him. "Calm down lads, please. There's no need to fight over this."

Harol held up his hands. "Oh, we're not here to fight. We're just here to pay our debt."

He pulled a knotted length of rope from his belt and swung it through the air. "A beating for a beating. You'll regret hurting our father."

Roran's eyes narrowed, and his voice turned dangerous. "Is that a threat? No-one is beating anyone around here."

"Oh really?" Harol approached Roran and stood directly in front of him, looking down at him. Roran was not short, but Harol was at least half a head taller. "What are you going to do about it?"

Roran smiled up at him and without warning, punched him in the stomach as hard as he could. Harol doubled over and fell onto hands and knees, gasping for breath. Mortin ran to help his brother and Roran turned to engage him. From the ground, Harol drew a knife.

Eragon saw him and ran forward to intervene, but he was too late. Roran cried out as Harol stabbed him deep in the side of his calf and fell down, wounded. Eragon came to a halt, his shock temporarily paralysing him. Roran's cry woke Spring, who had been sleeping in Eragon's bag. Mortin helped Harol to his feet and both men turned towards Eragon, but as they did so, the enraged dragon shot out of the bag and leapt straight at them, hissing in fury.

The brothers took one look at her and fled in terror, leaving Roran behind, the knife still in his leg.