The Runaway Princess (9 page)

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Authors: Kate Coombs

BOOK: The Runaway Princess
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It was nearly an hour later when, footsore and famished, they approached a tidy farmhouse. The dragon had fallen asleep and refused to wake up. They had been trying to carry him between them, wrapped in the cloak. It was slow going.
A horse whinnied, and a few chickens woke up, squawking as if a fox were about. “They smell the dragon,” Meg said.
A light flared in the house. Cam stepped ahead of Meg to knock on the door.
“Who is it?” a woman's voice called.
“It's Cam.”
The door opened. The woman inside had Cam's brown hair and sun-browned skin. “What are you doing here at this hour?” She stared beyond her brother. “Who's that?” She rubbed her eyes.
“What's
that?”
“This is the princess, and that's a baby dragon,” Cam said cheerfully.
 
Dorn and Dagle led the cow along the trail. “‘Beautiful ba-da-di-ba,'” Dagle muttered. “No, not quite.”
“What are you talking about?” Dorn asked.
“I'll tell you when I'm finished. ‘Better than a horse'—no
‘better than…'”
“A cow?” Dorn suggested.
Dagle frowned, changing the subject. “Shouldn't we have come to the cave already? We've walked and walked.”
Dorn looked around. “Maybe we passed it in the darkness.” He clanged his lantern. “Pity the thing burned out.”
“Shh!”
“What?” Dorn said.
“Don't you hear that?”
“The cow?”
Dagle cocked his head. “Sounds like someone shouting.”
They quickened their pace. The cow, never having been this far from home in her life, had begun to balk. “Come on, you!” Dagle told her. The cow mooed with gusto and broke into a trot, apparently deciding the barn
might lie just ahead, after all. She passed Dagle, then dragged him after her like a large dog on a lead.
“Wait!” Dorn said. The brothers ran down the hill. Dorn swerved sideways when he heard voices to the right of the trail, but Dagle had to slow the cow down and circle back.
“Who's that?” Dorn asked.
“Prince Vantor!” a hoarse voice replied.
“Help!” someone else cried, but the first voice muttered and all was silent.
Dagle led the cow up beside Dorn. “What are you doing down there?” he called, baffled.
“We tied ourselves up like this!” Vantor said furiously.
“Now untie us!”
Dorn and his brother exchanged twin looks in the dim light of the moon. “You needn't be rude,” Dorn said. “We're happy to help.”
“NO!” JANNA PUT HER HANDS ON HER HIPS. “No
no
no, and no!”
“What if your princess begs you to?” Meg ventured.
“My princess is supposed to be at the top of a tower, swooning over the thought of all those princes.”
Meg scowled. “Would you?”
“Would I what?”
“Swoon?”
“Sit down, you two'” Janna said, laughing.
The kitchen was warm and friendly. Drying herbs scented the room. A modest fire lit the curves of copper pots and a handful of green-and-yellow teacups. The dragon explored this new place with interest. He discovered the cats. The cats discovered the rafters.
“You see?” Janna gestured. “He's a troublemaker.”
“You didn't answer,” Cam said.
“Swoon? No. I'm well past swooning. I might swoon
over the thought of a supper someone else cooked and a bed someone else made, mind you.”
“You wouldn't like how they did it,” Cam told her.
“There is that.” Janna brought them a basket of biscuits. “Hungry?”
“Starving!” Meg cried. Her stomach did flip-flops at the sight of the food.
“You could have said,” Janna scolded. She hurried to heat up a dish of chicken and noodles. The next few minutes were spent happily as Cam and Meg filled their empty bellies.
“I would tuck you both into bed,” Janna said, “but I imagine your night's adventure isn't over.”
“No,” Cam said, yawning.
“Going to tell me about it?”
Cam looked at Meg. “I'm not sure.”
“You'd better,” Janna said. “After bringing a dragon into my kitchen!” She shook her head, still amazed.
“We're trying to stop those princes from bothering … certain citizens'” Meg said.
“As in, the good people of Crown?” Janna asked. “Or perhaps you're referring to yourself.”
“You
are
a citizen, Meg,” Cam said, grinning.
“Couldn't you just keep him here for a few days?” Meg pleaded. “If you think at him very sternly, he'll do as he's told.”
The dragon had curled up in a rumpled heap on the hearth. Janna regarded him warily as she began clearing the table. “Some kind of magic, is it?”
“Oh no'” Meg said. “It's just that dragons are very clever, and I suppose that's how they talk. Naturally.”
“Hmmph,” Janna said. “What's his name?”
“His name?” Meg asked, stalling. “His name is, um—”
“Ladybug,” Cam suggested. “After all that red.”
Meg grimaced. “No.”
“It'll have to be
Laddy
bug
seeing as how you call him a he'” Janna said.
“I'm not sure,” Meg said, surprised. “It's just a feeling I have.”
“Laddy, then,” Janna said. She reached out a tentative hand to scratch the dragon between the ears.
“It's not dignified!” Meg exclaimed.
“Names choose themselves,” Janna said easily.
Meg gave up. For all the splendor of his coloring, the dragon did have a puppyish look.
I'll give you a grand name when you grow up
, she promised him privately.
The dragon blinked up at her.
“What does he eat?” Janna asked.
Meg remembered something. “Cam! The treasure.”
Cam pulled gold and jewels out of his pockets, piling them on the kitchen table.
“Oh, my,” said Cam's sister.
“I've got more'” Meg said. “To prove something to my father.” She gestured at the shining mass. “But this will make the dragon feel more at home. And you can use part of it to pay for his food.”
Janna nodded, momentarily speechless. She seemed
to have forgotten her hand, which was still stroking the dragon's head.
“He eats rabbits,” said Cam, finally answering Janna's question. “And bats.”
“He likes his nose rubbed,” Meg added. “What else? Sometimes he sets things on fire.”
Janna jerked her hand back. “What!”
“
For
you!” Cam said hastily. “He'll light the fire in the morning, is what she means.”
“He'll even glow if you ask him to. For a night-light,” Meg put in.
Janna raised a sardonic brow. “I see.”
Not taking any chances, Meg woke the dragon up to say goodbye.
I'll be back in a few days. Don't burn anything except what the nice lady tells you to
, she thought at him firmly.
The dragon regarded her with sleepy eyes.
And for heaven's sake, don't eat the cats!
 
Morning at the castle found Queen Istilda fiddling with her embroidery, her mind cloudy with worry as her ladies-in-waiting gabbled.
“So Lady Calissa said, ‘I could never love a black-haired man!'” one named Maude explained. “And Sir Howard went right off to the other side of the ballroom!”
“A tear ran down his cheek,” Eugenia intoned.
“Did you see it?” asked Florence.
“No, but Lord Faradel's squire did.”
Whereupon the queen poked herself with her needle. Her ladies stared.
“Your Majesty, are you all right?” Florence whispered.
“Hmm?” said the queen.
“You haven't pricked your finger since—”
“Since
ever,
” said Eugenia breathlessly.
The queen peered at her embroidery. “Why, so I have,” she murmured. Her gaze lifted to the wall and lingered. There was a stunned silence, after which Her Majesty said, “I'd like to be alone.”
Three bewildered ladies crept out of the room, closing the door softly behind them.
The queen sat a moment longer before she threw down her embroidery and went to the window. Across the meadow, the tower squatted like a troll in the friendly morning light. One of the older guards paced before it. “How are you keeping, daughter?” the queen said. A tear rather more real than Sir Howard's slid down her cheek.
The morning was still for a few moments. Then Queen Istilda saw someone hurrying across the grass toward the tower, carrying a basket. Meg's maid—Dilly, wasn't it? The girl reached the tower and spoke to the guard. Argued even, by the look of it. Finally the man marched back toward the castle. As he neared the wall, Queen Istilda could see his disgruntled face.
The queen frowned. Surely the
girl
hadn't been sent to guard Margaret! She watched Dilly, who seemed to be calling up to the window. No face appeared there, but two servants emerged from behind the tower. The
princess's maid began to talk with the newcomers, the gardener's boy and a girl with light brown braids.
All three looked up at the window now, and at last someone came to look out. The queen felt a pang at the sight of that thin, white face—poor child.
Suddenly the prisoner climbed into view, perching on the sill: not her daughter at all, but a skinny boy!
Queen Istilda gasped. Where was Margaret? She watched the girl with the braids again. The queen lifted her brows.
The skinny boy had produced a stout rope and was scrambling down the tower wall. When he reached the bottom, the four young people began talking. They even ate some of the food from Dilly's basket. Finally Dilly walked back toward the castle. The gardener's boy and—the queen was quite sure now—Margaret went around the tower, disappearing from sight. They left the other boy behind. He picked up a spear and stood at attention, guarding the empty prison.
Queen Istilda jumped up and went to the chamber door, even putting out her hand to open it. Instead she stopped herself and returned to the window, a small smile on her lips.
 
It took Vantor a great deal of talk to convince the twin princes to go on without him, now that they were playing at rescuer.
“You could ride to the castle on our cow,” Dagle suggested.
“We'll share a hearty breakfast, gather provisions, and set out again'” Dorn added.
Vantor seemed to be holding himself in check. “I'll be along later. I'm going to try to find some evidence of the scoundrels who did this,” Vantor told them.
“We'll help!” said Dorn.
“No,” Vantor said regretfully, “we can't keep you from your own purposes any longer.”
“If you're sure,” an earnest Dagle said.
“Very.”
With hearty farewells, the twins set off down the hill toward the castle.
“Wait!” Vantor called. They looked back. He ran toward them awkwardly, still stiff from being tied up. Vantor lowered his voice. “Best keep this between ourselves. We'll get further finding these ruffians if we can spy about like gentlemen.”
“Of course!” The princes smiled, and Vantor watched them go.
Dagle and Dorn walked awhile in silence. Then Dorn said, “He didn't want anyone to know those bandits caught him, eh?”
“Nope,” said Dagle.
“Felt a great fool, didn't he?”
“Yep'” said Dagle.
“Moo,” said the cow.
 
Grubby and bleary-eyed, Meg and Cam shared their breakfast with Dilly out of Meg's morning basket. Nort
had already eaten the last of the food in Meg's tower. “Good thing I was up there,” he said proudly.
“Good thing,” Meg agreed. She and Cam had left Janna's after midnight, crossing broad stretch of farmland and the Witch's Wood, too. When they reached the tower, exhausted, Meg and Cam piled up leaves a short distance inside the woods and slept till morning, waiting for Nort to come on guard.

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