Mistress of Dragons (8 page)

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
help 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.”

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.