Chapter 22 #3
“An exception must be made, Master Dirk,” Millie said reasonably. “He can’t train me to swashbuckle without a sword.” She held out a patient but expectant hand to Sir Roger. “It will be held in safekeeping until it is time for lessons. Surely you can understand.”
Sucking in a sharp breath, the hedge knight’s hand tightened around the hilt.
When he didn’t unbuckle the scabbard, Bradley took a step forward.
“Keep your spells to yourself, lad,” the hedge knight snapped. “I just need a minute. It’s a heavy thing, a knight surrendering his sword.”
But he did, and Millie had to use two hands to bear its weight. She waddled over to the corner and gently eased the sword to the ground and leaned it in the cradle of the walls.
“Seems like that’s your first time handling a sword, miss. And here I figured a lass like you with her mind so made up about piracy, she would’ve goaded the castle guards into giving her fencing lessons.”
“Oh, I definitely tried. Amberlian guards are unfortunately quite stubborn when it comes to the commands of their queen.” The princess once again linked her arm with the hedge knight and guided him out onto the landing.
“This way, and do mind the hermit crabs. They usually glow to give you fair warning they’re there, but just in case.
Now, what would you say to a diet primarily of beans and rice?
I don’t want to put too much of an additional strain on the cook to get creative at mealtimes. ”
So now Bradley was “the cook?” His footsteps adopted a stomping march.
“I’d say ‘thank you,’” Sir Roger answered with a glance over his shoulder at Bradley. “Picky eaters don’t exist amongst the common folk, miss. When you’ve known true hunger, you view food only as fuel.”
“Thank you for being so amenable. Now I would love to know your thoughts on a training schedule. I have a few ideas myself.”
At the bottom of the tower, Bradley shouldered his way between princess and hedge knight to wrench open the dungeon door.
Like those of the cells, this one was comprised of iron bars that allowed the jailor to visually inspect the prisoners without having to enter the dungeon itself.
The door opened to a hallway lined with cool sand with eight-foot-square cells on either side and a communal toilet and faucet at the far end.
Deep underground, there were no windows and the only light to see by was provided by the purple crystals growing out of the ceiling.
The hedge knight entered, the princess following with a, “Pick any cell you’d like; they each have cots. A note about the amenities, though. The faucet only has cold water, but it is potable, and the— Hey!”
The princess seized the iron bars just as Bradley locked the door and slipped the master key back over his neck and under his robe.
“Excuse you!” The princess gave the rungs of the door a tug, but they didn’t budge.
“Look at that,” Bradley signed. “All the privacy you want to devise your training regimen combined with all the security I need. How mutually advantageous. Enjoy.”
Bradley began his ascent to the workroom where he could continue his studies in the tranquil knowledge that the princess was not loose in the tower getting her entitled mitts on Master Excelsior’s things.
“But I told you the toilet doesn’t work!” she called after him.
“Guess I’ll go take a look at that,” the hedge knight said, already pacing for the rear of the dungeon.
“Master Dirk,” the princess protested.
“He, um, has the only key,” the luck dragon said lamely. Dirk flew to where Bradley was already twenty steps into his climb and thwacked the apprentice in the gut with his tail. Or, at least he tried, for the apprentice dodged to the side and continued to climb. “You’re being very rude, Bradley.”
The apprentice paused to poke the dragon in the chest. “I could say the same about you, Dirk,” he signed.
“You brought that princess here without permission, without thinking anything through, and now she has a knight here. And more will come! Master Excelsior left me in charge, and I’m protecting his interests the best way I know how.
Don’t like it? You can commiserate with them instead of helping me get rid of this curse, you know, like you promised? ”
“Maybe I will.”
“Fine,” Bradley spat.
“Fine!”
The apprentice snorted and lunged up the stairs.
His anger grew when Dirk didn’t follow. Couldn’t the luck dragon see he’d put Bradley in an impossible position?
Didn’t he care that with each Hero that showed up to challenge him for the princess, Bradley lost time working on his curse?
Never mind the worry Bradley would experience watching his na?ve young friend battle seasoned warriors for a princess he’d just met.
All because of his stupid obsession with the Great Reds. It was lunacy!
Unless Dirk didn’t care. Didn’t believe Bradley could do it in time. Hells of the deep, they’d already spent three months at the tower with nothing to show for it.
Dirk’s given up on me. Bradley’s hands tightened into fists, and he shut his eyes against the sting that pricked them. A tower with a princess, a knight, and a dragon, and yet he was utterly alone.