Читать книгу Simple Princess - Natalie Yacobson - Страница 5

With Reason’s advice, raising an army was quick and easy. No one remembered that Ravelin was a mighty state. Everyone listened to the orders of a queen who had yet to be crowned. The coronation had to be postponed. War is out of order.

“I’m sure the scoundrel is plotting to take Aluar for himself by marrying the foolish heiress,” Reason snickered on the way. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Even without winning the war, he may propose to you and settle the dispute. Don’t agree to marry him.”

“I wasn’t going to! I didn’t think he was single,” she rode the white horse, which twitched its ears uneasily and winced at the presence of the beast on her shoulder.

“Horses don’t like us,” Reason complained.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean smart creatures,” he twisted away, though he was about to say something else. “Don’t pull on the reins so hard and loosen the girth.”

He climbed off her shoulder and finished the job for the groom. The horse had nearly had a heart attack at the touch of his claws. She relented, though, and Reason quickly returned to Estella’s shoulder.

“Keep ahead of the group!” He pointed and urged. “You lead the march!”

Estella panicked from afar at the sight of the countless army of the enemies. A forest of helmeted heads stretched as far north as the distant mountains.

“We need a dragon to win now!”

“Why didn’t you say so before! One is just sitting in your dungeons.”

“I thought you were my advisor, not the other way around.”

The princess’s guards looked at each other worriedly, seeing her muttering to herself. Estella belatedly remembered that they couldn’t see Reason, so she shrugged it off:

“I’m praying before the fight! Don’t mind me!”

The excuse about prayers bailed her out of the most ridiculous situations. The guards even respected the faithful princess.

Reason put his clawed little fingers in his mouth and whistled. The warriors murmured. The sound was like an omen of impending disaster.

“If the dragon doesn’t wake up and get here within the hour, he doesn’t hold me in high esteem,” Reason grumbled. “Then I’ll have to give him a sterner draft. He’s been so sleepy. Not long ago he was working for your father as a living furnace, burning prisoners and spies in his jaws. As soon as your father grew old and sick, the dragon became lazy.”

“I knew nothing of the dragon.”

“But you felt it. You have dragon’s blood, too,” Reason gently touched her chest with his claws, jabbing at the brooch, but his paw did not bleed. It appeared to be invulnerable. Estella gasped. This monster was about to become her hero.

He had not promised to win the war soon, either, as it turned out, for nothing. He didn’t need a dragon for his revenge, either.

Reason hissed a whisper, and the marching tents of the enemy’s troops went up in flames like matchsticks.

She opened her mouth in amazement.

“Don’t pursue your lips, or a moth will pop into them,” said Reason, chuckling, claws clawing at her shoulder.

“Aren’t you babbling witchcraft words?” Estella panicked when she heard the ominous words in his whisper.

“Why should you care how we win the war?” He grumbled angrily.

“No, I don’t. It’s all about winning it!”

“Bite your tongue while I work! I am working hard to help you. And you call me a sorcerer!”

“I’m sorry!” Estella watched in horror as a black storm rose from the ground on the battlefield, as if triggered by Reason’s hiss. Where it passed, enemy warriors pounced to fight each other, as if they had become blind and could not distinguish friend from foe. And Reason claims he’s no warlock! She finds that hard to believe.

“Don’t worry, I won’t send my Reason away just because it’s witchcraft,” Estella tried to reassure him, but Reason wouldn’t hear her. He hissed strange, incomprehensible words that caused the ground between the two armies to open up, and the bony arms of the dead began to stick out.

Estella cried out in horror, and her horse sprang to a halt.

“Enough is enough!” Reason clicked its black claws. It made the ground between the Ravelin’s and the Aluar’s armies smooth again. And a moment ago there was a pit in it.

“Who were they?”

“What do you mean?” Reason didn’t understand.

“They came out of the ground.”

“They were the skeletons of warriors who had fallen in a former battle.”

“What old battle? We haven’t even started the first one yet.”

“Do you think this is the first time kings have fought on this field?”

“I don’t know,” Estella frowned.

The damage inflicted on someone else’s army forced King of Ravelin to negotiate.

“We haven’t raised the white flag yet, but we’d like to negotiate peacefully,” the counselor, who had approached Estella with the royal delegation, ingratiated. He seemed to think she was a witch, for he trembled shakily as he addressed her. She ought to tell him she hadn’t been conjuring, but she would have to denounce Reason in front of everyone. It would be indelicate.

“You are, of course, the daughter of the Wizard King, and his spirit is clearly protecting you,” the Counselor said curtly. “But, think, what is it like for a woman to rule alone? You need a lively protector in the form of a royal consort.”

“What did I tell you?” Reason clawed at Estella’s hair and pulled the strands tight. “Don’t dare to agree! Do you understand?”

She couldn’t even nod, so hard he tugged at her curls.

The King of Ravelin looked at her with admiration. He was an attractive young man, but the silver half-mask on his face frightened her away. It was the kind worn by victims of alchemical experiments who mutilated themselves. Knights are usually proud of their battle scars.

“A dragon burned me,” the King said, catching her gaze perplexed as he removed the mask. He hadn’t done so in a long time, it seemed, because his counselor gasped in astonishment. Estella didn’t like the sight of the poisonous burn, either. It crossed the king’s eye and cheek, disfiguring the attractive face.

“The dragon was small, the size of an elephant. Not the size for a dragon. But he broke into the palace to rob my treasury, and I got in his way.”

“And now you wish to replenish your treasury at the expense of mine?” Estella merely repeated the words Reason whispered, but the King of Ravelin blushed to his ears.

“I was only sure your father had cast a dragon upon me. Everyone knows he was, um, kin of dragons.”

“This is an insult to my entire dynasty!” Estella echoed Reason again, copying not only the words but the stern tone this time. Even her own knights were afraid of her.

“Forgive me, but there are rumors,” the king of Ravelin hesitated. He obviously felt insecure in the presence of the proud beauty. She contrary to the vicious gossip was also clever.

“Rumor and truth are different things!” Estella struggled to hold the reins of her horse, which was never accustomed to the presence of Reason.

“I assumed you, like many, wanted to make me a sort of marriage proposal, first defeating me in battle so that I would not refuse. You value your manhood so little that you think you can’t get a bride except by force?”

“Actually…” The king of Ravelin shrank back to hide his embarrassment. “You had such a reputation… Well… I wouldn’t dream of asking you to marry me.”

“Am I not beautiful?”

He was embarrassed.

“Or did hearing about how stupid I was make you reject me?”

“Are you stupid?!”

“More like cunning!“One of the advisors whispered. The king shushed them hastily.

“You are very wise, my lady. Let us solve the war by marriage.”

How quickly he changed his mind! But Reason did not let Estella decide for herself whether she wanted to marry or not. The answer it whispered, she repeated:

“No, then you will get my treasury, and what will I get? Is it the absence of sincere love?”

Reason reeled as the king began to swear to her the sincerity of his feelings.

“Tell him about the secret of the king’s treasury. He will understand. Whisper one word.”

“But it’s witchcraft,” Estella recoiled from Reason’s whisper, which burned her ear.

“And so what is it?”

“What if I whisper it myself and turn into a frog?”

“Would I give you a bad advice?” He took offense.

“Who knows?”

“Don’t be too smart! Remember I am your reason. Take my advice!”

The king was worried when he caught the princess muttering something to her. Perhaps he thought he had been too quick to deem her clever.

She leaned so that her lips were close to the king’s ear.

“Demonikum!” Obediently she whispered, repeating after Reason almost letter for letter. Probably not exactly accurate, but the word worked.

The king seemed frightened.

“Demonology of the Aluar’s treasures,” she obediently repeated after Reason. “The spirits are locked away! Hungry demons! Angry angels! The bestiary beside them! A devourer of gold in the treasury! All this waits at home!”

The king recoiled from her as if her breath burned his ear like a dragon’s.

Estella herself was frightened. She could not have had a dragon inside her.

“I was in a hurry to fight you. But if you wish to flee from Aluar, my marriage proposal still stands. Will you leave with me now?”

“How men are captivated by beauty!” Reason snorted. Estella almost repeated after him, but Reason’s claws hastily clamped her mouth shut.

“That’s not for other people’s ears!”

Then don’t say it! Estella was furious with him.

“Tell him they’ll break free and fly after you if you leave! And they will tear his kingdom to shreds, and they will ride on the wreckage with a coven.”

The words, prompted by Reason, were frightened as they would not be frightened of a dragon. By the way, the dragon he had summoned never showed up. But he was no longer needed. King Ravelin’s armies retreated like beaten dogs. They suffered casualties and surrendered. Thanks to Reason for everything. With such a counselor, there’s no need for a fighting dragon in war. It’s not without reason that they say the mind is the most important thing for a man. With intelligence will never be lost!