‘Yes, sir, I do.’
The King moved closer to me and I found myself backing away. I had to stop when I came up against a pillar, and he took the opportunity to regard me minutely through a monocle that he had screwed into his eye.
‘Hmm,’ he said at last. ‘You will fire your apprentice and hire the man I send to you. That is all. You are dismissed.’
I started to leave but then stopped as I realised my sixty-second accelerated Dragonslayer course had furnished me with one or two snippets about despots and how to deal with them. Instead of hurrying off, tail between legs and heartily intimidated, I stood my ground.
‘Are you deaf, girl?’ he repeated. ‘I said dismiss! Away with you! Shoo!’
‘My Lord,’ said I, my voice cracking as I stared into the beetroot-red face of the monarch, ‘I wish only to serve my King and will do anything that he reasonably expects of me. But I must point out that by the Mighty Shandar’s decree and ancient law, the concerns of the Dragonslayer are of no consequence to my noble King.’
There was a deathly hush. One of his advisers started to giggle but wisely changed it into a cough. The King’s monocle dropped from his face. He turned to his advisers and asked in an exasperated tone:
‘Was that a refusal?’
His aides all muttered to one another, nodded their heads and generally made noises of assent. The King turned back to me and wagged a slender index finger in my face.
‘You dare to speak of a higher authority than I? Where, might I ask, is this so-called Mighty Shandar? He has not been seen for a hundred and sixty-one years, yet you tell me that he is the last word on Dragons? You are in big trouble, young lady.’
‘No, Sire, I think she does you greater honour by her refusal.’
The voice was raw and gravelly and sounded like that of the janitor from the convent. It was one of the King’s advisers. He rose from his sofa, disturbing one of a pair of greyhounds that had been asleep at his feet, and approached us both.
‘What is the meaning of this, Lord Chief Adviser?’
The Lord Chief Adviser was a tall man of advancing years. His hair and beard were snow white and he walked with a limp. He smiled at me and I breathed a sigh of relief. It stood to reason that a king had others to advise him who were, well, smarter.
‘I remember the last Dragonslayer, my Lord, perhaps you do not.’
‘Of course I do,’ snapped the King. ‘Frightful bounder by the name of Spalding. He was insolent too.’
‘Perhaps. Then you know that a Dragonslayer has a position quite unique. They are answerable not to one king, but to all of us. The independence of the Dragonslayer should not be compromised, and never coerced.’
‘Speak English, damn you! Besides, who’s coercing?’ asked the King in a shocked tone. ‘I am ordering. It is quite a different matter. Guards, lock this Dragonslayer up in the most frightful room of the highest tower and feed her on powdered mouse until she agrees.’
‘You cannot, Sire.’
‘Cannot?’ asked the King, his face growing red with anger. ‘Cannot? I am the King. I WILL BE OBEYED!’
‘As powerful as my Lord is, not even your finest squadron of super-dreadnought landships can come close to the power of magic.’
‘Magic? Pah!’ scoffed the King. ‘This is the twenty-first century, Lord Chief Adviser. I think you accord too much relevance to antiquated notions.’
But the Lord Chief Adviser was not going to be defeated.
‘Your father never dismissed magic so readily, and neither should you.’
The young King bit his lip and looked at me. The Lord Chief Adviser continued:
‘I do not advise you to hold a Dragonslayer against their will, Sire. I also think you should apologise to Miss Strange and welcome her to the court.’
‘What?!’ said the King, his monocle popping out of his eye again. ‘Outrageous!’
At that moment the footman arrived with a small plate of meat for the Quarkbeast.
‘What’s that for?’ asked the King, who had forgotten all about it.
‘Quark,’ said the Quarkbeast, who hadn’t.
The King took the plate and placed it on the floor next to the Quarkbeast, who looked at me obediently. I nodded my assent and he demolished the food, then chewed the pewter plate for a bit before spitting it out in such a mangled and ugly state that one of the ladies-in-waiting fainted and had to be carried out.
‘Goodness,’ said the King, who had never seen a Quarkbeast eat before. The greyhounds saw it too and wisely scurried away to hide.
The Lord Chief Adviser took advantage of the distraction and leaned forward to the King’s ear and whispered something for about thirty seconds. The King’s face gradually broke into a smile.
‘Oh, I see. Of course. Will do.’
He turned to me again but his manner had abruptly changed.
‘I am so sorry, my dear. Please accept my apologies for my brusque behaviour. No doubt you will have heard about the border skirmishes with the Duke of Brecon early this morning. Intelligence sources tell me that since your surprise appointment yesterday and the realisation that this Dragon chappie will soon be dead, Lord Brecon is considering moving his troops forward to capture as much of the Dragonlands as he can. I fully appreciate your position in all this and I hope I can trust in your loyalty to Hereford?’
I was suspicious about his rapid about-face but decided not to show it.
‘You can, Sire.’
‘Perhaps you would consider a small request that I have in mind, then?’
‘And that is . . . ?’
He shook his head sadly.
‘No no no. I am the King. You say yes, then ask me what I require. Your upbringing has not been good, girl.’
‘Very well,’ I replied, ‘I will consider very carefully any request my King might make of me.’
‘A bit better,’ conceded the King doubtfully. ‘You realise that only you can get into the Dragonlands?’
I nodded.
‘Good. I should like you to stake the claim of this crown all over the Dragonlands. So when the good Dragon dies, your monarch and state will be in a more powerful position to better serve its citizens. In return for this I offer you the title of marchioness and a hundred-acre tract of the Dragonlands. Am I not the most generous king ever?’
‘I will consider what you have said most carefully, my Lord.’
‘That’s all agreed then. Lord Chief Adviser, would you show this good lady to my car?’
The royal adviser took me firmly by the arm and we backed away together for a respectable distance before turning our backs on the King and leaving the room.
‘I am Lord Tenbury, Miss Strange,’ announced the adviser in a kindly tone. ‘You may call me Tenbury. I was an adviser to the King’s father. You will forgive King Snodd’s quick temper.’
We continued to walk along the corridor.
‘You have trouble with the Duke of Brecon?’ I asked him.
‘As usual.’ He sighed. ‘Brecon would dearly love to expand into the Dragonlands as soon as Maltcassion dies and I’m afraid we can’t allow that to happen. You and your apprentice have the only access to the Dragonlands and that is very useful to us. I beg you to consider the King’s request most carefully.’
He stopped and looked into my eyes with an earnest expression.
‘Remember you are a subject of King Snodd, Jennifer, and that your duty as a Dragonslayer is second only to your duty as a loyal defender of this crown.’
‘All I want is the best for the Dragon, Tenbury.’
The adviser smiled.
‘Things are never as simple as they appear, Miss Strange. By taking on the mantle of Dragonslayer you have inherited a political position every bit as delicate as that of the skilled court adviser. I hope in all this you will make the right decisions.’
We had reached the front door, where the mute driver with the Jaguar awaited me.
‘There is one other thing I would ask of you,’ said
Tenbury, looking about nervously and moving closer.
‘I respect your candour, sir,’ I replied. ‘What do you wish?’
‘That you think very carefully about merchandising.’
‘What?’
‘Merchandising. Dragonslayer toys, games and so forth. It’s big business these days; the King’s useless brother and myself are regional representatives of Consolidated Useful Stuff and have been authorised to offer you twenty per cent of everything sold. We think that plastic swords are probably worth a half million in sales alone.’
He smiled and gave me his card.
‘Promise me you’ll think about it?’
‘I will promise you that.’
Up until that point, I had almost liked him. I sighed deeply. King Snodd’s rapid about-face meant only one thing: I hadn’t heard the last from him.
Yogi Baird
* * *
‘What did the King have to say?’ asked Gordon van Gordon, who was doing the washing up in a flowery pinny. He had taken off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves, but was still wearing his brown derby hat.
‘My appointment yesterday has made everybody think that Maltcassion isn’t long for this world. Brecon is looking to increase his lands and the King is unwilling to let him do so. They want us to lay out the Crown’s claims on the Dragonlands before he dies, thus allowing the land to cede painlessly into Snodd’s hands.’
‘I see,’ said Gordon, ‘and what are your opinions on these matters?’
‘I’m a Dragonslayer,’ I replied, ‘not an estate agent. It won’t make me very popular with the King, though.’
‘I agree with that. But you must do what you feel is right. Fancy a cup of tea?’
I nodded gratefully.
‘I had another call from Fizzi-Pop,’ said Gordon.
‘Oh yes?’
‘They upped their offer to fifty thousand for your endorsement.’
‘What about Yummy-Flakes?’
‘They only went as far as forty. ConStuff want to talk some more about merchandising rights, Cheap & Cheerful want to launch a line of Jennifer Strange sporting clothes, and ToyStuff want a licence to release a model of the Slayermobile. The bookies won’t take any bets for you to win but they are offering the Dragon three hundred to one, and a tie at five hundred to one.’
‘Is that all?’
Gordon smiled, finished filling the kettle and plugged it in.
‘No. MolluscTV want to do a documentary about you and the UKBC’s wildlife department is interested in you taking a camera into the Dragonlands. I’ve had three producers wanting to buy the exclusive rights to your story and one even said that Sandy O’Cute was very big on the idea of playing you in the movie.’
‘I bet she was.’
‘In your mail, ninety-seven per cent want you to kill the Dragon and three per cent want you to leave it alone. Five people have written in with offers of marriage, and two have claimed they are the real Dragonslayer. One little old lady in Chepstow wants you to use your sword to dispose of a particularly invasive thorn tree, and another in Cirencester wants you to appear at a fund-raiser for the Troll Wars Orphans appeal. And finally, the Wessex Rolls-Royce club want you to bring the Slayermobile on a rally next month.’
‘And this is just the beginning,’ I murmured.
Gordon poured the boiling water into the teapot.
‘It’ll calm down, as soon as there’s no more news.’
‘I hope. Milk, please, and half a sugar. Mind you, I’m not averse to appearing for the Troll Wars Orphans appeal.’
The doorbell rang. Gordon looked at his watch and pulled off his pinny.
‘Who’s that?’ I asked.
‘The Yogi Baird Daytime TV Show. You said you’d do a live phone-in from here.’
‘I did, didn’t I?’
He opened the door and Yogi Baird strode in, shook my hand, grinned wildly and said how wonderful it was to meet me and how he simply knew it would be a great show. As he was telling me this he was being dabbed at by a make-up woman. They were joined by a cameraman, an engineer, two electricians, a producer, three PAs and someone who wore black whose function it was to talk about not very much on a mobile phone. Within a short time they had the camera set up and a live uplink to a local transmitter. The same make-up person faffed over me as they set up two chairs in front of the spiky Rolls-Royce and a sound engineer fixed me with a microphone.
While all this was going on I had placed a paper bag over the head of the Quarkbeast with a single hole for him to see out of. It wouldn’t do to unnecessarily frighten the crew, and if the Quarkbeast went on live TV, he might cause a panic and small children to start crying, something neither of us wanted.
The floor manager counted Mr Baird in with his fingers and pointed at him as the red ‘live’ light mounted on top of the camera flicked on. The TV presenter grinned broadly.
‘Good afternoon. This is Yogi Baird, speaking to you live from the Dragonslayer’s office in Hereford, capital city of the Kingdom by the same name. In just a minute we’ll be talking to our very special guest, Dragonslayer Jennifer Strange. But before all that, a word from our sponsors. Has your get-up-and-go got up and went? Need a pick-me-up for a hard morning’s work?’
He produced a packet of breakfast cereal.
‘Then you need to try Yummy-Flakes for that extra vavoom!’
He put down the packet as the jingle played briefly, then he smiled into the camera and continued:
‘Listen, everyone’s been talking about Dragons these last few days. Dragon this, Dragon that, seems like a bit of a drag to me. That joke will slay me, but listen, folks . . .’
He didn’t seem so funny live. The audience back at the studio were doubtlessly holding their sides, but I was feeling uncomfortable. Like almost everyone in the Kingdoms I had watched the Yogi Baird show all my life, but was beginning to feel as though I was being used – and that Dragonslayers should perhaps show more dignity. I stayed for Mother Zenobia’s sake. I knew she would be watching – or listening, anyway.
‘. . . have you noticed just how many people have converged on the Dragonlands? Biggest show in town. Maltcassion will soon have his own TV station.’
The cameraman zoomed out to include me in the shot as the floor manager waved frantically at me to be ready.
‘. . . but all kidding aside, for the past few days the small Kingdom of Hereford has been alive with speculation over the death of the world’s last Dragon. With rumours of his demise imminent, this four-hundred-year-old Dragonland may very well soon be passed to any number of lucky claimants. I have with me the one person who could be battling with the Dragon some time in the next week. Ladies and gentlemen, Jennifer Strange.’
I looked across at Gordon, who gave me the thumbs-up through the glare of the lights. I was being beamed live into the homes of over thirty million people. Two days ago no one had heard of me, yet today you would be hard pressed to find someone who hadn’t. The power of the media.
‘Welcome to the show, Jennifer.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Miss Strange, have you met with Maltcassion today?’
‘Yesterday,’ I replied.
‘And was he as horribly grotesque as you had thought?’
‘No; on the contrary. I found him a highly intelligent creature.’
‘But ugly, of course? And potentially a maneater with nothing on his mind but death and destruction?’
‘Not in the least.’
Yogi Baird abandoned that line of questioning.
‘O . . . kay. Even pre-cogs as low as B-3 are receiving visions that he is shortly to be killed at your hands. What’s your reaction to that?’
‘I can’t say. Maltcassion has not transgressed the Dragonpact so it all looks like a lot of smoke to me. He will die eventually, of course, and when he does I am firmly of the opinion that the Dragonlands should be converted into a national park—’
‘What a novel idea!’ Yogi laughed. ‘This area is badly
in need of more housing, Miss Strange. Three hundred and twenty square miles of prime real estate on the borders don’t pop up every day, and they represent thousands of jobs and much prosperity. Are you seriously trying to tell the viewers that we should ignore all that and instead devote the land to a few creatures of dubious value?’
‘Well . . . yes. I saw a herd of Buzonjis up there; until yesterday they were thought to be almost extinct.’
‘I’m no expert, of course,’ said Baird in the sort of voice people use when they are trying to tell you they are an expert, ‘but I think you’ll find the best place for endangered species is in a zoo. What are zoos for anyway? Without all these endangered species kicking around, there’d be no work for zookeepers and naturalists.’
‘Eh?’
Yogi steered the show towards something less controversial.
‘So tell me, what makes a good Dragonslayer? A steady hand and a sharp sword?’
‘I think the name Dragonslayer is a misnomer,’ I answered carefully. ‘I see myself more as a keeper, who has to weigh the interests of the Dragon against dangerous outside influences.’
‘Ah yes. Some newspapers have criticised you for your pro-Dragon stance. Our researchers have uncovered that Dragons are, and I quote: Dangerous fire-breathing and evil-smelling loathsome vermin who would think nothing of torching an entire village and eating all the babies were it not for the magic of the Dragonpact.’
‘Where did you read that?’
‘My researchers have sources.’
‘Well,’ I conceded, ‘it is the populist view, although after my short meeting with Maltcassion I was more inclined to think him a gentleman of considerable learning.’
‘So, loathsome worm or learned gentleman? Let’s see what the callers have to say. I have Millie Barnes on line one. Hello, Millie, what is your question, please?’
A little girl’s voice came over the loudspeaker. She couldn’t have been older than five.
‘Hello, Jennifer. What’s a Dragon like?’
‘He looks like a huge pile of stones, Millie. Rough and shapeless. You wouldn’t know he was there unless he spoke. As for character, he is noble and fearless and has much that he could teach us—’