The Dragon and the Fair Maid of Kent

by Gordon R. Dickson

  Brian told him in fulsome scatological terms what he could do with his lineage.

  "… As for me, m'lord," he concluded, "I am of the Nevilles of Raby, and need look down in the presence of no man. You will answer to me for this!"

  Both men were now grasping the hilts of their swords.

  "Willingly—" Sir Mortimer was beginning, when a stout, very well-dressed man with a heavy silver chain around his neck and some sort of medallion hanging from it pushed his way between them.

  "Stop this at once, gentlemen!" he ordered fiercely. "What? Brawling in this, of all chambers—" He checked himself suddenly. "Sir Brian!"

  His eyes had rested on Brian's face.

  The change in his tone of voice was surprising, although the sternness remained. "You left us but an hour since. I did not look to see you back so soon—"

  "As it happens, Sir William," answered Brian, letting go of his sword and speaking in a calmer voice, "I already found and have with me both the gentlemen that were spoken of."

  "Excellent!" said Sir William, smiling. "Sir John will want to see you immediately. Come with me."

  About to leave, he turned back to look at Sir Mortimer.

  "As for you, m'lord," he said, sternly, "it would not bear you amiss to remember to mind your manners in this place. Sir John will see you when he sees you."

  He turned back to Brian. "Come, you and the two you bring." He led the three of them to and up the staircase, with the gaze of all eyes in the room following.

  That episode, as Jim, Brian and Giles had been on their way to France, had left Jim with anything but a high opinion of Sir Mortimer Verweather—and this was the man who headed a group and had felt for the Prince and the King? He who had set out to bring royal father and son together once more?

  Happily, Jim was not being called on to say anything at the moment to applaud the Prince's high opinion of the man. Edward, all his earlier hesitation drowned in enthusiasm and excitement, was now talking his head off.

  "… it was the plague arriving in London that made the opportunity!" Edward was saying. "Cumberland himself was all for withdrawing from the city—as all who were of gentle blood or could afford to do were so doing—and of course, as chamberlain he said that the King and all the chief functionaries of the court must go with them to set up a government in country exile, so to speak, so that the many royal duties of ruling the land could continue unhindered."

  Jim nodded. That, at least, made sense—particularly the business of taking the King away from a center of infection. He was about to volunteer the same advice he had given the Bishop—about clearing wherever they could of both rats and fleas—but Edward, eager to tell him the full story now, did not give him a chance.

  "… As it happened," the Prince was going on, "Cumberland already had in mind a particular castle in his own possession. A castle named Tiverton, in Devon, ordinarily occupied by the Earl of Devon—but he is not there at present. It is a castle already fully staffed with an unusually able staff—my father could look for all court comforts and the best of service. It has a cellar of unmatchable wine… and so forth. Cumberland brought the King to a high degree of willingness to leave court. But then, a difficulty arose."

  Edward beamed at Jim.

  "It was a blow to Cumberland himself, for he had already set in action the plans for his own removal to Tiverton, and of course my royal father was now determined to go. The problem was that Cumberland found he could not go also—at least for the moment. The biter, bit—how do you like that for the shrewdness with which he is too often given credit, James?"

  "Forgive me," said Jim. "But why couldn't Cumberland go?"

  "As I told you, but a second since," said Edward, casually riding over his own failure to have done so, "it turned out that the moving of all the necessary high functionaries Cumberland needed close at hand for matters now in process required taking more people than the castle—it is a good-sized castle, but too small for the number of people he had picked for the retreat—could crowd in, with all their necessary clerks, papers and other necessities!"

  He stopped talking to stare at Jim.

  "Ah-hah!" said Jim, feeling some comment was required from him, and hoping that would do.

  "Exactly!" said Edward. "He should have made sure there was room for all before he made my father eager to go—he had not been at all of a mind to leave his familiar apartments at court when Cumberland first spoke to him. But there the Earl now finds himself, with no great choice in the matter. My father must certainly go, Cumberland, himself, must as certainly stay, for some little time at least. Joan had been right. Opportunity had been found for me. You do not see how?"

  "No, Your Grace."

  "I am surprised at you, James, who also have something of reputation for quick wit. My father is King. No one can deny him if, in exile, it is his choice to admit me to his presence—something Cumberland and his people had been keeping me from with no end of lies and excuses. Also, now I had a friend, Sir Verweather, on the inside to help me frustrate those functionaries and spies Cumberland had sent with the King's entourage."

  He stopped talking, drank from his mazer—stopped drinking to pour in a good quantity of wine—and drank again, deeply. He sat back in his chair, smiling.

  "To make a long story short," he said, "I have since seen my father several times, and things progress. Not apace. But they progress!"

  "Then everything's taken care of for you," said Jim, relieved.

  "Not everything."

  "Not everything?" Jim looked at him cautiously. What was to be proposed now, which might involve him, Angie, Malencontri or their friends?

  "There is a small problem yet remaining. Only a small one, but I assure you it means a great deal to me. It is necessary that at frequent intervals I discuss matters having to do with my meetings with my royal father privily with Sir Verweather. But the servants in this castle where he now is were spoken of to Cumberland as being excellent beyond description. It is only too true."

  Jim frowned at him.

  "Only too true?" he said. "How can they be excellent beyond description?"

  "How, I do not know, James," said the Prince, sobering. "But I assure you they are. Never have I been served with such excellence. They must all have fairy blood in them. You open your mouth in your room to call for one, and he or she is scratching at your door before the words are hardly out of your mouth. At table they are always at your elbow. It breeds an uneasiness both in me and in Sir Verweather. If this excellent staff can do so much, perhaps it also has ways of listening in through closed doors and stone walls in Tiverton Castle."

  "Yes," said Jim, "it could make things difficult—if they actually can, of course." Perhaps this was what the Prince had come to him for. He wanted Jim to use magic to see whether the staff actually could do such a thing.

  "—and, as I say," Edward was going on, ignoring him, "we must, Sir Mortimer and I, confer privily. But the slightest whisper in my father's ear that there might have been a secret arrangement made to bring the two of us together would confirm in my father's mind all the evil that Cumberland has been at pains to place there."

  "I see," said Jim, beginning to take this situation more seriously.

  "I knew you would. That is why we have come to you—Joan and I—with a simple request. There is no safe spot in that castle for conversation between me and Sir Verweather."

  "It doesn't sound like it," said Jim, perhaps more frankly than was polite. What kind of magic was the Prince about to demand of him now?

  "It is not safe. Therefore I would wish, with your good consent, of course, some other place. Tiverton is hardly more than half a day's brisk ride from where we are now. I propose to hold my talks with Sir Verweather in Malencontri. That would also give me opportunity to see Joan, since I had no choice but to accept my father's offer of quarters for myself alone, as he believes me to be, in Tiverton."

  Jim stared at him.

  "You would oblige me much by permitting t
his, James," said Edward, smiling at him, "and it is a small request, after all."

  "ER-hum!" said Jim, clearing his throat more loudly than he had meant to do.

  "There is some small difficulty?" said the Prince, his smile vanishing.

  Jim's mind was racing. Was it possible Edward did not realize what he was asking his host? Or was he either so obsessed with solving his own problem, or so used to having his way without counting the cost to others, that he had not even thought of what agreeing could cost Jim, Angie and everyone connected with them?

  It would tie Verweather's scheme to Malencontri. Cumberland could charge (undoubtedly successfully, given his power and money for bribes) that they had all been in a plot by the Prince to control the King. The Prince might be driven into exile, after all. Perhaps not, but most certainly the rest of them would be tortured to make them confess to treason, and afterwards hung, drawn and quartered.

  "Forgive me, Your Grace," he said now. "But I'm afraid you just happened to run up against an unexpected and unusual difficulty. As you probably know, I am a member of the Collegiate of Magickians—" That was stretching things a bit, since Carolinus had hinted he was being considered for membership, but this was no time for half measures. "As a member, certain laws unknown to those outside our mystic Body are unyielding upon me."

  "It is forbidden to allow your Prince a room in this castle of yours where he can discuss privy matters with a friend?" said Edward. "What law would keep you from agreeing to a simple request from an old friend? Tell me!"

  "I regret, Your Grace, I may not speak of our laws with any but another Magickian. It is like," said Jim on sudden inspiration, "and fully as important as the vows you and I took when we were made knights."

  The Prince was definitely not appeased.

  "Surely the rules of some small secret society must yield before your duty to your King and his well-being? No voice in England speaks louder than the duty to the Crown."

  The Plantagenet firecracker temper—to say nothing of Plantagenet unreasonableness—was beginning to sound in the Prince's voice, though just at that moment a booming noise penetrating the rocky ceiling somewhat obscured the Prince's words.

  "In all ordinary matters you are right of course, Your Grace," said Jim. "But there are special areas of exemption." He was trying to keep his own voice calm and level. "Areas only, of course. But as in Holy Church—"

  "Do you dare to compare your little secret society to Holy Church?" half-shouted the Prince—just as the Solar door behind him scraped open and an even more powerful voice boomed behind him.

  "Of course my Lord Sir James means no such thing!" the new voice roared, overriding even the booming from the tower—a voice trained to be heard by audiences in large churches. "Like all good men he knows that Holy Church speaks above all, even the voices of Kings, who are only of this earth. Over all, it speaks above the voice of a youth whose wayward and disgraceful actions have become a reproach in the face of the father whose power he cites!"

  Angie, followed by the Bishop, had just walked in.

  "Er—" began Jim, trying to get into the conversation, but frustrated by the combination of the Bishop's powerful voice and the booming overhead which united to drown him out. The Bishop was only making things worse. Left alone, Jim told himself, he might have been able to smooth things over with the Prince.

  "… And such a son owes a double duty when his father and King are one and the same! A duty to father and a duty to King. Hast thou honored thy father as required in the Gospels? If so, I do not know of it! And now you slander a body of dutiful men and women, permitted by our Lord to do much good, and who have committed their lives to so doing. They have healed the wounds of those who suffered! They are loved by man and beast alike! They have stood between all of us and the creatures of Darkness—and you, callow young man, would sneer at their duties and rules that may conflict with your own selfish wishes!"

  "Proud Bishop!" cried Edward, "do you think to preach at me as if I was one of your common communicants, hands still soiled from the plow? I tell you—"

  "Excuse me a minute!" Jim finally managed to shout over Edward's voice. "I'll just step upstairs and see if I can't put an end to the noise there, so we can hear each other talk—"

  He broke off before the Prince could say anything, and without waiting for agreement from any of them, he got to his feet and bolted from the Solar.

  But before he put his head up through the rectangular opening where the stairs to the tower top ended, he knew what was making the booming noise—in fact he had known from first hearing what it would be.

  It was the voice of Secoh, the little—by dragon standards—marsh-dragon who had been one of his companions at the Loathly Tower fight, where they had first managed to rescue Angie from the Dark Powers.

  Secoh it was, his back to Jim and speaking thunderously in his normal dragon voice as if to another dragon. But in this case the one he was speaking to, the man-at-arms on watch, had never been face-to-face with a dragon in his life. He was a young man, still pimpled and with a tic in his right eye, named Wink Millerson, and had joined Malencontri only recently. Now, white-faced—but with his halberd held manfully edge-out before him, in battle position—he was backed up as far from Secoh as the limits of the tower top would permit.

  There was only one cure for this situation, where Jim's own human voice would not even be heard. He vaulted up the three last steps so that he would have room, and put on his own dragon shape.

  "Shut up!" he roared at Secoh—a full octave lower from his much bigger dragon lungs and throat.

  It was the wrong command. He should have ordered "Silence!" in understandable fourteenth-century style. But Secoh knew his voice, and had no trouble interpreting the meaning of the dragon tone which had just bellowed at him. He closed his mouth immediately and spun around just as Jim turned back into his human body. In the closest approach a marsh-dragon could make to a human whisper he replied.

  "Very sorry, m'lord. Is this better, m'lord?"

  "Yes," said Jim, speaking in his ordinary voice. "Secoh, you know you're welcome here at any time—" he could hardly say anything else in this time and world to someone who had fought at his side "—but I've always asked you to keep your voice down when you're inside."

  "But we're outside now, m'lord!"

  "No," said Jim.—

  "No?" whispered Secoh.

  "No," said Jim. "Here, the courtyard—anywhere encircled by Malencontri's outer wall, and always when humans are nearby—you're to keep your voice down!"

  "Yes m'lord. I won't forget, m'lord—"

  "Never mind, what brings you here?"

  "Forgive me of your grace and kindness, my lord," said Wink, speaking fast, and the tic in his right eye that had earned him his name had him winking furiously to keep up with the nervous speed of his words, "but the dragon was between me and the alarm bell. I was just about to try what I could do to him with this—" he hefted the halberd, "but his voice was so loud it fair stunned me at first; it did indeed, my lord!"

  "That's all right," said Jim. "He's an old companion and friend. Always welcome here. If he booms at you, just wave him down. Now, Secoh—"

  "M'Lord!" Secoh drew himself up stiffly, almost exploding from the need to deliver his message in a whisper and still give it the proper ring of importance. He added, "I have the honor to report that the Young Dragon Patrol is now on duty and will continue to sweep the skies from here to Castle Smythe in the west and to Castle Malvern in the east. You need never fear being surprised by foes again!"

  Jim closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Be calm, he told himself. When things come too thick and fast, he calm, and take each point calmly, one at a time.

  Chapter Six

  Jim opened his eyes again, took another deep breath, and charged into the cross-examination he was used to giving to Secoh on these occasions.

  "Do their parents at the Cliffside eyrie know about this?"

  "Oh, yes, m'lord."
<
br />   "And they approve?"

  "Yes, m'lord."

  Secoh would not be lying, but this was almost too good to be true. Ordinarily, a marsh-dragon—a tribe shrunken and weakened by evil effect of the Dark Powers' occupation of the Loathly Tower—might ordinarily have been lucky to have any attention paid to him at all in the eyrie of the Cliffside dragons. But Secoh had been transformed from the timid marsh-dragon he had been for a hundred and thirty-three years of living on crustaceans and fish, by joining Jim and the others in rescuing Angie from the tower.

  He had become, in effect, a bully, the result of a discovery that he could fight any other male dragon, regardless of size, with nothing to lose—while on the other hand the larger dragon's winning could never redound to his credit. Of course, any dragon would fight anything if he lost his temper—a dragon failing. But if the larger dragon did well—after all, the other dragons told each other, what did you expect him to do but win against an opponent that small? On the other hand, if Secoh even barely survived such a conflict, he was obviously a hero-dragon who feared no one and no thing.

  Dragons are a pragmatic people. If there is nothing to be gained, why bother with it? So, no Cliffside male wanted to put things to the test. Why get yourself torn up at all for nothing?

  Besides, Secoh undeniably had been with Jim at the Battle of the Loathly Tower—where Jim, in dragon body, had slain an ogre—and no dragon had ever done that. Secoh, too—admittedly with the help of the legendary Smrgol, by then aged and recently crippled by a stroke—had also performed like a hero in that battle. Secoh had helped to slay Bryagh, the large and powerful rogue dragon who had stolen Angie away to the Dark Powers at the Tower.

  To the dragons of Cliffside, the important thing about that battle was that a dragon, in fair fight, had met with and destroyed an ogre, and the dragon—Jim using the body of a Cliffside dragon—was a Cliffsider! The glory of that victory shone on all of them, and if Secoh had been there too, he also deserved some glory, as well.