The Incorporated Knight

by L. Sprague De Camp

  "I'm sure, Yolanda," he said. "I believe in scouting territory ere I invade it."

  "Well, my first mate was chosen for me, as is usual with the children of royalty. He was Gontran of Tolosa, a duke's son and a famous warrior. But he proved a stupid, drunken brute, who laid vile hands upon me in anger."

  "What happened to him?"

  Yolanda shrugged. "He disappeared one day. 'Twas thought that, like many another dissatisfied husband, he'd run off, changed his name, and taken up a new life elsewhere."

  "But then, how could you—"

  "Oh, I see what meanst. As I once told you, there's no divorce in Franconia; only annulment, to be had by lavishly bribing the priests of the Triunitarian hierarchy. But if a spouse vanish and nought is heard of him, or her, for a year, he may be declared legally dead. This has the same effect as an annulment; and thus it was with Gontran."

  "What if he reappear?"

  "Legally, that has no effect. But I dread the thought; for Gontran was a rancorous, vengeful man, who never forgave what he deemed a slight or let bygones be bygones. Hatreds and grudges so filled his mind as to render him impervious to reason. I hope you'd be prepared to confront him, should he—ah— manifest himself in the flesh."

  Eudoric sighed. "I can only do my best. How about Husband Number Two?"

  "He was a poet from your Empire, Landwin of Kromnitch."

  "Forsooth? Methinks I knew that fantastico a few years agone. A tall, thin, fair-haired wight?"

  "Aye. He had some vague claim to noble descent, which I credited not; but he sang such sweet songs and made such tender love that, being young and foolish, I overlooked the vileness of's blood, I persuaded Clothar to knight him for his verses. Still and all, to marry off a royal to such an one did bend the framework of our social order until it creaked."

  "How fared the pair of you in wedlock?" Eudoric asked. He was a little surprised to find that his emotion on learning of Yolanda's much-married past was less jealousy than a consuming curiosity.

  "I could not complain of his lectual performance," said Yolanda. "For all his meager frame, he had lust enough for three. The trouble was, he wouldn't confine his interest to his wedded wife, but must need fatter the scullery maids behind the door to the buttery. So we quarreled, and he disappeared as did the other."

  "And Number Three?"

  "That was Sugerius, Count of Perigez. An imperceiverant bookworm, who cared nought for the usual amusements of the nobility: hunting, drinking, gambling, fighting, and fornication. He neglected me for his musty tomes and moldy manuscripts until he drove me to seek consolation in other beds. When Sugerius found out, he had the insolence to strike me—me, a royal princess!"

  "And then he disappeared," said Eudoric, suppressing the skepticism from his voice. This tale of the three absconding husbands had to Eudoric an odor of fish. He wondered what had truly befallen them. Had they been dropped through a trapdoor into a cellar or a well containing something man-eating? Had they been bricked up alive in the walls of her palace? He asked: "Were there others betwixt Sugerius and me?"

  "Nay; you're Number Four, and I hope you will outlast your predecessors. It were worth your while to try, since you will have my royal brother as your patron.

  "I am sorry to have betimes been bad-tempered; but I have suffered great vicissitudes of late. Nor are you an ever-present ray of sunshine. Still, you are a man of many virtues, whom I am sure I shall truly love."

  "Thankee," said Eudoric dryly. He wondered whether even the enormous advantages of being a client of the King were worth the risk of being dropped into a monster-haunted pit. "Let me tell you a little secret. A man's ability as a swordsman of the other kind, to borrow your words, hinges much upon his health of body and peace of mind. If you'd fain cause his—ah—resolution to droop, you have but oft to berate him in harsh and wounding terms. If you're fain to have him serve you with vigor, flatter and praise him; make him think himself worthier than in his heart he knows himself to be.

  "Meanwhile, we shall go on to Gaura and thence through the forest to the border."

  "What of this orthodox ogre?" asked Yolanda.

  Eudoric shrugged. "If it exist, we shall cope with it as best we can. From what I know of peasant legends, it's but a tissue of dreams and moonshine. Trot!"

  -

  XIV – The Orthodox Ogre

  "Forthred!" called Eudoric. "Mark!"

  For half a day they had plodded through the forest east of Gaura. Since it was an ancient forest, where no timber had been felled for many decades, there was little underbrush. The only obstacles were an occasional stream, or a ledge, or a giant tree trunk athwart their path. The leaves had just begun to turn to yellow and bronze. From time to time they fell, rocking and spinning earthward in the cool, calm, autumnal air.

  At Eudoric's command, Forthred, far in the lead, thrust a yard-long stake or wand into the ground. Yolanda, leading her horse, followed at a distance. Behind her came Eudoric, leading the remaining animals with one hand and grasping a bundle of wands in the other. When he reached the aftermost stake, he halted and, squatting, sighted over this stake and the next one. "A little to my right!" he called, waving. "Yolanda, step aside that I may see."

  When Forthred had moved his stake to right and left until all three stakes were in a straight line, Eudoric called: "Good!" and pulled up the stake before him. Forthred inserted his stake upright in the soft soil and called:

  "That's my last marker, sir!"

  "Yolanda!" said Eudoric. "Hold the animals, pray."

  Hastening forward, he thrust the reins into her hands and continued on to where Forthred stood. He handed the apprentice the bundle of wands he bore and went back to where Yolanda waited. By this simple form of surveying he hoped to keep the party traveling in a fairly straight line. Otherwise under the canopy of leaves, especially on overcast days, they could easily lose track of direction and wander in circles until they dropped.

  They resumed their deliberate march, halting at intervals to plant and pull up stakes. Presently Forthred cried out shrilly: "Master! Sir Eudoric! Come speedily!"

  Eudoric again handed the reins to Yolanda and ran forward. He found his squire staring fearfully at a singular being. This was a man-shaped creature half again as tall as a man, with a thick, warty hide. Webbed fingers and toes ended in claws. A pair of horns surmounted pointed ears. From beneath its blob of a nose, like a grotesque mustache, sprang a pair of yard-long, tapering, serpentine tendrils, which twitched and writhed. Smaller tendrils depended from its chin and rose from its scalp. The club it carried was nearly a fathom long—as long as Eudoric was tall.

  "God den," said Eudoric. "Are you the orthodox ogre whereof we have heard peculiar tales?"

  "We do not call ourselves 'ogres,' " rumbled the giant in a guttural accent. "It is a name ye little folk have given us, meant in no flattering spirit. As for my orthodoxy, we shall soon see about that, when it is decided whether ye three shall be eaten or not. Think not to flee, for I can outdistance you as a hare outruns a tortoise."

  Eudoric made sure his sword was loose in its scabbard, although he did not highly rate his chances in combat with the ogre. The creature's pachydermous hide furnished armor of a sort, and its size and reach would enable it to squash Eudoric like a bug before he could get close enough to inflict a mortal thrust.

  "Really?" said Eudoric, assuming a composure that he did not feel. "Then how would you prefer to be addressed, sir?"

  "Our name for our own kind," said the ogre, "is Ghkhlmpf." At least, it sounded like that to Eudoric.

  "I fear I could never master the ogerish tongue," said Eudoric. "But what's this about your orthodoxy?"

  "Know, little stranger, that until a few years ago, in my ignorance I devoured all who came my way, regardless of sect. But now that Bishop Grippo hath converted me to the Triune Faith, I give those whom I stop a chance to earn their lives by questioning them about the tenets of the True Faith. An they give truthful answers, they are suffered to proc
eed. My first question—"

  "Your pardon, Sir Ogre," said Eudoric, "but I must have a word with my servant." In Locanian he said to Forthred: "Go back—walk, do not run—to see what Yolanda is doing. If the ogre attack me, I'll try to hold it in play long enough for you two to mount and gallop away." He turned back to the ogre. "And now, sir, what are these questions?"

  "First," said the ogre, "ye shall recite the sixteen essential points of the Triune doctrine, as formulated by the Supreme Archimandrite, Alexanax the Third."

  Eudoric tightened his grip on his sword. With a forced smile, he said: "I fear you have the advantage of me. Though not a religious man, I was reared in the Empire, where the official creed is that of the Divine pair—"

  "Ho!" roared the ogre. "Bishop Grippo especially impressed upon me the need for utterly extirpating that vile heresy!" He hefted his club and took a step forward, each mustache-tendril writhing like an angleworm on the hook.

  "On the other hand," continued Eudoric as if unperturbed, "my recent bride, the Princess Yolanda of Franconia, could probably answer your questions better—"

  "I care nought for your bride!" growled the ogre. "When I have finished with you, she shall have her chance to escape mine inquisition. Die, pygmy!"

  With a frightful roar, the ogre bounded forward and swung his club. Eudoric's head would have been smashed like an egg had he not leaped backwards as the wind of the blow fanned his face. The ogre moved with agility remarkable in one of its bulk. As Eudoric noted that the toe claws, digging into the humus, gave the ogre the needed purchase, he knew that he could never outrun those colossal legs.

  He thrust at the ogre's arm as the monster recovered from its swing; but the distance was too great for the weapon to be effective. His point merely scratched the hide of the forearm. With his left hand, Eudoric fumbled for his dagger. Perhaps, he thought, his best chance would be to leap in close, inside those rugose, ape-long arms and try to stab the ogre in one of its thinner-skinned parts.

  "A lively minikin!" grumbled the ogre. "But it will not save you!"

  The ogre brought its club in a shooshing arc straight down. Eudoric sprang aside, but the club grazed his left arm and thumped against the humus with the sound of a muffled drum. The glancing blow made Eudoric stagger, and his dagger went spinning away.

  "We will soon end your dance!" roared the ogre, aiming a wide, sweeping sidewise blow at Eudoric's ankles. Eudoric had just time and strength to leap into the air as the club passed beneath him.

  "Last blow!" howled the ogre, heaving up its club and crouching to spring. Eudoric tensed himself to bound forward into the ogre's embrace. He could not recover his dagger in time, but a shortened sword might serve the task. If it did not, this would be his last adventure.

  Then came an interruption. With half an ear, Eudoric heard Yolanda cry out a phrase in an unknown tongue. A heartbeat later, amid a rising hum, the air about the battling pair was filled with flashing, swirling, black-and-yellow objects. A howl from the ogre told Eudoric that a swarm of huge hornets had streamed past him and attacked his foe. They thrust their stings into the ogre's leathery hide and especially clustered on its face, neck, and other thin-skinned parts.

  Roaring, the ogre danced about, its footfalls shaking the forest floor. It swung a futile club until it dropped the weapon to swat its tormentors with its web-fingered hands. At last it conceded the contest and fled, careening and crashing through low-hanging branches in its flight.

  Wincing at the pain in his battered arm, Eudoric picked up his dagger and returned to the glade where Yolanda and Forthred crouched beside a brazen tripod. A slender column of turquoise smoke ascended from the dish of brass suspended beneath the tripod's apex. Beside the tripod stood the viridine vase that Eudoric had urged Yolanda to leave behind in Ysness. The horses and the mule were tethered to nearby trees.

  "What on earth—" began Eudoric, but Yolanda laid a finger on her lips. So Eudoric watched in silence. Then Yolanda rose; she made a trumpet of her hands and called; "Rudi sasa upesi! Rudi sasa upesi!"

  For a while the glade was silent, save for the stirring of the animals. Then Eudoric heard the hum of the hornets. Strung out in a long column, the swarm wound through the air among the tree trunks as they flew towards the travelers. Eudoric prepared to fight them off, but the hornets streamed directly for the green ceramic and plunged into it. By the time the last of the hornets had vanished into its depths, Eudoric felt sure that the total volume of the insects was several times that of the vase; but, as he told himself, such paradoxes were common in magic. Yolanda clapped the lid back on the vase and smiled triumphantly up at him.

  "Well!" said Eudoric, helping her up. "Princess, your magic assuredly saved our gore that time. My profoundest thanks!"

  She shrugged. "That was the spell whereof I was not sure. By good hap, it worked just right. Aren't you glad you failed to persuade me to leave my jar behind? Pray help me to pack up again."

  Eudoric said: "Lend a hand, Forthred. You must excuse me, my dear, for my left arm was somewhat banged by the ogre's club."

  "You are hurt? Oh, darling, let me see ... What a ghastly bruise! I have an ointment. Hold still ..."

  Eudoric relaxed as she got out a small jar and rubbed a pungent salve on the bruise. "Thank you, Yolanda. I'm glad the bone be not broken."

  "I'm sure 'twill be well by the time we reach Dorelia."

  -

  The rest of the journey through the forested borderland was uneventful, save that for one day the fugitives were shadowed by a pack of wolves. The wolves never came close enough to alarm; but the sight and smell of them, slipping around the black tree trunks in the middle distance, drove the beasts of burden frantic and so delayed their progress while Eudoric and Forthred strove to bring their animals under control.

  -

  The travelers never knew when they crossed the border into the duchy of Dorelia and hence, in theory, into the kingdom of Franconia. When they were sure, Yolanda said: "At last I can show my true colors and get the respect that be my due, instead of slinking along pretending to be some lowly tradesman's lass!"

  "Oh, no, you shan't!" said Eudoric. "This is the demesne of Sigibert of Dorelia. If the Duke should learn we are within his grasp, he might arrest us to use as bargaining counters with your royal brother."

  "Then how," Yolanda asked, "shall we find our way across the duchy without trouble from the Duke?"

  "The same way that Forthred and I came hither: by moving softly and swiftly, showing no token of rank or pretension. How didst manage the transit to Armoria?"

  "Oh, that was last year, when Clothar and Sigibert were in one of their spasms of undying friendship. Moreover, Sigibert's son, young Lord Theodad, was then at the court of Letitia and thus in Clothar's power. And further, my witchly repute perchance made the Duke more cautious than he might otherwise have been."

  "So," said Eudoric, "we shall still be humble travelers, atoms in the sea of the faceless multitude."

  She gave an exaggerated sigh. "Life with you, Shorty, is but one long train of escapes and disguises. Where's the pleasure in't?"

  "I'm sorry, Your Royal Highness," said Eudoric in his most sarcastic tone. "At the next recess, I'll see that the servitors have a grand banquet laid, to be followed by a ball with ten thousand candles, a hundred musicians, and a company of comedians. We shall dance the galliopter and the minurka, and bid Berthar of Sogambrium to sing The Lay of Erpo Giantkiller. We'll invite the King of Carinthia, the Emperor, and the Grand Cham of the Pantorozians. The dinner shall include roast breast of peasant—"

  "Shut thy gob!" screamed Yolanda. Then she burst into tears. "Oh, Eudoric! Why dost goad me into making these disgraceful scenes? All I wish is to be the true and loving wife of a virtuous man—a man of suitable rank, of course. With Forthred you are kind and patient; why can't you be the same with me?'

  "Because, my dear, you and Forthred differ to no small extent, do you not?"

  "Certes; he's a mere hilding of low
degree. Whereas I—well, you ought to make allowances for my rank and position and use me gently."

  "So who was gentle when the Heavenly Pair created the first man and woman?"

  "My brother has hanged men for remarks less subversive than that! You sound like one of the villainous Jacks, who revolted when I was a child and went through the country burning and slaying. They'd have taken your head in a trice, for carrying pen and ink. They wished to extirpate the art of letters, holding it a means whereby the nobles oppressed them; for they sought a fantastical commonwealth of equals, where none could command another."

  "We heard of that in Arduen," said Eudoric. "How the highways of Franconia bore thousands of bodies of Jacks, hanging from the roadside trees."

  "They did but get their just deserts, for rising against their natural lords. I confess that one tenet of their prophet Gundolf did appeal to me: namely, that women should have rights like those of men, instead of being treated as mere chattels."