"It really isn't necessary, Brian," he said. "Remember, I've told you what our plans are like. I will be with Dafydd up on the ledge above the ground where everyone is fighting. I shouldn't have to fight."
"And how will you leave that ledge; and get through what Hollow Men remain between you and those pressing them inward, with your body and life intact?" demanded Brian. "You do not understand such fighting, even yet, James; forgive me for saying so. In the heat and turmoil of battle, friend can even strike friend, either through error or because the battle urge has been wakened so strongly in him. You may even have to use your shield to protect yourself from the Borderers, to pass through them to safety. No, no. You must practice; and we will do things as I suggested!"
So they did.
Following that evening, Jim left every morning with Brian and Giles; and very often with Dafydd as well. They rode off for half an hour or more until they were in some secluded, tree-hidden spot, well away from the castle and where there was room for the practice Brian had in mind. There he put Jim and—inevitably—Sir Giles as well, through a course of instruction; with all kinds of weapons from poignard up through mace.
"But I won't have a mace with me!" Jim said.
"Nonetheless, practice is practice," insisted Brian.
So, Jim practiced with the mace. Until his arms were worn out and ready to drop from their sockets by the feel of them. He called a halt.
"Dafydd," he said—for it was one of the times Dafydd was with them. Jim took off his helm and wiped his soaking wet forehead. "How would you like to take a little of this training, for a while?"
"Indeed," said Dafydd, "I have been watching with interest. But I would not venture to ask that a knight train me in a knight's way of combat; who am really, as you all know, no more than a common bowman."
"The hell with that!" said Brian, who was almost frothing at the mouth with his desire to instruct. "I'll teach you any day. Are you willing?"
"I am willing," said Dafydd. "But I will need armor, even if I can borrow weapons."
"Mine will fit you tolerably well," said Jim. "We're close enough in height. Your shoulders may be a little broader than mine, and you may be a little slimmer otherwise than I am, but I think it'll do. Want to try it?"
"I would much like to," said Dafydd.
Accordingly, it was done. And Brian ended up delighted with his new pupil; who in many ways showed much more aptitude for what he was taught than either Sir Giles or Jim—but Jim, as they all knew, was something of a lost cause. Too much of what Brian taught had to be learned starting in childhood. The surprising thing was that the disciplines Dafydd seemed to have learned with his bowmanship in his early years should help him adapt so quickly to make use of Brian's teaching. The truth was, Jim thought, Dafydd—like Brian—was a natural athlete.
It occurred to Jim that Dafydd might be very like some particularly skilled, twentieth-century professional football player of his own world; who, on taking an interest in golf, which he had never played before, in a few weeks is doing the full eighteen holes at an enviably low score.
Meanwhile back at this castle and the castles of the other Borderers, preparations for the battle continued. Jim was surprised to discover that this included a contingent from each castle bringing along extra armor and extra weapons.
It was a while before he realized, from what he had seen of the battle of Poitiers, that both weapons and armor could not stand up to many encounters. Even with the mild steel swords of the time, let alone with things like maces and morning-stars—the latter being devices which were essentially a metal rod with a steel chain at the end and a spiked ball at the far end of the steel chain—armor was soon hacked so badly out of shape it became useless, and weapons themselves were broken and dented beyond repair.
Also, in addition to his lessons, he found that he had to make at least one more trip to the leaders of the Hollow Men and one more trip to the Little Men, simply to firm up the details with each party of the meeting.
He took advantage of the opportunity to lay down very firmly once more to the Hollow Men leaders, and particularly to Eshan, himself, that the Hollow Men must all be gathered there by the time he arrived; and that any Hollow Man who tried to appear after he had come in would not be accepted and would not be paid.
He took Herrac with him on his second trip to the Little Men, and together they explained how Herrac had ensured that five of the small men, at any rate, could be present at the next council; and diplomatically broke the news that there would be more than eighteen Borderers, in fact over twenty at least.
The good side of all this, he pointed out, was that the Borderers should be bringing a total of something like eighteen hundred men with them to the fight, which took some of the pressure off the schiltrons of the Little Men.
Ardac, however, retorted that the Little Men would be there in their full number just the same—for two reasons. One was that not as many of the Borderers might show up as promised. Second was that the Little Men wanted to be sure of being equally represented with the taller humans when the battle started.
Beyond this, Ardac agreed readily enough to the fact that the Little Men should make the first attack, afterwards opening corridors to let the Borderers in through them, to deal particularly with the Hollow Men who were mounted on their ghost horses.
"I will add, Sir Herrac," wound up Ardac, "that I am pleased it is you who is going to be commander of the Borderers. From you, I hope and expect that my people who are in the battle will get fair treatment along with the Borderers."
"You have my word on it," said Herrac. "I didn't mention it before because I was not yet leader at that time; but even though I believe I know the answer, I must ask you if you, or any of your people, would demand a share of the Scottish gold, once the battle is over?"
"We have no use for gold," said Ardac. "I know it is highly prized among your kind; but we do not use money among us, nor do we fashion toys or jewelry as you people do. Also, gold is no use in the making of tools or weapons. Finally, I have to say that from what we have seen of its effect among your kind, we would rather not be touched with the desire for it. If there is gold, your Borderers may have it; and be welcome for all of us."
"Thank you, Ardac," said Herrac. "I was sure that would be your answer. But as commander I had to ask. You understand?"
"I understand," said Ardac. "Now, to other things. You plan to assemble your Borderers at some distance from the place where the Hollow Men will gather, is that not right?"
"Yes," said Herrac, "I'd have them in place early, but a mile or more distant, that we may not alarm the Hollow Men by our presence. How did you plan that your schiltrons would gather?"
"Once your people are gathered," said Ardac, "we will move in to join you. You need not ask how we are marshaled beforehand, nor where we come together, nor any other question of how we shall join you. Let it be enough for you that we are an older and more experienced people; and moreover we know those woods and rocks in a way that your people will never know them; unless they spend as many centuries among them as we have. We can be scattered and out of sight, not one of us showing, then in a hundred breaths be all drawn up in our schiltrons and ready to move. That is all that need concern you."
Herrac nodded.
"So," said Ardac, "when would you wish our two parties to join together and move forward?"
"I told the Hollow Men a little after noon," Jim said. "So let our two companies meet no later than terce, that we may be in position by sext in the woods below their meeting place. By that time also Sir Herrac, here, and the Prince Merlion—"
Ardac smiled a small wintry smile, parting his whiskers at Jim's mangled pronunciation of Dafydd's ancient name.
"We do not use your Christian time-keeping, as you know," Ardac said, "but we know that terce means late mid-morning and your noon is called sext. So you may use those terms with us freely, although we will not use them ourselves. Yes, those hours are agreeable; and we will be there
, as you wish. At that time I suggest that you and I, Sir James, Prince Merlion"—he gave it the proper pronunciation—"and one or two others if must be, meet with myself and the other schiltron-leaders before we move up close to where the Hollow Men will be."
"That is agreeable to me," said Herrac. "It shall be so. With me will be Sir James, Prince Merlon and another good knight named Sir Brian who is well experienced in such armed meetings as we go to that day. Possibly one or two others—but no more. I believe you met Sir Brian Neville-Smythe."
"We did," said Ardac. "He was with us in one of our brushes with the Hollow Men. He will be welcome."
"Good," said Herrac.
He looked up at the sun.
"Now," he said, "we should be taking our leave of you. I will not see you again then, until we meet as agreed in the woods at some distance from the Hollow Men's meeting place but with both our peoples ready to move up."
"So it is agreed," said Ardac.
They turned away from each other. Jim, Dafydd and Herrac mounted their horses and rode off back to Castle de Mer. There, Herrac went off to deal with matters of his own concern, and Dafydd and Jim went up to acquaint an impatient Brian with the news of what had gone on at their meeting.
It seemed to Jim, as they talked, that Brian was much more wound up about this oncoming battle than he ordinarily would have been. Jim was a little puzzled by this; and then the realization occurred to him that fighting was the one thing that could take his mind off his newly found love for Liseth, and her constant companionship with Ewen MacDougall. Brian had been scrupulous about leaving the two to themselves.
MacDougall was very clearly falling into a real emotional attachment to Liseth—a good clue, thought Jim wryly—that, in decidedly non-medieval terms he had not got to first base with her, physically. Otherwise with someone like him, who was used to a Royal Court's sort of brief dalliance followed by a quick tumble into bed together, he would have cooled off in his enthusiasm before this.
As to whether Liseth was at all attracted to MacDougall or not, Jim became more and more puzzled by this all the time. If she was not attracted by him, then she was a most excellent actress. A most surprisingly excellent actress for a young woman who had grown up in an isolated castle next to the sea and the Scottish border in the lightly populated land that was Northumberland. There was nothing to be done about it by Jim in any case; so he simply sat back and turned his thoughts to the more important matter, which was getting ready for the fight.
He took the practice sessions in grave earnest. Now, Brian was enough recovered to work out with him, although Jim would hardly have believed that he would have been able to. Brian was still insisting—and now Jim saw that there would be no stopping him—that he would be part of the Borderer group when it went against the Hollow Men.
So the time that he had thought would travel slowly, if anything went by all too fast.
Suddenly it was the eve of the day of battle; and this evening they would hold their final council.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It was not yet time for Jim to make himself available for the council, which would be held downstairs in the Great Hall of the de Mer castle, since Herrac was now commander. It must be the Great Hall, since there was no other room in his home that would comfortably hold the number of individuals who would be attending.
Jim, with the late afternoon sun slanting through the arrow slits let into the outside wall of his small stone room, was making a final effort to contact Carolinus by dream. He had already tried several times in the past few days; but curiously, had been unable to get through to his tutor in magic.
He had found that, if he fell asleep while wanting to have a dream conversation with Carolinus, it happened more quickly if he wrote a sleep spell on what he pictured as the inside of his forehead. He had decided to do just that, this time.
He was stretched out on his mattress. He had closed his eyes; and now he wrote on the inside of his forehead:
MESLEEP/DREAM→CAROLINUS
He fell asleep instantly. This time he was inside Carolinus's crowded little house and standing face to face with the magician.
"I suppose you've been busy," Jim said, "since I haven't been able to get through. So let me apologize for interrupting, if that's what I'm doing. But things have reached a sort of crisis point up here."
"Not at all, my boy. Not at all," said Carolinus. "I've been as eager to talk with you as no doubt you are with me."
Jim, in his dream, gazed at the thin, old man with the white beard and the bushy eyebrows that could look so fierce ordinarily, but were now gazing at him in as soothing and friendly a manner as possible.
His heart sank. It was always bad news when Carolinus was pleasant. The other only abandoned his usual irascibility when he wanted to soften the blow of unhappy news.
"I—" began Jim; but Carolinus cut him off.
"I should warn you first," Carolinus almost snapped in his usual manner, "that you now face both a dangerous and difficult time. However, since that can't be helped, we shall talk of how to best deal with it."
"What I was going to say was," said Jim, "that I've got the Little Men and the men on the English side of the border here ready to see if they can't exterminate all the Hollow Men at once, so that none will be left alive to bring the rest back to life. In other words, things seem in hand up here—depending upon whether we can win the battle or not. But I wanted to ask you—have you learned anything more about the Worm, and the Dark Powers' involvement in this?"
"No, and no," said Carolinus decisively, "particularly as regards the Worm. I've no idea why it's there by itself, what it's supposed to be doing and why it's appeared at all; in defiance of the usual practice of the Dark Powers of keeping such creatures close to one of their centers of power. But I'd strongly suggest you stay very much on your guard against it. Somewhere along the line it has to become involved; otherwise, there's no point in it being there at all."
He stopped and took a deep breath.
"More than that," he went on, "I haven't been able to find out. So, more than that, I can't tell you. I've no further knowledge about the Dark Powers, either; except that they're definitely still encouraging both the Scottish invasion and a French one at the same time, the French to come from the south and across the channel."
"You're not much help," said Jim.
"I'd like to be, my boy. I really would," said Carolinus. "How are you fixed with your magic account?"
"I'm going to have to use some magic to make myself a duplicate of Ewen MacDougall to hand out the gold to the Hollow Men tomorrow," said Jim. "Beyond that, I've been afraid to ask the Accounting Office just where I stand. You're sure there's no way you could lend—
"None!" said Carolinus. "The Accounting Office was very clear about that. No loans from a Master to his Apprentice. I suggest you check with the Accounting Office yourself and find out what your account really is. You don't want to turn from looking like MacDougall into looking exactly like yourself, right in the middle of what you're planning to do, do you?"
"No," said Jim, "that's the last thing I'd want. But I may have to gamble on it."
"Well, then," said Carolinus, his mustache bristling, "if you want my advice—gamble! No one ever got anywhere by avoiding the taking of all chances. Every so often you have to put yourself at risk."
"I'm going to," said Jim. "But—I did have one idea. The Little Men say they have a certain amount of small magic; and I believe them. Do you suppose it'd be possible for me to borrow some of their magic? I haven't mentioned it to them, because I wanted to check with you first."
"Don't ask them!" said Carolinus. "In the first place, no group can lend their magic to you; although the Accounting Office did not strictly forbid that sort of a loan. But the mechanisms for it—the magical mechanisms—simply aren't there. Secondly, you'll find that they treasure their bits of magic very highly, and you'd be asking for something that you should not in decency ask of them."
"All right," said Jim, resigned. "It was only a thought, anyway. Well, then—we go to a final meeting around supper time, soon now, here in the castle. Tomorrow we meet in the woods at some distance from the place where the Hollow Men gather; and there I'll leave the group and go on with Dafydd—and Brian if he seems determined to be in it—to take the gold to the Hollow Men and start handing it out. Then it'll be up to the Little Men and the Borderers to attack as planned and close in the Hollow Men until they can all be disposed of."
He paused, then added a little wistfully:
"I wish there was some way I could contact you on the spur of the moment in the middle of something like this."
"All right!" said Carolinus suddenly. "I'm not exactly breaking the rules. I may be bending them a bit. If you really need to get in touch with me, or if you feel a tingling in your right elbow, close your eyes; and you'll see me. Don't speak out loud; but think the words at me in your head. You can do that?"
"Happily!" said Jim—and he meant what he said.
"I'm doing this on the basis not that you need me, but that I might need you," said Carolinus. "A Master may have a reason to summon or question his Apprentice if he wants, I should think? If the Accounting Office doesn't like that, they can call me on it."
"Thank you," said Jim.
"By Beelzebub and Belshazzar!" snapped Carolinus in his usual ill-tempered tone. "You don't have to go around thanking me all the time. Just do your duty as my Apprentice, that's all! Now, you'd better get going. I have matters in hand at the moment."
"I will," said Jim. "Goodbye, then."
"Good—" said Carolinus, "—bye!"
He winked out. Suddenly Jim was lying on his back with his eyes wide open, staring simply at the rather uneven raised surface of the stone ceiling overhead.
He got to his feet. He was about to leave the room when temptation got the better of him. He stopped. There was no one around to hear.
"Accounting Office," he said.
"Yes?" inquired the bass voice suddenly level with his left elbow.
The Dragon on The Border Page 32
