The Dragon Prince

by Patty Jansen

  Johanna went to see her. In the hallway, she asked a guard. “Has the shepherd been here to visit his wife yet?”

  “No, Your Majesty, he hasn’t.”

  That was a bit worrying. Johanna hoped that he was all right. Maybe, if there was time, she should go and see him and ask him about this mysterious crate.

  Greetje lay back in the pillows in the bed in the guest room. Sunlight streamed in through the window. A tray with an empty plate and a teapot stood on the table next to the bed. The blanket was pulled up over her belly.

  In the daylight the bruises in her face stood out like huge purple blotches. The eye above the bruise had gone red and bloodshot.

  She brought her hand to her face when she noticed Johanna looking at it. “It doesn’t hurt so much anymore, but it probably looks terrible.”

  Johanna nodded. “It’s very colourful. How are you feeling, other than that?”

  “Tired, but that is probably a permanent thing until I have this child.” Her eyes glittered with tears again. “You know, I’d imagined that we’d be a happy family. In the beginning, he told me that he really wanted to be a father, but he lost interest. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

  “Do you want me to try to talk to him?”

  Did Johanna imagine it or did Greetje actually wince at the thought? “I can’t imagine that it would do much good.”

  “But you can’t continue like this.”

  Greetje shrugged.

  Well, if the worst came to the worst, she could always let Greetje stay in return for work in the kitchen or laundry. However, the palace was fast filling up with people who were there because she felt sorry for them rather than that they were good at their jobs.

  It was not to be helped.

  Johanna sent a guard to tell Helena to see Greetje, and went to her office to tackle the urgent correspondence. That pile contained some issues that she should deal with, before the inevitable and probably soon time that the men would no longer let her attend the meetings.

  One of those issues was that letter from Joris Decamp, Saardam’s mayor, that detailed the pitiful state of the city’s stores of grain and potatoes. It was another few months until harvest, and while it was summer, the farming villages had been hit by the fire demons even harder than the city. Crops had gone unplanted because there was simply no one left to do the planting and work the fields. Unless they could get some crops in the ground, the summer would be bad, but the next winter would be devastating.

  Another worry was the slow pace of repairs to the city that left many without decent roofs over their heads and forced citizens to walk long distances because canal bridges had been burned.

  A few weeks ago, Johanna had asked the city’s carpenters, bricklayers and stonemasons how much it would cost to rebuild two key bridges over the main canal.

  She had received a stack of quotes, but every single one of them was hideous, as if the city’s carpenters had decided en masse that since she was a woman, she couldn’t possibly have any idea of how much a new bridge would cost to build. As if she had any of that kind of money to spend.

  At least, Li Han’s gold would go a long way towards solving those problems in the short term. In the long term, she would just have to convince them to let her write to foreign royal families and merchants to convince them to invest in Saardam’s port.

  She had the letters all ready. The only thing needed was the approval of a bunch of self-centred men.

  After she had sat there staring at her desk and not doing anything, there was a knock on the door and a courtier came in with the news that the King’s Council was gathering in the Red Room.

  This was it.

  Johanna rose from the desk, feeling nervous and sweaty. She checked her reflection in the window: it showed a very proper, very prim young woman with a slight telltale rounding of the stomach. When she pulled the dress flat over her stomach, the bump became more pronounced, and sucking in a breath no longer made it disappear.

  Clearly, there was no avoiding the issue.

  She picked up her letters and her plan that detailed investment amounts and lists of proposed benefits and went down the corridor to the Red Room.

  The men had been talking, but fell quiet when she came in. Johanna crossed the room under their penetrating gazes. She felt like a stock animal for sale.

  In total silence, she sat down on the makeshift throne, her pile of papers on her lap. “Well, then, let’s begin.”

  This was followed by an intense silence.

  Then Thomas Kloostermans spoke up. “We are of the opinion that you should not be working in your condition.” He was a pompous fellow, dressed in an ostentatious white shirt with an abundance of lace on the collar.

  “That is a matter for me to decide, isn’t it?” She gave him a stern look, but by the Triune, her heart was thudding against her ribs.

  “Well . . . Your Majesty. I don’t think so. Anything you do will harm the future heir to the throne. The royal family is already in much danger. We cannot risk losing another heir.”

  “And that apart from the fact that it’s simply not appropriate,” Patrice Faber said.

  “Yes, scandalous,” another added.

  This statement brought a lot of agreement from the men. Father and Master Deim both watched, their faces blank. The shepherd wasn’t there, not that he would have supported her, but that was another thing to worry about.

  Johanna picked up the top sheet of her plan. “Gentlemen, why don’t we start the meeting. I have many other things to do. I have a proposal that will bring prosperity and lasting peace to Saardam. If you’re all quiet, I can read it out—”

  Old Patrice Faber said, “What would these foreign visitors think of us, letting a woman work like that. No wonder her decisions have been irrational lately.”

  Irrational? “Excuse me, I am your queen—” and you should shut up.

  “Darling, you are the consort. In absence of the king, the King’s Council has been instated to make sure that the country stays on the right path until such time that the King’s heir—” and he looked pointedly at her stomach “—is old enough to reign in his own name.”

  “What if it’s a girl? What if—” Johanna had to stop herself. She’d almost said it what if this child is not even Roald’s.

  “Dear girl, you will not stop at one child. Where there is one, more will always follow. Your task is to bring a healthy heir into this world.”

  “My task is to look after the king’s affairs because he cannot look after his own.”

  “That’s what we are for.”

  “Roald doesn’t want you.”

  “Then he should turn up to meetings and tell us so. You have been all too quick in speaking on his behalf.”

  Johanna spread her hands, and let them fall. Every single one of the men, except Father and Master Deim, regarded her with hostility. She met Father’s eyes. The expression of defeat on his face hit her hard. He glanced at the door as if he wanted to say, “Just go. It’s not to be helped.”

  Johanna looked around the wall of hostile faces. She found it hard to breathe. She wanted to scream at them that she would bring Roald in and he would tell them that she could keep working just fine. But Roald had never performed on command, and there was no reason why he should do so now.

  Thomas Kloostermans gestured at the door.

  Unable to find anything to say to counter the demand, Johanna got up.

  “Would you like some help?” Master Deim said.

  Johanna nodded. She was trembling so much that she feared her legs would give way before she made it to the door.

  Master Deim took her arm. Before leaving the room, he said in his gentle voice, “I will represent the Queen’s viewpoint. In most cases, it also happens to be my own.”

  Johanna barely knew how she made her way out of the room.

  “It’s not fair!” she burst out when they were in the corridor. Hot angry tears pricked in her eyes. In the trek through the forest w
ith the bandits, she had learned some interesting words. She felt very tempted to use them.

  “I know, child. But you do have to agree that the heir to the throne should be your first concern. Don’t worry about the council. Your father and I will represent you and your plans.”

  “But you don’t have the numbers!”

  “Neither do we have the numbers when you’re there.”

  “But . . .”

  He shook his head. “I know these types of men. They always say no to everything at first. But if they give me the chance to explain, I’m sure they will see the wisdom, or at least enough of them will for the plan to pass.”

  “But I want to do it!” It was her idea.

  “I understand. For now, be calm and quiet. You’ll get your chance.” He smiled and went back into the room.

  Johanna went back to the living quarters, still clutching her papers. She was seething inside. She should have screamed at them. She should have told them that she wasn’t going anywhere.

  And then what?

  These powerful men could easily make her life impossible.

  And it was not as if she hadn’t known that this was coming. Fighting it was useless because, though she might be the queen, these men had much more power than she did. She guessed she’d have to resign herself to a lifetime of battles for the city. Master Deim and Father alone could never sway the council to go ahead with her plan.

  While she stood there, a guard came towards her in the corridor, followed by a middle-aged woman who was taller than him.

  Helena of Karathos must have been a striking beauty in her youth. She had long legs, long arms and slender fingers. She was probably in her late forties now. Johanna had never seen her in her prime, but apparently before the fires, there were still days when sailors were said to have big fights over her.

  Not so much anymore. Her eyes were still dark, her eyebrows heavy and her hair—or whatever was left of it—raven black. These days, it was not so glossy anymore, occupied as she must be with tending the weeping burn wounds on the right side of her face.

  “It’s getting better,” she said previously when Johanna had asked about it. “I keep it clean and more of the wound scabs over.”

  Her injuries would leave her with permanent ugly scars and must hurt, Johanna guessed, but Helena hadn’t come here to talk about that.

  “She’s not far off,” she said in her dark voice with thick accent. “Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week. Not much longer than that. The child is big and she is very uncomfortable. It’s the first one for her, yes?”

  Johanna nodded, feeling uncomfortable.

  “Call me when her pains start. I will come.”

  Johanna offered Helena some tea, but she said she needed to go to another woman with pains, so she left quickly.

  Johanna strode into her office. She was tempted to slam the door, but that would seem childish.

  Women were only good for producing heirs. It had always been that way and it was pointless to fight it.

  With tears in her eyes, Johanna pushed the pile of draft letters aside. They would never be sent. There would not be investment in Saardam. There would be wars. Li Fai would not have his office. She would never see the little dragon again, never learn about her magic. Everything she had done was pointless. Her life was pointless.

  She went to the window, leaning her forehead against the cool glass.

  The royal office looked out over the former rose garden, and while there were signs that Roald had been working on a garden bed, he, and the guard who would accompany him, were nowhere to be seen.

  From her position, Johanna could see the ravaged glass doors of the garden room. Throughout autumn and winter, the room had lain open to the elements. Dust and leaves had blown in, staining the floor and walls, causing mould to grow on the curtains. Animals had roosted in there, and bandits had camped there. The room would need a great deal of work before it was beautiful again.

  Johanna left the room and went into the garden.

  The air was warm and smelled of grass and flowers. Queen Cygna’s rose beds were badly overgrown with weeds. There were dandelions and poppies, cornflowers and daisies, wild carrots and a variety of garden plants that had run riot, like foxgloves and lupins.

  When Alexandre’s henchmen took away the statue of the Triune that used to stand on a pedestal in the middle of the pond, they had knocked down the wall that used to be on the river side of the garden. Some of the rubble still lay in the garden beds. Last autumn’s floods had invaded the garden beds on that side and washed away the soil that, Johanna had been told, the queen had brought in because the clay of the riverbank was too gluggy to grow roses. Now the garden bled into the reed beds and was more ideal for Roald than the old garden had ever been.

  Johanna went to the old gazebo. The vandals had set fire to the roof, but the stone pillars that supported the roof still stood and the vandals had not been able to move the stone seats.

  She sat down on a bench with a seat warmed by the sun.

  The presence of the king was only indicated by the two palace guards who stood in front of the reed beds, while a group of courtiers hovered around a table that evidently contained Roald’s morning tea in which he took little interest, as usual. Johanna had told them repeatedly not to bother, but they insisted that the king “had to eat well” and was “much too thin”. Yes to both accounts, but trying to get Roald to do it was an effort that was best spent at the dinner table.

  Johanna went to the table and took a cake from the plate held out to her by the courtier.

  She was just about to join Father whom she spotted on another bench when there was a shout from the reeds, the tone of the voice distressed.

  The guards looked at each other and frowned. Johanna looked at Father. The courtiers gasped.

  “Was that His Majesty?”

  The guards had already taken off into the reed bed.

  Johanna called out, “Roald. What’s going on?”

  He would not answer that of course. He never did.

  Johanna ploughed into the reeds after the guards. There was a narrow path where Roald usually walked. The ground was pretty soggy and she had to step carefully from one patch of flattened reeds to the next so her shoes didn’t sink into the mud. Her dress snagged on sticks that had washed up during the flood.

  “Roald!” she called.

  Something went, “Eeeeh! Eeeeeh!” in the reeds.

  That sounded like his voice.

  “Roald!”

  A courtier caught up with her. The man ran past her through the reed bed with a splosh-splosh-splosh and disappeared into the greenery in the direction of the river.

  There was another shout, this time from one of the guards at the front.

  Johanna hesitated. The ground got very wet here. More mud and puddle than dry land, really.

  She kicked off her shoes off and continued clumsily. The reeds were hard to walk on with her soft feet. The water was cold and the mud squished—eeew—between her toes.

  The hem of her dress got wet. She could see glimpses of the courtier’s back between the reeds. He was heaving something heavy.

  By the Triune, Roald was all right, was he?

  But his voice was still going, “Eeeeh! Eeeeeh!”

  He did that when he was distressed. He would be swaying, his eyes wide. She had to get to him quickly, to comfort him.

  The courtier blocked her path. “No, Your Majesty. You shouldn’t see this in your condition.”

  “The king needs my help.” She was already getting tired of the in your condition that her close maids, courtiers and guards used as excuse to make her sit still and do nothing. That would only get worse.

  “I will bring the king to you. Wait here.”

  The man turned around. She could see Roald’s legs in between the reeds behind him. He was sitting in the water and looked indeed to be swaying and crying. The courtier tried to pull him up, but he squealed even more.

  No,
he wasn’t going to come if the man was going to force him like that. He’d only scream and roll on the ground, and then he’d be all wet and muddy and everyone in the palace would talk about it for days.

  Never mind waiting here, and whatever she shouldn’t be seeing in her condition. In the past year she had seen so many awful things, there wasn’t much that could still upset her. She followed the little path through ankle-deep water, holding up her dress. Her bare feet grew numb with the cold.

  At the end of the path, where the reed bed made way for shallow water, one of the guards stood looking at a large and pale thing that lay in the water that was just deep enough to cover it. It took Johanna a few seconds to realise what she was seeing Pale grey cloth waved gently in the lapping water. An open hand reached for the sky.

  Johanna raised her hand to her mouth.

  A body, the form distorted by ripples in the water. A man, someone well-clad. As far as she could tell age on dead bodies, he looked quite young, had blond hair that floated about his face. His eyes were half open. His nose and chin were the only things that broke the surface, but water lapped in and out of his mouth.

  She knew him. It was Auguste LaFontaine, the young nobleman who, just a few months ago, had been his family’s message boy when they were trying to get Father to marry into their family.

  Johanna stared, feeling sick. Roald was still squealing, but his voice sounded far off.

  How did he end up here? She could see no sign of violence on him.

  He’d drowned.

  She was taken back to two nights ago, when she had clearly heard the splash of the man who had fallen or jumped into the water from the Lady Sara’s deck. She and Li Fai had looked, but hadn’t been able to see anyone. The harbour was upstream from here.

  Auguste LaFontaine had been snooping around on Father’s ship?

  A bunch of court guards splashed up behind her.

  “Let us deal with that, Your Majesty,” said the guard captain. He gently pulled her back to the reed bed.

  Roald was still squealing, swaying, clamping his hands over his face.

  Johanna crouched next to him. “Listen to me.” She took his wrists and forced him to sit still.