He smiled and gave me his card.
‘Promise me you’ll think about it?’
‘I will promise you that.’
Up until that point, I had almost liked him. I sighed deeply. King Snodd’s rapid about-face meant only one thing: I hadn’t heard the last from him.
Yogi Baird
‘What did the King have to say?’ asked Gordon van Gordon, who was doing the washing up in a flowery pinny. He had taken off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves, but was still wearing his brown derby hat.
‘My appointment yesterday has made everybody think that Maltcassion isn’t long for this world. Brecon is looking to increase his lands and the King is unwilling to let him do so. They want us to lay out the Crown’s claims on the Dragonlands before he dies, thus allowing the land to cede painlessly into Snodd’s hands.’
‘I see,’ said Gordon, ‘and what are your opinions on these matters?’
‘I’m a Dragonslayer,’ I replied, ‘not an estate agent. It won’t make me very popular with the King, though.’
‘I agree with that. But you must do what you feel is right. Fancy a cup of tea?’
I nodded gratefully.
‘I had another call from Fizzi-Pop,’ said Gordon.
‘Oh yes?’
‘They upped their offer to fifty thousand for your endorsement.’
‘What about Yummy-Flakes?’
‘They only went as far as forty. ConStuff want to talk some more about merchandising rights, Cheap & Cheerful want to launch a line of Jennifer Strange sporting clothes, and ToyStuff want a licence to release a model of the Slayermobile. The bookies won’t take any bets for you to win but they are offering the Dragon three hundred to one, and a tie at five hundred to one.’
‘Is that all?’
Gordon smiled, finished filling the kettle and plugged it in.
‘No. MolluscTV want to do a documentary about you and the UKBC’s wildlife department is interested in you taking a camera into the Dragonlands. I’ve had three producers wanting to buy the exclusive rights to your story and one even said that Sandy O’Cute was very big on the idea of playing you in the movie.’
‘I bet she was.’
‘In your mail, ninety-seven per cent want you to kill the Dragon and three per cent want you to leave it alone. Five people have written in with offers of marriage, and two have claimed they are the real Dragonslayer. One little old lady in Chepstow wants you to use your sword to dispose of a particularly invasive thorn tree, and another in Cirencester wants you to appear at a fund-raiser for the Troll Wars Orphans appeal. And finally, the Wessex Rolls-Royce club want you to bring the Slayermobile on a rally next month.’
‘And this is just the beginning,’ I murmured.
Gordon poured the boiling water into the teapot.
‘It’ll calm down, as soon as there’s no more news.’
‘I hope. Milk, please, and half a sugar. Mind you, I’m not averse to appearing for the Troll Wars Orphans appeal.’
The doorbell rang. Gordon looked at his watch and pulled off his pinny.
‘Who’s that?’ I asked.
‘TheYogi Baird Daytime TV Show. You said you’d do a live phone-in from here.’
‘I did, didn’t I?’
He opened the door and Yogi Baird strode in, shook my hand, grinned wildly and said how wonderful it was to meet me and how he simply knew it would be a great show. As he was telling me this he was being dabbed at by a make-up woman. They were joined by a cameraman, an engineer, two electricians, a producer, three PAs and someone who wore black whose function it was to talk about not very much on a mobile phone. Within a short time they had the camera set up and a live uplink to a local transmitter. The same make-up person faffed over me as they set up two chairs in front of the spiky Rolls-Royce and a sound engineer fixed me with a microphone.
While all this was going on I had placed a paper bag over the head of the Quarkbeast with a single hole for him to see out of. It wouldn’t do to unnecessarily frighten the crew, and if the Quarkbeast went on live TV, he might cause a panic and small children to start crying, something neither of us wanted.
The floor manager counted Mr Baird in with his fingers and pointed at him as the red ‘live’ light mounted on top of the camera flicked on. The TV presenter grinned broadly.
‘Good afternoon. This is Yogi Baird, speaking to you live from the Dragonslayer’s office in Hereford, capital city of the Kingdom by the same name. In just a minute we’ll be talking to our very special guest, Dragonslayer Jennifer Strange. But before all that, a word from our sponsors. Has your get-up-and-go got up and went? Need a pick-me-up for a hard morning’s work?’
He produced a packet of breakfast cereal.
‘Then you need to try Yummy-Flakes for that extra vavoom!’
He put down the packet as the jingle played briefly, then he smiled into the camera and continued:
‘Listen, everyone’s been talking about Dragons these last few days. Dragon this, Dragon that, seems like a bit of a drag to me. That joke will slay me, but listen, folks...’
He didn’t seem so funny live. The audience back at the studio were doubtlessly holding their sides, but I was feeling uncomfortable. Like almost everyone in the Kingdoms I had watched the Yogi Baird show all my life, but was beginning to feel as though I was being used—and that Dragonslayers should perhaps show more dignity. I stayed for Mother Zenobia’s sake. I knew she would be watching—or listening, anyway.
‘. . . have you noticed just how many people have converged on the Dragonlands? Biggest show in town. Maltcassion will soon have his own TV station.’
The cameraman zoomed out to include me in the shot as the floor manager waved frantically at me to be ready.
‘. . . but all kidding aside, for the past few days the small Kingdom of Hereford has been alive with speculation over the death of the world’s last Dragon. With rumours of his demise imminent, this four-hundred-year-old Dragonland may very well soon be passed to any number of lucky claimants. I have with me the one person who could be battling with the Dragon some time in the next week. Ladies and gentlemen, Jennifer Strange.’
I looked across at Gordon, who gave me the thumbs-up through the glare of the lights. I was being beamed live into the homes of over thirty million people. Two days ago no one had heard of me, yet today you would be hard pressed to find someone who hadn’t. The power of the media.
‘Welcome to the show, Jennifer.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Miss Strange, have you met with Maltcassion today?’
‘Yesterday,’ I replied.
‘And was he as horribly grotesque as you had thought?’
‘No; on the contrary. I found him a highly intelligent creature.’
‘But ugly, of course? And potentially a maneater with nothing on his mind but death and destruction?’
‘Not in the least.’
Yogi Baird abandoned that line of questioning.
‘O... kay. Even pre-cogs as low as B-3 are receiving visions that he is shortly to be killed at your hands. What’s your reaction to that?’
‘I can’t say. Maltcassion has not transgressed the Dragonpact so it all looks like a lot of smoke to me. He will die eventually, of course, and when he does I am firmly of the opinion that the Dragonlands should be converted into a national park—’
‘What a novel idea!’ Yogi laughed. ‘This area is badly in need of more housing, Miss Strange. Three hundred and twenty square miles of prime real estate on the borders don’t pop up every day, and they represent thousands of jobs and much prosperity. Are you seriously trying to tell the viewers that we should ignore all that and instead devote the land to a few creatures of dubious value?’