Tobas had never before given any thought to the inconvenience of wearing royal robes in the summer. Royalty, it seemed, had its own little drawbacks. Surely, though, the king did not wear such garb all the time?
No, of course not; this was a formal occasion, Tobas reminded himself.
“You may approach,” the king said grandly, addressing the new arrivals. The other people in the room fell silent.
The Ethsharitic party shuffled forward and stood before the throne, the behavior and expressions of its members ranging from arrogant to curious to abject.
“If you would be so kind as to introduce yourselves...” Derneth said, letting his sentence trail off to nothing.
The adventurers looked at one another, none eager to be first. Finally Tillis stepped forward and said, “I am Tillis Tagath’s son, at your Majesty’s service.” He bowed deeply, but awkwardly.
“Ah,” the king replied. “And do you have any experience in dragon slaying?”
Tobas found that a very interesting question; had the king expected his recruiter to bring back expert dragon slayers? If so, he had been swindled, and the recruiter had done well to leave hurriedly.
“Alas, no, your Majesty,” Tillis replied. “There are no dragons to be found in Ethshar of the Spices, for it is a drab and peaceful place with few opportunities for valor and daring to befit a lad such as myself. Thus I have come to your delightful realm of Dwomor seeking adventure, in the hope that I might, by pluck and good fortune, make a place for myself. May the gods smile upon you for giving me a chance to conquer or perish in your service, and long may you reign!”
The king’s smile became somewhat frozen and glassy as he listened to the baby-faced Ethsharite’s bizarre little speech. “Ah,” he said after a moment’s hesitation, nodding; that settled, he turned to Peren, whose sword and white hair stood out in the crowd and asked, “And you?”
“Peren the White, of Ethshar of the Spices.” The Ethsharite bowed with a lithe grace that startled Tobas.
“And have you ever slain a dragon?”
“No.” Peren was neither apologetic nor forceful in his denial, but simply stated the fact.
“Very well,” said the king, moving on. “What about you?”
Arden introduced himself, then Azraya, and so on through the rest of the little band.
When Azraya presented herself, the king seemed somewhat taken aback and whispered something behind his hand to one of the men near the throne; Tobas assumed that this had something to do with Azraya’s sex. After all, a female could hardly marry a princess, but she could certainly use the gold. When Arnen’s turn came, he introduced himself as Arnen of Ethshar, which Tobas was quite certain was not the cognomen he had used before; and when asked if he had ever slain a dragon, he replied, “Not a dragon!”
The others confined themselves to their names and a simple no. Tobas was seventh of the nine and did nothing to draw attention to himself.
“Ah,” the king said when the last introduction had been made. “No experienced dragon slayers, I see, but I suppose I could expect nothing else from Ethshar. You will have questions, I’m sure; but first, let me introduce you to my daughters, my court, and to some of your fellow adventurers from other lands.” He stood and motioned to someone; a handsome, dark-haired young woman stepped out of the little crowd to the right of the throne, wearing an ornate white gown trimmed with pearls. “My second daughter, Falissa,” he said. “One of you, if successful, may marry her.” He gestured again, and another young woman appeared to be introduced, also dark-haired and elegant.
It had not occurred to Tobas until this moment that there might be more than one princess available as part of the reward.
In all, five princesses were brought forth, all attractive; in addition to Falissa were, apparently in descending order of age, Sellatha, Tinira, Alorria, and Zerrea. Zerrea appeared to be perhaps fourteen, barely of marriageable age, but her father still commented, as he had with each of her sisters, that she might wed one of the dragon hunters. Tobas had never heard of anyone named Zerrea before; he rather liked the name and wondered if the king had made it up after running out of ordinary ones. Not that Sellatha was common around Telven, either, he realized when he thought about it; it was likely, he decided, that both names were in common usage in Dwomor, whether they were found in the more westerly lands or not.
Tobas resolved to stop wondering about trivia and pay attention to more important concerns. The king was making a speech about how these five of his six daughters had willingly promised themselves as wives to anyone who could save the kingdom from the monster that now ravaged the countryside, whether that hero should be noble or commoner, no matter that this might mean giving up their royal birthright, and so on and so forth.
Elner, at Tobas’ left, leaned over and whispered, “Some great sacrifice! They were probably desperate for husbands, or at least their royal father was. Surplus princesses are a major export in the Small Kingdoms.”
This sounded far more informative and interesting than the king’s rather tedious speech, so Tobas leaned back and whispered, “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about surplus princesses! Look, the first duty of any royal family is to ensure the succession, right? They need heirs. Or one heir, anyway. That means sons, in most kingdoms; only a few let girls inherit. Daughters are just surplus, to be married off to make alliances with the neighbors. To keep up the dignity of the throne, you can’t let them marry commoners, it goes against all the traditions! Royalty marries royalty. And each kingdom only has one throne to pass on, to one prince and the one princess he marries; that means that younger sons and unmarried daughters are all just extras. The sons go off adventuring or soldiering, and a lot of them get killed, and some make love matches with commoners or run off to Ethshar and marry for money, but the daughters just hang around cluttering up the castle. Poor old Derneth here has six of them; I guess he married one off to a neighbor, but that leaves five more he needs to get rid of. He can’t just let them marry whom they please, since that’s against the rules, and he hasn’t got anyone in the kingdom suitable for any ordinary arranged marriages; but by promising them to dragon slayers, he can kill two birds with one stone and get rid of dragons and daughters all at once! Marrying princesses to heroes is traditional and about the only respectable way to use up the extras. Gets new blood into the royal family, as well.”
Tobas looked at Elner with new respect; his explanation made a great deal of sense. Perhaps the fellow was not completely a fool, after all.
“I think I’ll take that one, Alorria,” Elner said, pointing behind his hand. “When I’ve killed the dragon, I mean.”
That immediately dragged Tobas’ opinion of him back to its previous level. He bit back a snide retort.
He had to agree, though, that Elner had picked the beauty of the bunch; Alorria was of medium height, with thick black hair, pale skin, and dark eyes, as were all five, but she stood out, her features a trifle finer, her figure a little lusher than the others. Tobas guessed her to be very close to his own age. If, by some miracle, Tobas did somehow manage to kill the dragon, and he knew that it would take a miracle, despite what Elner might choose to believe, he supposed Alorria would be his choice, too, if he were to marry any of the princesses.