The Dragon on The Border

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "Don't try to talk, Brian," Jim said. "Save your strength."

  "What… hour is it?" almost whispered Brian, finally. "Is it time we were up and about? Have I overslept?"

  "No such thing," answered Jim. "It's somewhere in the afternoon. Don't you remember? We fought alongside the Little Men against the Hollow Men. You were wounded—not badly at all. But you've lost a lot of blood. You'll have to be quiet for a few days."

  Brian stared at him for what seemed a long time.

  "Hollow Men?" he managed at last in that throaty whisper. "I… remember now…"

  "Don't try to talk," said Jim. "Save your strength. You've got to rebuild it. I promise you, you'll be all right. I'll take care of you myself."

  "Ahhhhh…" Brian's eyes closed again on what seemed a sigh of utter weariness. Looking at him, Jim made the guess that he was now asleep, rather than unconscious. In any case, there was nothing better that he could be doing than sleep, right now. Jim rearranged his hastily piled clothes on top of Brian to give him the maximum amount of warmth. That fire-pot and the materials to set the cresset afire inside it, should be along soon, he thought. Then the room would take on a more livable temperature.

  He yawned abruptly in spite of himself. For the first time he realized that the mad rush that everything seemed to have been in, since Brian first collapsed in the courtyard, had left him feeling more than a little tired. He looked around longingly for something to sit on and found a bench.

  He yawned again—and then stopped yawning abruptly, as something sharp pricked the nape of his neck.

  His involuntary reaction to turn around and see what it was was stopped by a grating baritone voice with what sounded to him like a faint Scottish accent.

  "Dinna move!" said the voice. "I ha' ye now, ye black wizard! Ye've done ye're last ill to folk like this poor lad on the bed here! It's the post and the fire for ye this time!"

  Chapter Nine

  Jim felt a sudden shock, as much at the misunderstanding as the danger. Evidently some sort of madman was behind him, with a weapon that was very sharp-pointed, indeed. He opened his mouth, but could not think of anything to say. Just at that moment, however, another voice intruded on the situation.

  "And you are not to move a muscle either, Scotsman," said the voice of Dafydd, also now somewhere behind him. "That's a broadhead war arrow, a clothyard in length and right now drawn to its fullest in the bow I hold, the point of which you feel pricking your neck. Make one move toward m'Lord and that point will take out your spine and gullet together."

  There was a moment of silence—baffled, Jim hoped, on the part of the unknown Scotsman who was holding the sharp-pointed something against the nape of Jim's neck. Then the accented voice spoke again.

  "Y'may kill me," said the strange voice, "but you'll no' save your friend. A MacGreggor isna—

  The voice was suddenly interrupted by yet a third one, which Jim recognized as that of Liseth.

  "Lachlan MacGreggor!" she said. "What are you doing to the Lord James? What's going on here—and why must Dafydd hold an arrow upon you like this? To keep you from doing some damage to this worthy gentleman?"

  "Worthy gentleman he is not," said the MacGreggor voice. "He is a black wizard! And I'll rid the earth of him, as I'd rid the earth of any of his kind, no matter what yon cowardly bowman behind me may try to do."

  "There are no wizards," protested Jim, taking his cue from something Carolinus had once said to him, "unless you want to count magicians who've gone wrong. I am a magician, true—"

  "Enough of your clack!" the MacGreggor voice interrupted him. "Ye may miss the stake and the flames, but ye'll not miss the point of my sword—"

  He was interrupted in his turn by the voice of Liseth.

  Fourteenth-century humanity, Jim had discovered, were very uninhibited in what they might do, and even more uninhibited in their emotions. Their elaborate pattern of manners usually hid these things, but the ability to feel or do what was necessary was never far below the surface. Liseth gave further proof of this now.

  Jim had noted that her voice had some of the qualities of her father and brothers, but he had not credited her with anything like the volume that the men had shown. He found out now he was wrong. Angie, his wife, he had noticed, had a very penetrating scream when she wanted to use it. He had to admit that Liseth's was even better.

  "EEEEEEE!" screamed Liseth. "Father! Come quick!"

  Her voice seemed not only capable of penetrating as many walls and floors as the peel tower possessed; but it had a high-pitched note that left Jim's ears ringing, so that he felt himself half-deaf for a moment.

  When his ears cleared, he was conscious of voices far off, rapidly approaching, and among them were the tones of male de Mers—although he was unable to make out exactly the words they were using. Everybody stayed where they were for a few more moments and then suddenly the voice of Herrac exploded in the room.

  "Lachlan MacGreggor! Put down that dirk!" he roared. "What? To draw naked steel in my house against one of my other guests—and you a MacGreggor! How can you explain this, Sirrah?"

  Jim felt the point leave the back of his neck. He turned about and saw that besides Herrac and Liseth, there was Dafydd, still holding his drawn arrow tight against the neck of the kilted man who stood between him and Jim.

  "I think you can put the arrow away, too, now, Dafydd," said Jim.

  "Very well," said Dafydd, "but mark you, Scotsman! I can draw again faster than you can move a hand."

  "And there'll be no aiming of war arrows by one of my guests against another of my guests!" thundered Herrac. "If my Lord James had not asked you to put it down, I would have so ordered you, myself!"

  "Indeed," said Dafydd softly, "but an order has its value depending on he who speaks it."

  Nonetheless, he had lowered his bow and released the strain on the bowstring. The kilted man swung about to face him.

  "I'll know ye again!" he said. "How call ye yersel'?"

  "I am Dafydd ap Hywel, a master bowman of Wales," said Dafydd, "and I am never hard to find."

  "Have done, the both of you!" said Herrac. "Lachlan, what's this all about?"

  "Why, I found this black wizard here, that you call the Lord something or other, working his will on this puir man on the bed, who is clearly either very sick from the wizard's own black doings; or badly hurt and in no case to resist them."

  Jim's temper was finally beginning to kindle.

  "I'm not a wizard, you idiot!" he said. "I'm a magician! Magicians are actual human beings who've studied magic for the good of their fellow men, as a doctor might study medicine. 'Wizards' are nothing but tales told to each other by people who know nothing and hope to scare each other!"

  "That's done it!" shouted Lachlan. "I'll not stand by and hear my grandmother insulted!"

  Jim stared at him.

  "What's your grandmother got to do with all this?" he asked, honestly bewildered.

  "It was she who told me about wizards and their ways!" said Lachlan. "You'll be saying that she lied?"

  "Well, no," said Jim. "She may well have believed these stories she was telling. But—"

  "Lachlan MacGreggor!" Liseth cut in. "You don't know who you're talking to, or what you're talking about. The man in front of you, who you think of as a wizard, is not only a good magician; but he, with the man on the bed and the bowman behind you, fought and slew the creatures of the Dark Powers, of which your Auld Hornie is doubtless one as well! It was a day-long battle they fought, against terrible odds in a place called the Loathly Tower in the fens of southern England; and songs have been sung about it ever since. I can only suppose you never heard any of them!"

  "Why," answered Lachlan MacGreggor in the mildest tone he had adopted so far, scratching his bristly and badly shaven chin, the stubble of which promised to be as red as his hair, if it had been let grow out in full beard, "I have indeed heard such a song, not once but more than once. You cannot mean that these are two of those who did tha
t?"

  "That's exactly what she means!" snapped a new voice, and Giles crowded forward between his sister and his father. "Not only that; but I was with the Lord James when he struggled with a true evil magician, in France! An evil magician with many times his powers; and not only worsted him, but saved my life, withal! I was with him some months and I can attest that there is no nobler, braver opponent of things evil than Sir James de Bois de Malencontri, who stands before you!"

  "Say you so?" said Lachlan, narrowing his eyes at Jim.

  "He does," boomed the voice of Herrac, "and so say all of us here. We summoned my daughter and him with his two friends back from hunting, to meet you. A fine greeting you have given him!"

  "Ah, well," said Lachlan philosophically, "a man can not always be right. I shall forget what I thought before—and do you, Lord James, though ill it sticks in my throat to call an Englishman 'Lord'—forget and forgive me for any small error I may have fallen into."

  A year before, when he and Angie had first arrived from the twentieth century of their own world, Jim would not have understood this speech as well as he did now. What he was hearing now, he knew, was the closest that a fourteenth-century individual like this could come to an outright apology—without abasing himself more than his pride would allow.

  "It is already forgotten!" he said and stuck out his hand. "My hand on it!"

  MacGreggor took the hand; and outside of a small tendency to fall into a contest to see which of their grips were greater, which he began apparently unthinkingly and then broke off, sealed the bargain.

  "Well," said Herrac, "all is well that ends well, then. But mark what I said about quarrels beneath my roof—particularly quarrels with naked weapons."

  "My Lord," said Jim, "I, for one, will not only mark it but honor you for seeing that it is so."

  "And I, too," said Lachlan hastily. "I learned my manners when under another man's roof as well as anyone in this land; and I own that I may have been a wee bit carried away by a natural mistake. Herrac, my old friend, this dirk of mine will not see the light again in your castle, unless you yourself give me permission to bring it forth!"

  "Good," growled Herrac. "Now that that's settled, m'Lord James, is there anything else we can do for Sir Brian?"

  "Nothing more right now," said Jim. "Just as soon as the fire-pot is here to warm the room and the cresset is lighted—

  "That should have been here already!" said Herrac, a note of anger back into his voice. He swung on Giles. "Giles, go see what's holding that up!"

  He turned back to face Jim.

  "Anything else, m'Lord?"

  "I'd like somebody to stay with Brian," said Jim, "somebody to stay with him and call me if anything happens. If you'll find the people I'll tell them what they need to do. Oh, and we need that bedding back up on the bed here, just as soon as it has been boiled and dried."

  "I believe it is almost dry now," said Herrac.

  He turned to Liseth.

  "Will you see to that, Liseth," he said, "and pick two stout fellows, or a pair of reliable women—or better, a pair of each—to keep a watch over Sir Brian here?"

  He turned back to Jim, who was all but shivering in his medieval underwear.

  "If you would deign to accept some clothing from one of my sons, or even some of mine," he said, "we would be most glad to make it available to you, m'Lord."

  "Thank you, no," said Jim hastily. "As a matter of fact, I've got some spare hose and a cote-hardie in my luggage. I can put that on temporarily, until the bedding is back. I'll stay here until then."

  "Very well," said Herrac. "I take it then, you would prefer that the rest of us leave you alone with Sir Brian. We will do so. Lachlan? Bowman?"

  "If m'Lord agrees," said Dafydd, with a touch of stubbornness in his voice.

  "By all means," said Jim, "go along with the rest, Dafydd. I'll see you all, shortly, and you too. Sir Lachlan—"

  "If I happen to be a knight—as I am—" growled Lachlan, "you may ignore it. Such call-toys mean nothing to me."

  This was news to Jim, who had understood that in the fourteenth century knights were as likely to be found in Scotland, as they were in England. However, he nodded.

  "I will see you too then, Lachlan MacGreggor," he said.

  They all went out, leaving Jim alone once more with Brian. He had not really noticed the coolness of the chamber until this moment, being caught up as he was with the emergency into which Brian had been plunged. But now, shuddering with the chill, he dug into his baggage; which was not extensive, since it was only what could ride easily behind his saddle on the way up here.

  He found the extra hose and drew them on; then shook out the cote-hardie, which was very wrinkled from being rolled up in with the rest of his things, and put it on. The warmth from these garments was very grateful to him; but it was only a short time before Liseth returned with the fire-pot and the bedding, this time being carried by the two women and the two men who followed her.

  Brian woke when the two men, with Jim's help, lifted him clear of the bed for long enough so that the bed could be made up. This Jim insisted on doing himself, reproaching himself silently with the fact that he should actually have gone down and gotten the bedding himself, to keep it from being contaminated by the hands of those who brought it up. Herrac was a good Lord of the Castle de Mer, as his century went, but no more than any other such were his servants models of cleanliness.

  Jim could not complain, since his servants back at his own castle had their own limits as far as his pushing them into new, more sanitary ways. Angie had brought most of them to the point of washing their hands before handling food. But that had been stretching things about as far as would be accepted. The two men and women with Liseth were typical servants, therefore, as far as cleanliness of self and clothes went.

  So, Jim kept his mouth shut about this, once the bed had been freshly made up and Brian had been put back into it and covered up. As far as he could tell in the process of handling the bedding and looking it over, it had not picked up any fresh vermin, at any rate; and the former ones would not have survived the boiling.

  Once the bed was made and he had assisted the two men in lifting Brian back on to it, Jim turned to Liseth, having had time to think about the business of giving directions to those who would be watching Brian.

  "Liseth," he said, "let me tell you what needs to be done here, and you can do a better job than I can of making it understandable to your people here. I want one man and one woman awake at all times. They are not on any account to drink from any pitchers or other utensils that Sir Brian uses. This is very important—

  —A mildly evil thought crossed his mind. He was about to take advantage of being reputed a magician, again.

  "—If they do," said Jim, "they will be in danger of shriveling up like sun-dried toads."

  He had the satisfaction of seeing the four servant faces blanch. His own experience with other such magical threats had made him sure in his belief that temptation would not overcome the fear of what he had just threatened them with.

  "Also," he went on to Liseth, "they must keep the fire-pot and cresset going; and the chamber pot emptied and clean at all times. They must offer drink to Sir Brian whenever he is awake; and give him to drink whenever possible. Small beer only. We want to get a lot of fluid back into him to replace the blood he lost. Meanwhile, you and I will go down to the kitchen, find some calf's liver, chop it up fine and cook it over a stove until it becomes a soup. Can that be done, do you think?"

  "Assuredly, m'Lord," said Liseth. "I can take care of it myself."

  "Make sure that the people who take care of the cooking of the soup, and the pot they put it in to bring it up here, are both thoroughly scrubbed and clean, using soap."

  "Soap?" queried Liseth.

  "You're not familiar with soap?" said Jim. "It's a substance much used by us magicians."

  He thought for a second.

  "Very well," he said, "just have them scrub out the
inside of the pot, then, until it shines, then fill it to the top with water and boil the water in it until it's been at a boil for the time it takes, reverently, to say at least ten pater nosters. Then they should take the pot off the fire, set it aside to cool until they can empty it out and fill it immediately with the liver soup. Bring that to the boil, then carry it up here; and we must try to get Brian to take as much of it as possible."

  "Does Sir Brian like liver soup?" asked Liseth.

  "Probably not," said Jim, "but he's to get it down, anyway. That, and as much small beer as he can manage. He is not, repeat not, to be given any wine; no matter how much he asks for it," he said. "Can you get that across to these four here?"

  "Certainly, m'Lord," said Liseth demurely. She turned to the four servants. "If Sir Brian dies, it will be considered that you have killed him, through not taking proper care of him. Therefore you will follow the Mage's directions exactly, or else you shall all hang."

  She turned back to Jim.

  "I think that should take care of it," she said to him brightly. "Would you care to go back down with me to the hall now, Sir James?"

  "Oh, yes," said Jim, "and they're to call me the minute anything unusual happens. Also, one of the women should feel his forehead from time to time to see if it is warmer than it should be."

  "You heard that?" said Liseth to them. "What are you doing now, m'Lord?"

  "Just putting back on a few more of my clothes," said Jim, wriggling his feet into his boots. Dressed, he went out with her into the hall and they headed down toward the Great Hall of the castle.

  "Would you really hang them?" asked Jim, as they descended the circular, stone staircase, side by side. "After all, it won't be their fault if Brian should die—which I'm sure he won't. If anyone would be to blame it would be me."

  "Why, what a question!" said Liseth, looking up at him with her soft, dark eyes. "We could hardly hang you, m'Lord. On the other hand, someone will have to be punished. And after all, that's one of the things servants are for. How does a man like you come to ask a question like that?"