The Dragon's Reluctant Babysitter

Tamsin Clinker saws through the last leg of Osric Rivet’s spare stool between the crowded schoolhouse benches, while children lift their boots out of the falling chips. Rolled bedding bulges between the slate pegs above their heads, and pale daylight catches the ice in the bucket beside the stove. Osric Rivet catches the severed leg before it strikes a child’s knee and passes it straight into Tamsin Clinker’s outstretched hand.

She feeds the pieces into the stove, then wedges a broken ploughshare across its mouth while Osric Rivet holds the warped door aside with tongs. A loose fastening slips; she catches the iron against her boot, resets it, and drives the fastening home with her riveting hammer. Flame draws inward behind the metal, leaving a thin amber line along its edge. “An hour,” Osric Rivet says, setting the stool’s legless seat beneath the bucket.

Tamsin Clinker strikes the bucket’s ice lid with the hammer handle, breaking it into plates that knock against the rim. She pulls open the terrace door, and children nearest it tuck their hands farther into their sleeves. Below the rust-red shutters, three immense ice-blue toe grooves cross the descending road; a strip of gravel breaks from the nearest ridge and falls into the split as Tamsin Clinker hooks her hauling rope onto her belt.

Tamsin Clinker pulls Brindle from beneath the smithy yard’s bent rain spout, then pitches against the wall as ice closes over her boot beside the descending road. Brindle twists out of her arms, presses his throat against the trapped leather, and purrs until the ice runs into water beneath him. He drops without catching himself; she wrenches her foot free and scoops his motionless body out of the puddle.

Inside the smithy, Tamsin Clinker holds Brindle beneath her coat while daylight retreats from the hanging tools, and Osric Rivet lays aside his tongs to examine the wet boot. “Nine lives,” Osric Rivet says, tapping the furnace inscription copied onto the lintel, “and one for every thaw.” At dusk Brindle lifts his head against her wrist, and Tamsin Clinker pulls the first tally stitch from her apron.

Osric Rivet makes her repeat the inscription’s requirement—a living thaw-spell consumed in the furnace—then positions her empty hands above the forge fire and corrects her grip at the word “release.” When she draws her hands back, he scrapes his supper into Brindle’s dish without looking at the cat. “Come with me,” Tamsin Clinker says, wrapping her hammer while Brindle eats. Osric Rivet unhooks his three workshop keys and presses them into her palm instead; she carries them to the doorway, hangs them above it, and steps onto the loading platform with Brindle inside her coat and eight stitches along her apron hem.

Tamsin Clinker drops to her knees beside the hanging grain cart and threads her hauling rope beneath the driver’s shoulders, while one suspended wheel turns above the gap. Below Clinker Row’s loading platform, dusk darkens the three ice-blue toe ridges; the tilted inspection post sheds gravel beside her boot. The driver pushes against the axle pinning his coat and leg, but the cart slides farther onto the enchanted ice.

Tamsin Clinker knots the rope around his waist and wedges her heel into the narrow gravel strip. “Pull when it lifts,” she says, drawing Brindle from her coat toward the ice gripping the axle. Brindle claws her hand and twists toward her sleeve; she keeps him there until his throat presses against the ridge. His purr runs beneath the creaking axle, water spills over her boots, and he drops motionless into her palm.

Tamsin Clinker thrusts Brindle inside her coat and hauls backward with both hands, dragging the driver clear as the grain cart tips into the chasm. The driver catches the inspection post on his elbows while she opens her shirt and settles Brindle against her chest, his white forepaw hanging loose. With the rope still stretched between them, Tamsin Clinker hooks a fingernail beneath the second tally stitch and pulls it free, leaving seven stitches along the hem.

Tamsin Clinker jerks the hauling rope sideways, pulling the driver’s elbows off the tilted inspection post as a fracture opens beneath its iron base. Gravel spills into the chasm after the vanished cart, and the post drops crookedly against one ice-blue toe ridge. She clamps one forearm across her coat and points with her scratched hand to the strip beside her boots. “Here. On your knees.”

The driver crawls toward her, dragging his freed leg, but a slab breaks from the edge beneath Tamsin Clinker’s heel. He catches her apron and pulls her forward onto both knees; beneath her open shirt, Brindle’s loose white paw slips toward her waistband. She cups him back against her chest, then feeds the rope through her free hand while the driver crawls past the fallen post. Behind them, its lower bolts tear out of the gravel with a sharp iron snap.

On the wider patch beyond it, the driver reaches for the knot around his waist, but Tamsin Clinker stops his hand until both his boots are clear of the crack. He settles beside the passage and pushes loose stones away from its inner edge. Tamsin Clinker fastens her coat over Brindle, leaving the hauling rope stretched across her knees.

Tamsin Clinker cuts a string from a traveler’s bowl while the rescued driver pushes loose gravel out of the passage beside her knees. More bowls pass between the three ice-blue toe ridges, their handles trailing folded scraps of writing in the last gray light. She catches the severed note against the bowl’s rim and returns it to the outstretched hand.

“Keep the food,” the traveler says, pushing the bowl back and pointing beyond the fallen inspection post toward another frozen obstruction. Tamsin Clinker places it beside her boot, clamps her elbow over Brindle beneath her coat, and cuts the request from the next handle. “He can clear your way,” she says, while Brindle’s white paw hangs motionless against her shirt beneath the fastened wool.

The travelers shuffle into a line along the inner ridge, and the driver raises one arm across the passage to stop them pressing onto its broken edge. Tamsin Clinker scrapes the offered food into one bowl and covers it with another, leaving both untouched beside her. A third bowl reaches over the driver’s arm; she takes it with her scratched hand and pulls her coat tighter with the other.

Tamsin Clinker catches the traveler’s wrist as a hand slips toward her coat fastening, knocking the third bowl sideways above the frozen gravel of the Dragon-Footprint Crossing. The rescued driver catches the bowl against his knee while the traveler points past the fallen inspection post toward the ice-blue obstruction. Tamsin Clinker releases the wrist and opens her coat, drawing Brindle into view with his head unsupported and his white forepaw hanging loose.

“Every thaw takes one of his nine lives; this is the second,” Tamsin Clinker says, lifting her apron hem so the traveler can see the seven remaining stitches. The reaching hand drops, and the rescued driver shifts the covered food bowls away from her boots to clear a place beside the inner ridge. “I won’t promise another before he wakes.” A stone breaks beneath the fallen post, but the driver stretches the hauling rope across the outer edge and waves the travelers back instead of urging her forward.

Tamsin Clinker closes the wool around Brindle again, leaving his muzzle visible while darkness covers the empty place where the cart hung; the travelers settle behind the rope, their returned notes tucked beneath their bowls. Nobody asks her to hurry. When Brindle’s white paw finally catches her sleeve, she supports his lifting head, fastens her coat around him, and rises to lead the travelers single file along the gravel strip already cleared.

Tamsin Clinker drops beside the fallen tender and catches his belt as Rimewold’s claw strikes across her route to the channel valves in the furnace’s lower chamber. White fire washes the pearl-gray scales; enchanted ice spreads between the claw and the iron valve stems, stopping short of the tender’s outstretched hand. Brindle hooks his white paw into her coat fastening, above the single tally stitch left in her apron.

“Lift it,” Tamsin Clinker says, pulling the tender toward the narrow space beneath the claw. Rimewold raises it barely enough, and Tamsin Clinker crawls under with her coat pressed shut, dragging the man until Osric Rivet catches his shoulders from the other side. As the tender’s boots scrape clear, Rimewold shifts her belly plates and exposes three smooth eggs against the hot brick, each resting in a crescent scraped clean of soot.

Tamsin Clinker stops on her elbows beneath the raised claw, her wrapped hammer caught against the edge of the nearest hollow. She frees the hammer without letting it touch the shell and backs out while Osric Rivet pulls the tender upright. Then she kneels at the gap again, one hand covering Brindle and the other laying the wrapped tool flat on the brick.

Rimewold slides her spoon-shaped claw beneath the nearest egg as Tamsin Clinker kneels at the gap, her wrapped hammer lying flat on the furnace brick. She tests the other two shells in turn, rolling each a fraction within its soot-free hollow while white fire flashes along her belly plates. “Guard them until the shells soften,” Rimewold says, drawing the smallest egg closer to the furnace casing.

Tamsin Clinker keeps one hand over Brindle’s hooked white paw and extends the other beneath the lifted claw toward the channel valves. “How many nights?” Above her, the tenders strike the frozen valve again; their sounding rod rebounds without loosening the ice. Rimewold lowers her claw across the gap and cups it over the nearest shell, forcing Tamsin Clinker to pull her fingers back.

Osric Rivet leaves the rescued tender braced against an iron upright and steps onto the narrow strip of bare brick before the fire. He points into the furnace mouth, then holds his empty hands apart in the position he taught her at the smithy. Tamsin Clinker draws the wrapped hammer against her knee and closes her scratched hand around its handle.

Tamsin Clinker strips the cloth from her hammer and slides its iron head toward the smallest egg in Rimewold’s Furnace Nest, leaving the wrapping crumpled beside her knee. White furnace light catches the worn striking face as she lifts it above the shell’s soot-free hollow. Across the bare brick, Osric Rivet lowers his outstretched hands.

Rimewold draws her claw across the hammer’s path, its spoon-shaped underside cupping the egg without moving it away from the furnace casing. “Move from the valves,” Tamsin Clinker says, advancing the hammer until its edge almost touches the claw. Rimewold lowers her head, bringing one amber eye level with the tool; the claw trembles against the brick, but beneath its outer joint a low passage remains open. Behind Osric Rivet, a tender strikes the frozen valve, and the sounding rod rings back.

Brindle pulls his white paw free of Tamsin Clinker’s coat fastening and presses it against her empty forearm. She opens that arm without lowering the hammer, and Brindle climbs across her elbow, dragging the coat’s loose edge beneath him. His striped body settles against her apron, covering all but the tip of its last tally stitch; beside the smallest shell, her scratched hand keeps the hammer raised.

Tamsin Clinker lowers her hammer onto the brick beside the smallest egg, keeping Brindle supported against her apron. The iron head rests outside the shell’s clean crescent, its handle pointing back toward her knee. Rimewold draws her sheltering claw over the egg and slides another claw across the narrow strip before the furnace mouth.

“Move your claw,” Tamsin Clinker says, rising with Brindle gathered into both arms. Rimewold presses the claw against the brick until Tamsin Clinker turns sideways and exposes the cat beneath the pulsing white light. Then Rimewold lifts it, drawing its ivory tips away from the fire and leaving the strip bare. Osric Rivet steps forward and reaches beneath Tamsin Clinker’s wrists, turning one palm toward the position he taught her at the smithy.

Tamsin Clinker pulls Brindle against her chest and pushes Osric Rivet’s hands away with her elbow. “Open the channels when it breaks,” she says. Osric Rivet backs toward the frozen valve stems with a channel key in his hand, while Tamsin Clinker places one boot on the cleared brick and Brindle catches her sleeve with his white paw.

Tamsin Clinker brings her second boot onto the narrow strip before the furnace mouth, carrying Brindle against her apron while his white paw pulls her sleeve taut. Behind her, Osric Rivet presses his channel key against a lock buried in ice. Rimewold draws her lifted claw back over the three eggs, leaving the brick between Tamsin Clinker and the fire bare.

Tamsin Clinker bends and kisses the coal-dusted fur between Brindle’s ears. He settles across her forearm, his paw still hooked in the cloth. She supports him with one hand and loosens his claws with the other, one at a time, until the white paw rests free against her fingers. Then she extends her arms over the furnace lip and releases him.

Brindle’s last purr carries beneath the furnace roar, and sheets of water strike the brick around Tamsin Clinker’s boots. Ice breaks from the valve stems; Osric Rivet catches the exposed lock with his key while Rimewold cups her claw around the nearest shell. Tamsin Clinker keeps her empty hands above the lip, but nothing rises from the fire. Behind her, an iron brace slips in its thawing socket, scattering flakes of rust across her sleeve.

Rimewold thrusts her shoulder beneath the slipping iron brace as Tamsin Clinker turns from the furnace lip and catches the tender’s belt. The brace drops against pearl-gray scales, driving Rimewold sideways across the wet brick while her foreclaw stays cupped around the nearest egg. Tamsin Clinker drags the tender clear, leaving his boot caught beneath a loose plate.

Above them, the damaged fitting tilts out of its seat, pulling the newly exposed valve stem sideways. Tamsin Clinker wedges both empty hands beneath its lower flange and pushes it back against the casing. “Hold it there,” she tells Rimewold, then turns toward Osric Rivet: “That branch—open it.” Rimewold raises her shoulder a fraction, lifting the brace enough for Osric Rivet to force the channel key through a full turn.

The valve opens with a hard knock, and water spits from the branch drain as heat enters the buried iron channel. Osric Rivet catches the fitting beside Tamsin Clinker, taking its weight while the freed tender crawls toward the next closed valve. Tamsin Clinker releases her hands and kneels at the split joint beside him; behind her, the hammer lies untouched outside the smallest egg’s clean crescent.

Tamsin Clinker reaches back beneath Rimewold’s claw, takes her hammer from beside the smallest egg, and drives the first rivet through a replacement collar while Osric Rivet holds the split fitting against its seat. White furnace light catches the water pooled between her knees; above her, Rimewold’s shoulder keeps the iron brace lifted from its broken socket. When the collar slips, Osric Rivet catches its lower edge with his apron folded over his palm.

“Keep holding,” Tamsin Clinker says, and strikes again. Rimewold’s coil presses against her elbow, stopping the next swing, until Tamsin Clinker pushes the hammer handle against a pearl-gray scale and the dragon draws back just enough. The last rivet flattens; the tenders bolt the brace into place, and Osric Rivet releases the fitting without its dropping. Tamsin Clinker lowers her hammer beside her boot and wipes both empty forearms with the corner of her apron.

That evening, Tamsin Clinker carries a displaced family’s rolled bedding through the doorway of a room served by the reopened branch, passing between their hosts and the heat tokens held out at the threshold. “They need floor space,” she says, spreading the bedding beside the warm channel cover before anyone takes a token. Osric Rivet arrives with another bundle, and Tamsin Clinker points him toward the cleared boards while the family closes its hands around the unspent tokens.

Rimewold lifts her foreclaw as Tamsin Clinker pulls a replacement elbow beneath it, returning to the lower chamber the morning after laying out the families’ bedding. Osric Rivet catches the far end before it strikes the brick, but a pearl-gray coil blocks the socket where it must fit. “That much farther,” Tamsin Clinker says, holding her hammer sideways in the gap; Rimewold draws back until Osric Rivet can slide the iron home.

Across the next five days, chalk marks disappear beneath new collars, and Rimewold raises one coil after another while Tamsin Clinker and Osric Rivet fasten the exposed joints. When the smallest shell cracks beside an open tool roll, Tamsin Clinker snatches the chisels away and Rimewold scoops the hatchling onto the broad underside of her claw. Its wet forefeet spread against the ivory, leaving the broken shell in the clean hollow beside Tamsin Clinker’s knees.

On the sixth day, Rimewold nudges all three young toward the loading arch, withdrawing her last coil from beneath the repaired brace. Osric Rivet braces a hand against the valve casing as the dragon passes, and the tenders turn their keys without waiting for her permission. Tamsin Clinker gathers her hammer and rope from the cleared brick; behind them, three soot-free crescents lie empty beside the furnace fire.

Tamsin Clinker lifts the three workshop keys from above the smithy door and presses one into Osric Rivet’s palm, beneath the rust-red shutters of Clinker Row. Osric Rivet reaches toward the other two, but Tamsin Clinker threads them onto her belt and closes his fingers around the third. “You keep working,” she says. Osric Rivet hooks the remaining key onto his copper loop and takes up the replacement fitting from the loading platform.

At Clinker Row Schoolhouse, Tamsin Clinker drives rivets through the new collar while Osric Rivet braces the iron beneath the lifted channel cover. When he shifts to reach the branch lock, the collar tilts; she catches it with her hammer handle and holds it until he sets the final bolt. Osric Rivet turns the tender’s key, opening the repaired branch, and water spills from its drain into a shallow pan. They lower the cover together beside the stove, where the broken ploughshare still spans the hearth mouth.

That evening, Tamsin Clinker unbuckles her apron beside her own stove and folds its soot-marked sides inward. Her thumb catches the last tally stitch; she frees the thread from her nail without pulling it out. She lays the folded apron on the floor beside the stove, then moves the coal scuttle away to leave the whole cloth clear.