Gareth took it all in, recognizing horse, cow, sheep, and the skins of other small wild animals trapped in the area on the stretchers. The skins turned his stomach at the death they represented. No matter how hard Odd made him work on the farm, it was a better to grow plants and raise animals than this place of death. He pointed. “After you soak those skins, and the acid softens them, how do you stop the process? I mean, the acid would eat away the whole skin if you did nothing, right?”
Faring pointed to other vats set in neat rows, each large enough for three or four people to bathe at the same time if they held water.
“What’s in them?” Gareth said.
“The first vat in each row is called blue acid. The next has a kind of soda water mixture, usually with ash. The next vat’s a milder acid to soften skins further. Then more soda and water and, of course, a few other things depending on what kind of skin. We just pour the right jars in the right vat with the skins. They clean and soften the hides so the leather doesn’t get too hard and stiff while drying.”
“How do you know what goes into which vat? I mean there’s a system, right?”
Faring pointed to splashes of color painted on the stone sides of each vat, then to clay jars neatly lined up on racks standing alongside the building. Each jar had a splash of color matching one on the vats. Some red, some blue, or green, and others brown. Each jar was large enough to weigh as much as a small boy.
Gareth walked the few steps to the first vat, one with a blue slash of color, and nearly gagged from the putrid stench. “If I place my finger in there, what happens?”
“It burns like hell while the acid eats your flesh off the bone.”
“If I put my finger in there and then quickly move it into the next vat?”
Faring drew a deep breath, obviously understanding where the questions were going. “If your finger’s already hurting from the acid, it’ll still hurt. Soda in the next vat won’t heal nothin’. But, if you get acid on you and splash on some water mixed with soda fast enough, nothing happens. Probably.”
“Probably?” Gareth reached for a stoneware ladle and carefully scooped some acid, then he peered closely at it. The mixture moved like thick cream. He glanced at his friend and gave him a reassuring smile. Gareth knelt and poured a measure on the flat surface of a dry pave stone. He watched. There was no visible reaction. No hiss or smoke. He looked at the second vat.
“Don’t do it,” advised Faring.
Gareth emptied the remainder of the ladle back into the vat containing acid, then moved to the second vat, the one that stilled the action of the acid according to Faring. He ladled another measure and poured the soda mix onto the same pave stone, covering the acid and stirred the two. There was a hint of steam and a slight hiss. A few small bubbles formed, then nothing. He placed his finger near the acid and looked at Faring.
“It shouldn’t hurt you, Gareth. But who knows?”
Gareth dipped his index finger and moved to the vat of soda water in one motion. He held his finger above the surface, waiting for the first hint of pain, or, at least, the heated tingling he’d felt at the base of the dragon’s nest when he’d touched the dragon spit.
Nothing happened.
“Fool,” whispered Faring.
Both waited.
Gareth examined his finger. No redness. No pain.
“That’s just part of the problem solved,” Faring said. “There’s still a mother dragon who’s goin’ to eat you. No amount of gold’s worth that.”
“I wonder what your Da will say about that if you hand him enough silver and gold to keep his tannery open.”
Faring touched the wetness on the pave stone with his index finger to test it himself, and shrugged.
Gareth said, “We still need to know more about the teachers. When and why they follow me, but I don’t think they’re going to tell me if I ask I’ve been thinking about what you said. The teachers seem to follow me everywhere. Let’s change things up. How about you follow them? See where they go and what they do.”
“Why follow them? I might as well just follow you, and make it easier on all of us.”
“Listen to me, Faring. I doubt if they’ll watch to see if they’re followed because they’re too keen doing the following, themselves. I want you to find how many of them are around me at different times of the day. Are they always there? Are there times when I can sneak off without them? If they followed us all the way to the nest, we need to change our plans, or they might try to prevent me from going, again.”
“You think they allowed you go to the nest the first time. Why did we get away with it?” Faring said.
“We took them by surprise. By the time they figured out where we were going, we were already there, and the dragon flying overhead must have kept them standing still to avoid being seen by it while we went higher to the nest. They’ll make sure it doesn't happen again.”
“If too many of the teachers are following you, you’ll have to quit this crazy egg stealing idea, I’m thinking. So, I’ll do it.”
“Deal,” Gareth grinned and spit in his palm to shake on it.
CHAPTER FOUR
Two days later, Gareth headed for the tannery, again. He timed his arrival for well after the regular workers had departed. Fairing, as the youngest worker in the tannery, performed the cleaning chores and usually left much later. Gareth would meet with him at their normal meeting place under the sour apple tree. However, when Faring didn’t emerge at his regular time, Gareth stood and walked down the hillside. Holding his breath, he entered the barn-like stone structure of the main building.
The dim light inside revealed Faring sweeping the age-darkened wood floors with a straw broom. Faring glanced at him and turned his head back down to continue working. Gareth said, “You’re working later than normal.”
“Da needs me to do extra these days. He let Mr. John go.”
“Mr. John’s always been a good worker, hasn’t he?”
“We don’t have the money to pay him.”
Gareth shook his head and said, “It must really be getting tough to make ends meet. Your Da’s always paid fair wages for a day’s work.”
“That he has, but you can’t pay what you don’t have.”
Faring’s tone sounded sour. A change of subject seemed called for. “Listen, when you followed the teachers, what did they do after I went into my hut at night?”
“That again?” Faring’s voice now sounding flat and unemotional as he pushed the broom in a listless manner, eyes averted. Finally, as if deciding to speak on the subject, he paused. “Sometimes they went to the village and stayed in rooms at the inn. Other times they slept in barns or in spare rooms on farms. Never at Odd’s farm because he don’t like them.”
“None stayed near my hut and watched me all night?”
“No. Why would they?”
Gareth smiled. “So I couldn’t sneak out and take the supplies we need up the mountain to the dragon nest.”
Faring ignored the smile and shook his head. “You don’t need me to go back up there with you.”
“I can carry all my supplies there by myself if I have to, but it’ll take extra trips,” Gareth said, looking away from Faring’s pleading face. In a softer tone, he said, “I can really use your help.”
“I don’t want any part of your craziness.”
“Half the profits are yours.” Gareth moved closer, flashing a wide smile of encouragement.
Faring pushed his broom faster as if trying to escape. “More like, I’m half the meal for that dragon. No. You go ahead and take what you want from the tannery. I won’t tell on you, but I won’t help you more than that. Get one of the older boys in the village, someone strong and stupid who’ll risk his life for a few coins.”