"Yes, yes," the prince broke in over Estoril's shoulder. "We owe it all to you, Joe."
"I wouldn't want you to think," Estoril continued as though there had been no interruption, "that we are unaware of precisely what you've accomplished. Or that we're ungrateful for your tact."
"It wasn't—" Joe said, but there was no way he could explain just what it was since he didn't have a clue himself. He started to get up.
"No, stay right there," Estoril ordered in her head nurse/mother persona.
"Kiki?" called Delendor. "Kiki?"
The monkey peeked out from between Joe's feet. Kiki had wrapped himself in a corner of the quilt also. After a moment, and with obvious reluctance, the little creature sprang across the cold floor and back on his master's shoulder.
"Remember to drink your soup," Estoril called as she pulled the door closed behind her.
Joe relaxed again. He missed the warmth of Kiki, though. Estoril was quite a lady. Smart and tough, but not cold for all that. She could've made the best ruler of anybody Joe had met yet in Hamisch, but it was obvious that wouldn't happen while there were sons around.
For that matter, Estoril probably couldn't get elected President, either, so long as there was some male boob with a fluent smile and the right connections to run against her.
Delendor wasn't a bad kid, and in a few years he wouldn't be a kid. He'd proved he had guts enough when he charged the dragon—like a damned fool! Maybe with his sister behind to do the thinking for the next while, Delendor could turn out to be a useful king.
Joe wasn't sure whether he was awake or dreaming. The coals in the fireplace were a mass of white ash, but they continued to give off heat.
If he got up and looked through the window behind him, would he really see the head of a dragon in the courtyard? Would he even see a courtyard?
But the warmth was good, and Joe really didn't want to move. Whatever reality was would keep. . . .
Something that sounded like a dropped garbage can came banging its way down the hall. The dragon's claws had sounded like that on the roadway—if there was a dragon, if there was a road. The claws hadn't echoed, but they'd been louder because the beast was so—
Joe's door burst open under the stroke of an armored hand. The latch flew across the room, bar in one direction and bracket in the other. A figure in full armor stood in the doorway with a drawn sword.
"You're in league with sundry devils, magician," the figure boomed in Glam's voice—muffled by coming through the pointed faceplate of a pig's-head basinet. "But your time's come now!"
Joe's skin flushed as though he were coming out of a faint. He jumped to his feet, slinging aside the quilt—
And fell on his face in front of Glam.
A pane of the window behind Joe blasted into the room like storm-blown ice. There was a blang! Many times louder than the sound of Glam knocking the door open. Joe twisted, trying unsuccessfully to get his feet back under him in the worst nightmare he'd had since—
Since jumping from that demon-wracked hell into Delendor's carriage, a detached, analytical part of his mind told him.
Glam toppled over on his pointed faceplate. Amazing how much noise a suit of plate armor makes when you drop it to a stone floor. . . .
Delendor, Estoril, and a crowd of servants burst into the room—led by Mary with a lantern and a terrified expression.
"Stop right where you are, Glam!" Delendor shouted. The youth's right hand kept dipping to his empty scabbard. Lack of a sword hadn't kept him from charging Glam as blithely as he had the dragon in the morning.
"Oh, Master Joe," Mary said, kneeling on the stones as Joe managed to rise into a squat. "I saw Glam coming down the hall, so I ran to get help."
"You're all right, then?" Delendor said in amazement. He finally took in the fact that the awkward sprawl on the floor was Glam, not Joe; and that Glam wasn't moving.
Which surprised the hell out of Joe, too, now that he had time to think about it.
"You lot," Estoril ordered, gesturing to a pair of the huskier servants. "Stand the brute up again."
The princess had come running also; and it couldn't have been because she thought Glam in a rage would spare a woman. "Joe, what happened?"