Chapter 22
HOW TO BE A PIRATE AND FIRST OF THE HAREM
When the dust settled, Sir Eustace Zonure set his spyglass aside and rose from his stool. He kept the handkerchief firmly over his nose and mouth and his eyes slitted against any sand particles still lingering in the air and trudged over to where the knight had fallen.
Sir Roger lay like he had fallen asleep, if one fell asleep spread-eagle fully clothed and head cocked severely to one side.
Stopping nearby the fallen knight’s head, Sir Eustace dropped his handkerchief and wedged it back into his breast pocket. He lowered himself to a crouch to take the knight’s pulse, then produced a mirror from another suit pocket to angle under the knight’s nose.
“Sir Roger Ferris is defeated by way of severed rope,” the ministry official announced. “Princess Mildred of Amberly remains Unrescued. Dragon Dirk, you may do with the body as you will.”
“Can I bring it up here for barbecue?”
Sir Eustace sighed as if he’d heard this exact question only a hundred times. “Barbecue it, shrink its head for your collection, leave it for the vultures, the choice is yours.”
“Be right down!”
Now that the Hero was defeated, the ministry official couldn’t care less what the dragon did.
This was already proving to be a strange assignment—no dragon had resorted to intimidation tactics or guerrilla warfare in any of the Discount Damsel Protocols he’d ever overseen—and Sir Eustace didn’t like strange.
They already lived in a magical world that didn’t need any more complications, loopholes, or uniqueness, in his opinion.
That only led to more categorizing, more paperwork, and if the Annals Division poached scribes from the Damsel Division one more time . . .
Sir Eustace returned to his desk, finished his report, sprinkled the ink with sawdust, slammed the book shut, and disappeared into his tent to fix himself a very large tangelo margarita.
The precise moment the flap swept into place behind the ministry official, Dirk shot out the porthole window nearest the sand and raised a mighty wind.
Sand whipped up into a dervish and lifted the hedge knight from the dunes.
Chain mail clinked and leather creaked as the old man spiraled all the way to the top of the tower where the two humans quickly caught arm, leg, belt, frankly whatever they could get their hands on, and guided Sir Roger over the railing.
Bradley carried the knight into the workroom and quickly set him down upon the floor.
Dirk pounced on the old man’s chest, tapping here and there with his claws, releasing his command over the water in the knight’s blood and freeing the air trapped in his lungs.
Sir Roger’s pulse came roaring back to life, his chest expanded with a gasp, and he hinged upright with the ferocity of a sprung mouse trap.
“My back,” the hedge knight groaned.
“I did it,” Dirk exclaimed, clapping and bouncing in the air like a gleeful child.
Mid-bounce, a sapphire must have popped loose from his satchel, for a round blue gem fell and skipped across the floorboards. The luck dragon pounced once more and quickly stuffed the gem back into his satchel and faced the others with a nervous, “Heh.”
The errant jewel was quickly forgotten when Millie said, “Apologies, Sir Roger,” and thrust a sack over his head before he’d gotten a good look about the room.
It seemed the prudent thing to do, as he wasn’t fully vetted yet and sorcerers and their apprentices were generally private people who didn’t want folks gawking at their magical bits and bobs.
And while Sir Roger was a progressive knight, they couldn’t risk years of instinct kicking in and him slashing out at Dirk in a mistaken attempt to defend his life, which wasn’t in danger whatsoever.
“Upsy-daisy now,” she said, guiding the knight up to his feet. “We’re going to turn around and take a few steps, go through a trapdoor, and then we’ll be in the stairwell. Do hold on to the guide rope. The architect never saw fit to install an actual railing to prevent falling into the open air.”
And with that, the princess led her achy old hedge knight away, leaving Dirk hovering and Bradley just standing there, dumbfounded.
What on earth had he just played accomplice to?
How had his life, his studies, his routine, been suddenly put on hold for this young woman’s absurdities?
And why was he now, instead of kicking the trapdoor shut behind them and bolting it so he could get some crucial curse-lifting research done, uninterrupted, trailing after them to see what the princess would do next?
There could be only one explanation for this.
He’d finally cracked. He’d finally lost his last marble. He’d finally swan-dived off the cliff of mental stability for the blissful seas of insanity.
Or, perhaps more simply and much more likely, morbid curiosity was to blame.
Approximately halfway down the tower, the princess and her hedge knight stopped upon the landing of a door with a ribbon affixed to its handle. She depressed the latch, gave the heavy door a shove with her shoulder, and guided the knight inside.
Bradley followed, immediately squinting against the harshness of the light.
When the dancing white motes dissipated from his vision, the sorcerer apprentice discovered a large barren room.
Unfiltered sunlight turned the manilla stonework to butter.
Arched windows had permitted the sand from many desert storms inside to scour the place clean.
Bradley barely remembered this room from his first days at the tower, probably because it was unremarkable.
Though not as bare as he’d originally thought.
Upon one such windowsill sat a decorative hourglass, heavy enough with ornate metalwork that only the strongest of breezes or a puckish air sprite would pose it any threat.
It spilled red sand and cast speckled light like fireflies against the manila stones.
Against the wall between its window and another was a swivel blackboard with a few fingers of white chalk resting on its ledge.
Written upon the blackboard in elegant cursive was:
How to Become a Pirate in 90 Days: Training Topics
Swashbuckling 101 – Fencing
Swashbuckling 201 – Miscellaneous Weaponry
Sailing
Navigation
Knots
Anatomy and Terminology of a Ship
Swimming 101 – For Beginners
Swimming 201 – Advanced Techniques
Weather Interpretation
Apparently when the princess had left “to stretch her legs” last night, she’d found more than a letter opener and a change of clothes.
“Here we are,” she singsonged, and removed the sack from the hedge knight’s head.
The old man did a double take at the sorcerer apprentice and the slinky blue creature hovering above Bradley’s head.
“Who are you?” He shot a confused look in the princess’s direction.
“Pardon me, I was under the impression that princesses were alone in their towers when not being guarded by their dragon captors.”
“You know what, Sir Roger? I was under that impression myself not too long ago, but I must say it is far more exciting having roommates. Never a dull moment around here, that’s for sure.”
There used to be, Bradley grumped to himself.
Millie linked arms with the hedge knight and gestured first to Bradley, then to Dirk, “This is Mr. Donmarin, sorcerer apprentice and resident grouch, and this is Master Dirk. Dirk the Dangerous, as you know him.”
“That is Dirk the Dangerous?” Sir Roger exclaimed. He quickly bobbed a bow towards the little luck dragon. “No offense, Dragon. I was just told you were five hundred pounds and, well, red. All over. And winged.”
Every muscle and tendon in Bradley’s body tightened with the desire to throttle the princess. After her strangulation, he’d flagellate himself for being so careless as to let his best friend’s identity be exposed. Though, the hedge knight had made no mention of Dirk being a luck dragon.
“As a Designated Sorcerer Companion, Master Dirk has many special abilities,” Millie said smoothly.
“Apparently.” There was an appreciative note in the old man’s voice. “I’m not sure if I’m impressed or insulted that you were the creature who severed the rope.”
“Oh, you should definitely be impressed.” The luck dragon preened. “Snapped that rope in one chomp, I did.”
“Now that we’ve all been introduced, let’s return to the main topic at hand, shall we?” Her arm still linked with Sir Roger’s, Millie propelled him forward towards her blackboard.
Dirk swirled close to inspect the training topics. “Hmm, I can teach you all you need to know about weather interpretation, Millie,” he offered, “and why, other than the swashbuckling, Br—”
Bradley flicked the dragon before he could volunteer the apprentice to be the princess’s tutor. She already took up way too much of his precious time, and his past as a fisherman on the Cut was to stay in his past.
The baby dragon rubbed his bruised scales as he narrowed a sour expression at Bradley. “Don’t forget a course on general thieving, Millie,” he suggested. “I bet a lot of pirates begin as pickpockets.”
“Excellent suggestion, Master Dirk.” Millie quickly added Thieving & General Sneakiness to the bottom of the list and replaced the chalk on its ledge.
Clasping her hands in front of her, she said, “Now, Sir Roger, I do believe I can list you as the instructor for Swashbuckling 101 and most likely Swashbuckling 201, correct? That is to say, knights don’t live to reach old age unless they are very good at what they do.
Are you competent in any of these other fields as well? ”
“Not particularly, Your Highness, but—”
“Millie, please,” she insisted.
“Miss,” he counter-proposed, to which the princess inclined her head in acquiescence.
“Excellent.” She wrote his name beside the two Swashbuckling topics and replaced the chalk. “Congratulations on becoming the first in my talent stable! We will begin tomorrow after—”
“Your what?”