The Dragon and the Fair M

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "Sir James!" said Harimore. "I have been hoping to speak further to you and, if possible, alone. Will you join me in a cup?"

  There was no polite way Jim could refuse such an invitation, unless he had a very good or real excuse. He did not.

  "Gladly," he said, stepping up onto the dais and taking a seat across from the knight—though there was no real gladness in him at the prospect of more wine just now. "We've had all too little time to talk either at Malencontri or here."

  The "cup" to which Harimore referred was of course a mazer, capable of holding at least three ordinary full wine-cups of liquid. Pouring only a little wine into the one before him, he stole a glance at the figure opposite him and noticed that not only was the wine in Harimore's cup unwatered, but he must have been drinking here since lunch. No evidence of drunkenness showed, however, in his erect figure or his voice.

  "That is so," Harimore said, "and I have a couple of things I have been wishing very much to speak you on. The first is I had forgotten also to tender you my heartfelt sorrow and apology for addressing you so discourteously in that moment when we rode together back to the Earl of Somerset's last Christmas party."

  "I remember no such discourtesy," said Jim hastily. A further apology from this knight could be a prickly matter for them both. He took a swallow from his mazer to hide his face from this perceptive, but ordinarily unemotional, man.

  "You are generous," said Harimore. "But it was discourteous. It was churlish. I do not mean to try and lessen my offense, Sir James—"

  "Call me James," said Jim. A little bit of informality might ease the present uncomfortable situation.

  "Then I must insist on your calling me Harry—as I was saying, I do not mean to lessen the added offense I gave that day by mentioning, with your pardon, that you frequently have an odd way of speaking and, as I said in apologizing at Malencontri, I, unthinking as I was, mistakenly assumed that you were not one born and accustomed to the state you occupied—probably no more than a jumped-up squire."

  "You pointed out, that day, quite properly," said Jim, "that I was wearing my sword incorrectly. I have since thanked you many times for that instruction and have amended my bad habit."

  "Correct speech and courteous speech, even between equals, is one thing," replied Harimore, "courtesie, something else again, particularly when one is in the presence of a superior."

  "But I'm not superior—" said Jim, his command of fourteenth-century polite upper-class English beginning to break down.

  "Pray, James, let me finish. This apologizing is not something I am familiar with. But truth above all. I after learned from Sir Brian not only that you are much more of a Magickian—regardless of the title by which you should be addressed—but of your bravery against the ogre at the Loathly Tower, and on divers other occasions, which he had witnessed—feats of arms I shall probably die without equaling. Therefore, I once more beg the grace of your pardon for my ill manners."

  "If pardon be required—which I doubt—" Jim was beginning to appreciate the pain in the other man that had driven him to this unaccustomed apology, and Jim's heart warmed to Sir Harimore in a way it never had before, "—you have pardon freely from me. And now let us forget that moment, and drink as close friends should, Harry."

  "James," said Harimore, "you cannot realize what a weight you have lifted from my conscience. I have never been able to do wrong to any man without striving to amend the matter as soon as possible. The duty preys on me 'til done."

  They drank together, Jim more heartily than he had ever expected to when Harimore had first spoken to him just now.

  "What do you think of the situation in this castle, James?"

  "I'm not too happy with it," said Jim, with rare openness. An unusual but very real thing in the male world had taken place: he found himself not only liking, but trusting the man opposite—a mixture of understanding and respect.

  "Hah!" said Harimore. "For me it has only been an uneasy feeling. But before I left to visit Brian, I took care to not only have myself shriven, but to buy from a pardoner a pardon for any sins I should commit until I was home again. With those two things out of the way, a knight has only to take care to behave honorably and die an honorable death, if so be the will of God. Therefore what could trouble us? But I am curious to find if you know."

  "I'm afraid I don't, any more than you do," said Jim.

  "Ah, there you are wrong, James. You know and understand a great deal more than I do about some things. For one, you seem most happily married."

  "Well—yes, I guess I am," said Jim.

  "Strange," said Harimore in a musing tone, "I know so few in that case. Only you—and Brian, so soon to be—and I suppose you could add that archer… what is his name?"

  "Dafydd ap Hywel," said Jim, wishing he could tell this newly closer friend that Dafydd was actually a Prince in the Drowned Land.

  "I lay it," said Harimore, "to a man having strong, close companions. We none of us know when we may need someone to stand back to back with us against the world—but that is not what I have been wishing to ask you about. It could be fairly said then that you understand women?"

  "Good Lord, no!" said Jim, jolted into forgetting fourteenth-century speech completely. "Any man who says he does…"

  He ran out of words, boggled at the idea.

  "On the other hand," he went on, "they don't completely understand us—though they seem to understand more about us than we understand about them. To be fair, it may be that we don't talk to them enough, and they talk at the drop of a hat—I mean, they have no trouble talking. We have to work at it and remember to do it—most of us, that is. Of course there are silent women, too, just as there are men who pour words out. No single rule. But for most of us, a few words may make us a friend for life, or make an enemy who won't rest until he or you is dead and buried. Two sexes with two different sets of problems in two different versions of the world… on the other hand, when you really come to love a woman… I can't describe it."

  He checked himself.

  "Forgive me for running on," he said, "but I don't believe even Merlin could explain the difference—" Not that he ever would, Jim added to himself.

  "But this is the matter I have wished deeply to talk with you on," said Harimore. "You see, I believe I love a woman in the manner you describe—"

  Oh, no! thought Jim. New friendship or not—not this, first crack out of the box!

  But this was the fourteenth century, not the twentieth—or the twenty-first, by this time, back home. Harimore was plowing ahead with his problem, and Jim was obliged to try to help if he could.

  "—and my honor will not permit me ever to even tell her about it. She has a husband in the Earl of Salisbury, I understand. Her being with the Prince of Wales, now, then is…?"

  "A close cousin and close friend since childhood."

  "Hm," said Harimore. "In any case she is married. That is all, and to someone else. I cannot speak my heart to her. In any case, I would not have the words. But that is not my great concern, James. It is that I must see her daily, and it is a torture to me, James. I feel that every word I say to her is wrong. Nor do I know about what a man should talk to a woman. He can hardly talk weapons and weapon-work, only slightly less can he talk of horseflesh and hunting, even if she has shown a preference for those things, and only a coxcomb would seek to amuse her with tales of his combats. Can nothing be done for me? Perhaps… magick?"

  So that was where Harimore had been heading all this time. You could have stayed at Malencontri where you wouldn't be daily tortured by being unable to speak, after we'd all gone off to Tiverton here, thought Jim.

  "Magic," he said, "won't give you a golden voice and an endless fund of words, I'm afraid. That's not one of the things it's made to do."

  "And you, with your experience with a wife and clearly being happy, therewith—you have no helpful advice for me?"

  "What I could tell you that works for me, might work exactly wrong for you. As I think I may
have said earlier, everyone is different, both man and women."

  "But surely there is something you can say."

  "Treat her like a sister," said Jim, in desperation.

  "But would not that in itself be dishonorable? When I know I feel…"

  "Not at all," said Jim. "It's merely an exercise in manners to make conversation easy between the two of you. You're only treating her that way for courtoisie. It is the polite thing to do as a gentleman, since you can do no otherwise—and you may find yourself with more words in her company as you get used to conversation with her."

  Harimore brightened visibly.

  "You think so?"

  "It's a definite possibility." In fact, thought Jim, she may not like being treated like a sister all the time, and go to work to draw you out.

  "It is a noble suggestion, for which I thank you, James. Unfortunately, I never had a sister."

  The man's impossible, thought Jim.

  "Did you ever have a female cousin, about your own age, when you were young?"

  "Oh, yes. I never liked her."

  All the better, thought Jim.

  "Try it anyway," said Jim. "What've you got to lose? And it's perfectly honorable, a mere politeness."

  "Well, perhaps I shall. You should understand, James, of three sons I was the only one who lived beyond the fifth year, and my father was a stern man. We had a holding of some worth, and I have never lacked for funds, but he was first and foremost a knight. He gave himself few pleasures and no more for me than he allowed himself. In short, I was raised like a monk—but a monk-at-arms. I do not resent him for this. What I know today of the marvelous art of weapons I owe to that upbringing, but it has left me without much of the ordinary gentleman's graces."

  He look piercingly at Jim.

  "What I am endeavoring to say, James, is that my heart fails me—as it has never failed me with weapon in my hand in my life—when I think of doing as you advise. But you do think that the effort will help me if I endeavor to essay it?"

  "I do," said Jim.

  "My deepest thanks to you. You are a light in my darkness."

  "Nothing remarkable in what I said," answered Jim, gruffly. "But now, I must be off on the errand I was about to do when I found you here."

  "Of course. And once more my undying gratitude."

  Jim escaped to the castle's outer courtyard, in which, as was the case at Malencontri and many castles, were situated the castle's outbuildings. They were generally placed there because they were made of wood, more easily worked and cheaper and faster to build than the stone castles themselves, wood which might pose a danger to the main castle if the work often carried on in them should cause them to catch on fire.

  "Carpenter?" he asked the first courtyard denizen he encountered—a raggedly dressed youngster of perhaps twelve.

  "The fourth outbuilding to the right, my lord," said the youngster. "Where the planks are piled before."

  "Oh, yes," said Jim. He went toward it and found another urchin of about the same size in the front part of the building, but no one else.

  "Master Carpenter!" he commanded. "Take me to him, immediately!"

  "He is not here, my lord."

  "I can see that!" said Jim. "Fetch him to me at once, then!"

  "Grant me the indulgence of your grace, my lord. I don't know where he is. He did not say on leaving."

  Jim looked at him with suspicion. This boy, like the first one he had spoken to in this courtyard, had a clarity and correctness that made his speech close to the language of the upper classes. Certainly interior servants of any castle practiced to get their words right, but this was seldom encountered in courtyards among staff with broad local accents.

  "Takes a nap at this time of day, does he?"

  "Oh no, my lord. Never."

  "Well, where could he be?"

  "Begging your forgiveness, my lord, I do not know."

  Jim gave the boy up as a source of information. He strode past him into the workshop proper. Looking around there, amid the comfortable odors of newly sawed wood, he found what must be the pen Angie had wanted. But it looked as if someone not even merely of apprentice level had done the work—more like something an eight to twelve-year-old might throw together on impulse one summer afternoon.

  But it might hold together for the present, anyway.

  "Carry this," he told the carpentry's sole visible representative, a lanky young man.

  "My lord, I was to stay and watch things—"

  Jim broke in. He had no choice but to act the part he had fallen into on landing in this medieval world. Such protest by someone like this boy against someone of Jim's rank was not supposed to be tolerated. The words to use were words he had no choice but to use.

  "Sirrah!" he roared. "Do you speak so to a knight, and one who is a guest of the castle? I will have you—"

  "Sir, I will do it! Immediately I will do it! Pray avert your anger—see, I take it up right now!"

  The lad sounded honestly terrified. Where his speech and answers had rung false before in Jim's ears, there was no doubt at all that he was speaking the truth now with every fiber of his being.

  Jim turned and led the way back up to his and Angie's room. The other women were undoubtedly still there in the Solar, but at least he could have the boy carry it in, and then both of them, with apologies, could leave once more.

  But when he finally knocked on the door and shouted to Angie that he was coming in for a second, she opened it almost immediately, and he saw the room was empty. Neither of them said anything until the boy had carried in the pen and taken his leave.

  "Well, your talk didn't last long," he said to Angie, busy dealing with the puppies' mother, who was expressing some silently expressed unhappiness at losing the blanket she had come to regard as her own. It had plainly been washed and folded, but Angie unfolded it now and let the dog carefully and thoroughly sniff it all over before acknowledging it as the blanket she had once owned. Angie immediately refolded it and laid it down inside the pen, then went to wash her hands in the basin.

  "Where's my soap?" she said to herself in a vexed voice. "Ah, here it is."

  The mother dog leaped inside the pen, carefully sniffed the blanket again to make sure it was still the same one, then examined around the pen's edges, nosing back the pups that tried to join her. Finally, she began carefully scratching the smooth blanket into the wrinkles proper for herself and her family to lie upon.

  She licked the air in Angie's direction in apology for her nosiness with household affairs, lay down, and let the pups crowd around her. Taking them one by one gently between her paws, she went to work cleaning each of them with her tongue.

  "Well at least the pen didn't fall apart," said Jim. The two of them had been watching, fascinated by the dogs adjusting to their new enclosure.

  "Yes," said Angie, "and at least the sides are high enough to keep the pups from roaming all over and dirtying up the floor."

  "But what about the women?"

  "Oh, none of them except me seemed to mind."

  "But I mean," said Jim, "I hadn't thought your talk would have been that short. Why?"

  "Oh, that." Angie abandoned the pups and turned to look at him. "In as few words as possible, it was simply a matter of giving my Lady Joan of Kent, etc., an ultimatum, so she could pass it on to the Prince."

  "What ultimatum?"

  "In short, we told her we all had husbands who would listen to us—"

  "Oh?" said Jim, his male ego raising its head suddenly like an alerted wolf.

  "—and if necessary those husbands would go to the King in a body to say good-bye to him, since, as he knew, we had only been able to stay the three days. She took it very well. Probably used to being faced with ultimatums."

  "And you just went ahead and told her that without telling me, and before you made that promise in my name."

  "We had to see if it would work with her, before getting you all stewed up."

  "You could have told me."


  "Well, maybe I should have," said Angie pacifically. "But you will do it if I ask you?"

  "Well, I suppose I could. But how I'm going to suggest something like that to Brian, and especially to Dafydd—who, don't forget, in this place is officially just a common archer, and archers don't tell kings off to their face. For that matter, no more do minor knights like Brian and myself—particularly Brian at the moment, when the King's so tickled with his win over Verweather."

  "But the King loves all of you—particularly Brian and yourself, right now!"

  "He doesn't love us so much he can let us talk that way to his face. He's the King of England, Angie! And this is the fourteenth century!"

  "Jim…"

  "Don't look at me like that, Angie."

  "But you will do it if I ask you, won't you?"

  "I suppose I could—probably better than anybody. After all I'm a Magickian—well, almost a Magickian—once I'm voted in by the Collegiate. He wouldn't want to offend not only the English Magickians, but those of the whole world by doing anything drastic to me. But what about Brian and Dafydd?"

  "They'll agree to do it if you do."

  "Fine! Their doom is in my hands now."

  "It'll be all right. You see, Joan is on our side now. I told you she was sharp. She understands it'll be better for her and the Prince to keep you alive and well. So she'll talk him into going to the King first and smoothing the path for you."

  "And she promised that?"

  "Not in so many words, but she promised. She's not a liar, Jim—either directly or by implication."

  "And even if she does, you trust young Edward to do it?"

  "Don't you?"

  Jim hesitated.

  "I don't know!" he said. "Sometimes I think he's a man, sometimes I think he's still a kid. He's got guts—he proved that at Crecy, according to Chandos Herald. But that was war. This isn't war. It's his father he's been trying desperately to get back into the good graces of."

  "Well, what exactly do you think, then?"

  "Well, maybe he will. He jolted me the other day. He looked ready to blow up from pure selfishness when I told him what he was asking for would be against Brian's vows. Calmed down right away, accepted defeat with a good grace, and smiled it off. He wasn't kidding about the smile, either, it was genuine. He said God forbid the day come when he asked a knight to go against his vows. Now, those are words ninety percent of the ordinary knights I've met here wouldn't have answered with."