Dragon and the Princess

by Jo Beverley

  For all that meant, Rozlinda thought. She knew they had a queen, but the queen didn’t seem to rule. Instead there were tribes and councils, partly elected and partly appointed, perhaps by inheritance, and everything seemed to be connected to dragons one way or another.

  It made no sense to normal people, and his name, with its rolled r at the beginning and end, sounded like a multisyllabic roar. At least he obviously held high rank. She couldn’t help being glad that she wasn’t being snatched up by some vagrant.

  She couldn’t tell if this Rouar’s words meant more to her father than they did to her, but he seemed to have no further resistance to offer.

  “Very well, Seyer Rouar. We must agree. We will all return to the White Castle so arrangements can be made—”

  “We will be married here. The Priest of the Blood has the spiritual power, and you, Your Majesty, along with your council, have the right of approval.”

  Now her father flushed red. “Come, come, you must allow my daughter time. Court her a little. Let her gather her bridal chest.”

  “Alas, I cannot. We must return to Dorn immediately. My wife may return to visit her family later, if she still wishes to.”

  “If I still wish to! Of course I will. When will this ‘later’ be?”

  “Let us say a half year.”

  “A half year? I’m to be a prisoner until then?”

  “No. You are to be a wife. A wife stays with her husband.”

  “You could accompany me back here.”

  “I have duties.”

  “All the time?”

  “For the next half year.”

  Rozlinda wanted to snap that she did, too, but in truth her only duty was to be the Sacrificial Virgin Princess and that was over. Except for marrying the dragon slayer.

  And presumably ceasing to be a virgin with him. She shivered in a deeper way and cast a frantic glance at Jerrott. He was staring grimly at the horizon.

  “How can you be so heartless?” she demanded, hating to be reduced to pleading.

  “Princess, I can be as heartless as I must.” It was a flat warning that denied any hope of escape. “Are you a child to cling to your home so?”

  “It is not childish to value family, sir. I pity you if you do not!”

  “Oh, I do, Princess. This is all about family, as you will learn. Priest, pray thee, do your work.”

  Pray thee. The first word he’d used that wasn’t quite right. How did he know Saragondan so well when Saragond and Dorn never interacted beyond this one ceremony?

  A sense of not knowing, of not understanding, swept through Rozlinda like a cold draft. Uneasy men rustled all around. Below, silent faces stared up. Had they any idea what was happening?

  The priest stepped forward. “Er . . . do you assent to use the Saragondan ceremony, sir?”

  “Of course.”

  Reverend Elawin looked around as if hoping someone would intervene, but then raised his practiced, sonorous voice. “Then I declare that all present are witness to the wish of these two, Seyer Rouar of—”

  “Just Rouar,” the Dornaan interrupted.

  The priest gaped, but picked up. “Of these two—Rouar of Dorn and Rozlinda of Saragond, princess of the royal house, Sacrificial Virgin of the blood, revered sacrifice to the dragon . . .”

  Rozlinda listened numbly as her attributes rolled out and the ceremony began. When asked if she willingly and joyfully chose Rouar of Dorn as her husband, she looked from face to face to face. “How can I say yes?”

  “Leave out the joyfully,” the Dornaan said. “I assume the princess is willing to do her duty for her people.”

  “Do you, Rozlinda, willingly choose Rouar of Dorn as your husband?”

  Rozlinda delayed, sure that something, someone, had to intervene. Nothing did. She whispered, “Yes.”

  When the priest put the same question to the Dornaan, his answer was firm.

  Reverend Elawin produced his knife. Rozlinda muttered, “More blood,” but she didn’t protest as he jabbed the fine point into the pad of her hand and then into the pad of the Dornaan’s, nor as her wound was pressed to his.

  “Thus you become one,” the priest intoned. “May blessings rain upon you, bringing prosperity and fertility in your home and in your land. And,” he added hesitantly, “may the blood continue through you.”

  That phrase was used only at the wedding of a princess of the blood. “Is that what this is about?” Rozlinda asked. “You want princesses of the blood for yourselves?”

  “Something like that.”

  She had to admit that made sense. “Will that mean your dragons won’t invade?”

  “I cannot say, Rozlinda.”

  It was the first time he’d said her name, but his doing so didn’t help because the word came strangely from his mouth, with a throat-rolled r and the i stretched almost to an ee.

  He spoke a foreign language. His people spoke a foreign language. They probably all looked as peculiar as he did, and had strange, even offensive smells and customs. She looked around frantically again, but he hissed something like, “Zupsisi.”

  And the dragon moved.

  Rozlinda yelped and backed away, but the man locked her against him as the dragon heaved onto its front, got its legs under it and then rose.

  “It’s alive!” she protested, yanking against the imprisoning arms. She twisted to face her father and the knights. “He tricked us! That has to invalidate the ceremony.”

  Her father was slack-jawed, but said, “A wedding is a wedding. . . .”

  “It can’t be.”

  “There is nothing,” the Dornaan’s deep, emotionless voice said, “that says the dragon must be dead. Only that the man must lay it low and place his foot upon its neck.”

  “All the same . . .” But then she yelled, “Stop it!”

  She was shouting at the dragon, which had circled its long neck to point its huge, red, flaring nostrils right at her face. The point of its long tongue flickered in and out. No one could doubt that deep in its dragon-beast mind it was thinking, Yum, yum. More princess blood. It was even drooling a viscous yellow and pink stuff.

  The man wasn’t controlling her anymore. She was clutching his arms for protection.

  “Seesee, behave,” he said.

  If a dragon could pout, this one did, but it moved its head away, circling it on the long, flexible neck as if inspecting king, knight, priest and councilors. They all flinched back. Then it poked its head off the hill and breathed at the crowd below. Horses reared.

  “Seesee!”

  The head coiled back to be tucked on the beast’s back, perhaps chastened, perhaps sulking. By the blood, the monster behaved like a poorly trained puppy.

  “You see, wife, we must go. This is too difficult for her.”

  The Dornaan said something and then picked Rozlinda up in his arms. The dragon had already lowered its neck, and he ran up it to a crest of horn at its shoulders, to place her sideways in a dip behind. She clutched the horn, looking down, stunned, at the equally stunned watchers. The Dornaan slid astride behind her and said, “Go.”

  The dragon leapt, beating its enormous wings and stirring a stormlike rumble. Rozlinda couldn’t believe it could raise its mass, but then it soared like paper on a breeze. Below, Dragon’s Rock, father, knights and all she’d ever known shrank smaller and smaller in her horrified vision.

  When she saw her home, turrets shining in the sun, pennants bright and lively in a breeze, she burst into tears, sobbing against the velvety warmth of the dragon’s bony crest.

  Chapter 4

  Rozlinda’s tears ended as tears must, even when the cause persists. She simply rested there, limp and exhausted. What calm she felt was probably from hralla tea. That must explain why she hadn’t thrown a fit earlier, and all in all she was glad of it. It wouldn’t have done her an
y good.

  No one could afford to break protocol again. If this was her fate, she would be brave.

  She swallowed and straightened—and became aware of being in a man’s lap, of his hot hard presence down her left side. She was finally touching a man, in many places, and he was her husband. She shied away from that thought, fixing instead on a simpler problem—her runny nose.

  “The costume of the Sacrificial Virgin Princess doesn’t include a handkerchief.”

  “The clothing of the seyer of the dragon’s womb doesn’t include one, either. Use the bandage on your arm.”

  Teeth gritted at his tone, she did as he suggested, taking in the state of her gown for the first time. When she’d put it on, it had been stained only around the hem. Now green dust covered it, smeared deep in places by her dirty hands. With a grimace, she wiped them as clean as she could on the silk. The dress was ruined beyond hope, anyway.

  Yet it was all she possessed. She was leaving home without money and with only the clothes she wore—ruined, impractical clothing that hadn’t fit her well in the first place.

  She would not cry again. Presumably, a husband would provide clothing for his wife. And she had done her duty. A harder one than she’d expected, yet still she had done it. For her people and her family. Legends would be woven about Princess Rozlinda of Saragond.

  “Mother stone,” she said, still looking at her gown for fear of looking anywhere else. “You will send it this time?”

  “Of course.”

  She felt his voice as well as heard it, which was perhaps why his tone seemed softer, even kinder.

  “Everything will now be as it should be, Princess. I promise.”

  She turned her head to look at him, but he was too close and everything about him was too strange. When she looked away, she saw the ground far, far below. And realized it didn’t bother her.

  “How peculiar not to mind flying.”

  “A blessing.”

  “I suppose so. Cold, though.”

  He put his arms around her, sharing his startling warmth. With that added to the heat of the dragon, she wasn’t unbearably cold. What’s more, riding a dragon could be seen as a privilege. Had any other Saragondan ever seen their country from this elevation?

  She’d almost persuaded herself that she was content with her situation when the dragon tilted in flight. Sitting sideways in silk, Rozlinda began to slide. She clutched the man’s arm, hoping his seat was secure. She breathed again, but then the dragon tilted forward, tucked its wings, and dove downward.

  Rozlinda shrieked, and kept on shrieking all the way down, blank with terror. She only breathed again when the dragon opened its wings and leveled out. She was still panting when it landed delicately in a field.

  She was inhaling to yell her outrage when the Dornaan rose with her still in his arms, put her down, took her hand, and tugged her at a run down shoulder and leg to the ground. The footing was rough, which helped, but she squealed as she went and then crashed against him.

  She thumped him with her fists, spitting out pent fury. “You beast. You monster. I could have broken my neck.”

  Then she stared. For the briefest moment, humor had lit his eyes. It disappeared as if a door had been slammed, but at least he wasn’t dead to emotions. She was scrabbling for scraps and she knew it, but her unwanted husband’s ability to smile, maybe, was a comfort.

  But then she grew wary. “Why have we stopped here? So far from Dorn.”

  “Seesee can’t carry us for long periods, especially without eating.”

  “Eating?” Rozlinda’s voice squeaked with fear, because, of course, if this man wanted to feed her to his dragon, it would hardly have been diplomatic to do it in front of her people. How to get her away to this isolated spot? Marry her.

  Hot, acrid breath made her whirl. The dragon’s tongue was flickering toward her. She edged away, but the dragon stretched its neck and its glistening tongue grew longer and longer. She looked wildly toward the man, but of course he wouldn’t help. Even so, she whispered, “Please?”

  “Seesee.” He went to pound on the dragon’s nose, but sounded indulgent. “She’s only being friendly,” he said to Rozlinda.

  “No, she isn’t. She wants to eat me.”

  “Don’t be silly. Seesee, stop.”

  The tongue slurped back in.

  It wasn’t that so much as the word silly that calmed Rozlinda’s terror to mere fright. Surely he wouldn’t call her silly if her fears were true. She inhaled and exhaled, making herself calm.

  The Dornaan had taken a forked stick off his belt and was scratching the beast’s eye ridges with it. The dragon seemed almost to purr.

  “So your dragon—”

  “Our dragon—if anyone possesses one, which no one does.”

  “Ours?”

  “Is it not Saragondan law, too, that in marriage all is shared?”

  “More or less.” Saragondan marital property law was complex, especially for princesses, but if he wanted to share everything, she wasn’t going to argue. Talk of such practicalities eased her fears even more. Her heartbeat settled.

  She wasn’t about to be eaten.

  To show she wasn’t afraid—much—she walked closer. She ended up near an enormous nostril, assailed by dragon breath, so she turned her head away—to find herself looking into a huge, red-gold shimmering eye. It blinked a dark gray eyelid and then dazzled her again.

  “Is that where dragon-eye jewels come from? From their eyes?”

  “Their eyes are eyes and decay when they die. Dragon-eye stones are so called because they resemble them.”

  For some reason that calmed her, too. It appeared she had no escape from this situation, so she needed information. Lots of it.

  “There’s no pupil. How does she see?”

  “Seesee, show your eye.”

  A gold layer slid upward, revealing red centered with a darker red pupil. Then the golden membrane dropped again.

  Rozlinda turned to the Dornaan. “Does she speak Saragondan, then?”

  “She doesn’t speak at all.”

  “Very well, does she understand Saragondan? And if so, why?”

  “She probably only understands my inner voice. My thoughts, if you like. It works better if I speak at the same time, but the language doesn’t matter. I use your language out of courtesy to you.”

  Rozlinda considered this. It helped to concentrate on practical things.

  Not on being snatched from her home and family.

  Not on being taken to a land of strangers.

  Not on being this man’s wife—with all that implied.

  Seesee butted up against her, almost as if in comfort.

  Rozlinda flinched away. “Does she understand my thoughts?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She backed away. “This is intolerable. I can’t bear it. Ow!” She clutched her crown, turning to find the dragon nibbling at her veil. “Stop it!”

  A bit more veil went into the mouth, forcing her to step closer or lose some hair. Then the dragon sucked. Rozlinda staggered hard against its nose, trying to save her scalp. “Do something!” she yelled.

  “Tak!”

  The dragon spat out the veil. The end was a lump of yellowy slime.

  “Ugh, ugh, ugh!” Rozlinda exclaimed, staggering away. “It’s disgusting.”

  A moment later, she was buffeted by dust and wind as the dragon launched into flight.

  “You’ve upset her.”

  She turned slowly to the man. “I’ve upset her? Be she toddler or puppy, she should be trained not to damage things. My veil is ruined, my dress is ruined, and in case you haven’t noticed, because you insisted on dragging me away like this, I—have—no—other—clothes!”

  She was shrieking like a hawker in the marketplace, but she wanted her home, she
wanted her mother, she even wanted Mistress Arcelsia and Lady Petrulla. And above all, she wanted a hot bath and some ordinary, clean clothes.

  “Is this how you treat a woman, a princess of the blood, even, in Dorn? Is this how you treat a wife? Then, sir, I pity all Dornaan women.”

  He was like a rock buffeted by a breeze. “I truly am sorry, Princess, but it had to be. I cannot amend it, but I do have clothes for you.”

  Deflated, she watched him shift a pile of stones and pull out the bag she’d seen in her vision. Then he extracted a second one, carried it over to her, and took out clothing.

  Rozlinda stared, unable to believe the final indignity. “I cannot wear those.”

  He looked at the bright yellow hose, then back at her. “Why not?”

  “They’ll show my legs.”

  “Yes?”

  “In Saragond, a lady of any degree of respectability does not show her legs above the calf. Or do they go under a gown?”

  He held up the green tunic, which she had to admit was very prettily embroidered with flowers.

  “If that reaches midthigh, I’ll be surprised.”

  “You may have mine if you wish.”

  “Which will reach no lower than my knees.” She truly wasn’t intending to be difficult, and he appeared to be trying to help, so she said, “Thank you, Sir Rouar, but I’ll put up with slime until you can find me something decent.”

  “That can’t be until we reach Dorn, so I recommend the boots at least. Those shoes aren’t suitable for walking.”

  “Walking?”

  “Seesee cannot carry us all the time.”

  She took a deep breath. “You expect me to walk to Dorn?”

  “Only now and then.”

  She desperately wanted to hit him. “And then climb the Shield, perhaps?”

  “No, she’ll carry us over there.”

  What would happen if she set off to walk back home? Surely no one would expect a princess of the blood to put up with this. That was one reason to change into the low, green boots.

  “If they fit, I’ll wear them,” she conceded.

  After a moment, it became clear that he wasn’t going to remove her slippers and help her with the boots. Seething, she found a rock and sat to do it herself, trying to calculate how far it was back to the castle.