Dragon Business, The (17 page)

In the Scabby Wench, Hob Nobbin petulantly sings his second encore of “The Goose and the Noose.” At some point while I’m telling my story, Reeger slips to our table and delivers another “second” tankard of ale. For the evening, I too have lost my ability to count beyond the number two.

Prince Maurice seems dissatisfied with my tale. “Your stories are too cynical, Father—everyone is either foolish and gullible, or they’re pulling off a scam.”

So, he’s starting to understand! “And that, my boy, is the way of the world—something you need to learn. Reality isn’t as glamorous as stories. I’m afraid your father, the great dragon slayer king, has feet of clay.”

“I’ve never looked at your feet,” Maurice says.

“It’s a metaphor. Or maybe a simile. I always get the two confused.”

“A metaphor. I may not know the dragon business, but I do know my grammar.”

The minstrel takes a break and flees the stage. Only the baker’s girl and the candlemaker’s daughter applaud. The rest of the patrons are distracted, rowdy, and unimpressed with the youthful singer who thinks much more of himself than his listeners do. Hob Nobbin doesn’t have a bad voice, just a bad attitude.

“So there was no real dragon,” Maurice continues. “What kind of story is that?”

“We had other adventures. I’ll tell them to you—the night is young. We pulled the same con across the land, but each time it was new and fresh. First, we’d go to a tavern and—”

The boy sighs. “Is the story going to be like this again and again? You’re disillusioning me.”

“Trust me, it’ll grow on you as I talk about the excitement, the danger, the romance, the narrow escapes, the piles of treasure.”

“Can we just skip some of them and boil it down to the highlights?” Maurice asks.

I know I can get carried away sometimes, lost in my glory days. The queen often chides me about that. Even though it was less comfortable, that part of my life did have a certain charm before I settled down in a big castle, before I had a kingdom to manage, laws to enforce, taxes to collect . . . before I had a wife and son.

I know now that wanting a princess and winning a kingdom are quite different from actually
having
those things.

But I don’t earn any sympathy if I complain too much. Aww, poor King Cullin with all his riches and his expansive lands . . .

Oddly, I realize that Prince Maurice is happy with his lot, his tutors, his duties. He seems a natural for this, but then he was born a prince, while I got it the dishonest way—the
resourceful
way. Still, I hope I can put a little spark in the boy’s imagination.

“All right, I’ll boil it down to just the interesting parts.”

“Interesting parts to you, or to me?” he counters.

“Interesting in an objective sense—you’ll see. I promise to leave out the boring stuff.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Maurice says.

But at least he listens.

A
FTER THE DISAPPOINTINGLY
small honorarium they received from King Norrimun, Dalbry said he’d had enough of castles, banquets, courtly finery, and the attitudes of kings. “Cheated again . . . after we saved his kingdom, without even causing a scandal.”

Reeger was particularly incensed as he led the mule along the rutted road. “Bloodrust! How am I ever going to afford my own tavern if our profits keep vanishing like turds down a sewer pipe?”

“You should’ve been a poet,” Dalbry said. “You certainly have a way with words.”

Cullin rode forward on his pony. “At least we got a horse for Sir Dalbry and Pony for me.”

Reeger picked at his teeth, grimaced, then picked at a different tooth. “Along with all the accompanying expenses—stable fees, hay, blankets, tack. That rustin’ reward will be gone before we know it.”

“We have other expenses, too,” Dalbry said. “Dragon business expenses. Since we’re near Rivermouth, we have to buy materials to prepare for the next kingdom.”

Reeger grumbled but looked ahead down the road that led to the port town. “Let’s see if Ossio is in port. We’re going to need what he’s selling.”

Reeger insisted that the best food, friendliest people, and most comfortable lodgings were to be found in Guttermouth—the section of the port city where thieves, cutthroats, and bandits liked to hang out. “We’ll feel right at home.”

The tavern’s wooden sign showed a fish with a hook in its mouth. There were no words, because the tavern owner knew that most of his customers were illiterate, and he catered to his clientele. Inside, the inn was filled with a potpourri of body odors, fish odors, bad breath, bad gas, and spilled ale.

“They serve a special kind of fish pie here,” Reeger said, “made with an imported fish cured with lye. It’s said to be such a powerful preservative that it can last twenty winters without going bad.”

Cullin and Dalbry were reluctant to pay the high price for such a luxury item, but Reeger insisted. The meal was not at all to Cullin’s liking, with the strong taste of the lye and the enhanced reek of the fish. It was a good thing the preservative proved so effective, because given
any
food alternative, he would have let the lye-cured fish sit untouched for twenty winters or more.

Accustomed to eating foul things, Reeger smacked his lips and muttered his approval, while Sir Dalbry ate his fish pie with a stoic expression; he was a knight, and he knew how to endure.

A man dressed as a lumberjack from the highlands came in carrying a long, jagged-toothed saw; Cullin thought it odd for the lumberjack to bring his tools into the tavern, until the man sat on the hearth, propped the saw across his leg, and began to wring wailing music from it. He wasn’t, after all, a woodcutter, but an avant-garde minstrel.

Much to Dalbry’s annoyance, the lumberjack minstrel played a song about the sacrifice of brave Duke Kerrl, which had gone viral. In addition, Sir Phineal had made himself into a hero by forgoing the career-advancement opportunities of the dragon hunt so he could stay behind and nurse Sir Tremayne back to health. Cullin pointed out that in the wake of so much waterweed, cleaning Tremayne’s chamber pot would’ve been a more frightening task than facing any dragon, so he didn’t begrudge Phineal his glory.

True to form, Sir Dalbry gave a portion of the gold coins to the needy, and as soon as word got around, a great many of the “needy” appeared. Reeger grumbled about the knight’s generosity, not understanding why he would waste good coins on other people, when he could just as well waste them on himself.

“Because I value my honor,” Dalbry said. “The money I spend in this way earns me self-respect.”

“Self-respect is overrated,” Reeger said. “But it’s your money; waste it if you like. I’ll spend mine on another one of those lye-fish pies.”

As they sat in the bustle of the tavern, Dalbry found a young scamp pestering the bar patrons. With his gaunt frame and sunken eyes, the boy was obviously an orphan; he looked hungry, hoping for scrapings of food from the plates. (Cullin offered him what was left of his lye-fish pie, but the orphan boy wouldn’t take it.)

Dalbry held up a copper coin, catching the orphan’s eye. “Run an errand for me, young man. Go to the marketplace and purchase as many dried apricots as this coin will buy, then bring them back here. When you’re done, I’ll give you a copper coin just like it for your trouble.”

The boy snatched the coin and dashed away from the tavern. Dalbry sat back and explained. “My magic apricot sack is almost empty. I need to fill it again.”

Though they remained in the tavern for the rest of the night, listening to songs played by the lumberjack minstrel with his musical saw, the orphan boy did not return. Apparently, he chose to bypass the effort of buying dried apricots and returning for his copper coin as a reward, when he could just keep the original coin in the first place. Sir Dalbry was saddened by the corruptness of human nature, but he resigned himself to go to the port market himself the next day and buy his own apricots.

Normally, preparing for the next scam, they would have told stories, dropped hints, and spread rumors to make the locals receptive to hiring a dragon slayer. It was a primary rule of marketing: create a need the customer isn’t even aware of, then sell the solution to meet that need. But they were done with King Norrimun’s kingdom and would soon set off for new territory.

Their travel plans were fluid, as always. Dalbry was content to wander wherever his boots—or Drizzle—took him. Reeger considered one kingdom as good as any other. Cullin went wherever his friends decided to travel.

He listened to stories shared by the tavern patrons, rumors they concocted all by themselves: horrific tales about a haunted castle inhabited by a hairy beast who howled at the moon. Others lived in terror of the local witch who had laid down a curse, declaring that fruit on apple trees would be infested with worms and that calves would be born with spots.

“Don’t calves usually have spots?” Cullin asked.

“More spots than usual,” said the frightened peasant. Cullin didn’t point out that finding an apple without a worm was also a rarity.

Another patron told the tale of an enchanted piper hired to lure the rats out of a city; when that proved effective, the town elders paid him to play his pipe again and lure all the naughty children away.

“I don’t suppose the same technique could be used to lure worms out of apples,” Reeger said.

“And what about the spotted calves?” Cullin said. “Maybe we could whitewash them, call them cured, and be long gone with our fee before the spots reappeared.”

With a sigh, Dalbry said, “So many opportunities, but there’s only so much we can do. The greatest profit is in the dragon business.”

T
HEY SHOPPED CAREFULLY
for a budget-priced inn, one that claimed “we’ll leave a candle on for you.” Dalbry, Reeger, and Cullin shared a single room, which was meant to be an extravagance, although the tiny chamber seemed claustrophobic and more unpleasant than sleeping out in the open. The lumpy mattresses were as full of bedbugs as with straw.

The following day, they retrieved their livestock from the Guttermouth stable, where they were shocked by the hidden fees. Reeger occasionally stabled their mule during visits to towns, but now they had to board a horse and a pony as well. Oddly, Drizzle and Pony each cost more for upkeep than the nameless mule did. When Reeger demanded an explanation, the stablemaster shrugged. “Surcharges.”

“What sort of rustin’ surcharges?”

“The horse is a bigger animal, therefore it costs more.”

“And what about the pony?”

“It’s smaller, therefore more difficult to manage. Thus, the surcharge.”

When the stablemaster showed them the fine print in the contract they had signed the night before, Reeger complained about the unfairness of the pricing, but they could do nothing about it. So they paid and left, stung by how they’d been cheated.

Dalbry insisted on stopping at the first dried-fruit vendor stand, so he could replenish his magic sack. “Next, we see if Ossio’s in port.” Fortunately, the piratical trader had an uncanny intuition for being at Rivermouth whenever the three comrades needed his goods.

At the docks, they moved among the bustle of trading ships, passenger vessels, fishing boats, even a piled-high guano barge loaded with rich fertilizer excavated from an offshore seagull rookery. The captain of the redolent barge stood with a shovel propped at his side and enticed any passersby to take home a load of his “gray gold.”

Ossio’s ship was at the same dock where they had done business with him before. The old bald pirate lounged on the deck, patting his potbelly. He recognized them as they came forward. “I’d know that mule anywhere!”

Cullin had seen him wear an eyepatch before, but that was just an affectation; last time, Ossio had worn the patch on his other eye. Now, he wore none at all, but a decorative iron ring dangled from the bald pirate’s left ear. Although the iron did not gleam and had a tendency to get rusty, Ossio was of the opinion that gold was too valuable to be dangling from a man’s earlobe.

“We’re in need of your special wares,” called Reeger. “Ready to trade?”

Ossio strode down the gangplank to meet them on the dock. “Trade implies that you have something to give me in return.”

“We just got paid for a dragon slaying,” Dalbry said.

“Oh, ho! From what I hear, it was Duke Kerrl who did all the dragon slaying.”

Dalbry did not bother to hide his scowl. “Credit doesn’t always go where credit is due.”

“We can trade you a story for your goods,” Cullin suggested. “Something you’ll tell again and again in the dockside taverns.”

Ossio frowned at the young man. “I’ve already got enough stories to bore every innkeeper up and down the coast.”

“I’ll bet you do,” Reeger said.

Ossio swatted a fly away from his bald scalp. “As for payment, I was hoping for a few special items in trade . . . the kind you provided previously?”

“Rust! We’ve got enough to give you job security at any port you visit.” Reeger dug in the mule’s saddlebags, and the creature brayed mournfully. Drizzle and Pony didn’t seem to know what to do with the beast, nor could they understand anything the other animal tried to communicate.

He withdrew a packet of unevenly round forest mushrooms, each the size of a dinner plate. They were the color of putrescent flesh and encrusted with lichen. Ossio ran his fingertips over the large mushrooms, ruffling the frills and releasing dusty spores. “Oh, ho—those are nice ones.”

“Put them in a keg of vinegar before your next voyage,” Reeger said. “They’ll be well prepared by the time you reach port. No one can dispute that these are suckers from a monstrous kraken.”

“I believe I see other suckers,” Dalbry said.

Ossio and Reeger both found that funny, though the old knight didn’t seem to be making a joke. The bald pirate gestured them toward the gangplank. “Come aboard to my cabin. You can tie your animals down there. I’ll find a trustworthy orphan boy to watch over them.”

Dalbry shook his head, still unhappy about his last experience with a trustworthy orphan boy. “We’d prefer to stay on the open deck, where we can watch the animals ourselves.”

“Whatever.” Ossio beckoned them to follow him up the gangplank. “Share a drink with me. I’ve got an awful-tasting beverage, but it’s potent.”

“Can’t wait to try it.” Reeger carried the pack of thick forest mushrooms, which would soon be converted into sea-monster remnants.

The piratical trader ducked into his cabin and emerged with a small cask and four gold-rimmed glasses that he had obtained at a nobleman’s estate sale. He unbunged the cask and poured out an oily, milky-looking ooze that smoked as it entered the glasses. “Don’t take more than a sip at a time—not if you value the enamel on your teeth.”

Reeger, who had the least amount of tooth enamel in the group, gave a snort of disbelief, took a swig, then gagged.

“I get it from a local moonshine operation in Sewermouth,” Ossio said. “Once I add a little bit of coloring, I’ll market it as sea-serpent venom milked straight from the fangs of a creature that bit down on my deck. Plenty of apothecaries or potion-masters will pay well for genuine serpent venom.”

“It’s poison,” Dalbry said after taking a tiny sip.

“No, just high-proof alcohol. It can cure many ills.”

Cullin decided not to taste his drink.

Dalbry nudged. “I believe you have something for us?”

“Rust, we wasted the last of our trophies on King Norrimun the Corpulent—better known as King Norrimun the Stingy.”

“Even so, we’re still in the black,” Dalbry said. “It’s just a setback. We’ll move on.” He lifted his glass in a toast. The three older men each sipped the sea-serpent venom, competing for the worst grimace.

“Now, I’d say those kraken suckers are worth at least four dragon heads,” Reeger said.

“Don’t be ridiculous. A bargain should start with a realistic bid.” Ossio looked down at the shriveled forest mushrooms with a deprecating expression. “I know what I can sell them for, no matter what story I tell. Do you know how hard it is to get dragon heads?”

“You mean, according to minstrels?” Sir Dalbry said. “Or the fake dragon heads that you provide?”

“Oh, ho, you think crocodiles are easy to kill? I have to spend a fat sheep or two to lure each one.”

“Before we dicker any more, let’s have a look at the rustin’ dragon heads,” Reeger said. “Go get them.”

While Ossio went to his cabin to retrieve the items, the three companions whispered together, deciding on the price they were willing to pay.

The bald pirate came back out with four crocodile heads—though large, they were lightweight, dried and stuffed with sawdust and straw, their scaly leather cured. Each one had been painted with fearsome-looking spots or tiger stripes. “Put your own horns on them, unless you think they look monstrous enough already. I sell them as-is.”

Cullin listened as the haggling began in earnest, and the voices grew louder with each sip of serpent venom. Reeger and Ossio were both masters of bargaining, while Cullin was out of his league, and Sir Dalbry considered the dickering beneath him.

It was a dance of indignation, cajoling, argument, and resistance, and finally they settled on trading the pack of kraken-sucker mushrooms and their last two gold durbins (from King Ashtok) for three stuffed dragon heads. Ossio kept one, which he would make into a convincing sea serpent head for his own scam.

When they left Ossio’s ship, everyone acted as if they felt cheated and dissatisfied, but Cullin knew that both sides were happy with the bargain. Those fake relics would earn each of them a tidy profit.