The Dragon and the Fair M

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "I had intended to keep your letter as an example of courtesie," the King was going on, "but it has somehow disappeared. We have so many communications, and even our best of secretaries are a careless lot—not like the staff of this castle… I am much taken with Tiverton. But I do have the rough copy of my answer to you—which I thought you might find interesting. Edward, would you call for—"

  But a servant was already at the side of the King's chair, proffering a single strip of parchment.

  "—the Earl of Cumberland did indeed promise me outstanding service from them," went on the King, "but I must say they have exceeded my greatest—"

  He broke off, passing the paper to Jim, who took it in hand, but found it completely unreadable, by him at least, written as it was in the most elaborate of clerkly styles.

  "Remarkable," said Jim, staring with no understanding at all at the letter. "It all comes back to me now. How can I thank Your Majesty for such a kindly letter?"

  "You can not. So, you read Latin also, Sir James. That is but another of your virtues, though rare among paladins. We, ourselves have always held that a little Latin and more English are not bad for a fighting man to have. French, of course—though I see no use for Greek, whatsoever. We who are Kings have a need to know such things, and must study them in our youth—though some are better scholars than others—"

  He cast a disapproving glance at the Prince, who pressed his lips tightly together but said nothing.

  The King extended his hand and Jim gave him back the letter.

  "I will have another copy made for you," the King went on, "against the time when the original in your possession may be mislaid or lost. But now, let us talk of the battle itself. I would fain hear the truth of it from your own lips—no false modesty if you please, Sir James."

  This again! It seemed to Jim that he must have told the doings of that day a thousand times. Normally he told the truth—and to hell with how it disagreed with ballad versions—leaving his listeners to choose between the two. They all, invariably, twisted his account to fit the ballads, which were much more attractive if Jim had met the Ogre in his human body and armor and performed a sort of St. George-and-the-dragon bit by his conquest.

  Here, however, it occurred to him it might be well to adapt the truth at least enough to satisfy what the King might be expecting.

  But it was a long story to tell in the details his listeners always required. Halfway through, however, the King was merciful enough to let him sit down to tell the rest—and have in some wine and water to refresh his dry throat, and a stool like the one Angie had been sitting silent in. It was hard and too small, but at the moment it felt like the best of all the chairs he had ever dreamed of having.

  Happily, the King did not prolong the session once the creatures of the Dark Powers had all been killed and the Powers themselves had to allow Carolinus to drive them from the Loathly Tower. He took a large drink of wine—unwatered—and said, "Ah, now I know. We shall take a little rest now. You may leave. Edward, you will see they are shown to their rooms?"

  "Yes, Your Majesty," said his son.

  "That was just in time" said Jim. "Five minutes more in that excuse for a chair and my back would have been broken."

  "No one is allowed to look down on the King," said Angie, "remember? And, what about me? I sat in one longer than you did."

  "So you did—and never said a word. He should have sent you off after being introduced to him. I wonder why he kept you around all through the story?"

  "It was the picture he wanted. The heroine, the hero, and the King who had caused it to happen, all in the same picture while you told your tale."

  "Maybe you're right. That makes sense—the way things are here."

  "I particularly asked Joan to warn you, thinking you'd remember it better if it came from her. So I thought she had. Manners are laws around the King—and you talked to her all through the trip. What do you think of her?"

  "You were right," he said. "She is bright—and she obviously knows more about the Court than I could learn in a lifetime. I like her a lot. Does my opinion finally match with yours on that?"

  "Ugh!" cried Angie, leaping up from the bed in the room, where she had stretched out, and flicking something off her wrist.

  "What is it?" Jim shot to his feet from the chair, thankfully padded, in which he had been getting the kinks out of his own back.

  "A flea!" She stared around. "I was going to step on it, only it got away. I should have been watching. But everything was so spic and span around here—"

  Jim instantly threw a ward around her—and on second thought he threw one also around everyone who had come with them from Malencontri, wherever they might be in this castle—cursing himself for not doing it sooner. "Angie, did it bite you? Can you tell if you've been bitten?" he asked, anxiously.

  "It didn't have a chance. I saw it just as it landed and knocked it off my hand—but I wish it hadn't gotten away now."

  "So do I," said Jim, glaring at the floor. In all of the Encyclopedic Necromantic there ought to be some magic that could work as a general insecticide, but there was nothing that would kill anything at all, according to Carolinus. That would be an offensive act by any Magickian, who were committed to only a defensive use of their art.

  Hob had slipped out from between Jim's shoulder blades without being felt, with that unconscious magic of his Natural kind. He stood now between Jim and the room's fireplace, with his sword at his side—looking remarkably as if he had worn the weapon from the first minute Jim had met him.

  "M'lord, is it all right if I go look for the Tiverton hob, now?"

  "What—oh, sure," said Jim.

  Hob vanished upward over the small fire.

  Jim frowned after him for a second. There had been something pale and strained about Hob's face that Jim had never seen before. He hoped the sword hadn't gone to that small, round head, so that he was about to do something foolish, like challenging the resident hob to single combat to determine which of them was superior to the other.

  "Hob, come back here!" he called. Hob reappeared almost instantly.

  "Yes, m'lord?"

  "You aren't going to—" Jim hesitated "—make an important matter out of having a sword now, are you?"

  "No, m'lord," said Hob, with a quiet dignity that was entirely new to him. "But I can best serve you by learning everything there is to know about this castle, and its hob can tell me."

  "Oh, I see." Jim felt a touch of embarrassment. "Certainly. Of course. I hope I didn't give you the wrong idea by what I said about your sword."

  "By no means, m'lord. It may even prove to be a protection to me and this castle's hob, too. They can't touch cold iron, but we hobs can not only touch, but use it."

  "I see. Well—good luck, then."

  "Thank you, m'lord." Hob zipped out of the room and up the chimney.

  They, of course, Jim reflected, would be goblins, but there had been no sign of them on this trip.

  "Time for bed," said Angie.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was a cloudy morning in Devon, their first whole day in Tiverton, and Jim, with Angie—and thankfully, both of them dressed for the day—was having a peaceful, private breakfast that had been brought up to their room, when there was a loud knocking at the door.

  Jim's first impulse was to shout "Go away!" but he remembered that young Edward knocked like that. His next impulse was simply to ignore the call—until he remembered Edward still might just walk in—and further remembered that the doors of guest rooms in castles like this did not have locks—or even latches, for that matter.

  The knocking came again, but this time the Prince did not just walk in. His voice came through the three inches of wood.

  "James! James! It is I, Edward. I have someone for you to meet, and we must talk!"

  Hastily, Jim threw a ward on the doorway and the wall surrounding it. As an afterthought he made it a ward which let him hear what was said on the far side of it, but made sur
e anything being said or done inside the room could not be heard outside.

  Barely in time. He could now hear, faintly but understandably, the voices of the Prince and of the male servant on duty outside the door.

  "You said you saw them both go in?"

  "Yes, Your Grace."

  "And they haven't come out since?"

  "No, Your Grace."

  "Well, get somebody up here with an axe—or whatever he needs, this door is stuck. I want it open. Now!"

  "Yes, Your Grace."

  The Prince's voice went on in a somewhat lower volume.

  "… bear with this, Mortimer. Sir James is a Magickian, and the saints only know what he's up to at this moment. But we'll soon have that door down and find out what it is."

  "You better let him in," said Angie. "You'll have to see him sooner or later."

  But Jim had already begun to calm down himself and come to the same conclusion.

  "You're right," he said.

  "Then you'd better do it now, before he does something more serious."

  "Yes," said Jim and, going to the door, removed the ward. "Ah, Your Grace. I thought I heard your knock. Pray enter, you and this other gentleman."

  "Your door sticks!" said the Prince, entering with his companion behind him."—My lady!"

  "Your Grace," said Angie with a smile and a curtsy. The Prince shut the door again behind him.

  "I have been looking forward, James, to naming this gentleman to you—the Viscount Sir Mortimer Verweather, currently of the King's wardrobe—"

  "Honored to meet you, my lord," said Jim, who had remembered the man at first glance. He was still tall and thin, and his small, fashionable mustache still seemed unrealistically dark against his mouse-brown hair. The long nose on his tanned face seemed to be testing the air of the room for unpleasant odors.

  "A great honor to meet you, my lord," he said with all a courtier's smoothness. "I saw you once before, I believe, but you would not remember me."

  "The more shame to me that I do not," said Jim with equal elegance. "Perhaps it was at the Duke's—"

  "However and whenever—" broke in the Prince impatiently, "I have brought Mortimer to consider you for the gift of a suit of clothes from my father. But the discussion must certainly be boring to your lady. Perhaps she has other things—"

  "She has not," said Jim reflexively, meeting him eye to eye, exactly as he had done in a matter of the Prince wishing to talk privately with Jim in the Solar. This might not be Jim's castle, but by the almighty, it was his room, and according to medieval custom it was as much his as his castle. Edward was going to have to learn a magician could not be pushed around.

  "You forget, my lord," said Angie quickly. "I had promised to go immediately to meet Geronde—"

  "Hah—yes!" said Jim. Angie was right as usual. No point in starting a fight unless necessary. "Well, if you've given your promise, you must keep it, of course. Turns out it's all for the best."

  With his back to the Prince he winked at her and spoke as sternly as he could. "Should have reminded me, dammit!"

  "Forgive me, my lord," said Angie meekly. "It seemed to have slipped my mind."

  "Well, get along."

  Angie took her leave.

  "Women!" Jim explained to the Prince.

  "Ah, yes," said Edward. "Even the best of them, among which I have no doubt your lady is numbered—but we have more important things to discuss."

  "By all means, Your Grace," said Jim. "Would you care to sit?"

  "Certainly. Sit, Mortimer."

  The two of them took the room's two chairs. Jim sat on the bed.

  "But first, James," said Edward. "Have you any way of making our talk here secure against listening ears?"

  "I have, Your Grace. But as I mentioned on another occasion, the laws of the Collegiate of Magickians—"

  Edward held up a hand.

  "My dear James," he said with a winning smile and an abruptly confidential voice, "understand me. This is in nowise a command from me as your Prince, but merely a favor asked by one old friend of another. If you have such a skill, I would be very grateful now if you could use it to protect our conversation of the moment."

  "Ah, well—yes," said Jim, trapped by a different convention of the age. "There. It is done, Your Grace. We are secure."

  "That quickly?" said Edward, looking startled. "Thought you would have to burn foul magic powders or recite an incatation—incan—"

  "Incantation, Your Grace? No. Such are needed only by beginners in the Art. One experienced in the Art is like a ruler who says 'let this be done' and it is accomplished. Say what you will, now. No one will be able to overhear."

  Edward looked at Jim with the first expression Jim had ever seen on his face of frank admiration.

  "Say you so?" he asked.

  "I do indeed," said Jim.

  "Good! That is all I desire. Well, James, the matter is this—by the by, I am making great strides upward in my father's estimation. Sometimes I think we could almost be back in the happy days of the chevaucbi into France that ended so well at Crecy… Still, I must face facts. Cumberland will not stay long separated from the King, the fount of all he's gained over the years, and then I shall shortly have my reputation in my father's mind to do all over again. What is needed is a voice other than Cumberland's, when I am no longer with my father to protect myself from my half-uncle's lies and slanders."

  He paused and directed a sharp gaze at Jim.

  "You understand the need?"

  "Yes indeed, Your Grace. Unfortunately, I and those who came with me are only going to be here these three days—"

  "Yes, yes, we'll see how things work out. But by clever use of you while you're here, much good may be done. Now, my father thinks well of Mortimer, here. He has managed to let it slip into my father's ear that it was he, rather than Cumberland, who suggested this castle of Tiverton, with its cleanliness and excellent staff, as a safe place for the King of England in this time of plague."

  "Ah?" said Jim.

  "Yes indeed," replied Edward, "and well indeed he did so, Cumberland would never have given him credit for it. Consequently, my father thinks well of Mortimer—but not enough to have his voice outweigh that of an Earl who is his half-brother. Rank alone is not the problem—witness Chandos, who has chosen in spite of many chances to advance himself, to be no more than a knight, yet Chandos's voice is the single one at court that my father will listen to in counter to Cumberland's."

  "He is a peerless knight," said Jim—and meant it.

  "Indeed. But above all there is one thing the lack of which will make Mortimer's voice in my father's ears always less than that of Cumberland. It is not that he is French—which is slander. Not but what they are many great men of war in France wearing the swordbelt and golden spurs of knighthood… No, Chandos is a war captain—of all in England the wisest. So is Cumberland, and my father, of course. But poor Mortimer here, through no fault of his own, has never seen a battle, nor has he a name for recontres with other, single knights."

  "But a man can be a man for all that," said Jim, giving the customary answer to this sort of personal history.

  "Exactly. But the Countess said something—exactly what, I forget—that started an idea in my head. I had watched happily my father's pleasure in accounts of rencontres and other weapon-work, and it occured to me that if Mortimer should fight one of you three paladins, with blunted weapons of course, for the King's amusement, and do well—I do not say win—it might raise him greatly in my father's opinion and make his words much more of a counterweight to Cumberland's foul lies. It should not be you he should fight, of course, too much honor in it, and of course there would be no hope at all of him looking good."

  —If you only knew! thought Jim.

  "—and the archer, of course, is not a fit opponent for any belted knight. But Sir Brian would be an excellent middling choice."

  Edward paused, almost beaming at Jim and obviously waiting for applause.

&nbs
p; Hell's bells! thought Jim. Aside from this assumption that a guest should be casually drafted into a mock duel with blunted weapons—only slightly less dangerous to life and limb than sharp ones—the idea was the worst in the world. He had to spike the whole notion, somehow without offending the Prince, and do it right now.

  "A charming thought, Your Grace!" he said. "And one which Sir Brian will be overjoyed to hear. Yet if I might mention one point…"

  "One point?" Edward's beam was suddenly a frown—almost a scowl.

  "Why yes, with your indulgence. I think you ought to know that after such a trial with blunted weapons at Malencontri one day, it was Chandos himself who named Sir Brian one of the best swords of England."

  Edward stared.

  "Chandos said that?" he managed after a moment. "He must have been speaking of you."

  "Forgive me, Your Grace, but I assure you he was not. I had not had sword in hand that day, and it chanced that Sir Brian and Chandos, with sharpened swords but in play, of course, were contesting Chandos's entrance to my Great Hall."

  The Prince looked visibly shaken. Inwardly Jim heaved a sigh of relief. He had been afraid that Edward might have outgrown his younger hero-worship of Chandos.

  "Well, well!" said the Prince, still half-shaken but also half admiringly. "He did indeed say it to Sir Brian, then!"

  "So he did," said Jim, "and in such a voice that all around heard. So it strikes me there is some danger he might show so much superiority over Sir Mortimer as to diminish what credit Sir Mortimer would get from this, and as you say, Daffyd ap Hywel is not of rank to encounter with a knight, while certain obligations of my own to the Collegiate of Magickians…"

  "Well, yes of course!" said Edward, rising like a buoyant ship from the monster wave of a suddenly storm-wracked sea. "But Mortimer is no village lout with his sword, and of course you could, you understand, mention to Sir Brian how much I—and for that matter—he stands to gain from this exhibition if he… well… you understand…"

  Real anger was kindling in Jim, now.