by Patty Jansen
The dragon lowered its head, letting out a low hiss.
“Stand back!” Henrik raised the bow again.
“Don’t!” Nellie said. Did he really think a puny weapon like that would make an impression on a dragon?
The dragon turned its head to her. Both orange eyes met hers. It blew out, and Nellie could feel the warmth of its breath.
The dragon looked at her, and she looked at the dragon. It had grown far too large to go back into the box, and there was no way she could subdue it by covering it with an apron.
But why was it here? She had given it freedom.
It wanted to come back.
No, she wished it to come back. Ultimately, it wasn’t her dragon. It belonged in the box, and the box belonged to Prince Bruno. But Prince Bruno had been dead ten years and the poor dragon didn’t have a master.
The kitten still sat in princely fashion between the dragon’s shoulder blades. It was looking at Nellie, too.
Once, when King Roald was still alive, a wild boar wandered into the palace garden. The guards were all atizz and telling the king not to go outside until they caught and shot it.
But the king said, “I saw it run across the lawn with some of our dogs. Animals know when something is evil and won’t go near it. The boar is lost. If we leave it alone, it will eat some dogs’ food and then go back to where it came from.”
And that was exactly what had happened.
The kitten was not afraid of the dragon. In fact, it seemed to like it. The dragon was also happy being in Nellie’s room.
For whatever reason, the dragon had ended up with her. It had taken swipes at the church deacons, Lord Verdonck and Madame Sabine. It had not attacked her even if she had been forceful in getting it back into the box.
Nellie wanted no one else to have it. Not Adalbert Verdonck, the witch Julianna, Madame Sabine, or the Regent. She didn’t want the Guentherite monks to have it, or the church. Not while Shepherd Wilfridus ruled the main church.
Nellie had no magic and knew little about it, but this dragon was hers. If Prince Bruno was still alive, she would keep it in custody until she could deliver it to him.
She stepped into the doorway to the room and held out her hand.
“No, come away from the door,” Henrik said.
“You don’t understand. I have to do this, because so many people want this dragon, and they all want to do ill with it. It has accepted my custody. It’s my responsibility to make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”
“Nellie, I don’t want anything to happen to you. You’re the only reason that a little light shines in the darkness of my life. I never thought I’d find it again after Martha died.”
Nellie stared at him, dumbstruck.
He was—what?—two or three years older than her. She wanted to laugh and ask if he didn’t think he was too old for declarations of eternal love.
But he was not joking about any of this—that was clear in his expression.
And she was utterly taken by surprise. Yes, he had shown more interest in her recently. She’d had no idea that his wife had died until this afternoon. She had no idea he had even remembered her from back when they lived in the same street. She had no idea that the thing that had stopped them getting together back then was the same thing that ruled the rest of her life: her father.
“Just come away from the door,” Henrik said, his voice kind. The lamp lit his face from below.
Nellie took his hand, which was warm and dry. He still held the bow with his other hand, but the dragon didn’t seem interested in violent action. If anything, it looked curious. Like mistress Johanna’s tree, it was not good or evil until instructed to perform acts of good or evil.
Henrik pulled her out of the room and pulled the door shut before the dragon’s snout. “You must run. People will find the dragon here. They will know you were the last servant of the palace to see Lord Verdonck alive. They know you brought him herb tea.”
“I had nothing to do with his death. He was already ill.”
“I know, but they’ll readily believe otherwise. They might even know whose daughter you are and they might draw any kind of conclusions from any of those things. They might think you stole the dragon from the church. Or that you tried to infiltrate the church with evil.”
“I did none of that.” And what was this about whose daughter you are? Her father had been nothing more than a bookkeeper and the only sign of his discontent had been in his “book of thoughts”, right? Just what sort of rumours circulated about him?
“You’re not at fault, but once they find this creature, they’ll recall whatever rumours others tell about your father’s knowledge. They’ll know they are right and you are wrong about everything. Once people see this dragon, no one will believe you, or think you should be alive.”
It was true, and she realised the horror in his words. What could she do? Her home was in the palace. She had nowhere else to go.
“There is an empty warehouse at the east end of the harbour. You can find shelter there.”
“I don’t want to run. I have nowhere else to go.”
“They’ll put you in jail. They’re looking for excuses not to have to jail monks. You make a much better criminal. They’ll tell the Regent you were upset that Lord Verdonck refused to pay you for services and so you poisoned him.”
“I did no such thing!”
“Shhh. I know, but that’s what they’ll say. I’ve seen this before. When something bad happens, people want someone to blame. They can’t blame those in power without endangering themselves, so they’ll jump on rumours about ordinary citizens. It happened during the reign of the Fire Wizard, too.”
“But . . .”
“Go. I want to see you safe.” And as she stared into his face, he bent over and brushed his lips over her forehead. “Go. I’m serious.”
“I need to get my warm clothes.”
“Be quick.”
Her clothes were in the room and there was still a dragon in the room. If she were to leave the palace, she didn’t want to leave it behind. People would try to kill it, and they would kill themselves trying. She went into the room, almost hitting the dragon in the nose with the door.
She touched its neck—it was warm and dry—and it made a kind of purring noise.
“Did you teach it to do that?” she asked the kitten.
It only responded with a meeeeeeww.
Nellie took her satchel and stuffed handfuls of clothes inside, including her warm knitted jumpers and her jacket and woollen socks. Then the box and her mother’s few treasures. The Book of Verses went in as well.
“There she is!” a voice yelled at the bottom of the stairs.
By the Triune, had Maartje warned the other guards?
Nellie tied up the satchel, hung it over her shoulder and went into the corridor. A couple of palace guards had come down the stairs.
“It’s all under control!” Henrik yelled at them, but he whispered to her, “Run, Nellie!”
Nellie hurried towards the dark end of the corridor. It led to the laundry and there was a little door that—when it wasn’t stuck—gave access to the courtyard, but she had barely entered the laundry when people came in from that direction, too.
“Wait.” Henrik caught up with her, holding the lamp in one hand and his bow in the other.
Behind them were the guards who had come down the stairs. In front of them were a couple of stable hands who had come in through the laundry.
The guards exchanged surprised looks with Henrik. “We have to arrest her. She has killed Lord Verdonck. She has the dragon.”
“She has not killed the lord, and she deserves a fair hearing.”
“I have done nothing!” Nellie called over the top of them. “I looked after Lord Verdonck when he fell ill.”
One of the guards said, “That’s just old women’s ramblings. We have never found anyone who could have slipped him poison. Are you sure you haven’t borrowed some of the lord’s
wine?”
“You’re just making that up!” She looked at Henrik. “Tell them the truth. I did nothing.”
“Fine, we’ll arrest you for contradicting the guard.”
The man lunged for Nellie’s arm but only got a handful of her sleeve because she quickly withdrew her arm.
She protested. “I want to be heard by the Regent!”
They laughed.
And Nellie couldn’t win because Madame Sabine only needed to say one word about stealing Lord Verdonck’s possessions.
Another man was now grabbing her arms from behind.
And Henrik . . . he did nothing. He stared, his mouth open in horror, as his colleagues restrained Nellie and dragged her to the stairs.
“Nellie,” he mouthed. “No.”
“Help me! I’ve done nothing. Help me!”
He mouthed, “I can’t. They’d kill me.”
At that moment, there was an almighty crash down the corridor, like the splintering of wood and a hiss of fire. The door to Nellie’s room burst into fire and flew outward in pieces.
A clawed paw came out, and then a snout and a head with two fierce orange eyes. A set of pointed ears.
The dragon blew out a breath of smoke.
Several of the guards turned around and drew weapons. But if they didn’t burn up in the dragon’s breath, their arrows merely glanced off the dragon’s head.
The creature came into the corridor. It seemed as if it had grown again as it barely fitted through the door. Its wings trailed on the ground. The kitten still sat between its shoulder blades.
A guard yelled, “Shoot all at the same time. Now!”
A volley of arrows flew through the hallway. The dragon shook its head as they all glanced off and fell to the floor.
The dragon came closer. A guard threw a dagger which also glanced off. The dragon stepped on it on its way forward. It hissed.
“Run!” a man called.
A few people ran up the stairs. Someone yelled, “Get out of the way, it’s down here!”
The guards closed around Nellie. The smell of their sweat drifted on the air.
“Am I dreaming or is there a kitten sitting on its back?” one said.
“It’s a black cat. It’s evil.”
The guard at the front yelled, “After three we charge. One . . . two . . .”
He didn’t get to three.
The dragon jumped forwards and pushed the guards aside. They fell and screamed and scrambled up the stairs calling for reinforcements.
The dragon grabbed the collar of Nellie’s coat. She couldn’t help let out a squeal. “Hey, what are you doing?”
It dragged her through the corridor while the guards were scrambling out of the way. The dragon’s feet crunched over bows and arrows they dropped, breaking them as if they were mere sticks.
Then it galloped to the far end, past the stairs, past the door to the kitchen. All Nellie could do was pull her legs out of the way of its claws.
It was going way too fast and the door at the end was shut—
The dragon jumped against the door with both front paws and pushed the door right off its hinges. As a blast of cold air hit Nellie in the face, the dragon jumped out into the night—and never hit the ground in the yard. The giant wings unfolded. It flew right over the back wall of the palace yard, with Nellie holding on for dear life.
The screams of the guards faded in the distance.
Thanks for Reading
Thank you for reading The Bastard Prince. Book 2 in the Dragonspeaker Chronicles is called The Wizard Priest. Find out more about this book on my website.
About the Author
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PATTY JANSEN lives in Sydney, Australia, where she spends most of her time writing Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her story This Peaceful State of War placed first in the second quarter of the Writers of the Future contest and was published in their 27th anthology. She has also sold fiction to genre magazines such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Redstone SF and Aurealis.
Her novels (available at ebook venues) include Shifting Reality (hard SF), The Far Horizon (middle grade SF), Charlotte’s Army (military SF) and The Icefire Trilogy consisting of Fire & Ice, Dust & Rain and Blood & Tears (dark fantasy).
Patty is on Twitter (@pattyjansen), Facebook, LinkedIn, goodreads, LibraryThing, google+ and blogs at: http://pattyjansen.com/.
More by This Author
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Quick link to all Patty Jansen’s books
In the Earth-Gamra space-opera universe
RETURN OF THE AGHYRIANS
Watcher’s Web
Trader’s Honour
Soldier’s Duty
Heir’s Revenge
The Return of the Aghyrians Omnibus
The Far Horizon (For younger readers)
AMBASSADOR
Seeing Red
The Sahara Conspiracy
Raising Hell
Changing Fate
Coming Home
Blue Diamond Sky
The Enemy Within
The Last Frontier
The Alabaster Army
HARD SCIENCE FICTION
In the ISF-Allion universe
Shifting Reality
Shifting Infinity
Charlotte’s Army
Juno Rising
Space Agent Jonathan Bartell
Contamination
Observation
Extermination
EPIC FANTASY
Ghostspeaker Chronicles
(formerly For Queen And Country)
Innocence Lost
Willow Witch
The Idiot King
Fire Wizard
The Dragon Prince
The Necromancer’s Daughter
Dragonspeaker Chronicles
The Bastard Prince
The Wizard Priest
The Dragon King
Epic, Post-apocalyptic Fantasy
ICEFIRE TRILOGY
Fire & Ice
Dust & Rain
Blood & Tears
The Icefire Trilogy Omnibus
MOONFIRE TRILOGY
Sand & Storm
Sea & Sky
Moon & Earth
Short story collections
Out Of Here
New Horizons
Self-publishing (Non-fiction)
Self-publishing Unboxed
Mailing Lists Unboxed
Going Wide Unboxed
Visit the author’s website at http://pattyjansen.com and register for a newsletter to keep up-to-date with new releases.
