The Dragon, the Earl ,and the Troll

by Gordon R. Dickson

  There was a moment of silence and motionlessness there underneath the castle, in which all things seemed to hang in the balance.

  "I am a troll," said Mnrogar. "Trolls do not think like wolves—or humans! What do you want from me now, magician?"

  "I thought of a way you might be able to smell out the other troll upstairs in the castle, without anyone knowing about it—except one person besides me."

  "Smell him out?" burst out Mnrogar. "We will do it, then. Whatever it is, we will do it—"

  He broke off suddenly.

  "But I will be safe up there?" he demanded. "This is not a trap for me?"

  "No trap," said Jim. "It's only a suggestion. Let me tell you about it and then decide if you want to do it. All right?"

  "Right or not, how can I tell you, until you tell me?" snarled Mnrogar.

  "It's just that you and the Earl sit down with me and agree—"

  "Agree!" Mnrogar's roar seemed even to shake the stone arches around them. "With him? I'll tear him limb from limb and eat the marrow of his bones first! This is my castle, not his—though he claims it! Built on my land, not his! You bring him here, you bring him to his death!"

  "Then you are a fool," said Aargh.

  Mnrogar's roar threatened to shake the arches again.

  "Fool, wolf?"

  "Fool, I said," said Aargh implacably. "James, here, knows his fellow humans better than you ever will. Also, he has a brain a great deal better than yours—almost as good as a wolf's. Hear him out before you talk about killing."

  Mnrogar snarled wordlessly, but that was all. He turned to glare at Jim.

  "It's within the Earl's ability," said Jim, "to convey you secretly upstairs and find you a place to hide unseen; and over a space of time you can smell all the guests. That way you can pick out the one who's a troll in disguise. You may be strong, your skin may turn the edge of a sword, but there are too many swords and too many men upstairs for you. If you go up any other way, you're the one who goes to your death—unless the Earl's your friend and makes it possible for you to do that safely. Think about it for a moment."

  Mnrogar had half lifted his arms with the wicked claws on the ends glittering in the troll-light, when Jim had mentioned the possibility of his going to his own death. But now he let the arms sink down again and stared at Jim without a sound.

  Jim waited. The troll was obviously thinking; and very probably that might be a slow process. In fact, it was. It was a good several minutes before Mnrogar lifted his eyes, which had wandered down to stare at the floor and arches beyond, back to Jim.

  "Tell me, then," he said. "Why? Why will he do this? He will want something of me. Why else would he do it?"

  "He wants only a truce between you," said Jim, mentally crossing his fingers, since he did not yet have the Earl's agreement to this, and it was entirely possible that the Earl would balk at the idea as much as Mnrogar had. "He doesn't like having a troll hidden among his guests, any more than you want one here at all. By working together, you two can find out which guest it is, and get rid of him. Alone, you can't and the Earl can't. Something odd is going on, too. Did you know there's an army of other trolls, together, without fighting and eating each other, gathered around us here?"

  "NO!" exploded Mnrogar. "There is not. There could not be. If they were on my territory, I'd know it!"

  "They are just outside your territory," said Aargh. "Never have I heard of trolls gathering together like that. But they are there."

  "Exactly," said Jim. "And their being where they are has to have some connection with the troll in disguise, here in the castle right now. As things stand now, we've no way of understanding how this troll can make himself look so much like a human being that he's been accepted as one of the guests. But once you've told us who he is, we'll find out how he does it. That's what we magicians want out of this.

  "But Aargh is right. The gathering of trolls just outside your territory must have something to do with the one upstairs. Both things are impossible, the sort of things that never happen. When they happen together, they just about have to be connected."

  "Yes," growled Mnrogar, his eyes beneath their heavy brow ridge glittering but abstract. "Gathering like that—how many of them are there?"

  "Perhaps a third of a third of the many years you've lived," put in Aargh.

  "That many?" said Mnrogar; and for the first time Jim heard a new, strange note, in the huge troll's voice. "But why so many, without fighting? It's not our troll way—and in any case, only one can hold my territory, if I'm slain."

  "They call you King of the Trolls," said Aargh.

  "And I am!" Mnrogar lifted his head. "There is none like me, who has lived so long, who has fought so well, who has always won. When I have been full fed, sometimes I have hidden close to what is left of my meal to see if some smaller troll would come to try and feast on my leavings; and at times during the long years I have caught such a one and told him that I was King of the Trolls and let him go, alive, to tell all others that, so that they will know and stay clear of what is mine."

  "So you've no idea why these other trolls are there?" Jim asked.

  "I?" said Mnrogar. "How should I know?"

  "Perhaps they have gathered to do you honor," said Aargh wickedly.

  "They do me honor by running at the sight of me," growled Mnrogar. "I do not know why they're there. I do not like their being there. But more than that I do not like the hidden troll upstairs. Let me talk to this Earl of yours who claims my castle and my lands!"

  "We'll have to make the arrangements first," said Jim. "The meeting's going to have to be held in a neutral spot."

  "What is that?" Mnrogar's voice was loaded with suspicion.

  "A place in the woods where there's no one else around, where you can be privy and secret in your talk, with only me, you, possibly Aargh and one other. But only you, I and the Earl will sit at a table; and I'll try to help the two of you talk peaceably. I'll be wearing my dragon body—of which you may have heard—just to make sure that the Earl's temper does not get out of hand—or yours, Mnrogar."

  "Dragon?" snarled Mnrogar. "No troll in a thousand, thousand years has been able to stand a dragon. They are ancient enemies of ours."

  "Because," said Aargh, "one on one, they can eat you, instead of you eating them."

  "That is a lie—" Mnrogar broke off suddenly. Aargh's jaws were hanging open again in his silent laugh. "We have other reasons for hating them!"

  "Say," said Aargh softly, "other reasons for fearing them."

  "A troll fears nothing!" Mnrogar's roar rolled again.

  Aargh laughed.

  "I said you and your kind were fools," he said to Mnrogar. "What you said just now proves it. He who is wise is always wary. Wolves, too, fear nothing. But neither do they choose to go to a battle they can't win."

  "No," said Jim thoughtfully, thinking of times in his own twentieth-century history, "only humans do that."

  But neither Aargh nor Mnrogar was interested in the foolishness of humans.

  "Very well, then," Mnrogar demanded. "Where do I meet this Earl? It better not be where he has twenty others all in metal at his back!"

  "I just told you there would only be you, he, me, Aargh and possibly one other—the magician who is my master, and who will only observe for the community of magicians, not take part in the discussion. But you understand the reason for meeting is to find a common reason for not fighting, for working together to find this hidden troll above us? You understand that?"

  "I understand," rumbled Mnrogar. "See your Earl understands. All right, those you mentioned do not worry me—though I do not like you as a dragon. It may be I should not go unless you come as what you are, a human."

  Jim felt an odd little spark of anger touched off inside him. He had discovered some time back that dragons were very proud of being dragons and would not be anything else for the world—humans or any other kind of creature. Jim had also discovered that he, too, had become rather proud of b
eing a dragon. It was as if his dragon-thinking had somehow bled over into his human-thinking. He would not be other than what he was, but he was proud of his humanity and he was proud of that part of him that was dragon, as well.

  "You will take me as a dragon," he said, "or there'll be no talk and you'll never find the troll upstairs!"

  "Very well," Mnrogar growled. "But it will be just the ones you mentioned. In the woods—you say?"

  "Yes," said Jim.

  Mnrogar turned his head to look at Aargh.

  "In the woods?" he repeated to Aargh. "You have seen the place? You will be there too?"

  "I will," said Aargh.

  "And it is in the woods, as the magician says?"

  "Yes," answered Aargh.

  "My woods? The woods on my territory? Not near these other trolls you say are gathered around beyond my borders?"

  "Yes, to all," growled Aargh.

  "Magician," said Mnrogar, looking back at Jim. "When?"

  "I can't say certainly right now," answered Jim, cautiously. "Probably in the next day—or two. I don't think longer than that. I'll let you know; or maybe Aargh will?"

  He looked at Aargh.

  "If I'm close," said Aargh. "Now, enough of this. If that's an end to questions, as I hope. I've more to do than stand and talk with the two of you. Is there more?"

  "Not from me," said Jim.

  "I will wait," said Mnrogar.

  Aargh turned and was gone from the troll-light.

  "Well," said Jim to Mnrogar, feeling suddenly, in spite of his knowledge of magic, singularly unprotected here alone with the troll, "I'll be leaving too, Mnrogar."

  Without waiting for an answer, he turned and went back to the stairs. Behind him the troll-light went out—and he suddenly discovered that while they had been talking his torch had burnt itself out. His magic would not work once he had left the space under the castle; so in the darkness he groped upward until the blessed light of the stable, filtering wanly down the flights of stairs, reassured him that there was a world above ground.

  Now to get the Earl's agreement to a meeting. That could be a trickier job. The Earl was no physical match for Mnrogar—and knew it.

  Chapter 21

  Why?" demanded the Earl. The Earl was as stubborn as a twenty-mule team in which all twenty mules were out of temper at once; and Chandos had been little help to Jim so far except to mildly second some of Jim's reasons why the Earl should meet privately with Mnrogar in the woods.

  "Because," said Jim patiently, "as I pointed out before to your Lordship, it's better for you to have one large troll down below your castle, than a number of smaller trolls roaming your woods, eating your game—and possibly some of your cattle, if not some of your tenants or serfs. This particular troll, having all of these lands to hunt in, never needs to prey on anything but wild game; and, in spite of his size, he eats less than half a dozen to a dozen smaller trolls would eat of that."

  "It's my land, damn it!" said the Earl. "It's my duty to keep it free of trolls—any trolls. Instead of talking with him, I should hunt him down with a stout band of men-at-arms and slay him."

  "He claims it's his land," said Jim.

  "Nonsense!" fumed the Earl. "Trolls can't own land! My family's been here since the Romans!"

  "According to what he says," said Jim, "and his size tends to prove he has that kind of age, he's been here for eighteen hundred years. That would put him in possession of this area before the Romans came."

  "Trolls can't own land!" said the Earl.

  This was the point they had been coming back and back to. The Earl had entrenched himself on that point of argument, and refused to be budged.

  The fact of the matter was, thought Jim, that while the Earl had been brave enough, once, to begin to go down under the stable floor with only two men-at-arms, to face the "giant" that was reputed to be down there—he now had had time to think it over, to remember his age, his weight, and the relative rustiness of his sword arm; and had decided that there was a great deal more to be said for facing the troll with a small army of his own men at his back. Particularly if he was doing his duty.

  In short, prudence had registered its ugly presence in the Earl's otherwise fearless heart.

  Jim had thought of mentioning that Carolinus with all his magic would be there invisibly to protect them, as well as to observe proceedings. But he knew very well that the moment he mentioned anyone else might be there, the Earl would seize the opportunity to name one or more people he wanted to be present, also—and the negotiation as a practical reality would fall apart.

  Undoubtedly, Mnrogar would not stay around if anyone else than he had been told of appeared to be present. The troll might put up with the presence of Aargh. But if anyone else was visible, he would probably be out of sight before you could pronounce his name properly.

  The real problem was that neither Mnrogar nor the Earl had any real intention of coming to terms with the other. But come to terms, they must. Jim went back to his own one unanswerable line of argument.

  "If you got rid of Mnrogar, my Lord," he said to the Earl, "you'd not only be faced with the fact of a number of other trolls inhabiting your woods, but you never would be able to find out who the troll is that's in disguise among your guests."

  "How do I know there is any?" growled the Earl. "All we've got is this Mnrogar—or whatever he calls himself—his word for it. The word of a troll—faught!"

  There seemed, Jim noted, to be a lot of "faughting" going around. Or maybe he had just never noticed it before.

  "It does hardly seem likely your castle troll would be that desperate about pulling these walls down around his own ears, if there was no other troll up there," put in Chandos mildly. The Earl turned to him.

  "No, Sir John. But—" The Earl, who had been looking angry all through the interview, looked a bit angrier, finding himself at a loss for a good reply to this. "So that might be. But I've no certainty. I am certain there's this troll below us."

  "Yes, my Lord," said Jim, "but what you can do about the troll downstairs is rather limited. If you go down the stairs with your men-at-arms after him, within his own den he has the power to vanish. Outside it, he can't vanish, but he only goes out to hunt for food; and catching him then would be nothing but chance. He can go some days between meals, since he eats such an enormous amount when he does eat. Your only certain way would be to find where his tunnel comes out in the woods; and not only will that be hard to locate, but if you did and set a guard there, he'd smell the guard before he was all the way out and dig off in another direction, starting a new escape route from his den. In short, you have much to gain by at least talking to him; and little to gain by any other means."

  "But I have my duty!" snapped the Earl. He looked at Chandos. "Have I not my duty, Sir John?"

  "Undoubtedly, my Lord," said Chandos soothingly. "On the other hand, duty may be approached from a number of angles. It may well be that this business of first entering into conversation with your troll beneath the castle is the best of the ways to go about executing it."

  "Say you so?" answered the Earl. He had no long beard like Carolinus's to chew on to express his frustration in moments like this; but he looked to Jim very much as if he would have been chewing if he had one.

  "Yes indeed, my Lord," said Jim quickly, hoping that he had seen a crack in the stone wall of the Earl's reluctance. "You are after all the only one the troll would deal with. He would certainly not talk to anyone but yourself; and preliminary conversations are probably absolutely necessary to the kind of end you have in mind—which is no more shaking of the castle, no more cracks in the castle wall."

  "You know about that?" shot out the Earl, swelling with incipient rage, his eyebrows bristling.

  "Yes, my Lord. Carolinus told me."

  "Ahh… hmm," said the Earl, deflating.

  "As I was about to say, my Lord Earl," went on Jim, "for that kind of end and the discovery of the unknown troll among us upstairs here, some prelimin
ary conversation is undoubtedly necessary; and it can only be at the highest level, between the castle troll and yourself."

  "Preliminary conversation?" The Earl stared, a little pop-eyed.

  "Pourparlers, my Lord," explained Chandos.

  "Ah, pourparlers," said the Earl. "Well. I suppose there's that…"

  "True," said Chandos, dreamily, almost as if to himself, "there's no precedent. I doubt if any Earl anywhere in the world has ever parleyed with a troll of such a great age—one who was around when the Romans ruled this isle. In fact, I'm sure of it. History would have recorded such a resounding event. The name of the Earl would be written large not merely in monkish journals, but in the minds of all the common people as well…"

  "Hmm… ?" The Earl cleared his throat questioningly, looking at Chandos, who, however, was staring off into the distance and not meeting his eye. "Remember his name? Yes, yes—I suppose they would—if there had been, that is. Yes, you're quite right."

  Jim's mind was galloping. The crack he had exploited in the Earl's reluctance had been used by Chandos very cleverly to tickle the Earl's vanity. In this version of the fourteenth century, Jim had discovered, there was one major thing about the people: they were all frustrated actors. The Crown Prince, for instance, would strew favors and gifts right and left, as the spirit struck him; and that in spite of all attempts to restrain him—because it was "royal" to do so. And whatever role a person found himself or herself placed in, he or she acted their part to the hilt.

  Each king grabbed every opportunity to appear more kingly than any other king. Each prince, more princely, and so on, right down the line to the Earl. And actually, the trait continued among those of smaller rank, as each person wanted to show themselves as bigger and better than anyone else of the same rank. Right now my Lord Earl of Somerset, standing in front of him, was already seeing the monks writing up his name in their chronicles. The prospect was a great temptation.