Tessa grinned at him. She hated to admit it, but she liked him. He was so unlike the other men who came here full of bluff and bluster.
“Why are you adventuring? Why are you not safely at home?”
Again he sighed, but then he straightened up and said with determination and pride, “I am the youngest son of the youngest son of a king and there is no kingdom for me. I have set forth to find my own fortune.”
“Dragon’s caves often hide treasures,” Tessa said, testing his character. Would he try to steal it, proving himself unworthy of her attention?
He smiled, and she liked the way his cheeks dimpled. “I have found the treasure that his cave houses, and it is named Princess Teresa Elaina.”
“Tessa,” she said, a smile spreading across her face. “My friends call me Tessa.” Even as she said it she chastised herself for letting her guard down. After all, he was a master of flattery. He had tricked Cole, and she could not let him trick her.
“Come out!” Cole bellowed from the other side of the rocks.
Frederick shot Tessa a panicked look.
She gave him her most benign smile. “You can’t come into the dragon’s inner sanctum and not expect repercussions.”
He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Will he expect me to fight him to the death?”
“Probably not,” Tessa said. Fights to the death did happen occasionally. Always the adventurer’s death, of course. Dragons were notoriously hard to kill. Why people continued trying constantly bemused her. More often the adventurer simply left, bloody and bruised and already creating the great story he would tell about his conquests when he got back home.
“What is it you want?” Frederick asked, his voice surprisingly stable.
“You must clear the rocks from the cave,” Cole’s voice was smug with self-satisfaction.
Frederick’s eyebrows shot up and Tessa shrugged.
“Why?” Frederick answered. “You put them there.”
Tessa laughed out loud, and she could just imagine the look on Cole’s face for being stood up to like that.
“I put them there to keep you from Tessa,” Cole answered.
“Didn’t work,” Frederick responded. Tessa couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He was either a lot stupider or a lot braver than she had thought. And she didn’t think he was stupid.
It was possible he was worthy though.
Time to continue testing him to find out.
“The rocks do need to be moved,” Tessa said. “Cole cannot put them all back as easily as he can scatter them. I can help you if you’d like.”
“You do not need to help,” Frederick answered, “I can do it on my own.”
Tessa shrugged and settled down into her pillows again. “Okay, fine,” she said.
So, he had failed the test. Assuming she couldn’t help simply because she was female. He’d find that it was much easier with two, especially since she had a long stick that made an effective lever for getting the rocks out of the way.
She had almost started wishing that he was the worthy one. She could almost imagine living with him and seeing that cheerful smile every day. But, there was no point in dreaming, just like all the others he had proven himself unworthy.
* * *
He crawled back over the rock fall and began to lift the rocks closest to the cave entrance. She could hear him grunting and struggling to shift the rocks. After a quarter of an hour he had moved one or two. She poked her head over the rock fall and watched him. He was red in the face and straining his muscles.
Cole was sitting in the entrance of the cave, watching with a self-satisfied gleam in his eye. He gave Frederick enough room to get past him, but offered no assistance.
“Are you sure you don’t want help?” she asked, not at all sure why she was giving him a second chance.
“It would probably be easier with two,” Frederick admitted, “but since it is my fault the rocks are here, it is my responsibility to move them.”
Wait. That was the reason he didn’t want help? Because it was his responsibility? Well, that was different. Maybe he was worthy after all. Suddenly the world seemed much brighter
“It is partly my fault,” she admitted. “Cole has to protect me, and the rock fall is one way.”
Frederick stopped struggling with a rock that was twice as big as his head.
“Do you know an easy way to move the rocks?” he asked. “Perhaps you have a magic spell or something?”
Tessa took a step back. “I am not a witch!” she said indignantly and retreated to her pillows.
A witch indeed! She’d only used a spell once, and she was surprised when it had worked. Clearly the protection spell on Cole had worked, but that did not make her a witch. Did it?
Soon his head popped up over the rocks. “I never said you were,” he explained. “I thought that since you were offering you might have a plan, because if it were simply to share in backbreaking work, I think most people wouldn’t bother to say anything.”
“I’m not most people,” Tessa said, feeling petulant.
“I figured that,” Frederick answered. “You live with a dragon. That’s fairly unusual.” The looked at each other for a long second. Finally Frederick asked again. “So, do you have an easy way?”
He was asking for her help. He was admitting he could use her help. That gave him lots of positive points as far as she was concerned. She nodded. “I do,” she said. “I’ll help.”
She climbed back over the rock fall, ignoring the gimlet gaze of Cole sitting in the entrance. She found the long stick she used as a lever and showed Frederick how propping the stick against one rock and nudging the next got the rocks to move. She let him use the lever while she moved some of the smaller rocks herself.
“You could help, you know,” she said to Cole as she passed out of the entrance to the cave.
“I much prefer watching,” Cole said in a self-satisfied way.
“Of course you do,” Tessa answered with a roll of her eyes.
It was full dark before the rocks had all been moved out of the cave and Frederick looked near tired to death. She found her jug full of mead and offered it to him. “I think you’ve earned a drink” she said.
He took a grateful draw.
“Thank you.” He handed the jug back to her. “I suppose I should be on my way.”
“I suppose you should stay here for the night where it is safe. You don’t know what you might encounter out there.”
“No, but there’s a dragon in here who doesn’t like me that much.”
“Cole? He likes you.”
Cole grunted in what may have been disagreement.
“Well, regardless, this is my cave and I say you may stay the night. I have some bread to offer you and a blanket to cover yourself with for the night.”
Again he smiled in a way that showed his dimples. “Your cave? Not the dragon’s?”
“We share it,” Tessa said. That was all the explanation he needed. It was her cave as much as it was Cole’s. They were both destined to live here together, protector and protectee, until she deemed some man worthy to share her life with. She was beginning to wonder if perhaps that man was in front of her. Of course, there was one test left, and he would encounter that in the morning.
She fed Frederick and offered him a soft pillow and a warm blanket and showed him a place he could sleep. Cole moved from the entrance of the cave to position himself between Tessa and Frederick as they settled in for the night. The protector took his job seriously.
In the morning when she awoke, Frederick was already up and poking at the fire. He had gone out to the spring and filled the coffee pot and the smell of percolating coffee filled the cave. It was almost decadently luxurious to not have to do that herself.
“I’m not sure where you keep the cups,” he said when he saw her.
“Actually, we only have the one,” she said. “Cole doesn’t use a cup to drink, and I don’t often have guests.”
&
nbsp; “Can’t imagine why not,” Frederick said. He stretched his back.
“Sore?” she asked.
“A bit. But it was nice to have a warm blanket for the night. Thank you.”
“You have the first cup of coffee,” she said. “You made it. You deserve it.”
He didn’t argue, but poured the coffee into the cup she offered him. “We could share,” he said.
“I’ll have a cup when you are done.”
“Perhaps we can sit outside the cave and watch the sun come up,” Frederick said. “I love watching the way the mountains change as the light changes.”
Behind her Cole snorted, but Tessa ignored him. She and Frederick sat on large rocks outside the cave entrance. It was fascinating to watch as the colors emerged in the scrub pines and the flowers as the sun made its way across the sky.
“Where are you off to next?” Tessa asked.
“I don’t know. I will keep going until I find a likely kingdom, I suppose.”
“And what would that look like?” Tessa asked. “I mean, I don’t suppose there’s just some castle somewhere waiting for you to move in and take over.”
“No, I suppose that’s not what I would find,” he admitted. “I don’t really know. I kind of figured I would know it when I saw it.”
“A treasure would make it easier, perhaps,” Tessa said, baiting him. “You could buy a castle that someone didn’t want anymore.”
“A treasure like the one in the cave?”
So, he had seen it.
“Yes, like that one. You are smart and could probably figure out a way to get Cole out of the cave again so you could take it.”
Frederick gazed back into the cave again and sighed. “I might be able to, it’s true. But I could not start my life on stolen treasure. It wouldn’t be right. I wouldn’t respect myself, and I suspect you wouldn’t respect me much either.”
“Does it matter if I respect you?” she asked.
“It matters very much,” he said. “Because when I have found my kingdom, I plan to come back here and find you and see if you are ready to leave the cave and live in my kingdom with me.”
From inside the cave Cole roared and Tessa and Frederick jumped.
“Did I make him angry again?” Frederick asked.
“I don’t think so,” Tessa said, but she couldn’t imagine what the problem was. She got up and went to Cole’s side. His head was resting on his front paws, and a giant tear was traveling from his eye, down past his nose, and about to drop into the dirt floor of the cave.
“Whatever is wrong, Cole?” she asked him. “Frederick has been completely honorable. Why are you sad?”
“Because he is worthy. I know he is worthy and so do you. And you will leave me.”
“Where will I go?” Tessa asked, putting a soothing hand on the dragon’s large head. “He has no kingdom, and he says he will come back for me when he does. That could be years.”
“Do you think he is worthy?” Cole asked pointedly.
Tessa took a deep breath, and looked out to where Frederick was still sitting, enjoying his coffee and the morning sun. He had proven himself worthy at every step. If there was anyone who she would leave the cave for, it was him, but he wasn’t asking her to go anywhere yet. “He’s worthy,” she admitted.
“Then he will have his kingdom,” Cole said. The dragon sniffed once and the tears stopped. He lumbered toward the opening of the cave.
“Frederick Mohr, youngest son of the youngest son of a king,” Cole said, proving he’d been listening to their conversation earlier. “You have been deemed worthy by Princess Tessa. Because of this, the treasure that I safeguard is yours.”
Frederick jumped up, nearly spilling his coffee. “You mean, that I am worthy of Tessa? For she is surely the treasure you mean. But I cannot take her if she does not wish it.”
“I wish it,” Tessa said, coming up beside him.
“There is another treasure,” Cole said. “You uncovered it when moving the rocks. You were even tempted to take a jewel or two, I saw you hold one and weigh it and wonder, but you put it back. You are an honest man. The treasure is now yours, and you can build you kingdom. Build it here, by my mountain, and I will offer my protection for the next thousand years.”
Frederick put the coffee cup down on the rock he’d been sitting on and took Tessa’s hands in his. “Will you be my wife?” he asked, looking deep into her eyes.
Her face hurt from smiling. “I will,” she said. She had often dreamed of this day, but even in her dreams she had never imagined being this happy.
“Will you be my queen and help me run our kingdom?”
“I will,” she answered, and then with a sideways glance at her dragon, she added. “As long as we name it after Cole. It shall be the kingdom of Colsteinburg.”
And so it was.
* * *
Christine Marciniak was born in Philadelphia, but has spent most of her life in New Jersey. She has written several books for middle grade, young adults, and adults and hopes to write many more.
Mynda threw open the door and rushed into the king’s bedchamber. “Oh, Father, I’m so uncomfortable!” she cried. “I tossed and turned and didn’t sleep a wink all night!”
Caedmon, the venerable King of Lexico, sat up slowly, satin sheets sliding aside to reveal velvet pajamas. “What is it, my angel?” he yawned. His eyes were full of sleep but empty of surprise; the seventeen-year-old princess was widely renowned for her sensitivities, and the path between the royal bedchambers was well-worn with footsteps from her midnight tirades.
“It’s the P, Father!” she exclaimed. “I can’t sleep because of the P!”
The king nodded. “A rubber sheet, then,” he said. “I shall instruct your chambermaids to …”
“No, not that! The letter P!” Mynda rushed to his bedside. “P is the source of all our kingdom’s misfortunes!” She sat beside him on the goose-down mattress. “Is it not true, Father, that the words we speak shape the reality in which we live?”
The king nodded. “In some respects. Discourse has power. The way in which we talk about people and things influences the way in which we interact with them. A mighty lord who refers to his serfs as ‘dogs’ will come to see them as less than human, and he will treat them less kindly than one who speaks of them as ‘my people.’ A knight who demeans his squire by calling him ‘boy’ will raise up a less mighty warrior than one who calls his squire by name.” He paused. “And it is true that here in the glorious Kingdom of Lexico, words have even more power than they do elsewhere.”
The princess nodded vigorously. “And what element is common to all the crises that beset our loyal subjects, Father?”
The royal brow furrowed. “I suppose … money?”
“No, Father. Think harder.”
“Alcohol?”
“No.”
“Millennials?”
Mynda gritted her teeth, and reached into her dressing gown to withdraw a vellum scroll. “Behold, Father,” she said, unrolling the scroll. “The source of our misery.”
The king withdrew a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles from his bedside table, and squinted at the words. “Pestilence,” he read. “Plague. Prostitution.” He paused. “Patriarchy?”
“Oh, yes! I am so tired of the world being run by old white men who set arbitrary rules!”
The king blinked a bit at that, then continued. “Poverty, pneumonia, pets in restaurants …” He set the scroll down. “I perceive your point.”
“It is the Ps, Father! The Ps oppress us!” Mynda’s crystal blue eyes were furious. She took her father’s hands. “Let us use the power granted us, Father! Instruct the royal wizards of Lexico to unleash their wordsmithing energy to police our language! Let every P be stricken and removed, that our people may prosper in the paucity of their plotting! May a purge become your urge!”
The king frowned and thought. At length, he replied, “Alas, Beloved, I dare not.”
“But Father!”
&
nbsp; Caedmon raised a finger. “‘But’ me no ‘buts’, my sweet.” He shook his head, causing his glasses to skip askew. “This sort of thing has been attempted before. Even applied sparingly, word-magic is dangerous. It rends at the fabric of reality itself. A change of such magnitude as you suggest … There is no foreseeing the risks.” He shook his head again. “No, my dumpling. I dare not.”
Mynda’s cheeks went scarlet, and her crystal-blue eyes filled with tears of outrage. “But…but FATHER!”
Caedmon’s face grew stern. “I dislike these buts, and I cannot lie,” he intoned. “This old white man has spoken, Daughter. In time, you will come to see the wisdom of restraint. In the meantime …” He flicked his fingers in a shoo-ing gesture. “To bed with you, girl. You will rule this kingdom in time. But not tonight.”
Mynda scowled in fury and stalked away, slamming the door behind her. The old king sat upright for some time, moonlight streaming through the window. He knew his daughter well, and above all, he knew how relentless she could be when possessed by the spirit of justice. He squirmed in discomfort, first at the possibilities, and then for other reasons.
“Prostate,” he muttered. “Yet another oppressive P word. It seems a minor purge is necessary after all.” He reached for the royal chamber pot.
* * *
Beneath a cloak of dark green atop a dappled grey pony, Mynda rode in the moonlight down the dirt track that led deep into the forest where the word-witch waited. The going was rough, for the path was narrow and overgrown with brambles and bestrewn with aluminum cans and discarded candy wrappers. Nevertheless, she persisted, and at length she came upon the witch’s cottage—a tiny, ramshackle structure in the middle of a small clearing, crudely constructed of pine, corrugated tin, and gingerbread.
An old woman stood on the front stoop, as if in anticipation of Mynda’s arrival. The woman’s face was lined and weathered, her skin tinged with green, but her eyes were bright and young. As they stared up at her, Mynda felt them pierce her soul. “A visitor!” the hag cried, trying, and failing, to convey a sense of surprise. “What would you have of me, young lady?”
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