Searching for Dragons

"I am Ballimore," said the voice, still in an artificially pleasant tone that made Mendanbar's skin crawl. "Who are you?"
"I'm Princess Cimorene, Chief Cook and Librarian to Kazul, the King of the Dragons, and this is Mendanbar, the King of the Enchanted Forest," Cimorene answered.
"Cimorene?" said the voice in an entirely different manner. "Oh, good. I've been wanting to meet you for the longest time. Come on in, you and your friend, and I'll have supper ready in a jiffy."
Mendanbar and Cimorene looked at each other. "I think it's all right now," Cimorene said after a moment.
"Well, we won't find out standing here," Mendanbar said. He held out his arm. "Shall we go in, Princess?"
Cimorene gave him a bright, almost impish smile, and laid her fingertips on his arm as if they were walking into a court ball. "I should be pleased to accompany you, Your Majesty."
Together they walked through the gate. The courtyard inside was high, wide, and empty except for two rows of blazing torches in iron holders lined up on either side of the path. Mendanbar and Cimorene paced slowly up to the door, which swung open just as the gates had, only without the grinding.
As they went in, they heard the castle gates crunch shut. A moment later, the doors closed silently behind them.
They stood in a stone hall three times the size of any Mendanbar had ever seen. A wooden table, surrounded by high-backed chairs, stretched the length of the hall, At the far end of the room a large fire burned in an open hearth. High on the walls, more torches lit the room. A brown-haired woman in a pale blue dress was bending over a cauldron that hung from an iron hook above the fire. It all looked very ordinary, until Mendanbar noticed that the seats of the chairs were level with his eyes and everything else was similarly oversized.
The brown-haired woman sniffed at the cauldron, nodded to herself, and straightened. "Welcome," she said, coming forward. "I'm Ballimore.
You must be Princess Cimorene. I'm so pleased to meet you at last, after all that Kazul has told me about you."
The giantess bent over to shake hands gently with Cimorene. She was at least three times as tall as Mendanbar, but she moved with a grace that suited her size. Cimorene returned the handshake gravely, and said, "I hope Kazul hasn't given you the wrong idea about me."
"Not at all, I'm sure," said the giantess. "Is this your young man? You're not running away from the dragons after all this time, are you?"
"Certainly not," Cimorene said with unnecessary vehemence. "I'm very happy with my job."
"Of course," Ballimore said, sounding disappointed. She gave Mendanbar a speculative look, then leaned toward Cimorene. "If I were you, I'd reconsider," she said in a loud whisper. "Your young man doesn't look like the patient type."
"No, no," Cimorene said, reddening. "It's not like that at all. This is the King of the Enchanted Forest, and he came to see Kazul, only Kazul has gone to visit her grandchildren and isn't home. That's why we came to see you-to borrow a magic carpet, so we can find Kazul."
"Oh, I see," said the giantess. "Strictly business. Well, you'll have to wait until after supper. Dobbilan will be home any minute, and he hates it when his meals are late."
"Dobbilan?" Mendanbar said with some misgiving.
"My husband," Ballimore said.
There was a loud crash from the courtyard outside, followed by the thud, thud, thud of heavy footsteps that shook the castle.
Ballimore straightened with a happy smile. "Here he comes now."
 
8
In Which They Give Some Good Advice to a Giant
Mendanbar and Cimorene turned to face the castle doors as the footsteps drew nearer. A moment later, the doors flew open and the giantess's husband stepped into the hall. He was a giant's head taller than she, with wild brown hair and a beard like a large, untidy broom's head. He carried a club that was as long as Mendanbar was tall.
Just inside the door, the giant stopped and sniffed the air. Then he sneezed once, scowled ferociously, and said in a voice that shook the torches in their brackets: "Fee, fie, foe, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Be he alive or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread."
Ballimore shook her head. "Nonsense, dear. It's just Princess Cimorene and the King of the Enchanted Forest ."
"And neither of us is English," Cimorene added.
The giant squinted down at her. "Are you sure about that?"
"Positive," Mendanbar said.
"Well-" The giant sniffed again, experimentally, then lowered his club with a sigh. "That's all right, then. I wasn't in the mood for more work tonight, anyway. Sorry about the mistake. It must be this cold in my head."
"I told you yesterday to take something for it," Ballimore scolded.
"And I told you this morning to wrap some flannel around your throat before you went out. But do you listen to me? No!"
"I listen," the giant protested uncomfortably. "But I can't ransack villages with a piece of flannel around my neck. It wouldn't look right."
Cimorene snorted softly. Mendanbar got the distinct impression that she didn't think much of doing things for the sake of appearances.
"Well, really, Dobbilan," Ballimore said, "how do you think it looks if you're coughing and sneezing all over everything while you're ransacking? Have a little sense."
"I'd rather have a little dinner," said Dobbilan and sneezed again.
"If you sound like that tomorrow, you're staying home in bed," Ballimore informed her husband.
"I can't do that! I'm scheduled to pillage two villages and maraud half a county."
"You're in no condition to pillage a hen house, much less a village," Ballimore declared. "Besides, you've earned a bit of a rest, what with all the extra time you've been putting in lately, looting and marauding and I don't know what all."
"That's not the point."
"It's precisely the point. You're just being stubborn because you think having a bad cold is un-giantlike."
"Well, it is."
Ballimore shook her head and looked at Cimorene. "Men!" she said in tones of disgust.
"And don't you say 'men' to me," Dobbilan said. "It's my job we're talking about."
"Maybe you should try a different line of work," Mendanbar suggested.
"Eh?" Dobbilan peered down at him with interest. "Like what?"
"Consulting," Mendanbar said at random, because he hadn't actually thought about it.
"Consulting?"
"You know," said Cimorene. "Giving advice to people. You could teach other giants the best ways of-of ravaging and pillaging and marauding, and you could tell villages the best ways to keep giants away. With all your experience, I'll bet you'd be good at it."
"I never thought of that," Dobbilan said, rubbing his chin.
"I don't know why not," Ballimore said. "It's a very good idea. And you wouldn't be out in all sorts of weather, catching colds and flu and goodness knows what else."
"Plundering has gotten to be an awful lot of work lately," the giant admitted. "It would be a relief to stop. I'm getting too old to tramp through fields."
"I understand consulting pays very well, too," Mendanbar told him.
"I'll do it!" Dobbilan said with sudden decision. "Tomorrow morning, first thing. Thank you for the suggestion. What did you say your names were?"
"If you'd listen once in a while, you wouldn't have to ask me to repeat everything," Ballimore said. "This is Princess Cimorene, the one who's been with Kazul for the last year or so and gave me that marvelous biscuit recipe you like so much. And her young man is the King of the Enchanted Forest, who she's not running away with yet."
Mendanbar choked and shot an apprehensive look at Cimorene. She rolled her eyes and made a face at him but did not say anything, having apparently decided it was a waste of effort to correct the giantess.