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“What do we need so much gold for?”
“It is just in case there is a rainy day.”
“Are we so poor that we have to steal from the leprechauns?” She turned her attention to the flock of midgets waving their fists in anger at Reason. He left them nothing but shards of broken pot, and took all the coins for himself. “Shall we give them all back?”
“And what shall we do ourselves when times of famine come?”
“Don’t joke, the country is prospering!”
“That’s for now! With a kindness like yours, it wouldn’t take long for the kingdom to be wasted,” Reason began lecturing her again. You might as well cover your ears for him!
“Promise you’ll never steal again!” Estella asked.
“You’d better tell that to the dragon. He’s probably back in the dungeons, sleeping rough and snacking on guards.”
“So that’s where cellar guards often disappear to. The dragon eats them!”
“And tell him not to drink anymore!” Reason quipped. “If you take away his keg of beer, he’ll be so angry he’ll snack on you.”
“I don’t believe you. They say dragons adore princesses.”
“It doesn’t care if it eats a princess or a man in a chain mail. Take my word for it. When he’s drunk, he doesn’t know the difference. And he’s drunk all the time.”
“All right, all right, I believe you!” Estella spurred her horse, and thought to herself that she would meet her dragon again. She liked him very much. He was beautiful, graceful, scaly, like a huge flying emerald. And what a protector he would be if she were to wean him off his alcoholic beverages.
If Reason were to slander him from the vein, what kind of defender would he be? After all, if the dragon were obedient, with such a strong friend, the princess could rule without reason.
Entertainment
Estella wanted to throw a ball to celebrate the resolution of the war problem. But Reason dissuaded her.
“A ball is too expensive,” he said. – And there will be a great many people there too. A dragon, attracted by the noise, might crawl into the ball and frighten away all the guests.
“Very well, then! I want to see it again!” Estella clapped her hands together in joy. “Let’s hurry up and make the ball so the dragon will come to us, or fly over.”
“You are fool, he will not give you a bouquet of roses, and will die fire so that the entire ballroom will burn!”
“Can he ask a girl to dance? Or does the difference in size prevent us from dancing?”
“He can. But it will be your last dance on fire and ashes.”
“Don’t scare me!”
“Did you see what he did to your knights?”
“But I’m a princess, not a knight.”
“Not everyone is gentle with princesses, either. The dragon is a savage! He won’t woo you.”
Estella scowled like a hurt child. And why should she be the only one to obey Reason in everything? She wanted to do things her own way. But if she did her own way, without listening to Reason, she would be a fool again. How hard it is to live! If you do what you want, you will be called a fool, and if you submit to Reason, you will be deprived of all the fun you want.
“Then there will be no ball!” Estella sighed.
“No, it is of course not. It will cost a great deal of money. Guests from other realms might come, and you’d have to feed and wine them all, and entertain them all to the highest standards. And if you don’t please them with the quality of drinks and refreshments, you can expect another war to be declared.”
“But you have so much gold stashed under the throne? Don’t you have enough for a decent ball?”
Reason clamped a clawed paw over her mouth. “The treasure’s in the hiding place for a special purpose.”
“For what purpose is it?”
Estella struggled to wriggle out of his claws.
“Shall I tell you later?”
“What does it mean?”
“The right time comes. In the meantime, forget about balls, carnivals, masquerades, and feasts.”
“It is except the coronation,” Estella reminded him.
“Yes, the coronation is essential,” said Reason. “We can’t do without it,” Reason sighed. “But we’d better get it over to June or they’ll think you’re May’s queen,” he chuckled.
He chuckled muffled at his own joke. Estella was embarrassed, for even she knew that May queens were usually proclaimed the prettiest peasant women who attended the spring village dances. To be May queen means to be queen for just one day.
“I would set your coronation for the night. Midnight would be the best time.”
“Alas, tradition says you can only be crowned in the morning, no later than noon.”
“But then it won’t be your last coronation,” Reason muttered cryptically to himself, but Estella heard him.
“What do you mean?”
“About your destiny,” he scratched his paws. “I’ll make you the only queen on the planet, and I’ll be your only advisor.”
“Oh, well, that sounds like a fantastic plan, Reason.” Estella grumbled unhappily. She’s already finding Aluar’s crown too heavy for her, and he’s going on about the world.
“You do know there will be a fancy-dress ball after the coronation,” she quipped. “You can’t cancel it. My predecessor, the legendary Queen Raymonda, established the tradition of a masquerade ball after the coronation.”
“She was rumored to be a dragon! You’d better not compare yourself to her, or the people will revolt against you.”
“Why don’t we have the ball now instead of after the coronation? I want to dance.”
“It is absolutely not! We won’t be alone at the ball. You must spend more time in my company if you want to get wise. Let’s keep it simple and for only two people.”
And so he and Reason sat down to play chess. He climbed the board, rearranging the pieces, and resembled a bizarre black monkey. Except that his sharp, werewolf-like claws left deep scratches on the chessboard.
Vines and flower vines wrapped around the chess tower of the castle where the game was played. The smell of honeysuckle and roses was pleasantly invigorating. Estella thought that some butterflies, fluttering in the flowers, and suspiciously resembling pixies, were whispering a warning.
“Is the princess playing with an evil spirit or a demon? We must tell her that she is in danger! But she’s not likely to understand our language. People don’t usually understand us.”
But Estella heard and understood. They must have mistaken Reason for an evil spirit. Should she tell them they were wrong? Or would that be an insult to Reason, who for some reason could not hear them?
He was so engrossed in the game that he didn’t notice anything. He preferred to play with black pieces. Estella got the white chess pieces, which had the privilege of making the first move, but it didn’t help her. She too often lost to Reason. Only once or twice did he let her win. It was only because he was distracted by looking at himself in the wall mirror. He really did look like he’d been dragged out of the furnace like a chimney demon. No wonder why the pixies mistook him for an evil spirit. She didn’t like his appearance herself, but she was used to him. For the sake of achievement, it was worth tolerating his ugliness. If it weren’t for Reason, she wouldn’t even know the rules of chess combat.
“They say it’s a game for the clever!” Estella remarked, rearranging the pieces. “I play it, so I am clever!”
“It is with my help. Don’t you forget! I am your cleverness. Without me you are as without a head,” Reason himself dragged the pieces with both paws and hurt Estella’s white chess pieces with his tail, so that she regularly had to correct them. Playing with him was really the most amusing thing about it.
“And they say I’ve been bewitched, so I’m stupid.”
“They’re comforting you.”
“What do you say?” She almost dropped her queen.
“Don’t ask me every word, like a dummy. Take more of my advice, and you’ll get smarter.”
“It’s that simple?”
“How do you think people learn the wisdom of life?”
“I don’t know. I think they’re born smart.”
Estella tensed. Her head felt like it was a mess. Her mind echoed in her head as if someone was pounding on an invisible door inside her mind with a fist. The healer said it happens to all victims of witchcraft. But Reason assured her otherwise.
“All men listen to wise counsel, and gain wisdom for themselves,” he said. “So with me you are on the right track.”
“But you cause a lot of trouble in the state. The palace has been in turmoil every day since I rescued you from captivity.”
“It’s not my fault. It’s the intrigues of those who envy you. They envy you for having me.”
“Can anyone see you? You said you were invisible?”
“Silly, they sense that you have something in you worthy of envy. People, even when they’re blind, can smell it and get angry. It’s human nature to be jealous.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“That’s because you’re lucky. There’s no one to envy you. Envy isn’t for those born princesses.”
“That’s not true! I have often envied Gisela.”
“She is a duenna!” Reason chuckled nastily. “You’d have been better off turning her over to a convent. She has no business in a palace. She has her nose everywhere.”
“She’s not a chaperone! She’s my tutor.”
“She’s a prude and a jealous woman, and a hunter for a rich husband. If you were a prince instead of a princess, she would have married you long ago, ignoring the age difference.”
“But she’s so elegant and graceful and everyone admires her manners. I don’t know how to behave like that.”
“So I’ll teach you!” Reason finished the game and jumped on Estella’s shoulder. The white chess pieces were lying heavily scratched on the board. “I can’t stand white chess, because white troops have long been my enemies.”
Reason spit ash on the board, and his black spit burned through it. The white ivory pieces cracked in half.
“Was it my winning that upset you?” Estella guessed. It must be nonsense that she won and not her mind.
“You just talked me out of it and I had to give you a head start,” he brushed her off. “And what problems in the state were you talking about when I helped you get through the war without any losses.”
“It is almost without loss of life!” She clarified, remembering the dragon-eaten knights.
“Feeding a dragon doesn’t count as loss,” Reason corrected. “We have to feed him while he guards us.”
“He’d rather eat other men’s food than our own.”
“You’re getting smarter, aren’t you? Next time, we’ll turn him on our enemies. I’ll help him change his orientation from our subjects to outsiders. Let him snack on outsiders. Are all our problems solved now?”
“It is not all! The courtiers have been gossiping about ghosts and evil spirits since you arrived.”
“That’s their problem, not ours.”
“Are you sure?”
“If they’re not right in the head, let them see a physician! You’re not their mother to take care of them.”
“I see! You’ve freed me from my problems.”
Estella was glad that Reason had made things so easy. Suddenly he was no longer a problem, but it was hard to carry on her shoulder.
“You’re not getting off! My shoulder’s stiff, and it’s hard for me.”
“It’ll be even harder without me!” Reason said profoundly. Maybe he was right. Maybe he needs to be close to her head, or else he’ll disappear. And without his advice, it really is hard.
“Come on, my polar star.”
“Where are we going now?”
“Just walk me around the castle. I want to hear who’s talking about what.”
“You mean listen to the news?”
“That’s right!”
He can hear everything from a distance. How does he do that? The talkers stand far away and whisper barely, but he hears everything clearly and even retells some of it.
In the beginning Estella liked the new entertainment, because Reason retold her all the funny gossip about swaggering ladies and their admirers, but gradually she tired of the monotony of the news.
“There’s Lady Frederica plotting against her husband’s sweetheart,” Reason reported. “And that Lady Cassinda ran to the physician in the morning to cure her pimples, but he did not help her. She’s now powdering her rash and whispering nasty things about the doctor to her friends Lady Eden and Lady Fancy. And the Duchess Gloriana is left abandoned by her suitor. These two gentlemen with whom she is whispering now are the bravi, the assassins for hire. She wants to send them to the traitor at night. And these ladies are the ones who are badmouthing everyone who seems more successful than they are. And it’s all high society! Even the demons would behave more decently if you wanted them to drive the humans out and make them your subjects. Is that what you want, by the way?”
Reason clawed nervously at her neck, almost ripping her necklace.
