‘How did you get to be a Dragonslayer?’ asked another. A man in a suit elbowed his way through the crowd and showed me a contract. ‘My name is Oscar Pooch,’ he announced, ‘I represent Yummy-Flakes breakfast cereals and I’d like you to endorse our product. Ten thousand moolah a year. Do we agree? Sign here please.’

‘Don’t listen to him!’ said another man in a pinstripe suit. ‘Our company will offer you twenty thousand moolah for exclusive rights to represent Fizzi-Pop soft drinks. Sign here—!’

‘Wait!’ I shouted.

The whole crowd went silent. All one hundred, two hundred, I don’t know how many there were, but there were a lot. The cameramen from the TV stations trained their cameras on me, waiting for whatever I had to say.

‘My name is Jennifer Strange,’ I began, to the sound of frantic scribbling from the newspapermen’s pens. ‘I am the new Dragonslayer. Charged by the Mighty Shandar himself, I will uphold the rules of the Dragonpact and protect the people from the Dragon, and the Dragon from the people. I will issue a full statement in due course. That is all.’

I was impressed by the speech, but then I had been bound to pick up a thing or two during Brian Spalding’s one-minute accelerated Dragonslaying course. I retrieved the Rolls-Royce and headed back into town, the crush of journalists and photographers following me as best as they could. Brian Spalding had never alerted me to this sort of media attention, although the sound of twenty thousand moolah just to endorse Fizzi-Pop sounded like some very easy money indeed.

Gordon van Gordon

Gordon van Gordon

I returned to the Dragonslayer’s office to find the whole street crowded with even more journalists, TV crews and onlookers. The police had thoughtfully closed the road, erected barriers and kept the public to the far side of the street. I parked outside and jumped out of the Slayermobile to the rattle of cameras and popping of flashbulbs. I ignored them. I was more concerned with a small man dressed in a brown suit and wearing a matching derby hat. He was aged about forty and tipped his hat respectfully as I placed the key in the lock.

‘Miss Strange?’ enquired the small man. ‘I’ve come about the job.’

‘Job?’ I asked. ‘What job?’

‘Why, the job as apprentice Dragonslayer, of course.’

He waved a copy of the Hereford Daily Eyestrain at me.

‘On the Situations Vacant page. “Wanted—”’

‘Let me see.’

I took the paper and, sure enough, there it was in black and white: ‘Wanted, Dragonslayer’s apprentice. Must be discreet, valiant and trustworthy. Apply in person to number 12, Slayer’s Way.’

‘I don’t need an assistant,’ I told him.

‘Everyone needs an assistant,’ said the small man in a jovial tone. ‘A Dragonslayer more than anyone. To deal with the mail, if nothing else.’