The Dragon, the Earl ,and the Troll

by Gordon R. Dickson

  Jim opened the door and they went out into the corridor. It was empty.

  Chandos turned to go, and looked at Jim.

  "Heigh-ho," Chandos sighed, "and this is soon the anniversary eve of our Lord's birth. A fine Christmastide at our Lord Earl's this year—and it's just begun. Wish you good eve, James."

  Chapter 10

  "…So you see," Jim said to Angie, "none of it's really my business but as usual here I am in the middle of all this."

  It was late morning of Christmas Day—almost noon. He and Angie were sitting in the outer room of their two-room quarters. Robert was fast asleep in the other room, and there was no one with him. Angie had sent the wet nurse off on an errand and seen to it that the serving woman she had brought from Malencontri was not about either, so they could talk in privacy. Jim had been waiting for a chance to speak to her this way since the Prince's visit to this same room.

  They had not talked until now because there had been no chance to talk. Angie had been able to miss such duties as the midnight religious service in the castle's chapel; but Jim had felt duty bound to put in appearances there—luckily, since he was being treated as a guest of high table rank, he had been able to sit down, if only on a hard, unpadded bench seat, up front near the altar. Most of the castle's guests had found it necessary to stand; otherwise all of them could not have gotten into the little chapel.

  So, he had been up past midnight, and had also made the probably necessary, but uncomfortable, decision to put in an appearance at another boar hunt scheduled for this morning of Christmas Day—a hunt from which he had just come back.

  It could be said that he had been lucky at the boar hunt, too. They had spent several hours riding around and freezing in the woods with the yelping hounds out in front of them and no sign of a boar; then, without warning, they had encountered one that seemed almost as big as a small bull, certainly as heavy and probably several times as dangerous.

  Jim's luck had come in not being close enough so that he would seem to have held back if he did not immediately try to be one of those who reached the boar, leaped off his horse and attacked it with a boar spear. There was no lack of those among the hunters who were very eager to do just that. The boar, however, had given them no chance.

  He had immediately charged them. Tearing up some of the dogs as he went through the pack like a crossbow bolt through a stand of high rushes, he bowled over two of the leading horsemen and made his escape.

  The hounds would have followed, and the rest of the hunters with them; but as it happened one of those knocked over, horse and all, was the Earl himself. The Earl had no doubt been a powerful and effective huntsman and warrior in his day. But that day was somewhat past; and now he lay helpless in the snow on his back, the wind knocked out of him and his armor making it almost impossible for him to get up even if he had his breath. This brought the hunt to an early end. The reluctant dogs were called back, much against their will; for left alone they would have followed the boar indefinitely—though it was clear they had no chance at all, the full pack of them, against him.

  So, that had ended the hunt. Jim was feeling the worse for wear, from lack of sleep as well as all else, and he was sitting rather exhaustedly, trying to give Angie an account of everything that had happened to him from the moment in which Carolinus had sent him with Brian down to talk to the troll in the basement of the castle.

  They still had to dress for dinner, which was only an hour and a half away, but since this was a special day out of the twelve days of Christmas, everyone would be in their finest clothes; and even if Jim himself scarcely cared what he looked like, he had an appearance to keep up—while Angie very much wanted to have plenty of time in which to dress and get ready. Therefore there was a slight impatience underlying the normal concern with which she had been listening to him—and Jim could not help but be aware of this.

  "I suppose," Jim went on, "I'm stuck with this business of the troll in the basement of this castle and the mysterious possible troll upstairs here among the guests somewhere, since I'm Carolinus's apprentice and I've got an obligation to him. But anything to do with Agatha Falon, or the Prince and Agatha Falon's designs on King Edward, shouldn't be any of my problem. Don't you think?"

  "Does it matter what I think?" said Angie. "Isn't your real problem what everybody else will think? Carolinus, the Prince, Chandos; and the fact that we want the King to give the wardship of young Robert to someone trustworthy—you don't want to lose the friendship of the Prince, do you, if only for Robert's sake?"

  "I don't think the opinion of the Prince means much to his father in the case of something like that," said Jim. A small but definite thundercloud seemed about to gather on Angie's brow. Jim added hurriedly, "but of course I won't do anything that might make arguing the wardship less likely."

  "And that means you're going to have to help the Prince and Chandos and then the Earl. But, they can't expect the impossible from you; so that if you don't find this other troll, or manage to help the Prince with that Agatha Falon, then they can hardly hold it against you. I'm not surprised. That woman would try anything, let alone trying to become Queen of England—and now that we're on the subject of the ring, where is it? You didn't have it sewn on young Robert's clothes after all, did you?"

  They had not been talking about the ring, Jim thought a little resentfully. Angie had simply pulled it out of thin air in mid-sentence. But he kept his feelings well hidden inside himself.

  "Of course not," said Jim. He reached into the pouch that was attached to a couple of the rivets on his most dressy knight's belt, and fished out the ring. He passed it to Angie.

  She examined it closely and suspiciously, even to the point of putting her nose close to it and sniffing at it.

  "No," she said at last, reluctantly, "there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it—that I can see now."

  "I don't think there is," said Jim. "After all, it may be a perfectly normal gesture. She's Robert's aunt. You know how the aristocracy here feels about family. She probably simply wanted him to have the ring."

  "Hah!" said Angie.

  That was twice in the last couple of days, Jim thought, that Angie had come out sounding very medieval indeed.

  "I told you," Jim said, "I'll have Carolinus check it out, before we bring it close to Robert."

  "Absolutely!" said Angie. "Now that this Agatha knows that Robert exists, she'll see her chances of the Falon estates going completely out of her hands altogether. First, Robert's guardian will have control of them; then when Robert comes of age, he will. Maybe you better find that other troll after all."

  "I'd be glad to if I knew how," said Jim. "Just how do you think I should go about it?"

  "Carolinus will simply have to tell you a magical way to do it," said Angie. "I don't believe that there isn't a magical way. He's just being the way he always is about making you learn things on your own."

  "We can't be sure of that," said Jim; then, hastily, because he saw that this line of talk could lead to nothing but unproductive argument between them, he added, "Also, what about this business of our kitchen hobgoblin? I haven't seen Hob-One since the Prince came in. How about this message he said he had from Secoh?"

  "Forget about it for the moment," said Angie firmly. "Hob-One's not here—by the way, couldn't you think of a better name for him than that?"

  But she went on without waiting for an answer.

  "… I suppose somewhere along the line you're going to have to arrange to get far enough outside the castle to use your magic, turn into a dragon and fly to find Secoh and get the message. But you've got the rest of the twelve days for that. Well, eleven days now, if you don't count today. Jim, I think we really must get dressing."

  "I'm already dressed," said Jim mildly.

  Indeed he was. Besides his best belt with the painted enamel plaques in interstices of its metal links, with his best sheath and dagger hanging from it, he was wearing an almost brand-new, madder-dyed, red cote-hardie above bl
ue hose; and his slipperlike, open-work shoes, completely heelless like everybody else's, were also dyed red.

  Angie, of course, would be the showpiece of the family. She had an absolutely new formal gown, a full-skirted, tight-bodiced dress colored with the pale gold of saffron dye. The voluminous sleeves, puffed out above the elbow and tight-fitting below it down to the wrist, were of course detachable; but Angie had decided to go against the general custom of wearing a contrasting color with the saffron gown.

  Instead, she wore the matching sleeves of the gown itself; but with them the enormous rubies she had been given by Rrrnlf, the Sea Devil. They had been detached from the chain that linked them, and sewed by their bezels into two rows. One row ran down the tight part of the right sleeve and the other down the left, where such sleeves normally had rows of buttons, rounded upward on their top side and often cloth dyed, or even painted with tiny scenes.

  None of this was on her just at the moment. The dress, her dress shoes and everything else were waiting in the other room for her to start getting ready; and at any minute now not only the wet nurse but Angie's serving woman would be coming back to help her get into the costume. She was fairly confident her garments should match up to, or even outshine, any of those worn by other female guests present for this most important of the twelve days of mid-day dinners. Also, her position at the high table, would make her dress visible to the eyes of all.

  "I think I'll roll up my travel bedroll," said Jim. He and Angie carried their own mattresses wherever they went, and avoided sleeping in the beds made available to them at most other castles and all inns, simply because these were alive with vermin under ordinary conditions. "Then I'll take it down to Brian's room, and try to catch a quick nap there before dinner. You can come by his room and pick me up when you're ready, so that we can go down to the Great Hall together."

  They got up from their chairs. Angie smiled at him suddenly and hugged him.

  "Don't worry," she said. "I'll be thinking of ways you could do things, too."

  Warmed by this, Jim watched her go through the tapestry into the other room, rolled up his bedroll and headed for Brian's quarters. On his way down the hall, he had an idea of his own. He was seated at the high table, Brian was not. Slice it anyway you like, and in spite of the fact that Brian was a better fighter, a braver man, better in all ways that counted in this medieval world than Jim—the fact remained that largely through accident, and his own false claim to a title when he had first arrived, Jim was more in the public eye at this Christmas gathering than Brian was.

  Brian would be able to move around and possibly not be missed, when Jim's moving around would be noticed and possibly even talked about. He did not see exactly how Brian's relative freedom could come in useful; but it felt as if he had the forerunner of at least one idea if not more.

  He knocked at Brian's door, not really expecting to find Brian in. However, his squire or some man-at-arms should be there, keeping the place occupied and being responsible for what was in it. Theoluf would ordinarily have been doing the same for Jim, but the baby's presence had changed all that; and Theoluf himself was just as happy to be off keeping an eye on the men-at-arms. But it was Brian himself who opened the door and summoned him in.

  "Ah, James!" he said. "It's a glad sight to see you! How do I look?"

  Brian turned around in front of Jim. He was clearly already dressed for the main banquet of the season himself, in a blue cote-hardie, only slightly faded, and wearing small, very clean, very recently reblacked heelless shoes that looked more like slippers to Jim's eyeing—but then all the shoes of this time did—than anything else. His knight's belt, with its sheathed dagger attached, was the one resplendent thing about him; it having been one of the prizes at a tourney where he had carried the day.

  All this, of course, adorned a lean, fit, sinewy body; which, if no more than five feet nine inches tall, carried itself as if it was at least a foot taller—and did so with justification.

  Brian had fought and beaten many men a great deal taller, heavier and possibly even stronger than he.

  "You look excellent, Brian," said Jim, and meant it.

  "Hah!" said Brian with satisfaction, turning back. "It's good of you to say so, James. I would not have it said I cannot dress to fit my station."

  Abruptly he turned his back again.

  "However, James," he went on anxiously, "would you look at the collar at the back of my cote-hardie? It was a touch worn. A clever woman with a needle at my castle turned it inward, somewhat—I know not exactly what she did; but the aim was to keep the worn spot from showing. Yet it seems to me that when I have it on, as now, I can reach back there, and feel a sort of roughness in the cloth, as if the worn part was still showing. Tell me, do you see it, as you stand there?"

  Jim looked at the curve at the top of Brian's cote-hardie in the back. The worn spot he had spoken of was almost out of sight, but not quite. Still, anyone would have to come up and practically peer down the back of Brian's neck to see it properly.

  "I don't see a thing," said Jim.

  "Ah, that relieves me," said Brian, turning back. "Are you ready to go down to the hall, James? Where's Angela?"

  "She's to come along here to get me when she's ready to go down," said Jim. "If you want to wait, we can all go down together."

  "I'll be glad to wait, of course," said Brian. "Indeed, it may do more for my reputation with those here to see how closely I come into dinner with you and the Lady Angela and Geronde, than if Geronde and I went down by ourselves. When the steward announces you, he must needs announce me in a voice not too different, and all eyes in the hall will of course then turn upon us four."

  "You underrate yourself, Brian," said Jim. "Angie and I are the ones who will be honored to enter with the well-known winner of so many tournaments. One of the premier lances of England."

  "Well, well," said Brian, "I would not myself call myself one of the premier lances of England, of course; but let that be and on to other subjects—sit down and I will fetch us to drink."

  "I was thinking of taking a nap—" Jim broke off, seeing the disappointment on Brian's face.

  Brian very seldom invited anyone to Castle Smythe, because of its run-down condition. But he had the born soul of a host in him; and here in this one room of the Earl's, considerably smaller than either of the rooms that Jim and Angie occupied and which must necessarily hold his squire as well as himself—the squire sleeping on a pallet in front of the door—he had a chance to be a host. "On second thought, some wine is exactly what I want!"

  "Well said!" said Brian, rummaging in a corner among his belongings, piled up there in helter-skelter fashion. He came up with a large leather flask of the sort that normally contained water, but was useful for carrying wine on horseback because there was no danger of it breaking, as anything but a metal container might during the vicissitudes of a journey. "I have only the two cups, and no means to wash them here at the moment. But perhaps you might be content to wipe one out, James."

  Jim chose the smaller cup, poured some of the water from the leathern watering jug on the table into it and took one of the patches from the secret inside pockets of his own cote-hardie, and did as Brian suggested. The odds against his picking up any unfriendly bacteria were relatively small, in this case.

  "Ah, wine," said Brian, pouring from the jug of it he had picked up, "good for the soul, good for the…"

  He evidently ran out of inspiration. Jim reflected that for Brian, wine probably was good for his soul. In fact, good for everything, at any hour of the day or night and in considerable quantities. But it did not seem to have any great effect on him. However, this was the chance he had been waiting for.

  "As a matter of fact, Brian," he said, after adding water to his own wine, "I've been wanting to talk to you. You remember the business with the troll downstairs?"

  "Very well, James," said Brian, looking serious. "A stouter such being, I vow, I would never have imagined!"

  "Well
," said Jim, "Carolinus has given me the, er—duty of finding the other troll. The one the castle troll claims is up here. That'll be the first step in dealing with the situation with the castle troll. And besides that, other things have turned up since…"

  He told Brian about Agatha Falon's gift of the golden ring, and the Prince's overindulgence in wine—how he had talked of fear for his life if Agatha succeeded in making herself the next Queen of England by marrying his father. When Jim had finished telling this, Brian wagged his head seriously.

  "I could hardly believe that anything like that could happen—" Jim was saying.

  "Strange things happen at court, James," said Brian. "Also, with wine in him, even a King might see beauty where to a soberer eye there is none; or very little at least. Who can tell? As for how the Lady Agatha might react if she once became Queen and gave our royal liege another male heir, who can say? Men and women alike can do evil things to gain the ends they want."

  Jim's faint hope that the Prince had been exaggerating sank at Brian's ready acceptance of the fact the Prince might be in danger if someone like Agatha succeeded in gaining the Throne. He had half talked himself into believing Brian would immediately protest that such a thing was beyond the bounds of possibility. That it could never happen.

  "But that isn't all," Jim went on. "A hobgoblin came down my chimney in the first of our two rooms—"

  And he told Brian about his talk with Hob-One. Now he did see Brian looking incredulous.

  Chapter 11

  "This is passing strange, James," said Brian. "Certes, I have never heard of such a thing as a message from a dragon carried by a hobgoblin. Yet it seems to me that this can have little to do with the matter of the troll under this castle; nor yet of the Prince and this Agatha Falon."