Dragon Princess (21 page)

Behind them, their squires led their warhorses. All of them came to a stop before the queen. The knights removed their helmets and handed them to their squires, both young men, boys really, wearing broad hats and tabards embroidered with their knights’ colors. The knights turned from their squires to kneel and pay their obeisance. The queen stepped down from the dais to stand before the kneeling knights and provide royal sanction to the contest.

Then she held out her hand so the knights could show her proper respect, and they both placed a chaste kiss upon her jeweled hand.

I now had an absolutely insane idea.

It was impossible to get close enough to the queen unseen. My next best option was to do so unnoticed.

Even in a skirt and bodice, I was gratified to find my ability to sneak around the clusters of tents was unimpeded. Unlike princesses, working women tended toward sane footwear.

I worked my way around the back of the stands, and into the service area of the tent city around the tourney field—toward the smell of horses. The staging area for the main event wasn’t hard to find, with ranks of tents flying the colors of noble houses and stinking of manure.

I think there’s some sort of metaphor there.

I didn’t know the schedule of events, but it was also easy enough to find a knight who was going to the field soon. I just had to find a team of men gathering to strap a beefy gentleman into a tin can.

Seeing that, and the knight’s colors, meant it was likewise easy to identify the matching squire, alone and waiting by the knight’s horse. Again, the squire was little more than a boy with a dusting of adolescent hair on his lip and several youthful blemishes across his face.

That made attracting his attention into a nearby supply tent
extremely
easy. A few years older, and he might have been slightly suspicious of the flash of leg and bosom that attracted him inside. But, the young male brain being what it was, he wandered into my clutches almost as if he’d been ensorcelled by some evil mage.

It almost made me feel guilty.

The most difficult part of the whole enterprise was stripping the clothes quickly off his unconscious body and getting dressed before his knight was completely poured into his armor. I didn’t have time to get fancy by strapping down my breasts again—probably a good thing, between the harlequin outfit and the bodice, they were on the verge of open rebellion anyway. And I didn’t braid my hair, instead I just shoved it under the squire’s cap, which was a size or two too large anyway. Between the baggy shirt and the tabard, my shape was more or less hidden. The boots were loose, but I only had to walk a short distance.

The elf whistle I hung round my neck under the tabard to keep it handy.

I was just about to tie up the naked squire when I heard a clanking approach. I had to run clumsily to go untie the bored warhorse from the tent stake the squire had used, and station myself in the squire’s place.

I’ll be the first to admit that this was nowhere near my most effective disguise. I wasn’t as tall as the lanky teenager I replaced, I had a better complexion, I was lumpy in all the wrong places, and a thick lock of my hair had come free from under my cap to dangle in front of my face. Standing there, in retrospect, I realized there was no way my impersonation should work.

I stood frozen, refusing to breathe as the knight walked into view with a retinue of servants.

And for once, the universe was on my side. His servants were too preoccupied manhandling the knight up on the horse to pay me any attention. My nominal task was to keep the horse steady during the operation, but the warhorse in question was so well trained that he might as well have been a rock. The knight himself was too handicapped by his own obnoxiously plumed helmet to notice I existed.

Once their man was in place, everyone retreated to several paces behind the horse and the knight, leaving me my place in the lead. This was good, in that I probably looked a little less out of place from the back than the front.

We all stood still, waiting for the call for our guy to get jousted all to hell.

Even though I had no idea who this knight belonged to, I was again aided by the well-trained mount. When a herald somewhere shouted about the champion of house such-and-so, the until-then immobile horse pawed the ground and I knew to start leading it toward the field of so-called honor.

 • • • 

Throughout my career of going places I should not be, to retrieve things I should not have, it has been a useful tool to use the human tendency to see exactly what one expects to see. Many times if someone is presented, without fanfare, a scene that is almost what should be there—but not quite—they will be disinclined to observe closely the actual discrepancies.

My march across the tilting field, toward the royal pavilion, had to be the ultimate test of the premise. Here I was, a barely disguised out-of-place young woman, leading a warhorse toward the queen herself, under the watchful eyes of thousands of spectators, scores of whom should recognize me for one reason or another if they had cause to look closely enough.

Each step I silently prayed to whatever forces were in charge of my fate to just get me a little closer. Each step, just a little closer. And, to my amazement, my brazen effort worked. The inevitable recognition never came, no noble stood from the stands to point an accusing finger and shout,
“It’s her!”

Or, for that matter,
“It’s him!
”

As we came to a stop in front of the pavilion, and my knight dismounted, even Sir Forsythe seemed oblivious to my presence. My knight did me the favor of removing his helmet and handing it to me without even looking in my direction. I held it, the plumes making my nose itch, but further obscuring my face from the pavilion and the stands. He walked in sync with his opposite number, to kneel before the queen as the prior combatants had. It was hard to believe that I had gotten this far, and as Queen Fiona strode from the dais to give the royal imprimatur to the current round of ass-kicking, I readied myself to dash in front of the queen.

And, as she lowered her jeweled hand to receive her knightly devotion, a naked young man with a bleeding scalp ran onto the tourney field screaming,
“Treachery!”

I took that as my cue. I tossed the helmet I held to the side, ran up in front of the startled queen, and echoed the knight’s gesture, taking her hand, and giving it a chaste kiss as I palmed the three rings she wore. The oversize cap tumbled off as I raised my head. Our eyes met, and as the queen stared at me in shock, I said the first thing that came to mind. “I’m sorry about the entrails, Your Highness.”

From behind her, Sir Forsythe drew his sword and scowled at me,
“You!”
he cried out as eloquently as could be expected. Other members of the queen’s retainers scrambled out of the pavilion, and the knight kneeling next to us grabbed for me. He was surprisingly quick for someone wrapped in a fancy tin can, but he ended up with a gauntlet full of my tabard.

I ducked out of the tabard and ran for the horse, which seemed the quickest mode of escape available. I vaulted onto the saddle, swinging my leg with enough force to send one of my ill-fitting boots flying off into the face of one of the knight’s servants. I sat on the horse, snapping the reins with the hand that didn’t hold the rings, trying to kick it into motion.

The horse only moved to turn one eye to me and give a dirty look.

Damn horse was
too
well trained.

I was now trapped on top of the animal, surrounded by the knights’ retainers on one side, the queen’s on the other. Someone grabbed my leg and I pulled free, losing the other boot as I stood up on the saddle. Sir Forsythe waded toward me through the crowd.

At the top of my lungs I screamed, “
Brock!
If you’re going to do something, do it
now!
”

He already had.

From my vantage, I saw the horses before I heard the hoofbeats. Four chestnut mares were loose, and, galloping from the confines of the tents by the knights’ staging area, one headed for the tourney field, three others toward the crowd.

Then came the warhorses.

“Oh, crap.”

I don’t know where Brock found four mares in season, but he had found an efficient way to make the knights’ mounts break training. Only six had broken free of their grooms to give chase to the mares, but ten hoses galloping through a crowd of drunken nobles was pretty significant as far as distractions go. The sudden stampede was enough to give pause to the people surrounding me and the horse I was on.

One of the mares galloped wildly down the jousting field toward us. The beast under me snorted, and I barely had time to drop back down and grab the saddle beneath me before my mount decided that the game had begun, knight be damned. He reared, throwing the knight’s men to the four points of the compass, and started galloping toward his prize.

For a few strides it was as if I was part of a joust, an invisible opponent on top of the much smaller mare, our paths separated by a yard-tall hedge. Ahead, on our side of the hedge, the naked teenage squire stood, eyes wide in shock, unmoving.

I screamed “Move!” at him. A pointless gesture since, by the time the word was out of my mouth, the horse was upon him. The only thing that saved the squire was the fact that my mount, intent on a mounting of his own, decided just before reaching him to vault the hedge.

I took that moment to jump off, seeing no way my ride could end well. I rolled along the field and up against the hedge. I did a quick inventory, making sure I still clutched Queen Fiona’s three rings in my fist. I had a panicked moment when I couldn’t find the elf whistle’s strap around my neck, but then I felt that it had fallen into my shirt.

As I dug around in between my boobs for my escape, naked squire-boy decided to come to his senses and jump me. “It’s all your fault!” He pinned my shoulders to the ground and landed a knee to my stomach, knocking the breath out of me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the crowd by the pavilion regrouping and heading in our direction, Sir Forsythe in the lead.

My hand found the elf whistle under my right boob.

“Why?” cried the boy on top of me. “Why did you do that to me?”

Somewhere on the other side of the hedge I heard equine squeals and farting noises.

At least the day’s going well for someone.

“Nothing personal, kid,” I said, slamming my ring-filled fist into his overexposed nether regions. He gasped and fell off of me.

Sir Forsythe and crew were nearly on top of me as I put the elf whistle to my lips and blew so hard I thought my lungs would burst.

I fell backward as part of the hedge vanished behind me. I found myself looking down a tunnel through the hedge, burrowing much deeper than the hedge was wide. I didn’t need any prompting. I was pulling myself into hedge before I rolled off of my back. Something shook the hedge above me, and I saw the tip of a long blade descend from above to stab between my knees.

Then I pulled myself a foot or two deeper, and the branches grew and closed up the opening between me and the tourney field.

On the other side was a rather bored-looking elf. I looked around and saw the circle of white stones. I looked back at the elf and it was almost as if he hadn’t moved since I’d left. “Well, that took longer than I expected.”

I got off of the ground, pulling up the squire’s ill-fitting breeches. “Well, I’m gratified in your confidence in me.”

The elf provided his too-wide smile. “Oh, nothing like that. I just expected that you’d require escape from some foul end long before now.” He held out his hand. “If you would.”

I stared at his hand blankly.

“The whistle,” he said. “That was a loan.”

“Oh, yes. Sure.” I gave him the whistle. He curled his hand around it and turned to leave.

“Shouldn’t you take me back to the elf-king?”

He turned around and arched an eyebrow. “Whatever for?”

I opened my other hand and showed three rings. “I thought one of these was the point of this.”

His eyes widened and he looked down. “You actually—”

He paused, composed himself, and said, “Of course. Follow me.”

I don’t know why I should have been surprised that they hadn’t expected me to accomplish anything. That kind of game was something the elves were known for. It was one reason why it was a bad idea to wager with them. But, for some reason, I
was
surprised.

I had tumbled back into the world flush with victory and a sense of accomplishment, and I found out that my elf guide had expected me to give up and retreat the moment I struck some difficulty.

In the Winter Palace I again found that I had exceeded expectations. The elf-king greeted me in his throne room, dismissing some other, less interesting, visitors with a wave of his hand. The trio of goblins did not want to leave, and elven guards appeared out of nowhere to remove them by force.

“You have to listen to us—” the goblins shouted at the elf-king. “It’s all a misunderstanding—”

It’s always a misunderstanding
,
I thought.

“You arrogant fae prick!” one of them shouted before they were dragged out of the throne room, leaving me alone with the elf-king. He sighed and swung his legs down from the arm of his throne. “That was boring and predictable. Especially after your testimony this morning. No one seems to measure up.”

“This morning?”

He shook his head and muttered, “Mortals.” He stood and said, “Time is a bit more leisurely under the hill. There is a reason your kind always seems in such a hurry.”

I already had that impression, but it was nice to have it confirmed. For each hour I stood here, something like a whole day must pass in the real world . . . it might have even been worse. Time here might be as flexible as the geography.

“I find it surprising that you gave up on your quest so early. I expected some magnificent stories when you came back. Horrifying, demoralizing stories.” His grin was somewhat disturbing.

“They didn’t tell you—”

“Oh, please. Surprise me, Frank Blackthorne.”

I held out my hand and opened it. The trio of rings glittered in the cold blue light of the Winter Palace. The heavy signet ring clouded slightly in the cold air as my breath touched it. Next to it was a ring made of tangled gold and silver filigree, dotted with diamonds. Opposite that was a plain gold band.

He looked at my hand and said, “Indeed.”

The elf-king reached over and I closed my hand, shaking my head. “Remember? This was done on my own initiative.”

He looked up and his voice hardened. “Give me that ring.”

“Not before agreeing on its price.”

“I underestimated you, Frank Blackthorne.”

“I gathered that. In retrospect if you thought there was a reasonable chance of me getting this ring, you wouldn’t have let me out of here without some compensatory debt that only handing this over would resolve.”

“You want the dragon, I know.”

“At this point, it’s not just the dragon.”

“You pressure me in my own palace?”

I shrugged. “I swiped the rings off of Queen Fiona’s hand in front of all the nobility of Grünwald and half
the surrounding lands. After that, haggling with you is not particularly intimidating.”

The elf-king glared at me for a moment with a stare that should have melted the icy structure around me. But the ends of his mouth twitched. Once. Twice.

Then he burst out laughing.

He spun around, whirling his furred cape. “You!” he shouted at the frozen blizzard in the ceiling. “Are! Not! Boring!” He whipped the cape aside with a flourish and plopped himself down on the throne. “Oh, I wish I had seen that old bat’s face when you relieved her of her baubles.” He clapped his hands. “Now, Frank Blackthorne, haggle. What is it you demand of the Lord Under the Hill to grant him his heart’s desire?”

“First off, I want to know what you
can
give me.”

He arched an eyebrow. “And I should help you in your attempts at extortion?”

“Negotiation.”

“Let us not quibble over semantics.”

“Can you undo the wizard’s spell?”

“Frank Blackthorne, I would gladly do so to earn that bauble you hold. I would end with both dragon and the ring. But alas, I cannot do this without your wayward wizard, and where he might be, I cannot say.”

“The Grand Inquisitor said as much.”

“Such things are more dangerous than they seem. The mortal soul is not designed to traipse between bodies. That is the province of gods, demons, and undead spirits.”

I sighed. “And if something goes wrong—”

“I can assure you, you would not be joining the ranks of gods or demons.”

“Why, damn it? Elhared couldn’t be that great a wizard, he worked for Lendowyn! How did he pull this off in the first place?”

The elf-king shrugged. “I’m sure he’s mediocre at best. But you said he read from a book—so I doubt it was his power or skill. He was probably invoking the skills of some demonic entity or other. Souls are their specialty after all.”

When he said “demonic entity” all I could think of was the Nâtlac-worshiping court of Grünwald, which makes it all that much more embarrassing that I did not immediately piece together the whole comedy of errors right there.

I do have an excuse. I was tired, frustrated, standing in ill-fitting squire’s garb, and all I could think of was Lucille still locked into a cage in the wrong body . . .

I was not fit to negotiate with someone who was supernaturally adept at deal-making. In retrospect, that was obvious because I didn’t suddenly become suspicious when the elf-king smiled, stroked his chin, and said, “But . . .”

“But what?” At that point, I didn’t know it, but I was doomed. There was part of me that knew I should push my leverage for all that it was worth. I might have listened to that voice if I had been there only on my own behalf. But I wasn’t going through all this for my own sake. It wasn’t only Lucille anymore either. I was worried about Brock. I hoped he had managed the equine distraction without being caught, but I didn’t know. Worse, given the time difference, several hours had already passed back by the tourney field. All these worries boiled within me, freezing the part of my mind that should have been devising a foolproof set of demands.

“I can offer you a promise that, should you return to me with the other principals, preferably with the book in question, I can set things back to your liking.”

“You can?”

“With the book, and the collection of correct bodies and souls, it would be trivial. Without the book, it would only be a matter of strongly querying the wizard as to its content. Casting such things does leave an impression.”

“So if you have Elhared, you can do this?”

“Of course, is that enough for the return of my property?”

“Wait a moment,” I said, realizing I was on the verge of being conned. “That doesn’t sound like much of a deal. You get the ring in return for a
promise
to do something,
if
I bring the misplaced old coot back here. If I get my hands on Elhared, and especially his book, it sounds as if any competent wizard could do the same thing.”

The elf-king spread his hands. “I never claimed otherwise.”

“And you’re omitting a guide out of this place, or a way back.”

“Can you blame me for attempting to negotiate things in my favor?”

“No, this is what you’re going to do. You’re giving me that promise. You’re also releasing the dragon. The dragon and the princess who currently inhabits it are both completely free, all liens upon either body or soul are permanently and irrevocably released, and she is free to go as she will.”

The elf-king nodded, the smile barely shifting. “Obviously.”

“You’ll give us both free passage and a guide to return us to the mortal world without delay or interference.”

He sighed. “This is why people are more fun on the first visit. They come back and know too many of our little games. Not an issue, even though I will miss bargaining with you again.”

“You’ll give us a means to return with Elhared once we retrieve him—”

The elf-king held up his hand, “Simply so I can fulfill that first promise?”

“What else?”

“Why not this instead?” He pulled out a small silver mirror from his pocket and held it up.

“And that is?”

“A means to contact me directly. No travel involved. You find your wizard and speak my name to the reflection, and I can take the wizard’s body and appear to you. Avoids all the bureaucracy, not to mention hiring a guide back.”

I just knew that the elf-king had an ulterior motive, but when it came down to it, avoiding a return under the hill was a good thing. “Fine, the mirror will do for that. Any way you can get us close to Elhared, even if you don’t know where he is.”

“As close as possible.”

“Also, I had a companion who assisted me in recovering these rings—”

“This begins to border on tedium.”

“His name is Brock, and I need to know he’s safe—”

The elf-king’s smile was gone. “This I will tell you free, Frank Blackthorne. The man you know as Brock is safe as can be for a man whose destiny has yet to be fulfilled. He shall remain unharmed until he saves his princess.”

He leaned forward, coming close to scowling at me over his steepled fingers. “Are there any more demands?”

I was at a loss. I had already gotten what I thought I wanted from the elf-king, but it seemed wrong to end it at that. With this much leverage, I should get something for my own efforts.

I looked down at myself. My feet were bare and streaked with mud, I wore the squire’s long shirt that had pulled out of my breeches, and it sported streaks of mud and leaves. The squire’s breeches hung down on me, bagging around my ankles now there were no boots to fit them into. “I want a chance to clean myself up, and some new practical traveling clothes that actually fit me.”

The elf-king couldn’t stop himself from laughing again, despite still glaring at me. “Yes, yes, of course. You’ll have the finest clothes of elven manufacture if only for the amusement you’ve given me.”

“We have an agreement?”

“Yes!” He clapped. “More than that. You have my pledge, my vow, and my solemn oath. Your every request will be met.” He stood and extended his hand. “The ring?”

I opened my fist and looked at the three rings I’d liberated. “Which one?”

“The one on the right.”

I picked up the plain band and the elf-king’s face went paler than usual. “No!
Not
that one. My right, your left.”

I dropped the plain band and picked up the filigree ring to the elf-king’s obvious relief. When we were talking earlier, I’d suspected that the elves’ definition of “plain ring” was somewhat different than mine.

I handed it to him and he shook his head. “I thought I’d outsmarted myself there for a moment.”

He probably had.

I knew that I had been conned, but only because I had allowed myself to be. I knew there were a lot of other uncomfortable demands I could have made upon him. Judging by the relief he showed upon receiving his ring, I probably could have gotten most of them. I made the mistake of believing that I had used that threat to negotiate just what I wanted, without any strings.

Looking back, my naïveté is somewhat embarrassing.

“Frank Blackthorne, you will always be welcome here.” He held up the ring so it glittered in front of him. “You, and the complications you create, are fascinating.”

He called for some guards to escort me, and as they led me away, he called after me, “Remember, Frank Blackthorne, I always keep my promises.”

 • • • 

They took me to a room in the palace that, while frigid, was warm enough for me to clean myself off. Once I got the last of the mud and ale off of me, and felt human again, it sunk in that I was thinking of this as cleaning
myself
off—not the princess. I didn’t know what was more uncomfortable, the realization that I was now thinking of this body as my own, or the impulse I had, upon that realization, to force myself into thinking that body was alien territory and I needed to be embarrassed or ashamed of treating it so casually.

I was very happy that they had clothes waiting for me.

As I got dressed, and fumbled with some of the more feminine undergarments, I kept muttering, “We need to find my body. We really need to find my body.”