The Runaway Dragon (5 page)

Dilly snorted.
“Little
spell?”

“Some of my spells are little!”

Lex appeared to be concentrating on his horseback riding, something he certainly needed to do, since the horse kept sneering at the wizard over its shoulder. It was a black horse. Lex had insisted. The horse went with his black clothes, which he wore in order to look suitably dire.

“Lex?” Meg repeated.

“Well, perhaps,” he said. “You never know, with magic.”

“That’s just it!” Meg cried. “With my spells, you never know!”

“Meg,” Dilly said, “everyone in the castle has heard of your spells.”

“Everyone in Greeve,” said Lex.

“Hey!” Meg said, objecting on general principle.

“There was the purple sludge that made everybody itch,” Dilly said.

“So?”

“And the chair cushions that flew around the room,”Dilly added.

“Yes, but—”

“And that time the autumn banquet turned to dirt.”

“Well,
obviously
what I need is a good tutor. Like Lex!” Meg exclaimed.

“I’ll think about it,” Lex said. “Is that farmer there carrying hen’s eggs or duck eggs?”

It was a clear signal that this particular conversation
was at an end. But Meg planned to pester Lex again later. For now she focused on the sky, which was the perfect shade of blue, and on the crowds of travelers sharing the road with Meg and her companions: merchants and tradesmen and farmers and families, all dressed up and going to Crown for market day. Many of the people she passed smiled and waved, and Meg waved back. Once she even saw a band of players, their cart painted with vines and flowers. Meg wished briefly she could turn aside and watch the play, but then, she had a dragon to find.

Meg wasn’t sure what she would do when she found Laddy. Talk to him, ask him what was wrong—she owed him a grownup name, for one thing. As she and Chloe clopped along, Meg tried to think of a name for Laddy that would be sufficiently grand without being gruesome. For example, Deathdealer seemed dragonish, but might give Laddy the wrong idea. It was really more suited to a warrior’s magic sword, come to think of it. Dreadbreath? That reminded her of Lord Gatchen, whose breath was so bad people were always offering him mints or veering away from him at royal balls. Vermilion? Meg’s dragon was partly red, after all. But that one sounded slimy to her, like an evil emperor or something. Goldenwing? Too pretentious, the kind of name you heard in a bad ballad. Meg frowned. “Lex, what would be a good name for a dragon? Dilly, do you have any ideas?”

“What’s wrong with Laddy?” Dilly asked.

“Just help me think,” Meg said. “I want a
grand
name for him.”

So Dilly thought of Errol, but Meg said that was too human, and Lex thought of Gariloon, but Dilly said that was too frivolous, and Meg suggested Soarer, but Lex and Dilly both laughed because it sounded like “sorer.” They ended up talking about how Lex should have taken riding lessons before they left, a topic which arose shortly after Lex’s horse threw him in a ditch and two guardsmen had to fetch him out.

It wasn’t that easy, naming a dragon.

As Meg and her party traveled farther south, they passed fewer people. The road began to seem endlessly the same, winding through rolling farmland, meandering between fields of barley and wheat. It was a great relief when they finally came to a small farm and Lex said, “Here! Laddy stopped here!”

At first they didn’t see anything amiss. Meg and Dilly and Lex left their horses with a few of the guardsmen and approached the farmhouse door. The farmhouse was white with black shutters, but the door was bright red. To one side of the porch, an ancient dog rose up and gave a single huffing bark before subsiding.

Suddenly Lieutenant Staunton was stepping in front of Meg with a reproving look. “I’ll just make sure everything’s all right, Princess Margaret,” he said, exactly as she had suspected he would. Lieutenant Staunton walked
up the porch steps, but before he could knock, the door swung open, revealing the farmer and, peering around him, his wife.

“Good day, good people,” Staunton said.

Meg managed not to laugh.
Good day, good people?

“Who are you?” the farmer asked mildly. He had a droopy kind of face and his voice was deep.

“We represent the king,” Staunton said in ceremonial tones. “We’re wondering if you might have seen a dragon in the last few days.”

The farmwife shoved past her man, easy to do since she was twice as wide as he was, round and outraged. “We most certainly have! That horrible creature frightened the chickens and attacked our smokehouse!” Her rust-colored curls bobbed when she talked.

“Can we see?” Meg asked.

The farmwife looked past Staunton at her. “It’s out back, missy.”

Staunton began to protest, probably about Meg being addressed as “missy,” but Lex and Meg and Dilly were already walking toward the side of the house, the farmer and his wife right behind them, so Staunton gave up and merely came along. Cam had gotten down from the supply wagon, and he sauntered after them, too.

When they reached the smokehouse, Meg and the others could see that what used to be a small brick building was now half of a small brick building. One wall and the door had been torn off, and there seemed to have
been rather more fire than a smokehouse would normally have, outside as well as in.

“I don’t suppose you had any sausages in there?” Meg asked.

The farmer opened his mouth to answer, but his wife spoke first. “Oh, it was
full
of sausages,” she said. “We were to take them to market in a fortnight, and now what? The greedy creature gobbled them down!”

Cam idly picked up a charred brick.

“All red and gold it was,” the farmer said in his deep voice. “Never knew dragons were fond of sausages.”

“We thought the monster would start on us next, but it flew off instead,” the woman said.

“Now, Teffie, you’re not a princess,” said the farmer. “Dragons are partial to princesses.”

“He wouldn’t have eaten you!” Meg protested.

Everyone looked at her. “He?” the farmwife said sharply. “What makes you think the beast’s a male?”

“He’s my dragon,” Meg said, and flushed. “Sort of. We’re trying to find him before he does any more harm.”

Lieutenant Staunton cleared his throat and tried to take charge. “This is Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret. We are accompanying her in pursuit of the missing animal.”

“Then you’ll be paying us for the damage,” the farmer said. “Those sausages would have brought us more than—”

His wife interrupted. “Two hundred blenns.”

The farmer seemed surprised. The woman rushed on. “And it will cost us four hundred blenns to rebuild the smokehouse.”

Meg looked at Lieutenant Staunton. Her father had given her money for the journey, but she assumed Staunton had more to buy supplies along the way. She hadn’t thought about having to pay for Laddy’s misdeeds in actual coin. Six hundred blenns was a small fortune!

But Cam said genially, “You can’t be thinking of rebuilding your smokehouse with gold bricks. And the sausages must have been made of diamond.”

On hearing this, Lieutenant Staunton felt obligated to announce, “Defrauding the crown is an offense punishable by—”

“Lieutenant,” Meg said. “Let Cam speak.”

The farmwife glowered. “What about mental anguish? I’ve had nightmares ever since that dragon came. My nerves are a disaster, aren’t they, Ogget?” She put out her hands and shook them a bit, trying to make them look like they were trembling.

The farmer, Ogget, nodded uncomfortably.

Cam addressed the farmer. “We’ll give you fifty blenns for the sausages, a hundred twenty-five for the smokehouse, and another twenty-five for your wife’s nerves.” Cam grinned. “You could buy her a few new dresses, I’m thinking.”

The farmer smiled.

“Ogget!” the woman shrieked. “You will not accept such a poor offer. My nerves are worth at least fifty!”

“Come on, dearheart,” the farmer said, taking his wife by the arm. “I’m thinking you should offer the royal party a bit of refreshment while they count out the money.” He led her back to the farmhouse, and her protesting voice faded away.

OTHING ELSE HAPPENED THAT DAY. MEG WAS
beginning to hope they’d run into something from her father and Lex’s list of dangers by the time they stopped to camp for the night. Then she found out no one would let her help put the tents up or cook dinner or anything. She tramped around poking the tip of her sword into rabbit holes till Dilly told her to stop. “You’ll wreck it, and for what? It’s not like you’re going to stab a rabbit.”

“Stab a rabbit? I’d like to stab something,” Meg said crossly.

But Cam was calling to Dilly, and Dilly went off, leaving Meg to entertain herself. Everybody was rushing around usefully except for Meg. Even her scarf seemed busy, hovering over the tents the guards were trying to put up, probably making a nuisance of itself. She
noticed that Lex was talking with Staunton. Meg made a point of avoiding Staunton whenever possible. The fact that Lex was fraternizing with the enemy didn’t improve Meg’s mood.

That left Nort, who was doing something at the back of the supply wagon. Meg walked over to join him. But when she got there, Nort hurriedly pulled a heavy length of canvas over a pile of metal and looked up guiltily.

“What is that?” Meg asked.

Nort stepped away from the wagon. “Nothing. I was supposed to fetch a tool for the lieutenant, but I couldn’t find it.”

From the expression on his face, Meg was pretty sure he was lying. “I could help you,” she offered, just to see what he would say.

Nort shook his head a little wildly. “No, no, that’s fine. I have other things to do. I’ll ask Lieutenant Staunton about it next time I see him.”

Something was up. Meg looked across the flat, grassy area a short distance from the road that they’d chosen for their campsite. Cam and Dilly had built a fire and were helping the cook. Lieutenant Staunton had finished talking to Lex and was giving the guards orders now. “He’s over there,” Meg said, pointing.

“Um, thanks,” Nort said, but he didn’t leave.

After a few seconds, Meg realized he was waiting for her to leave first. “You’re welcome.” She forced herself
to walk away, knowing that as soon as she got half a chance, she was going to sneak back and figure out what it was that Nort didn’t want her to see.

Unfortunately, Nort stayed within sight of Meg all through dinner and afterward, too. Meg finally had to give up and go to bed. She was sharing her tent with Dilly, though, and after they’d rearranged their bedrolls a bit, she whispered to Dilly about what she had seen.

“It’s probably nothing,” Dilly said too loudly. “Nort’s a gugglehead.”

“Shh! People can hear anything we say in here.” Meg paused, trying to decide how to convince Dilly that this was important. “I have to find out what it was. I want to be sure.”

“Maybe he’s hidden it,” Dilly said in a much softer voice.

“We only have the one supply wagon,” Meg argued. “The best he could have done is move it around a bit.”

Dilly was silent for a moment. Then she said, “You’re going to sneak out tonight and look, aren’t you?”

“Right. And I have a job for you, too.”

“What is it?”

“You have to distract the night sentry for me,” Meg said.

“But if you have a candle, he’ll still see you.”

“I’ll make do with moonlight.”

“He’ll hear you, then,” Dilly warned.

“Not if I’m careful.”

“This is what comes of you being bored,” Dilly announced, not unkindly.

“This is what comes of something funny going on,” Meg said.

Meg and Dilly had to wait until everyone else in the camp was abed. Tired as she was from riding Chloe for hours, Meg was determined not to fall asleep. Besides, she remembered something she’d been meaning to ask Dilly. “Did you and Nort have a quarrel?”

Dilly was silent.

“Dilly? It’s just that whenever we talk about him, you sound like you’re mad at him.”

“He’s been acting odd,” Dilly said irritably.

“Odd how?”

“He avoids me for a week and then follows me around all day.”

“Why?” Meg asked.

She could hear the shrug in Dilly’s voice. “I don’t know.”

“Huh.” Meg didn’t, either.

“Eugenia thinks—oh, never mind.”

Dilly had never bothered to care what Eugenia thought before. “What does Eugenia think?” Meg asked, amazed.

“She says Nort probably likes me.”

“Well, of course he—oh,
likes
you.”

“Exactly.”

“Does he?”

“I don’t know.” Dilly sounded frustrated.

“Do you—um, what about you?”

“What
about
me?”

“Oh, nothing.” Meg paused. “You don’t have to be embarrassed, you know.”

“I know,” Dilly said in an embarrassed voice.

They were both quiet after that. Then Dilly slid down on her bedroll and fell asleep. Meg made herself stay sitting up. She considered what Dilly had said. Meg tried to picture Nort looking at Dilly
that
way and couldn’t. She thought of all those princes who weren’t coming around to court her and decided she was more glad than offended, no matter what her mother might say.