The Dragon and the Fair M

by Gordon R. Dickson

  Jim, who had forgotten this necessary element, interrupted his other urgent thoughts to silently order that the men find themselves clothed, armed, and armored. There was a satisfied rumble of male voices from around the room and a certain amount of clanking as they checked the accouterments they were now wearing.

  "Now, Brian and Dafydd—" began Jim, turning to the group of friends. He found himself almost stumbling over something soft. "Look out, child!" he said, and then saw he was talking not to a youngster, but to a tiny, worn-looking woman hardly more than three feet tall and in servant clothes.

  "Crave your gentle pardon, Mage," she said in a high, shrill voice. "I be the only one of the Tiverton servants still here. They kept me to light the fires for them, and they were main mean about it! Never a kind word, find my own food as best I could, and working night or day, whenever they wished a fire made for the King and you other high folk. And never the silver shilling they promised me, too, for helping them."

  "Beg pardon, my lord," piped up Malencontri hob, "it's that they can't stand fire, as I said."

  "I remember," said Jim, a little shortly. He focused on the small servant. "What's your name?"

  "I be Meg, if it please Your Mageship."

  "Well, Meg, I'm glad you're with us. Maybe you can help by answering some questions about the goblins. Do you know how long it'll take them to know all of us humans are safe up here, now?"

  "They knows already, please Your Mageship. And not all of ye's safe. That one younger squire to Sir Mathew be dead as a doornail in 'is bed, stuck full with they mean little spears so 'ee looked like a porcupine. Cried pitiful, 'ee did, from the pain 'o the spear poison—but 'ee died quick because he was so full stuck. I seen it happen just before I was all at once 'ere. Didn't know why they did it when I watched. Know now."

  "Walter Thorncraft!" cried Mathew's voice. "The poor lad! The poor lad! I'll kill a few of the devils in his name. William, why weren't you there to help your fellow squire?"

  "Beg your forgiveness, my lord, but I didn't know. I was on my way to the privy, and suddenly I found myself here!"

  "If they know, then we have to move fast," said Jim. "Brian and Dafydd, take care of the sentry on the roof! Your Grace, will you pick a knight to keep watch on the stairs. The goblins can't get past the ward I've put on this whole floor, but they ought to be watched—"

  "Mathew!" snapped the Prince. "The stairs. Send your wisest knight with the command in his keeping!"

  "I'll go myself, my lord!" There was a stir in the closely packed crowd, as Sir Mathew pushed himself hastily through it. His voice floated back. "Beg pardon, Your Grace, but I can't find the door."

  "I left the room sealed when I took the space of the corridor," said Jim. "Door! There's one now, Sir Mathew!"

  "Thank you, Mage!" There was the noise of a door opening, slamming.

  "—and Angie, Your Grace, Lady Joan—" Jim continued, throwing up another ward of silence around the four of them. "Your Grace, we've all got to move into the King's quarters. The King will have to be told what's going on and maybe you—"

  "Perhaps I would be best to do that," said Joan, quickly again. "He will listen to me for a moment, at least."

  "And in that moment you will know how to keep him listening," said the Prince, obviously relieved. "She is right, James. He will bite my head off before I have three words out and refuse to listen to more. But we must all go before we bring this ragtag crowd to fill his rooms. But Lady Angela, perhaps you should go with my lady Countess—"

  "My duty is to stay here, your Grace," said Angie sharply, "with Sir James!"

  The signals from her were unmistakable to Jim. He had planned on going himself, and taking Angie, so they could both measure the King's reaction to Joan's and the Prince's persuasion. But she was right, he had to stay here to keep things under control—as might be expected, she would not leave if he was here.

  "Of course," he said, thinking quickly. "I would have only sent her if she was needed to tell me of what happened, in case the two of you found you had to stay with the King for more time than we expect."

  "A wise decision, my lord," said Joan, coming down strongly on Angle's side. That sealed the matter. Jim magicked Joan and Prince on their way.

  "How goes it, James?" said Brian's voice in Jim's ear. Jim and Angie turned to see his two friends had returned from the Tower roof.

  "The sentry disposed of?" said Jim, firmly holding down a slight touch of squeamishness at the thought of what must have taken place over his head. The sentry would never have stood a chance.

  "Disposed of indeed," said Brian cheerfully. "Looked completely like an actual man-at-arms, even to clothes and spear—real spear and clothes. Turned back to looking like a hob swamped in cloth when he was dead, though."

  "Don't let either of our hobs hear you say that!" said Jim. "In their eyes the goblins look very different from them. They'd be insulted and hurt if they heard you say so."

  "I will guard my tongue if you wish, James. But outside the sentry being hairy instead of smooth, I'm damned if I see much difference."

  "The difference's inside them. But no goblin would, or could, have taken you for a ride on the smoke to cheer you up—though you almost didn't remember it—when you were a homesick boy. Besides, if the two different kinds were different beasts, only one of which you were hunting, you'd pick up the differences at first sighting, and recognize them immediately thereafter."

  "But I have remembered it, James—after your Hob reminded me of it. I remember it very clearly now. But you are also right that if the goblins were warrantable prey and the hobs not, I would know the differences very quickly. The hobs are good little Naturals, and I will guard my tongue. By the way, Dafydd and I debated throwing the corpse over the side of the tower to the ground, but did not for that it might alert the other goblins to the change of guardianship up here—"

  "Hola!" cried a distant voice—the voice of Sir Mathew. "Spear-armed goblins on the stairs! We are attacked!"

  "Take charge of the men at the stairs over Sir Mathew—say I said so—will you, Brian?" said Jim, for the other knights were jostling each other to be first out the door. "Tell them I commanded you to. Dafydd, you might as well stay here. There'll be too many to waste your arrows, this early—save them for an emergency."

  "Indeed," said Dafydd in his usual composed fashion. He had not said a word so far while Brian talked. "But I think I must look more closely at these goblins. I am not a man eager to the fighting, but it is wise to know your enemy on advance if possible."

  He turned and went off after Brian, who had joined the eager crowd-jam at the door.

  "I think I've got to sit down for a moment," Jim said in an undertone to Angie, and sank into a nearby chair.

  "Are you all right?" she said, looking at him closely. She put a cool palm on his forehead. "You feel feverish."

  "Who wouldn't, having to handle this mess? Besides magic's an energy force, and I've been doing enough magic to do the usual Magickian of the Collegiate for a month. I feel a little hot. I probably got warmed up by the bleed-off of energy I was directing."

  "If you think that's it," said Angie. "Still, it might not be a bad idea for you to slow down on everything you're doing, including using your magic. The Prince and Joan are handling the King, and Brian can command the knights at the stairs better than you can, possibly."

  "No doubt about it," said Jim, glumly. "I'll never know a fraction of what he knows in that department. If it wasn't for this crazy business of top rank always ending up in military command—whether he's the best man for it or not—I'm sorry, Angie, but I think I better go take a quick look, anyway, at the situation on the stairs. Dafydd was right, you know, about needing to know your enemy, I only saw them in a sudden flurry before, that one time with the bishop, and not a second to stand back and measure them up."

  He got up from the chair somewhat heavily.

  "I'm going with you," said Angie strongly.

  Chapter Twe
nty-Five

  When the two of them approached the stairs, the knights there looked relieved to see Jim, disturbed to see Angie.

  "Brace yourself," muttered Jim under his breath. "I'm going to have to bark at you. Try to sound meek." He raised his voice.

  "My lady!" he snapped. "Watch if you must, but stand back and do not bother us with talk!"

  "Yes," replied Angie with beautifully tuned meekness and cast-down eyes, "as you command, my lord."

  She stopped, accordingly. They were about five steps from the knights.

  "My lord," said Brian formally, meeting him. "We are glad to see you. For some reason the goblins hang back, though they are many in number—" Jim glanced down the stairs. The goblins were there, and this time in their real shapes, now they were full hob-sized, rather than the smaller size Jim had seen them at when he had been attacked before, with the Bishop. They filled the stairs, almost spilling off each step as far down as Jim could see. Their spears were correspondingly longer than they had been before, and looked strangely dangerous in the afternoon light from the arrow slits in the side of this tower, which made their jeweled tips glint in deadly fashion at every movement. The glitter of goblin eyes was if anything almost as bright and threatening as the spearpoints.

  "They aren't hanging back," Jim said. 'They're right up against the ward I put around this whole floor to stop anyone coming up from below. That's what stopping them. The question is whether to remove the ward and attack, or leave it in place for now. Attacking might make them more cautious. The party of them that attacked us when I was escorting the Bishop of Bath and Wells seemed to think at first that our armor was simply another use of magic, and they tried to imitate it—by shape-changing to look like they were wearing it—they didn't manage to look very convincing, though."

  He had been thinking out loud for the benefit of the knights standing about and looking impatient. They had not welcomed the arrival of their armor and weapons only to stand here at the stairs and wait.

  "Yes!" he said. "We attack!"

  Cheers from the knights and a general crowding down the stairs.

  "Hold!" snapped Jim. "Advance all together in line, and only two to a step, remember! They could push any of you who're teetering on the edge over it with sheer numbers. Sir Brian, marshal your gentlemen!"

  Brian took over surely and efficiently. Jim stood back to watch—until it suddenly occurred to him that by the standards of the day he and Brian should have made up the first two.

  But the knights were on the very edge of quarreling among themselves for place. Hopefully, thought Jim, they would think of his standing back as an indulgence to those who wanted a first try at the enemy.

  Then he suddenly remembered that, just as he had forgotten to ward himself, when he had warded all the rest of the Malencontri party against possibly plague-carrying fleas—he had now forgotten to armor himself. Almost blushing, he was about to do so now, when he realized that no one else here thought that, as commander, he did not have a duty to take care of himself in this case, and not indulge his (undoubtedly) ferocious desire to be on the stairs meeting the enemy with the rest of them.

  When Brian was ready, Jim wiped out the blocking ward, and the knights, with Brian and Sir Mathew leading, started down the stairs.

  The goblins surged forward, found the invisible barrier gone, and rolled up the stairs, like a black and poisonous wave, sprinkled liberally with the reflections of bright stars that were their spearpoints.

  And so they met.

  But this time was not as it had been at their battle against the Bishop's group. On that occasion Jim had been the only knight present, and even he had not been wearing full armor. This time the goblins were meeting not only fully dressed knights, but knights carrying shields and who knew how to use them for defense. The diamond points of the spears stuck in the wooden shields but did not penetrate them, and the razor edges of the broadswords cut through their narrow bodies as if they had been stalks of wheat.

  Jim even noticed Brian—he had taken the outside edge of the step he was on—using his shield, bristling as it already was with stuck spears, as a sort of broom to sweep the goblins facing him off the stairs to a lethal drop to the stone floor below.

  So the knights cleared goblins from the steps before them without any being crippled by the magic poison of the spears. But those steps were immediately being filled from what seemed an endless horde below. It could only be a matter of time, Jim saw, before even these iron men should begin to tire—and the goblins were nothing if not brave. Those in the forefront came on to their deaths like the most legendary of human heroes.

  Jim was already beginning to work his brain as fast as it could be worked in his present, somewhat groggy shape, when there was an unexpected addition to the conflict. He had been dimly hearing, somewhere in the distance behind him, barking—a vague irritation for the moment. He assumed without thought that someone back in the room had aroused the mother terrier—possibly someone handling one of her pups without permission.

  But it was nothing so trivial. The barking abruptly grew louder as it approached, and before he could turn, the little terrier bitch was past him and hurling herself down the stairs toward the fighting knights. A terrier, of a breed famous for fearing nothing, regardless of size or armament, and who is also currently a mother, does not lie idle when enemies close to her pups are clearly attacking. She pushed her head between one of Brian's legs and that of Sir Mathew, and began snarling and barking at the goblins.

  And they—all of them—suddenly recoiled in panic, piling up on each other and pushing the more unfortunate of their number over the side to their deaths below.

  The knights stopped. Jim, with Angie now standing beside him, stayed where he was, staring, as the terrier, left alone, barked and growled a triumphant warning to the retreating foe.

  The two hobs came pelting from the room to join Jim and Angie.

  "Forgive me, m'lord," gasped Malencontri hob, slipping into familiarity under the excitement of the moment, "I forgot to tell you. Goblins have a deathly fear of all dogs!"

  "They do? Why?" said Angie.

  "Because—m'lady, you remember—magic doesn't work on animals, and they can smell it from a distance if the wind's right. Their magic-poisoned spearpoints are just ordinary points to dogs, and a real angry dog doesn't even feel any hurt when it's fighting. So they learned to avoid any place where a dog was, because a dog'll kill them if it thinks they're on its ground. It's the same way with houses having cats—"

  "Cats?" said Angie. "But goblins are much bigger than cats!"

  "Doesn't make any difference, m'lady," broke in Tiverton hob triumphantly, finally getting a word in edgewise. "Cats hate goblins. Cats chase them and try to kill them, if they can, and goblins run. Cats is all claws and teeth. They climb up on goblins and tear at them, and cats aren't killed easy!"

  "I was just going to tell them that," said Hob, glaring at Tiverton hob.

  "Well, you didn't. I did."

  "Peace, you two," Angie told them.

  "Yes, my lady," they both said.

  "My lord is busy thinking and mustn't be disturbed by your squabbling."

  "Crave your gentle pardon, my lord." A soft two-voiced chorus.

  "Granted," answered Jim absently.

  Meanwhile, the knights had come back up the stairs.

  "Well, my lord?" said Brian, taking off his helm and revealing hair soaked flat with sweat. "I judged it wisest not to follow the goblins too far. What are your commands?"

  "Er," said Jim, hating equally his woozy head and this business of Brian, who was a far better judge of military matters than Jim himself, "I'd be glad of your counsel, Sir Brian."

  "Then I would suggest, my lord, that once more you put your magic shield in place. The goblins seem numberless, and while we might drive them completely without the castle, we would need the help of the dog to do it—and who knows how far she will willingly go from her pups without worrying those she chases
might somehow sneak around behind her and harm them."

  "That is good counsel," said Jim. The knights, who had found the fighting with the goblins become somewhat monotonous—less like real battle than the cutting of grain in the harvest season, when everybody from lord to serf turned out to the fields, getting in the winter's needs before bad weather robbed them of it—clearly agreed. They preferred an enemy who could hit back—not quite as hard as they could, of course.

  The terrier was still barking and snarling at the goblins now baffled by the ward once more. Angie scooped her up in her arms to carry her back.

  "I can take her," said Jim, low-voiced to Angie.

  "That's all right," said Angie. "She's light."

  With a few last barks, the small dog dismissed goblins completely from her mind and turned her head to try to lick Angie's conveniently reachable face.

  Angie dodged.

  "She's just trying to tell you how much she thinks of you," said Jim.

  "Think where that tongue has been—especially with her pups," answered Angie tartly. She held the terrier, now in a tight grip, out to Jim. "Here, do you want to let her lick you?"

  "No, no. You're probably right."

  "You're darn right I'm right."

  They went back into the crowded room, together with the knights, and dumped the terrier in her pen. Dafydd—who had watched without a word, and an assortment of other people from the room, who had come out after all to see the fighting—had returned with them.

  "M'lord—" said the familiar voice of Hob. Jim turned to see both hobs pressing closely on his heels.

  "Not now," said Jim, turning back. He had caught sight of the Prince and Joan, just entering the room, undoubtedly returned from seeing the King—whose quarters, after all, were just at the end of this top corridor. But such a quick return suggested they had won the King's approval to move everyone into his quarters right away. Fast work. Jim was eager to hear the details. The King's rooms were all connected by inner doorways rather than openings on the corridor, making them a much better defensive position than this one overcrowded space—until he could get his brain, at present strangely dull, to work seriously to a better and longer-term goal.