The Dragon Knight

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "Good!" said the Prince. "But I shall still hold it a shame and a fault that I was not among the rest of you in the charge. But we of royal blood must learn to accustom ourselves to things that would probably bother lesser men."

  He rode off to join the group of knights, who were waiting to move out, and who had already been joined by Brian.

  "All right!" said Jim, raising his voice. "Sir Raoul, will you ride in front and guide us? Good! Then, let's move!"

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The sun had not yet risen by the time they reached the rear of the French lines. But there was enough light reflected from the sky now, so that things were as visible as they might have been on a thickly clouded day. Jim halted them all some three hundred yards behind the baggage lines. Sitting his horse, facing them in a little open space between the trees, he had two men-at-arms dismount and search for two twigs apiece for every person there. At his direction they brought these twigs back to him.

  They had necessarily done the twig-gathering on foot. He leaned down from his saddle to take two of the small leafy ends, and held them up so the rest could see them.

  "Now," he said, "I want you all to watch me and my horse carefully."

  He waited until he was sure all eyes were on him, then leaned forward and threaded the small woody stem firmly into the headstrap of the bridle, so that there was no danger of it falling out. He leaned back then, sitting upright in his saddle, and looked at them, still holding the other twig visibly in the air in his hands.

  "What do you see?"

  There was a murmur of wonderment from those before him. No one, it seemed, wanted to take it upon himself to give a direct answer.

  "Sir Brian," said Jim, "what do you see?"

  "Why, you are but sitting in thin air above the ground!" said Brian.

  "Exactly," said Jim. "Now watch this."

  He tucked the other twig firmly into the hinge of his helmet visor, so that it could not possibly come out.

  "Now what do you see?" he challenged his audience again. "Brian?"

  "James," said Brian, "are you still there? We can see neither you nor your horse, if you are."

  "I'm here, all right," said Jim, "and you'll see me again in a minute."

  He turned to look down again at the men-at-arms with the rest of the twigs in their hands, both now staring open-mouthed at apparently empty space.

  "You two," he ordered, "take the rest of those twigs and pass them out, two to each man here. Each of you, as you get your two twigs, put one first firmly into your bridle, around the head, where it can easily be seen from a distance. Then put the other securely in your helmet or some other place, that again you can be sure it won't fall out by accident. Do it now."

  The men-at-arms jerked to life as the voice came at them from the empty air, and moved out among the assemblage before him, passing out the twigs. As each man took his pair of twigs, he did what Jim had said; and a new murmur of voices arose. They stared at those around them who got then-twigs is first and disappeared, then reappeared, once the person staring had put his own twigs in place.

  "Let's not raise our voices," said Jim. "We should be far enough from the baggage lines to be safe but I don't want to be overheard. Now, have you all got your twigs in place? If so, can you all see each other and me, again?"

  A murmur of agreement arose.

  "A wondrous thing, Sir James!" came the voice of the Prince clearly.

  "Thank you, Your Highness," said Jim, keeping his own voice down, "but, by your favor, please remember what I said about not speaking loudly. Now, to anyone else who does not have twigs attached to their clothing or stuck in their hair, or some other such place, you'll all appear to be invisible. See that you don't spoil that invisibility by making any noise that would make them think there's someone there—but invisible."

  He paused to make sure all got the message. Then he went on. "Bear in mind, this is a different magic from plain invisibility. You haven't really been made invisible. You've only been changed so that anyone who looks at you will convince himself he doesn't see you. If you speak, the sound may fight with that conviction and they may end up seeing you, after all. This applies to the horses as well. Let's ride them as quietly as possible, at a walk."

  He turned to look at Raoul.

  "Sir Raoul," he said, "will you first take His Highness and the knights to the place we picked out yesterday and leave them just inside the trees? Then return here and guide another party of ten of our men to that position, and so forth, until they're all there. I'll wait, to go with the last group."

  They went as Jim had directed. He came in with the last group to find the rest of them already seated among the trees at the edge of the little rise of open land between the armies.

  The knights, as was to be expected, had picked the choicest spot. This was a clump of trees against which they could lean their backs, on the very edge of a small stream that ran through the wood, but not out into the open battle area itself. Descending from his horse, Jim emptied his saddle flask, which held a good quart, so that he could refill it with water from the stream.

  "James!" called Brian from where he was sitting. "What's this? You're pouring out good wine on the ground just so you can fill your flask with water?"

  He got up in his concern and came over to Jim; who, having emptied the flask, was now holding it below the level of the stream and letting it fill, while bubbles from its empty interior floated down the surface of the stream.

  "I want water in this flask," he answered Brian, squinting up at the other from where he squatted.

  "But plain water's not good for you," said Brian concernedly. "I've had reason to give you that warning before, James. In especial, French water will give you the flux."

  "We shall see," answered Jim. The flask was now full. He took it up out of the stream and stoppered it. "In any case I can protect myself against the flux by magic."

  "Oh. Of course. I forgot," said Brian.

  "Perfectly understandable," said Jim, rising to his feet again, and carrying the flask back to where he could strap it onto the saddle of his horse. He just wished he could be sure that his magic would protect him from the flux—by which Brian undoubtedly meant diarrhea. He tied his horse's reins close to where the horses of the other knights and the Prince were tethered, Brian accompanying him.

  "Raoul has been telling us about your reasons for picking this place," Brian said as he tied the horse. "I take it that now, we simply wait to see if the King and his bodyguard place themselves on that space about seventy-five yards out there?"

  "Yes, that's right," answered Jim. "If he hasn't moved there with his knights by the time both armies are in formation, we may have to seek him out, wherever he is. It'll be important that the men stay quiet; and that none of them lose the twigs they're wearing."

  "Some of these lads were amusing themselves after they got here, by pulling the twigs secretly from the helmet or clothing of their friends, and leaving them with no means to see the rest who surrounded them. A bit of a change in blind man's bluff. I put a stop to it."

  "Good," said Jim. "Now, it would be helpful if we had a couple of lookouts up in the taller trees to advise us how quickly the two armies form up as the sun rises—which I see it's starting to do now. Do we have a man with particularly good sight for distance?"

  "I have, unless Theoluf knows a better among your men," said Brian. They had now reached the rest of the seated knights. John Chester and Theoluf were standing close, leaning back against some trees, but not daring to sit in the presence of their superiors. "John Chester! Theoluf! To us!"

  The two squires came over.

  "John Chester, who is that particularly sharp-sighted lad of mine among the men-at-arms? Luke Allbye? Fetch him over. And you, Theoluf, do you have anyone among Sir James's men who could compare with Luke for seeing at a distance?"

  "There is myself, Sir Brian," answered Theoluf. "I would think I can outsee your Luke on any fair day; although he may see a lit
tle better when things are misty, or in the twilight; but it is six of one and half a dozen of another."

  "Then let him be—don't you think so, James?" Brian turned to Jim. "It is just as well not to have a squire scrambling up trees in contest with a man-at-arms. We will send Luke up and see what he can tell us about the gathering of both French and English into formation."

  More than a few moments passed before Luke, a tall, thin, sad-looking man-at-arms in his early thirties, put in an appearance. Meanwhile, Dafydd had just come up with the gray-haired one of the three archers he had brought.

  "What's this, Dafydd?" asked Sir Brian.

  "As I heard Sir James say just now," answered Dafydd quietly—he had been seated not exactly among but close to the knights, "he needed the sharpest pair of eyes possible to read the forming of the French and English battle lines. This, you will remember, is Wat of Easdale, whom I do believe has eyesight better than any of us here, if not in all England and Wales, for that matter."

  Luke Allbye and John Chester looked sour. Brian frowned.

  "An archer must needs have better sight than most men, look you, for the proper striking of his target," went on Dafydd, "and a master archer such as Wat here is far above ordinary men in his ability to see what he shoots at. Is it not so, Wat?"

  "Indeed, by your leave, sirs," said Wat of Easdale, "it is God's truth!"

  "Well, there's a simple solution to all this," said Jim. "Let's have them both climb trees and come back and tell us what they see. Aside from deciding which one is better than the other, our main interest here is to learn as much as we can. So, if either one can tell us more than the other about what he looks at, we're ahead of the game."

  "Right enough, James," said Brian, although the thin line of his mouth showed that he too had been touched by the challenge of someone else claiming to be able to see better than the best pair of eyes in his household. "Both of you, up a tree and study what you see. Then return and tell us what you can."

  Jim, Brian, and Dafydd sat down once more to await results. Meanwhile, the morning sun rose in the sky, the air began to warm, and on its warmth came a fresh scent of the grasses and trees around them. They had had good weather almost every day since they had landed in France, and today evidently intended to live up to the mark. It would be magnificent—though perhaps a little hot for those in full armor. Jim was already wriggling a little, secretly but uncomfortably, under the padding beneath his metal breast armor.

  The woods around them resounded to the songs of birds. To all appearances, things could hardly be more peaceful. It seemed almost unthinkable to Jim that within a few hours, barring some kind of miracle, men would be busy maiming and killing each other with edged and pointed weapons.

  He remembered Carolinus had told him that the battle must be won by neither side, if the Dark Powers were to be frustrated. Jim had no idea—or at least only a vague idea—about how this might be managed. Carolinus was evidently depending upon him to do it; but so far he had not thought much beyond the point of getting through to the false Prince, and getting King Jean to recognize the real Prince.

  His thoughts drifted off at a tangent, trying to think of ways in which they could go about finding where the King was to make his stand, if he decided not to make it here. The invisibility was all very well, but it would be difficult to move a body of men this large safely along a busy line of warriors getting ready to fight. Yet, to break them up into individual groups was also very risky.

  He would have to trust them to find each other again, wherever the site for King Jean's observation of the battle would be. It would be taking a very large risk of not being able to get an effective number of them back together again in time to be useful.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the return of Luke Allbye and Wat of Easdale. They came back, along with John Chester and Dafydd, who had evidently gone with them and staved with them, probably at the foot of the tree each one's particular lookout had climbed.

  "About time," said Brian, as the two came up. "Luke, what have you to tell us?"

  Luke took off his helmet respectfully before answering, and Wat—clearly suddenly reminded of this—also took off the helmet with which he had replaced his customary archer's flat cap.

  "Sir James, m'Lord," replied Luke, "both armies are all but in ready position. The French are in three divisions, as expected, one line behind the other, with the back line almost up against the tents of the Lords and Knights here today. The English, so far as I could make out, are in a single line, in harrow formation, as they were at Crecy and Poitiers, with the men-at-arms aligned facing front, toward the French, and the archers in two, close, forward-running lines at each end. The lines lean inward toward their forward ends, so that one bowman can shoot past another safely."

  He had delivered the first batch of information all in one breath and paused for a second to gulp air before going on.

  "At my best guess, Sir Brian and m'Lord," he said, "there are six thousand men-at-arms of the English, perhaps a third of the number of that in the French three lines. The French have also Genoese bowmen in ranks before their first line of men-at-arms, forward a little so that they can shoot over each other's heads. My guess is three thousand of the crossbowmen. On the English side, contrary to what we heard earlier, there seem to be somewhere between four and six thousand archers, instead of the two thousand that was spoken of."

  "Thank you, Luke," said Sir Brian. He looked at Jim. "Have you anything to ask him, James?"

  Jim shook his head.

  "And you—" Brian's eyes went to the archer, Wat of Easdale. "What, if anything, do you have to add to what Luke has told us?"

  "Only that there are not six thousand archers, but merely two thousand at best," replied Wat dryly.

  Not only Brian and Jim, but the other knights who were listening, stared at the archer, who bore their scrutiny with complete composure.

  "How can you tell us something like that?" said Brian. "The archers were surely too far off to see individually; and I know Luke to be a good judge of numbers."

  "Surely," said Wat of Easdale levelly, "it must have seemed quite clear to Luke that the harrow ends must contain at least six thousand archers, in the two lines of men he saw extending from the main division of men-at-arms. But this can only be a trick of our English, to deceive the French. Of those lines of what appeared to be bowmen, two or more out of every three men, are not archers at all, but men-at-arms—or for all I know, cooks and bakers from the among the baggage servants—holding a staff of the length of a bow stave and standing as they believe an archer stands."

  "Sirs, they were all archers!" broke in Luke hotly. "I swear it."

  "Then you put your soul in peril by so swearing," said Wat calmly, without turning his head to look at the other man. "They may stand a man in formation, and put a stave in his hand, but only the lifetime of training that makes a bowman, will cause him to stand with it as a bowman stands. It was plain to me, who am a man of the bow, and have grown up and lived with others who are also of the bow, that more than two out of three of those in the archer lines were no true archers."

  "Even if what you say is true—yes, Dafydd, I believe he knows a bowman from a man-at-arms." Brian interrupted himself, seeing that Dafydd was just about to object to the word if. "Still, these lines of archers were at such a distance, how could any man see such small differences in the way they stood and held whatever they held?"

  "I could," said Wat, "and did. With respect, Sir Brian, if you had looked over the point of your arrow at a mark three hundred yards off, at which you were shooting, as often as I have, you would learn to notice small differences, even at that distance. I tell you flatly that the English have only two thousand archers at most, and that the others are false, set there to make the French cautious."

  "Cautious, it may make some few, rare Frenchmen," said Sir Raoul angrily, "but do you think it will frighten any of them into not charging when the time comes? And once they get close, will they not s
ee the deception and charge all the harder?"

  "Indeed, I'm sure that's what'll happen, Sir Raoul," said Wat, "and therein lies the use of it from the English side, if they have as few as another five hundred bowmen on each side lying hidden in the grass, or behind hedges, out beyond the flanks of the harrow. When the French discover what they think to be merely a trick and increase their charge, their line will be spread out more unevenly than usual, with the faster horses pulling far ahead of the slower ones. At that moment, the bowmen hidden on either side can rise up and begin shooting; and if they do not wipe out half the French horse in that first charge, before a single Frenchman reaches the first false English archer to cut him down, I will eat my bow and quiver to boot!"

  "And if they wipe out half the horsemen in that charge, what matters it?" said Sir Raoul, almost savagely. "There are five times as many French behind, just waiting to take their place."

  "I think the advantage of it is pretty plain," said Jim. They all looked at him, because he had been quiet up until now. "Such an unexpected reversal, and the possibility that there might be other such traps waiting for those who will charge after, may be enough to make the French, and even King Jean himself, lose his temper. And you know yourself, Sir Raoul, that when your countrymen get outraged they have only one thought in their minds. That is to get to close quarters with the enemy as soon as possible. So whatever battle plan the French may have can fall into confusion and be lost."

  Sir Raoul glared at Jim, opened his mouth, closed it again, and ended by saying nothing. Whatever further argument might have developed was cut short, however, by Tom Seiver running up to them.

  "Sirs, a large group of knights moving this way! They move all together, in a body, and if I mistake not they carry the royal banner of the Leopard and Lilies in their midst."

  "It will be the French King then!" cried Sir Giles joyfully. "He is coming here, after all!"

  All around them the men-at-arms were on their feet; as were the knights, who had already started to head for their horses.