The Dragon Knight
"Not yet!" Jim's voice stopped them. "Let them get into position and settled first. Keep everyone well back in the woods. Your Highness, the time has come for me to speak to you about something. Will you step aside with me?"
"Very well then, Sir James," said the Prince, coming toward him.
"And will you attend us, too, Sir Giles," said Jim.
The Prince raised his eyebrows at this but said nothing. Giles did not question the matter, but simply came toward them. Together, the three went off into the woods.
"Where are we headed, Sir James?" asked the Prince, after a few moments. "I thought you meant merely a step or two aside, out of earshot of the rest. But you seem to be taking me somewhere."
"I am, Highness," answered Jim. "Bear with me, if you will. It is only a little farther on."
He and the Prince continued side by side a little farther, with Giles bringing up the rear. Then they had passed through the trees, and the tumbled ruins that Jim had found the night before came in sight. Jim led the Prince to the edge of it, then stopped.
"Your Highness," he said, "I know you had rather be with us in the charge, or at least nearby when we charge. But consider, if anything should happen to you, if by any chance we should lose you, we lose everything. The English forces here lose everything. England loses everything. There is a small niche in these stones you can move into for something more than the length of a man. It's only wide enough for one person to pass along at a time. With you inside there, and Sir Giles between you and the entrance, no one can get at you. You're not only protected, you're hidden."
The Prince blushed.
"Sir James, you are presumptuous!" he said. "I am not a child or a servant, to be hidden away when a war is being fought. Nor do I choose to be so hidden. I shall return to the others right now and pick the place from which I will watch the charge!"
He turned his back on the tumbled pile of chiseled stones.
"Highness! Stop!" said Jim, not moving. "Consider your duty! Consider your obligation to your father and to England. Stop at least long enough to think over what I just said to you!"
The Prince was already walking away, but his steps slowed until at last he stopped. Slowly, he turned and slowly, he came back. He halted in front of Jim.
"I do not consider the danger anywhere near as great as you seem to think, Sir James," he said in a level voice. "You forget that I am a Prince of England. I am worth infinitely more alive than dead. Even if the French should find me, and surround me, so that there was no hope of my escaping or fighting my way out from them; still the most they could do would be to capture me. And in due time my father would ransom me. It could not be otherwise."
"No. Think!" said Jim. "Malvinne has made and set up a false Prince Edward, which he controls utterly. And it is Malvinne who effectively rules in France now, rather than King Jean. The power is the King's, there is no doubt of that. But the will behind that power is the will of Malvinne. No Frenchman would want to kill you. As you say their aim would be to capture you instead. No Frenchman—but one. That one is Malvinne. As long as you're alive, you're a threat to the false Prince he made. Surely, from the time we first escaped with you from his castle, Malvinne's been hunting you, not to get you back, not to capture and hold you for ransom, but to destroy you—secretly and utterly—so that there'll be no one else to dispute the reality of the thing he's made."
Jim stopped talking. He stood, waiting to see how the Prince would react. On his part, the Prince merely stood, too, looking away past Jim. Finally he sighed. His shoulders slumped. He looked back at Jim.
"Once more, Sir James," he said, "I find myself listening to you against my own wishes. You're right, I do have a duty. Whether that duty is just as you say I don't know. But I can think right now of no other way it could be. So I'll do as you say. Where is this swamp hole of yours I must creep into?"
"You won't have to creep, Your Highness," said Jim. "You can walk in. And it should only be for an hour or two. If the King and his knights are on their way here, we only need to wait until they're settled in position and have turned all their attention on the battle, so that they're careless about what might be behind them. Then we'll charge; and we'll either win through within minutes, or else we'll lose utterly within minutes. You should hear the clash of arms even from here. If it ceases, and I or someone else doesn't come to bring you face-to-face with the false Prince within half an hour at the outside, then be sure we've lost and think about your own safety."
He paused.
"Sir Giles," he went on, "will stay with you; and if things should go badly for the rest of us, the two of you should try to make for Brest and the protection of what English are still there, having arrived since the ones in this army left. If Malvinne can't risk leaving you alive, he also can't alert the countryside that he's hunting for someone who looks just like the captive Prince of England. It'd raise too many questions. With any luck you should make it safely to Brest."
As he had been talking, Jim had been leading the Prince around the circumference of the wrecked building, searching for the opening he had found before. He had located the hiding place originally in near darkness and the place looked different in daylight. He found the niche at last and pointed out its entrance to the Prince.
"About six feet inside," he said, "and listen for the sound of arms."
"Very well, Sir James," said the Prince. "Reluctantly, I do what you say."
He turned and went in.
Giles had begun to follow him automatically, when Jim caught his arm, just at the entrance of the niche. The short knight turned and looked inquiringly at Jim.
"I didn't even ask you first if you'd take on this duty," said Jim. "Forgive me, my friend."
"For what?" answered Sir Giles, also in a low voice, but smiling. "This is a great honor, James! And I've you to thank for it!"
Jim let go of his arm and saw him disappear. He heard the sound of voices from within, as the Prince and Giles arranged their relative positions for the hours of waiting, then turned to make his way hastily back to where the other knights and the rest of the men were waiting.
When he got back mere, he found knights and men alike instinctively standing silently in cover, behind trees or bushes; and King Jean, with Malvinne, the false Prince, his royal flags and knights, just coming into the area and up onto the little rise.
Chapter Thirty-Six
"They make a brave sight," said Brian, as they watched the King with his knights move into position on a little rise of land ahead of them.
"Do they not!" said Sir Raoul, a little wistfully, standing on the other side of Jim, who was between the French knight and Sir Brian.
They stood slightly inside the woods, but quite in the open, in order to get a good view. If they had not been invisible—unseeable might have been a better word for the effect of the magic Jim had used—to the King and his bodyguard, they could not have failed to have been observed where they were.
The King reined in his horse on the rise of land, the knights with him stopped, and they all sat facing outward toward the open space and at the line of the English army, some five hundred yards off. The great flag above the King's head snapped in the brisk little breeze that had come up, following the stillness of air just at dawn, and before the sun's heat could begin to make itself felt.
"I counsel," said Brian, shading his eyes to look, not at the King or his knights, but down the French line that was already being formed to their left and right, "that we wait until the first French division makes its charge. If possible. If Wat of Easdale says true, it would be even best to wait until the business of the false archers and the hidden bowmen puts itself into play on the English side, so that the attention of the King's party will be thoroughly fixed on the field before them. That will be some little waiting, but it could be the time will be well spent."
"A good suggestion, Brian," said Jim.
Jim felt a pull on his right elbow. He turned, expecting to find that Dafydd, who was
standing just behind him with his three bowmen, wanted his attention. But it was neither Dafydd, the bowmen, nor anyone else he had expected. It was Carolinus.
"They cannot see or hear me, these here with you," said Carolinus. "Make some excuse and come aside with me, so that I can talk to you."
Jim looked back to his front. He wet his lips, took a breath, and spoke suddenly.
"Hah!" he said. "And I was going to attend to that earlier! The rest of you stay here and keep watch. I'll be back in just a little bit."
"We will, that," said Brian, still shading his eyes against the morning sun. "I do believe the first division of the French are ready to ride out."
"They will be eager," murmured Sir Raoul.
Jim turned about, and saw nobody watching him. Even Dafydd and the bowmen behind him had their eyes fixed only on the field and the two armies on it. Carolinus was standing a couple of steps off, and he beckoned. Jim went toward him.
Carolinus led him off until they had passed among trees that hid the field, as well as the rest of their own men, from his sight. Then he turned and faced Jim. Coming close, Jim was surprised to see that Carolinus's face was drawn and tired; touched with the grayness that older faces show when they have been exhausted almost beyond their strength.
"James," said Carolinus, "you do not know this world, even yet. So you must forgive me for what I've done."
"Forgive you?" said Jim. "I've never known you to do anything without reason, Mage. Not only that, but the reason was usually as much to the benefit of others like myself as to your own purposes. Didn't you tell me once that, when the Dark Powers move, we must all stir ourselves to push them back?"
"Did I tell you that?" said Carolinus. "Well, it's true enough. But what I'm referring to, James, is that you still have not fully grasped how an inferior is owned by his superior. Brian, for example could hang one of his men-at-arms simply because he decided to, and no law could bring him to book for it. It's true that if he did such a thing without acceptable reason, he might well lose most of the rest of his men; and certainly the best men among them. Therefore he would not normally do it. But nonetheless, if he needed to, or had cause to, he could and would."
"I think you underestimate me," said Jim soberly. "I believe I've already come to understand that."
"Have you?" said Carolinus. "Did you ever stop to think of it as far as it applies to the relationship between you and I?"
Jim stared at him.
"Us?" echoed Jim. "You and I?"
"Exactly," said Carolinus. "In our relationship as teacher and pupil. When I took you on as student in Magic, you became effectively my property. I would teach you, but at the same time I was free to use you or destroy you as I would. That is the way, at this time, in this world."
"No," said Jim slowly, "I hadn't thought of that."
He looked into Carolinus's faded blue eyes.
"But in any case, I'd expect you to have a reason for doing anything of that nature," he said, "and like Brian—"
Carolinus interrupted him.
"There's a difference, James," he said. "In your case, outside causes could force me to deal with you beyond the limits of what you'd expect. Unfortunately, in this particular contest with the Dark Powers you've become like a pawn in a chess game, pushed forward to achieve an end, or be sacrificed. I could help you only to the extent of sending Aragh, and aiding in the sending of Dafydd. Also, there've been other little things; but nothing I could do directly. I should congratulate you. It was a clever way you had of making a magic that made your men and you so that other people would not see you."
"The truth is," said Jim, "I couldn't imagine any other way of doing it. And I find that what I cant imagine, I can't work as magic. Maybe that's a law of magic?"
"I wouldn't put it in just those words," said Carolinus, "but it is very close to the truth. However, I was congratulating you, not just for finding a magic, but for finding one that drew on resources from your past in another world. Therefore they drew the more lightly on your magical balance here. Did it never strike you, that you had been doing a great deal of magic for someone with only a D rating?"
"I never thought of it," said Jim.
"Well, think of it now," said Carolinus grimly. "The fact is, you used up the last of the energy which permits you to make magic some time ago."
"Then why have I been able to go on doing it?" asked Jim. "Did you lend me some energy from your account?"
"That is strictly forbidden," said Carolinus, "and with good reason. Otherwise a teacher could make his pupil stronger than he should be, according to his rating with the Accounting Office, by giving him the use of loaned energy from a superior and much better filed account. No, I could not lend you anything. What I did, was allow you for some days now, to draw on my account. Strictly speaking, this also is something I should not do; and I will undoubtedly be fined from the Accounting Office when all is over, unless we win strongly in this encounter with the Dark Powers, and therefore find our accounts replenished at their expense."
"That's something else I don't understand," said Jim. "Where does the Accounting Office get what it puts into our account? Does it have its own supply of it, unused, or—"
"Do not ask!" said Carolinus so fiercely that Jim was checked into silence. For a moment neither of them said anything.
"You will find," said Carolinus in a kinder voice, when he finally broke this silence, "that the more you learn about Magic the more you'll realize is impossible, forbidden, or otherwise fenced away from you. You'll also learn how much there is yet to learn."
He checked himself.
"But enough of that now," he went on. "There's little I can do for you further. But that little I am going to do. One is, to warn you of things that you may need to know. One of these is the fact that your account is empty. This means that, until it fills again to some extent, your education as a magician is at a standstill. You're essentially like an ambassador without portfolio. You do not lose the fact that you are to become a magician—for which you should be grateful."
He looked at Jim with unusual grimness.
"For one thing," he went on, "the King of the Dead has made strong complaint to the Accounting Office about a magician showing up in his kingdom. Those with you did not matter. They are humans. If they wander into his territory they legitimately belong to him, unless and until they can escape from it again, as you and your friends did. Unfortunately, you used magic to escape. The use of magic in his kingdom, where all magic is controlled by him—it is not really magic but magic compares to it to the point where it is forbidden—is an even greater crime than your appearing within that territory. You face being called to account on this."
"But we were only there because Malvinne's magic tricked us into going there!" protested Jim.
"True," said Carolinus, "and the Accounting Office will take that into account; but only if you defeat both Malvinne and the Dark Powers. Then, it will be Malvinne who will be brought to account. But only then."
"It doesn't seem fair," said Jim.
"Who said it had to be fair?" demanded Carolinus fiercely. "But listen to me. Another problem that you may not be aware of, is that Melusine is here, close by. She wants you back. The further point is, she can't have you back."
"She can't?" said Jim, brightening up. "Why?"
"Because, as I've already said," said Carolinus, with a touch of his usual testiness, "you remain a magician, even without a balance in the Accounting Office. The law is, that there be no trafficking between kingdoms. That's why the King of the Dead has no power outside his own kingdom. That is why he can't acquire even the dead that die in the human church. These go elsewhere—and this is something to which he and his consort, whom you saw down there, have never been reconciled. It makes him doubly fierce at pursuing such cases as this, when a human who is a magician intrudes upon the grounds of his kingdom and then escapes by forbidden magic!"
"But what's all this got to do with me and Melusine?" Jim asked. "
Something about kingdoms is involved with the fact that she can't have me because I'm a Magician?"
"That's right," said Carolinus. "Melusine is an elemental; and the kingdom of the elemental is separate—well, almost separate. Your friend Giles is a mixture of elemental and human; although I suspect that since he has been a very young child, he has been ashamed of the elemental part, and done his best to deny it and all that goes with it. Melusine is a full elemental."
"I know," said Jim. "I've seen her using her own magic."
"What the elementals have and use is not really magic," said Carolinus. "Only humans use true magic. Though most elementals and others will tell you that what they use is magic. But actually, what elementals have is a sort of instinctive power to shape their environment; the space around them. For example, do you know how Melusine drowns dragons who wander at all close to her lake?"
"No," said Jim.
"She causes the lake to extend itself so that it is deep water underneath the point where the dragon is then standing or walking. The dragons flounder about, drown, and she draws them down to that part of her lake bed where she wants them; and leaves them for the fish to strip."
"Why does she hate dragons so much, anyway?" asked Jim. "I asked her once and she gave me some answer about the fact that they were like bats and were up in the air and so on and so forth. It didn't make a great deal of sense."
"In any case, it doesn't matter," said Carolinus, and this time he was definitely his old, testy self. "Something about dragons, sometime, possibly something some dragon did, rubbed her the wrong way. She will probably even have forgotten what it was by this time. I told you elementals operate by instinct. They don't use thoughts as we humans do. Basically, as I say, they have this power to shape their environment. To a certain extent that allows her to shape her environment toward you, no matter where you are. It isn't quite as simple as I'm making it sound; but what it means is that Melusine herself instinctively travels toward you, no matter where you are. You have been moving, and so stayed ahead of her until now. But now you're fixed, here at this battle site, and she'll inevitably find you."