Knight's Traditional Castle by GJ Woodrum

Book Five in the Traditional Stories series

Heat Rating: Zero Fire

Content Warning: Twisted fairy tale

Where does a Knight go to get money to finance castle repairs?

Sir Percilot sighed. There was no getting around it. The dungeon was filling with water from the moat. The whole foundation of his castle would have to be repaired.

Sir Percilot frowned at the Troll. "You're sure then? We can't just patch it and pump the water out?"

"Positive. The mortar is rotting out and there's just no way to patch it anymore. We've been patching patched patches for years, if you catch my drift."

The Knight nodded, and watched a clod of some unknown substance-- it certainly wasn't mortar-- drift past. "Ah, yes." He sidled away from the unwholesome looking muck and held his cloved orange closer to his nose to offset the stink of the Troll. Or maybe it was the water. Possibly the dungeon smelled, but there were so many stinks the Knight would be hard pressed to say exactly what it was that made his nose run faster than the leaking walls. He pulled a bright red kerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his dripping orifice, wishing that a kerchief could solve the problem with his leaky walls.

"So what will the cost be?"

The Troll scratched his chin. "Hmm... well there's labor, materials, a water dragon to help pump the water out of here."

"Yes, yes, Weíve discussed all that. Now tell me how much?" Percilot asked as he wiped his nose with the kerchief and edged toward the stairs.

"Oh, well, at a rough guess I'd say about three hundred gold."

"THREE HUNDRED GOLD!" the Knight roared so loud that four of his servants thought a Dragon had arrived with monetary demands and fainted dead away while every cow in the milk shed had her milk dry up out of terror.

Unaffected by the mere outrage of a human, the Troll replied, "Well it's a rough estimate. It could go higher."

"Bloody Jenny of the Greenteeth," the Knight swore, "where am I going to get that sort of money?"

The Troll grinned showing his jagged fangs in a smile that would have terrified the members of the Knight's household into a week of nightmares. "Well you could go and get a mortgage. I hear theyíre all the rage in debt consolidation and a lot of Nobles are using them to make improvements to their properties."

"You mean find someone willing to lend the money to me?"

"Yep," the Troll replied good-naturedly--naturally he was in a good mood as he stood to make a hunk of gold off the human and his leaky basement.

"And where would I find someone willing to lend a Knight money? It's not as if I've gone on any Quests and returned with a fortune in artifacts that would be worth investing in. And Iíve not slain any Dragons for their hoard of treasure."

The Troll chuckled, the sound like boulders rolling down a hillside of broken glass. "Well you might find that the latter fact is in your favor."

"How's that?" the Knight asked, distracted by his own dismal thoughts on how he could manage to come up with such a substantial sum in a short time. Or, more to the point, to whom he could go for such a big loan. Worse was the question of how to pay it off.

"You've never slain a Dragon, isn't that what you just said?"

"Yes. But what has that to do with this mess?"

The Troll patted the Knight on the shoulder all but knocking the small human underwater. "Simple, there's this Dragon I know about. He's one of those rare and near mythical creatures called...."

The Knight broke into what the Troll was saying. "Dragons? Don't be silly. Everyone knows those are real"

"No, no. That's not what I was trying to say. It's not that he's a Dragon so much as..."

Percilot interrupted again, "You mean he's not a Dragon then?"

"Well, yes he is but..."

"Get to the point of the matter, Troll!" the Knight snapped impatiently and blew his nose noisily into his kerchief. "Is he a Dragon or not?"

"Yes but he's also a Mortgage Broker."