Chapter Fifteen
They met Prince Reginald on the road, walking and leading his horse.
When Princess Cerise ran to him, while Robert inspected the mare’s legs and feet for stones or strains, Prince Reginald waved them wearily away. “There is nothing wrong with her. I am ashamed to make a creature so much braver and more intelligent than I carry me on her back.” He could not meet either Robert’s eyes or the Princess’s. “She knew the dragon was not real. She went on cropping grass and scratching herself against a tree—the same tree I was hiding in, eating green fruit and wetting myself with fear. And calling for you, begging you to come and rescue me… a girl and a lowborn peasant boy.” He did look straight at Robert then, and managed to mumble, “Forgive me. It was my shame that spoke.”
“No harm,” Robert said. Prince Reginald abruptly collapsed by the roadside, and although he was not weeping, his shoulders were shaking uncontrollably. Princess Cerise looked at Robert, and then went to kneel beside him. Robert said stiffly, “He is a wizard. Deception is his art and his nature—it is what he is. He might have tricked any one of us.”
Princess Cerise agreed volubly, but Prince Reginald was not to be consoled. “My father was right in his contempt for me. He knew from my birth that I would never be anything but the shadow of his shadow—and I rebelled and mocked him because he knew the truth.” He pushed the Princess’s comforting hands away. “It is not my fault that I am the son of a great king—it is not my fault that I look like a hero. But it is my fault that I am both a fool and a coward. If I had dared to face that false dragon, I would have known—”
“Enough,” Robert said loudly. “Enough!” He could not believe his own words—first I order a princess around, and now I am shutting up a prince. He said, “Enough, Your Highness. Tell me about Dahr and your father.”
Distracted from his misery, Prince Reginald looked up in surprise. “What? Well, I don’t know what there is to tell you. Dahr was an evil wizard, and my father killed him before I was born. That’s really all I know.”
“He’s alive,” Robert said. Prince Reginald stared, completely uncomprehending. Robert said, “Think, my lord! What did your father tell you about him?”
“Was he a dragony sort of wizard back then?” Princess Cerise was alternately brushing off Prince Reginald’s shirt and trying without success to get him to stand up.
“My father mostly told me about his own invincible courage and strength,” Prince Reginald answered bitterly. “To hear him, not only did he destroy the wizard at the risk of his life, he foiled Dahr’s plan for domination—whatever it was—and humiliated him utterly before his forces, in addition. He goes into great detail about that part.”
“Tell us the details. On our way home.” Robert pulled Prince Reginald to his feet and prodded him—none too gently—toward his saddle. When he hung back, Robert snapped, “Your Highness, the last thing Dahr said to us—the illusion of Dahr, I mean—the last thing he said was that King Krije, your father, would certainly know where he was. Which means to me that he is either in Corvinia right now, or on his way there.”
Prince Reginald, halfway into the saddle, fell off. Robert caught him. The Princess said quietly, “The main road to Corvinia from here passes through Bellemontagne.”
Her expression had not changed, and her voice was as even as ever; but Robert knew her face by now, and he could see that her lips had gone the color of old snow. He said, “The dragons would fly. They can fly, you’ve seen them. There would be no reason for them to set foot in Bellemontagne.”
“My father,” the Princess began. She faltered, then tried again. “My father did not get on all that well with… with Dahr. Either.”
She swayed forward, catching herself with both hands on her horse’s withers, but did not faint or fall. Robert helped her mount, watching her carefully. When he was satisfied that she could stay in the saddle, he mounted himself, riding a little way behind her, as they had come.
Prince Reginald at first moped along in the back, far enough to the rear that Robert finally summoned him close, saying, “Tell me more about how King Krije killed Dahr, Your Highness. Anything you recall—anything.”
“I’ve told you what I know! I wasn’t even there, and I haven’t listened the last seventy-eight times he’s told me that story. All I remember is him roaring how Dahr invaded Corvinia with an army of wizards, and how my father went roaring out to the field all alone—to hear him tell it, anyway—not paying any heed to the other wizards’ ‘little pissant spells,’ as he called them, just heading straight for Dahr himself. And he always said—he said…” He stopped, looking suddenly puzzled.
“Go on, Your Highness,” Robert urged him. “Go on.”
“Well, he said that he took Dahr’s staff away from him, and broke it in two, and beat him to death with the two pieces. And all the other wizards just looked on and didn’t intervene, because if you break a wizard’s staff, he’s helpless—because he’s in that staff, in a way. But he’s got one now, I saw it! So that means… that means what? I don’t understand anything.”
“I don’t understand either,” Robert said. “All I know is that he’s alive. And what he has is dragons.”
Mortmain was pacing.
Mortmain was a very precise and economical pacer. So many steps to this corner of the castle courtyard, so many across to the curtain wall; so many steps along the wall to the blacksmith’s forge and brazier, so many steps from there to the quintain where young knights practiced jousting, so many back to the original corner, and begin again. He could have walked it in his sleep—and often did in his dreams, in the week since Prince Reginald’s disappearance.
This particular morning, he was joined, to his surprise—and to his annoyance—by a small, dark, somewhat grubby, disturbingly lively country girl who boldly introduced herself as Elfrieda-something-or-other, and whom he assumed automatically must be in quest of word of the Princess Cerise. The poor—this being as well known in Bellemontagne as anywhere else—lived their real lives through following the lives of the aristocracy as avidly as they had energy and free time to do. Mortmain said, politely enough, “Girl, she has not yet returned. The King and the Queen have not slept in days, and the entire castle is on the brink of complete hysterical panic. And I myself am not feeling all that well. You are at liberty to pass this news on to whomever you choose. Good day to you.”
But the irritating child curtsied to him quite formally—only the peasants keep the old style up these days—and addressed him. “Sir, I seek news of a man—well, he’s a boy, really, we grew up together—named Robert Thrax, only that’s not exactly his real name, but that’s what he likes people to call him. Anyway, he went in search of Prince Reginald”—on the instant, she had Mortmain’s entire attention—“when he ran off, you know, and I just thought, maybe”—and here she showed welcome signs of running out of wind—“if you could tell me anything about him, that would be… any information, even a rumor…” Here she did falter, but it had more to do with imminent tears than air supply. “If you know…”
“The dragon-boy,” Mortmain said softly. “The one who wants to be a prince’s valet. Yes, I know him, but I didn’t realize he’d gone…” He sighed and patted her shoulder awkwardly. “Dry your eyes, dry your eyes, he’s not lost to you. He came back from that slaughter in the wood; I suspect he’ll come back from this. Interesting boy.”
“But what should I do?” Elfrieda-something demanded. “I can’t just sit still at home and wait for him like a good girl—I can’t! I can’t sit still anywhere! There must be something I can do!”
Mortmain regarded her: pretty, in a lower-class sort of way—even piquant, with a suggestion of real intelligence under the country accent, the country smock, the wooden country clogs. He said, “You can walk with me, if you will. That’s what I do.”
So Elfrieda joined him in his pacing: courtyard corner, wall, unlighted brazier, swinging quintain, the corner again….
They spoke little, but each time they passed a particular arrow-slit in the curtain wall, one or the other of them—Elfrieda running like the child she was, Mortmain maintaining a certain dignity—would go to it and peer down the two main roads approaching the castle, hoping to see so much as a far-distant dust cloud on its way home. Elfrieda would actually turn around three times and whisper to her name-goddess, Elfrieda of the Teeth. Mortmain, more circumspect, merely muttered to the empty tracks, “Get back here, you idiot, get back here….” After some hours, though, he started adding the word safely.
That was where Ostvald found them, still stalking the courtyard, plainly leg-weary now, but matching each other’s pace almost perfectly, both taking an unvoiced, side-by-side pleasure in their own stubbornness. He spoke to Elfrieda, being far too shy, and too wary, to address Mortmain directly. “Your father wants you home right away. His bad toe told him there’s rain coming, and he needs everybody to get the hay in. He says to say that’s an order.”
Elfrieda shrugged without breaking stride. “His toe tells him whatever he wants it to tell him. I need to be here.”
“He says if you don’t come, he’ll beat you.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.” Elfrieda stopped walking then, smiling a little at the anxiety in Ostvald’s face. “Robert could be back at any moment, don’t you see? If I’m not here—”
Ostvald did not want her to finish. He said, “Well, I’ll just keep you company awhile. I can get to work later.” Saying which, he fell calmly into step with Elfrieda and Mortmain on their absurd and patient round of the castle courtyard. At first he made an effort to keep up a conversation, but his companions were too silent and his surroundings too noisy, what with the blacksmith hammering dents out of armor and the quintain ringing as it swung round to knock another fledgling knight off his horse. He tried whistling then, loudly and off-key, but El-frieda only spared him one quick glance of irritation, and Mortmain did not even bother to do that. In the end, he fell as mute as they, though lacking their mutual obsession with the arrow-slit and the two roads. Once he diffidently took Elfrieda’s hand: she neither resisted nor responded, and he soon dropped it.
The three of them had been marching together for a good hour, when a single rider on a lathered horse appeared, racing toward the castle; but as he was alone, and coming down the less-traveled of the two roads, they took only a glancing notice of him. He clattered through the gateway, leaped off his mount, tossed the reins to a groom, and disappeared into the castle at a stumbling run. Elfrieda said, “It’s not Robert,” and Mortmain said, “Wrong direction,” and Ostvald said, “My feet hurt.”
They said nothing further, but went on walking until—Elfrieda first—they slowly became aware of the susurrus within the castle: whisper atop whisper, soft still, but definitely rising in volume and intensity; seemingly coming from everywhere, as though all the stones of Bellemontagne’s ancient fortress had decided to tell all their stories at once. Activity in the courtyard gradually came to a halt: the blacksmith’s hammer fell to his side, like that of a clockwork figure striking the hour; the laundresses and scampering squires dodging the young knights’ practice charges moved steadily slower—even the dogs and ravens underfoot were standing still, heads tilted attentively, listening to the murmur of the stones. Elfrieda said, “It is Robert.”
King Antoine and Queen Hélène emerged from the castle door into the sunlight, accompanied by the messenger. Both of them looked older than they were, and their royal robes seemed suddenly too large for them. The King’s eyes were dry but red; the Queen kept pressing the knuckles of her right hand against her mouth. The messenger hung back, dusty and embarrassed.
King Antoine raised his voice, to be heard in the silent courtyard. He said, tremulously but clearly, “My people, we have received word that our beloved daughter, the Princess Cerise—” He broke off abruptly, turned his head to meet the Queen’s eyes, and then with an effort resumed speaking. “Our daughter, together with Prince Reginald of Corvinia and—ah—Thrax, the dragon person, I know his mother, a fine woman…” Queen Hélène whispered sharply in his ear. “Yes. All three of them have gone on to Corvinia instead of returning home. Because Dahr—the wizard Dahr, who’s supposed to be dead—ah—he’s not dead, and Prince Reginald’s father, King Krije, Krije killed him—only it seems not enough—and Prince Reginald thinks Dahr is on his way to Corvinia, to kill Krije, so he’s going there right away, because… because he’s a hero.”
He suddenly took a faltering step back and leaned against the messenger, as though his legs were giving way. Queen Hélène patted his arm and stepped forward herself. She said, “Our daughter has gone with him, because she too is a hero.” She paused. “This young man says that he guided them to a more direct route to Corvinia—the Pass of Maedchensflucht, south of our southern border. He left them and the dragon-boy there, and made all speed here, at their instruction. This is what we know.”
It seemed to Ostvald that Elfrieda had grown as unsteady on her feet as the King as she listened to the news. He put a supportive arm around her shoulders, just in case, but she shrugged it fiercely away without looking at him. King Antoine, still leaning on the messenger, found the strength to announce, “We know one thing more. There are dragons.”
Abruptly Elfrieda turned away and, without speaking to either Ostvald or Mortmain, began walking briskly toward the postern gate of the castle. Ostvald stared in dismay, called to her—she never looked back—and then ran after her, clumsy and clattering in the boots he wore for hod-carrying. Mortmain, himself white with shock, never noticed that they were gone.
She was moving fast, almost running, by the time Ostvald caught up with her near the stables, where Prince Reginald had slept. Nor would she turn, however pleadingly Ostvald called her name, until he finally caught her shoulders with both hands and turned her to face him. “Where are you going?”
Elfrieda, for once, did not say “Oh, you!” Ostvald could have wished she had said it instead of answering, almost gently, “Even for you, that was a stupid question.”
When he could not speak, Elfrieda gave him the long, pitying look he knew so well. Carefully, precisely, as though speaking to a child, she said, “You heard the King. There are dragons. Robert will need me.”
“No,” Ostvald said. “No, Elfrieda.” It sounded like someone else talking far away, and he enjoyed the strange sound of it. “Elfrieda, you are not going anywhere alone.”
Elfrieda stared at him in shock almost as great as Mortmain’s. “Ostvald, I’ve made up my mind. You know the way I get when my mind’s made up.”
“I know how you are,” Ostvald said firmly. “I know how you’ve been all your life—all our lives—telling Robert and me how you wanted things to be, and the two of us just as happy as sandboys to do what you wanted, to make sure we’d done it the way you wanted. Not this time.” Elfrieda was gaping at him, a sensation he enjoyed immensely, whatever it might cost him later on. “Not this time. If you want to go after Robert, that’s your business, that’s fine. But I’m going with you.”
“Oh, you are certainly not! Not a chance in the world!”
“Robert is not your stupid property—”
“Not yet, he’s not—”
“And if I choose to go with you to bring him back—”
“Not a chance!”
“You’re no rider, you never have been—”
“That is not true! Not true—”
The Pass of Maedchensflucht was not only as steep and exhausting as that frightened boy had warned them it would be; it was also as barren a piece of landscape as Robert could remember enduring. Even before they reached the timberline, there was nothing to divert the journeying eye but a handful of scrawny pines scattered over a balding carpet of sphagnum mosses and patches of gray frost. The two days it took to travel the pass held a certain thin warmth, but the nights were wickedly cold, cold enough that the three of them slept in their clothes on the hard ground, close together, with the Princess Cerise in the middle. During the day she likewise rode between them, with Prince Reginald in the lead, and Robert as rear guard, alert for either of the two species of predators that competed for dominance in these mountains. He never saw any, but the horses constantly winded them, which often made it necessary to dismount and lead them until they calmed down. Robert and Prince Reginald both got nosebleeds.
Nobody spoke much during the day; but at night, with Prince Reginald snoring on her left, the Princess murmured to Robert, “He is doing better now, don’t you think?”
“Well, he’s going home, going to his father’s aid. That does tend to make you pay attention.”
The Princess smiled tolerantly. “Ah, now you’re making fun of me.”
“No, I’m not.” Yes, you are. But the smile lingered.
“It doesn’t matter—I’m sure I deserve it. But the important thing is that he will be showing King Krije that his son’s as good a man as he, and that will make such a difference in the way he sees himself, I know it will. I’m sure that’s the entire key to Reginald, that relationship with his father. Don’t you agree?” When Robert did not answer immediately, she nudged him half-playfully with a sharp elbow. “Robert, I’ve come to value your opinion quite highly. I really do want to know what you think.”
Robert, curled into a ball against the cold—he could not feel his feet at all—was trying to take shy advantage of Princess Cerise’s body heat, without doing anything that might possibly be construed as snuggling. He said, “I think Prince Reginald is much more courageous than he knows. Most people are.” He wrapped his arms around himself, tucking his hands into his armpits. “But they don’t all get the chance to show it. I guess that’s a good thing, when you think about it.”
“But he has to get to show it! Otherwise he won’t know, and his father won’t either, and he’ll just go on being so ashamed of himself…. Oh, he has to have a chance to find out how brave he really is!”
Prince Reginald’s mare whickered in sudden terror, pulling strongly against her picket rope. Robert said wearily, “She’s smelling the wolves again. I’d better see to her.” He stood up, shivering and stumbling in the cold, and made his way to the horses, where he attended carefully to all three stakes and tethers before he made his way back to the dying fire—he put the last of their wood on it—and the thin summer blankets. The Princess said drowsily, as he lay down beside her again, “Is everything all right?”
“Yes,” Robert assured her. “Everything’s all right.”
Princess Cerise smiled with her eyes closed. “I knew it would be. Thank you, Robert.” The last few words trailed off into a mumble, and then into a delicate snore. But Robert lay awake for some while, because there were green eyes restless beyond the firelight, and his mind was unquiet with images and possibilities, none of which he liked much. He wished with all his heart, and without the slightest shame, that he were home with his family, in his own bed, with a dragon on his pillow, and another one trying to paw his eyes open in the morning. I don’t belong in stories with heroes—that’s for princes and princesses. I just want to be a valet—is that too much to ask? The wolves prowled and waited, and the horses whinnied their fear, and Prince Reginald and Princess Cerise snored peacefully, and Robert thought, Yes, yes, it is….
“He is not a donkey! He is a mule!”
“You’re the mule, to keep saying that! Of course he’s a donkey! Look at his feet!”
“Look at the size of him! He’s too tall to be a donkey!”
“Size? My feet are dragging on the ground! He’s a tall donkey, that’s all!”
“He is a mule! A small mule—that’s all they had in the stable, I told you!”
“That’s all you could ride, you mean! Me, I feel like a criminal, making the poor thing carry me—”
“Then walk, why don’t you? Walk!”
Ostvald promptly slipped off the small animal that was carrying him and Elfrieda into the mountains of Corvinia. “See, I’m walking—there!” In frustration, he slapped the beast hard on the rump, and it promptly bolted up the road, taking a wailing Elfrieda with it. Horrified, cursing himself, Ostvald ran after them, and caught up in time to keep Elfrieda from toppling to the road, and simultaneously to calm and scold both her and the unconcerned creature. “Woman, for the love of God, what possessed you? Raised on a farm, like me, don’t you know a donkey when you see one?”
“He’s a small mule,” Elfrieda insisted stubbornly, but her eyes were damp. When Ostvald looked into them, he saw a rumpled, glittery image of himself that touched his heart, greatly to his own annoyance. He said gently, “He’s a donkey, Elfrieda, and you know it. Why could you not say so?”
“Because he was all I could find—well, he was!—and he’s ever so peaceful and tractable, and I really thought he could carry us both. All right—a mule would have been better, I’m sorry! Are you happy now?”
“No,” Ostvald said. “I’m not at all happy. I’m going to have to walk over the pass, to help you rescue your darling Robert—”
“He’s not my darling Robert, I never said that!” Elfrieda was blushing fiercely, as furious at herself as at him. Ostvald settled her in the saddle and carefully prodded the donkey onward.
Elfrieda said, after a time, “I just think that we ought to be there when he… when he meets the bad wizard and the dragons and all. To help him.”
“And how are we going to help him? Or that Prince, or the Princess, or anyone? By screaming very loudly until they come and rescue us—”
“I won’t be doing any screaming! I can’t speak for you—”
“We’ll just be in the way, no use to anyone, and most likely put them in more danger because they’ll have to be looking out for us.” He drew a deep breath. “We can still go home, Elfrieda.”
“No, we can’t.” Ostvald mouthed the words along with her. She said doggedly, “They’ll need us. I don’t know how or why, but I know they will.”
Ostvald grunted without answering. Elfrieda looked down at him, lightly patting his hand where it rested on the stirrup. “I’m not going to ride all the time—we’ll trade off every mile or two.” Something large and winged passed high above them, blocking the sun for an instant, and she cowered in the saddle. “Dragon?”
“Mountain eagle. A lot of help you’re going to be when there are dragons.” She was plainly hurt, and Ostvald was instantly sorry. He said so, but Elfrieda only rode on without another word. Nevertheless, after they had traveled a mile or so, she dismounted and directed him with a curt nod to climb into the saddle. When he demurred, she shoved him—hard—and he climbed. She walked silently beside the donkey until it was her turn to ride again.