The Dragon, the Earl, and

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "A pleasure to see you again, Sir James," said Sir Harimore, standing up from the table to face them. "—Sir Brian."

  "Sir Harimore," said Brian. "Sir James was with me when we reviewed your splendid exercise with Sir Butram of Othery. I had another good friend with me, also—a Northumbrian knight named Sir Giles—who does not seem to be in the room with us right now. But both Sir James and Sir Giles much applauded your sword-work. I also. Sir James and I wanted to wish you joy of your winning the bout."

  "The merest chance," said Sir Harimore. "A lucky stroke, in a moment when Sir Butram's shield was a trifle down. I was concerned for the good knight, when he fell, for all that we were playing with blunted weapons. But he seemed dazed, no more, when he woke, after a few moments; and I hear he had nothing but a headache in consequence. I would not have done him any real harm for a wealth of moneys."

  "Nor I," said Brian. "He is a good knight, and has proved it many a time."

  "Well, in any case, I thank you and Sir James for your kind wishes," said Sir Harimore, looking keenly at Jim.

  "They were certainly earned," said Jim. "I was considerably impressed by your skill."

  "Oh, a mere trick or two," said Sir Harimore. He half turned back toward the table. "May I make you gentlemen acquainted with my Lady of Othery, who sits next to me, here? Sir Butram has been let blood and is keeping his bed."

  Jim and Brian acknowledged the introductions. The Lady of Othery was considerably younger than the man Jim had seen matching swords with Sir Harimore. She had blonde hair, lively blue eyes and a merry face.

  "—Also, on the other side of the table, across from us, are Sir Henry Polinar, Sir Gillian of the Burne, Sir Alfred Neys…"

  Jim acknowledged the introductions as the gentlemen named also rose and bowed. He summoned up pleasant words to speak to the new acquaintances; and after a little more conversation Brian led him to another part of the table, where more introductions were made to more knights and ladies, none of which Jim knew, but all of whom, it seemed, knew Brian. Risking a glance across at the other table, Jim saw that Geronde and Angie were now part of a cluster of about half a dozen ladies, all of them on their feet and evidently having a happy conversation, since laughter was ringing out from time to time above their group.

  All in all Jim met fifteen or twenty of the other guests, the names of which remained all jumbled together in his mind. He was sure that they would not come readily to his tongue when he ran into these people again. But they all seemed to enjoy being introduced to him; and the guilty conscience he had felt earlier when Brian had spoken about those who wanted to see him began to fade somewhat. In any case, matters were put to an end when the Earl came in with Agatha Falon and the Bishop.

  This gave Jim an excuse to break loose from the current business of meeting people and take his seat with Angie at the high table.

  It was a relief to be away from the business of meeting seemingly innumerable people who obviously wanted to know him and talk with him in his—possibly very legendary—guise, as the Dragon Knight.

  "Well, sir," said a voice at his side opposite to where Angie was sitting. He turned; it was the middle-aged lady who had been his dinner partner through all the previous meals together here.

  She had clearly seen him being sociable down on the floor of the hall and was not going to let the opportunity go to waste. "It's good to have you with us again, Sir James," she said. "I have been longing for a chance to learn from you about your adventures as a dragon. Tell me, when was the first time you discovered you were a dragon?"

  Jim searched hastily for words that would translate the actual happenings into something more understandable and innocuous.

  "It just happened one day," he said, "when I discovered my wife was missing."

  She smiled encouragingly. "And then, Sir James?"

  "Well, this was at my barony of Riveroak," Jim went on, "a long, long way away from England. I guessed that an evil sorcerer had been at work—and of course he had. I went in search of him, and forced him to send me to wherever Angie had been taken.

  When I got here I found that she'd been captured by a dragon and I was a dragon, myself."

  "Indeed! Fascinating!" said the lady. "And then what?"

  Jim resigned himself to a full-fledged telling of the story of the Loathly Tower.

  He did not get a chance to talk to Angie for some time. When he did, he found her deep in conversation with the Bishop, who was on her left—Jim was never sure how the seating arrangements were decided, but this was a change. The good Lord of the Church was now between Angie and the Earl. And at this moment he was doing most of the talking and Angie was listening with every sign of deep attention.

  While Jim might have ventured to interrupt Angie, he could hardly in politeness interrupt the Bishop. He pretended to be absorbed in his food; and, happily, the lady who had been questioning him had now herself gotten interested in eating—clearly she was no finicky trencher-woman. In fact, once engrossed in her food, she also became interested in her wine, and between the two of them she went from eating to dozing and had no more questions for Jim that day.

  The result was that Jim, kept from Angie by the Bishop's loquacity, after being somewhat socially overwhelmed found himself with nothing to do but eat and drink—both dangerous activities for anyone who did not want to stuff himself or get drunk.

  It was not until three hours later, after Angie and most of the other ladies had left—a good number of them going off with Angie in a group, as if they intended to attend some small conclave of their own—that the dinner took on an entirely different character indeed. In fact, it became something that so far in the fourteenth century Jim had been lucky enough not to encounter.

  He was used to sitting around talking after the medieval noon meal, which was usually taken in early afternoon among the gentry, and could run on into early evening, or at least until lighting in the way of candles or torches was necessary. But in all his earlier experiences, these sessions had either been with small groups, where decorum was enforced by someone like the iron-handed Herrac de Mer, the father of Giles; or they had been dinners with close friends, who naturally kept their manners more or less with them, and the talk remained at least sensible until the gathering broke up.

  But these dinners during the Christmastide gathering at the Earl's, as he had heard before, were of another kind.

  Jim was not entirely innocent. He knew that such situations were likely to develop in extended parties where there was drinking going on and those involved were nearly all male—and not necessarily all on the best of terms with each other. In fact, he had encountered somewhat similar situations in his own twentieth century in certain rather rough-hewn bars, or at teen-age parties where there was a large availability of alcohol and the participants had energy to burn. Such gatherings were almost bound to be drunken, noisy and, on occasion, combative. He had been prepared for some of the after-dinner sessions at this annual gathering at the Earl's to be along these lines.

  But he had vastly underestimated these people.

  Without thinking too much about it, he had somehow expected that the iron pattern of manners among the gentry would keep them under control at all times, even when away from home and enjoying themselves. It turned out he was wrong about that— though this was not visible until the eating part of the dinner had not so much ended as eventually trickled away; with morsels of food still being offered at tables, but completely replete diners looking at them with popping eyes and a complete inability to swallow another mouthful.

  However, if the guests could not swallow any more food, they certainly could continue to swallow wine; and the water jugs that stood on each table, handy to dilute the wine in their cups, were ignored more and more often.

  Also, Jim had expected the few women who stayed to act as something of a reminder of the necessity for manners on the part of the gentlemen. He had forgotten that the ladies of this time were quite as outspoken and free of action as the
men.

  What actually developed was a drunken, bawdy uproar.

  The one redeeming feature of the uproar was the fact that it was surprisingly melodious. When the party reached the stage where people felt like singing, these people sang remarkably well. Jim had never gotten over being surprised at this. The characteristic held good right down to the merest plowman.

  He had told himself many times that it should not be surprising, but he was always surprised. Singing was one of the few things that didn't cost money, and consequently everybody got lots of practice singing—to the point where almost any casual gathering could harmonize like a veteran barbershop quartet.

  The only problem with the singing here was that several different songs were going on in different areas, with different groups of singers, at the same time, inevitably clashing with each other.

  Relief came from an unexpected source.

  "—Silence!" The Earl was roaring, pounding on the table in front of him. "Silence, damn it! I said—SILENCE!"

  He kept shouting and the noise gradually diminished as the message went down the hall. The laughter and talking stilled, the singing groups dwindled off into discordances, and eventually there was not a whisper in the room.

  "That's better!" shouted the Earl. He had clearly not been mixing too much water with his own wine. "Let's have some order here. One song at a time and all can sing together with the singer after the first verse. I'll name the singers. Sir Harimore!"

  As the voices in the hall had quieted, so too, the people who had been making the noise had been regaining their seats at the table. Now they were all seated. Sir Harimore stood up and began to sing, completely unself-consciously, in a bright, true tenor.

  Deo gracias anglia,

  Redde pro victoria.

  Oure kyng went forth to Normandy—

  —Jim recognized the song at its first words. It was the Agincourt Carol that he knew from his medieval studies. His magical (or otherwise) translator was giving it to his ears in modern English, rather than in whatever dialect of fourteenth century English Sir Harimore was singing it in. Mentally, Jim translated it into what he remembered of the Chaucerian London English of his studies—helped out with twentieth-century English when his memory failed him.

  Oure kyng went forth to Normandy

  Wyth grace and myght of chivalry;

  Ther God for him wroghte merveilously,

  And so Englond may calle and crie:

  "Deo gracias!"

  —Everybody else evidently knew the song too. It was about King Henry V's victory over the French at the battle of Agincourt in 1415—Jim checked himself suddenly.

  He was, he had long ago decided, in the fourteenth century of English history on this particular alternate world. Theoretically the battle of Agincourt hadn't been fought at the time they were now singing about it.

  But, on the other hand, he had already uncovered a number of instances in which the history of this world did not agree exactly with the history of his own twentieth-century world. At any rate, those in the room not only all seemed to know it, but to be having an excellent time singing it.

  All their voices were joined together now on the succeeding verse, telling how King Henry had besieged Harfleur town. They blended marvelously, the few women's voices among them soaring above and giving a carol of victory a nearly angelic sound. Jim could not resist singing along with the rest of them, although he kept the volume of his voice low, so that its lack of quality should not disturb the ears of the rest of them around him. They wound their way through it to the final verse in which everybody joined with extra hardy goodwill.

  Now gracious God let save oure kyng,

  His peple, and alle his wel-wyllyng,

  Give him good lyf and good endyng,

  That we with mirth may safely synge:

  "Deo gracias!"

  A silence fell on the hall; and Jim sat back in his backed and padded chair with pleasure. All of them ringing truly together on a song that he recognized from his own studies, but of which he had never known the melody—it had touched his emotions.

  But the Earl was already calling on someone else for another song. A rather heavy, middle-aged knight stood up and sang, with a resounding baritone, a song that was familiar even from Jim's twentieth century, where it had become a folk song in modern English.

  I have a yong suster

  Far biyonde the sea;

  Many strange things

  That she ther sente to me.

  Jim's head was already ringing with the modern version of the succeeding lines.

  She sent me a cherry without a stone

  she sent me a chicken without a bone…

  The whole room was singing again. Obviously they knew this too, as they probably knew most of the songs that would be sung here. Jim sang along, sometimes in modern English, sometimes along with the Chaucerian English that he heard all around him.

  But now the song was coming to its end. The Earl was standing up and looking around the room again for his next victim. His eyes ranged up and down the long tables, came back to the high table and stopped on Jim.

  "Sir Dragon!" he shouted.

  Jim's stomach suddenly felt hollow. He got to his feet. He had no idea what kind of song he could sing to these people that would be both understandable, and not offensive to something in their life, manners or religion. Obviously, a Christmas carol was in order; but there was hardly one he could think of that seemed to fit. He had an uneasy feeling that he, known as a magician, should be very careful how he was speaking of not only Christmas but the major religious figures involved with it. Then inspiration struck.

  He opened his mouth, with a desperate wish that they would excuse the fact that his voice had never been anything but a sort of kitchen baritone, and began to sing.

  Good King Wenceslas looked out

  On the feast of Stephen

  Where the snow lay round about

  Deep and crisp and even.

  Brightly shone the moon that night

  Though the frost was cruel

  When the poor man came in sight

  Gathering winter fuel.

  "Hither page, and stand by me

  If thou knowest telling.

  Yonder peasant, who is he?

  Where and what his dwelling?"

  "Sire he lives a goodly league hence,

  Underneath the mountain.

  Right against the forest fence

  By Saint Agnes's fountain."

  "Bring me flesh and bring me wine

  Bring me pine logs hither,

  Thou and I shall see him dine,

  When we bear them thither."

  Page and monarch forth they went,

  Forth they went together.

  Through the cruel winds' wild lament

  And the winter weather.

  "Sire, the night grows colder now,

  And the wind blows stronger,

  Fails my heart I know not how

  I can go no further."

  "Mark my footsteps my good page.

  Tread thou in them boldly.

  Thou shall find the winter wind

  Freeze thy blood less coldly."

  In his Master's steps he trod

  Where the snow lay dinted.

  Heat was in the very sod

  That the saint had printed.

  "Wherefore, Christian men make sure,

  Wealth or rank possessing,

  Ye, who now shall bless the poor

  Shall yourselves find blessing!"

  Jim came to the end of his song. Nobody had joined in at all, all the way through; and it seemed to him that a particularly deadly silence held the whole hall. The faces of all those there were staring at him; and he could not be sure whether it was in anger, shock or amazement. Self-consciously, he sat down.

  The silence persisted uncomfortably. Then suddenly it was broken by a single powerful voice that could have drowned out the Earl's any day, from behind Jim.

  "Deo g
ratias, indeed!" thundered the full voice of the Bishop, who evidently had just rejoined them. Jim turned instinctively and was instantly engulfed in the powerful arms of the Bishop himself, and kissed resoundingly on both cheeks. Then the Bishop all but flung him aside, turning to the room.

  "Thank God indeed, ye men and women of substance and rank!" cried the Bishop. "That a knight who is also a magician puts you all to shame, by singing so beautifully of God's charity on this, one of the most holiest days of the year! What, have you no response to it? No acknowledgment of your own failure in charities?"

  The dam of silence broke in the room. With an intuitive flash, Jim realized that they had been silent out there, not so much because the song displeased them, or they did not understand it, but because they were unsure of how they should react to a magician who sang what was very obviously a carol.

  There was hammering upon tables. Voices shouted. "Again, Sir Dragon! Sing it once more!"

  Hardly believing the happy way things had turned out, Jim opened his mouth and sang. This time, to his surprise—though it should not have been—other voices joined in, until the whole room was singing with him; seemingly, everyone there had remembered his every word. It was something almost incomprehensible from a twentieth-century viewpoint; but these people had the necessarily retentive memory of those who for the most part could not do more than sign their name and must often carry verbal messages correctly word for word; plus the ear for music that he had already been made fully aware of.

  Jim sat down again glowing with happiness and success.

  Chapter 23

  Jim came back to consciousness with the vague feeling that he had for some reason been trampled by a herd of elephants. He swam upward from the murky darkness of his slumber—not because he wanted to but because he couldn't help it—gradually remembering the last things that had happened to him.