“Tastes . . . huh . . . shit.”
She slapped him. Very hard. “How dare you say something like that about one of my potions?”
Cruz’s eyes, already bulging, nearly popped out of his head. “I huh . . . understand . . . huh . . . you!”
“You’d better! And you’d better mend your manners. What’s this ‘Huh’ you keep saying?”
“I can’t, huh . . . breathe,” gasped Cruz.
“Too bad,” said Medea, shrugging. “Suffering may teach you some manners.” She walked on to the others.
When she neared Liz, Medea’s face darkened again with anger. “Smitar! This is a woman! Let her go at once! How dare you?”
The dragon uncoiled Liz. “You never fsaid,” he muttered sulkily.
Liz was quick on the uptake. She volunteered her lips and ear. And vouched for the good character of her companions. And also said exactly the right thing. “No, I’m not married to any of them. And not going to be either. I’ve tried being married, but I left my husband.”
“Why?” asked Medea, with obvious sympathy.
Liz shrugged. Then, thinking quickly, added an angry shake of her fist at the sky. “He started sniffing around a girl with lots of money. So I left him before he left me.”
Medea hugged her. “Men!” she said. “What did I tell you, Glauce? They’re all the same. Was he a Hellene?”
“Oh, Medea,” said Glauce reprovingly. “Not all Hellenes are like Jason.”
Liz shook her head. “No, he was Am—uh, Canadian,” she lied hastily. “I really think these Americans are more honorable.” She even managed to say it with a straight face. “Please, can you let them go? I swear they won’t hurt anyone.”
“You swear by all the gods? Not that I trust any of the gods but Hecuba and Helios. But I will admit that Hermes the giant killer said this was a good place to land.”
Liz shot a glance at Jerry. “Yes. I swear.”
“Very well. They can all go except that one who was rude about my potion. He can stay in the folds of Bitar for a while. The lout!”
Don’t push it, thought Liz. “Well, can he at least have some air?”
Medea pursed her lips with thought. She considered Cruz. “I suppose so. He is going a bit purple.”
“Hey! What’fs for our dinner then?” exclaimed Smitar angrily, apparently forgetting that he’d complained that they were too tough.
“Yefs! We need at leafst one each!” The dragons were definitely on the fringes of rebellion.
Lamont came to the rescue. “We’ll cook you dinner.”
“Ooh! What’fs on offer? Got any maiden fstew?”
Lamont shook his head regretfully. “The last batch of maidens we got were all, ah, broken. But we’ve got venison.”
“Don’t like venifson,” said Bitar sulkily.
“Yefs. Too chewy,” agreed Smitar.
“Uh. Fish?” Lamont’s eyes were a bit wide, as if he were trying to picture one fish divided by two dragons . . .
“Mussel soup?” offered Jerry.
“fSoup!” Bitar said eagerly.
“fSoup ifs good when you haven’t got any teef. Medea can’t cook,” Smitar informed them all, sententiously.
Smitar sniffed. “Neither can Glauce.”
“Typical king’fs daughterfs, if you afsk me,” said Bitar scathingly. “Ufsed to fservants doing everything for them.”
Don’t ask about the teeth, thought Liz. Just don’t ask. Not yet. But whoever this woman is, she’s okay. She’s nice to her children.
She gave the beautiful sorceress a quick glance. Well . . . That really wasn’t a nice thing to say to her kid. “Expose you on a rock!” Suddenly, Liz found herself suppressing a manic laugh. On the other hand, I bet those kids eat their vegetables without complaining!
* * *
In the twilight, the waves curled about the dark rocks like phosphorescent lace. A dragon belched. “I’m fstuffed! Befst meal we’ve had since Aeëtefs pulled our teeth for Jafson to fsow.”
“Yefs,” agreed the other. “Think I’m going to burfst.”
And so they should, thought Jerry, sipping some of Medea’s wine. The dragons must have eaten ten gallons of mussel soup each. Fortunately, Medea had that enormous cauldron, and the mussels and wild onions were plentiful. Herbs and some wine from a crater of stuff that Medea had said was barely fit to drink, and hey-presto—happy dragons. Personally, Jerry thought the soup could have used some cream, but the dragons had liked it. Well, they’d also sampled everything else going.
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