First Chapter of George, the Shield, and the Veiled Lady

Since George's book is coming out July 1st, I wanted to share the first chapter! How do you think George is going to do against the dragon?

Find the book here: Amazon.com: George, the Shield, and the Veiled Lady (Faerie Queen Book 1) eBook : McConaughy, Kathryn: Kindle Store

*****

George was humming a little tune to himself as he cleaned out the goat pen. That’s been sixteen buckets, he thought. Another nine buckets and I’ll be done. Some people might have complained about the smell of goat, but George kind of liked it. Or, at least, he liked the goats, and it would have been rude to like the goats but then to complain about their smell. Friends don’t complain about how friends smell.

The oldest goat butted him gently on the hip. “Easy, Nanny!” He reached down to rub the funny little swirl of hair on her neck. Mother called that kind of mark a Faerie kiss, but George wasn’t sure that a Faerie would kiss a goat. The Fae in sister Ivy’s stories sounded much too high-and-mighty. Even the Faerie peddler who came through the village selling never-failing candles and flower-petal dresses seemed too full of himself to properly appreciate how nice a goat could be.

“George! GEE-ORGE!” That was Daisy. She was George’s oldest sister still at home, and definitely the loudest sister in the family. “I need more water from the stream! There’s more wash to do!” She didn’t even bother to come out of the cottage to make sure that he heard her. She just yelled. Probably the whole family, from Thyme napping in the loft under the thatch, to Berry weaving willow twigs into a new fence for the chicken coop, to Mother at her loom, to Ivy and the two youngest girls picking currants in the north field, all heard Daisy perfectly well.

George looked at the very dirty goat pen and sighed quietly to himself. The very dirty goats looked at him as if to say, Now what? They probably wished that they could go out into the meadow, but with all the rain they’d been having lately, the boggy ground would swallow them up.

“Don’t worry, I’ll come back later.” He scratched Nanny’s shoulder apologetically. She was thin despite the early summer grass. “I’d kiss you, Nanny.” Nanny was special. He remembered when she was born; his big red-haired father had talked gently to her mother while George wiped the new kid down with a handful of straw. By the next lambing season, George had been helping the goats alone.

It was time for supper when George finally finished his other chores. He didn’t think of the goats until he was getting up from supper, his stomach full of turnip and onion stew. “Oh! The goat pen. I didn’t finish.”

“It can wait until tomorrow,” his mother told him distractedly as she wrestled with a stack of dirty dishes. George went to help her, but sister Berry got there first.

“Er,” said George. “I’d rather do it tonight.”

“Ooh, George!” squeaked Violet, who was the littlest. “But it’s dark now.” Small Rosie and Thyme nodded vigorous agreement.

“The moon’s up,” George reminded her. Besides, I promised the goats. Who would want to sleep in that smelly pen?

He didn’t say that part out loud, though. That was the sort of statement that made his sister Ivy laugh and shake her head. They’re goats, she would say. You can’t make a promise to goats. Sometimes I wonder about you, George. And then she would give him a look, like she was trying to decide if he had been dropped on his head when he was a baby. Ivy was the cleverest of the family.

George didn’t mind being laughed at—or not too much. And he knew that the goats would prefer to have a clean place to sleep. Wouldn’t anyone? So he found his cloak, which already smelled like goat, and walked out into the moonlight. Far away across the fields he could see the light of the moon glinting off the peaked roof of the village church.

The goats were happy to see him. They rustled around the pen, this year’s new kids sidling up to nibble at the hems of his trousers. He shifted them gently out of the way and went on with his task. Filling the buckets with muck was peaceful work; he could think his own thoughts, and with everyone else gone to bed, he didn’t have to worry about being interrupted.

George wondered how many times he had cleaned this goat pen. He had been doing it for so many years. Will I still be cleaning this goat pen five years from now? There was a part of him that liked that idea, that wanted everything in his life to stay just as it was now; but there was also a part of him that didn’t like the idea at all. He loved the goats, and he loved his family—but he didn’t want his life to stay exactly the same for the next forty years! Was it wrong to feel like that?

Was it wrong to think that he wanted to do something special? He didn’t have to be the one who did all the things he did. Daisy sometimes carried the water, and Berry sometimes cleaned the goat pen. Maybe someday I’ll have work that’s mine alone.

But he didn’t know what that could be.

*

That night George had a dream. He had actually been having the same dream every night for more than a week, but it kept getting longer and longer every time.

In the dream, there were people standing around him. He didn’t know exactly where he was, because no matter how hard he looked he couldn’t seem to see any walls or floors or sky or ground. And he didn’t know what the people around him looked like, because he was scared to look at them. For some reason, he thought that looking at them might hurt.

“Have you been faithful?” said one of the people. His voice was like bright stars and wind in the trees. George shivered a little at the sound. He couldn’t help himself; it was beautiful, but also frightening.

“Have you been faithful?” the person repeated.

George swallowed, and thought hard about this. George tried to keep his promises, but he didn’t always succeed. George tried to be good, but sometimes he was annoyed with his sisters when they called him away from one chore to do another yet again; or he was tempted to ignore his sister Holly after church, because she had insisted on marrying someone that she knew had been mean to George when he was little. And sometimes when Mother was sad and lonely he got angry at God—even though he should trust God to be good—because God had taken Father away from her. So he probably wasn’t very faithful at all. “No, sir.”

“He says he hasn’t been faithful,” said another person. His voice was like millstones grinding, like water roaring over a millwheel. George shuddered. He was especially afraid to look at this person.

“Then this doesn’t belong to him,” said the first one sadly, the wind of his voice sounding the same as the breeze that ran all through that unseen place.

“But he needs it,” growled the second one.

George wished that he knew what they were talking about. But even though he had had this dream over and over again, he didn’t remember what they meant until the first one said, “But it belongs to the Faithful One. And he wants us to give it to George.”

“Well then,” barked the second person. And he handed George something. Even though George couldn’t see the man, he knew when to put out his hands to take it. “Boy, you don’t deserve to have this. So I suppose that makes it a gift.”

It was a shield, white as snow, with a red cross painted on it. George hissed a little as he took its weight, and slid it onto his left arm. Dreamlike, now that he had the shield on his arm he found that he was wearing armor too—bright silver armor, with a small matching cross on the chest.

Why am I surprised? he asked himself. This is how the dream always goes.

“That’s almost everything he’ll need for his quest,” the star-and-wind one told the other.

“Please, sirs, why can’t I see you?” George asked, all of a sudden. As soon as he spoke, he realized that this was new; he had never before asked such a question.

They didn’t answer for a moment, and George began to worry. They were very strange and powerful, and he was very ordinary; maybe he shouldn’t have spoken.

“George,” breathed the first one, finally. “Look, and you will see.”

“Seek, and you will find,” rumbled the other, as if agreeing.

“Knock, and the door will be opened,” the first continued.

Then, both together, they said, “Ask, and it will be given to you.”

George didn’t completely understand this, but he understood that they were giving him permission to look at them.

George held tightly to his shield, looking down at the red cross shining against the field of white. “Will it hurt, to look at you?” he asked, then straightened up, feeling the weight of the armor settle on his shoulders. Even if these two were frightening, he thought that they were trying to help him. He decided that he wanted to see the people who had brought him gifts so many times. “You don’t have to answer. I don’t mind if it hurts.” And he looked at them.

The first thing he saw was a light, so bright that he thought that it was burning out his eyes. He felt that he ought to be afraid of that light, but he wasn’t. Blinded by the glare, he couldn’t see his arms and hands in front of him. Then, slowly, he started to be able to see again.

He saw the room where he was standing, and the floor that he was standing on, shimmering like a rainbow made into glass. And he saw the bright men, light shining from their eyes and hands and their white clothes, whiter than even big sister Iris could bleach them; and beyond them a great room, longer than all of the fields of George’s family put together. At the far end was a crowd of more bright people, and above them a golden mist, hiding—something.

“What’s up there?” he asked.

“Someone it would hurt you to look at, while you’re still in mortal flesh,” growled the growly one.

“It’s the one who sent you the gift,” the other one explained kindly. “Our High King, and yours. And now it’s time for you to wake up. There’s work to be done! Only remember to ask, and seek, and knock, for the Faithful One has gifted you his armor against all evil.”

George looked down the length of the great room, and for a wild moment he wanted to go running down into the golden mist and see just who was there, because he was sure that the High King was someone wonderful. He wanted to go home and wash all his goats and bring them to the king as presents. He wanted to bring all his sisters and his mother so that they could see this too.

He wanted to be sent across the world to do something for this king. But at the same time, he never wanted to leave this place again.

*

George woke up in a thoughtful frame of mind. He got up and made his bed without really seeing it, and went out to milk the cows before the birds had even started to sing the dawn chorus. George liked the cows almost as much as the goats. The big one was so peaceful and happy, and the little one was so clever and mischievous.

They looked even more than ordinarily nice to George today, as if a little bit of the glory of the High King’s hall had followed him out of the dream and now clung to their shaggy coats. “Good girls. Isn’t it a nice morning?” He pulled gently at the little one’s silky ears. “I’ve been having strange dreams. Do you ever dream, Jolly?”

He wasn’t sure what to tell the cows about the dreams. When he dreamed of the High King’s hall, he never remembered to ask exactly what it all meant; and when he was awake, he was sure that what it seemed to mean must be impossible. It was prophets like Ezekiel or John who had visions of God, not ordinary English farm boys like George!

But still. There’s work to be done, one of the people—angels?—had said. And That’s everything he’ll need for his quest.

Ivy would say that he must have eaten some bad cheese, and that it had given him odd dreams. But he couldn’t help hoping that something would happen today, something special.

The sun wasn’t up yet, but the sinking moon was lighting up the clouds so that they turned purple, then gray, then back to purple again. And at last light crept up over the horizon, painting the sky orangey pink. George stood and admired it for a while. Even though it wasn’t as glorious as the High King’s hall, somehow having seen the High King’s hall made the ordinary world look far more beautiful.

When George went into the house for breakfast, he was so astonished by what he saw that he nearly fell over. He stood in the door and stared.

“What’s wrong, George?” asked Violet, starting up from her seat, eyes big in her nine-year-old face. The rest of his sisters looked curiously at him as his mother came in from the kitchen, dusting her hands on her apron. All their faces flickered with light, like a far-off reflection of the king’s shining company, with his mother glowing brightest of all, her gray hairs turned to glimmering silver.

“Nothing’s wrong.” George grinned at Violet. She smiled shyly back at him. “Mother, you do look beautiful this morning!” He leaned down to kiss her on her soft cheek.

“Well,” said his mother, a little startled. “Thank you, George.” And the sound of the wind was in her voice.

George had five helpings of oatmeal. Violet watched in astonishment, and even Berry shook her head. “It tastes so good,” George offered, a little astonished himself. It was the same oatmeal that he had eaten every morning for years, but this morning it seemed different, every mouthful wonderfully sweet on his tongue.

After breakfast, George went to check on the stone wall at the bottom of the pasture. The little cow was always scratching her itches on it, and sometimes some stones would fall and the cows would get out and go rollicking across the hills or into the forest. Then George and the girls would have to go out and bring them back. George didn’t mind this since the cows had never come to any harm, but Daisy always complained and Ivy made exasperated remarks.

Today there were no fallen stones. Instead, there was a road at the bottom of the pasture that had never been there before. The moment George saw it, he was overcome with delight. He had been hoping for something special to happen today!

He vaulted over the wall onto the new road, and got down on his knees to look at it closely. It was made of flat stones that sparkled when the light hit them, although they felt like ordinary stone under George’s fingers. The road looked as if it had been here for a long time, even though it wasn’t here yesterday: there were little ferns and flowers growing up between the cobbles, and the stones had sunk a handspan down into the earth.

There wasn’t a road, and now there is. “Are you a Faerie road?” George asked it, patting the stones gently. In the stories, Faerie roads went wherever they wished, appearing and disappearing unpredictably; they might carry you from England to France in a single step, or from the underwater kingdoms of Albion to the singing forests of Faerieland’s Winter King. “Why did you come here?” Was it silly to think that the road was here for him?

Then George heard the sound of horse-shoes ringing on the stones, and looked up. A knight was coming along the road on a big gray horse. George knew that he was a knight because he was wearing armor: thick plates of metal on his body and upper legs, with smaller, intricately shaped pieces on his arms and lower legs. He even had shoes made of metal, which must be very troublesome to walk in. George had never seen a knight so close before.

“Good morrow,” the knight greeted him. He didn’t have any helmet on, so George could see his face quite well. It was a nice face, aside from a fussy little mustache and hair that looked as if he had curled it with a hot iron, as George’s sister Holly used to do before she got married. In George’s sight, the knight’s eyes shone as if he was a lantern and his eyes were its open sides. It must be the light from my dream again. George was sure that anyone who reflected so much of the light from the High King’s hall must be a trustworthy person.

“Good morning, sir,” he replied, getting to his feet. “I’m George, and this is my field.”

“Well met, good fellow.” The knight bowed, somehow managing to bend gracefully despite being on horseback. “I am Sir Calydor, whom some call a knight errant.”

“What’s that, sir knight?” George asked, encouraged by the older man’s friendly expression. He was a little surprised that the knight had bowed to him—after all, knights were high folk, and farmers were low.

The knight smiled at him. “You ask an excellent question. A knight errant is most simply a wandering knight. Often, he follows quests and seeks adventures, and travels the world to right wrongs.”

Quests? George echoed, with a surge of excitement. The bright men had talked about a quest for him!—But he made himself calm down. He wasn’t a knight, so he couldn’t have the same sort of quest that a knight would have. “Excuse me, sir, but what road is this? I’ve never seen it before.”

“Alas! I fear I cannot tell you the name of this most interesting road, for I do not know it myself. A thousand pardons.”

George didn’t know why the knight offered so many pardons. Surely one pardon would be more than enough. “Are you lost?”

“A most courteous question. I cannot say that I am not lost, for I certainly do not know where I am—although I suspect I am in England rather than Faerieland at the moment, due to your good company. But I cannot say that I am lost, for I certainly do know where this magical road leads.”

“Where does it lead?” George asked, too interested to untangle the rest of the knight’s statement.

“To the court of the Faerie Queen, my most excellent questioner. The most glorious queen, beautiful, wise… Some might even say enchanting,” the knight added, winking at George. “Bright Gloriana.”

“I’ve never heard of her,” George confessed. There were many kings and kingdoms in Britain and Faerieland, but he didn’t know of any queen with that name. He should have been listening to Ivy’s stories more carefully!

“Ah, that is no surprise. For although her great generosity and goodness leave one longing to proclaim her praise, she chooses the path of humility and discretion. In short, her court is hidden.”

“And this road leads there?”

“It does, good fellow,” said the knight, his eyes crinkling cheerfully at the corners. “You have it right.”

George looked down the road, filled with a longing to follow it, to see the bright court of Gloriana. Hadn’t the men in his dream said that it would be a big day for him? But would it be all right for him to go? He had never been one of those people who found themselves tripping over white stags and magical flowers and talking trees at every step. He was a very ordinary person.

“If you would permit me to give you a brief word of advice,” said Sir Calydor. “You might wish to consider following the path. It isn’t everyone who can see a Faerie road, you know.”

“Really?” Was seeing a Faerie road so unusual? Perhaps it was the light of the High King’s hall that was letting him see this road today.

Perhaps this road really is here for me! “I’d have to speak to my mother, sir knight. But perhaps I’ll see you there? At the court?”

“Good man,” the knight said approvingly. “So, for now, farewell.” The knight urged his horse forward along the road at a fast walk, passing George and leaving him behind.

“Wait! Are there any turnings on the road?” George called after him. He wouldn’t want to get lost, if he really did follow the magical road.

The knight turned in the saddle, his face already blurring with distance. “He who seeks will find!” And he disappeared into the woods.

     He who seeks will find? That was just what the bright men in his dream had said! Well, that settles it—I have to follow the road. And perhaps, out there in the world, he would find something to do for the great High King.