"I am not. I feel like a billion dollars, with food and drink in me. I've got to talk to the Prince before he learns I've been mobile for hours and haven't yet got in touch with him to congratulate him on his victory."
"Jim! He knows you did it, not him!"
"The hobs did it—though we humans all had a piece of it, as I told Carolinus. But Carolinus is right. He was the commander-in-name. It's his victory."
"I don't know why he doesn't turn purple from embarrassment, being congratulated by you."
"Why should he, as Carolinus might also say? The rules of this period have him owed congratulations."
"Fine rules," said Angie. "Servant, here! Oh, there you are. Clean this table—and this time shut the door as you go out."
The servant began to clean up, beaming her approval at Jim out of a young, thin face under unruly blond hair and above one of Angie's old gray working dresses. Food and drink were considered one of the best medicines in the world for any physical problem. She carefully left the wine and water pitchers on the table.
"Take—" began Angie.
"No," said Jim. The servant left, the pitchers stayed. She thoroughly agreed with him. He was showing almost no signs at all of the wine he had drunk so far. More would only be good for him.
Tell me something," said Jim, as the door closed, stretching his legs out comfortably but carefully enough not to kick Angie's, which were now underneath the table opposite him, "do you think it was young Edward that sent Joan up here with the idea of the footmen going first?"
"I know it wasn't. I did."
"You?" Jim sat up straighter in his chair, putting down his glass wine-cup, one of the King's that the monarch had left behind.
"Of course. Edward knew nothing about that, and it seemed to me an idea you should be considering."
"Well, it was a good idea," said Jim slowly. He picked up his glass again, but merely held it in his hand. "It just didn't appear to me she might have thought it up herself. She can't have had any experience of battles."
"What would you have thought if Geronde had suggested it?"
"I'd have been more ready to believe her, of course!" said Jim. "But Geronde's defended her estate—with Brian's help—and grown up in the company of men who've fought battles."
"Joan's whole life's been spent in the company of men who've fought battles: the King, people like Chandos at his court, her two husbands. Her experience has been full of busy fighting men—when she was growing up and ever since. Her first husband, Holland, is a professional soldier to this day. Her present husband, Salisbury, is fighting in wars all the time."
"True."
"Of course it's true. And she hasn't been deaf and blind all these years."
"No. You were right. She was right."
"Thank you. Or, I mean—forgive me. But I hate to see someone like her ignored just because she's female."
"This is the fourteenth century."
"But you aren't—forgive me again. I'll leave it alone." She blew him a kiss over the table. "All right?"
"You idiot!" he said tenderly, "Forgive you for what?"
"Good."
They looked at each other lovingly over the table.
"Not now," said Jim. "As I said, I've got to congratulate the Prince. Oh, tell me something else. Is there anything out of the last three days I ought to know, before I go around talking to people?"
"Just that we're finally all ready for the wedding, day after tomorrow. Starting tomorrow, neighbors will begin to come in, now that the goblins are gone. It turns out most of them—neighbors, that is—followed our lead to set up a Nursing Room, so their deaths from the plague were held down some. But a lot of them fought here with you. Those who didn't won't want to miss the wedding."
"Isn't it pretty soon, though? We just finished the battle."
"Geronde did say she wasn't going to take the risk of putting it off a day longer. She even spent part of yesterday praying in the chapel—that if there was some kind of a curse on her getting married, would God please take care of it, this time."
"Poor kid," said Jim.
"Yes."
"Well, then—do you know if that scar on her cheek is worrying her, about how it'll look at the wedding?"
"Not that I know. Long ago she'd have done what everybody does here about something that can't be helped—just live with it. Why do you ask?"
"I just wondered. And the mother terrier, and her pups?" said Jim, getting up, ready to leave. "I don't see them here."
"The pups are all down with Master Huntsmen now—"
"He survived the plague?"
"Never caught it."
"Well, good," said Jim, out of a sense of duty. Master Huntsman then would go on being a thorn in Jim's side—not that Jim would have wished the plague on him just to get rid of him. But he was the one person in the castle who thoroughly disapproved of Jim—since Jim had a strong dislike of hunting for the mere sport of it, which was unnatural according to the Master Huntsman's standards. The two beliefs, clashing, poisoned every contact between them.
"I should say he's got all the pups but one, that is," said Angie. "I took one in to show it to little Robert, and he fell in love with it. So I thought he ought to keep it. It can be his dog. I told him he had to be very careful handling the little thing, or we'd take it away from him."
"And he understood you? He's still awfully young."
"Oh I think he understood enough of it. He's getting older. Anyway, I told his nurse to watch out for the pup while Robert's still so young. It can grow up with him."
"Yes," said Jim, but for a moment remembering an unhappy day when he was half-grown, finally faced with the fact that the puppy that had been given to him when he was very young did not have a life span as long as his.
I tend to forget, he told himself, going out into the corridor to begin his search for the Prince, how much the unfailing love of a dog means to you when you're young, and the words to express your troubles are not on your tongue yet. It's like magic—maybe it is magic, part magic anyway—
"Oh, by the way," he added aloud to the servant and man-at-arms on duty outside the door, "do either of you know where in the castle His Grace, the Prince, is right now?"
He had thought of simply moving himself magickally to where young Edward might be, then remembered that it might pop him suddenly into the room shared by Edward and Joan at a time where they would not be expecting intrusions and would not welcome it.
"No, m'lord," said the man-at-arms righteously. He had been on duty five hours already, and he hoped that his lord would notice this indication that he had never left his post for a moment. "But it was said to me by a servant that His Lordship's Grace was in the Great Hall a half hour since."
Jim winced internally. It was not the mixing up of "his Lordship's" and "Grace" into one title—servants faced with an unfamiliar rank made sure they were least likely of mispeaking by tacking together as many titles as might apply. It was a fact that, although the Prince had been in Malencontri for some time, his title was both so high a one and, therefore, not one ordinarily required to be used by the staff—so it was not surprising the man-at-arms had got it wrong.
Actually, Jim found he had a real liking for the Prince—in spite of the other's flashing, on-and-off, sensible-and-wild reactions. He went down to the Great Hall and, as promised, found him there with Brian, both just ending a large second breakfast.
"With your gracious permission, may I join the table?" Jim asked the young man. The Prince beamed.
"No one could be more welcome!" he said. "By all means, sit, Sir James, and congratulate us on a good morning's luck. A stag of ten!"
Brian made a slightly embarrassed noise in this throat.
"If you will permit me, Your Grace," he said, his love of truth, Jim recognized, overcoming ordinary manners for a moment, "I don't think the beast had quite ten points to its antlers."
A shade of haughty displeasure darkened the Prince's face for a moment, but vanished immediately to let
his sunny expression return.
"No doubt you are right, Sir Brian," he said. "I am not the hunter you are, and I must confess I did not look as closely at our kill as I should have. Your Master of Hunt, Sir James, says you take the hounds out yourself but rarely?"
"My magick," said Jim hastily. "Your Grace understands…"
"Oh—of course."
The fact was, Jim had never taken them out alone, and dreaded the days when he would have visitors who would expect a hunt. But for the huntsman to tell the exact truth about his lord's hunting patterns to a mere visitor—Prince or not—was beyond the villainy of even that disgruntled master.
However, Jim was seated now, and Brian had just filled a mazer with wine and pushed it to him—all wine, of course. There was water on the table, but it was not his and Angie's boiled version. Except when the servants knew he or Angie would be there, the table featured water straight out of the castle well. The servants themselves were immune to whatever the well might contain, and never thought of boiled water for themselves. Jim had risked it on important occasions—but this was not one.
He lifted the mazer—possibly fourteen English ounces of uncut wine—and held it up to the Prince.
"I came to congratulate Your Grace on your glorious victory over the goblins!"
"Hah!" said the Prince, as Brian also lifted his glass to join silently in the toast. That is greatly kind of you, James. I could never have done it without your assistance, the help of the Mage, the strong right arm of Sir Brian on my unshielded side, and the arrow-work of Master Daffyd ap Hew-hooya—damn these Welsh names! No Christian can pronounce them!"
"The Welsh are also Christians, of course, Your Grace, if you will pardon me for saying it."
"No doubt. Nowadays, anyway. Wild savages before that in Roman times, I understand. But you are quite right to remind me, James. There are good men among them and Daffyd is one of them. I needed you all to do what little I could do. Yes, dammit, but I must also give praise to those magnificent hobs! Who would have thought they could fight like that with those farm tools? Did they suffer much, James? Did they lose many of their number in the winning?"
"I believe a good deal less than we expected, Your Grace. They had one advantage, after all: that of knowing their enemy."
"Yes, the same blood and bones and such, I understand, James? Cousins to the goblins, in fact?"
"Yes, Your Grace."
"But how different! Loyal to their King, hardly able to contain themselves until they were let at those pernicious goblins—but what you say about knowing your enemy is indeed a great advantage. I do not know how often the good knight Sir John Chandos drummed that into me as I was growing up."
"A great war captain and knight," commented Brian.
"There is none to match him—a gentleman of piety and honor. Except my father the King, of course."
"Of course, Your Grace," said both Jim and Brian, burying their faces in their mazers.
"I remember him so well—I believe I told you this, once, James, how I saw him trying on the armor he was to wear later at the sea battle of Sluys. I was very young at the time, of course, but I thought then that I had never seen, nor have I, a more perfect vision of a King and warrior!"
The Prince was no longer looking at the other two, his mind elsewhere. He recovered suddenly.
"But, James," he said, "I understand you, yourself, were wounded in the battle. It was said you had been unconscious these last three days. I have never seen so many long faces among the servants of any gentleman. What was the wound—and how did you come about it?"
"It was a—magic wound," said Jim uncomfortably. "It left no body mark."
"Ah, that explains why you are are up and well again so suddenly. I am relieved to hear that. Would you believe it? Neither I nor any of the gentlemen with me were wounded by the goblin poison spears! I thanked God for that, even as I was praying you might recover from your wound. Perhaps my prayers helped to gain you some small intercession from on High."
"I've no doubt of it, Your Grace."
"Well, the main thing is you are once more on your feet for the wedding. I and the Countess will be staying for it—and even my father has said he will attend. I understand a stage and proper chair is being built for him to observe. They can be moved just before the wedding, in case of snow or other."
"Barring a change in the weather, Your Grace," said Brian, "or a pickup of a northly wind, I believe it should be quite pleasant—for this time of year."
Just above freezing, that is, Jim told himself. He and Angie would put on the layers normal for that sort of occasion. Good Lord! Come to think of it, he knew nothing about the wedding, except for Angie's few words, and now the Prince's.
"You remind me of my duty, Your Grace," he said. "If you might excuse me, there are many matters concerned with this wedding that I need to be about."
"By all means, by all means, James!" said the Prince. "We all know a host's work is never done until all his guests are in bed—in bed, hah!"
The last sound was more a chuckle than an exclamation. The Prince, Jim knew, was thinking of the time following the banquet after the wedding, when the newly wedded pair would be escorted upstairs to their bedroom by the more important members of the wedding party, who were supposed to witness the consummation of the marriage, to make it legal.
Happily, in practice, this meant merely watching the curtains drawn around the bed and listening for whatever sounds might come from within. Only the Solar would be large enough to hold the qualified observers in this case, thought Jim glumly. That meant he and Angie would bed down in their clean sleeping bags on the floor of the much smaller room which Brian and Geronde had been occupying.
He had forgotten all about that. No morning tea, none of the comforts he was used to, and they probably would not get back to their proper quarters before late, the following day. And Geronde would probably take her time, and have a sort of hen party… Jim put it from his mind. There were other, more important things to be dealt with, right away. Blast those three days of being out of action! However, both he and Brian laughed dutifully at the Prince's humor. Jim stood up.
"I will hope to see you at supper, Your Grace, Brian. Anon, then."
"Anon," said the other two, and Jim walked off.
Chapter Forty-Two
He had been more embarrassed at offering young Edward congratulations on his victory than Edward himself had been to receive them. Brian, the original truthful individual, was completely unafraid to be absolutely honest with everyone, and he had undoubtedly had no discomfort in giving his congratulations. To his fourteenth-century mind, that was probably only what Edward deserved, simply for being there at the head of the armored contingent on horseback.
It would not have occurred to him that saying the words might bother Jim. But it had. Jim was not comfortable with sophistry.
At any rate, the usual cheerfulness of Brian and the casual acceptance of the bootlicking compliment by Edward had finally gotten to Jim. He had to get away from them, for the moment anyway, and there were, indeed, urgent matters in hand. Very urgent. Maybe any single day was too short a time to catch up with things undone, but Jim's conscience always troubled him in situations like this.
There were no two ways about it. He was perfectly aware that Carolinus had stood over him during his unconscious period as devotedly as Angie, and the senior Mage must have essentially cosigned his own magic fortune to get the contributions from the rest of the Collegiate. But now he must be asked for one thing more.
And Carolinus was always busy. He would not be happy to be disturbed by Jim now—least of all for a favor undoubtedly requiring a good deal of effort and personal leaning on fellow Magickians. But it had to be done.
Alone at the foot of the tower stairs, Jim sent a diffident thought in Carolinus's direction—the magical equivalent of a very gentle knock at his door.
Er—Carolinus?
What? shot back the answer.
I need to tal
k to you. Something very important!
NOT NOW:
I'm afraid…
Very well! It's important, is it? Come then! You've got two minutes to convince me of that!
Jim transferred himself immediately to Carolinus's little cottage with the ever-blooming flowers about the self-raking gravel path to his door—which opened before him.
Carolinus stood in the middle of the cluttered ground floor's single room, glaring at him. Ecce, the sibyl Jim had last seen leaving the cottage in tears, was perched now on the Mage's scrying glass, which he never used, being beyond needing it to see and hear at a distance. Ecce's gossamer wings were drooping, but she smiled at Jim.
"Forgive me, Ecce," said Jim, "for interrupting like this—"
Ecce gave a faint wave with one tiny hand to signal it was all right.
"But I am sorry—" Jim was going on, when Carolinus broke in.
"Enough of that. Your problem: quick!"
It was not possible to make an impassioned plea in a few brief words. Jim did his best.
"Geronde has a scar on her face. You may recall that we spoke of this some time ago? I want to get it removed before her wedding, day after tomorrow."
There was a long moment of awful silence. Carolinus stared at him.
"I remember," said the Mage. "You wouldn't, I suppose," he went on in a tired voice, "prefer a palace on the Loire with a thousand servants and the wealth of Midas in its storage rooms?"
"No," said Jim sincerely. Ecce flew to Carolinus' shoulder and tried to smooth out the grim lines in his cheeks with those tiny hands of hers, each no more than the size of a petal of a lily-of-the-valley flower, stroking his set forehead with her gauzy wings.
"I know you said you would want to consult with certain Eastern magicians," Jim went on. "But I don't know if you've had time to do that, what with everything that has been going on—"
Carolinus threw up both hands. Ecce began to sing to him in a sweet little voice, a singing that was all tune and no words.
"It's all right, Ecce. I'm all right," Carolinus' voice changed to a momentary tenderness. "I won't fly off the handle."
The Dragon and the Fair M Page 44
