Buck, who was evidently much quicker than Peregrine had perhaps credited him for, gave a leap and a lunge for the bag of treasure; not only did he miss, but Smarasderagd, with a tittering hiss, climbed higher. Queen Clara, till now silent, tradition having provided no place for her in this pageant save mat of spectator, wailed, “Do suthing, Airland! E mustn’t get to keep the treasure!”
“I shall, I shall, I shall!” sang out the dragon, and in a slow and majestic manner began to rise.
“Ere, now, Smarry,” the king implored. “What! Cher going to destroy thur hamicable relations which as ithertofore hobtained atween hus for the sake o’ this little bit o’ treasure which is such in name honely?”
The dragon shrugged - a most interesting sight. “Well, you know how it is,” he said. “Here a little, there a little, it all adds up.” The king’s cry of rage and outrage was almost drowned out by the noise of great rushing as the great wings beat and dragon and treasure alike went up - up - and away. It seemed to Peregrine that, between the sound of the king’s wrath and the sound of the beating of the vast ribbed and membranous pinions, he could distinctly hear the dragon utter the words, “Ephtland - Alfland - which will be the next land?”
Needless to say that it was not possible for him then to obtain of this impression either confirmation or refutation.
Having dismissed the Grand Army of Alfland (all nine members of it) and in broken tones informed the citizenry that they had his leave to go, King Earwig sat upon an overturned barrel in the middle of his courtyard and, alternately putting his head in his hands and taking it out again, groaned.
“Oh, the hairlooms as come down from King Deucalion’s days! Oh, the tax moneys! (Buck, my boy, never trust no reptyle!) Oh … What will folk say of me?”
Queen Clara, her normal russet faded to a mere pale pink, had another question to ask, and she asked it. “What will the High King say?”
King Alf-Earwig groaned again. Then he said that he could tell her what the High King would say.” ‘Malfeasance, misfeasance, disfeasance, and nonfeasance h’of hoffice: horf wif is ead hon heach count!’ - is what e’ll say … “
The silence, broken only by the snuffing of Princess Pearl, was terminated by her mother. “Ah, and speaking of counts,” said she, “what about my brother-in-law, Count Witenagamote?”
The king’s head gave a half flop, and feeling it as though for reassurance, he muttered, “Ah, and I spose our only opes is ter seek refuge of im, for e lives hin a different jurisdiction, e does, and holds not of the High King; holds of the emperor, is what, the vassal of Caesar imself.”
A touch of nature was supplied at this point by the cock of the yard, who not only ran a slightly frazzled hen to earth but began to tread her. Buck barely glanced, so serious was the other situation. Peregrine asked, automatically, “Which Caesar?”
He asked it of Alfs back, for the king had gotten up from the barrel and started pacing at length - a lengthy pace which was now leading him into the house by the back way. “Which Caesar?”
“Why, bless you,” said the king, blankly, “of Caesar Haugustus, natcherly. What a question. Has though there were more nor one of im.”
Peregrine, who knew very well that there was not only more than one but that the number of those using the title of Caesar, including heirs, co-heirs, sovereigns of the East and the West and the Center, claimants, pretenders, provincial governors and rather powerful lord mayors and mayors of the palace, ambitious army commanders - Peregrine, who knew it would be difficult at any given moment to calculate how many Caesars there were, also looked blank, but said nothing. He was clearly very far from Rome. From any Rome at all.
“Well, well, go we must as we must,” muttered the king. “As we must go we must go. Meanwhile, o’ course,” he stopped suddenly, “can’t be letting the Kingdom go wifourt authority; you, there,” he beckoned to the kitchenboy. “How old are you?”
The lad considered, meanwhile wiping his snotty nose on his apron. “Six, last Mass of the Holy Martyrs of Macedonia, an it please Your Worship,” he piped.
His Worship did some visible arithmetic. “Ah, that’s good,” he declared, after a moment. “Then ye’ll not be seven for some munce after the High Kingly Inquisition gits ere to check hup… as they will, they will. Below the hage of reason, they can’t do a thing to yer, my boy, beside six smacks hand one to go on; so kneel. Hand let’s ear yer name.”
The boy knelt, rather slowly and carefully placing both palms on his buttocks, and slowly said, “Vercingetorix Rory Claudius Ulfilas John” - a name, which, if perhaps longer than he himself was, gave recognition to most of the cultures which had at one time or another entered East Brythonia within at least recorded history.
King Alf tapped him on each shoulder with the royal dirk without bothering to wipe off the fish scales (Queen Clara had been cleaning a carp for supper). “Harise, Sir Vercingetorix Rory Claudius Ulfilas John,” he directed. “Not all the way hup, aven’t finished yet, down we go again. Heh-hem,” he rolled his bulging and bloodshot blue eyes thoughtfully. “Sir Vercingetorix Rory Claudius Ulfilas John, we nominates and denominates yer as Regent pro tem of the Kingdoms and Demesnes of the Lands of the Alfs in portibus infidelidum, to have and to hold from this day forward until relieved by Is Royal Highness the High King - and don’t eat all the raisins in the larder, or he’ll have yer hide off yer bottom, hage of reason or no hage of reason. And now,” he looked about. “Ah, Bert. Yer’ve been so quiet, clean forgot yer was present. Ye’ll witness this hact.”
The King of Bertland, simultaneously stiff, uneasy, unhappy, said, “That I will, Alf.”
Alf nodded. “Hand now,” he said, “let’s pack and hit the pike, then.”
Peregrine had been considering. Amusing though it might be to tarry and observe how things go in Alfland under the regency of Sir Vercingetorix Rory Claudius Ulfilas John (aged six and some), still, he did not really consider it. And fond though he already was, though to be sure not precisely deeply fond - their acquaintance had been too brief - of the Alvish Royal House; yet he did not really feel that his destiny required him to share their exile; could he, even, feel he might depend upon the hospitality of Count Witenagamote? It might, in fact, be just the right moment to take his leave … before there was chance for anything more to develop in the way of taking for granted that he and Princess Pearl
He was not very keen on dragons. Smarasderagd was a good deal larger than the last and only previous dragon he had ever seen. Piscivorous the former might or might not be; now that he no longer had all the trash fish to dine upon, who could say? Peregrine did not feel curious enough to wish to put it to the test. Dragons might lapse. King Alfs prolegomenal discourse, just before Smarasderagd had appeared, seemed to take for granted that the dragon was not a treasure-amassing dragon; yet all men in Lower Europe had taken it for granted that all dragons were by nature and definition just that. Peregrine remembered his first dragon, rather small it had been, and so at first glance - had been the treasure it had been guarding. Yet a further investigation (after the dragon had been put to flight by the sprig of dragonbane from the geezle-sack of Appledore, the combination sorcerer, astrologer, court philosopher and a cappella bard of Sapodilla … and Peregrine’s boyhood tutor as well…) - a further, even if accidental, investigation of the contents of the small dragon’s cave had resulted in Peregrine’s - literally - stumbling upon something of infinitely more value and weal than the bracelet of base metal inscribed Caius loves Marianne and the three oboli and one drachma (all stamped Sennacherib XXXII, Great King, King of Kings, King of Lower Upper Southeast Central Assyria - and all of a very devaluated currency) he had tripped over a rotting leather case which contained what was believed by the one or two who, having seen it, were also competent to comment on it to be the mysterious and long-lost crown of the Ephts.