The Dragon Queen

by J M Sanford

  Sable head-butted her, friendly but it was still almost enough to knock her back on her behind. “Reward,” he reminded her.

  “Soon,” she promised, brushing the melting snow from her dress. If she couldn’t use the crown, could she and the griffin find some way to destroy it by themselves? More lay in Ilgrevnia’s ruin than that indestructible cube of stone that held the King’s Crown. She could find the Archmage’s workshop again, and with the crow griffin’s help she might uncover something to rival dragon’s fire in its destructiveness.

  Sable glanced up into the sky. He said nothing, but Bessie could guess that Breaker might have gone to fetch the white griffin – that they might only have minutes before they were caught red-handed with the crown. Exposed on the white expanse of the hillside, Bessie and Sable would be an easy target, and she could all too vividly imagine the beast dropping out of the sky and swooping her up in its great claws, as it had done before at the Ilgrevnian Wall. Perhaps they should take shelter somewhere out of sight. These hills were riddled with clefts and caves. She could hide the crown again, burying it as deep as she could in the snow, far from the palace where nobody else would find it, with the spring thaw never coming. But no: Amelia had tried hiding the snow globe, and look how easily Archmage Morel had found that.

  “How far are we from Ilgrevnia?” she asked Sable, but if he answered she didn’t hear him: the clean white light of a star in the distance had caught her eye, a horse galloping hard across the snowfields, its rider ready with his sword. Her first thought was of what spell she could use, before remembering she had no conjuring rings. Her second thought was of the flower-hilted knife – and then a burst of unnatural fire dwarfed the starlight of the stone horse, half-blinding Bessie. She staggered back, blinking away tears and the after-image, as the snow around the white dragon hissed into steam. She’d hesitated too long.

  “Where are you running to,” he roared, “with my Queen’s Crown?” He knocked her down, his breath scorching her face, and wrenched the glittering crown from her grasp. He held it up to get a better look at it, grinning like an alligator as the gold gleamed and the jewels flashed black fire in the morning light.

  “Destroy it then!” she shouted, “like Harold said you would!” though she’d never believed that the dragon would keep his word.

  Regeltheus just stared at the crown in his claws, smiling in the most foolish and horrible way. All his fury was gone and what it left behind was worse. “Oh, my little Black Queen. No.” Not even deigning to acknowledge the arrival of the Red Commander, whose horse had thundered to a halt some distance behind, Prince Regeltheus glanced at Bessie. “My brother will not regain the Crown,” he assured her, with the absolute certainty that was so characteristic of dragons and princes, and in particular of dragons who were also princes. “And I will take back the wedding ring easily. The next time I see you will be the day of my victory; the beginning of my reign as King of the Dragon Lands.” He fixed her with a fierce stare, his eyes as blue as the eye of a flame. “I intend to marry a fair maiden tomorrow. Decide amongst yourselves which one of you most deserves the privilege of becoming my Queen.” And with this final act of horrible beneficence, he took to the sky.

  Bessie stood stock still, her thoughts in a whirlwind, the most prominent one being that she was wasting precious seconds. “Sable…” He still had no saddle, but she clambered onto his back anyway. She glanced at the broad white wings of the dragon as he soared on the planes of strange magic, rising higher with barely a wingbeat. Too high, too fast. If she could be sure she wouldn’t fall… Then it wouldn’t make a difference. How could one girl fight a dragon? In the valley below, Breaker had turned his horse to pursue the dragon – a futile effort of his own, but it left Bessie a chance to make her escape.

  ~

  In the guest parlour, Amelia awaited punishment for her part in Bessie’s plot. Nobody had any clever ideas, although Meg, Harold and Percival had all sworn to defend her when the prince’s men came.

  At a clatter of wings at the window, Amelia whirled round just in time to see the crow griffin trying to squeeze himself in through the narrow casement.

  “Stop it!” hissed Bessie, clinging to the back of Sable’s neck. “Just let me down!”

  Master Greyfell jumped up at once to help his charge safely into the room. “Elizabeth! Where have you been all this time?”

  Bessie could barely speak for the chattering of her teeth as Greyfell sat her down beside the fire. Her grey dress was sopping wet and her hair clung to her face. “The White Prince has the crown. Sable and I took it, but everybody was looking for me and I didn’t know where to go and he’ll be back soon for his Queen –”

  “Oh, thank you very much!” snapped Meg. Flames licked around her fists, sparks dancing in her hair. “You’ve doomed my daughter to marry that monster, you evil-minded little –”

  “Miss Spinner, no magic against an unarmed opponent!” Greyfell shouted. “Or I’ll see that you regret it!”

  “Quiet, you!”

  “I’m sure she didn’t mean to do it,” Amelia pleaded. Her own fists were clenched against her conjuring rings, but she knew her magic was no match for her mother’s. “Besides, it’s my fault we came here, remember?”

  “Don’t you try that on me! I know who I’m angry with!”

  “Yes, and it isn’t helping anything!”

  There was a knock at the door, and everybody fell silent at once, staring expectantly. Amelia dropped a veil of invisibility over Bessie. There was nothing to be done about the snow melt all over the rug, but it was the best they could do.

  Another knock. “May I come in?” called Scarlet.

  Amelia started forward. “Of course!”

  Scarlet came in timidly, barely risking a smile as she took in the dark expressions of the people around her. “I’m just bringing these for the girls,” she said, indicating the heavy drape of fabric hooked over her arm. “Her Ladyship’s got so many that she scarcely knows what she has any more. Can you believe it? Never worn, I can tell you. Such pretty dresses and all they do is lie in a trunk in a store room, forgotten and waiting for the moths to find them…” She glanced distractedly from face to face, her worries growing, etching themselves in lines across her forehead. “What have I missed now?”

  “Somebody handed the crown over to the White Prince,” said Meg, shooting a vicious look at the empty chair by the fire. “Didn’t you?”

  “Oh! But the wedding is tomorrow!” Scarlet cried.

  “What was I supposed to do?” came Bessie’s voice from the chair, making Scarlet jump, and Amelia dropped the invisibility spell. “I had no conjuring rings and no help, besides a half-witted griffin,” Bessie added, darting a vicious glance at Sable still crouched outside the window. “What difference does it make, anyway? The groom will be a dragon, just the same. The ever-charming White Prince said that we three girls should fight it out between ourselves who would get to marry him. We could still take Rose out of the equation.”

  “Is that your answer to everything?” Meg snarled, crackles of light still in her hair. She turned her ire on Master Greyfell. “Are you proud of yourself? Taking little girls and turning them into killers? Is the pay good? I always wondered.”

  Greyfell’s face had turned white, and it took a moment before he could control his temper enough to speak at all. “I help to prepare young ladies for the harsh realities of the world,” he said, his voice low. “May I suggest you should have taken more time to do the same for your daughter.”

  “Stop it!” shouted Amelia at the top of her voice, too frightened and angry to care what anybody thought of her. “Bessie and I both ended up doing stupid things, so thank you very much for your good intentions, but we’re still in a mess. What are we going to do about it? Fight each other?”

  In the silence that followed, something scuttled, the flash of brass glinting in a dark corner. “Oh! Spider!” Amelia cried. Bryn pounced, but missed: the thing darted along the wall, under a
chair, behind a curtain, and disappeared for good. Everyone hunted high and low for the mechanical spider, in every corner of the parlour, but it had gone.

  Bessie sighed heavily. “They’ll know I’m here, soon enough. What are we going to do?”

  “I think you’d better get ready for the wedding,” said Scarlet.

  “What, and pretend nothing’s happened?” said Bessie, incredulous. “Breaker’s gone after the dragon, but there’s no chance he’ll get the crown back before the wedding.”

  “I’d say…” Scarlet hesitated, then rushed on: “I’d say Master hasn’t heard any of this yet, or we’d know about it for sure.” She nodded, pleased with this good logic. “Mister Breaker and his gentlemen will get the crown back, and Master will be none the wiser. But what’s he going to think if you all turn up on the morning of his wedding in your workaday clothes, with no presents for him and his bride?”

  “I should think that’ll pale into insignificance if morning comes and his brother’s still got the crown,” said Meg. “But you know your master.”

  “There are times when one must bow to fate,” said Greyfell, “and it would appear that this is one such time. The royal wedding is destined to go ahead, despite our best efforts. White Prince or Red.”

  “Even if we can’t stop the wedding, we’ll find a way to escape, won’t we?” said Amelia. “Even if it takes us months, or years. I truly don’t care that I won’t be a queen. I just want to go home, and for all of us to be safe.”

  ~

  Talk turned to the wedding. Regeltheus would return on the day, and Amelia must be protected from her prince. Nobody wanted to argue with Meg on that.

  “That griffin must be mad,” Bessie fumed, looking small and fragile in the trailing sea-green gown that Amelia had persuaded her to at least try on for size, “I can’t go to the wedding: I tried to assassinate the bride!”

  “Twice, that I know of,” said Meg, and blew her nose noisily.

  “I don’t need a pretty dress to wear while I’m charged with treason! I’m changing back into my old clothes, and then this thing’s going in the fireplace.” Hiking up the excess yards of hemline, she stomped off towards the bedroom, but Meg grabbed hold of her.

  “You can’t hide forever. They know you’re here, and they’re just not doing anything about it yet because…” Meg trailed off. Two golems guarded the door to the guest chambers, but all the others must be in pursuit of the dragon and the crown. They could deal with Bessie later, at their leisure.

  “Each prince is confident of his victory,” said Greyfell, not looking up from the large piece of parchment he had spread across the table. “If such confidence is misplaced or overly inflated, it may yet be their downfall.”

  “What is that you’re writing?” said Meg, irritable still, and stalked over to examine the parchment. “Your gift to the new King and Queen?” she guessed. “My, how generous. An orchard, and in the Alven Valley, at that. If that doesn’t help you weasel your way into the royal good books, I don’t know what will.”

  “A whole orchard?” said Amelia.

  “It’s nothing,” said Greyfell, his attention on the meticulous curves of his pen across parchment. “Honestly, I’ve spent years torn between leaving it to one dreadful nephew or another, and this will save me the bother. Elizabeth, if you would like to sign your name as well, then you may.”

  “I told you,” Bessie growled, “I’m not going to the wedding.”

  Greyfell put down his pen, fixing his ward with a hard stare. “Elizabeth, you must attend the wedding. No option has been given for refusal. As for the matter of the disappearing crown… Well. Under the circumstances, you could…”

  “Lie your pretty little head off,” said Meg. “Nobody expects any better of an Antwin girl anyway.”

  “It would be your word against that of the Red Commander,” said Greyfell, doing his best to pretend he hadn’t heard Meg’s comment. “And I doubt he’s in his master’s favour, currently.”

  “But the jewels in the crown,” Bessie protested. “I turned them black.”

  Greyfell sighed, resting his head in his hands. “Of course. Only Miss Lamb or Miss Hartwood could change their colour.”

  Meg bristled. “What d’you say that for? Our Amelia’s not going to sacrifice herself just to save your girl.”

  “Madam, I wasn’t suggesting she should.”

  “I should damn well hope not.”

  “Excuse me, Meg,” Percival cut in, “but may I have your assistance? I’m afraid my armour’s seized up and I’d appreciate your help.”

  “What?” Meg rushed over to him. Try as she might, she couldn’t move him. “Oh, look at this: you’re locked up completely. Come on, now, it’s about time we got you out of that get up.”

  But she couldn’t remove any part of his armour without his panicked insistence that she mustn’t do that, and that she had more chance of successfully extricating a snail from its shell alive. The knight resigned himself to standing locked like that until sunrise, but Meg refused to accept it. It became clear that she intended to spend the rest of the night trying to unpick his soul from the enchanted armour. It was delicate work that took her full concentration; kept her thinking of something else besides anticipating in dread the moment the White Prince would swoop in to snatch her only daughter away.

  “You made me invisible so I could escape,” whispered Bessie, making Amelia jump.

  “Well I couldn’t stand by and see you punished! Not after last time. You’d have been killed for sure.”

  Bessie nodded. “Thank you. Whatever happens tomorrow, I won’t forget that.”

  31: A WHITE WEDDING

  On the morning of the wedding day, Amelia and her companions gathered together in the grandest hall of the ice palace, wedding gifts in their hands as they awaited transport to the newly built chapel. Bryn had opened Sharvesh to provide every guest with as many gifts as they needed, but Perce (having seen the deeds to the orchard) had pridefully refused, producing overnight a poem in honour of the royal couple, which he’d dictated to Amelia. Amelia herself had whittled Bryn’s generosity down to one ludicrously expensive teapot, made of china so transparently thin that she was terrified of crushing it before they ever got as far as the chapel. Stupid in his cage responded to her nerves, flickering and sooty – she kept having to hold him at arm’s length in fear of his sparks catching her borrowed dress.

  “Here,” said Harold, “I’ll take him.” Ever since the news that the White Prince had the crown, he’d refused to leave her side.

  Passing the cage over, Amelia took a deep breath to try and calm her nerves (or at least to stop worrying about the wretched teapot, which was silly when there was a dragon out there) and only just stopped herself in time. Scarlet had been so busy with last minute alterations to Rose’s wedding dress that she hadn’t had time to make any alterations at all to the dresses she’d lent to Amelia and Bessie. Under better circumstances, Amelia would have adored the delicate forget-me-not blue silk of her dress, but thanks to natural variation in shapes and sizes, she hardly dared to breathe. At the smaller end of the scale, Bessie had been forced to creatively tuck, pin and cinch her borrowed dress to fit. Even then, the hem dragged on the ground, not that Bessie cared: she was scowling demoniacally and had her fists clenched tightly at her sides, ready for a fight. Meanwhile, Meg's only concession to the occasion was that she'd improvised an enormous feathery hat. She was smiling fixedly, hiding all of her pain under the shadow of that wide brim. She also carried a strange-looking sort of half-knitted, half-quilted sling over one shoulder. It was the most astonishingly ugly accessory anybody had ever planned to wear to a wedding, but it hid Tallulah, who by this point had grown to the size of a small dog, despite Meg’s best efforts to shore up the shrinking spell. Harold hadn’t been able to borrow a fancy outfit from anybody, and stood in the same shirt and trousers he’d been wearing since he’d left Springhaven, which were beginning to look a bit shabby after all they’d been
through. His armour gleamed spotlessly bright, though.

  Bessie looked disapprovingly at him, her gaze raking once up and once down his full height. “Officially, the losing Queens aren’t even supposed to attend the wedding,” she reminded him spleenfully. “It isn’t at all appropriate to wear the White Queen’s insignia to the Red Queen’s wedding. Nor is it good manners for you to wear a sword on such an occasion.”

  “No weapons,” Meg agreed. “You can’t turn up to a wedding looking like you’re there to pick a fight, no matter how much you want to,” she added meaningfully to Bessie. Still, the older witch’s pretty furred gloves bulged with conjuring rings. ‘Never use magic against a dragon,’ Amelia remembered. ‘Never use magic when you’re upset.’ But Amelia’s own gloves hid her own weapons.

  Harold looked to Sir Percival, standing in his brightly polished armour. His metal joints had eased again, warming with the sunrise, though he still moved stiffly and carried the walking stick. “Your next battle will come soon enough,” the knight said. “Don’t hurry it forward unnecessarily. Let Captain Bryn keep your belongings safe in the meantime.”

  “All right, then,” Harold sighed, unbuckling and removing the offending undiplomatic breastplate, shoving it into Bryn’s arms, before turning his attention to his sword belt.

  Bryn had barely folded away the sword and armour into his enchanted treasure chest when Prince Archalthus appeared, flanked by a pair of the stone gentlemen. He looked so flustered that Amelia almost felt sorry for him in spite of everything.

  “Good morning, my esteemed guests,” he began. “Um. I wish to thank you for joining the Lady Hartwood and myself in this most wonderful event. In particular, I would thank Miss Lamb and Miss Castle again for their graciousness in defeat. Shortly, carriages will arrive to convey you to the chapel, where the ceremony will commence at noon precisely.”