DragonKnight - Donita K. Paul [103]
Later.
“One of N’Rae’s smitten beaus?”
Later.
“And these two youngsters are Sittiponder and Ahnek.”
Regidor shook hands with both lads.
Overawed, the boys merely bobbed their heads in response to the meech dragon’s deep-throated, “Hello.”
“I believe you said four more members, Squire.” Regidor looked around. “I see no other.”
“Jue Seeno,” squeaked Ahnek.
“Jue Seeno?”
Both lads nodded vigorously.
“Come see,” said Ahnek. He took the shorter tumanhofer’s arm and turned him toward the camp.
“He means come meet her,” said Sittiponder over his shoulder. Aside to his friend, he whispered, “Be polite. You don’t show somebody to somebody as if one somebody was an interesting cat or dog you happen to have in the barn.”
“What are you talking about? We don’t have a barn. She’s in a basket.” Ahnek frowned at his friend as they walked.
Bardon and Regidor exchanged glances, each smiling over the boys’ argument. Bardon shrugged, and they followed the two lads.
“You have the manners of a street urchin,” Sittiponder grumbled.
“I am a street urchin.”
“Not anymore!” He shook Ahnek’s hold off his arm and trudged forward, using his walking stick. “You are a member of a questing party charged by Paladin himself to rescue noble knights from an evil curse.”
“Now you sound as if you’re telling one of your grand stories again.” Ahnek stomped alongside Sittiponder. “And I learned to eat with my mouth shut like you wanted. That’s manners.”
“You still slip up.”
“How do you know?”
They stopped and faced each other, oblivious to the grown men who stopped as well.
“I can hear you,” shouted Sittiponder. “I’m not deaf, you know.”
“It might be easier if you was.”
“If you were, not was. And you don’t mean that.”
“No, I don’t.” Ahnek stared at his friend’s mulish expression for a moment. He reached out and punched Sittiponder’s skinny arm. “Let’s go tell Mistress Seeno a meech dragon is coming. Bet she doesn’t believe he’s real.”
“Bet he won’t believe she’s real.”
The boys hooted with laughter, grabbed each other by the arms, and ran ahead.
Regidor turned with a question in his eye, accentuated by one lifted eyebrow. Or rather, the skin that would have sported an eyebrow if the meech had any hair.
“I won’t believe this Jue Seeno is real?”
“She’s a minneken.”
“Aha!” Regidor contemplated this. “He’s correct. How refreshing that there should be someone else on this quest who is the personification of myth. I wish to meet such an oddity.”
Bardon laughed as he quickened his pace to keep up with his friend’s long stride.
35
TEMPERAMENTS
“My, my,” said Mistress Seeno as she tilted her head back to get a better look at the dragon standing beside Squire Bardon. “You cut a dashing figure.”
Regidor swept off his hat, passing it over his leg as he made a deep bow. The gallant gesture would have impressed royalty.
Bardon raised his eyebrows.
The meech dragon, now standing straight and tall before the humble basket of the minneken, ignored him.
“I’m honored you think so, Mistress Seeno.” Regidor rested his hat against his chest as he spoke to the fur-covered person sitting in her chair on her basket. “It has actually taken quite a bit of effort to acquire a wardrobe that has style, yet minimizes my tail and wings.”
“And this was necessary because…?” prompted Jue Seeno.
“Because I wish to mingle unobtrusively with the citizenry of the high races.”
“Your height and coloring would still distinguish you.”
“Ah yes, but you’d be surprised how much a busy person hurrying down the street, absorbed in his own affairs, will overlook.”
“Height and an unusual complexion—”
Regidor nodded. “But not wings and a tail.”
Ahnek danced from one foot to the other.
Bardon put a hand on the boy’s shoulder to help him contain his excitement. “What is it?”
“We want to see his wings.”
Regidor grinned, stepped back a few feet into an open space, and tossed the sides of his cape back over his shoulders. In a great whoosh, large leathery wings expanded behind him, fanning the air and ruffling the hair of his audience.