The Flight of Dragons

by Vivian French

  The king looked up in surprise. “What’s the matter? Broken something, have you?”

  “No. But that paper — the one Princess F. asked me to put up in the marketplace. A couple of girls took it away. . . . D’you reckon that’s OK? They were a bit peculiar, if you know what I mean. But they said Saturday knew them. Relations or something.”

  King Horace was doubtful. What would Fedora say? But then a splendid thought came to him. If there were no applicants, surely then he could persuade the pretty little thing to reinstate his own well-loved servants. “That’s fine,” he said firmly. “Don’t you worry about it. Now, let’s have that toast.”

  Bobby trotted away, and the king made his plans for the rest of the evening. After eating his toast, he decided, he would wander across the park to see what Mrs. Basket was cooking. And if Trout was there, so much the better. A game of checkers after a good meal would be perfect. And perhaps he could make sure he was safely tucked up in bed before Tertius and Fedora got back.

  King Horace pulled himself together with an effort. He was, he told himself firmly, very fond of his new daughter-in-law. Seeing Bobby coming back through the door with a plate piled high, he decided to concentrate on the good things in life. He did, however, resolve to leave Mrs. Basket’s house in plenty of time to allow for an early night.

  Bobby, after a happy half hour spent eating the king’s crusts with a quite excessive amount of butter, went back to the kitchen.

  Saturday Mousewater was staring into the flames of the kitchen range, and she jumped as he came in. “ ’Tis very lonely, only us being here, like.” Her voice was quiet.

  Bobby sat himself on the table, his legs swinging. “There’ll be more of us tomorrow. Princess F. sent me to put a notice up in the marketplace. Met a couple of your relations, by the way. Odd-looking girls, they were. Twins.”

  Saturday looked puzzled. “They said as they was related? To me?”

  “Yep.”

  “I suppose as they might be cousins.” Saturday frowned. “Twenty-eight aunties I have, so it’s not impossible, like. My ol’ gran did tell me a tale once of an auntie who upped and married a dreadful scary man, but she never did tell me his name. A lot of drinking, that’s what he got up to. And singing songs. Songs that were”— Saturday dropped her voice to a whisper —“not nice to hear, if you gets my meaning.”

  “Let’s hope it’s nothing to do with him, then.” Bobby jumped down. “Fancy another game of hide-and-seek?”

  “Are you sure ’tis all right?” Saturday’s eyes were wide. “Don’t want to get into no trouble, like.”

  “Sure as sure. His Maj is out, and we’ll hear soon enough when the others get back. You hide, and I’ll count to a hundred!”

  It wasn’t until the following morning that Gracie and Marcus set off on their expedition to find Marlon’s great-uncle Alvin. All three of the Ancient Crones had advised against traveling in the pouring rain, and Marlon had volunteered to take a message to Professor Scallio explaining that Marcus was going to stay the night. The professor would then pass the message on to Gorebreath Palace, even though Marcus was convinced his devoted parents would not give his absence a second thought.

  “They’re much too busy looking after Nina-Rose,” he explained to Edna as he and Gracie washed up the pots and pans after the evening meal. “And all Arry does is gaze at her with soupy eyes and tell her how lovely she is. He wouldn’t notice if I was missing for weeks on end. Yuck. It’s all pretty disgusting, if you ask me.”

  The Ancient One gave him a thoughtful look. “Hmm. Well, I think we’ll play it safe. After what Marlon’s told me, the last thing we want are royal armies tramping all over the kingdoms, looking for a missing prince. Now, remember, both of you: if Marlon’s great-uncle does happen to know anything about the dragons, you’re to go straight to Wadingburn to tell the professor. You can send Alf to tell me.”

  Marcus stared at her. “But what if the egg’s due to hatch? I’ve worked it all out from what Marlon said. If the dragon was seventy when the dragons were thrown out and that was eighty years ago, then the egg should hatch any minute —”

  Edna held up a hand for silence, her blue eye stern. “At this precise moment, Prince Marcus, we don’t even know that there is an egg, so I see no point in worrying about that particular possibility. Neither do we know the age of the Niven’s Knowe dragons, so any speculation is a waste of time.” And soon afterward she suggested that Marcus go off to bed, in a tone of voice that allowed for no refusal.

  Gracie lingered downstairs, aware that the Ancient One was far more troubled than she was admitting. “Are you all right, Auntie Edna?”

  Edna gave her a fond half smile. “Bless the child. That’s the trouble with Truehearts. They always see through to the truth. No, dear, I’m worried. Worried sick — but don’t tell that prince of yours. He’s a good boy, but he’s not as steady as you. He thinks it’s all a fantastic adventure, whereas I’m afraid things might get rather serious.” She sat down at the kitchen table. “I’m almost sure that there is a dragon’s egg somewhere in the Five Kingdoms, and I believe the dragons are beginning to look for it; the way Marlon described their behavior would fit perfectly. And if the powers of evil find out — well. Then there’ll be terrible trouble. They’ll do anything to get ahold of it. The web’s growing rougher and rougher, so there’s definitely danger brewing . . . and it looks to me like evil. Evil of the very nastiest kind.” The Ancient One sounded very weary.

  “But if we can find the egg before anyone else does,” Gracie said soothingly, “surely it’ll all be OK? Great- Uncle Alvin might even know where we should look. And then all we have to do is take it back to — Oh! Where ARE the dragons, Auntie Edna?”

  “The dragons have always lived in the Seven-Mile Caves, far beyond the Wild Enchanted Forest. A long way away from here. And you’re quite right, Gracie dear. That would solve the problem beautifully.” Edna’s one blue eye lit up. “The dragons would be thrilled if a Trueheart brought their son or daughter back to them. . . . They believe an egg is always influenced by the company it keeps just before hatching. Of course, the mother dragon always tries to be there, but sometimes that just isn’t possible.”

  “So if someone nasty found it,” Gracie wanted to know, “would the dragon be born evil?”

  Edna sighed. “It would. And what’s worse, whoever found it would be twice as bad themselves. The imminent birth of any new creature is always a time when the forces of good and evil gather strength, and unfortunately the evil ones are particularly skilled at harnessing this for their own hideous aims.”

  For a moment Gracie didn’t say anything. “So it works both ways?” she said at last.

  The Ancient One nodded, and Gracie gave her one of her beaming smiles. “That could be useful,” she said, “because I really want to find that egg, and I really want to take it home to its parents. Marcus said he’d take me to see a flight of dragons for my birthday — maybe this is the perfect opportunity!”

  “Spoken like the Trueheart you are, dearest girl.” Edna stood up. “But we still don’t know if we’re making a fuss about nothing. Now, off you go to bed. You’ve got an early start in the morning.”

  Gracie kissed the Ancient One good night, but it took her a while to get to sleep. Although half of her was excited by the thought of an adventure, the other half was apprehensive. Let’s hope Great-Uncle Alvin has the answers, she told herself. And then if there is an egg, Marcus and I can go find it. I wonder if we’ll be able to watch it hatch? I’d absolutely love to see a baby dragon. And she finally closed her eyes.

  It seemed no time at all before she was woken by Gubble banging loudly on her door. The door, offended at such rough treatment so early in the morning, slid swiftly up to the ceiling, and Gracie sighed. “Gubble!” she called. “You’ve upset the door again. Could you go downstairs and put the kettle on? I’ll have to climb out of the window.”

  A loud grunt suggested that the troll had heard her, and G
racie got dressed as quickly as she could. “I do so wish I had my coat up here.” She spoke out loud and did her best to sound plaintive, while keeping a hopeful eye on the ceiling. “It’s going to be horribly wet climbing out of the window after all that rain — I’m going to get absolutely drenched.” At once the door slid back into place with an apologetic thud. Gracie looked at it gratefully. “Thank you so much. I’m very sorry about Gubble. He doesn’t know his own strength.” The door opened wide in response, and Gracie hopped through before it could change its mind. She found herself at the top of a flight of stairs and saw Marcus at the bottom, looking baffled.

  “I can’t find the WATER WINGS door anywhere,” he told her. “That is the kitchen, isn’t it? I’ve been searching for ages. I keep finding myself in room seventeen with the looms, and your auntie Elsie’s getting really tired of telling me which way to go.”

  “The whole house is a bit upset at the moment,” Gracie said. “It’s not a good sign. Did Auntie Elsie say how the web was looking?”

  Marcus rubbed his nose. “She was too busy trying to stop your stepsister from messing up her patterns. What does the web of power do, exactly? I mean, I know it’s kind of magic, but what’s it for?”

  Gracie made a quick sideways jump and caught hold of a door handle that was doing its best to sneak past unseen. As she led Marcus into the kitchen, she said, “I don’t think even the crones know quite how the web works. It mustn’t ever break — that I do know. I think it sort of holds good and evil in some kind of balance, if that makes any sense.”

  “Can it tell when something dangerous is about to happen?” Marcus wanted to know.

  He sounded so hopeful that Gracie couldn’t help smiling as she answered. “It changes all the time . . . and yes — it looks different when things are going wrong.”

  Marcus was delighted. “Your auntie Edna said it looked terrible yesterday. Come on! Let’s have breakfast, and then we can get going.”

  Breakfast was soon disposed of, but while Marcus was outside saddling his pony, Gracie was presented with an unexpected problem. Gubble, it seemed, was convinced he was to be one of the party.

  “But Gubble,” Gracie explained, “it’s only a visit to a bat. It’s Marlon’s great-uncle Alvin. We need to talk to him — that’s all.” Gubble grunted disagreement, and Gracie sighed. The last thing she wanted was to hurt his feelings, but he was not a speedy traveler. “Tell you what,” she suggested. “Why don’t you meet us at Wadingburn? We’re going to see the professor after we’ve been to Fracture, and if you went there directly, we’d probably arrive about the same time.” Gubble appeared to be wavering. “If things do happen to go wrong,” Gracie went on, “there won’t be any danger at Fracture — it’ll be somewhere inside the Five Kingdoms. And if we need you, I promise we’ll send Alf to find you and tell you. And you know I always keep my promises.”

  There was a long thoughtful silence while Gubble’s very small brain churned its way through Gracie’s suggestions. At last he came to a conclusion. “Gracie still angry.”

  “Why would I be angry with you?” Gracie asked in surprise.

  Gubble sighed. “Ate egg sandwiches.”

  “You ate the chocolate cake as well,” Gracie said, and she hugged him. “No. I’m not angry. Heavens, no. So will you meet us at Wadingburn? In the library?”

  There was a shorter silence, and then Gubble announced, “Niven’s Knowe. Gubble go to Niven’s Knowe.”

  Gracie smiled. “You’ve done it again, Gubble. I said ‘Heavens, no,’ not ‘Niven’s Knowe.’ And we aren’t going anywhere near there. Well . . .” She paused, and honesty made her add, “Not unless we find out there’s a dragon’s egg, and it’s about to hatch. If that happens, then yes. We will be going to Niven’s Knowe.”

  A mutinous expression settled over the troll’s flat face. “Gubble go to Niven’s Knowe.”

  “OK.” Gracie gave up. “If that’s what you want. We’ll come and collect you.” She gave him another hug, and the two of them walked outside to find Marcus waiting, with Glee beside him. The path to the front gate was doing its best to shape itself into a heart, and Gracie looked around suspiciously. “Is Alf here, by any chance?”

  “Present and correct!” A small shape whizzed around her head. “Are we ready, boys and girls? Are we steady? Oh! What’s the troll doing?”

  “He’s going to Niven’s Knowe,” Gracie told him. “He — he’s on a very special mission of his own. Aren’t you, Gubble?”

  Gubble nodded solemnly before stamping heavily on the end of the path. With a disappointed wriggle, it went back to its usual position, and Gubble stomped his way out through the gate. He made a sharp turn, then headed into the thickest of the bushes and began to follow his own particular version of a crow’s flight to Niven’s Knowe.

  “Wow.” Marcus sighed as he watched Gubble plow his way through the middle of an especially dense and prickly blackberry bush with no apparent problem. “Does anything ever stop him?”

  “Not much,” Gracie admitted. “Of course, he has to stop for a bit if his head falls off, but that doesn’t seem to have happened much lately. And he’s not too keen on rivers because he can’t swim. He has to hold his breath and walk along the bottom. He can hold his breath for ages, though.”

  Gubble was now well out of sight, but his continued progress could be tracked by the sound of crashing branches. Alf, feeling that quite enough attention had been paid to the troll, flew down onto Marcus’s shoulder. “Shouldn’t we be on our way, Mr. Prince?”

  “You’re right,” Marcus agreed. “Gracie, do you want to ride behind me? You’re light. Glee won’t mind. Later on we can walk for a bit so he doesn’t get tired out.”

  Gracie gave Alf a warning glance as she swung herself up onto Glee’s back, and he gazed up at the sky with the most innocent of expressions. “La-di-da,” he sang. “La-di-da.” Marcus touched Glee’s sides with his heels, and they trotted through the gate and steadily down the faint track that led between the trees. Behind them the path outside the house gave a couple of twitches before forming itself into a perfect heart.

  Princess Fedora, much fortified by an evening with her mother, Queen Kesta of Dreghorn — and even more fortified by having had the forethought to pack herself a large picnic breakfast before leaving the comforts of her old home — was ready to hold her interviews. Her mother had promised a return visit in a day or two, and Fedora was determined to have everything in order by the time she arrived. She had put out her best gold pen and a pad of crisp white paper, sharpened several pencils, tied her hair back with an efficient and business-like clip, insisted on Tertius hauling a very heavy desk into the palace dining room, settled herself behind it, decided it was too big and made him exchange it for a smaller desk from her own rooms, loosened her hair again, and finally settled herself in position. The Handbook of Palace Management was prominently displayed beside her.

  Tertius, still panting from his exertions, had gone for a walk. Fedora’s picnic breakfast had been for one person only, and he was brooding heavily on her selfishness as he strode about the grounds. King Horace had been seen some while earlier making a beeline for Mrs. Basket’s cottage, and Tertius longed to join him, but his loyalty to Fedora held him back. “Although it would jolly well serve her right if I had breakfast there,” he muttered. “And if I don’t get any lunch, I’m jolly well going to ask Mrs. Basket to come back to the palace. I’m going to take a stand; I really am. Father will back me up, and Feddy will just have to put up with it. So there.” And he marched on, feeling unusually forceful and determined.

  His young wife, equally determined to sort out the domestic affairs of the palace, rang the little bell on her desk. After rather too long a time for her liking, a somewhat flustered Saturday Mousewater appeared.

  “You’ll have to come quicker than that, Saturday,” Fedora told her. “And where’s your clean apron?”

  Saturday bobbed a curtsy. “If you please, ma’am, I was a-making the
beds before lighting the fires and washing the floors and tidying up in the kitchen when you did call.”

  “Oh.” The princess gave a gracious nod. “I see. Erm . . . yes. Very well. Could you ask the first applicants to come in, please? Ask them to form an orderly line, and remind them not to make too much noise while they’re waiting.”

  Saturday’s mouth opened and closed. “Applicants, miss — beg pardon — ma’am?”

  Fedora began to tap on the desk with her gold pen. “The people who have come for the jobs, Saturday. The new maidservants. The cooks.”

  Saturday pushed her mobcap back on her head so she could scratch her ear. “If you please, ma’am, there ain’t anyone.”

  “What? Are you sure? Isn’t there anybody waiting out there?”

  Fedora suddenly sounded very much younger, and Saturday, to her surprise, found herself feeling sorry for the princess. “There’s nobody at all, miss. Was you expecting them all to be at the back door, like? Or might some have come to the front?”

  “I suppose they might.” Fedora put her pen down. “Maybe it’s too early in the morning. What time do people usually come to interviews?”

  Saturday bobbed another curtsy. “I’m sure as I can’t really say, miss. But I’ll go and have another look just in case I missed someone, like.” She hurried away, leaving the young homemaker to have a quick check in her Handbook. Sadly, there was no entry entitled “What to do if nobody answers your advertisement.”

  I’m absolutely not going to ask Mrs. Basket to come back, Fedora told herself. I suppose I don’t mind if the footmen do . . . but not that horrid old woman.

  Saturday, meanwhile, was at the back door. In the distance she could just make out two skinny figures; they appeared to be slapping at each other rather than coming toward the palace, and she shut the door again. A quick peek out of the front door gave a better result. An enormous figure dressed all in white was — what was it doing? Saturday screwed up her eyes to try and make it out. The figure wasn’t walking. It seemed to be . . . billowing was the only word Saturday could think of. Billowing up the drive. It was carrying a substantial carpetbag under one arm, and tucked under the other was the advertisement that Bobby had been sent to pin up in the marketplace. Sitting on one huge shoulder was a crow: balding, broken-feathered, and peering about with a greedy stare. Saturday, spellbound, waited on the doorstep.