Princess Jenna Who Always Said No

The court had many opinions about Princess Jenna, and almost all of them were worrying.

She was too stubborn, said the chamberlain. Too outspoken, said the tutors. Too fixed in her own ideas, said the dancing master, who had given up after six months and gone to teach somewhere quieter. Even the royal dogs seemed a little uncertain around her, sensing a will much stronger than their own.

Jenna herself found none of this troubling. She had decided at the age of five that her mind was her own, and she had not found reason to revise this view.

She said no to the dancing, to the hat, to Tuesdays, to the visiting ambassadors who smelled of ship and expected her to curtsey for twenty minutes. She said no to the marriage proposal that arrived by letter from a neighbouring duke, and she said no to her mother's suggestion that she might at least read the letter before declining.

"I don't need to read it," she said. "No covers it adequately."

Then came the dragon.

It arrived on a Wednesday, which nobody had chosen for drama, but which suited the dragon well enough. It settled at the castle gates and breathed fire at the portcullis, and then simply waited, which was in some ways worse than the fire.

The knights tried. The wizard tried three elaborate spells involving smoke and silver wire, and the dragon regarded him with patient amber eyes and did not move. The King called a council. The council debated. The dragon lay down and appeared to nap.

Jenna watched all of this from a window.

"I'll go," she said.

"You will not," said the King, with feeling.

"You can't actually stop me," said Jenna, pulling on her cloak. "You could try. It would be instructive for both of us."

The King, who had been her father for fourteen years, knew when he had lost the argument. He stood back.

She walked through the gates. The dragon lifted its head and watched her cross the open ground between them. She walked without hurrying. She had found, over many years of saying no to large and intimidating things, that walking without hurrying was the most useful skill she possessed.

She stopped twelve feet from the dragon's nose.

"You want something," she said. Not a question.

The dragon was quiet.

"You're not here by accident. You'd have just burned the gate and left if you didn't want something. So — what is it?"

A very long silence.

"My eggs," the dragon said. It was the first time it had spoken. The voice was like stones moving underground. "They were taken. From my nest in the eastern hills. Three months ago."

Jenna turned and looked back at the castle. She looked at the castle for a while.

"I'll find out who took them," she said. "And I'll get them back. Give me a week."

"Why should I trust you?"

"Because I say exactly what I mean," said Jenna. "It's one of the things people find most irritating about me."

She went back inside. She found the records. She asked the questions nobody else had thought to ask. She tracked the eggs to a merchant's warehouse in the port town, bought there three months ago from a hunter claiming a finder's fee.

Six days later, the eggs were returned.

The dragon regarded her for a long moment before flying away.

"You could have just told us," said Jenna.

"You could have just asked," said the dragon.

They were both right.

She went back inside. She ate the soup. She said yes to bed.

The King said nothing, which was his version of a very long speech about how he had been wrong.