“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.
“Do you want demons or not?”
“Let me go!” Estella almost threw him off, and Reason scolded. She had to go with him into the alcove, where no one would see them.
“You’d better take me to the dragon!”
“But he’s dangerous! He’ll burn you!”
“Are demons not dangerous?”
Reason went kind of quiet.
“I don’t want demons, I want to see the dragon,” she insisted, tugging at Reason’s tail.
“It is all right, all right,” Reason struggled to free his tail from her fingernails. “When it gets dark, I’ll take you to the dragon. But not now! Not when it’s midnight and all the servants are asleep. Only that he may burn you, you take the responsibility on yourself.”
Estella nodded happily.
Girlfriend of the dragon
Up close, the dragon was an unpleasant swamp color. It looked emerald only in the sunlight. In the dungeon, lit by smoldering torches, its hide no longer glowed as brightly. Estella was not disappointed. A real dragon is a miracle, no matter what it looks like.
He slept on kegs of beer and completely ignored the princess. He must have been fed up.
“I’ll call him Emerald anyway,” Estella decided aloud, “even though he looks more like a swampy in color.”
“You should call it Ale,” said Reason. “He always responds to the word ale.”
There were plenty of empty ale barrels in the dungeon. Some had been crushed to splinters by the claws of dragons. From the smell, it was clear to this day what their contents were.
“And he likes to drink heady drinks,” Estella concluded bleakly.
“Well, call him Drunkard,” Reason jumped off Estella’s shoulder and began bouncing around the kegs, even trying to pull the corks out of some. He didn’t seem to mind a drink himself. “Fortunately, our dragon had not yet reached the fancy wine cellars in the royal cellar. And it wasn’t because he was lazy. The cellar is a narrow passage, and your daddy’s spell on the door. It’s impossible for a dragon to get in. Otherwise he’d have been nicknamed the Wine