The Dragon King Read online

  Inside it was hot and steamy, and Agatha stood over a big pan on the stove.

  “Good morning Agatha,” Nellie said.

  Agatha turned around and gave her a scowl.

  Nellie shrank back. “Whatever is the matter?”

  “That woman thinks she knows everything. Whenever we get where we’re going, I want you to put her as far away from me as possible.”

  “Which woman?”

  “The pampered noble witch.”

  “Madame Sabine?”

  “I would drop the Madame. This woman behaves like a fishwife. She has no manners whatsoever. We rescued her—she can’t boss us around.”

  “What did she say to you?”

  “She’s telling me how to cook, how to make a fire, how much porridge to put in, as if she knows all this stuff.”

  Nellie went into the main cabin, where many people had now woken up. Most of them had their clothes back, even though some of the children complained that the clothes were cold and damp.

  This sure was a ragtag band of strange people thrown together.

  Nellie spotted Madame Sabine seated on a bench with poor Wim, the palace taster, and another woman they had rescued last night whose name Nellie didn’t know. Madame Sabine wore a man’s shirt and trousers that they’d found in one of the sleeping cabins and was talking animatedly, spreading her hands as she did so.

  In the noise of the cabin, Nellie couldn’t hear what she was saying, except that she didn’t look angry. Wim and the woman ate with vacant expressions, and Madame Sabine just talked. There was no evidence of a disagreement but, clearly, Agatha expected Nellie to do something. Ask what the disagreement with Agatha was about, perhaps?

  Inside the door was a little cupboard from which Anneke and a couple of the other children were taking bowls and spoons for dinner. They stacked them in a basket and went into the galley.

  Nellie helped carry steaming bowls of porridge into the cabin. She made sure Bruno got a good portion. He sat on the bench in the very corner of the cabin with the dragon box on his lap.

  Little Bas sat next to him.

  “Why are you keeping Boots in that box?” he asked.

  “He is tired. He needs to sleep.”

  “Are you really a prince?”

  Nellie couldn’t hear Bruno’s reply. She had arrived at Madame Sabine’s table.

  She put the bowl of porridge down, and expected some sort of protest about I’m not going to eat that, but none came.

  Madame Sabine grabbed the bowl and spoon and started shovelling the porridge into her mouth. She still had her hair tied up behind her back and reminded Nellie of the hungry groundsmen who sometimes came into the palace kitchens.

  This was sure a strange woman.

  So Nellie sat down at the same table, and started eating her porridge.

  Madame Sabine glanced sideways across the room at Bruno a few times. After a silence, she said, “Does he have to carry that box with him everywhere he goes?”

  “He’s afraid that people will steal it.”

  Madame Sabine met her eyes in a sharp look. “I didn’t steal it. The church did.”

  “The church paid for it. My father even disagreed with it.”

  “Your father was an old-fashioned fool. He had all the knowledge and was too afraid to do anything with it.”

  “He might have had good reason.”

  “Reason or not, the church had no right to have the box.”

  Nellie raised her eyebrows. “So, were you going to give it back to the young prince, then?”

  “That creature is too evil for a boy of his age to handle.”

  “Yes. Adult thieves clearly do much better.”

  Touché. Madame Sabine gave her an icy look.

  Nellie returned an equally icy stare. A fog had lifted off Nellie’s mind. All the time in the palace, they had been eating food laced with magic, and it was not until Nellie left the palace that she realised the palace banquets made people happy. All the silly things the guests did or said never mattered because everyone was numb with magic and nobody cared.

  For a while, they ate in an uneasy silence.

  Then Madame Sabine continued as if Nellie had said nothing, “I was just saying to Wim we should be having a rest. There is likely to be trouble further up the river, and we want the team of cows to be fresh and well fed.”

  What did she know about sea cows? “I have just spoken to the people upstairs, and they agree except there is no safe anchorage, and we don’t want to get bogged in any of the banks. The river is high, and most of the jetties are flooded.”

  “Then we must go into one of the smaller side creeks.”

  Nellie lifted her chin. “I’ll let the captain know.”

  Madame Sabine gave her a sarcastic look. “You’re playing with me. We don’t have a captain. The captain of the ship got left in the city. I know, because I saw his face as we were taking off with his ship.”

  Nellie picked up her empty bowl. “One ship, many captains. I’m going to give Gisele a break.”

  But as she crossed the crowded cabin, it occurred to Nellie that they needed someone with a strong hand to lead them, or there would be many disagreements.

  And that person should not be Madame Sabine.

  Chapter 2

  * * *

  AFTER SHE FINISHED her porridge, Nellie left the cabin and went back into the cold air outside. She walked along the side of the ship to the stern where Gisele and Koby were still talking. They turned around as Nellie joined them.

  “Your turn for breakfast,” Nellie said.

  Gisele took the opportunity gladly, but before Nellie sat at the bench behind the beam where the reins were tied, Koby insisted on explaining everything about the cows and what they had done since the break of daylight.

  Nellie knew most of these things, but she let Koby talk. Looking after the cows and being given a responsibility had brought out the life in Koby. For the first time since meeting her, Nellie noticed a spark in her eyes.

  “Have breakfast,” Nellie reminded her.

  “Oh, but I like it here,” she said. “Someone needs to look after the animals.”

  “I can look after them. You can come back, but first I want you to have breakfast. I have no idea what else will happen today, and I want you to be well fed.”

  Koby left, and Nellie busied herself for a while studying how the harness was tied up and how the cows were doing.

  They had slowed down and were going at a steady pace upriver, sticking to the sides where the current was not as strong.

  The poor things must be tired.

  She let her eyes roam over the water, looking for a place to rest for a while. The mist hung close to the tops of the riverbanks, shrouding trees in a foggy blanket, although bits of blue sky peeped through here and there.

  She knew there were no houses along the river because of the regular spring floods, but still it was disturbing not to see anyone. It was as if the world had been abandoned. She thought of the first time she had fled like this, with Mistress Johanna and Prince Roald, and how, when they had walked up the riverbank, they had found burned out farmhouses where all the people had been killed.

  The memories gave her the shivers.

  “Back again?” a male voice said.

  Nellie turned around.

  Henrik came walking past the side and sat next to her on the bench.

  “Aren’t you cold?” she asked.

  “It’s better now than it was earlier this morning,” he said.

  Which didn’t answer her question. “There is breakfast if you want.”

  “Maybe later.”

  Whatever he was waiting for, he didn’t say. His eyes studied both sides of the river, constantly checking and being vigilant.

  “Have you seen anything?” she asked. He unsettled her a bit because it looked as if he expected some evil to spring out from behind a willow tree at any moment.

  “No, and that disturbs me.”

  “W
hy?”

  “Because a few times during the night, and again just now, I’ve heard the horse’s hooves, so I know that someone is following us, but I can’t see them.”

  “One horse, or many horses?”

  “It seems only one. At first I thought I was dreaming, or hearing sounds that I’m unfamiliar with. But there is definitely a horse somewhere on that side.”

  He gestured to the right, which was the side of the bank Saardam was on.

  Nellie peered at the riverbank, but couldn’t see anything either.

  Yet it was only to be expected that someone would keep checking them out. The boat was going at a speed slow enough for a horse to keep up. The vessel was big and heavy, made of solid wood, and with more people on board than it was designed to comfortably carry.

  “What do you want to do about this follower?”

  “I’d shoot him if he came close enough.”

  Nellie remembered how he had shot the Regent and tried to shoot the Shepherd at the same time. This was a dangerous man.

  “And will he come close enough?”

  “If he is smart, no. I expect him to be smart. He hasn’t shown his face all night.”

  Now Nellie understood why he didn’t want to go inside. He was the only person on board the ship who had any skill with weapons.

  “Do you want me to get breakfast for you?”

  “That would be nice.”

  So Nellie made her way back to the cabin, because the sea cows looked like they were behaving themselves.

  Inside the galley, Agatha was still stirring the pan.

  “Have you had any breakfast?” Nellie asked her.

  “Not yet, but when this is done, I’ll leave the cleaning up to the kids, and I’ll have a good bowl.”

  Agatha knew how to look after herself.

  “I’d like a bowl for Henrik.”

  “Of course. I expected him to come in. What is he doing out there?”

  “He says someone is following us, and he’s waiting for them to show themselves.”

  “Following us?”

  “On the riverbank. On a horse.”

  Agatha looked worried, but she took a bowl and filled it to the brim with thick steaming porridge. She gave it to Nellie. “Tell him we’re working on the sugar.”

  Nellie carried the bowl outside where it steamed even more. “Here you are, eat it up quickly before it gets cold.”

  Henrik took the bowl and spoon from her with a grateful expression on his face. He sat down on the bench to eat.

  For a while, Nellie watched him, and then she watched the sea cows which were still slowly swimming up the river.

  “How familiar are you with this section of the river?” she asked.

  He couldn’t answer because his mouth was full.

  She continued, “We need to rest the cows somewhere. They need to graze.”

  He nodded, swallowed and said, “Hopefully we’ll find a safe spot around the Bend.”

  The Bend was a loop in the river where the water flowed strongly, flanked on one side by fertile farmland and on the eastern side by impenetrable marshland. According to rumours and stories, ghosts and other evil creatures inhabited those marshes.

  Some smaller towns were also around that area. Her family lived further up the river.

  Henrik had almost finished his porridge when all of a sudden he jumped up.

  Nellie had been leaning on the railing and got a fright from the sudden movement.

  He flung down his bowl—the spoon fell to the deck—and climbed on top of the cabin roof in a couple of agile leaps that belied a man of his age.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Henrik looked over the surrounding countryside. He pointed. Nellie expected something about the horse, but he said, “There is a ship up the river.”

  Nellie peered into the mist. She thought she was seeing something, but it was difficult to tell.

  Ahead in the river was a tongue of land where some willow trees grew. They were all bare and lifeless now, but the stand was quite thick, and could easily hide people, a wagon or maybe a boat.

  “What are you seeing?”

  He pointed again. “There are people on that side, too.”

  The other side of the river was more open, but Nellie still couldn’t see what he was talking about. His eyes must be better than hers.

  Henrik jumped off the cabin. “We must stop here.”

  “If the cows stop swimming, we’ll drift to the riverbank.”

  “Could be, but there is a trap waiting for us. We must be extremely careful.”

  “Should we turn back?”

  “No, because it’s likely people will be behind us, too. Even if there aren’t, these people will be suspicious and suspect we have something to hide.”

  True. “So what will we do?”

  “We have to keep going. I suggest we go carefully, because if we come in too fast, that will cause problems, too. We should stick close to the banks so they can’t surround us on all sides.”

  “What about the person on the horse?”

  “The other bank.”

  But that side was low and marshy, a misty landscape with ghosts. Nellie shuddered. “What do you want me to do?”

  She had no idea how he knew all these things about the people she couldn’t yet see, but it was not her place to question someone with much more experience.

  “Go and warn the others. Tell them to stay inside, preferably below the deck so it looks like there are only a few people on the ship. Make sure they have something to defend themselves with if we are boarded.”

  But Nellie was sure that if bandits or soldiers boarded the ship, all would be lost anyway.

  She went back inside, taking Henrik’s bowl and spoon as a matter of habit. She looked over all the people in the cabin and hated how she would disturb the peace. At least they’d had a decent breakfast.

  Nellie put the bowl and spoon away and called for attention. “Henrik says there are two ships waiting for us further up the river. He’s going to take us to the riverbank to see if we can lure them out. He wants us to stay in the cabin, or go below deck, and grab hold of anything we can use as weapons.”

  Nellie had expected a lot of complaints, but heard none. The women understood the threat and acted quickly, gathering up their things, children and friends, and filed into the sleeping cabins.

  Nellie, Agatha in the kitchen, and Madame Sabine were the only ones left in the cabin.

  Of course Madame Sabine wanted to take charge.

  “Didn’t you hear what Henrik told us to do?” Nellie asked.

  “Hiding won’t do any good,” Madame Sabine said. “If these are my husband’s men or bounty hunters, we need someone who knows how to talk to them.”

  And clearly Madame Sabine thought she was that person. “I don’t think they’ll be in the mood for talking.” Heaven knew, they might even want to capture Madame Sabine and ransom her.

  “Just in case they are. We arm ourselves in case they are not in the mood to talk. I don’t presume this ship has weapons on board. Monks defend themselves with words and prayer, not swords.”

  She could be oddly practical.

  “Failing that, as far as I know, the next best weapons are in the kitchen.”

  Madame Sabine walked past Nellie into the galley and came back a moment later with a few knives. She dropped them on a table and stuck the biggest one in her belt.

  “Take one,” she said, pushing the remaining knives in Nellie’s direction.

  Something about her movements said to Nellie that she was no stranger to this kind of action.

  Such an odd woman.

  Nellie weighed up which of the remaining knives would be the most suitable, and she settled on a small but sharp knife used to carve meat. The hilt felt warm in her hands, as if it had already been used.

  Nellie slipped it in her pocket, hoping she wouldn’t have to touch it.

  Gisele came out of the passage to the sleeping cabins carryin
g her weapon of choice: a hammer. If Nellie remembered correctly, she also had a knife in the pocket of her habit.

  She glanced at Madame Sabine, and some unspoken words went between them. They were both members of the Science Guild. Maybe some part of the group was about a lot more than science. Madame Sabine had called Nellie’s father old-fashioned, as if she questioned his involvement and didn’t agree with him. Had she even been in the Science Guild when her father had started the group? How did she know what he wanted? Why did she assume that she knew everything?

  Nellie pushed her annoyance aside.

  She did feel better knowing Henrik was not the only one who had any experience in fighting and talking their way out of difficult situations. She just wished that Madame Sabine didn’t act like she was the natural leader of the group.

  And where was Prince Bruno and his dragon box? Would the dragon have gained enough strength to scare off bandits or the Regent’s soldiers?

  The ship had almost come to a halt.

  Nellie followed Madame Sabine and Gisele onto the deck. Henrik still stood there, peering at the horizon.

  “Have you seen them yet?” Nellie asked.

  “Three ships,” he said.

  “Mercenaries,” Madame Sabine said.

  Henrik gave her a sharp glance. “It’s only a rumour that they’re in this area.”

  “The rumour is true.” Madame Sabine stuck her chin into the air.

  “Who would hire them, though?”

  “My dear husband.”

  “But he has no money.”

  “The church does.”

  “Why would the church be interested in hiring armed men when he’s already got guards out here?”

  “Those men are here to make sure no one enters the city and no one can leave it safely either. They patrol all the ways by which people leave or enter Saardam.”

  “Yes. They’re groups of city guards looking for particular people or stolen items,” Henrik said. “They have to do a posting here as part of their training and then again if they face punitive action.”

  Madame Sabine shook her head. “These are my husband’s private men, placed under his name by the church.”

  Henrik frowned at her. The disturbed expression in his face made Nellie’s heart jump.