Chapter Sixteen
It was not a dream. King Krije knew it was not a dream.
True, he was in his great bed, wearing his light bedtime mail, snug and secure under his usual blanket of Corvinian hounds: each the size of a calf, uniformly faithful and ferocious, and all of the unique fawn color, verging on violet, that marked them as Krije’s. They woke when he did, rumbling concern, smelling fear in his sweat, sensing it in his rigidity as he sat up against the skull-shaped headboard, staring straight before him. Crowding close, they turned as one to follow his gaze but could not see what he saw, though they growled at it anyway. Then they all settled back into sleep.
The old man sitting in the air, just beyond the foot of the King’s bed, smiled with lingering mockery. “Wonderful beasts, those, Krije. Fearless and murderous, and absolutely loyal, and not in the least handicapped by anything like intelligence. I’ve often thought the same of you.”
“You’re dead,” King Krije said. The words caught in his throat and were barely audible.
The wizard Dahr shook his head, never ceasing to smile. “I can’t hear you, my friend. Like everyone else, I was always so used to your brainless bawling and bellowing that when you speak like a normal human being—”
“You’re dead, damn you!”Krije’s howl woke the dogs, who fell to snarling and snapping at each other all over the bed, until he cuffed them silent, waving his arms furiously. “I beat you to pudding with your own staff and threw your body to my hogs!”
“Yes,” the wizard responded thoughtfully. “Yes, I remember you did that. Well, I certainly wouldn’t ever do anything so rude and vulgar to you.” He beamed benignly, still floating slightly above the king’s bed. The bedroom was dark, but there was a strange light around him, though it illuminated nothing else. Dahr said, “I have much more interesting plans for you, dear old Krije.”
Whatever other qualities he may have lacked, no one had ever accused King Krije of wanting courage. Snatching up the dagger that spent every night under his pillow, he lunged from bed, brandishing it at the glowing image above him. “Come ahead, you milk-livered coward! I’ve never known a wizard who had the guts of a codfish, a bloody mud turtle! Come on ahead—I’ll be waiting for you!” He was panting like one of his own dogs with rage and frustration.
“Oh, I will be coming, never doubt it,” Dahr continued, barely sparing the King a glance. “But I do so enjoy taking my time, studying the scenery, thinking pleasant thoughts of you thinking about me.” The bright rift in the air widened as he turned his head to peer over his shoulder, and King Krije saw the dragons. They were red and black and green—a number were somehow all three colors at once, depending upon how the light fell on them—and they were vast as cathedrals to Krije’s sight, and there were far more of them than he could count. Dahr turned back again, and this time when he smiled, his teeth glittered like dragons’ teeth. “The last time we visited together, I had wizards at my back. These may be a trifle more steadfast, perhaps… don’t you think?”
He was gone then, and the dragons with him, and old King Krije clutched his hounds around him and bayed as they did, until guards and servants came running frantically with swords and torches and hot-water bottles in their hands, to find out what could possibly be tormenting their monarch. Krije was decidedly unclear on the cause of his distress; but for all the differing interpretations they made of it, each of them agreed on one astonishing point. He was actually calling for his son.
It was only on the way into Corvinia that the Princess Cerise finally yielded to temptation and drew her writing materials out of her saddlebag. The maneuver was a tricky one, because she had never let anyone see her struggling to teach herself to read, and she had no intention of starting now. Prince Reginald already knew, of course, but somehow that was different, because he was royalty like herself, and therefore illiterate. But Robert plainly could read, and the Princess felt distinctly shy—more than shy—about studying in his presence.
So she worked at night, by moonlight or firelight, and only after her companions were asleep. Sometimes her fingers would grow too numb with cold even to pick up the cold stylus, but she did her best as long as she was able. Then she would carefully pack stylus and wax away, along with the ancient poem she had been copying for so long, and slip back between the slumbering, snoring men, drawing what warmth she could from their larger bodies. Without snuggling.
Inevitably, because that is the way with such things, it was Robert who discovered her at her lessons. Apart from the practice it gave her, the poem itself was absorbing enough that she often got lost in the flood of it, completely unaware of what might be going on around her. It happened so on the last night of their descent from Maedchensflucht Pass, when she looked up and whirled to see Robert squatting comfortably on his heels behind her, his eyes friendly but his face without expression. Caught between alarm, discomfiture, and anger, she stammered, “I—I didn’t know you were there.”
To her surprise, she realized quickly that he was more embarrassed than she. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to be spying on you. You learn to be really quiet when you do… what I do. But I just got caught up admiring the way you were teaching yourself. I couldn’t ever have figured it out alone, reading. If it weren’t for my sisters…” He shook his head, smiling now. “That’s amazing, what you’re doing.”
The Princess blushed, which always annoyed her. She said shortly, “Anyone can do it. I think everyone should. Princes too.”
Prince Reginald belched gently in his sleep, and both of them used it as an excuse to look over at him, and not at each other. Robert asked, “What are you copying? It looks crumbly.”
“It is. I have to be very careful with it. It’s the Chanson de Jeannot et Lucienne. I stole it from my father’s library.”
Robert’s eyes widened. “The one about the boy and the girl who run off because he’s accused of killing a bailiff—”
“Who was about to evict this poor old man—”
“Right, only he didn’t do it, it was someone else—”
“Don’t tell me! I haven’t gotten to that part yet!” The Princess sighed, suddenly downcast. “It goes so slowly sometimes—and you probably know it all by heart….”
“Well, my mother read it to me. Before I knew how.” Robert was standing up slowly, stretching his cramped legs, when something occurred to him. “I could help you, if you like, Highness. Might make the learning go a little faster.”
Princess Cerise considered the offer, plainly tempted, but finally shook her head. “No, I have to do this by myself. I don’t know why—that’s just how it is.” She began replacing her kit back in the saddlebag. “Best sleep now, both of us.”
They spoke no more of her studies that night; but as she lay half-awake on the mountainside, looking up at the cold, freckly stars, the Princess thought drowsily, Prince Reginald hates his father, but he’s running to save him anyway. I love my father, but I’m driving him mad with fear, putting myself in peril for strangers—for Reginald and King Krije. And Robert… did Robert love his father, or only learn from him? I wish I could ask him that, right now, that little boy in my bedroom, hanging on to that dragon for dear life….
“You have to ride. We’ll never get anywhere with one of us always walking!”
“I’ve told you over and over—he’s a donkey, he can’t carry us both. You ride on ahead if you’re in such a hurry. I’ll catch up with you.”
“I can’t, I’m scared! He always runs away with me—he wouldn’t if you were riding with me.”
“Aha! So I’m useful for something, anyway!”
Stung, Elfrieda looked down at Ostvald from her tentative perch on the donkey’s back. “Of course you are! You’re good for plenty of things!”
“I am? Name two.”
They might not have been squabbling in this fashion every step of the way from Bellemontagne; but if there had been a peaceful hour, neither of them remembered it. Now, however, Elfrieda fell silent at this challenge, long enough to wound Ostvald more than he thought he could be. He had just opened his mouth to say the most bitterly triumphant thing he could think of, when she answered him quietly, “You keep me from being afraid.”
Ostvald stared. “I do what?” Elfrieda repeated her reply. “That’s nonsense! You’re scared on the donkey, like you just said—you’re scared all the time at night, when you hear any noise anywhere—”
“Maybe I am. Maybe I’m just a big coward—all right! But I know you won’t let anything bad happen to me—I’ve known that all my life.” She glanced sideways at him and smiled for what seemed to Ostvald the first time in a very long while. She said, “How stupid do you think I am, anyway?”
Ostvald was having trouble breathing. Being Ostvald, he broke out in a pink sweat and prayed that Elfrieda wouldn’t notice. He said thickly, “Robert… Robert wouldn’t let anything bad happen. To you. Either.”
“Oh, I know that,” Elfrieda said impatiently, and nothing more for a while. Presently she demanded, “So? Are you going to get up with me or not?”
“Yes… well… I guess so. But if I’m too heavy…” It was almost possible for him simply to swing a leg over the donkey’s back as he walked in order to mount up behind her. Both of them had been washing in whatever streams they encountered along the way, but they smelled of the journey even so, and of the donkey. But all Ostvald smelled was Elfrieda’s hair, never for a moment noticing what might be tangled in the curls. He put his hands on her waist, lightly and very carefully… then withdrew them… then put them back where they had been. Elfrieda said, “Oh, for all the gods’ sake!” and patted his hands, once.
By and by, he said, “The donkey seems to be doing all right.”
“Told you.”
“But we’re still not going to catch up with them. Not in time.”
Elfrieda turned her head sharply to look back at him. “In time for what?” There was a distinct quaver in her voice.
“I don’t know.” Ostvald shrugged helplessly. “For whatever’s going to happen, which we probably wouldn’t be any help with anyway. You heard what the King said about the dragons. You ever see a really big dragon? I mean, really big?”
“Yes,” Elfrieda said boldly; and then, “No. Not a big one.”
“Well, I’ve seen wyverns. With Robert. They can be nasty, those, but I don’t think that’s what that wizard’s got with him. I think it’s going to be much worse than wyverns. Bound to be.”
“We’re still not turning back. We can’t, Ostvald!”
“I know we can’t—I didn’t say that. What I’m saying is…” In a lifetime of fumbling for the right words, or anything halfway resembling the right words, Ostvald had never fumbled quite this desperately. He said finally, “When we do get there, and it’s all going on—I mean, whatever it is—I’d really feel better, be happier, if you’d sort of stay a little out of the way. I mean, just maybe don’t go rushing up to rescue somebody, or fight somebody… you know? At least think about it?” Elfrieda did not respond, or turn again to look at him, and he cried out impulsively, hopelessly, “Damn it, I’m just asking you to take care of yourself, if… if I can’t! That’s all.”
They jogged slowly on, hardly faster than Ostvald’s own walking pace would have been, and still Elfrieda remained silent, and did not look back at him. When she did speak, he almost missed it, so low her voice was. She said, “You’re sweet.”
“No, I’m not,” Ostvald said. “I’m big and thick and gawky, and Robert does everything right, and so do you—practically—and I’ve never understood why you two have always let me be your friend. All these years, I’ve never understood.” He realized that he was shouting, and lowered his own voice until it was almost as soft as hers. “I’m just… thankful.”
Abruptly Elfrieda slipped to the ground, to continue walking beside the donkey, looking straight ahead. When he got over his astonishment, he mumbled, “Why are you doing that? You don’t have to do that.”
Elfrieda did look up at him then, and the black eyes were a thunderhead of anger, the irises hardly visible. “I’m doing that so I can hit you better!” She pounded his thigh hard with her clenched fist. “So I can hit you better… so I can hit you better…”
“Ow!” Ostvald protested. “Ow, quit it!” The blows hurt—small or not, Elfrieda was a good deal stronger than she looked—but the only way to avoid them would have been to kick out at her, which was simply not in him to do. Instead he kicked the donkey into a kind of ambling trot, so that she had to run alongside him, still pummeling his leg and gasping, “So I can hit you better—idiot, idiot, idiot!” What with the pain, and the embarrassment, it took Ostvald some while to realize that she was crying.
He slid from the donkey’s back himself and walked on her far side, watching her hands at all times. He said, when he judged it safe, “Don’t cry. Please, Elfrieda.”
He reached for her hand, but she pulled it away. “You’re right, you are thick—so thick—and I don’t know why anybody bothers with you, and walk on the other side if you’re going to walk.” And that was how they passed the rest of the day, speaking hardly at all, even when he built their fire and made a stew of roots she had never imagined might be edible, let alone surprisingly tasty.
But in the night, though she never knew it, she rolled over to sleep with her head on his shoulder. Ostvald gathered her in, as gently and carefully as he had ever done anything, and lay looking up at the strange stars of Corvinia, thinking thoughts just as high and foreign. He did not think he would ever sleep again.
He did, of course, weary as he was, but not before he saw the first great shadows passing over. The moon was half-hidden by clouds, and at first he took these for more of the same, until it became obvious that they were moving far too fast for that, and looked far too similar. Then it was that his gift for resignation served him well, for he said aloud, “Tomorrow. Tonight is mine,” and sank into a tranquil doze.