Jim became suddenly aware that he was freezing. A few years in this period of history had accustomed him to loading himself with clothes in the winter and still having to endure a fair amount of chill. But in this particular instance, he did not have even the usual extra layers of clothing. Caught up in Carolinus's haste and yet, he now suspected, still dull with the aftereffects of his night of revelry, he had not bothered to think about the fact that he would need to be dressed to withstand the weather. Even though it was a bright, sunny day with only a few clouds above the snow which had fallen overnight, the wind was keen and the temperature was a good number of degrees below freezing.
Grumbling to himself, Jim went to work on magic that would get him the clothing he needed. He had never exactly worked out a procedure for doing so, though he had worked up one particular magic command to remove his clothing before he turned into a dragon; and another to replace the clothing magically just before he turned back into a human. He tried variations of this command without luck. Finally he had to settle for simply naming the articles of clothing he wanted and ordering them to appear in front of him.
This they immediately did, in a neat pile in the snow. Still grumbling, he brushed them off and put them on; but necessarily over the clothes he was already wearing. The result was probably going to make him look a little bit odd to the Earl; but he consoled himself with the fact that the Earl would probably have his attention fully occupied by Mnrogar.
Still, none of them were in sight yet. Jim wondered if Aargh was close by among the trees. After a moment's hesitation he tried calling.
"Aargh!"
There was no reply. Either Aargh was not there; or he considered it beneath his dignity to reply to a shout for him, as if he was a common dog. —It suddenly occurred to Jim, that after all his hurry to get warm clothing on himself, it was now going to have to come off him. He was supposed to be in his dragon body for this particular meeting.
Reluctantly he spelled out the magic command in his head to make him a dragon and to carefully store what he was wearing in some odd continuum, from which he would regain it after everything here was over.
He stopped himself just in time from giving the final execute command, as he realized that he would be making the transformation in full view of the men-at-arms and anyone else who was up on the wall. He turned around and tramped off to one side of the clearing, until the trees screened him from the view of those in the castle, then gave the execute command.
As a dragon he waddled back—waddled, unfortunately, was the only honest word for the way a dragon progressed when traveling on his hind legs—back to the table. It was set up so that it would be crosswise to the view of those watching from the castle wall. There were three stools around it, one on either long side and one at the end. Mnrogar must be seated with his back to the illusory, magic-produced trees that would seem to screen his view of the castle in any case. That would also give those on the high castle wall a good view of the Earl over Mnrogar's head from behind.
The stool at the far end of the table was obviously for Jim, himself.
He stumped around to it now, looked it over and decided to ignore it. He had seen Secoh do the same in the Great Hall at Malencontri, when joining Jim, Angie and other people for a session of talk and drinking and eating. Secoh would choose simply to squat on the floor. He was big enough, even with his stunted mere-dragon body, so that his head came above the board of the high table almost as high as those of the humans who were seated around it.
Jim unobtrusively pushed the stool to one side and squatted in the snow at the head of the table. He was pleased, as usual, to rediscover the fact that as a dragon he was pretty much immune to cold and other physical discomfort. Thickness of hide probably had something to do with it. He was beginning to search his mind for arguments as to why the troll and the Earl should work together, when Mnrogar appeared out of the trees directly before him, at the far end of the clearing. The troll was still, at this spot, out of the sight of those on the castle wall; but he stopped immediately after emerging from the trees and stared at Jim.
Jim had forgotten how suspicious the other would be, out of his den and under the circumstances.
"Mnrogar!" he called. "It's just me, the Dragon Knight, in my dragon body. On an official meeting like this, I have to be in this body. I'm just sitting, waiting. Also, I never did have anything against trolls. Come and sit down."
Mnrogar hesitated, then slowly came forward, scowling at Jim all the way and looking as if he could either spring at Jim's throat, or turn and bolt for the woods again, at any moment.
Jim said no more and did not move a muscle. He simply sat where he was. After a certain amount of coming forward, hesitating and then coming forward again, Mnrogar reached the one of the two stools that had been deliberately set a little farther down the table from Jim than the one at which the Earl should sit. He sat down there with his back to the castle, leaving the last unoccupied seat for the Earl.
"Where is he?" growled Mnrogar.
"The Earl?" said Jim, as innocently and mildly as he could manage with his dragon voice. "He should be along at any moment—in fact, I see him coming out of the trees to your left, now."
Jim did indeed see the Earl coming. Carolinus was with him; and not only Carolinus—there was another person walking on the other side of the Earl.
Happily, dragon's bodies did not jump when dragons were startled. They weren't designed to do so; and in this particular case there was a good deal of benefit to the fact. The person on the other side of the Earl was Angie.
Both she and Carolinus seemed to have something like halos around them. Jim blinked, but the halos stayed, undeniably in place. Mnrogar turned his head and looked, but seemed to see nothing extraordinary about the three figures that were advancing. His gaze was clearly solely upon the Earl, who was glaring back at him ferociously.
"It's all right now, James," called Carolinus, as soon as they were close. "Angie and I are both invisible to Mnrogar, and for that matter to the Earl and those on the castle wall." He and Angie were not, Jim now realized, leaving any tracks in the snow they traversed.
Carolinus stopped somewhat short of the table. The Earl and Angie came on, the Earl still glaring at Mnrogar. He took his seat at the side of the table and Angie came up alongside Jim and put her hand on his dragon shoulder.
"Angie—" he began.
"Nobody can hear me except you and Carolinus," she interrupted quietly in Jim's ear. "Don't turn your head to look at me when you speak. I saw you and Carolinus as you left the castle, and caught up after he had sent you here. I made him tell me what this was all about, and then told him that I didn't intend to be left out of all this. Go ahead and talk to me if you want. The others won't see your mouth move as long as you're speaking to me."
"You shouldn't have, Angie," said Jim.
"Why not?" demanded Angie. "Neither the Earl nor the troll can see or hear me, so how could I be in any danger? But I might be able to help you with a suggestion or two, Jim. You know I can help that way."
It was true, of course.
"Well, all right," said Jim. "But try not to be helpful unless you're absolutely sure it won't throw me off balance."
"Don't worry," said Angie soothingly. "My, I'd forgotten what a fine-looking dragon you are, when you're being one. The troll must be shivering in his kilt, or whatever he calls it. Why doesn't he freeze to death out here?"
"Probably for the same reason I don't freeze to death as a dragon without any clothes," said Jim. "I can take cold, rain, wind, sleet, probably even hail—it's the heat that gets me when I'm being a dragon. Now, let's not talk. I've got to get on with this meeting before these two start to savage each other."
He returned his attention to Mnrogar and the Earl. Mnrogar was still sitting without moving a muscle and, at least in human terms, no expression on his face. There was a certain amount of built-in threat in the actual bones and flesh of his face; and the pointed teeth that could just
be glimpsed between a slight parting of his thin lips. But beyond this he was not giving a sign of any emotion at all. The Earl was another matter.
He did not look at all intimidated by the shockingly inhuman strength revealed in the troll's massive upper body; in the potential of the barely glimpsed teeth and the wickedly curved claws that grew from the ends of his massive fingers as they rested on the table, where human fingernails would ordinarily be. The Earl's white eyebrows were bristling, his slightly protruding eyes were glaring, as he came up to the table and took his seat.
There was obviously nearly a snarl of contempt and fury on his lips, and his chin was jutting pugnaciously. Aside from this, he only looked a little fatter than usual; but Jim suspected with some certainty this was because he was loaded with clothes underneath his armor, to the point where the thongs that tied breastplates to backplates and fastened the other parts of the joined metal about him seemed ready to snap.
He was wearing a bastard sword—otherwise known as a hand-and-a-half sword—half as long again as an ordinary broadsword, in a scabbard on his right side, the side away from Jim as he sat down. Jim had not thought that the Earl was left-handed. In fact, he had been under the impression that the nobleman was right-handed. But there the scabbard and the hilt of the sword within it were, now in plain sight not only of Mnrogar, but of those watching from the castle wall over and around Mnrogar's bulky upper body.
In fact, just at the moment Jim was thinking all this, the Earl stood up again from his stool and drew the sword with his left hand. With the hilt in both hands he jammed its tip down into the table top so that it stood upright, quivering slightly on its blade before him.
"Observe, troll!" he shouted at Mnrogar. "A cross stands between me and you!"
Mnrogar neither blinked an eye nor moved a muscle. He might as well have been deaf. Jim began to feel definitely uneasy.
"Carolinus?" said Jim, carefully not turning his head. "A cross won't do him any good against a Natural, will it?"
"No, no," said the voice of Carolinus behind him, "of course not. Somewhat useful in the case of shades, ghosts, vampires and some classes of demons—but against Naturals? He might as well have stuck a willow wand into a crack in the table, upright between them."
"You don't want to tell him that though, Jim," said the voice of Angie.
"I know that," grumbled Jim. "Don't worry, Angie; and please only talk to me if you think it's really necessary."
There was silence from his right side, although Angie's hand still rested on his shoulder. Jim felt a small spasm of guilt. She had only been trying to help; but he needed to concentrate on the two before him, and that was going to be hard enough, even if Angie spoke to him only at times when she could help.
Meanwhile, Mnrogar had neither moved, nor changed his expression. A human being might have fidgeted, or reacted. Either trolls didn't, or Mnrogar had himself completely under control. Jim decided to take advantage of the moment of silence that followed the Earl's sitting down again on his stool and once more taking up his glaring past the blade of his sword at the troll.
"My Lord Earl," he said, "may I make known to you Mnrogar, the troll who has occupied the underneath of your castle, before even that castle was built; and has kept other trolls away from your territories and those of your ancestors all that time."
The Earl snorted.
"And, Mnrogar," said Jim, "may I make known to you my Lord the Earl of Somerset, the gallant and renowned knight, Sir Hugo Siwardus?"
Mnrogar growled deep in his chest, but otherwise showed no reaction. Jim went on.
"We are met here today," he said, "to determine how best to work together to deal with another troll, who has got into the castle by somehow managing to adopt human appearance. This is something that not even my Master in magic, S. Carolinus, can conceive being done. Perhaps you, Mnrogar, know how a troll would be able to make himself look like a human being?"
"No," said Mnrogar. He was undoubtedly trying to speak as expressionally as he was looking, but such was his voice and his general physical make-up, that the word came out as much like a threat as the Earl's display of his sword.
"Why not?" demanded the Earl. "If one troll can do it, all trolls ought to be able to do it! If all trolls know how to be able to do it, this one—what's your name? Mnrogar? You should know it, too. Or are you lying to us?"
"No," said Mnrogar, again. And once more the word, in what Jim was becoming more and more positive was an attempt by Mnrogar not to be provoked unnecessarily and not to give provocation if he could avoid it, came out with a much more threatening ring to human ears than was comfortable to hear.
"Hah!" said the Earl.
"What is 'hah'?" said Mnrogar harshly.
"It means 'hah'!" snapped the Earl. "It means—I do not believe you, Sir troll!"
"I cannot make myself look like one of you," growled Mnrogar. "If I cannot do it, no troll can do it!"
"Then what makes you say there's a troll among my guests?" the Earl flung at him.
"Because I smell one up there!" retorted Mnrogar.
"And I'm to take your word for that? A troll's word, hah!"
"A human's word," snarled Mnrogar, "hah!"
The Earl's cheeks began to turn purple.
"What do you mean," he demanded dangerously, "hah?"
"I mean what you mean when you say 'hah'," said Mnrogar.
They were now both beginning to lean forward over the table toward each other. Blessed are the peacemakers, thought Jim, and hurried to try to calm the waters.
"I think what the Earl was getting at, Mnrogar," he said as gently as was possible with his dragon voice, "is that if you say a troll can't be up there in human guise, then how can it be that you smell one? Because unless the one you smell there is in human guise, everyone in the castle must have recognized him as a troll, on sight."
"How do I know?" said Mnrogar. "Maybe one of your magicians helped him do it."
"The poor fellow doesn't realize what he's saying," said Carolinus's voice in Jim's other ear. "Don't let yourself be offended, Jim."
"I'm not offended," said Jim.
He had forgotten, however, to direct his thoughts and his voice to Carolinus alone; and clearly both the Earl and Mnrogar had heard him. They were both staring at him now, the Earl obviously startled and baffled; Mnrogar very possibly so.
"As I was saying," added Jim hurriedly, "I'm not offended by anything about this; and I strongly suggest that neither you, my Lord Earl, nor you, Mnrogar, be offended either. We'll never get anywhere unless we discuss this calmly and reasonably, all of us searching for an explanation and a means of resolving the situation."
It was, Jim thought, a pretty good point he had made. But the Earl did not seem to have accepted it in the proper spirit; and Mnrogar, to Jim's concern, replied with another deep, wordless growl that this time seemed to leave no doubt about how he was feeling.
He had plainly come here, ready to accept any agreement that would help to get rid of the visiting troll in the castle. But clearly, also, he could be pushed only so far; and the Earl had been doing way too good a job of pushing.
"Forgive me, my Lord Earl," Jim said hastily, "but we did come here to discuss ways and means of getting rid of the intruder troll among the guests. Perhaps we should be talking about those ways and means now."
"Very well," growled the Earl. "What is the plan, then?"
There was, of course, no plan. The plan was what they had come here to decide on. This was, Jim decided, the equivalent of Carolinus saying that apprentices should take care of the details. However, there was only one way Jim could imagine anything could be achieved in this situation, so he plunged ahead.
"The only possible way, it seems—" said Jim, looking at the troll, "—with Mnrogar's agreement, of course—is that he be put in some position where he's able to smell all of the guests, and so pick out the one that smells like a troll."
"Excellent plan," said the Earl. "We'll do that. Then, once w
e have the creature, it will merely be a matter of making him admit that he's a troll—"
He broke off suddenly, a dismayed look on his face.
"—But what if he turns out to seem to be one of the more important guests? Someone of high rank and repute?" He stared at Jim. "I would not like to—er, put strongly to the question—some gentleman of worth and reputation. It might be—most difficult. Embarrassing. Particularly if he wasn't a troll, after all."
"Let me come face to face with him," snarled Mnrogar. "He will be a troll; and, being a troll, will know what I am come to do with him; therefore he will instantly turn back into a troll, and fight me with teeth and claws, instead of with one of the toy swords or other weapons you humans carry around. If he is a troll, he will fight like a troll."
"Well, then," said Jim quickly. "Since we're agreed on that, the question becomes one of ways and means—details, that is. Naturally, Mnrogar will want to be sure of being safe once he is up among humans; and I have a suggestion. There is a wolf I know that he trusts to a certain extent who I was going to suggest might go with him—"
He turned to Mnrogar.
"I haven't mentioned this to Aargh, and of course he'd have to agree, but if he was with you, with his nose and ears to warn you of any attempt against you while you're upstairs, would you feel safe about coming upstairs to sniff out the other troll?"
Mnrogar growled uncertainly, hesitated, finally spoke.
"I'll come if Aargh will," he said.
"Who is this Aargh?" demanded the Earl suspiciously.
"A trusty wolf and a good friend," said Jim. "Sir John Chandos will vouch for him, if you care to ask Sir John."
The Earl growled uncertainly in his turn.
"Well, then," said Jim cheerfully. "Now that all that's settled, my Lord Earl, do you have a place where Mnrogar can be out of sight, but still able to sniff at every one of the guests over a period of time, without any one ever knowing he is doing so or that he is upstairs at all? Ordinarily, with the help of my Master, Carolinus, we could disguise him, using magic for this trip up among the guests; but there's the good Bishop's blessing on your castle. I don't think he'd be agreeable to any lifting of that blessing to let Mnrogar upstairs."
The Dragon, the Earl, and Page 26
