"And I like the look of her. Besides, the Latin scrolls in my library need cataloguing, and if I can't find someone who knows a little of the language, I'll have to do it myself."
"Give her a trial run first," a purplish green dragon advised.
Woraug snorted. "Latin and cherries jubilee! And for that you'd take on a black-haired, snippy little-" "I'll thank you to be polite when you're discussing my princess," Kazul said, and smiled fiercely.
"Nice little gal," Roxim said, nodding approvingly and waving Cimorene's next-to-last handkerchief. "Got sense. Be good for you, Kazul."
"If that's settled, I'm going to go find a snack," said the yellowish green dragon.
Woraug looked around, but the other dragons seemed to agree with Roxim.
"Oh, very well," Woraug said grumpily. "It's your choice, after all, "It certainly is. Now, Princess, if you'll come this way, I'll get you settled in."
Cimorene followed Kazul across the cave and down a tunnel. To her relief, the ball of light came with her. She had the uncomfortable feeling that if she had tried to walk behind Kazul in the dark, she would have stepped on her tail, which would not have been a good beginning.
Kazul led Cimorene through a long maze of tunnels and finally stopped in another cave. "Here we are," the dragon said. "You can use the small room over on the right. I believe my last princess left most of the furnishings behind when she ran off with the knight."
"Thank you," Cimorene said. "When do I start my duties? And what are they, please?"
"You start right away," said Kazul. "I'll want dinner at seven. In the meantime, you can begin sorting the treasure." The dragon nodded toward a dark opening on the left. "I'm sure some of it needs repairing. There's at least one suit of armor with the leg off, and some of the cheaper marc swords are probably getting rusty. The rest of it really ought to be rearranged sensibly. I can never find anything when I want it."
"What about the library you mentioned?" Cimorene asked.
"We'll see how well you do on the treasure room first," Kazul said.
"The rest of your job I'll explain as we go along. You don't object to learning a little magic, do you?"
"Not at all," said Cimorene.
"Good. It'll make things much easier. Go and wash up, and I'll let you into the treasure room so you can get started."
Cimorene nodded and went to the room Kazul had told her to use. As she washed her face and hands, she felt happier than she had in a long time.
She was not going to have to marry Therandil, and sorting a dragon's treasure sounded far more interesting than dancing or embroidery. She was even going to learn some magic! And her parents wouldn't worry about her, once they found out where she was. For the first time in her life, Cimorene was glad she was a princess. She dried her hands and turned to go back into the main cave, wondering how best to persuade Kazul to help her brush up on her Latin. She didn't want the dragon to be disappointed in her skill.
"Draco, draconem, dracone," she muttered, and her lips curved into a smile. She had always been rather good at declining nouns. Still smiling, she started forward to begin her new duties.
Cimorene settled in very quickly. She got along well with Kazul and learned her way around the caves with a minimum of mishaps. Actually, the caves were more like an intricate web of tunnels, connecting caverns of various shapes and sizes that belonged to individual dragons. It reminded Cimorene of an underground city with tunnels instead of streets. She had no idea how far the tunnels extended, though she rather suspected that some of them had been magicked, so that when you walked down them you went a lot farther than you thought you were going.
Kazul's section of the caves was fairly large. In addition to the kitchen-which was in a large cave near the exit, so that there wouldn't be a problem with the smoke from the fire-she had a sleeping cavern, three enormous treasure rooms at the far end of an intricate maze of twisty little passages, two even more enormous storage rooms for less valuable items, a library, a large, bare cave for eating and visiting with other dragons, and the set of rooms assigned to Cimorene. All the caves smelled of dragon, a somewhat musty, smoky, cinnamony smell.
Cimorene's first job was to air them out.
Cimorene's rooms consisted of three small connecting caves, just off Kazul's living cavern. They were furnished very comfortably in a mixture of styles and periods, and looked just like the guest rooms in most of the castles Cimorene had visited, only without windows. They were much too small for a dragon to get inside. When asked, Kazul said that the dwarves had made them in return for a favor, and the dragon's tone prevented Cimorene from inquiring too closely into just what sort of favor it had been.
By the end of the first week, Cimorene was sure enough of her position to give Kazul a list of things that she needed in the kitchen. The previous princess-of whom Cimorene was beginning to have a very poor opinion-had apparently made do with a large skillet with three dents and a wobbly handle, a wooden mixing bowl with a crack in it, a badly tarnished copper teakettle, and an assortment of mismatched plates, cups, and silverware, most of them chipped or bent.
Kazul seemed pleased by the request, and the following day Cimorene had everything she had asked for, except for a few of the more exotic pans and dishes. This made the cooking considerably easier and gave Cimorene more time to spend studying Latin and sorting treasure. The treasure was just as disorganized as Kazul had told her, and putting it in order was a major task. It was sometimes hard to tell whether a ring was enchanted, and Cimorene knew better than to put it on and see.
It might be the sort of useful magic ring that turned you invisible, but it might also be the sort of ring that turned you into a frog.
Cimorene did the best she could and kept a pile in the corner for things she was not sure about There was a great deal of treasure to be sorted. Most of it was stacked in one of the innermost caves in a large, untidy heap of crowns, rings, jewels, swords, and coins, but Cimorene kept finding things in other places as well, some of them quite unlikely. There was a small helmet under her bed (along with a great deal of dust), a silver bracelet set with opals on the reading table in the library, and two daggers and a jeweled ink pot behind the kitchen stove. Cimorene collected them all, along with the other things that were simply lying around in the halls, and put them back in the storerooms where they belonged, thinking to herself that dragons were clearly not very tidy creatures.
The first of the knights arrived at the end of the second week.
Cimorene was busy cleaning swords. Kazul had been right about their condition; not only were some of them rusty, but nearly all of them needed sharpening. She was polishing the last flakes of rust from an enormous broadsword when she heard someone calling from the mouth of the cave.
Feeling somewhat irritated by the interruption, she rose and, carrying the sword, went to see who it was.
As she came nearer to the entrance, she was able to make out the words that whoever-it-was was shouting: "Dragon! Come out and fight! Fight for the Princess Cimorene of Linderwall!"
"Oh, honestly," Cimorene muttered, and quickened her step. "Here, you," she said as she came out into the sunlight. Then she had to duck as a spear flashed through the air over her head. "Stop that!" she cried. "I'm Princess Cimorene."
"You are?" said a doubtful voice. "Are you sure? I mean-" Cimorene raised her head cautiously and squinted. It was still fairly early in the morning, and the sun was in back of the person standing outside the cave, so that it was difficult to see anything but the outline of his figure against the brightness. "Of course I'm sure," Cimorene said.
"What did you expect, letters of reference? Come around here where I can see who you are, please."
The figure moved sideways, and Cimorene saw that it was a knight in shiny new armor, except for the legs, where the armor was dusty from walking. Cimorene wondered briefly why he hadn't ridden, but decided not to ask. The knight's visor was raised, and a few wisps of sandy hair showed above his handsome face. He was studying her with an expression of worried puzzlement.