Mistress of Dragons Read online

  A realm at peace, until now. Now that the dragon had come.

  Arriving at the palace, Draconas and his escort walked through the main gate and into a vast courtyard crowded with young men, half-in and half-out of their armor, shouting and gesticulating and proclaiming loudly that the dragon had seen them coming and been too scared to fight. These must be the knights who had ridden out in search of the dragon. Draconas inclined his head as he walked past them. The knights paid him no attention, but kept on talking.

  The surly guard led Draconas to the main entrance of the castle. Keeping Draconas under close surveillance, the guard hallooed at the top of his lungs for someone to come.

  After several moments, a man appeared, emerging from a side door, ducking underneath the scaffolding.

  “Ah, Gunderson,” the guard grunted. “Just the man.”

  The two conferred. Draconas heard the word “devil” used several times. Gunderson was an older man, missing most of his front teeth and an eye. His remaining eye, fixed intently on Draconas, held intelligence enough for six. He had the air of a military man.

  “You bear the king’s letter, sir?” Gunderson asked, leaving the guard and walking over to Draconas.

  “I do,” said Draconas, reaching for the pouch.

  Gunderson waved his hand. “This way, sir.”

  The guard cast Draconas a glance of loathing, “You’re walking with the devil, Gunderson,” the guard warned.

  “I’ll soak myself in holy water, Nate, if it’ll make you feel better,” Gunderson replied.

  “ ‘Tis no joking matter,” the guard said and, muttering underneath his breath, he made another sign against evil and stalked stiffly away. “I’ll be speaking to Brother Bascold about this.”

  “I’m sorry to be the cause of any trouble,” said Draconas, falling into step beside Gunderson. “I guess I shouldn’t have been so open about my calling. Where I’m from, the people are not so backward—the people are not so close-minded,” he amended tactfully.

  “You were right the first time, sir,” said Gunderson with a grin. “Backward is the word for it. Nate is a country boy and he still believes witches eat babies and dance naked in the forest in the moonlight.”

  “I assure you,” said Draconas, “that I have never danced naked anywhere, in the woods or out of them.”

  Gunderson laughed. He had a fine laugh, broad and rolling.

  “Wait here. I’ll inform His Majesty.”

  Gunderson brought Draconas into a large hall, then left him to go in search of the king. Draconas looked curiously around. The stone walls kept the air in the cavernous hall as cool as the air in the Hall of Parliament, and the room was nearly as dark. Slit windows let in only a small portion of sunlight and, since the room faced east, even that had been cut off by the sun’s sojourn to the other side of heaven. Several pieces of fine furniture decorated the hall and these, including leather, high-backed wooden chairs and a small table, were arranged before an enormous fireplace placed along the center wall. A huge rectangular table, intended for serving meals to a large company, stood at one end of the hall, with benches at the low end—below the salt—and chairs at the other. This was the public hall. The family’s private rooms would be elsewhere.

  As Draconas looked idly about, taking note of this or that, a child of about seven years of age came to have a look at the dragon hunter. The child was a male, with fair hair and large eyes. His chaussures and tunic were well-made of fine fabric, but not frilly or ostentatious. By his somewhat rumpled, disordered appearance, he’d thrown off his everyday clothes to change hurriedly into more formal clothing on hearing of a guest in the house. He’d apparently done Draconas the honor of washing his face, though he’d missed a spot around his right ear.

  “My father will be with you shortly, sir,” said the boy. “He asks that I offer you refreshment.”

  “No, thank you,” said Draconas, guessing that he was in the presence of the heir to the throne. Two other blond heads peeped around the corner of a door at the end of the hall. “I take it you are Prince Wilhelm?”

  “I am, sir,” said the prince with becoming dignity.

  “And I am Draconas.”

  The prince nodded and bit his lip, apparently trying to remember what to do next in order to make his guest comfortable. The answer came to him.

  “Please be seated, sir,” said the prince with a gesture toward the high-backed chairs.

  Draconas bowed, but remained standing.

  The prince realized that he must seat himself first, before his guest could sit down. Wilhelm perched on the edge of a chair, then jumped back up eagerly, his princely manners forgotten. “I heard Gunderson tell my father that you are the dragon hunter. Is that true? Do you really hunt dragons? How many have you killed?”

  Before Draconas could answer his questions, a woman came bustling into the room, and Draconas was on his feet again. The woman was dark as the young prince was fair. She was short and well-rounded, where he was tall and slim. There was enough resemblance between the two, especially the slightly pug nose and the large, wide-open eyes, to mark them as mother and son.

  “Queen Ermintrude,” said Draconas. “I am honored.”

  She was attractive in a soft and motherly way, with her broad hips and ample bosom. The expression of her face was sweet and wholesome. Her dark hair, thick and luxuriant, was her one beauty, and she wore her hair uncovered, bound up in an elaborate braid, not hidden beneath a wimple as was the current fashion.

  “His Majesty asks your pardon for the delay. He will be with you shortly. In the meantime, would you like to wash after your journey?” She looked sternly at her son. “Or did Wilhelm ask you that already? He knows he’s supposed to.”

  The prince flushed. “I am sorry, Mother. I forgot I was supposed to offer that first. I did ask him if he wanted refreshment—”

  “I would like to wash up,” Draconas intervened. “Not a bath,” he added hastily, remembering that it was the custom in some realms for the lady of the castle of offer her guests a bath, sometimes even assisting them to bathe with her own fair hands. “Just splash some water on my face and hands. Perhaps Prince Wilhelm could show me—”

  The prince’s glum face brightened. “I will be glad to, sir.”

  “You will be our guest this night, of course,” said the queen. She paused a moment, her brow furrowed in thought. “We’ve a great many guests at present, but I believe there is a room available in the east wing, at the far end of the corridor.”

  “Please do not trouble yourself, Queen Ermintrude. A blanket in the stables will suffice.”

  The queen smiled, her face dimpled. “You have the air of well-traveled gentleman, sir. You have probably been to far grander royal courts than ours.” She spoke very fast, not giving him time or space to answer. “Neither my husband nor I are much for ceremony. You aren’t either, apparently. You didn’t bow, you know, when I entered and you don’t call me ‘Your Majesty’ or ‘Madame.’ I came from the royal court of Weinmauer, where my father is king. Have you been there?” she asked, but sped on before he could reply.

  “He is very formal. I found it all quite stifling. So did my dear Ned, when he came to marry me. Our marriage was arranged, of course, but we found that we suited one another excellently. My first act as queen was to ship home the twenty ladies-in-waiting my father insisted on sending with me.” The queen laughed again.

  Draconas opened his mouth, but she was off again. “Take Master Draconas to his room, Wilhelm. When you have washed and relaxed, sir, come back here and we’ll have some spiced wine. I make it myself. Shocking, isn’t it?”

  Wilhelm made a dash for the door at the end of the corridor. As Draconas prepared to follow, the queen halted him with a look. Casting an oblique glance at her son, Ermintrude walked hurriedly to Draconas, rested her hand on his arm. Her dimples vanished and so did her flighty air.

  “Gunderson tells me you are a dragon hunter, sir,” she said softly. “I hope that you can h
elp us. Ned has not slept in a fortnight. He eats next to nothing. He is so worried about the people and he feels so helpless. The merchants are in an uproar . . .” Ermintrude paused, regarded Draconas intently. He was being judged. She had something confidential to impart and she was trying to decide if she could trust him. After a moment’s searching gaze, she made up her mind.

  “I’m telling you this, sir, because Ned won’t. My husband is being pressured by his ministers to ask my father, the king of Weinmauer, to send in soldiers, proclaim us a protectorate. My father has long had his eyes on our rich kingdom. He means to have it for his own. That was his view when he married me to Ned. My father was sadly disappointed when I refused to go along with his plotting and scheming. I know he’s heard about the dragon. His spies tell him everything. If he sends in troops, there will be war, for Ned will never permit our kingdom to come under the sway of Weinmauer. We suspect that at least two of the ministers are in my father’s pay—” A sudden shocking thought came to her. She drew back, regarded Draconas warily. “Perhaps you, too—”

  “I know nothing of politics, Queen Ermintrude,” said Draconas. “Of that I assure you. I am here only to do a job.”

  A tear rolled down her cheek and more glimmered in her eyes.

  Draconas stepped back hastily, half-turned, and thrust his hands behind his back.

  “Why, blessed angels save us,” exclaimed Ermintrude. “Are you one of those men who fall apart at the sight of a woman’s tears?”

  Draconas’s mouth twisted. “You have found me out, madame,” he said with a bow.

  “You needn’t worry,” said Ermintrude, wiping her eyes. “I won’t cry anymore. It’s just . . . you’re the first person who has ever claimed he could help and sounded as if he truly meant it. But what was that you said about my husband trusting you? Why wouldn’t he?”

  “My methods are somewhat unorthodox—”

  “I understand that they do not involve dancing naked in the moonlight,” said Ermintrude, a hint of the dimple returning.

  “No, madame,” said Draconas with a half-smile. The dimple was infectious. “They do not.”

  “Ah, too bad.” Ermintrude sighed. “I might have enjoyed that. He’s coming, Wilhelm,” she called to the prince, who was shuffling this feet impatiently. “Please don’t say anything to my son about what I told you, sir. We don’t want to worry him or the other children.”

  Manners required that Draconas kiss the queen’s hand, but she—in her distraction—did not offer her hand to be kissed and he made no move to do so. Her tears were still wet upon her fingers. Bowing, he took his leave of her, pleased with what he’d found out.

  “This is better than I had expected,” he remarked to himself. “A threat of war, all because of a few burnt villages and some dead cows.”

  Going off to wash his face and hands and satisfy the young prince’s curiosity with some amazing lies about hunting dragons, he added inwardly, “Humans work so hard to complicate their lives. It sounds as if this wretched king is every bit as desperate as I hoped.”

  5

  EDWARD IV OF THE HOUSE OF RAMSGATE-UPON-THE-Aston was young to be king, only just turned thirty. His father had died in his mid-fifties from drinking tainted water while on a hunting expedition. Edward had almost gone with his father on the trip, but had stayed home at the last moment when the young prince Wilhelm had come down with a fever. Had Edward gone, he would have undoubtedly drunk the same water and succumbed to the same illness, leaving his son, then five years old, as king.

  Wilhelm related the family history to Draconas as he washed his face and his hands in the large bowl the servants brought to his bedchamber. Wilhelm rather prided himself on having saved his father’s life.

  As he washed and Wilhelm chattered, Draconas could hear other people, guests of the king and queen, coming and going about the castle, which was crowded with knights and their ladies, visiting nobility, entertainers and servants, and hangers-on.

  The knights were loud and boisterous. They had decided to make up for their disappointment in regard to the dragon by organizing a grand boar hunt, which was to take place on the morrow, and they were making ready. Their dogs trotted at their heels, occasionally barking and snapping at each other, adding to the commotion in the corridors. Wilhelm would have taken Draconas to the stables, to show off his very own horse, but Gunderson tracked them down.

  “Master Draconas,” said the old soldier, “His Majesty is at liberty to see you now.”

  “I’ll see this remarkable horse another time,” Draconas promised.

  The prince was disappointed at first, but then he thought how he could lord it over his younger siblings by telling them how he had spent the afternoon with a real dragon hunter, and he ran off in search of them.

  Gunderson led the way to the family’s quarters. They passed through the main hall, now filled with young men and their dogs and retainers, all discussing the upcoming hunt. Conversation halted as they entered. They stared openly at the man everyone in the castle now knew was a dragon hunter. Some of the looks were curious, some intrigued, some openly hostile or suspicious. Draconas paid no attention to any of them.

  Gunderson preceded him up a spiral staircase cut into the stone of the west tower. The stairs opened into a comfortable chamber, small and snug and private. Several finely woven rugs covered the floor. A large fireplace stood at one end, not in use on this fine summer’s day. Oil lamps provided light and scented the room with a pleasing aroma. The king sat at a table strewn with papers, dictating to a man clad in the somber garb of a clerk.

  Draconas looked around. This was the king’s own private room, his favorite room, where he came to transact his business, came to think, came to be alone. A man’s possessions tell a great deal about him, at least so Draconas had come to believe, and he was intrigued by the fact that the king’s study was littered with instruments of a scientific nature. A very fine astrolabe had a prominent place on a table. Beside it was a sextant. A telescope was positioned on the balcony. Draconas wondered briefly and with some amusement if the king had shifted the telescope’s use from observing the stars to observing the dragon. Edward glanced up at them as they entered and gave them a brief nod, to show that he knew they were here. He continued his dictation. Gunderson took Draconas to a window, where they were out of earshot, and Draconas knew now why the king had made this his chosen room. Doors paneled with glass opened onto a balcony. Below was the castle courtyard. Beyond the courtyard was the castle’s walls. Beyond the walls the city of Ramsgate-upon-the-Aston, and beyond Ramsgate, the world. Green fields gave way to the darker, mottled green of the forest that gave way to the misty purplish blue of the distant mountains. Draconas looked to those mountains, with their white snowcaps, and his pulse quickened. He could not have arranged for a better setting if he’d had the workings of it.

  The secretary departed at last, the sheaf of papers now in his keeping. Edward rose to his feet and stretched. Hearing the scraping of the chair being pushed back, Gunderson and Draconas understood it was proper to turn around.

  “His Majesty, King Edward IV,” said Gunderson. Draconas inclined his head.

  Gunderson’s face flushed. “You are in the presence of the king, sir. You will bow to His Majesty.”

  “I beg your pardon,” said Draconas, “but he is not my king and therefore I do not bow.”

  He spoke to the king, who was regarding him not in anger, so much, as with amusement. “You sent for me, King Edward, because you have a problem and you believe that I may be the one to solve it. You are looking to me for help, not the other way around. If you want to hire me, that’s fine. If not, that’s fine, too. But it is important to me and to my job to know that we meet on an equal footing.”

  Draconas watched the king closely, waited for his reaction. If Edward threw a tantrum, stormed and raged, then Draconas would know he’d been wrong in his assessment of this man and he’d have to find someone else.

  Edward’s mouth quirked.
“He has a point, Gunderson, or rather, several points. We’re not his king. We did send for him. We are planning to turn to him for help. It’s hard to force a man to bow under those circumstances.”

  Draconas was satisfied and he took the opportunity to study the man upon whom, all unknowing, the hopes of the dragons rested. Edward was poised, confident, self-assured, and handsome, according to the standards of the day. He wore his chestnut-colored hair shoulder length, as was the fashion in this part of the world; it fell in soft waves from a center part. His features were regular and well-made, with high and prominent cheekbones; a strong, straight nose; and large hazel eyes that met other eyes with disarming frankness. He was tall, his body well-formed and muscular, for although his kingdom had been long at peace, he was always mindful that he might have to fight in her defense.

  “I hear there’s to be no naked dancing,” added Edward. His smile was warm and generous, immediately making the stranger a friend, yet, at the same time, maintaining a cool reserve, reminding one always that he was in the presence of a king.

  “Since this seems to be a source of major disappointment, I could arrange it,” said Draconas.

  Edward grinned. He had a grin like his young son’s, a mischievous smile that lit the hazel eyes, charged them with flecks of greenish-gold.

  “I fear the naked dancing would have no effect on the dragon,” said Edward.

  It might, Draconas thought, but not the effect he’s looking for. The image of the plump, dimpled, and well-endowed Ermintrude dancing naked with wild abandon in the moonlight was not without its attractions.

  Draconas was honest, however. “I fear not.”

  “Ah, well,” said the king with a feigned sigh of regret. “Another time, perhaps.”

  The smile in his eyes did not last long. The hazel darkened to brown. The handsome face was drawn, careworn, plainly revealing his anxiety and worry. Another man might have tried to hide such feelings. Edward’s feelings and thoughts would always be plain upon his face, out in the open for all the world to see and judge.