The Incompleat Enchanter

by L. Sprague De Camp

  Chalmers reached over and pulled the straw from the top of the cask, dipped some of the liquid into his goblet and sipped. “God bless my soul!” he murmured.

  “What is it, Doc?” asked Shea.

  “Try it,” said Chalmers, passing him the goblet. Shea tried it and for the second time that evening almost upset the table.

  The liquid was the best Scotch whisky he had ever tasted.

  The thirsty Sir Erivan spoke up: “Is aught amiss with your spell-wrought wine?”

  “Nothing,” said Chalmers, “except that it’s rather . . . uh . . . potent.”

  “May one sample it, Sir Palmer?”

  “Go easy on it.” said Shea, passing down the goblet. Sir Erivan went easy, but nevertheless exploded into a series of coughs. “Whee! A beverage for the gods on Olympus! None but they would have gullets of the proper temper. Yet methinks I should like more.”

  Shea diluted the next slug of whisky with water before giving it to the serving man to pass down the table. The knight with the short beard made a face at the flavour. “This tastes like no wine I wot of,” said he.

  “Most true,” said Erivan, “but ’tis proper nectar, and makes one feel wonnnnnnderful! More, I pray you!”

  “May I have some, please?” asked Amoret, timidly. Chalmers looked unhappy. Britomart intervened: “Before you sample strange waters I myself will try.” She picked up the goblet she was sharing with Shea, took a long, quick drink.

  Her eyes goggled and watered, but she held it well. “Too strong for my little charge,” said she when she got her breath hack

  “But, Lady Britomart —”

  “Nay. It would not — Nay, I say.”

  * * *

  The servitors were busy handing out the Scotch which left a trail of louder talk and funnier jokes in its wake. Down the table some of the people were dancing; the kind of dance wherein you spend your time holding up your partner’s hand and bowing. Shea had just enough whisky in him to uncork his natural recklessness. He bowed half-mockingly to Britomart. “Would my lady care to dance?”

  “No,” she said solemnly. “I do it not. So many responsibilities have I had that I’ve never learned. Another drink, please.”

  “Oh, come on! I don’t, either, the way they do here. But we can try.”

  “No,” she said. “Poor Britomart never indulges in the lighter pleasures. Always busy, righting wrongs and setting a good example of chastity. Not that anyone heeds it.”

  Shea saw Chalmers slip Amoret a shot of whisky. The perfect beauty coughed it down. Then she began talking very fast about the sacrifices she had made to keep herself pure for her husband. Chalmers began looking around for help. Serves the Doc right, thought Shea. Britomart was pulling his sleeve.

  “It’s a shame,” she sighed. “They all say Britomart needs no man’s sympathy. She’s the girl who can take care of herself.”

  “Is it as bad as all that?”

  “Mush worst. I mean much worse. They all say Britomart has no sense of humour. That’s because I do my duty. Conscientious. That’s the trouble. You think I have a sense of humour, don’t you, Master Harold de Shea?” She looked at him accusingly.

  Shea privately thought that “they all” were right. But he answered: “Of course I do.”

  “That’s splendid. It gladdens my heart to find someone who understands. I Like you, Master Harold. You’re tall, not like these little pigs of men around here. Tell me, you don’t think I’m too tall, do you? You wouldn’t say I was just a big blond horse?”

  “Perish the thought!”

  “Would you even say I was good-looking?”

  “And how!” Shea wondered how this was going to end.

  “Really, truly good-looking, even if I am tall?”

  “Sure, you bet, honest.” Shea saw that Briromart was on the verge of tears. Chalmers was busy trying to staunch Amoret’s verbal haemorrhage, and couldn’t help.

  “Thass glorious. I’m so glad to find somebody who likes me as a woman. They all admire me, but nobody cares for me as a woman. Have to set a good example. Tell you a secret.” She leaned towards him in such a marked manner that Shea glanced around to see whether they were attracting attention.

  They were not. Sir Erivan, with a Harpo Marx expression, was chasing a plump, squeaking lady from pillar to pillar. The dancers were doing a snake dance. From one corner came a roar where knights were betting their shirts at knuckle-bones.

  “Tell you shecret,” she went on, raising her voice. “I get tired of being a good example. Like to be really human. Just once. Like this.” She grabbed Shea out of his seat as if he had been a puppy dog, slammed him down on her lap, and kissed him with all the gentleness of an affectionate tornado.

  Then she heaved him out of her lap with the same amazing strength and pushed him back into his place. “No,” she said gloomily. “No. My responsibilities. Must think on them.” A big tear rolled down her cheek. “Come, Amoret. We must to bed.”

  * * *

  The early sun had not yet reached the floor of the courtyards when Shea came back, grinning. He told Chalmers: “Say, Doc, silver has all kinds of value here! The horse and ass together only cost $4.60.”

  “Capital! I feared some other metal would pass current, or that they might have no money at all. Is the . . . uh . . . donkey domesticated?”

  “Tamest I ever saw. Hello, there, girls!” This was to Britomart and Amoret, who had just come out. Britomart had her armour on, and a stern, martial face glowered at Shea out of the helmet.

  “How are you this morning?” asked that young man, unabashed.

  “My head beats with the cruel beat of an anvil, as you must know.” She turned her back. “Come, Amoret, there is no salve like air, and if we start now we shall be at Satyrane’s castle as early as those who ride late and fast with more pain.”

  “We’re going that way, too,” said Shea. “Hadn’t we better ride along with you?”

  “For protection’s sake, mean you? Hah! Little enough use that overgrown bodkin you bear would be if we came to real combat. Or is it that you wish to ride under the guard of my arm?” She shook it with a clang of metal.

  Shea grinned. “After all, you are technically my ladylove —” He ducked as she swung at him, and hopped back out of reach.

  Amoret spoke up: “Ah, Britomart, but do me the favour of letting them ride with us! The old magician is so sympathetic.”

  Shea saw Chalmers start in dismay. But it was too late to back out now. When the women had mounted they rode through the gate together. Shea rook the lead with grumpily silent Britomart. Behind him, he could hear Amoret prattling cheerfully at Chalmers, who answered in monosyllables.

  The road, no more than a bridle path without marks of wheeled traffic, paralleled the stream. The occasional glades that had been visible near Castle Caultrock disappeared. The trees drew in on them and grew taller till they were riding through a perpetual twilight, only here and there touched with a bright fleck of sunlight.

  After two hours Britomart drew rein. As Amoret came up, the warrior girl announced: “Time for a bath. Join me, Amorer?”

  The girl blushed and simpered. “These gentlemen —”

  “Are gentlemen,” said Britomart, with a glare at Shea that implied he had jolly well better be a gentleman or else. “We will halloo.” She led the way down the slope and between a pair of mossy trunks.

  The two men strolled off a way and sat. Shea turned to Chalmers, “How’s the magic going?”

  “Ahem,” said the professor. “We were right about the general worsening of conditions here. Everyone seems aware of it, but they don’t quite know what causes it or what to do about it.”

  “Do you?”

  Chalmers pinched his chin. “It would seem — uh — reasonable to suspect the operations of a kind of guild of evil, of which various enchanters, like this Busyrane mentioned last night, form a prominent part. I indicate the souring of the wine and the loss of the grapes as suggestive examples. It wo
uld not even surprise me to discover that a well-organized revolutionary conspiracy is afoot. The question of whether such a subversive enterprise is justified is of course a moral one, resting on that complex of sentiments which the German philosophers call by the characteristically formidable name of Weltansicht. It therefore cannot be settled by scientific —”

  Shea said: “Yeah. But what can we do about it?”

  “I’m not quite certain. The obvious step would be to observe some of these people in operation and learn something of their technique. This tournament — Good gracious, what’s that?”

  From the river came a shriek. Shea stared at Chalmers for three seconds. Then he jumped up and ran towards the sound.

  As he burst through the screen of brush, he saw the two women up to their necks in a little pool out near the middle of the river. Wading towards them, their backs to Shea, were two wild-looking, half-naked men in tartan kilts. They were shouting with laughter.

  Shea did a foolish thing. He drew his épée, slid down the six-foot bank, and ploughed into the water after the men, yelling. They whirled about, whipped out broadswords from rawhide slings, and splashed towards him. He realized his folly: knee-deep in water he would be unable to use his footwork. At best his chances were no more than even against one of these men. Two . . .

  The bell-guard of the épée gave a clear ringing note as he parried the first cut. His riposte missed but the kilted man gave a little. Shea out of the tail of his eye saw the other working around to get behind him. He parried, thrust, parried.

  “Wurroo!” yelled the wild man, and swung again. Shea backed a step to bring the other into his field of vision. Cold fear gripped him lest his foot slip on an unseen rock. The other man was upon him, swinging his sword up with both hands for the kill. “Wurroo!” he yelled like the other. Shea knew sickeningly that he couldn’t get his guard around in time . . .

  Thump! A rock bounced off the man’s head. The man sat down. Shea turned back to the first and just parried a cut at his head. The first kiltie was really boring in now. Shea backed another step, slipped, recovered, parried, and backed. The water tugged at his legs. He couldn’t meet the furious swings squarely for fear of snapping his light blade. Another step back, and another, and the water was only inches deep. Now! Disengage, double, one-two, lunge — and the needlepoint slid through skin and lungs and skin again. Shea recovered and watched the man’s knees sag. Down he went.

  The other was picking himself our of the water some distance down. When Shea took a few steps towards him, he scrambled up the bank and ran like a deer, his empty swordsling banging against his back.

  * * *

  Amoret’s voice announced: “You may come now, gentlemen.” Shea and Chalmers went back to the river to find the girls dressed and drying their hair by spreading it to the sun on their hands.

  Shea asked Briromart: “You threw that rock, didn’t you?”

  “Aye. Thanks and more than thanks, Squire Harold. I cry your grace for having thought that slaughtering blade of yours a toy.”

  “Don’t mention it. That second bird would have nailed me if you hadn’t beaned him with a rock. But say, why did you just sit there in the pool? A couple of steps would have taken you to the deep water. Or can’t you swim?”

  “We can swim,” she replied. “But it would not be meet to expose our modesty by leaving the pool, least of all to the wild Da Derga.”

  Shea forebore to argue about the folly of modesty that exposed one to death or to a fate that Britomart would undoubtedly consider worse. The blonde beauty was showing a much friendlier disposition towards him, and he did not wish to jeopardize it by argument over undebatable questions.

  When they rode on, Britomart left Amoret to inflict her endless tale of woe on Chalmers, while she rode with Shea. Shea asked leading questions, trying not to reveal his own ignorance too much.

  Britomart was, it transpired, one of Queen Gloriana’s “Companions” or officers — a “count” in the old Frankish sense of the term. There were twelve of them, each charged with the righting of wrongs in some special field of the land of Faerie.

  Ye olde tyme policewoman, thought Shea. He asked whether there were grades of authority among the Companions.

  Britomart told him: “That hangs by what matter is under consideration. In questions involving the relations of man to man, I am less than those gallant knights, Sir Cambell and Sir Triamond. Again, should it be a point of justice, the last authority rests with Sir Artegall.”

  Her voice changed a trifle on the last word. Shea remembered how she had mentioned Artegall the evening before. “What’s he like?”

  “Oh, a most gallant princely rogue, I warrant you!” She touched her horse with the spurs so that he pranced, and she had to soothe him with: “Quiet, Beltran!”

  “Yes?” Shea encouraged.

  “Well, for the physical side of him, somewhat dark of hair and countenance; tall, and so strong with lance that not Redcross or Prince Arthur himself can bear the shock of his charge. That was how I came to know him. We fought; I was the better with the spear, but at swords he overthrew me and was like to have killed me before he found I was a woman. I fell in love with him forthwith,” she finished simply.

  Singular sort of courtship, thought Shea, but even in the world I came from there are girls who fall for that kind of treatment. Aloud he said: “I hope he fell for you, too.”

  Britomart surprised him by heaving a sigh. “Alas, fair squire, that I must confess I do not know. ’Tis true he plighted himself to marry me, but he’s ever off to some tournament, or riding to some quest that I know not the end or hour of. We’ll be married when he gets back, quotha, but when he does return, it’s to praise my courage or strength, and never a word to show he thinks of me as a woman. He’ll clap me on the back and say; ‘Good old Britomart, I knew I could depend on you. And now I have another task for you; a dragon this time.’ ”

  “Hm-m-m,” said Shea. “Don’t suppose you ever beard of psychology?”

  “Nay, not I.”

  “Do you ever dress up? I mean, like some of those Ladies at Castle Caultrock.”

  “Of what use to me such foibles? Could I pursue my tasks as Companion in such garb?”

  “Do you ever roll your eyes up at Artegall and tell him how wonderful he is?”

  “Nay, marry beshrew me! What would he think of so unmaidenly conduct?”

  “That’s just the point; just what he’s waiting for! Look here, in my country the girls are pretty good at that sort of thing, and I’ve learned most of the tricks. I’ll show you a few, and you can practise on me. I don’t mind.”

  * * *

  They dined rather thinly that night, on coarse brown bread and cheese which Britomart produced from a pack at the back of her saddle. They slept in cushiony beds of fern, three inches deep. The next day they rode in the same arrangement. Chalmers rather surprisingly consented. He explained: “The young lady is certainly very . . . uh . . . verbose, but she has a good deal of information to offer with regard to the methods of this Busyrane. I should prefer to continue the conversation.”

  As soon as they were on the road Britomart pulled up her visor and, leaning cowards Shea, rolled her eyes. “You must be weary, my most dear lord,” she said, “after your struggle with those giants. Come sit and talk. I love to hear —”

  Shea grinned. “Overdoing it a little, old girl. Better start again.”

  “You must be weary — Hola, what have we here?”

  The track had turned and mounted to a plateau-like meadow. As they emerged into the bright sun, a trumpet sounded two sharp notes. There was a gleam of metal from the other side. Shea saw a knight with a shield marked in wavy stripes of green drop his lance into place and start towards him.

  “Sir Paridell, as I live!” snapped Britomart, in her policewoman’s voice. “Oft an ildoer and always a lecher. Ha! Well met! Gloriana!” The last shouted word was muffled in her helmet as the visor snapped shut. Her big black horse bounded
towards this sudden opponent, the ebony lance sticking out past his head. They met with a crash. Paridell held the saddle, but his horse’s legs flew out from under. Man and animal came down together in a whirlwind of dust — Shea and Chalmers reached him together and managed to pull the horse clear. When they got Paridell’s helmet off he was breathing, but there was a thin trickle of blood at his lips. He was unconscious.

  Shea gazed at him a moment, then had an inspiration. “Say, Britomart,” he asked, “what are the rules about taking the arms of a guy like that?”

  Britomart looked at her late opponent without pity. “Since the false knave attacked us, I suppose they belong to me.”

  “He must have heard I was travelling in your company,” piped Amoret. “Oh, the perils I go through!”

  Shea was not to be put off. “I was wondering if maybe I couldn’t use that outfit.”

  Paridell’s squire, a youth with a thin fuzz of beard on his chin and the trumpet over his shoulder, had joined them. He was bending over his master, trying to revive him by forcing the contents of a little flask between his lips. Now he looked up. “Nay, good sir,” he said to Britomart, “punish him not so. He did but catch a glimpse of you as you rode up, and mistook this dame for the Lady Florimel.”

  * * *

  A flush of anger went up Britomart’s face. “In very truth!” she cried. Now if I had no thought before of penalties, this would be more than I needed. Sir, I am Britomart of the Companions, and this Paridell of yours is a most foul scoundrel. Strip him of his arms!”

  “What about me?” asked Shea insistently. “That tournament —”

  “You could not ride in the tournament in a knight’s arms without being yourself knight, fair squire.”

  “Ahem!” said Chalmers. “I think my young friend would make a very good addition to the knights of your Queen Gloriana’s court.”

  “True, reverend sir,” said Britomart, “but the obligation of knighthood is not lightly undertaken. He must either watch by his arms in a chapel all night, and have two proved knights to vouch him; or he must perform some great deed on the battlefield. Here we have neither the one nor the other.”