The princess, the knights, and the dragon

 I believe I had Felicia telling a story similar to this to fractious children at some point, so the thing had to be written

The Princess, the knights, and the dragon

 

It was a traditional sort of problem; one king, slightly used, with one daughter, fresh and dewy, no heir for the kingdom, ravaged by a dragon, in need of one noble knight to deal with the dragon and marry the dewy fresh princess and subsequently rule.

Princess Amarantha was certain that whichever suitor killed the dragon, it would probably not be one she wanted to marry. However she dutifully danced with each of the suitors who had turned up, to give them some incentive to succeed.

Prince Alaric of Gothmania was a big, floridly handsome youth with coarse skin and a loud laugh.

“Don’t worry, doll, I’ll soon deal with this big lizard and come back to swive you well. You’re a pretty piece, I might not even manage to remove all my armour save the relevant bit.”

“Do you even need to wear armour on the relevant bit?” asked Amarantha. “I’d have said it was too unimportant to bother to protect it.”

“Huh?” said Alaric.

Lord Bogdan of Bydlov Zobora was also large, bovine, and with an immobile face and big liquid brown eyes.

“I can, like, yeah, do what’s like needed,” he said. “Dragon, yeah. Kill the dragon.”

“You don’t need to be shy and tongue-tied, you know,” said Amarantha. “There has to be more going on behind your face than you show the world.”

“Wot?” said Bogdan.

Or perhaps not.

Sir Carl of Ǫlker had a red and shiny nose, and somehow Amarantha thought that there was something disappointing in the realisation that he would never go down in history.  Unless there was a record for the amount of ale any man could sink at one sitting and still manage to – approximately – stand up to dance.

“Th’ problem wi’ dragons is they are big. And scary,” said Sir Carl. “Or do I mean sig and bary?  Doesn’ matter. Gonna drink plenty, an ... an... challenge dragon to a competition s...setting light to farts. An’ I’ll wear drawers, an’ the dragon will win, but ... point is to startle it in full blow so it gets blowback.  An’ with bein’ firebreathin’ it oughta explode.”

“Ought to?”

“Haven’t I killed a dozen dragons the same way?” said Carl.  “And all of them for you three pretty ladies.”

Prince Dollin of Ben Herisson was a slender, slight, dark man with bright blue, intelligent eyes.

“Princess, I have no idea how to kill a dragon, other than boring it with someone else’s poetry,” he said. “But I have seen you once, and I have to make an attempt, or die in the process. Your slightest whim is my command, because your hair of gold outshines the sun in brilliance and splendour, your eyes put the stars to shame, your skin is as white as a lily and as soft as its petals, and I worship at your incomparable feet.”

“I have red hair and freckles,” said Amarantha.

“Oh, details,” said Prince Dollin, waving a hand. “In my mind and in my poetry, you have golden hair and skin like a lily. We can see about dyeing your hair and putting lemon juice on the freckles when we are married.”

“I hope you get eaten from your own incomparable feet up an inch at a time,” said Amarantha.

Sir Edward of Ffing got right to the point.

“Right, the best way to deal with this stupid dragon is to undertake a good naval barrage,” he said. “A mix of roundshot to soften it up with chainshot to make a mess of its wings, and then bring up a bomb ketch to drop a mortar on it to finish it off. What do you think of that?”

“I am wondering what the range of your weapons are,” said Amarantha, cautiously. “And the draught of your ship.”

“Oh, I can drop an accurate broadside at almost a mile, and we draw some twenty feet.”

“I can think of two flaws to your plan,” said Amarantha.

“Surely not, dear lady; after all, you are a nice little woman, and I’m an expert in naval tactics.”

“Yes, but the flaws are that the dragon lives three hundred miles from the nearest body of water, and the nearest river is twelve feet deep in flood season,” said Amarantha.

 

Prince Alaric leaned off his horse, smelling of sweat and metal, to embrace Amarantha.

“You keep your bed warm for me, doll, you don’t know what you’re missing,” he said.

Amarantha forced a smile.

“Try not to poison the dragon,” she said.

“Oh, I wouldn’t use so cowardly a method, I will charge it with my lance,” he said.

 

Prince Alaric’s horse, which had more brains than its rider, returned home in the evening without him.  It was unable to tell them that Alaric had thrown a temper tantrum at the dragon as it started to eat him, declaring that a prophesy at his birth had said that he would be memorable.  The prophesy was fulfilled in another land in another time when a writer called Jo renamed Alaric ‘James’.

The dragon, who was polite, sent a written note, thanking the king for the snack, and mentioning that canned food was not his favourite, especially when it did not wash its feet.

 

Lord Bogdan gave an exhibition of horsemanship, which was more impressive than his level of social intercourse.

He brought the letter from the dragon back himself, thanking the king for the after-dinner entertainment, and asking for twenty cows and a princess.

Lord Bogdan sneaked away in the night, clinking rather from the golden reward for his horse-tricks which had so entertained the dragon.

 

Sir Carl returned bemused, sober, singed [mostly around the nether regions] with a letter declaring that jesters were all very well, but the level of entertainment was dropping, and the twenty cows and princess were still not forthcoming, and by the way, he now wanted thirty cows.

 

Prince Dollin had a suit of armour which was all over spikes, with which he hoped to deter the dragon from eating him. He declaimed poetry at Amarantha before he left.

“Oh Princess of incomparable beauty

What joy it is to do my duty

And lay my life at beauty’s feet

When I defy the dragon’s heat.

To risk my all for beauty’s charms

And hope I’ll soon be in your arms!”

He performed this with actions, throwing out each arm at a time for each line and finishing with both arms crossed across his chest in dramatic fashion.

“Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” murmured Amarantha.

 

Prince Dollin did not return and nor did his horse.

The dragon sent a letter.

“Please inform your knights when embellishing armour that solder flux melts at a low temperature.  I have 72 unwanted armour spikes. Also I am still waiting for 30 cows and a princess only make it 40 cows.”

 

It took Sir Edward several days to portage his cannon overland, using magic, to bombard the dragon, which promptly retired into its cave. Sir Edward used up all his ammunition and began to retire, and future generations were to wonder why there was a thirty-six gun frigate half-way up the hill with a well-incinerated poop.

The dragon wrote to thank the king for the cows, sheep, pigs and chickens from the ship, as well as the rum, salt beef and pickled herrings.

“I have acquired a liking for fish; send more when you send the princess,” he wrote.

 

Amarantha shook her head.

Plainly there was no point sending a man to do a princess’s job. She put on the armour she had had made, and rode out, leaving a note for her father, and a request that he pay the fishmonger for the salmon.

She rode all day until she got to the dragon’s lair.

“Dragon!” she called. “I am a princess, and I have salmon for you!”

A large red-gold head poked out of the cave.

“Is that fish?” asked the dragon, smoking slightly.

“Yes, and it’s fresh, which is more than the pickled herring was,” said Amarantha.

The dragon gobbled up most of the salmon.

“Do you like your share cooked?” he asked.

“You left me a share?” said Amarantha.

“I do have manners,” said the dragon.

“I like it baked in its own juices,” said Amarantha.

The dragon went back into his cave and came back with a helmet.

“This should work,” he said. “It’s been fire-cleansed.”  He put the last salmon fillet in the helmet and breathed softly to poach it.

Amarantha also had manners and accepted the salmon with some trepidation. It was surprisingly good.

“Well that was very nice, but if the salmon was an aperitif for princess, you’ll have to fight me before you can eat me,” said Amarantha.

“Who wants to eat you?” said the dragon.

“I thought that was what you were after, a princess to eat,” said Amarantha.

“Oh, not at all. I only eat people if they really irritate me,” said the dragon.

“You ate Prince Alaric, Prince Dollin and Sir Edward,” said Amarantha.

“Prince Alaric, yes.  He really annoyed me,” said the dragon.  “Prince Dollin ran away when I disparaged his poetry. I made him cry.  And Sir Edward ... well, all right, I incinerated him.  He damaged the decor of my home.”

“I suppose you had good reasons,” said Amarantha.  “Why did you want a princess, then?”

“To break the spell on me which turned me into a dragon,” said the dragon. “I used to be King Florian of Fairmeadows.”

“But that’s my kingdom! And ... and King Florian disappeared hundreds of years ago! How is this?”

“You’ve heard of wicked stepmothers?”

“Of course; who hasn’t?”

“Well, I never had one of those, but I did have a wicked mother-in-law,” said Florian. “She was a witch and she turned me into a dragon so my wife could re-marry. Nobody told me her heart was already engaged or I wouldn’t have followed my father’s dying wish to marry the wench.  But she went along with her mother’s plan instead of asking me for her freedom.  So I’ve been stuck as a dragon until a princess was prepared to kiss me.”

A tear rolled out of his eye and dropped to the sand, boiling gently.

“Oh! How sad!” cried Amarantha, and kissed him on the nose.

In a brilliant flash, a naked, but kingly, man was there on all fours instead of a dragon. Amarantha wrapped her cloak around him and regarded him critically. He was on the right side of thirty, tanned, and with auburn hair.

“You appear to be intact and not aged to three hundred years old,” she said.

“Dragons live a long time,” said Florian. “What a beautiful girl you are!”

“If you want me to change my hair or put lemon juice on the freckles, you can get lost,” said Amarantha.

“But your freckles are charming!” said Florian. “And as my hair is a darker shade of your own hair colour, we tone most beautifully. I bet you have a fiery temper, too, what fun we shall have quarrelling and making up. You will marry me, won’t you?” he said, hopefully. “I don’t write poetry, unless you count limericks, I’m not romantic, and I’m only martial when it’s necessary.”

“You sound ideal,” said Amarantha. “But will you let my father finish his rule and retire when he sees fit?”

“Sounds a splendid idea,” said Florian. “Then we can have fun as a married couple before having the responsibilities, and with luck, we won’t have to rule long before we can retire and hand over to our first child, and go exploring instead.  It’s one think I will miss about being a dragon, being able to fly long distances and explore.”

“Oh, well, perhaps we can buy a flying carpet,” said Amarantha.

 

Florian had amassed a considerable amount of treasure as well as what was already in the cave from the dragon who had used it before; and they were able to modernise the kingdom no end with good drains and breeding programs for the farm animals. They had great fun exploring, and had three children, a prince and two princesses, who all had red hair and a propensity for breathing fire.

It was, however, considered bad manners for anyone to mention this.