The Dragon Queen

by J M Sanford

  Breaker growled, showing his sharp teeth. “Thought you were dead too. I’ll fix that soon enough.”

  On the other side of the courtyard, the Archmage had hauled himself to his feet and was hobbling determinedly on his stick towards Harold. “Did you mean to kill me, young man?” he demanded. “A shock like that, at my age! With my nerves, and my heart!”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” said Harold, genuinely contrite. He hadn’t at all considered the effect of the noise and confusion on the elderly Archmage. “It won’t happen again, sir,” he promised. “I’ll make sure our Stupid stays in his cage.”

  “Hah, the fire sprite! I should never have let that thing into the palace! I should never have let any of you in… Mister Breaker, let go of that idiot boy, I can deal with his sort myself.”

  Breaker’s grip relaxed enough for Harold to pull away, though his expression remained murderous. “Commander Breaker,” he growled. “Don’t forget who Master chose to be Red Commander.”

  “And don’t you forget who he chose to be the Red Mage.” The Archmage shook his head, brushing soot from his robes and only smearing it worse. “Horrible creature.” He glared at Harold. “You can’t imagine the shock it gave me to see your horrible fire sprite attacking my beautiful creation like that… Mister Breaker, go away, and find something else to do, you’re crowding me awfully. I can’t be crowded, I feel most faint…”

  “Here,” said Harold, offering the poor old Archmage his arm, only to be pushed weakly away. “Sit down.”

  “You think those penny bangers and their like make for jolly japes and fun, do you?” demanded the Archmage.

  “No sir,” said Harold. “I mean, yes sir, but it weren’t the time for it. I see that now, sir.” The remark about timing set him worrying: had he bought the girls enough time to get hold of the crown?

  Around the courtyard the stone gentlemen were returning to their industry with quiet determination, just like the ants in the destroyed anthill. If Harold wasn’t mistaken, there was one door to the courtyard left unopened; one spellpaper that would go off at a later date and give someone a fright, but by that time all evidence of what Harold had done would be charred to ash.

  Archmage Morel saw Breaker slink reluctantly off, and then the old man turned back to Harold. “You thought I wouldn’t recognise your prank for what it was?” the Archmage hissed. “I was playing tricks with those spellpapers before your grandparents were born. You got them from that silly little witch, I’ve no doubt.”

  “No, sir,” said Harold swiftly, not wanting to implicate either Bessie or Amelia.

  “’No sir’? Then where?”

  “Bought them, sir. In a Flying City.”

  “A likely story! I don’t know what you meant to do, or who put you up to it, or why you thought such schoolboy spells could hurt my great iron dragon, but my work here is vitally important. Not to be interrupted or delayed.” By this point the old man was shaking alarmingly. “And you may think I haven’t the heart to punish you myself, and you may think you have got off scot free, but rest assured I will not protect you from the prince’s men a second time. What do you say to that?”

  Harold hung his head, bearing the lecture with the best grace he could manage. “Sorry, sir,” he said again.

  “You would be! By thunder, you would be, if you’d done any real damage here! My dragon will protect us all, in the end. Now, be off with you. Out of my sight, before I turn you into a pig and see you served at the prince’s dinner table tonight.”

  ~

  On the other side of the palace, all was quiet in the Red Queen’s sitting room, the demure ticking of the clock parcelling out the minutes. Rose and Amelia sat facing one another across an elegant table and a plate of tiny cakes that tasted unpleasantly of magic. Rose had already shown Amelia the finished wedding dress and a gossamer-fine veil embroidered with frost flowers. “I’m going to wear this while I walk down the aisle,” Rose had said, while the veil fluttered and sparkled in the slightest breeze, “and then when I reach the altar, I will be revealed to my prince, and he’ll place the crown on my head.” Then she’d had rather a lot to say about how she must wear her hair: far more than anyone should ever be subjected to on such a topic.

  “So,” said Amelia. “Um. Tomorrow’s the big day.” She forced herself to still her anxious hands. “You must be so excited.”

  “So excited. Rather jittery, if I’m honest.” Rose held out one pale slender hand, “See: I’m almost trembling.”

  You’re not as jittery as I am, Amelia thought. Smile, she told herself sternly. Smile and be brave. “Oh! Before I forget:” From her pocket she took a small parcel wrapped up in paper and a hair-ribbon, and handed it to Rose, who tore into it eagerly. “I thought a little gift in advance of the wedding might be nice,” Amelia said. “I know it won’t make up for not being able to celebrate with your family and friends from back home, but still…”

  Rose held the scent bottle up to the light. “What a lovely thought,” she said, unstoppering the bottle to take a dainty sniff. “Oh, clever you, it smells of roses. Thank you, Miss Lamb.”

  “I’m glad you like it.” The perfume had certainly cost enough, and Amelia had meant to take it home for her stepmother, back when she’d thought going home would be a simple matter of turning around and retracing her steps.

  “Of course. I shall put some on tomorrow morning, just before the ceremony.”

  Rose was fond enough of talking that Amelia could smile and nod her way through most of the conversation, all the while constantly aware of Bessie’s presence, like a smudge on glass, checking here and there as she moved through the Red Queen’s rooms. Gifting somebody else with invisibility wasn’t something Amelia had thought to practice before, and it took up so much space in her mind that there was scarcely room to think of anything else. It was like being aware of a large hairy spider on the ceiling, but not wanting to alarm anybody else by alerting them to its presence. Speaking of which, Amelia couldn’t see any mechanical spiders, but the only thing for it was to maintain the invisibility spell as if they were present and watching from every corner. To make matters worse, she couldn’t stop listening for the characteristic firework sounds of a fire sprite up to mischief. This wing of the palace was a good way from the courtyard where Harold would enact his distraction, so she might not hear it at all. Meanwhile, Meg, Sir Percival and Master Greyfell would be in the guest chambers, able to provide Bessie with an alibi if necessary…

  “And what are you daydreaming of?” Rose’s voice cut into her thoughts: half-playful, half-irritated.

  “Oh, just, imagining what it must be like,” said Amelia. “To be the centre of attention, looking so beautiful.” She was running out of things to say, feeling uncomfortably like a trained parrot as she repeated the same flattery that she’d used on Rose less than ten minutes ago.

  Rose regarded her shrewdly. “Oh, you’ll have your own wedding, some day, though of course it won’t be such a big affair as mine. Just as well for your nerves, don’t you think? We just need to find you a suitable gentleman…”

  Amelia was saved from that conversation when Bessie strode across the room towards them, looking so fierce that Amelia dropped the invisibility spell altogether, but not before Bessie could grab a fistful of Rose’s long black hair, yanking her head back. “If you scream, I'll cut your throat before you can say his name twice, let alone three times,” Bessie snarled in Rose's ear, the polished blade of the new knife shimmering in Rose’s view. “This isn’t going to protect you if you leave it lying in a drawer, is it? Now: where have you hidden the crown?”

  Too frightened to scream, Rose made awful pained animal noises as Bessie tightened her grip on the knot of silky hair. “I don’t…” in her fear, Rose could barely raise her voice above a whisper, “I don’t have it anymore.”

  “What?”

  “Breaker took it, just before you arrived.”

  Bessie stood there with the knife still held to Rose’s throat, thin
king fast. This had most definitely not been part of her plan.

  “If the crown was here,” said Amelia, before Bessie could do anything really awful, “you’d have found it. You looked everywhere, didn’t you?”

  Bessie nodded. She’d left a trail of rumpled silk and tangled strings of jewels in the dressing room. She adjusted her grip on the knife. “We could take her prisoner,” she suggested.

  “Could we?” Amelia had grave doubts, but Bessie knew more about that sort of thing…

  “How dare you even think it!” Rose whispered, outraged. “Vermin! You’re vermin, both of you. How dare you touch me! You can’t bear the thought of me being royalty, can you? While you go back home to be peasants for the rest of your days.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Amelia, rather meaning it. “Look, I know you’ve been terribly excited about the thought of marrying a prince, but you mustn’t go through with it. The wedding ring is enchanted and it’s going to turn you into a dragoness.”

  Rose stared at her in disbelief. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Really! You can ask the White Prince if you don’t believe me. He told me the wedding ring would turn me into a dragoness.”

  Rose had to think about it a bit, but: “That’s just a semaphore,” she sneered. “He meant that once you became Queen you would become powerful and feared throughout the land, and have an awful lot of gold. Like a dragon.” She sniffed. “Yes, that’s it. Typical for an ignorant country girl to take such a turn of phrase literally.”

  “I told you, didn’t I?” said Bessie to Amelia. “I told you not to tell her. She’s an idiot. Let’s go!” and she stepped swiftly away from Rose, pulling Amelia towards the door.

  “Guards!” screamed Rose, upon realising that she was free, and the guards answered their mistress’ call as if by magic: Amelia and Bessie barely had time to get out of the door before they found their path blocked by two impassable stone gentlemen. Rose stood at a careful distance, one hand covering her lily-white throat. “They came to kill me and steal my crown!” she told her protectors. “Take them away and lock them up!”

  One of the two grabbed Amelia, but Bessie still had the knife in her hand and slashed wildly at the golem coming for her. He grabbed for her wrist but caught the blade instead. Bessie wrenched it back, the razor edge of it taking off half his fingers in the process. As the stone digits scattered across the floor, Bessie ducked, fading out under Amelia’s invisibility spell. Like the spiders, the two gentlemen looked around in bewilderment for the girl who had vanished into thin air. Rose shrieked and stamped her dainty feet in a panic, both hands covering her throat now, fearing her attacker would return for revenge… But Amelia could sense Bessie getting further and further away, slipping out of the grasp of her magic and into the shadows.

  30: THE CROW AND THE SHINY THING

  Away from Amelia and the golems, Bessie glanced down at her hands fading into view, tauntingly bare of conjuring rings. It might have been better if Amelia had been the one to escape, for she’d have been able to do a lot more… Bessie fumed, storming forward on a path that was half intuition and half nebulous plan. Amelia was a twit. They’d been supposed to keep Rose in the dark as much as possible, not blurt out everything they knew. Bessie bottled up her anger and let it stew for later. First she had to complete the plan and rescue Amelia.

  In the kitchens Bessie found the black griffin, curled up in front of the fires of the range. “Sable! Look lively! I need a thief.” They should have done this in the first place, and saved themselves the trouble of dealing with Rose, rummaging through her trinkets and gowns in search of the crown.

  Sable yawned widely before twisting his neck to fix one silver-blue eye on Bessie. “What?”

  “The crown. Breaker’s hidden it somewhere. Get me that crown, by whatever means necessary, and there’ll be a handsome reward for you at the end of this.”

  “Kippers?”

  “Oh, much better than that.”

  Irritatingly, the griffin paused, stretching his front legs, then his back legs, before padding off down the corridor. Bessie followed.

  The griffin led her on a maddeningly meandering route all around the palace, from deep cellars up to the highest navigable spires, while Bessie fretted over leaving Amelia behind. As far as she knew, Amelia would only be locked up, and that wasn’t so bad. Amelia had been in a dungeon before, and hadn’t fallen to pieces over it. She’d even earned a bit of Bessie’s grudging respect for that nifty bit of quick thinking back there with the invisibility spell.

  Climbing a narrow spiral staircase, Sable stopped to peer into an unlikely nook in the wall, far from the first of the hiding places he’d already tried. Bessie had begun to suspect that the black griffin had no idea how to track the crown, and was dragging her along on a wild goose chase. After all, he wasn’t any kind of scent hound. Next he led her to a gallery overlooking some sort of long hall or chapel, where he jumped up onto the railings. His claws slipped on the icy handrail, his tail coiling around it, his balance precarious as he looked down into the room below. Then he froze, hackles rising, a low growl rumbling from his deep chest. Footsteps echoed through the chamber, and a man’s voice. “…stay where you are, I’ll be there when I’m finished with this.”

  Bessie froze. He hadn’t been speaking to her. Must be the enchanted pocket watches. Gripping the stolen knife tightly, Bessie crept towards the railings and peered through. There was Breaker, alone, the crown in one hand and pocket watch in the other. He seemed to be looking for something, and Bessie imagined it must be her. She stayed stock still. The morning sunlight was streaming through a row of windows at ground level, the gallery above was dark in contrast, so that for anyone looking upwards, even the huge griffin on the railings could be mistaken for a trick of the shadows. Or so Bessie hoped…

  “No, His Highness doesn’t need to know anything about that, just keep watch for the Castle girl. We’ll find her soon enough.” There was a pause, in which Bessie couldn’t make out the answer that came from the pocket watch. “No,” said Breaker, exasperated, “because she’s got no magic since we took her rings, has she? So that won’t be a problem, will it?”

  And then Sable leapt from the gallery, fierce hooked talons spread wide, striking his target and sending the crown skittering across the icy tiles in a flash of gold and rubies. Before the echoes of Breaker’s shout had faded to nothing, Bessie was running, almost flying down the spiral staircase at the end of the gallery… but too slow to intercept the griffin. Sable went bounding off, the crown gripped firmly in his beak, his bright blue eyes flashing with mischievous magpie joy. Bessie sprinted after him. She’d hoped that Sable had killed Breaker, dropping on him from that height, or at least broken something, but no such luck. The cold air sawed at her lungs as she ran as fast as she could, but she’d tried to run from him before and didn’t fancy her chances. Sable had slowed, dancing this way and that, unsure where to take his prize, and Bessie seized the opportunity to grab him by the neck-feathers and haul herself up onto his back. Sable squawked and bucked, but Bessie hung on grimly. “Fly!” she shouted in his ear. “Get us away!”

  The throne room was close, so close by a griffin’s wings, but Bessie soon realised Sable wasn’t taking her there.

  “Stupid griffin!” Bessie shouted, looking dizzily down at the swirling snow, the glaring field of white below them. “Set me down!”

  Getting airborne had been her best – only – chance of escape, but that didn’t mean that she had to like it. By the time the griffin landed on some forsaken hillside and she slipped down from his back, she was shaking so badly that her legs wouldn’t take her weight and she tumbled into the snow, almost rolling off the ledge where he’d set down. He dropped the crown beside her, and stood waiting impatiently for his reward. To his credit, he’d been careful not to let her fall when she had no saddle or reins. She waved him away, still catching her breath, and took up the thin gold circle of the tiara, the stones darkening from bl
ood red to black. It knew her, even through her gloves. It welcomed her; it sang to her.

  And what now? Bessie asked herself. The plan had been to sneak the crown away from Rose and back to Meg, in hopes that the witch could find a way to destroy the crown in secret. They’d expected in the worst case to have half an hour or so before Rose discovered the disappearance of the crown, but now they had nothing and Bessie could only blame herself. She wouldn’t get back into the palace, the prince’s men would be searching for her. Amelia, Meg and the others would all be under suspicion and under guard, but the Queen’s Crown must never fall into Archalthus’ hands again, that much Bessie knew. If he ever got the crown back, he’d marry Rose without further delay, take the King’s Crown from the throne room, and then… Well. The rulebook was coy about the details, but Greyfell had told her what he suspected of the power that the Dragon King’s Crown would confer on its wearer.

  Bessie crouched on the hillside, shivering uncontrollably, steeped in the reality of cold air in her lungs and the way her body weight rooted her to the unyielding rocks. They couldn’t be more than a few miles from the ruins of Ilgrevnia and the unburied throne room. Even in the hour when she’d first shared her plan with Harold and got Amelia on her side, Bessie had held onto the idea that she might still become Queen. Now, out here, it struck her that her prince lay dead under the ice, and the throne room would almost certainly reject her, if she could even make it that far on her own; even if she didn’t die of exposure before she got there. She wouldn’t need the wedding ring, but… She suffered the mental image of herself standing before the throne room, small and shivering, with the crown on her head, as the door stubbornly refused to open for the sparrow girl who desired to be Queen of the Dragon Lands without a King. It was a humiliating sort of premonition. She pushed herself to her feet.