The Dragon, the Earl, and

by Gordon R. Dickson

  She had also had Jim order some of their own men-at-arms to secretly build a sort of crib, in which the baby had freedom of movement.

  "No, nothing dangerous about it at all," Jim repeated now, turning the ring over in his fingers.

  The ring was a simple circle of gold, sized to a woman's finger, with a flat top face into which had been cut the crest of the Falon coat of arms. A signet ring, designed to be pressed into hot wax to seal a letter or other document, so as to attest to the rank and identity of its signer.

  Indeed, it looked perfectly harmless. Jim, of course, was limited to examining it by nonmagical means, since the Bishop had now blessed the castle and no new magic would work until he had left. The only test he had been able to give it that approached magic had been the result of a recent talk with Carolinus, who had mentioned that an experienced magician should be able to tell by a sort of tingling in his fingers if a handled object had any magic in it.

  Jim had felt no tingling in his fingers from the ring. On the other hand, it could be that he was not yet enough of an experienced magician to make that sort of test.

  "But I'll keep this," he said finally. "Carolinus can look at it and tell me what he thinks. I'm pretty sure it's completely safe. The baby can't wear it, anyway; though I suppose we could fasten it to his clothing, one way or another."

  "Yes, m'Lord," said the wet nurse, "I could sew a loop to it to go over a button."

  "Well, then," said Jim, turning to the door and rather looking forward to getting out of the room—both rooms were stuffily overheated, with a fireplace in each merrily burning away. Brian had mildly tried suggesting to Angie that there might be something wrong in overheating the baby, or accustoming it to what was in essence a tropical temperature; but Angie had steamrollered him into silence with another grim statement that she would decide what was best for the child. She had sounded more like a she-wolf than anything else, ever since the moment in which she had first picked Robert up out of the snow. Neither Brian nor Jim had ventured to argue with her other than mildly.

  Jim turned and reached to lift the bar holding the door shut. But as he touched it, he was stopped.

  "M'Lord!" squeaked a tiny voice behind him. "Sir James! Oh, Sir James!"

  Jim and the wet nurse both spun about to face the fireplace.

  "Eek!" said the wet nurse, in a tone of voice admirably combining terror and extreme curiosity.

  Both emotions could be justified, Jim thought. Sitting in mid-air above the flames within the fireplace itself, apparently supported on a thin column of gray smoke, was a small brown figure in rather sooty clothes, consisting of tight hose, a tight jacket, and a small flat cap, jammed down tightly on his equally small round head. His nose was stubby, his eyes were bright pinpoints and he had a somewhat timorous smile on his little mouth.

  "It's just me, m'Lord. Hob, sir—your kitchen hobgoblin. I crave pardon, sir. I don't believe you've ever set eyes on me before, m'Lord. But I know you well, of course, and I'd not disturb you now, m'Lord—but it's a matter of most urgency— the dragon said."

  "Hob?" said Jim. "Dragon?"

  "Yes, m'Lord. A dragon called Secoh, m'Lord. He came to the castle searching for you most desperately. It was his own idea to go into the kitchen, whereat all your servants there went out; and he called up the chimney for me, so of course I came down. He sent me with a message to you—not being able, himself, to come safely to you here at this castle. Ordinarily, m'Lord, I'd never disturb your knightliness. But, I thought in this case—anyway I rode the smoke up and over the treetops to here, the way we hobgoblins do when there's need to."

  He fell silent.

  "I really am your kitchen Hob," he added anxiously. "It's just that we're all called Hob, all we hobgoblins."

  The last words came out with a note of sadness.

  "What's that got to do with it?" said Jim, a little snappishly. Too many things were being thrown at him too fast.

  "Nothing! Nothing at all, great magic knight!" cried Hob in a suddenly terrified voice. "It just slipped out. Forgive me, my Lord—I'm just your hobgoblin—at your service as always. Trusty and true—though small, of course. I didn't mean to mention that about my name…"

  "Don't you like being called Hob?" said Jim, his mind foggily trying to sort some meaning out of the little Natural's tangle of words.

  "I hate it—I mean I love it. Call me just Hob, m'Lord. Forget I mentioned it. It's a fine name. I… I like it."

  "You really mean you want a different name, is that it?"

  "Yes—no, no—call me just Hob, my Lord—" Hob was becoming even more terrified.

  "I'll call you Hob-One," said Jim impatiently, then regretted his tone of voice. "—de Malencontri, of course."

  "HOB-ONE?" The little green-brown eyes in the brown face opened very wide. "—DE MALENCONTRI? All for me?"

  "Certainly," said Jim.

  A remarkable change came over the newly renamed Natural. He literally beamed.

  "Oh, thank you, m'Lord! Thank you! I can't tell you—"

  "Never mind that. Why do you come out into the kitchen and go on eating binges every so often?" Jim asked—more to get his thoughts back on track than anything else.

  "I don't know!" said Hob-One humbly. "Something just comes over me, m'Lord. I have to come out of the chimney and throw myself around the kitchen from one thing to another, tasting everything. I don't know why I do it. I'm very sorry, m'Lord— I can't help it, though. Most of us hobgoblins go wild like that every so often. We've never known why."

  "Well, maybe we can look into it; and if you don't like it, maybe I can magically help you get away from it," said Jim. "You may have to go cold turkey for a while—I mean, you may have to possibly do without your eating fits; but if you'd like to be free of them—"

  "Oh, I would, m'Lord," said Hob. "I don't know. It seems to come on me when I'm feeling particularly small and lonely…"

  Jim had a sudden insight into why Hob went on the eating binges.

  "Yes," he said firmly, "from now on, all in Malencontri will be told to call you Hob-One. Possibly, just One for short. There, now you have a name. You're the number one—hobgoblin. Now, about your message—"

  Beyond the door a young male voice was abruptly to be heard, raised in outrage; so that its tones reverberated through the panel of the door itself and into the room.

  "What orders, sirrah?" it cried. "They do not apply to me! I am the Prince!"

  "Eek!" said Hob-One, or some kind of sound very like that, and shot up the chimney out of sight.

  "Now what?" muttered Jim. But the truth was, he had already recognized the voice as that of the young Crown Prince of England, whom he had last seen down at the dinner table, drinking moodily in silence. He turned to the wet nurse, who was standing, waiting beside him. "Go in the other room and wait until I call you. Try to keep Robert quiet, if you can."

  She disappeared behind the curtain of the connecting door. Jim went to the outer door and unbarred it. The Prince stumbled in, crossed the room to its two padded barrel chairs and fell into one, with his elbow on the table beside it.

  "Wine!" he said. "And a glass for yourself as well, Sir James. I must talk."

  "No," said Jim, standing where he was and looking down at the royal young man.

  For a moment, the word did not seem to penetrate the Prince's drink-fogged brain. Then it registered and he flushed, angrily.

  "What I gave you was a command, Sir James!" he shouted. "Fetch me wine, I say!"

  "And I said no," said Jim. In the next room, young Robert had been woken by the loudness of the Prince's voice, and was beginning to cry fitfully. But the wet nurse was quick in soothing him, evidently; for the crying degenerated swiftly to hiccups and he fell silent again.

  "How dare you!" said the Prince. "I've given you a royal order. You could die for such pertness!"

  He sat, staring angrily at Jim, while Jim said nothing; and slowly his face and voice both changed.

  "Why do you tell me n
o?" he said, almost plaintively.

  "You've already had a good deal of wine, your Grace," said Jim.

  "How dare—" The Prince broke off and seemed almost to crumple in the chair, all his rage going out of him. He went on in an almost pitiful voice. "Sir James—my good Sir James, I need to talk to you. You're the only one I can talk to, but I need wine to do it. I'm not used to talking like this. It's against everything in me to tell private matters like this to anyone outside. But I need wine to do it. I tell you, I must talk or fall apart!"

  He was suddenly very young and helpless. Jim looked at him for a long moment, and then caved in.

  "I'll see if there's any around," he said, turned on his heel and walked past the curtain into the other room to where the wet nurse was rocking a sleeping Robert in her arms.

  "Is there any wine here?" he asked her in a low voice.

  She was singing to Robert under her breath.

  "Ba, ba, lilly wean…" she sang, then raised her voice slightly to answer Jim. "In the corner there, my Lord, in the chest."

  She went back to her near-voiceless singing; and Jim went to the chest, opened its lid, and found not only wine but bread and some small cakes there as well, made of pastry and rather durable. He debated taking some of the cakes as well as the wine, in hopes of getting some food into the Prince—then reflected that the Prince must have eaten something already. It would probably do no good to try to force more food on him now.

  He took a bottle of wine and a leathern jug with a tie-down stopper, which held carefully boiled water to mix with the wine; also, a couple of metal cups, which he carried back into the other room and placed on the table by the Prince. Pulling up the other chair, he sat down facing the young man. He poured wine into the Prince's cup, filling it about a quarter full, and reached for the leather bottle.

  "—No water!" said the Prince.

  Jim ignored him and poured at least as much water as wine into the cup. Then he put a dollop of both into his cup.

  The Prince did not protest, but picked up his wine and water and took a thirsty swallow. Jim put his cup to his own lips, but only wet them and set his cup down again.

  "What is it that has you"—Jim checked himself in time from saying "bothered"—"concerned, your Grace?" he asked.

  "Agatha Falon!" said the Prince.

  Jim was puzzled. He was too ignorant of everything about Agatha Falon to understand what the Prince might mean. The young man could simply be feeling slighted, ignored or insulted somehow. He took a stab in the dark.

  "Yes," he said, "I saw and heard her talking busily with my Lord Earl."

  "That?" said the Prince with a wave of his hand, slumping in his chair. "What of that? She gathers trophies. It's her way. She's no beauty, but she would have the first attention of the highest she can reach. No, no, the Earl means nothing to her. It is my father!"

  "The King?" said Jim. Practically every unattached—and mostly all the attached—women who came to court would be hoping to attract the royal attention. The King, still only in middle age, even though alcohol-addicted—as Edward III had not been, in the history of the twentieth-century Earth from which Jim and Angie had come—could have his pick of the available ladies. It was probable that a rich Baron like young Robert's father would have been able to spend some time at court close to the King's person; and Agatha, of course, with him. But judging by what Jim had seen of her, Jim was surprised that someone like her could become a problem; either to the King or to the first Prince of the land, because of her interest in the Prince's father.

  "I wouldn't think his Majesty would be…" Jim was still searching for the proper word when the Prince broke in on him.

  "Faught!" the Prince said.

  Jim was startled. He had never heard anyone actually say "faught" before.

  "That strident strumpet!" the Prince went on. "Not that he nowadays is so… I thought him a God once when I was younger, seeing him in his robes and crown; and on another time when he was dressed in the armor he wore for the great sea battle with the French. But he is King! And she reaches not just for the Royal favor, but to be Queen!"

  Jim was more than startled—more than he would have ever imagined he could be at hearing this. Perhaps the few years he had spent here had made him more aware of the implications of what the Prince was saying.

  "But she can't hope to become Queen? I mean, she's not of high enough rank," said Jim.

  "Indeed!" growled the Prince. "She is hardly more than a commoner! And my mother was indeed a Queen—Isabella of France! But he, nowadays…"

  The Prince threw himself restlessly about in his chair, reached for his cup and gulped at it again. He set it down with a bang. "How can I talk about it?"

  "But how can she even hope—" Jim was beginning.

  "Some will dare anything," said the Prince, "and she—give her credit, she's bold enough to dream high enough. It could happen. He is wifeless for a second time, and she never married. There are means. She could be bought a higher rank and… It could be done…"

  He stopped, picked up his cup and put it down again.

  "My vessel is empty, Sir James," he said.

  Reluctantly, Jim poured a little more wine and somewhat more water into the Prince's cup. The other lifted it and drank it off without apparently tasting it.

  "And if it comes to pass, James," said the Prince, staring at the table top, "it were not unwise for me to watch against a dagger in my back, or have someone to taste my food before I eat it myself."

  "You don't mean that, your Grace!" said Jim. The Prince's last words had literally stunned him. This was England, he found himself thinking. Surely assassination at the royal level could not take place here. But then, even as he thought it, he realized it could. It could take place anywhere if the prize was large enough to make it worthwhile—and the throne of England was that.

  "She will stop at nothing for the lightest thing she wants!" said the Prince. "Because she will try more, she will gain more. She will end up getting what she wants—the crown my mother wore. And I am helpless, helpless!"

  He threw himself back into his chair, staring at the ceiling, and closed his eyes like someone in extreme pain.

  Jim sat silently watching him until he suddenly realized that the Prince's eyes had not opened again, his tense face had relaxed and his breathing had deepened.

  "Your Grace—" he said tentatively.

  There was no reply from the Prince.

  Jim reached out cautiously toward the Prince's arm. To even touch one of the immediate royal family without permission or command was one of the worst of crimes. But the Prince did not stir. He prodded the blue-clad arm gently.

  The Prince still did not react.

  Jim got to his feet, listened for a moment to Edward's breathing, which was becoming almost a snore, and went to the door that opened into the hall. He unbarred it and stepped outside to speak to the man-at-arms still on duty there.

  "Do any of the castle servants, particularly those who will be serving in the Great Hall right now, know you by sight, Wilfred?" he asked.

  Wilfred shook his head.

  "I think not, m'Lord."

  "Then I want you to go down. Enter quietly, not attracting attention if you can avoid it, circle around behind Sir John Chandos and Lady Angela at the high table, and carry a message to Sir John. Tell him quietly, so that nobody but Lady Angela will hear, that I need him urgently up here—as quickly as possible. Also, if the Lady Angela wishes to come too, say that I said that it would be better if she didn't."

  "Yes, m'Lord." Wilfred unbuckled his sword belt and dropped it with his sheathed sword gently to the corridor floor; for he was allowed to wear it here by their rooms in the castle only by special permission of the Earl and because of the presence of young Robert Falon.

  "You remember what I told you to say?" said Jim, although he knew the answer.

  "Word for word, m'Lord," said Wilfred, grinning a fleeting gap-toothed grin. He turned and went off down the corri
dor, moving swiftly but silently in his heelless shoes. Jim went back into the room.

  He sat down to wait; but it was not more than ten minutes before the door opened without so much as a knock or scratch and Chandos came in. Wilfred stood in the doorway until Jim nodded at him and he stepped back out, closing the door behind him.

  "Your Lady would have come," said Chandos, walking over to the chair where the Prince still lay back, now obviously in drunken slumber. He looked down at the young man. "I added my words to yours to dissuade her. There are more empty places at the high table than should be at this stage in the dinner."

  He turned his head and looked keenly at Jim.

  "Did he say what was concerning him?" Chandos asked.

  "Agatha Falon," said Jim. He was tempted to add a word about the Prince's royal father; but for a man with Chandos's perception it should not be necessary.

  Chandos nodded, looking back at the Prince.

  "Still, this sort of thing cannot be," Chandos said.

  "I didn't know how to get him back to his own quarters without attracting notice; from servants, if nothing else," said Jim. "That was why I sent my man-at-arms for you. I hope you didn't think me presumptuous, Sir John," he said, "for involving you in this—"

  "Not at all, James," said Chandos. "It'll be more understandable, and far better, if he is seen in this state with me, than with you. If you will lend me your man-at-arms from without, the two of us together can take him to my quarters, which are close here; and with luck we may not even encounter anyone else on the way. Once there, I can let him sleep. This won't happen again after I talk to him."

  He looked at Jim.

  "He'll be ready to listen in the morning. And it is too good a mind in that head, not to understand how something like tonight would play right into the hands of such as Agatha Falon, instead of guarding against her. Would you get your man-at-arms?"

  Jim went to the door and called in Wilfred.

  With Jim helping, they got the Prince on his feet, one arm draped limply over Chandos's outside shoulder and another over the outside shoulder of Wilfred, both Sir John and the man-at-arms holding a wrist; and with their other arms around the Prince's waist, holding him upright between them.