Part Fourteen

The horse kept leading  her Southwards until she sensed that she had gone sufficiently far to escape the fierce cold of winter and could explore the region where she was to spend the next few moths, rather than keep pressing further and further on each day.  The Fairy's confident prediction that she would be offered work  was proved all too correct, and even the by now work-hardened Princess was reduced to total exhaustion as day after day the harvest of olives was gathered, potatoes were dug and all manner of stores and barns were filled with  the goodly fruits of the earth in preparation for the coming winter.

When the winter did come, with a deluge which chilled the poor girl to the bone, exposed as she was, she wondered whether she had not wasted her time by making this long and hazardous trip south.  The Fairy's words about caves in which to shelter, came back to mind.  Could she have been serious?  A cave was shelter and she was denied shelter by day or night.  Best not risk further retribution, was her decision.  Better to shiver all night and all day until the Spring when her return home could begin, than suffer more chastisement.

The trees in this region lacked the exuberant foliage of her own beloved dense woods and forests.  They afforded little shelter, specially now that they had shed their sparse and sere leaves.  The constant drip of water onto her body all through the night became her familiar lot, except on occasions, when she summoned the dogs to shelter her and she pitied them too much to put them to so much trouble too often, poor creatures!  No!  She was on her own and that was that!  By day she worked, although less and less work was to be done and by the beginning of the New Year, it had dried up altogether.

She began to fear for the horse.  A friendly farmer had agreed to stable him, but the animal pined at nights for his mistress and she dearly missed him.  Then she remembered the caves!  He could spend the night in the cave, snug and dry, while she could continue to sleep in the open as she knew she must.

When she asked the farmer if he knew of a suitable cave where the horse might shelter, he told her of one he sometimes used in the summer for shelter, before the goats were brought down to their winter quarters.  She was welcome to use it as long as she wished, and hay for the horse would be always available for the Princess to come and carry back for her beloved equine friend.

It was a long treck out of the lowland settlement to the hills and evening was alnost upon her before she reached the cave in question.  She was about to tell her friend to go inside and make himself comfortable, when a wisp of smoke could be seen issuing from the cave mouth.  Some moments later, am amazing creature came out to see who was coming up the mountainside.

It had a head like that of a lizard and a long scaly body terminating in an enormous and sinuous tail.  The feet were also scaly like a bird's, with claw like toesWith one of the front feet the creature was clasping a lighted cigar,  on which , having come to a halt and resting back on his powerful hind legs, he puffed vigorously, exhaling dense clouds of aromatic smoke into the evening air.

"What are you?  And why are you in my horse's cave?" asked the Princess.  Things were not going according to plan, and she hated tobacco smoke, regarding the noxious weed as the invention of the Evil One!

"I'm a dragon, you daft bitch.  Can't you see?  Look at all the smoke and fire I'm belching out, causing fear and panic in your chaste and maidenly breast!"

"Where did you learn to talk rubbish like that?  And you only breathe out smoke because of that nasty cheap cigar you're smoking!  Call that a decent smoke!  My daddy wouldn't be seen dead smoking something like that!"

The dragon looked downcast at this.  Here was a damsel in distress that he could terrorise, after he had been weeks without a decent damsel, and the cow refused to be scared!

The Princess continued to berate the perplexed monster.

"Call yourself a decent dragon!  In my country dragons are twice your size and they really do breathe fire - catch them having to resort to smoking cheap cigars - I bet you feel sick already, by the way.  You look awfully green!"

The dragon took another puff in a daredevil kind of way and groaned.  She was right!  He felt terrible!  Damn these Burmese Cheroots!

"When I feel better, I'm going to carry you off to my lair and chain you to the wall of my cave.  Then you can get a white knight on a charger to come and rescue you.  What jolly fun we're all going to have!"

The Princess let out a shriek of laughter at this latest from the dragon, the tears streamed down her face and she held her sides in pain as the mirth took hold for the first time in all the months since she had left her home.

"Just try carrying me off to your lair, you feeble excuse for a dragon!  I could eat you for breakfast!  Stop wasting my time and find yourself a cave of your own,  this is farmer Andreotti's cave and he's let me have it for the winter.  Go away, you're beginning to try my patience!"

"What is a nice girl like you doing tending horses and wandering around starkers, any way?   Not that you don't enhance the view, mind you!  Bloody Hell - I haven't seen tits like that for many a long year!  I love that long golden hair, though you could use a visit to a stylist!  And that tight little bum of yours, it's a wanker's dream!"

"A wanker's dream! Well - you should know, arsehole!  Now just piss off and get out of my cave before I throw you out.  I'm getting annoyed with you!  And my horse is tired and needs to rest out of the rain.  There's a lovely cave a little higher up that'll be perfect for you.  I saw it on the way up.  I'd be happy to share this with you, but I only room with non-smokers.  Off you go!  Shoo!"

She moved threateningly towards the dragon, which was indeed a very small example of its type and the  monster shuffled  sheepishly off, stubbing out its cigar as it went.