The only kids book I'm working on at the moment, "Dragonfeathers" has been sitting idle for a little while, and I have testimony that kids will like it: both my little sister (14) and my neice (13) keep begging me to finish it. It tells the story of an incorrigibly garrulous princess, Prudence, and a goose girl, Tansy, who are sent to rescue Prudence's intended husband from a dragon, and chronicles the many strange individuals they meet along the way. Written with tongue firmly in cheek, as over-done fantasy is rather prevalent on the children's market at the moment (I name no names.)
Funerals can be difficult to get through sometimes, unless the funeral is that of a complete stranger, or someone you didn’t particularly like. And sometimes even then, while you’re listening to the virtues of the person who’s passed on, you can feel little pricks of water coming up behind your eyelids.
The princess of Heathmain Castle in Ye Olde Ireland, whose name was Allendaria Prudence Boywen , stood sobbing in the peaceful sunshine. She was well pleased with the attention being paid her, and felt that it should be rewarded. She did not exactly feel like crying, not on a beautiful day like this, but she was sure it would be expected of her. And besides, she was not entirely joyful.
Nan Cassandra, who’d been her nurse since she was born, had died of old age two days before. Prudence’s father the king, was in the middle of delivering a beautiful and moving account of Nan Cassandra’s life— it was also highly fictionalized.
“A sweet woman,” bellowed the king, so everyone could hear him, “who never raised her hand against a living creature....”
“Except me,” thought Prudence. “Any time I got in the sugar jar, she’d smack me so hard I couldn’t sit down for a week.”
“Never raised her voice above a whisper,” said the king loudly.
“Except to me,” thought Prudence, wiping her nose. “Oh, how she used to scream if she thought I’d done something unladylike.”
“A more genteel woman never walked the face of the earth,” said the king.
“Unless you happen to remember, as I do, the way she spit on the castle floor whenever she felt like it,” thought Prudence. “For the love of Erin, is he making all this up?”
“A strong, healthy woman,” said the king.
“Well, that at least is true.” Prudence reflected on the force with which Nan Cassandra’s hand struck her backside if she did something she shouldn’t have. As far as punishment went, Nan Cassandra had been better to Prudence than seven mothers would have been; which is just as well, since Prudence’s mother was entirely concerned with affairs of state and couldn’t waste time or strength in disciplining Prudence.
The king went on.
There were quite a few people assembled for Nan Cassandra’s funeral. They were there largely because the king had ordered them to be. There were peasants, thinking longingly of their abandoned cottages; there were sheep-herders, wishing the king would hurry this up so they could get back to their flocks; there were minor members of the nobility, wondering why they’d bothered to wear their finest clothing to the funeral of a nurse. There were passers-by; they were there for the food.
There was Tansy, the goose-girl, who had known Nan Cassandra personally. Tansy hadn’t called her Nan Cassandra, however— she’d called her Grandmother.
The king went on.
Tansy sat on a large boulder about a hundred feet from the rest of the crowd. She sat with her knees pulled up to her chin and her arms wrapped about them. Prudence could see her from where she stood, and remembered one occasion when Nan Cassandra had caught her sitting like that. She ached from the result of that as if it had happened yesterday. Nan Cassandra had certainly been an energetic woman.
Tansy rested her head on her knees. She was tired from crying so much. Nan Cassandra had been the one to look after her after her mother had died— though so much of her time had been taken up in caring for that silly princess. Prudence, that was her name. Tansy had no patience for alliteration, and she thought of Princess Prudence as if the name had been chosen just to irritate her. Tansy hadn’t met the princess herself, but she’d heard plenty from her grandmother. Enough, certainly, to resent her.
The king went on.
Hardly two minutes after the king was done speaking, while the guests were rushing for the tables of food set up in the sunshine, there came the thundering of hooves, and a horse and rider approached from the south. The both of them were in an awful state, but Tansy’s first thought was for the horse, who was breathing hard and covered in sweat. After all, the rider hadn’t been running as fast as ever he could, and the horse had. She slipped down from her boulder and ran to take the reins from the young rider. He handed them over with a quick smile of thanks, then rushed to the king’s side, bowing frantically as he went.
Tansy shook her head. All that fuss. Over what? Most likely he’d come with an invitation to dinner the next day or something. She led the horse towards the stables, fending off the stableboy’s efforts to take him away from her.
As a matter of fact, riders did often arrive, in a great hurry, with no more important message than an invitation or something of the sort. However, such was not the case on this occasion. The rider, after regaining his breath, managed to tell the king what he was there for.
“Your Great Majesty,” he said, and gasped in a long breath. “King Rhiossus, Ruler of...” Here he gasped again before he carried on. “....the Kingdom of Rhiossus....,” gasp, “formerly known as.....”
“Never mind all that, lad,” said the king. “Hear it all the time. Know it by heart, word for word. Why don’t tell me why you’re here?”
“Yessir,” said the rider, “I mean, your Gracious Majesty. I come with all haste with a message from His Majesty Conall Conchobar of the kingdom Rhegelss. His Majesty Conall Conchobar, Conall the Courageous, Our Laird of Good Eating....”
“Yes, yes,” said the king. “I’ve heard it before. I know Conall quite well, you know. We’re going to be in-laws some day, you know. Doesn’t do to be in-laws before you know a man. His son is going to marry my daughter, you see— or was it the other way round? No, couldn’t have been, I’ve only got a daughter, don’t I?”
“That’s just it!” cried the rider, interrupting the king, which was a serious offence for which he could have spent twelve weeks in the stocks. He knew all this but he felt that the situation was serious enough to warrant trespassing on the king’s conversation time. “Prince Albert, He of the Fair Hair and Generally Cheerful Disposition, He of the Empty Space Between His Front Teeth that No-One Knows What To Do About—”
“How many times have I told you?” exclaimed the king. “I’ve heard all the titles before, you can go on without me hearing them again.”
“Prince Albert’s been kidnapped!” said the rider.
“Kidnapped?” repeated the king.
“Kidnapped?” repeated the queen, who was standing nearby.
“Kidnapped?” said Prudence, who was standing nearby pretending not to listen.
“Kidnapped,” confirmed the rider. “By a Dragon.”
“A Dragon?” said the king.
“A Dragon?” said the queen.
“A Dragon?” said Prudence.
“Natascha, the Dragon Queen. She’d been terrorizing the areas around our castle, and the prince—”
“Hold there a moment,” interjected the king. “Is this Prince Albert we’re talking about?”
“Yes,” said the rider.
“He of the Fair Hair and the...”
“Yes,” said the rider, interrupting again.
“Generally Cheerful Disposition....”
“Yes,” said the rider.
“Ah,” said the king. “Wanted to get that absolutely clear. Carry on.”
“The prince went to challenge her— the Dragon Natascha, that is— and to defeat her, if he could. He’s fairly courageous, you see, a bit like his father in that respect....”
“Very like,” commented the queen. “Bull-headed as any Irishman has a right to be.”
“Hush, woman,” said the king. “Let the man speak.”
“And anyway, Natascha just picked him up and carried him off to her lair.”
“This is terrible!” said Prudence. “We were supposed to be married next month!”
“That a fact?” said the rider politely.
“Yes. They’d been engaged since they were born, you see, and were supposed to be officially announced as each other’s Intended after this funeral,” said the king.
“Tragic,” said the rider, and was arrested for being too happy.
The king, who had been getting much the worse of the argument, was glad for the interruption. “Fine, fine,” he said, avoiding the queen’s steely gaze. “Send her in....what was her name, my dear?”
The queen folded her arms and stared straight ahead and wouldn’t give him any help at all.
“Named after flower, wasn’t she? Pansy, or something.”
The queen didn’t say one way or the other. The king advanced a tentative hand and patted her shoulder, but she ignored this, too.
Tansy sidled in, looking almost ashamed of herself, she was so frightened. She’d heard that the king was a just and thoughtful man, but she’d never talked to him in person, and was so full of awe that her hands were shaking. Her knees were shaking too, she noticed, and she tried to walk firmly forward so nobody would notice. It didn’t work. The queen noticed, but she was too busy brooding to notice.
Tansy advanced towards the throne and gave a wobbly curtsey.
The king said, “Ah, the goose girl. Pansy, was it?”
“Tansy,” said Tansy, and her voice quavered.
“Quite, quite.” The king sat back and looked at her, squinting slightly. “What was it you wanted, child?”
“Well, sir, Your Majesty, your Greatness...”
“Yes, yes, nevermind that.”
“I came to beg a bit of a vacation, you see. I enjoy my job, of course, there’s nothing I’d rather do than herd your geese. But it’s just that, since my grandmother died.....”
“Grandmother? Oh, yes. Nan Cassandra. Of course.” The news the rider had brought had pushed the thought of today’s funeral completely out of the king’s mind.
“Since she died,” said Tansy quietly, staring at the floor, “I haven’t been able to...to mourn properly, you see. I would very much like to go off for a while, travel the countryside, and....I don’t know, really. Find a way to go on with everything, perhaps.”
There was a moment’s silence in the throne room.
Then the king said to his wife, “She sounds likely, does she not?” The queen gave him a withering look, but the king went on anyway. “I mean to say, she’s got no family, only the geese, and she seems strong and intelligent enough. Plus, she’s just about the right age, and she and Prudence would get on well.”
“It’s not right,” said the queen. She still faced forward, but she shook her head slightly. It was no more than a jiggle. Tansy, who was no longer staring at the floor, but was instead watching her king and queen keenly, thought how absurd she looked.
“It bally well better be right,” said the king. He said it somewhat grimly, Tansy thought. She wondered what was going on, and if she was going to be saddled with Prudence somehow. Perhaps— oh horrors!— perhaps they wanted her to go and be Prudence’s maid now! Tansy couldn’t imagine being able to spend all day, every day, with the princess, and not going crazy. Perhaps they would let her still go and spend an hour each day with her geese, otherwise, she knew she wouldn’t be able to do it.
Then the king told her what was going on, and she knew it was much worse.
“It’s a rather peculiar proposition, you see,” he began. “You know the stories, I’m sure, of what happens when someone is captured by a dragon. Someone else goes to save them, you know. And in the case of a royal daughter being captured, there’s generally a prince involved. Which is all very well and fine. But this time, see, it’s the prince who’s been captured. Yes, Prudence’s intended. Prince Albert, you know. He got taken by the dreaded and highly feared dragon Natascha. No chance of him escaping on his own, really. And so— and so— what is one to do? D’you see what I’m getting at here?”
He paused and scrutinized Tansy closely. Tansy was rather afraid that she saw exactly what he was getting at.
“So we’re going to send our daughter to rescue her Intended. And, er.... the queen won’t see her go without someone else. So I have decided to ask you to accompany her. This way you’ll get that vacation time off that you’ve been wanting. And you’ll have a purpose, to protect the princess as best as you can. It’s best all around, I think,” he finished up, and looked around at the queen with a beaming face.
“But—” said Tansy, and stopped. No one argued with the king. Except, apparently, his wife. But Tansy was only a goose girl. A goose girl, like a cat, may look at a king, but under no circumstances was she allowed to go about objecting to everything he said.
“And, you see, I’d ask you,” said the king, “only you don’t really have any choice. I can’t spare any of the men around the castle, there’s few enough as it is. And can you see Prudence going along with an ordinary peasant of a quest like this? No, no sir! She wouldn’t stand for it, you see. Friendly enough, my daughter,” he hastened to add, “but she doesn’t spend a lot of time with the peasant folk, and most likely wouldn’t know what to do with them. It must be someone from the castle, someone she knows. And she must have the best we can give her. And that’s you.”
The king turned his beaming face on her. Tansy felt that some response was required of her.
But she had no idea what to say.
