‘You must know I can’t eat anything here.’
‘Well, as you like,’ said the dragon. ‘ But it’s a shame. They usually put on quite a good spread for the princess.’
‘I’ve heard it’s all drugged.’
‘We usually drug the breakfast. Perhaps there is a bit of something in the dinner, too, just to help the princess relax. I can ask the cook to leave that out, although it may be too late. Please join me anyway.’
The dragon called for his butler, and a portly man entered the drawing room. He was wearing a long black dinner jacket lined with red silk. Effie followed the dragon and his butler through to the dining room, letting what he had said sink in. Was she really a true hero? What was it Crescentia had said the day before, when they had secretly watched the dragon from behind that tree? That only princesses and true heroes find the dragon attractive. But then she had said that there were no true heroes.
Was that why Effie had felt compelled to take Crescentia’s place and come here? That was what the dragon seemed to think. And whether or not it was true, it would surely be better to have a chance to fight than just be eaten. But, as the dragon had pointed out, Effie had no sword. She hadn’t even been able to use the sword that her grandfather had left for her. What on earth could she do?
Her stomach rumbled. She was still so hungry.
‘Are you sure you will not eat?’ said the dragon.
In front of Effie was a plate of meat and vegetables with roast potatoes and a thick dark sauce. The dragon had a similar plate in front of him, except that his was white china and Effie’s was blue. And his sauce was more of a red colour. He also had a large goblet of very dark red wine, which he now sipped from.
‘There are no drugs,’ the dragon said again. ‘Here, we’ll swap plates.’
‘Well . . .’ Effie wondered if he had planned to do that.
‘You should eat something.’ His voice sounded almost tender. Was he as nice to the princesses as he was to the person he believed had come to fight him? ‘I assume that if either of us wanted to kill the other right now, we would. We each have the power. But let’s leave that until the morning. Let’s enjoy this last supper.’
‘OK,’ said Effie. ‘I’ll eat, but on one condition. We’ll toss a coin for who eats from the blue plate and who eats from the white plate.’
‘Well, all right. But, momentito . . . Butler!’
The dragon and the butler had a whispered discussion and the white plate was taken away and a new blue plate brought out. Both plates were placed on the table. Now both sauces were dark. Then the dragon found a coin – an old doubloon from a strange-looking chest – that had two different sides (Effie checked). They tossed the coin to see who would eat what. Then Effie insisted on the plates being switched one more time. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do.
Effie’s food was delicious, and she ate it hungrily. Dessert was a big crystal bowl of trifle, which was offered first to Effie and then to the dragon. The bowl had writing on it. Spyrys – Pryder – Wythrés. The same three words Effie had noticed on the portraits and tapestries before. This time, the words were arranged around an image of a chariot with a driver and a horse. The chariot was labelled Spyrys, the driver was labelled Pryder and the horse was labelled Wythrés. The words looked Rosian, although maybe an older form than the one Effie had studied. Spyrys. What was that? A ghost, or spirit, or . . .?
‘With the princesses, I normally discuss art and poetry,’ said the dragon, sighing. ‘I expect you are too coarse for such things. How about cricket?’
Effie nodded, remembering that her grandfather had liked cricket. She looked again at the caption on the bowl. Spyrys was a spirit, she was sure. And pryder meant something to do with thinking, Effie remembered. Thought, reasoning, or contemplation. And wythrés was action or battle.
The dragon began talking about the cricket match he had watched earlier. The villagers had put together two teams and one of them had done something clever, and then the other had done something cleverer and something to do with a leg break and a cut shot . . . While the dragon talked, Effie began to have an idea.
‘What if we don’t fight at all?’ she suddenly said.
‘Excuse me?’ said the dragon. ‘Not fight?’
‘What if we found some other way to settle our dispute?’
The dragon scratched his scaly head. ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘But what is our dispute? Do we even have one? I always believed that when a true hero comes to the dragon, he – or she – means simply to kill him. It’s then a fight to the death. That’s what happens in all the stories. Of course, the true hero usually finds some way to win. But there are exceptions. My great-great-great-uncle Gregorius beat one of your lot back in the Middle Ages, I believe. And there was the great battle of White Horse Hill. Thank you, Elmar.’
The butler moved around the table and poured more of the very dark red wine into the dragon’s crystal goblet.
‘Our dispute is about you eating princesses,’ said Effie.
The dragon looked taken aback. ‘Well, what about it?’
‘I think that the princesses would rather not be eaten.’
‘Heavens! But why don’t they say so?’
‘Do they really not say or do anything once they’re here that shows how frightened they are?’
The dragon considered this. ‘Sometimes they do beg for mercy, that’s true. But I thought that was all part of the service.’
‘I think it might be real.’
‘Oh.’ The dragon looked sad. ‘Gosh. But the school always tells me what a great honour it is for the girl who is chosen, how pleased she is.’
‘That’s just what they say. It’s not true. Crescentia didn’t sleep last night because she was so scared. You should have seen her hands shaking on the way here. She was very grateful when I offered to take her place.’
‘Did she not want to see me at all?’
‘Well . . .’ Effie thought about this. ‘She did say she thought you were handsome. But I really don’t think she wanted to be eaten. And she is a bit young.’
The dragon thought for a little while.
‘Do you think Crescentia would come here if I didn’t mean to eat her? Do you think she might one day come just for dinner?’
‘Perhaps when she’s a bit older, yes. If you agreed not to eat any more princesses.’
The dragon looked down at his scaly hands, then back up at Effie.
‘But what will I eat on my Princess Night? I LOVE princess. It’s my very favourite food.’ The dragon looked gloomier than ever. ‘Have you ever tasted princess . . .? No, perhaps not. But you should, it’s really . . .’
‘Did you know that some princesses are kept out of the sunlight in crates to make them more tender? They have no lives at all.’
‘Well, that’s just wrong. Who does that?’
‘Other dragons.’
‘We’ll need to put a stop to that. Princesses should be running free in the sunshine, full of light and air and the taste of summer meadows and . . . Oh dear. Are you saying they should not be eaten at all, by anyone?’
Effie nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘But what is a dragon to eat instead? Ooh – how about farmer’s sons?’
‘No.’
‘Fallen women?’
‘No.’
‘Village idiots?’
‘No. You can’t eat any humans.’
‘None at all?’
‘No.’
‘Oh dear.’ The dragon sipped from his wine. ‘But of course you haven’t won yet. You haven’t killed me, or felled me. You can’t tell me what to do.’
‘I don’t want to fight,’ said Effie. ‘There’s no point. And you did say that dragons usually lose. Perhaps there’s another way? I think if I were to win the contest you would probably agree never to eat humans again, and then everyone would be happy.’
The dragon appeared to consider this. ‘I did hear of one distant relative who was a tremendously good archer. When
he came across a true hero in a forest they agreed to a shooting competition. Perhaps something like that? We could round up some villagers and see who can get more of them? I am rather deft with a bow.’
‘I think it would be nicer to do it in a way that nobody gets killed.’
‘How on earth would we do that?’
Effie thought for a moment. If she was going to have any chance of winning a battle against the dragon, and saving Crescentia and the other girls, she was going to have to find some kind of competition that would appeal to him, but that she could win. What was she good at? What had she practised? The words Spyrys – Pryder – Wythrés came into her head again. Spirit – Thought – Action. The image on the bowl had seemed to suggest that the first two were superior to the last. Maybe . . .
22
‘A thinking competition,’ said Effie. ‘We’ll have a thinking competition.’
‘Good heavens,’ said the dragon. ‘Well, I suppose I do have a great intellect, and you are a mere child. Surely a true hero relies on brute force, though?’
‘Maybe not always,’ said Effie.
‘Right. Well, good. A thinking competition.’ The dragon sipped his wine.
‘Are you sure this is wise, sir?’ said the butler.
‘Yes, yes, yes. I’m fairly sure I can outwit almost anybody in a thinking competition. Ooh. This will be like the battle of White Horse Hill all over again, but with less blood. Right. Well. How do we do it? We’ll need a referee. Elmar can do that.’
The butler bowed his assent.
‘And we need rules. What are the rules? How do we play?’
‘We could ask each other questions and . . .’ Effie thought. ‘They must be questions that you can solve just with your mind, not with facts or memory or anything like that. So you can’t ask me your great-great-great-uncle Gregorius’s middle name or something similar that I couldn’t possibly know . . .’
‘Dash it,’ said the dragon. ‘How did you know that’s what I was going to ask?’
‘Are you talking about riddles, miss?’ asked the butler.
‘I suppose I am,’ said Effie. ‘Some people call them Magical Thinking problems, or even lateral thinking problems, I think. But yes, let’s call them riddles.’
‘May I suggest the following format?’ said the butler. ‘ I believe it is called “sudden death”. You each pose one of these riddles and then go to bed. At dawn, you meet in the arena to provide your answers. If you both provide the correct answers, then you each pose a new riddle and the process begins again. But if one of you cannot answer the other’s question then they lose. They are then “dead”.’
‘What if no one gets the right answer?’ said Effie.
‘Then that round is a draw, and you begin a new round.’
‘Oh goody,’ said the dragon. ‘I already have my question.’
‘There’s just one final thing,’ said the butler. ‘We have already decided that if the dragon loses he will agree to eat no more humans. But what if he wins? What is his prize? He should name it.’
Effie wondered whether the dragon was going to say that he would simply carry on eating princesses for the rest of his life. But he considered the question for several minutes.
‘You,’ he eventually said to Effie, ‘will be my bride.’
‘What?’ she said. ‘But . . .’
‘Yes. If you lose, you have to marry me and live here for ever.’
‘But . . . I thought you preferred Crescentia?’
‘Yes. But you should suffer if you lose. And you’d make an interesting wife.’
‘Good,’ said the butler. ‘Then we shall begin.’
Even though the dragon had said he already had his question, he now closed his eyes, pressed his clawed forefingers to his temples, wrinkled his brow and started to emit a strange low humming sound. Effie looked at the butler.
‘He is thinking, miss.’
‘Oh. Right.’ Effie started thinking as well. Although she knew what she was going to ask. Well, she was pretty sure. No, very sure. No . . .
The humming sound eventually stopped, and the dragon opened his eyes and looked at Effie.
‘Begin,’ said the butler. ‘The dragon will go first.’
‘Oh, good,’ said the dragon. ‘Right. There is a creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening. What is its name?’
‘That is your riddle, sir?’ said the butler.
‘It is,’ said the dragon. He smiled in a satisfied sort of way and sat back in his chair to wait for Effie’s riddle.
‘Go on, miss,’ said the butler.
‘OK,’ said Effie. ‘A man throws a ball . . .’
‘Is it a cricket ball?’ interrupted the dragon.
‘Yes, if you like,’ said Effie. ‘A man throws a cricket ball some distance. The ball then turns and travels back to the man, and he catches it.’
‘Ooh, ooh, I know the answer, I know the answer,’ said the dragon.
Effie gulped. She thought of her grandfather, of his wise twinkling eyes as he first posed this question to Effie all those months ago. ‘The ball has not hit any solid object, nor is it attached to anything,’ she continued. ‘And no one has worked any magic on it. How has this happened?’
The dragon put his head in his hands.
‘I don’t know!’ he wailed. ‘I was going to answer that it had been hit with a cricket bat. But then you say it has not been struck with an object. It’s an impossible question!’ He put his head down on the table and began a long, loud groan.
‘May I remind you, sir,’ said the butler, ‘that you have all night to think about the question. Perhaps the answer will come to you later.’
The dragon frowned. ‘Oh well. Never mind. You probably don’t know the answer to my riddle either.’ He yawned. ‘I’m going to bed. To think.’
Shortly after the dragon left the dining room, the maid arrived to show Effie to her bedroom. It was a large, square chamber three flights of stairs further underground, with a huge four-poster bed with gold silk sheets and what seemed like hundreds of pink and gold pillows. There was a fire just dying in the hearth. Someone had warmed an old-fashioned hot water bottle – it was a real thick stoneware bottle – and left it on the bed, along with a silk nightgown embroidered with complex patterns. Effie sat on the bed for a long time, just thinking.
She knew the answer to the dragon’s riddle. Well, she almost did. It had been in one of the first plays that Mrs Beathag Hide had made them read. Effie remembered Wolf Reed playing an ambitious young king who had ended up blinding himself with a badge with the words ‘Neighbourhood Witch’ on it that had been pinned to Raven Wilde’s rucksack. The badge was a prop representing a brooch belonging to the ambitious king’s wife. His wife had also, unfortunately, turned out to be his mother.
Effie remembered Mrs Beathag Hide imploring them all not to overact, to remain calm in the face of great tragedy, to allow themselves to be cleansed and purified by it. ‘Let your emotions flood out,’ she had said to the perplexed children, who were still wondering why exactly the poor king had to blind himself with the brooch and cast himself out into the wilderness and . . .
But what about the riddle? Effie remembered that the young king had faced some sort of monster, early in the play. A sphinx. That’s right. The sphinx had asked him the riddle and the answer was . . . The answer was . . . Before she knew it, she had fallen asleep. When she woke up she was inexplicably under the sheets and clothed in the nightdress. The maid must have helped her. There were no windows in the underground castle, and Effie had no watch, but soon someone knocked on her door and told her that dawn would be breaking in half an hour.
Effie got out of bed and splashed water on her face and brushed her teeth. Crescentia’s case had been brought up into the room. Effie wondered what Crescentia was doing now. Had she gone back to the Princess School? Effie was glad, though, that Crescentia wasn’t facing being eaten this morning. How awful, to have t
o get up and get dressed and have breakfast while knowing that you are soon going to die. The outfit that Crescentia had been going to wear for this morning was neatly packed in her bag. It was the simple pink silk dress that Effie had seen before. This didn’t seem like the right kind of thing to wear for a battle, however, even if it was a battle of wits. Effie noticed that there was a large wardrobe in the room. Perhaps she might find something more suitable in there?
When she opened it, she gasped. Here were the clothes of all the princesses who had ever been here – or at least rather a lot of them. There were satin ball gowns and silk slip dresses and mini-skirts and leather trousers and even the odd pair of jeans. There were silk blouses, cashmere cardigans, soft t-shirts, wrap dresses and perfect white cotton shirts. There were pencil skirts, full pink tutus, and a lot of shoes, including high-heeled diamanté sandals and soft pink leather ballet pumps. Effie hurriedly threw together an outfit she thought more fitting for a true hero: a pair of dark blue jeans with a black t-shirt and a grey wool blazer. She didn’t have time to do her hair, so she scraped it up into a messy ponytail. Then she slipped on a pair of black studded ankle boots and left the room.
The maid showed her up the stairs to the main part of the castle, explaining that breakfast was to follow the event in the battle arena. The dragon, she said, felt too sick to eat. And anyway, the maid went on, they wanted to get this private battle out of the way before the more bloodthirsty villagers started turning up expecting to see a princess being eaten. For many of the villagers, this was the highlight of their fortnight. The maid didn’t know what was going to happen today when they discovered that the dragon seemed to have stopped eating princesses – at least for the time being. She hoped there would not be an uproar. Effie followed the chatty maid up the flight of stairs with the red carpet that she had been down yesterday. The drawbridge had already been lowered and Effie walked across it and into the fresh morning air.