Between the lines is written in fire

The carriage turned as if it were supported by wings. And so they drove off, with Rosamunda barely managing to climb in. Partly the carriage hung over the cliff, as if carried by invisible wings, partly slid with its wheels along the narrow path. It all resembled a ridiculous dream, but sometimes it seemed that the wings growing straight out of the walls of the carriage were really rustling above them.

A commotion at court

The dragon swooped down in the morning. Barely awake, Rosamunda learned that several villages and hamlets in the south of her kingdom had burned to the ground. If this continues, she will be left without a kingdom at all.

«Are you sure it was the dragon and not the neighbors who came to war without warning?» She asked hypocritically to her omnipresent advisors.

«Knights from the forts on the borders and sentries from the lighthouse saw the dragon in the spyglass.»

The answer was frightening. If the only survivors were those who were so far away from the fires that they had to use a spyglass, then everyone in the villages had burned.

«Any survivors?» The queen inquired.

«No one is from the burned areas.»

«That means we are left without the best grape growers and plowmen,» Rosamunda sighed.

Dandy was hiding somewhere. Probably he was hiding under her bed. Or maybe he was in her jewelry chests. He was frightened. When people saw him, he’d hide immediately. They must have teased him more than once for his ridiculous appearance. For Dandy, except for his scholarship, could pass for a little monster. It might have occurred to someone to catch him and show him in a circus. Maybe it would be for the best. Because of Dandy’s advice, she had inadvertently awakened the dragon.

Rosamunda climbed to the highest tower of the castle to survey the damage with her own eyes. The damage done to her domain by the dragon’s fiery breath was colossal. All the lands to the south resembled a scorched wasteland.

Rosamunda almost fainted. One of the loyal knights supported her. Otherwise she would have fallen into the castle moat, or worse, crashed into the sharp stone blocks below.

The sky was still bright and calm. No dragon was traveling across it. Rosamunde would have found it hard to believe there was one if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes last night. She had no business going for a walk in the mountains. It was all Dandy’s advice.

The scorched earth may have been a consequence of the war, but there’s no enemy army marching towards the capital. So the dragon raider is the most likely possibility. It is the duty of the queen, whose country has suffered from dragon fire, to send her best knights to fight the monster.

Rosamunda didn’t really know the best knights in battle, so she would have ordered the lot to be cast. But luckily for her, many had volunteered.

«Now we need to find a wizards to determine where the dragon’s lair is,» one of the advisors suggested.

«That’s easier said than done,» said another, «because all magicians, prophets, and astrologers flee the kingdom as soon as they cross its borders.»

«They probably sensed the dragon in absentia, and that’s why they fled.»

«But where is a single wizard now?»

The councilors looked at Rosamund as if she were the wizard.

«I know a fool who can lead you to the dragon’s lair without magic. I’ll call him right away,» Rosamunda promised, and went to find Dandy. There was no sign of him under the king’s bed, and she was sure he was hiding there because she had been trying to sleep all night to the accompaniment of his nasty snoring.

Dandy was not hiding in chests and closets either. Could it be that he had decided to flee in fear of the awakened dragon? He had behaved boldly, even daringly, last night. Rosamunda decided to look for him in the stables and she was right. Dandy was huddled between the wine barrels and bales of provisions in the carriage in which they had traveled to the mountains yesterday.

The sides of the carriage were battered and scratched. The grooms and coachmen had escaped from the stable for some reason. Probably the drunken song of Dandy, who had touched the uncorked bottle of wine, had frightened everyone. No one would be happy that an evil spirit had taken up residence in their cellar or stables.

«You’re going to run away!» Rosamunda rebuked him.

«I’m just preparing a backup in case of an emergency,» Dandy stroked the wine barrels he’d stolen from the cellar.

«There’s no room for me in the carriage, so you’re the only one who can escape in an emergency,» Rosamunda said.

«There are plenty of other carriages,» said Dandy. «There’s enough room for ten queens, not just one.»

«By the way, why didn’t you return the carriage to the carriage barn? You said you’d take care of everything.»

Dandy nearly choked on his wine. And the horses in the stalls bellowed and banged their hooves in a frightened manner.

«These animals smell us like a thunderstorm,» complained Dandy. «They always want to get mad at the sight of me.»

«So why are you sitting in a stable with only animals? By the way, you look like an animal yourself. Take off your camisole and you could easily replace a caged monkey.»

«You’re just joking, Your Majesty.» Dandy smiled radiantly, showing his sharp fangs.

How quickly he was sobered by the veiled threat! Rosamunda hadn’t heard him say «Your Majesty» politely in a long time. It was worth frightening Dandy, and he became kind, even tried to sing dithyrambs to her beauty. But comparing her hair to black fire, her eyebrows to tar, and her lips to rose petals was unoriginal and quite ridiculous.

«Stop sucking up!» Rosamunda cut him off.

Dandy almost dropped the bottle, which he had almost finished. The rest of the wine spilled over the hay on the stable floor.

«All right, I’ll be honest with you, as a counselor should be,» Dandy grimaced, twitched his pointy ears and zigzagged his tail. «Your kingdom is on the verge of destruction.»

«Did the shimmering pixies bring us misfortune?» Rosamunda remembered the spinning wheel and the mysterious chants of the magical creatures. «I’ve heard that fairies, though beautiful, can be evil and bring misfortune upon the heads of people who dare to venture into their habitats.»

Dandy shrugged his narrow shoulders. «There are also good fairies, but very rarely. Mostly they are gamblers, swindlers and lechers. They try to seduce you to get something out of you, or they use cheating techniques mixed with magic. I’ve suffered so much with these fairies! And pixies are like annoying insects. If you leave a bottle of wine open, they’ll swoop down to rob me of my drink.»

Rosamunda watched as he took the cork out of the wine barrel and drank almost all of its contents. How much wine could fit in Dandy’s body? The barrel was almost twice the size of Dandy’s.

«I’m not a drunkard, it’s just an extreme situation,» Dandy excused himself, noticing that the queen was looking at him with great judgment. «Who wouldn’t be frightened into a nervous breakdown by a dragon raid? And when I have a nervous breakdown, I drink without counting bottles.»

«Actually, the dragon raided my land, not yours. I’m the one having a nervous breakdown, but I haven’t had a drop of booze all day.»

«I can only applaud your fortitude. You are the queen for a reason, not me,» Dandy saluted her with a newly uncorked bottle. A man would have been so intoxicated that he would have fallen under the carriage, but Dandy had not lost his temper. His mind was not drunk at all, and he had a sly grin on his cunning face, which made him look like a demon.

«Many crevices, caves, and tracts lead to the Underworld,» he said. «And there it is easy to hide from the dragon’s flames.»

«But I’m not likely to slip down there. As you can see, I’m bigger than you.»

«It’s not a question of size. It’s whether the lords of the Underworld will accept you. There’s already a queen there. The sight of your beauty will make her think you’ve come to take her husband away from her. Even underground, they’ve heard how easily you break hearts.»

«I haven’t broken any, except yours,» said Rosamunda. «You are the most annoying of all my admirers. You’re the one who’s attracted to the counselor’s position, not me.»

«But the dragon was seduced by you! Dragons love a pretty girl!»

«Don’t talk to me about dragons anymore. Since this morning, I’ve become very afraid of them. I had a prosperous kingdom and one dragon swooped in and my country was reduced by a quarter. What happens if he strikes again? In two or three of his raids, I’d have no country at all.»

«You shouldn’t have woken him up!» Dandy said in a philosopher’s tone.

«But it was you who persuaded me to go to the mountains.»