‘I thought as much,’ said Grifflon in a normal tone of voice. ‘King Snodd feels that you have been beguiled by the charm of the beast and I agree with him. Action must be taken to remove you from your post. You have failed in your fundamental duties as a Dragonslayer and as a loyal citizen of Hereford.’

‘Listen, Grifflon,’ I said, purposefully not calling him ‘Sir’ because I knew it would annoy him, ‘why don’t you do yourself a favour and head on home? The only way you get this job is over my dead body.’

Grifflon was staring at me in a dangerous sort of way and I suddenly felt as though my last sentence was probably not the right thing to say.

‘You force my hand in this, Miss Strange,’ murmured Grifflon. ‘By your stubborn refusal to kill the Dragon. The first person to hold the sword after the violent death of a Dragonslayer is, by Dragonpact decree, the next in line.’

Sadly, this was true. It was Old Magic from the days of Mu’shad Waseed. If a Dragonslayer died a violent death anyone might take his place – all it required was to lay their hands on the hilt of Exhorbitus, the sword. Sir Matt Grifflon was smiling rather nastily at me and had taken a step closer. There was no weapon to hand and to be honest I probably would not have known how to protect myself if there had been.

‘Don’t make this too hard on yourself,’ he said, pulling a small dagger from his pocket. ‘If you stand still I can make it painless.’

He was between me and the door, and I was just thinking of leaping out of the window when a single word came to my rescue and stopped Grifflon in his tracks. It was a simple word. Short, to the point and quite unmistakable in its meaning. The word was Quark, and the Quarkbeast said it.

‘Quark,’ said the Quarkbeast again, positioning himself defiantly between myself and Grifflon.

My outrageously handsome would-be assassin looked at the Quarkbeast nervously. It had its mouth open and was revolving its five canines in a menacing fashion.

‘Call him off, Miss Strange.’

‘And let you kill me? Just how stupid do you think I am?’

‘Quark,’ said the Quarkbeast, taking a step towards Grifflon, who backed away nervously.

‘You can’t hide behind a Quarkbeast for ever, Miss Strange.’

‘It’s Sunday tomorrow,’ I told him. ‘After the premonition of Maltcassion’s death is proved wrong I won’t need to hide behind anything.’

He glared at me and ran quickly out of the door. The Quarkbeast sat on the rug and looked up at me with his large mauve eyes.

‘You did good,’ I told him. ‘Thank you.’