He then savagely ate the rest of his supper, while his family picked at theirs. All of them had the sense not to pretend to be ill in order to dash to the pigeon loft, he was glad to see. He smiled grimly into his oatmeal dessert. Perhaps he did know his family after all. He knew exactly what was going to happen next. He ate cheese and then some fruit, vengefully, in order to spin out their suffering. Finally, he pushed back his chair and strode from the Dining Chamber without another word. Sure enough, behind him Isodel and Irida broke into frantic whispering.
“But, Mother, it’s worse than that! Olga—” he heard as the door was swinging shut.
King Luther hastened then, with long strides, but not quite running, through stone corridors and down the dank spiral stairs that led to the garden court where Endymion had chosen to take up residence. The young dragon was there as he expected, coiled up by the stone seat, finishing the sheep he had had fo
r supper. The last of the daylight shot gold and copper gleams from Endymion’s baby scales as he moved aside politely so that the king could sit on the seat and get his breath back.
A mere half second later, so that King Luther barely had time to lounge back in the seat breathing normally as if he had been there for quite a while, Isodel pelted into the garden with her skirts hauled up around her knees and her shabby shawl flying. The light was so bright on the dragon that she did not notice her father at all.
“Oh, Endymion, finish your sheep quickly!” she panted. “We have to go to the University again at once!”
“Do you indeed?” asked King Luther, and Isodel jumped nearly a yard sideways. “You can come with me, on horseback, tomorrow morning, if you really want to go.”
Isodel glared at him. She opened her mouth angrily, then shut it again and arranged her shawl. “No, thank you. I’d prefer to stay here and support Mother.”
“Then you must certainly come with me,” said her father, “or the gods know what fresh plots you’ll be hatching.”
“You intend,” asked Isodel, “for everyone to be as miserable as you can possibly make them?”
“How well you understand me,” said King Luther. “You accompany me; the rest stay here without money for exactly that reason. Isodel, you know I’m not normally a tyrant, but you’ve all forfeited my trust this evening, you and Lukin most of all.”
Isodel stood very straight. Her hands, arranging her shawl, pulled it downward so fiercely that it jolted her head forward. “Not a tyrant!” she said. “What trust?”
Her father stared at her gloomily, wondering what had gone wrong. It was as if he and the rest of his family had somehow missed one another in the dark. Nevertheless, he did not intend to let them get away with this evening’s capers. He turned to the dragon. “You’ll have to leave Luteria, Endymion,” he said. “Now.”
Endymion, who had been studiously bolting his sheep and keeping out of this trouble, turned a large green eye toward him in surprise. “Why is that?”
“Because I, the King, command it,” said King Luther. “Because I know you’ll help Isodel on the sly if you’re here.”
“But,” Endymion said smugly, “I am sworn to Isodel, not to you, sire.”
“You’re not old enough, as dragons go, to swear to anyone,” King Luther told him. “I know dragonlore, and I know you count as a hatchling still—and a runaway hatchling at that. I’m quite well acquainted with your king, as it happens, and I’m about to send off a pigeon to him, telling him where you are.”
A roll of immature smoky flame came from Endymion’s mouth, causing the sheep’s wool to sizzle and stink. “You wouldn’t!”
“I would and I will,” said King Luther. “The next place I go is the pigeon loft. If you go now, you can arrive ahead of the pigeon and pretend you came back voluntarily.”
“This is not nice of you,” Endymion said. “Very well.” He rose limberly to his feet and settled his wings with a rattle. Very gently he nosed at Isodel’s stiff face. “I shall come back later, my princess,” he said. Then he raised his wings, which, like sails, caught the wind off the mountains and lifted him at once. With a mere tilting of them, he was up and circling and ghosting away as a darkness against the darkening sky.
Tears were pouring down Isodel’s face. “I shall do my best to make the journey as miserable for you as it will be for me!” she promised.
King Luther nodded, seeing that she meant it. He supposed he would survive it. He was used to being rather unhappy.
The pigeon flying east reached its destination around then. Since Ampersand was a long way south of Luteria, night had already fallen over the many painted spires, domes, and spiked cupolas of the Emir’s palace. The Emir himself had wandered into one of his gardens after dinner to gaze up at the waxing moon and enjoy the slight, sad fragrance of autumn. The pigeon was brought to him there, nestled bright-eyed in the hands of a servitor. Other servitors followed with lights, so that the Emir could see to read the message it carried, and his vizier personally accompanied them, to extract the tiny slip of paper from the tube on the bird’s leg and hand it, bowing, to the Emir.
The Emir accepted the message, unfolded it, and peered. Lights were instantly and anxiously brought closer. “This writing is quite unacceptably small,” the Emir complained.
The vizier snapped his fingers. A servitor handed the Emir a pair of spectacles. The Emir put them on and once more raised the slip of paper. This time he seemed able to read it. Everyone relaxed.
Prematurely. The Emir’s face became suffused so darkly with blood as he read that the vizier secretly signed to a servitor to run for a healer. This was regardless of the fact that the Emir always categorically refused to see a healer. For the last couple of months the Emir’s heart had been giving cause for concern, and the vizier had taken the precaution of having a healer always within call, just in case. As the servitor streaked off, the Emir uttered such a shriek of rage that the man stopped as if he had been shot.
“Villainous swine!” howled the Emir. “Order me my guard, my camels, and my weapons! I must go at once to raze that infamous University to the ground!”
“In person, gracious lord?” the vizier ventured to inquire.
“In person, of course!” snarled the Emir. “Those wizards have stained my honor twice now. This time those sons of dubious ancestry have also dishonored seven of my best assassins. I shall not let this pass!”
“But would it not be better, gracious lord,” pleaded the vizier, thinking of heart attacks, chaos, and crisis and, most of all, of twenty-two sons of the Emir, none of whom had yet been designated as heir to Ampersand and who were all increasingly annoyed about it, “would it not be more convenient to set off at dawn tomorrow? Your guard would be better prepared and your gracious self much fresher.” You might even have thought better of it, he thought, but did not of course dare say.