The Dinosaur Knights Read Free

princess has red hair. It says so clearly here. Whereas neither the Baronesa nor her slattern shows so much as a glimmer of red.”
    â€œSlattern?” Melodía yelped. “Why, you dirty—”
    Pilar backhanded her across the face.
    It was a smart blow, driven by a strength surprising in one who hadn’t had the extensive physical training afforded to women of the upper class. Although perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised Melodía, given a servant’s life spent washing and lifting and carrying. But more than arm-strength it was the sudden pain in cheek and nose, and sheer shock that it even happened, that knocked Melodía off her saddle and into the crunchy light gravel between her horse and Tristan’s dinosaur.
    The strider gobbled alarm and hopped back like a startled bird. Tristan fought to control it as the horses shied away. Melodía had landed on her butt, which though padded well with muscle was already sore, and gotten a jolt to her spine, adding both insult and injury.
    â€œWhat the Hell do you think you’re playing at?” she shouted at her serving-girl.
    Or started to. When she opened her mouth Pilar brought her riding crop down in a whistling-vicious slash. It took Melodía across the crown of her head. It hurt like fuck, despite the cushioning of hat and hair. She flung up both hands protectively.
    â€œHow dare you talk back to me?” Pilar yelled. Even in a seethe of pain and indignation it rang uncomfortably familiar in Melodía’s ears. “I’ll teach you to be impertinent.”
    And leaning from the saddle she proceeded to thrash Melodía most thoroughly on her upflung arms, and then her back and shoulders, until the Princess collapsed, sobbing helplessly, in the pumice.
    â€œThere,” Pilar said in satisfaction.
    Looking up through a waterfall of tears Melodía saw her servant straighten in her saddle and let her crop—which she had never used on her actual mount—dangle by a strap.
    â€œShe’ll remember that lesson a while, don’t you think, Mor Tristan?” she said, smoothing her hair and white blouse.
    Tristan bowed low again. “I shall certainly remember it, Mademoiselle,” he declared, and Melodía could hear unmistakable irony in his voice. “It would be our honor to escort you to the border of our county.”
    â€œStop sniveling,” Pilar said imperiously. It actually took Melodía a moment to realize she was talking to her. By sheer process of elimination, mostly, at that: she was the only one sniveling after all. “Pick yourself up and get back on your horse. Or I’ll give you something to really whine about—and at the next farm I’ll sell that mare, who’s much too fine for the likes of you, and buy you a bony nag far more in keeping with your station.”
    Melodía’s arms and back blazed with unaccustomed pain. Her pride hurt scarcely less. But that pitiless voice sounded as if meant what it said. Feeling older even than la Madrota, the unbelievably ancient Queen Tyrannosaurus of Tower Delgao, she picked herself up, pushed away Meravellosa who was trying to nuzzle her comfortingly, and hauled herself onto the saddle with approximately the same grace as she would have loaded on an equivalent weight of meal in a sack.
    The unlikely cavalcade set out again. The “Baronesa” rode knee to knee with the handsome young knight, gossiping with cheerful malice about what Melodía realized were thinly veiled personalities from the Corte Imperial. Having never seen young Tristan’s face at court, Melodía knew he’d have no way of recognizing they weren’t really hangers-on of some bent-centimo magnate of La Meseta.
    Young Mor Tristan restricted his contributions to agreeing gallantly with whatever had fallen most recently out of Pilar’s mouth during her infrequent pauses. As Melodía’s pains and passions settled back from the