Chapter Nineteen
King Krije’s dining chamber was different from the great hall of Castle Bellemontagne. There were no family portraits on the stone walls, for one thing, but they abounded in souvenirs of Krije’s numberless conquests and victories. The customary swords, spears, shields, and pieces of armor that any king worth his crown will exhibit for his dinner guests were accompanied, in Krije’s hall, by the very hand and arm bones that had brandished or shouldered them. For another, there were no dragons scurrying in the walls. They were crouched ringing the huge room, which already reeked coldly of their presence. Robert could not escape the sense that every one of their glinting diamond-shaped eyes was watching him.
He and the Prince and Princess were seated at the far end of a long, wide table, while the wizard Dahr presided at the other, begging forgiveness earnestly and often for the lack of other guests and the presumed spareness of the banquet. “When you’ve just taken over someone’s castle, it’s so difficult to know where things are. And as royalty yourselves, you know how hard it is to find good help.” With a small shrug of apology, he indicated the servants coming and going around the table.
The servants handled their tasks with faultless efficiency, laying the table and setting out the meal—actually lavish, and quite good—but Robert found them almost as disturbing as the stares of the dragons. They were utterly silent, which is not the same as not speaking: neither their feet nor their breath made any sound, and their eyes were of a uniform pale yellow, never meeting the eyes of the three they served. There was a tallowy softness about them, as though they had literally been shaped out of candle wax. Unlike the dragons, they had no smell at all.
Robert turned from studying them to see Dahr smiling down the table at him. “Yes, you have it right, young sir, you do indeed—and quicker than your betters, to boot. These poor minions, I am shamed to confess, are neither human nor even animal, but were created for this single festive occasion from such scraps and leavings as I could find in King Krije’s kitchens. That chap there”—he pointed—“was, earlier today, an honest loaf of brown bread, and will be again, once we are done here and the table cleared. That other began life as, I believe, a potato, or it might have been a turnip.” He frowned slightly, trying to remember; then grew cheerful once again. “Actually, at this stage of my life, soldiers and servitors weary me. I find that the root vegetables in general make perfectly adequate human beings, as required. Animals—mice, dogs, goats, pigs—they don’t do nearly as well. Curious, that, don’t you think?”
He turned his head, to gaze with obviously genuine fondness at the vast creatures looming against the walls. “Of course you could never make a dragon out of any of them, not the best of them. No one can make a dragon.” He paused for a moment. “Only I.”
Robert stood abruptly, looking left and right, seeing his own feelings echoed on his companions’ faces. “It is late, and a long road home awaits us. We must go.”
“Ah well. If you must.” He turned to Princess Cerise. “Give my most sincere regards to dear old Antoine, and tell him that we will surely meet again before too long.”
To Prince Reginald he said with every evidence of sincerity, “I do hope you won’t hold my somewhat strained relationship with your father against me. Considering that he destroyed me completely, after all, I rather think that I have been quite forbearing in my treatment of him. Believe me, he will come to be quite content in his new role as my seat of power—there’s never been a throne that didn’t have its own opinions.” He peered shrewdly up at the tall prince, who avoided his eyes. “And whether you will admit it or no, you have choices tonight that you did not have this morning. Tell me I lie.” Prince Reginald did not answer him.
He said no word to Robert as he escorted the companions out to the warm, heavy dark. The dragons came after, in a procession half-menacing, half solemnly comic. Dragons are not made for much walking: certainly not in line, like circus elephants clinging to each other’s tails. Yet so they came, at Dahr’s wordless direction—or was it Dahr whom they followed? Robert continued to avoid the diamond eyes.
Prince Reginald had already mounted, and Princess Cerise had calmed her own horse, unnerved by the nearness of the dragons. She had one foot in the stirrup, ready to mount, when the wizard spoke.
“I fear that your young servant will not be able to accompany you on your journey home. I must request that he remain with me—on a purely temporary basis, of course. He shall be returned to your employ shortly, I assure you.”
If King Krije had been transformed into a golden statue, Robert felt himself turning to ice. As though from a great distance, he saw Prince Reginald turn inquiringly in the saddle, while Princess Cerise wheeled to confront the wizard Dahr, saying, with the full royal hauteur that Robert had heard before, “That will not be possible. I require his services.”
“Ah, but so do I,” Dahr replied regretfully. “Alas, Highness, what a poor sort of host you must think me, to guest you and see you to my gate, and to the right road—and then to snatch your servant bodily from your side. I can only beg your forgiveness, promise to make the inconvenience up to you, as I may, and repeat that I will not keep him long.” Without seeming to move, he had nevertheless somehow interposed his body between Robert and his companions. “Not long, my word on it.”
“You will not keep him at all.” The Princess’s voice was very quiet, but it held a quality to it that Robert had never heard from her, and that he would have been very happy to hear at his back forever. She said it again. “I am the Princess Cerise of Bellemontagne, and my servant goes where I go.”
She said, “Where I go.” She didn’t say, “Where Prince Reginald and I go.” Why am I eventhinking about this right now?
The Princess’s dress sword, meant only for occasions of state, would have been as much practical use in difficulties as a stick of candy. But Prince Reginald, swinging grimly down from his horse to stand behind her, had slipped the daunting Doppelh?nder from its saddle scabbard, holding it at his waist with no apparent effort beyond a bit of heavy breathing. Robert edged away from her, silently pleading, Stay back. Mother, make her stay back.
Dahr shook his head. “To end such a delightful evening in unpleasantness—what a pity. Is there nothing I can do to avert your vexation?”
The Princess Cerise said, “You could tell us why you want to keep Robert prisoner. It will make no difference, but you could tell us.”
The wizard’s head shake this time was one of genuine—and only slightly mocking—admiration. “I certainly hope old Antoine and Hélène appreciate their daughter properly. If there were anything in me that might respond, even in the least, to a human relationship…” The Princess shuddered visibly, and Dahr smiled. “Yes. Well. Why do I want your Robert? I will show you.”
Before any of them could move, he seized Robert by the arm and dragged him to face the largest of the six dragons. Robert struggled in his shockingly strong grasp, but Dahr forced him so close to the fanged head and bright, merciless eyes craning down at the end of the long neck that he could see the blue-green-blue ripple of the creature’s scales, and taste the familiar scent of cold ashes. The dragon’s gaze held him in a grip far more powerful than that of the wizard, and once again he cried out—or thought he did, “Who am I? What do you want of me?”
He was answered by a rumble he never really heard, but only felt; and not even in his bones, but absurdly through the soles of his feet and the tingling roots of his hair. Dahr said something in a language he did not know, and released him, shoving him toward the dragon.
Somewhere very far away, in time and in distance, he heard a woman’s scream and a man’s shout of rage. But there was nothing in his ears but the dragon’s deep, jagged breath, and nothing to be seen in all the world but the blazing red gullet over him. Too frightened to feel fear, he thrust out his arm and cried directly into the monstrously wise face, “Back! I know your name! Back from me!”
And he did know the dragon’s name. He knew the names and thoughts of every other of Dahr’s creations, and knew that he was as safe among them as he would have been romping at home with Adelise, Fernand, or dear, clumsy Reynald. The dragon rearing above him bent its neck, low and deep, until the great head rested on the ground at his feet. Robert said, as formally as he knew how, “I greet you, Grand-Jacques.”
And the dragon made a sound in answer.
So.
This is what I do.
This is who I am.
“You see, do you not, why I cannot let him leave?”
Behind him, Dahr spoke in the same dangerously quiet tone with which the Princess Cerise had spoken. “Your ‘servant,’ as you call him, is a dragonmaster born, as I am. I have met exactly two others in my life, which has been quite a long one, allowing for a somewhat unusual interval. Both are dead.” He patted Robert’s shoulder, almost affectionately. “This one… this one might be the most powerful yet. Too early to tell.”
“And if you have your way,” the Princess said, “we never will. Is that not so?”
Dahr spread his hands plaintively. “You continue to wrong me, child. Why would I seek to harm the first person I have encountered in more years than you or he have been alive who might be my equal—my superior, even? Princess”—his voice dropped into a lower range, and he spoke more slowly—“believe of me what you will, but it is lonely being who I am. I wish only to study your servant’s ability for a while, and perhaps—I say perhaps—to be of some minor assistance in the ripening of his mastery.” After a moment’s silence, he repeated, “It is lonely, being who I am.”
Princess Cerise did not answer him, but instead spoke haltingly to Robert. “I did not know… I mean, sometimes I thought… Robert, is this what you want to—?” when Prince Reginald interrupted her.
“No,” he said. “Never.” His own voice sounded like two millstones grinding together, and he held the Doppelh?nder poised as if it were a club. He said, “You will not trust this man. Not ever, not in anything.”
The wizard Dahr sighed. “Ah, again the business with your father, of course. What can I say to you? Krije and I understood one another perfectly—I so wish you could—”
Robert cut him short. He had been gazing from one of Dahr’s dragons to the next, meeting their eyes now, his face showing nothing, betraying nothing. But he turned abruptly and was close enough to Dahr in two quick strides that the wizard actually took a step backward. The Princess put her hand on Robert’s arm, but he looked only at Dahr.
“No, we will leave,” he said, “all three of us. Your dragons will not hold me here.”
Princess Cerise became aware that she was trembling: not from fear of Dahr, or even of the dragons, but of the pallor of Robert’s face. His eyes and mouth were steady, but his face was the color of the old ice on the highest crags of Bellemontagne. She drew her hand away.
Robert said, “You’re a fool, Dahr. A great wizard, perhaps, but as great a fool. If you had simply let us go home, it would have been a long time, if ever, before I recognized myself in Grand-Jacques’s eyes. But you hoped he might devour me on the spot, and save you the bother of killing me.” He was the one who smiled this time, and the Princess shivered again. This was not the shy, half-embarrassed smile she had come to know. Dahr was staring, his eyes shifting rapidly left and right, his own mouth slightly ajar, as though he were about to speak. Princess Cerise heard Prince Reginald chuckle.
“We will leave now,” Robert repeated. “The Prince and I will be back for King Krije shortly, so I’d advise you to treat him very well. Polish him regularly, and do make sure his lining is kept clean—that sort of thing. Your dragons will teach me how to return him to his human form when we come again.” He laughed suddenly, the sound almost luminous in the night.
“It’s a strange thing, Dahr, when you think about it,” he went on softly, “but you and I are the only two here who will never have what they want. All my heart’s desire, always, was to be some lord’s personal valet—I couldn’t imagine any greater leap for a poor dragon-exterminator. I still can’t.” The sad, shining laughter came again. “As for your dream, was it merely to revenge yourself on Krije and rule Corvinia in his stead, in his castle? Such a small dream, really, but it won’t happen either, Dahr, none of it. No more than my dream.”
Dahr said nothing. Robert mounted his own horse swiftly, and Princess Cerise and Prince Reginald followed. Robert looked past Dahr toward the dragons and spoke to them silently.
“Dahr made you—made all of you—so you must all be evil in your natures. I have seen your brothers, red and green and black, do terrible things for the pure pleasure of it, as my dragons, my dear vermin, never would, even if they could. And still… still…” He raised his hand to the dragons, and heard the answer in his mind. Then he turned his horse and rode out through the castle gate, and the others followed.
They cantered three abreast where the road was widest, none of them speaking for a time. The moon had not yet risen, and it seemed to Princess Cerise that the only brightness in the night came from the white rims of their horses’ eyes and the glimmer of the Doppelh?nder, now hanging at Prince Reginald’s hip instead of his saddlebow. She heard strange night birds calling, and once a wolf.
After a while Robert said quietly to Prince Reginald, “We will return for your father very soon, I promise. And we will find a way to turn him back to himself again.”
“I know that,” Prince Reginald answered. He laughed outright, loudly enough that his horse nickered in startled response. He said, “It won’t hurt him to be Dahr’s throne for a while. Do him a bit of good, I should think.”
“I would like to know,” Princess Cerise announced to no one in particular, “where it is written that I will not be among the rescuers of King Krije. Who was it who made that decision for me? He and I need to talk.”
“You will be at home being a princess,” Robert answered without looking at her, “and there is a really good chance that your father and mother will not let you out of their sight again until you’re… oh, say, thirty-six.” His voice was resolutely light and humorous. “In any event, I doubt they’ll look kindly on your rushing straight back into dragon country a second time. Can you tell me otherwise?”
“What I can tell you,” the Princess said through her teeth, “is that my parents are my own business, mine to deal with. Dragonmaster or no, you will not presume to inform me of where I can or cannot go. That is understood?”
“Entirely.” Robert kicked his horse into a gallop, still without once meeting her eyes. The Princess followed suit and kept up with him, continuing to expound on her independence from her parents, him, and everyone else, with the conspicuous exception of Prince Reginald, which did not escape his notice. She had rounded into full cry concerning everyone’s protectiveness—for which she had previously known no better than to be grateful—on the occasion of Dahr’s conquest of King Krije’s forces and the capture of his castle, when Robert jerked the reins and brought his horse to an abrupt stop.
“Listen!”
The Princess was silent, hearing nothing but the hoofbeats of Prince Reginald’s horse drawing up to them. The Prince himself, however, had clearly caught a sound, for the Doppelh?nder was out, and he was looking back over his shoulder as he rode. He said simply, “It cannot be wings.”
“It is wings,” Robert said.