Chapter 21
A BLOOD-THIRSTY KILLER WITH MANNERS, THE DANGERS OF A LIMITED ROT, AND A LOOPHOLE
“Now this Hero has some manners,” Millie exclaimed as the three traipsed down the stairwell to their assigned silly stones.
“A proper introduction, professional yet polite, and challenging Master Dirk at a most agreeable time in the morning. Why, if this Sir wasn’t a blood-thirsty killer set on destroying Dirk, I daresay he would be a delightful companion for afternoon tea. ”
Bradley didn’t reply, his innards twisting with apprehension and second-thoughts and a whole host of misgivings.
He should be in the workroom researching a cure to his curse, not thwarting a Hero that wasn’t his to fight or empowering this princess to further her endeavor to become a scourge of the seas.
Bradley wanted to rip his hair out. It would be far less painful than the inner turmoil of being pulled in half a dozen directions.
“Alright, everybody,” Dirk called from the base of the tower, a magical wind carrying his voice to their ears. “Attack!”
The apprentice’s chest expanded as he sucked in a deep breath as if he were preparing to dive for pearls, pressed his mouth against the marked crack in the stone before him, and blew.
He felt the vibration of the princess’s silly stone rattling the tower through his lips like an echo of the zing that had traced up the back of his hand at breakfast. Locking the memory of that sensation in a box and burying it into the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind, Bradley focused on his task. Protect Dirk.
When he was out of air, he braced himself against the tower wall and drew in a ragged breath. Bradley brushed the grit from his mouth and prepared himself for another volley.
“Is that it?” Sir Roger called, unsure.
Dirk streaked up from below, his feathered mane flaring and flattening with agitation. “It didn’t work.”
Millie, whose silly stone was closest to Bradley’s bedroom, abandoned her position and dashed up the steps to get the measure of the Hero from the bedroom window.
“If you do not come out,” the knight declared, “then I shall pry you out like a snail from its shell!”
Bradley took the stairs two at a time to follow her, Dirk keeping pace beside him. When they arrived, the princess whirled around from the window. “He’s not bluffing—he’s got a grappling hook.”
The luck dragon momentarily forgot his dread. “No freaking way. That’s so cool!”
“No, it very much isn’t,” the princess admonished. “He’s a knight who knows what he’s doing. He didn’t waste his money on a guide, he has his own pack, and he’s wearing lightweight chain mail and padded leather for easy movement. His sword is Damascus steel, which can definitely cut dragon scale.”
Dirk’s cerulean scales blanched to aquamarine, his body coiling up tight into a spring. His panic constricted him for only a moment before he shook himself loose. “I am Dirk the Dangerous. I can do this.”
The three of them jumped as the grappling hook clanged against the railing of the western balcony and caught. This was a fine knight indeed to have anchored the hook on the first try.
“How long will it take to write those spells on the pancakes?” Millie asked Bradley. “I don’t need an answer. Just hop to. Master Dirk, you go with him. I’ll distract the knight.”
For one thing, Bradley did not like this princess giving him orders in his own tower, and for another thing, how on earth was she going to distract this knight without endangering herself?
Either she’d attempt to talk him into madness or throw things at him, and either one could earn her an arrow.
Not that he cared one whit, but Dirk would, and he cared about Dirk.
His suspicions proved correct when the princess braced her hands on either side of the sill and pitched her torso clean out the window.
Sweet mother of pearl!
Bradley lunged forward and grabbed her belt before she could tumble out of the tower.
Millie, who was under the misconception that it was Dirk anchoring her and not Bradley, whom she assumed she’d sent smartly on his way to write those spells, trusted in the hand that held her and waved down to the knight climbing the tower.
“Yoo-hoo! Salutations, sir!” she called.
Sir Roger, who had climbed up a quarter of the tower by now, glanced up from his rope to the princess hanging halfway out an arched window.
He would have bowed had his two feet been on solid ground, or shifting sand, but as he was currently suspended a decent drop, he found the best he could do was a polite nod.
“Princess Mildred, I presume,” the knight returned amicably. “Good morning.”
“It is not, I regret to inform you, a very good morning, sir. At least for you.” She braced her elbows against the tower and cupped her chin in her hands. “You have awoken the dragon. Surely you encountered the last poor soul who did that, running for his life west of here earlier this morning?”
“Ah yes, the young lordling Thespian.” Sir Roger continued to climb.
“I daresay that whelp is in for a beating when he returns to Tupelo empty-handed. Spent a fortune on the carriage ride over here, not to mention even more on that desert guide, and I noticed his scabbard was empty. Lost his sword, too, did he?”
“It’s now in Dirk the Dangerous’s treasury,” she admitted with a feigned rueful note. “Which is where your lovely Damascus steel, and your skull, will end up if you don’t turn back now.”
“I appreciate your concern for my welfare, Princess, but as the dragon has not yet met my challenge, I like my odds. I’ve never heard of this Dirk the Dangerous before your kidnapping, which means he has a limited ROT.”
Unfamiliar with the term, Millie was about to ask the knight to explain when he paused in his climb to wipe the sweat beading in his eyebrows with the back of a hand.
Then he tied a stopper knot into his harness and let go of the rope entirely to unhook a canteen from the back of his belt and take a deep swallow.
Since it would’ve been exceptionally rude to question him while he was in the middle of refreshing himself, Millie contented herself to spend the time reevaluating him.
He was surprisingly old—that was white hair sticking out from under his shemagh—and wrinkles seamed the edges of his bright eyes.
His knuckles were large from years of hard labor, and because of that hard labor, he knew exactly when he needed to rest and when he could push on.
She discovered he also understood the ways of the desert, for (as she remembered from Bradley’s lecture), after he’d helped himself to a modest amount of water, he recovered his lost salt and energy by eating a few cheese-stuffed dates.
When he had replaced his canteen, powdered his hands dry with dust sand from a pouch on his belt, and resumed his climb, Millie asked, “A limited what?”
“R-O-T: Range of Terror. His territory, if you will. Which leads me to believe he’s quite young and untried. And youthful exuberance is no match for mature experience. I bet my salary that that roar was nothing but an intimidation tactic.”
Inside Bradley’s bedroom, Dirk crossed his arms over his chest with a sour “Harumph.”
Millie made a show of sighing with relief.
“I’m pleased you mentioned the topic of salaries because I’ve been trying to find the polite way to broach the subject of your age, Sir Roger.
As we do not know each other, and thus your preferences are a mystery to me, am I right to assume you are acting as proxy? ”
“Why?” He flashed her a lopsided grin as his eyes twinkled. “You don’t think a middle-aged gent like me would make you a decent match? I’m climbing a two-hundred-foot tower immediately after a desert crossing. I think I’m proving I’m virile enough. You might like a silver fox.”
“Middle-aged, is it?” She bit down on a grin. Sir Roger was a delightful combination of cheek, wit, and decorum. The perfect afternoon tea guest, just as she had pegged him to be. “You mentioned a salary. Am I correct to infer that you are a sellsword, Sir Roger?”
“A hedge knight, actually.”
The only difference between a hedge knight and a sellsword was honor.
Hedge knights were poor wanderers whose lord had either died or released them from service (nine out of ten times because they were poor themselves) and took whatever jobs they could find, but they still lived according to the Knightly Code of Conduct.
Sellswords, or mercenaries, most certainly did not.
Their allegiance was to the money only, not who was providing it.
And, because Millie had been trained by the best governesses and etiquette tutors in the world, she understood the difference well, so her voice was nothing but sincere when she said, “My apologies.”
“None taken,” he grunted, adjusting his grip on the rope. “I know I look like a sellsword, was a bit of a roamer in my early years. There aren’t many of us hedge knights left in the world, and the nuances are often forgotten.”
“May I inquire as to who pays your salary, Sir?”
“Baron Demir Oremaster of Merle, Your Highness.”
It was only the countless hours of Mastering the Art of Poise and Poker Faces that Miss Violeta had subjected her to that saved Millie from recoiling from the window.
Baron Demir was a despicable man, second only to Prince Chandler Stonevein of Leighton, and one of the very reasons Millie was set on becoming a pirate.
And hadn’t he threatened her with a dragon-napping?
He was a shrewd bastard indeed to hire a dragon to drop her bride price and then send his champion to snatch her up at a good deal.
Armed with Damascus steel, which she belatedly remembered was a prized export from the baron’s province, this man was prepared to succeed.
She had to hope Sir Roger had a heart beating in his chest instead of a stone.