2 Bess and the Queen 1

Chapter 1

Bess groaned.

She lay flat on her back on the ground, exhausted.

Who might have predicted that helping a baby dragon to learn to fly could be so exhausting for the one on the ground?

Frostfire, her dragon, muzzled against her.

“You are being lazy.”

“I am being too exhausted to move,” retorted Bess to the mind-voice of her Bondmate. 

Since the unBonded students had left for the summer, Frostfire had continued to grow, now being the size of a large horse.  She would continue to grow for the next three years, to reach her optimal adult size, and though she might continue to grow a little for the rest of her life, it was only the immortal Amethyst lorewyrms which grew all their lives. And Frostfire was not a lorewyrm.

Indeed, nobody quite knew what Frostfire was.  Her name described her opalescent sheen perfectly, with flickering colours inside her superficially milky-white colour.  She had been an odd egg, hatched early by accident when the Spanish agent Eduardo Comadrejo had precipitated Frostfire’s hatching.  He was dead, but there was still plenty to fear, from Spain.

Bess shuddered.

“You are worrying, again.  Get up and you can run with me again, and stop thinking about it,”  said Frostfire.

“Come, Draxier Marlowe, you have rested,” said Master Van Huys.  “I appreciate that you are younger than the other Bonded, but that is balanced with the energy of a twelve-year-old, against those who are teachers and quite adult.”

Bess suppressed another groan, and got up.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“One more lap only,” said the Master.

Bess did not say so, but she was much relieved.  The Master directed those with dragons learning to use their wings to run alongside these first flights to shout encouragement and, if necessary, instructions.  Some of the Ruby dragons, the warwyrms, needed to be reminded to flap their wings if they became too impressed with their soaring abilities; and some needed rescuing from updraughts in the Legr’s enclosed circuit.

The Legr, or Lair, was built into an old quarry of limestone.  On the one side of it was the school and its gardens, from which one descended on a flight of steep steps. On the other side, the limestone cliff fell away a short way further on than the Legr, down to a vale of scrub and light woodland for dragons to hunt.  The Legr wall stood as a bastion cliff on that side.

Within the circuit of the quarry floor, the cliffs were riddled with caves, which constituted the legrs of different dragons, those Bonded longer ago having higher legrs, which could only be reached by flying dragonback.  The newly Bonded had legrs at ground level.   A well gave good, pure water, and servants brought meat for the youngest dragons.  Soon Frostfire would go on her first hunt, doubtless encouraged by Bess’s seven drakelings, tiny dragon-like creatures, reputedly bred by dragons themselves as pets.  Bess had become on object of much interest in the school, being pointed at for the number of bonded drakelings as well as for her unusual Bondmate.  Bess took it in her stride; she was used, after all, to people pointing out her guardian, Master Will Shakespeare, who had taken her into his household with his own children when her father, Master Kit Marlowe, had been killed. He had died at the hand of one of his friends possessed by a spell cast by the same Eduardo Comadrejo, or as Bess had known him, Edward Stoat.

The other newly-Bonded were watching as Bess and Frostfire made the last lap of the Legr.  Though Master Van Huys was attempting to catch up the others, two weeks behind Bess and Frostfire, he stretched the slightly more advanced pair more.  Frostfire gave tongue in triumph, and glided in. Bess sat down hard.

“Put your head between your knees,” suggested Sencey Pargetter, a girl of nearly sixteen who had befriended Bess and her regular friends, Diccon and Tangwystl, at the beginning of the summer.  Bess did as she was bid, and found that the dizziness subsided.

Sencey’s Bonded dragon, the shiny black Diamond dragon, Darkstar, came and greeted Frostfire.  They delicately sniffed noses, like cats, until Sencey’s one drakeling and Bess’s seven started squabbling and scolding, determined not to be left out of anything.

The masters who had bonded held themselves aloof from the other youngsters; Master Parnell who taught physical sciences, who was now head of Amethyst House, Bess’s school house. The other three were Master Attwood, who taught mathematics, Master Glasse, who taught Engineering, and  Master Crooke, the only one who taught Bess as yet, the teacher of Latin.  Masters Crooke and Parnell were the younger of the two, hardly out of university, at twenty and twenty one years old. The other two were in their late twenties.

Bess giggled, and said to Sencey in a low voice,

“You must be pleased not to have a dragon colour which lays eggs, or you might find yourself confused about your feelings for masters who Bond at the same time.”

Sencey rolled her eyes.

“I would not like to be Bonded to a Topaz dragon, for that reason,” she said.  “But Mistress Kettlewell says that when one senses that one’s dragon is ready to mate, one might sequester oneself.  She intends to do so, for her husband’s dragon is Diamond, and would take no interest in such. Apparently it is only once every 5 years or so.”

“I suppose it makes sense that only Ruby and Topaz dragons breed, though I do wonder how they produce Amethyst dragons,” said Beth.

“I asked about that,” said Sencey.  “And the Master said that Skyshadow was cagey, and had some vague knowledge which she scarcely recalled, related to the sorts of dragon we don’t usually see, including Frostfire, I guess.”

“I wonder what Skyshadow knows and why she is keeping it close,” said Bess.  Skyshadow was the huge lorewyrm bonded to The Master, Master Piet Van Huys.  Lorewyrms could live a very long time, and would Bond more than once if they had lost their human to old age.

It was said, too, that their Draxiers lived longer than normal humans, but there were so many things about dragons which were still not known.

“Well, Draxier Marlowe, are you ready to visit the queen?” asked Master Van Huys.

“Master, I doubt I will ever be ready to visit the queen. Methinks, however, that I am as well prepared as I ever might be,” said Bess.

He laughed, and led her out into the cold morning to mount Skyshadow.

“Greetings young Draxier,”  Skyshadow’s thoughts were heavy in Bess’s mind.

“Greetings, Skyshadow,” Bess returned.  “Have you recalled anything about Opal dragons like Frostfire?”

“Only a riddle, lore passed down,” said the big dragon. “That the coming of the milky rainbow is a time of joy but a time of confusion, when things left more comfortable sleeping will awake.”

“That ... I do not understand,” said Bess.

“No, young one, and I am not sure if I understand it either,” said Skyshadow.  “Doubtless, however, time will cure my lack of knowledge, and I may then pass the lore in less cryptic form.”

“And it can be recorded in the annals of Draxery,” said Van Huys.  “Climb up, Draxier!”

Bess had ridden on a dragon before, on the half-grown Ruby dragon Swiftfire, bonded to the boy, Hal Shimpling, who had become a friend. It did not prepare her for the belly-dropping lift from Skyshadow’s massive lavender-coloured wings.  Bess gasped.

“It is a little bit too exciting, isn’t it?” said Van Huys, mildly.  “One gets used to it.  Hang on!”

Bess needed no further prompting!  Presently, however, she relaxed, and looked around, marvelling at the beauty of the translucent pumping wings, seeming to be faceted in a honeycomb of slightly different purples, the odd black, some facets blue, and some milky opal.  She wondered if other dragons contained hints of other colours too.  Frostfire’s wings were still almost transparent, but she resolved to look more carefully at other dragons she knew.

She looked down, and gasped.  They were so far above the ground that the fields and tracts of woodland below looked like the random patches on Mistress Anne’s patchwork quilt. 

“How fast are we going, Master?” she called back.

“We travel at a good forty miles an hour!” replied the Master.

“That is amazing!” Bess gasped.  Why, it was three times the speed of a galloping horse, if such speed was to be sustained for more than a few minutes.

“It is, indeed!” the Master agreed.  “It means that there is nowhere in the realm which cannot be reached in a day.”

Bess’s head spun.  To be able to take news so quickly would make the queen’s position unassailable, so long as her enemies were denied the same privilege.

“That smear on the horizon; can it be London?” she asked.

“Aye, it is the smoke from houses and businesses,” said Van Huys.  “A stinking wen, with as many, they say, as two hundred thousand souls.  We will be going to the north of the city, to Richmond Palace, which the Queen, God bless her, favours these days. Especially in winter, for it is warmer than most of the draughty piles she owns,” he added.  “It’s a newer building than some, built by her grandsire, on the site of the old Palace of Sheen.”

As they came closer, Skyshadow followed the course of the Thames, and Bess gasped to see the size of the palace, topped with spires and minarets, soaring above the towers from which they grew, though the building itself was four tall storeys high.

“Oh, Master!  I am scared!” said Bess.

“What, intimidated by a building? Nay, a Draxier is not afraid of stones and mortar!” said Van Huys.  “Though I’d not say that intimidation was not in Henry VII’s mind when he caused it to be built, for he was seen by many as a usurper.”  He went on, “It is in grander style and larger than Greenwich or Hatfield palaces, which are also favourites of Her Majesty, though she spends most of her time at Whitehall, for it is convenient to Parliament in Westminster.  She hath withdrawn, however, to Richmond, for this meeting.”

Skyshadow made a complete circuit of the palace, swooping down so that Bess might see the building better, and Bess giggled to see how people fled.

“Ah, most people fear dragons,” said Master Van Huys.  “Your job, in part, will be to keep a balance between fear of their power, and affection for their actions to aid the queen, for if the fear ever becomes too great, there will be those who seek to destroy dragonkind.  This is why we must invite some people to own their own drakelings;  so they may see the more benign aspects of dragonkind, with such helpful little creatures being their daily reminder.”

“I understand now, how wise you are, Master!” said Bess.  “I have taught my coruscation of drakelings some tricks, to put on a display, as you hinted when I began training with Frostfire.”

“Well done,” said Van Huys.  “You have trained your drakelings very well, Master Kettlewell tells me that he is very happy with their abilities to help you in alchemy, and he is somewhat equivocal about their usefulness as a general rule.”

“They are clever enough to want to be helpful rather than be sent away,” said Bess.

“And well enough trained to do it well,” said the Master.

And then they were coming in to land, on the wide lawn which swept down to the Thames river, and a welcoming party was waiting.

Bess swallowed hard, and thanked Skyshadow for the flight, and slid hastily down the big dragon’s flank, to make her curtsey.