Dragon Business, The (8 page)

Thank heavens Prince Maurice hasn’t turned out like that. I can tolerate a bookish dreamer, someone with imagination but innocent in the ways of the world, but I despise those depressing existentialist “life is a vale of tears and then you die” bores.

A collective, though high-pitched and feminine, gasp goes through the crowd as Hob Nobbin regards the venue. He has a battered lute over his shoulder, rumpled clothes, and poor hygiene that probably started out as an affectation, or maybe out of necessity, but now has become part of his distinctive “look.”

“It’s about rustin’ time!” Reeger pushes through the crowd to meet the minstrel and herds him toward the stage without further ado.

Prince Maurice looks at the young singer, and his eyes sparkle. “Now we’ll have some real entertainment.”

I frown. “I haven’t finished my story yet.”

“I meant, some
more
entertainment, Father.” Maurice is blushing.

The minstrel sits on a stool, crosses his gangly legs, and props his lute on a knee. He strums, picking out a melody that’s not familiar to me. The candlemaker’s daughter and the baker’s girl both sigh. “I love that one!”

Hob Nobbin doesn’t deign to raise his eyes; he pays them no attention whatsoever with a studied indifference, which only seems to encourage his audience.

I lean closer to Maurice. “I can keep talking while he’s warming up.”

But the minstrel doesn’t seem to care about practicing his voice or tuning his lute. He requests a tankard of ale, but Reeger will give him only water until he finishes his first set. Hob Nobbin begins to sing a ridiculous ballad about a blond-haired knight and a quest across seven lands and seven seas to find the perfect raspberry for his lady to garnish her breakfast cereal. Somehow, the raspberry remained fresh and sweet over the years of the knight’s travails.

Even more unbelievable, the crowd loves the song and applauds, whistles, and cheers. Maurice pays rapt attention.

I just roll my eyes. “You know life isn’t like that.”

“Don’t ruin the entertainment, Father,” my son says. “Don’t you have any imagination? Any sense of wonder?”

I blink at him. Hasn’t he been listening?

During the lull, I call toward the stage, “I’ve got a request. Do you know ‘The Tale of Brave Sir Dalbry’?”

“Never heard of him.” The minstrel looks at me as if I am no more than a green bottle fly on a pile of dung. “And I don’t do requests.”

He plays another song. I make a mental note to inform the queen that we will not be hiring this particular minstrel at court. Ever.

A
FTER CULLIN FINISHED
procuring their supplies, carefully adhering to the number of gold durbins in his budget, he went to find the town’s primary tavern for his rendezvous with Sir Dalbry.

The older knight had donned his armor and orange sash, although he left his alligator-skin cape behind because he didn’t want to draw too much attention to himself, not yet. Cullin again played the part of Dalbry’s loyal squire. Reeger was already in the tavern, one hour and two tankards ahead of them, but they pretended not to know one another. Reeger hunched at a table, chatting with patrons, getting information about local legends and geography.

Dalbry and Cullin each ordered the pewter-plate special, a dry loaf of bread soaked with lumpy gravy. Everyone could see that Dalbry was a knight, but he didn’t introduce himself by name. “I came to your kingdom because of the troubles,” he said to no one in particular.

“We have troubles?” asked a large blacksmith who sipped from a tiny glass of white wine.

Dalbry turned to the blacksmith, amazed. Cullin took his cue and piped up, “The dragon, of course! A big nasty one wreaking havoc all over the countryside.”

“Haven’t heard anything about that,” grumbled the blacksmith and took another delicate sip, extending his pinky into the air as he did so.

“No surprise—all the witnesses were eaten and burned, or burned and eaten . . . it’s hard to determine the exact order,” Sir Dalbry said. “But I assure you, it’s true. I’ve seen the evidence.”

From his table, Reeger coughed loudly. “I’ve heard of the attacks. Shepherd’s cottages burned to the ground, flocks devoured in a single night. I came by one such place—you wouldn’t believed the stench of roast mutton and burned wool in the air.” His face twisted in disgust.

As the uneasy people mumbled into their tankards, Cullin sopped up the lumpy gravy with his bread and assessed the room. At one table a group of rangy men—by the look of them, they were professional cutthroats, not amateurs—played a game with dagger points, spread fingers, and optimistic coordination. When one cutthroat’s finger was sliced open, to howls of laughter from his comrades, they paused the game long enough to use the leaking blood to draw a smeared map on the wooden tabletop. They discussed their next scheme before scraping away the evidence with the edge of the knife.

At another table, a man ran a game of chance with fast hands, three small half-skulls, and a hard-boiled egg. He placed the egg under one skull then spun it around, mixing it up with the other two skulls, jabbering all the time to distract his marks. He switched and slid the skulls back and forth, around one another, toward himself, then away. Then his audience placed bets, guessing which skull hid the egg. The observers lost every time, even though Cullin could plainly see the egg through the gaping molar socket in one skull.

Outside, a ragamuffin rube from the countryside led a cow so scrawny that rows of ribs protruded and its udder hung like an empty glove. The young rube had spiky hair, a straw hat, a freckled face, and a broad astonished grin. Obviously, he’d never been to the big city before.

As soon as he arrived at the tavern and tied the family cow to a post outside, the people inside the tavern perked up, sensing an easy mark. The man with the skulls and the hard-boiled egg was so distracted by such a golden opportunity that he slipped up, and one of his marks guessed the correct skull. The winner claimed the hard-boiled egg as a prize, which he ate, thereby ending the game.

Before anyone else could make a move on the rube and his cow, another fast-talker got there. He hurried over to the grinning country boy, pulled a pouch from his waist, and began extolling the virtues of his rare collectors’ edition magic beans.

The rube’s eyes went wide. “Magic beans?” He held out a hand to look at them. “They look like normal beans.”

“That’s part of their magic—the power of disguise,” said the fast-talker. “See, it’s proof of what I’m saying.”

The fascinated rube listened to the story about the magic beans, while Cullin eavesdropped, looking for pointers, since this man seemed to be a master. Before long, the fast-talker shook the rube’s hand and walked back out of the tavern. The fast-talker took the cow’s halter rope and led the beast away toward the town’s butcher shop and tannery.

The rube regarded the three beans in his hand with reverence and awe. He looked so thrilled with his good fortune that Cullin shook his head at the young man’s gullibility. Sir Dalbry appeared disheartened, but resigned. “Our scheme will do well in this place, Cullin. These people will believe anything.”

Reeger left his table, saying he had to go to the outhouse to drain some of his ale. He walked past Cullin and Dalbry, feigning drunkenness (or maybe not feigning it). He stumbled into their table, leaned close, and said, “I’ve learned what I need. There’s a haunted cave in the hills nearby. The locals call it Old Snort. Foul smoke and vapors, scary sounds.”

“Sounds like a real dragon’s lair,” Cullin said.

“Definitely something I can work with,” Reeger said. “I’ll tell you more back in camp after I’ve had a look.”

He staggered out the tavern door, and Sir Dalbry continued to hold forth about the rampages of dragons. “My former kingdom was plagued by the creatures. The fields, orchards, and forests were laid waste, burned to the ground, my people killed! That’s why I’m a wandering knight—I vowed to walk the Earth and never rest until I’ve slain the last of the foul reptiles.”

The wide-eyed rube listened, his mouth half open. “Would magic beans help?”

Frowning, Dalbry took pity on the young man. “Why, yes, I think they might—I’ll buy them from you.” He reached into the pouch, counting how many gold durbins remained of Ashtok’s reward. While Cullin groaned, Dalbry paid the rube more coins than his scrawny family cow would ever have been worth. “Take this money back home; use it to keep your family fed and warm throughout the winter.”

The rube clutched the gold coins and said, “I’m just glad I could help you slay dragons. Those magic beans are very powerful, or so I’ve been told.”

With a somber nod, Sir Dalbry pocketed the beans. “Yes, they are. I’ll count on them to protect me from a monstrous attack.”

The rube left the tavern, light on his feet.

Upset, Cullin leaned toward him and kept his voice down. “Why did you do that? That was our reward money! It could have helped me buy passage to the New Lands.”

“That poor young man was cheated. Sometimes a good deed is more important than a few extra coins.” Dalbry was content with his choice. “We’ll earn more money.”

A minstrel entered the tavern, and Cullin recognized Nightingale Bob with his lute, ukulele, and mandolin. He said, “I’m here to perform my first set, matinee show.”

The people in the tavern shifted their benches and stools, and the barmaid poured more tankards of ale. The minstrel gave Sir Dalbry a knowing smile, took his seat, and started singing the still-rough lyrics of “The Tale of Brave Sir Dalbry.”

The rhymes didn’t work, but the song captivated the audience nevertheless. They had never heard of Sir Dalbry, but soon they would repeat the story throughout the town. Cullin saw the glow of pride in Dalbry’s eyes. The old knight folded his hands on the table. “Yes, I think we’ll do well here.”

Though Cullin had consumed only a small glass of ale, he felt the need to pee and excused himself, heading out the door for the outhouse marked “Customers Only.” A few minutes later, he emerged with an empty bladder and sore lungs from holding his breath against the stench of the pit. Reeger could have sold his services to refurbish the latrine.

Before re-entering the tavern, though, he was surprised to see the rube with his straw hat meet up with the fast-talker who led the scrawny cow. Both were smiling. After the rube held up the coins Dalbry had given him, they high-fived each other and strolled out of the town together, taking the cow with them.

When he went back inside, Cullin decided not to mention the incident to Sir Dalbry.

W
HEN THEY ENTERED
the court of King Norrimun the Corpulent, Cullin adjusted Sir Dalbry’s dragonskin cape and his apricot-colored sash. The knight had spent the previous evening getting into his role, reshaping his personality as the honor-bound knight he would have been, if his life had turned out differently.

By now, rumors of a monstrous dragon had spread. In the tavern, Nightingale Bob had played “The Tale of Brave Sir Dalbry” twice more for an encore, and magician-entrepreneurs were designing and selling dragon-proof charms. The blacksmith (who had finally finished his dainty glass of white wine) went to his shop to make armor and swords to equip what would surely be a rush of eager dragon slayers coming to save the kingdom.

Sir Dalbry and his squire entered the court, where bearded King Norrimun reclined on his special double-wide throne. Cullin looked at the princess who sat beside the throne and was smitten in an instant.

Her name was Affonyl—a willowy young woman who looked like a fairy princess in a lacy blue gown. Her blond hair hung in a long braid down her back, like straw that had already been spun into gold. Four cats prowled around her feet, two more on her lap, and she took care to stroke each one, although she wore an absent expression as she did so.

Courtiers, ladies, lordlings, wannabe knights, an ancient matronly woman, and other staff members hovered in King Norrimun’s hall. They listened as Dalbry and Cullin presented their case about the horrible dragon. The knight drew his sword and said, “I have come, therefore, to offer my services as a dragon slayer, Majesty. You’ll find my fee to be quite reasonable, in light of the terror and destruction the monster has already caused.”

King Norrimun stroked his curly beard. “While that’s very kind of you, Sir Dalbry, my kingdom is currently experiencing financial difficulties. I’ve had to impose austerity measures, limiting feasts to once a week—which is quite a hardship, believe me.” He patted his stomach.

“But what about the dragon, Majesty?” Cullin said. “You must think of your people.”

“I have everything under control. We are in the process of an important merger that will greatly benefit the economy, but right now we can’t afford to hire the services of a dragon slayer.”

“Our prices are quite reasonable,” Dalbry said. “Satisfaction guaranteed.”

Norrimun continued, “Just yesterday the itinerant knight Sir Tremayne offered to kill our pesky dragon as part of his knightly duty, and to . . .”—the king paused, snapping his fingers as he searched for the word—“and to
promulgate
the mystique of knighthood throughout the land.”

“I know Sir Tremayne,” Dalbry said in a clipped voice. “So you’ve dispatched him to slay the creature? How much did he charge?”

“We couldn’t reach an agreement, but it was not necessary. I have my own champion on staff—Sir Phineal. And dealing with any dragon problems that might arise in the kingdom is part of his job description. Since we’re already paying his salary, it’s easier on the treasury not to engage other services.”

At the edge of the room a skittish knight cleared his throat and stepped forward with all the confidence of a poet facing a horde of ogres in single-handed combat. “It—it is my duty, Sire. I have always w-wanted to slay a dragon, never got the ch-chance.”

“Dragon slaying is a skilled profession. It shouldn’t be left to chance,” Cullin interrupted, though he knew Sir Dalbry was supposed to do the talking. “If Sir Phineal is your champion, then let him try, by all means, but my Sir Dalbry is the greatest dragon slayer of all. I’m sure you’ve heard the songs about him?”

King Norrimun touched his lip. “No, I can’t say that I have.”

Cullin couldn’t tear his eyes from Princess Affonyl, although she hadn’t actually noticed him, which only made her all the more desirable. He suddenly felt bold. “If cost is an issue, then instead of a fee, perhaps whoever slays the dragon could win the hand of Princess Affonyl in marriage?”

“Slay a dragon and win my daughter’s hand?” Norrimun spluttered. “How
medieval
!”

Now the young woman looked at Cullin for the first time, and his heart leaped. A calculating look came to her eyes. “It might be worth considering, Father. Wouldn’t you rather have your daughter marry a famed dragon slayer than any old duke?”

“Not any old duke, my sweet, but a wealthy and powerful one.” Norrimun shook his head and looked at Cullin. “Princess Affonyl is already betrothed, young man. We’re looking into that new-fangled printing press so we can send out wedding announcements, since it’s so costly to hire the monks’ transcription services.”

Sir Phineal cleared his throat, looked longingly at Dalbry, then turned to the king. “Isn’t tonight a f-feast night, Sire?”

Norrimun sighed. “Every night
used to be
a feast night . . . but yes, it is the feast of Saint Bartimund. Sir Tremayne will still be here. Perhaps you and your squire would join us at dinner, Sir Dalbry?”

“We would be honored, Your Majesty.”

Mother Singra, the ancient nursemaid, turned and shuffled at the speed of a glacier out of the throne room. “I will see that two more places are set.”

By now, with most of their durbins spent, neither of them would turn down a large meal. Cullin planned to squirrel away enough food to keep Reeger happy. More importantly, he was glad for the chance to keep making eyes at Princess Affonyl, in hopes that she would ignore him again to show how much she cared.

As Cullin and Dalbry washed themselves in the courtyard using water from a bucket, the older knight gave him a curious look. “What was all that about? You’ve never shown interest in marrying a princess before.”

“You and Reeger taught me to be ambitious.” Cullin splashed water on his face. “I, um, was hoping I could be the one to slay the dragon this time and earn my chops, present the head to King Norrimun.”

Dalbry’s gray eyebrows shot up as he understood. “You think the princess is pretty!”

“And she likes me, too—I can tell by the cute way she ignored me. Think about it. If I marry the princess, then we have Norrimun’s kingdom. I’ll live in the castle, and I can hire you to be my number one knight.”

“And what about Reeger?”

“Oh, he’ll be number two.”

“Reeger’s not a knight and could never pass for one.”

Cullin shook his head. “Not my number two knight, just
number two
. We could set him up with his own tavern like he always talks about.”

“An interesting scheme, though I wish you’d consulted me about it first.”

“It just came to me. I had to improvise.”

Dalbry clapped his hand on Cullin’s shoulder. “Well, nothing to be ashamed of—it showed initiative, but in this particular case it won’t do us any good. King Norrimun seems to be fond of the coins in his treasury or all too aware of how little money he has.” He made a slow turn so Cullin could inspect him. “How do I look? Good enough for the evening’s feast?”

“Dashing as always, Sir Dalbry. And what about me?” He ran his hands through his hair, brushed the dust off his tunic.

“You look like a scamp, and you need a haircut.”

“I’m aiming for the roguish look,” Cullin said. “Girls like the bad boys.”

“Good luck with that, lad, but the princess looks to be all finery and lace, cats and embroidery. I doubt she’d know what to do out on her own.”

The banquet hall was full of noise, people, and food. Sir Tremayne had joined the crowd, dazzling in his flexible polished armor, his white-and-indigo cape, and features too handsome to be rendered properly by the crude artistic techniques of the period.

Tremayne seemed displeased with the interloper Dalbry, but the two knights no longer had to consider each other competition, since Sir Phineal was assigned the task of slaying the nonexistent dragon. Cullin thought that with enough continued depredations, set up by Reeger, the corpulent king would have no choice but to reconsider hiring a professional dragon slayer and his apprentice.

For the feast, a roast pig sprawled on the table with a potato in its mouth (because apples were out of season). A roast goose accompanied the pig on its own platter, and the two eyeless heads looked forlorn, as if wondering how they had ended up there. Squash and bread and tarts completed the feast—at least this course.

Princess Affonyl looked cool and bored at the banquet table. At her left sat a dark-haired, mustachioed lord with long hair tied in a ponytail and a heavy gold chain at his throat, his shirt unlaced to show off his wiry dark chest hair.

Sir Phineal had been served hunks of meat, but ate little. King Norrimun noticed. “You’ve barely touched your food—eat up! You need your strength. Dragon slaying is a hard business.”

“I—I feel ill, Sire. Perhaps I need a few days of b-bed rest.”

“Nonsense, there’s a dragon afoot. No time to lose.”

“All the more reason why
I
should be dispatched to slay the beast,” Sir Tremayne interrupted. “For the honor of your kingdom.”

“Phineal is my chosen champion,” Norrimun said. “I need to get my money’s worth.”

Cullin sat at a smaller separate table for the squires and pages, and he felt a twinge of jealous resentment as Duke Kerrl reached over to clasp Affonyl’s hand in a crushing grip. She was holding a fork in her other hand and looked as if she could barely restrain herself from sticking it into Kerrl’s wrist.

“King Norrimun, we should be realistic,” said the duke. “My attorneys have already negotiated the terms for our wedding and our merger, but a dragon devalues your property. I wouldn’t want anything to harm my investment—or the beautiful princess, of course. Now is the time to make a Plan B, put these other two knights on retainer. After Sir Phineal is devoured by the dragon, we’ll need a fallback position.”

“
If
Sir Phineal is devoured by the dragon,” Norrimun said.

The skittish knight looked as if he had found too many curds in his whey. “There’s altogether t-too much talk of slaying and d-devouring. I’m losing my appetite.”

“
Being
slain and
being
devoured,” Affonyl interrupted. “In this instance you must use the passive voice.”

Phineal did not find the language lesson terribly heartening.

“My champion will get the first chance to slay the dragon and win my gratitude,” the king said. “If he should fail, then I’ll take applications for a new champion. There seems to be a sizeable candidate pool.”

Sir Tremayne reached inside his doublet and withdrew a small white scroll neatly tied with a ribbon. “Here is a copy of my résumé, Your Majesty.”

At the table, the skittish knight looked down at his plate of untouched food. A manservant took it away and gave him a fresh serving, for which he also had no appetite.

“First, we have the evening’s entertainment,” Norrimun said. “Let’s have a round of applause for Nightingale Bob.”

Everyone at the feasting tables cheered. The famous minstrel entered and began plucking out a tune on his mandolin. He sang “The Tale of Brave Sir Dalbry”—with new bonus verses—to the amazement of the audience and the extreme annoyance of Sir Tremayne.