The Dragon, the Earl ,and the Troll

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "He only has to stay hidden up to a point," said Jim eagerly, "because if he didn't, the troll in the stands could suspect what's up, and decide to escape. Whoever the disguised troll is, he'll want to get away the minute he, in his turn, smells Mnrogar inside the black armor. It's true, trolls don't seem to have the nose for things that Aargh has; but if the breeze is from the list to the watchers, the troll in the stands could scent Mnrogar as soon as he appears—"

  "There is no guaranteeing the direction of the wind tomorrow morning," said Brian grimly. "I fear me what you hope for, James, is impossible—"

  "No!" said Jim. "No, it's not. I just thought. Just before Mnrogar comes out of the tent or appears on the scene—however we bring him in—I can magically deprive everyone in the stands of any sense of smell they have."

  Brian looked startled, then baffled.

  "Everyone, James?" he asked. "Why everyone? Why not just the troll who is in disguise?"

  "I would if I knew who the troll in disguise was," said Jim. "But since I don't, I'll simply take away the sense of smell of everybody in the stands for as long as Mnrogar is jousting with the other knights; in fact, until he comes close to the stands. The troll we want to uncover may notice that his sense of smell is gone, since it's keener than a human's; but I don't think he'll take alarm from that alone. Everyone else—the real humans—probably simply won't notice they aren't picking up odors. Would you, Brian, if you suddenly stopped smelling anything?"

  "Sooner or later I would," said Brian slowly, "but, it may be you're right; in special, with the excitement of the tourney before them."

  "And even if they do," said Jim, carried away on his own inspiration, "there's nothing in that that would make them suddenly get up and leave the stands, now is there?"

  "Leave, while spear-runnings are going on?" said Brian. "Just because they smell nothing? Such a thing as a sense of smell suddenly lost may be cured, or not—as God wills—after the tournament. No one would certainly leave, even if they were aware."

  "That's what I was thinking!" said Jim.

  "But you have not answered my first concern," said Brian, becoming stern again. "If Mnrogar should carry all before him, then he will surely come forward to claim the prize, since that is what you intend; and the unfairness of knights being conquered by unfair means of magic stands. So what use this keeping all there from smelling anything?"

  "Oh, as far as the unfairness of it goes," said Jim, "remember what I just asked you. If it was known the Black Knight was a troll in magic armor, and with a magic steed, who because of these unfair advantages had been able to unhorse true knights—then any shame to anyone who'd been unhorsed by him would cease to be. How could there be any reflection on the knight who lost, when, against magic, he was helpless to win? You agree to that, don't you?"

  "True," said Brian, frowning. "But how to have matters happen so all discover that Mnrogar is, indeed, but a false knight?"

  "It should be easy, Brian," said Jim. "Look—Mnrogar wins over everyone who rides against him and comes forward as if to claim the prize. But before he can, I'll have him take off his helm—and everybody's going to see he's only a troll. So the only way he could have won had to be with magic—which makes him unfit to win any prize. Otherwise, how could gentlemen of prowess be unhorsed by a creature that knows nothing of riding or lance-work? All there will understand at once."

  Jim held his breath, staring at his friend, mentally crossing his fingers that Brian would not suddenly find some further objection to this solution to the problem.

  For a moment Brian's frown deepened. He stared over at Mnrogar, then down at the snowy earth at his feet, trampled and marked by human footprints and horses' hooves. But then he looked up at Jim, with a smile forming on his face.

  "You will surely be able to do this, James?" he said. "Not merely take away the fact that those present might smell anything, but that Mnrogar should lift off his helm for all to see?"

  "That's what magic's for!" said Jim, beginning to breathe again. "But I swear to you, if anything goes wrong, you've got my word for it, that I'll acknowledge to everyone there, to the Earl and every guest—I'll explain the magicking of the boar and Mnrogar; and about the other troll in disguise among them. All, except that I won't mention that you were the one who trained Mnrogar and the boar."

  "Ah?" said Brian. "Yes. Yes, that would be good of you, James."

  "There won't be any need to mention that part of it, even if I have to explain—and I'm sure I won't have to," said Jim. For the first time in days he had an irrational feeling that everything tomorrow would go the way it should. A faint memory troubled him for a moment with the thought that every time he could remember feeling like this before, something had gone wrong. However, enough of a sense of relief was bubbling inside him now that he positively beamed at Brian.

  "Also, Brian," he said, "the excitement over Mnrogar's finding the troll hidden among them should take their minds off anything else."

  "To be sure," said Brian. "There is that, too. To say nothing of the fact the troll and boar both ran through their paces this morning without a fault. If you're satisfied now about the way Mnrogar is to act, then I believe I, too, can trust them. We can look forward to tomorrow with confidence."

  He was his old, cheerful self. It was, thought Jim, an excellent moment to end their conversation. He struck his forehead with the heel of his hand.

  "Good Lord, Brian!" he said suddenly, "I just remembered. I'm supposed to meet Angie back at our rooms. She may be waiting there for me now. Can I leave everything here in your hands, then? You'll forgive me if I leave suddenly, now?"

  "Certes!" said Brian cheerfully. "Tarry not. On your way!"

  Jim went.

  As it turned out Angie was indeed waiting for him, in the front one of their two rooms, when he came into it.

  "Hah!" said Angie. "There you are. A good thing, too. You'd better start getting dressed for dinner right away. We've come in late too many times. This is our next to the last dinner; and for once we're going to be among the early-birds."

  Jim thought of pointing out to her that she had just used the medievalism she had made a point of asking him not to use; but he decided against it. Discretion—always the better part of valor, he reminded himself. But this dinner business was something else.

  "Angie," he said, shedding his sword belt and sword, and beginning to get rid of the extra clothing he had put on against the temperature outdoors, "I've got three days' work to do yet between now and tomorrow morning. There're all sorts of problems—"

  "Enough, so you don't need any more," said Angie. "The rest of the guests are beginning to talk again about how little you're around; and make guesses as to what you're doing when they don't see you."

  Ahah! thought Jim; and undoubtedly some of those guesses would be like Brian's mistaken one—that he had become involved with another lady among the Earl's female guests. Angie should know better, but in any case the rumor could not be pleasant for her.

  "A lot of them disappear from time to time," said Jim. "They either disappear, or they talk about it."

  "You aren't them," said Angie; and Jim decided to steer clear of the subject. She went on. "You'll notice I'm already dressed."

  Jim hadn't.

  "Your saffron gown? The one you wore Christmas Day to dinner? I thought you'd save that for the last big meal, tomorrow."

  "Most of them will be up all night tonight, or nearly all night," said Angie, "and probably in no shape to pay too much attention to how people are dressed at the last dinner. In fact, some of them are leaving right after it, because they have to be back home by some date or other. Anyway, this is all beside the point. The point is that they're beginning to notice and talk about you being missing so much. Agatha Falon may have had a hand in it—or in starting it, at least. At any rate, there're questions; and all I can say is, Mnrogar's uncovering of the castle troll had better explain everything to everybody; or there's going to be a lot of gossip circulati
ng about us in the county during the coming year. Your clothes are laid out on your mattress there on the floor."

  "I see them," said Jim, and started to put them on.

  "What, exactly do you have to do between now and tomorrow?" Angie said, sitting down carefully in one of the chairs, with due regard for her dress, to watch Jim as he dressed. "And what happened this morning? You were going to go see how Brian was coming with Mnrogar and the boar-horse, weren't you?"

  "I did," said Jim. "They went through their paces perfectly. But Brian almost upset the apple cart by reminding me it had to be made clear that any knights that joust with Mnrogar hadn't risked their reputations; and that if Mnrogar won, it was by magic and other unfair ways. I got it settled with him, though. The herald is going to announce the Black Knight isn't the least interested in any prize. He just wants to show that he can overthrow anyone who comes against him in the lists."

  "Yes, that herald," said Angie. "Have you found someone to be a herald for you?"

  "Not so far," said Jim. "I'm going to go back to Malencontri and see if I can't find somebody who can at least sit up there on the horse while I put words into his mouth, magically or otherwise. I did think of May Heather. I could magically make her over so that she'd make a good-looking little imp—you know, to match the devilish appearance of Mnrogar and his horse—but I don't really trust her to follow orders."

  "No," said Angie. "For an eleven-year-old she's got too much independence for this particular period in history."

  They were both silent, thinking about it. May Heather was the youngest of the table service staff. She was not quite the youngest of all the servants who were concerned with the castle's food—there was a boy on the cooking staff who was actually two days younger than she was, but a little bit bigger—which wasn't saying much, since May Heather was not large.

  The kitchen staff, of course, was usually in their wooden building in the courtyard, outside the castle proper. The actual presentation of the food at table was done from the serving room, next to the Great Hall, by the serving staff alone—after the food had been cooked in the kitchen and separately transported to the serving room.

  The two staffs were independent, but there was a continuous movement back and forth among them, as dishes were carried from the kitchen to the serving room and what was left of what had been on them back to the kitchen again; and a rivalry had developed between May Heather and this particular boy, whose name Jim could not remember right now. It had escalated; and finally developed into a battle royal between the two of them in the courtyard, encircled by most of the other servants; who, medieval fashion, urged the combatants on, rather than doing anything to separate them.

  Both May Heather and the kitchen boy had fought themselves to exhaustion, with May being adjudged the winner. Since then they had been very good friends; but with relative rank now established, May Heather being the superior and the kitchen boy her admitted inferior.

  "No, not May," said Angie; and they both sighed.

  May Heather would be an invaluable person to have around the castle, if she ever reached the point where she could be trusted to follow important orders—and managed to grow up in this dangerous world she had been born into—a sort of female Sir Brian in residence.

  "Chances are, though," said Angie, echoing the thoughts of both of them, "she'll marry somebody and go off. In fact, we can almost count on it."

  "She might marry someone else who's a retainer in the castle, or on the castle lands," said Jim.

  "There's that," said Angie. "Why don't you sit down to put on your hose?"

  "Because I want to keep my sense of balance in training," said Jim. "How many men do you know my age who can still stand on one foot and put something like this on one leg while he's doing it?"

  "How many men do you think I've watched dressing since we came here to this fourteenth century?" said Angie. "Oh, Jim, that reminds me. I'll need one of the men-at-arms as a stand-in, to just be there and represent Joseph. I want to hold a rehearsal tonight, secretly. Enna can help, but I'll need the ox and the ass, and would you magic-up the walls and back of the stable for the scene? I assume you've already picked a secret place out in the woods where we can put on the play. Don't forget, the area of the manger has to be heated—you can do that with magic, too, can't you?"

  Jim lost his one-legged balance completely. Luckily, there was a chair close enough so that he managed to fall into that. He stared at her.

  "When do you expect me to get all this done, with everything else I've got to do?" he said. "Heat the manger? Why?"

  "Because little Robert will be in it, of course," said Angie. "That's going to be the greatest, concluding effect of the play. After it's all over, we'll invite the Earl and some of the chief guests up to actually step into the stall. They'll see all the way into the manger, then, and there'll be a living baby inside it. But it's got to be safe and warm for Robert there, as much as if he was in the other room here. Don't tell me there's any problem with that?"

  "Any problem with that?" said Jim. "I don't know if I can even make the stable scenery by magic. Can't somebody else get the ox and the ass? Did you ask Theoluf?"

  "Of course I did," said Angie, "but he said that somebody like you would have to get permission from the Earl, and one of his staff would have to go get them. I thought you could just magically bring some here from our own castle."

  "I—Angie," said Jim desperately, "I may have all the magic energy I could ever need at my fingertips right now; but that doesn't mean I know how to use it. I've never used magic to build anything. I've never used it to warm anything—to make a sort of indoor temperature when it's outdoors. And I've only used it to move myself from place to place. How do I use it to go get an ox and an ass for me from forty miles away, or whatever it is, when I don't know which ox or which ass, or where they are about our castle or lands right now?"

  Angie, who had gotten up from her chair a little earlier, sat down in it again and looked at him.

  "Jim—" she said.

  "Well, now, wait a minute," said Jim; for, clearly, she was seriously upset. "I haven't explained that to you before, and so maybe it's partly my fault; but you could have asked me a little earlier."

  "Evidently, I should," murmured Angie.

  "Well, it isn't the end of the world," said Jim. "First, let me talk to Theoluf myself."

  He visualized Theoluf standing in the room in front of him, having come from wherever Theoluf happened to be at the moment. This new visualization method of his of making magic was a lot faster and easier, he told himself with some satisfaction—and right upon the heels of that idea came the sudden realization that he, Jim, was now inside the castle, where his magic was prohibited. He sighed, and went to the door to have the guard there send for the squire.

  But in fact, Theoluf was already outside the door, having apparently just arrived by his own doing. Jim wondered fleetingly if some sort of instinct was at work inside that useful head.

  "Theoluf," said Jim, and cleared his throat, "ah—come inside."

  "Yes, m'Lord."

  "Now, tell me," said Jim, when they were inside the room with Angie, "what you know about getting an ox and an ass for Lady Angela's play. There ought to be some way we can get those two animals locally."

  "Oh, there's no trouble getting them here, m'Lord," said Theoluf. "I talked to the Earl's High Steward; and he said there was both an ass and an ox that could be brought here within the hour, if he had authority from the Earl to bring them."

  "Well," said Jim, deflated, "that takes care of that."

  "Oh, no, m'Lord!" said Theoluf. "A couple of silver shillings should do it, though you might have to give him three."

  "Oh? Oh!" said Jim, waking up to the fact that Theoluf was simply talking about the commonest way of getting things done unofficially in this particular century. "You're sure the steward would bring them for three shillings?"

  "Oh yes, m'Lord," said Theoluf.

  "Do you know where
he is now?" said Jim, fishing in his purse for coins, and bringing out a handful from which he separated three silver shillings. "Offer him two first, of course. You know where to find him?"

  "Oh yes, m'Lord," said Theoluf, "he's just downstairs. And of course I will only offer him a shilling first, and then work up. Undoubtedly he will have the beasts brought to the stable, and I will take them from there. Where did you wish me to take them, m'Lord?"

  Jim looked at Angie.

  "Did you have any place particularly in mind, Angie?" he asked. "It'll have to be a place near the castle, of course, so the guests can get to it easily. Also it needs to be a place that both you and I've seen if I'm going to—er—handle it."

  "How about that indentation in the woods where the Earl and Mnrogar had their talk?" said Angie. "You'd have to fix it somehow so that people in the castle couldn't see us rehearsing or anything like that. But it's easy to get to. If it wasn't for the fact that I don't want them to get any idea of what I'm going to show them ahead of time, I'd have liked to have it where they've got the tournament set up. The people watching could sit in the stands and watch, then. The trouble is, there's that barricade down the middle there; and I don't suppose you could take that away—you know, the way you're going to do the other things?"

  "I could not," said Jim. "It'll be a problem anyway, making sure nobody tries to wander into that area where Mnrogar and the Earl did their arguing. Carolinus has some trick of his own for keeping people away from things; but I don't know it. Carolinus?"

  He looked appealingly and hopefully at the empty air of the room; but Carolinus did not appear.

  "He's been deliberately avoiding me," said Jim to Angie. "No, it'll have to be the Earl and Mnrogar's meeting place; and I'll see what I can do about setting up some kind of wards that perhaps just make people uncomfortable if they come close to it. Also I'll have to magic-up a screen of trees to hide you; but I can do that because I remember how it looked from Mnrogar's viewpoint. Carolinus did show me that. See, Angie, anything I can visualize in my mind's eye, now, I can make by magic. But if I can't visualize, I'm helpless."