“Just room enough for three of us tandem,” Golias observed when they had finished. “Good night, Shandon; good night, Wulf. Ah!”
That was where I lay down instead of between the white sheets I had nostalgically recalled, but I must say my hard bunk didn’t keep me awake. It was noon when we breakfasted. Golias and Beowulf, I was amazed to find, didn’t have bad hangovers, though all of us were quiet. Late as we had risen, we turned in early that night; and the next morning we were fit for the road.
Brisk and sunny, it was a day for moving. I felt good, especially after having felt not good the day before. Physical well-being was only part of the reason for my fine spirits, however. I was pleased with myself. I hadn’t let Golias down. I had chosen to do instead of not to do. My manhood felt the hair on its chest. My mind smouldered with the pleasant fire of curiosity.
We made short work of our farewells, and twenty-five minutes later we reached Watling Street. Eastward signs invited us to Deryabar, at the end of the peninsula, but we turned westward with the breadth of the Commonwealth before us.
The road itself was excellent for walking. It had a firm dirt surface, neither dusty, muddy, nor deeply rutted. Moreover, it had none of the three vices to which many superficially good roads are given. It did not run in a straight line, denying expectation. It did not run on the level, banishing horizons. And certainly it did not offer a sameness of sights and scenery.
It was fortunate that I had worked the kinks out of my legs in Broceliande, for Golias set a stiff pace. But the very speed with which we walked allowed us, he explained, leeway for self-indulgence without keeping us from covering the distance to our rendezvous in the two days he had allotted us. We felt free, therefore, to take our time over beer at some wayside bar, to refresh ourselves with a swim or so, and to stop for a look see whenever we found it worth while.
This happened with some frequency, but only one occasion made a genuine place for itself in my memory. Passing through a town, we encountered the local ruler out for an airing with a small body guard of troops. Taking a hint from their commander’s thumb, we moved to give them plenty of clearance. Then we jumped — but not on their account. Our spryness was the only thing which saved us from being run down by a young girl. In a flowing sequence of actions she pulled her horse back on its hind legs, flung herself off, fell on her knees before the king, and threw back her veil. She had the kind of hot beauty which you wouldn’t like if her mind was against you.
We halted to see what was going to happen. His majesty had already stopped, as who wouldn’t have?
“Dona Ximena is always welcome to our presence,” he announced, not looking as if he meant it.
Her voice went with her face. As she had turned no hostile fire on me, I liked it.
“Dona Ximena hopes your highness will still feel that way, when he hears what she has to say.”
He cleared his throat. “Can there be any doubt of it?”
“Sire,” she said, without any more sparring, “you know Ruy Diaz de Bivar killed my father.”
“Somebody did say something about that.” The king wore the look of a man whose painful expectations are being fulfilled. “It is regrettable, but these things will happen when there is bad blood between men.”
He looked as if he was going to add to that, but she didn’t give him time. “As a subject seeking what her sovereign owes her, I demand justice.”
She looked to me like an eye-for-an-eye girl. Shifting my glance to the king, I saw he was sure she was.
“It was in fair fight, they tell me. Er — what do you wish me to do?”
“Give him to me!” she cried. “Or rather give me to him in marriage. Ruy Diaz took from me the only man I had; in fact nobody else on earth could have. I ask — and a just king will not deny me — a man for a man.”
The relief that showed on his majesty’s face was matched only by my astonishment. “Now I’ve seen everything,” I said as we walked on.
“Don’t say that until you’ve been on Watling Street a little longer,” Golias cautioned me.
The incident had taken place during the morning of the second day. It was late afternoon when we reached our destination. This was a small hotel called the Reine Pedauque in a town named Hypata. It was built with the second and third stories extending beyond the first and hanging out over the narrow street.
Not that I much cared what the place looked like. I was empty, and my tongue was hanging out. As we approached, my appetites were brought to the boiling point by the rattling of dishes and the clink of glassware. I hadn’t quite made up my mind about food, but there was no question about what I wanted to drink. For the past half-hour I had been imagining the delights of sluicing my drought with cold beer. In the faith of this mission I was eagerly crossing the street, my eyes fixed on the open door of the tap room, when Golias gave me a shove. It was timely, for a man descending from the upper story window just missed me.
Until that instant the street had been quiet. That changed. A woman partly hidden from public view by a sheet leaned out of a casement and screamed for the law. A man appeared at the next window cursing and yelling. The pistol he held concerned me more, however. It had a barrel like a sawed-off shotgun. Luckily the bullet only skinned my knuckles, and the weapon wasn’t a repeater. A second woman stuck her head out and asked what kind of a house did the fugitive think she kept anyhow. A young girl gave something of an answer by shrieking that he was a two-timing tomcat who had better stay away from her bed in the future. Inside there were shoutings, the slamming of doors, and the pounding of feet on stairs.
The man who was the object of all this attention made no rebuttal. Not having a parachute, he had landed solidly, though evidently without breaks or sprains. It took him an instant to throw off the shock of his jump, but when he did he scrambled to his feet. Without waiting to dust himself off, he dashed away.
I was dazedly sucking my knuckles, when Golias grabbed me by the arm. “Come on!” he cried. “Don’t lose him!”
With the words he took after the fugitive, and I grumpily trailed them. Leaving that hotel when I all but had refreshment in my mouth, peeved me. Having to run, tired and stiff as I was, further soured my disposition. I didn’t exert myself until I heard people yelling behind us. Then it occurred to me that I would probably be taken for an accomplice, so I made better time.
Fortunately our pursuers weren’t athletes. Once we had ducked down a side street and through an alley to another, we had lost them. Calling this information to the others, I walked my bad disposition to where they waited.
Golias didn’t share my irritation. On the contrary, he grinned at the stranger and myself as if a comfortable bond had already been established between us.
“Shandon,” he panted, “Meet Lucius G. Jones.”
Unabashed by the circumstances of the introduction, the latter gave me his hand. He was a handsome young fellow, well set up, clean-cut, and sandy-haired. Yet it wasn’t his looks but the winning good nature of his expression that got around me. In spite of the stitch in my side and my smarting hand, I found myself responding to his smile.
“Are you that popular everywhere you go?” I asked him.
He chuckled. “There really wasn’t as much to it as seemed probable from all the noise they made.”
“There’s the Saracen’s Head across the street,” Golias suggested.
“After you had left to meet Shandon here,” Jones said to him, when we had given our orders, “there wasn’t much to do while waiting for your return, and — was there a girl, did you notice, joining to castigate me?”
“If you mean was there a girl telling the world you were a son of a bitch, there was,” I informed him.
“One of the maids,” he explained. “A curious misnomer, and not by my original fault, I assure you.” The beer was brought. We drank and put the mugs down, sighing. “Now in spite of what you may have gathered from her attitude,” he went on, “our relations were of the friendliest; and if she had
any cause for complaint, she made none. I on my part was true to her every minute I was with her, but that, due to the rigors of her duties, could only be during the night. There remained the days.
“As it happened, a woman checked into the room next to mine the day before yesterday. She was too chary of her reputation to risk having visitors at night; but she was, she told me, under her physician’s orders to take a nap every afternoon. Not much later she let me know that she was not one of these timorous ladies who locks herself in. In fact she was so informative that I wonder why she didn’t tell me she was expecting her husband this evening — which perhaps she wasn’t.”
Jones chased a fly from his beer. “At any rate he arrived just before you did and was shown to his wife’s room by the landlady, three lads carrying his traveling bags, and a maid — the one who considered herself entitled to the local rights on my person — bearing refreshment. Being, luckily, less incautious than the lady — who began to yell ‘rape!’ as soon as she heard her husband’s voice — I had locked the door. The time it took them to smash it in synchronized with the time it took me to dress. It was by then apparent to me that nobody liked me and, rather than participate in a scene I left as they entered.”
“Next time you draw fire,” I proposed, “catch the bullets yourself.”
For the first time he looked serious. “I’m sorry about that, Shandon. I know how aggravated you must feel. If a man gets shot, he should at least have the satisfaction of having earned it.”
“He’s probably deserved shooting somewhere along the line,” Golias remarked. “I can think of few men who didn’t, and I can’t remember liking any of them. What are you planning to do about your luggage?”
Jones looked blank. “Do you know,” he said after a minute, “that that’s something I overlooked in my well executed retreat?”
“One of us will get it,” Golias said. “Is your bill paid, by any chance?”
“Up until yesterday at noon. But I’m afraid I can’t pay what’s still owing and buy us all a supper tonight.”
“Do that now.” Golias took up the offer as matter-of-factly as it had been made. Fumbling in his pockets, he drew forth a couple of huge gold bracelets. “Hrothgar — the king at Heorot, you know, Shandon — gave me these for my singing. Eighteen-karat stuff. I’ll swap ’em in for cash tomorrow, and we’ll be flush again.”
After supper we engaged rooms for the night. Jones ordered a bottle of wine — port jacked up with brandy, to judge from the taste — and we made ourselves comfortable in a corner of the hotel tap room. Seeing others smoking, I learned that, although no cigarettes or cigars were available, the house supplied pipes and tobacco. The others weren’t interested, but I enjoyed several pipefuls, while we held our council of war.
“Suppose you tell Shandon what you told me the other day,” Golias proposed by way of opening the discussion. “I’ve given him only the general idea of what you’re up against, thinking it better that he should learn the details from you at first hand.”
Up to that moment Jones had seemed remarkably assured. Now he showed how young he was by blushing.
“A man shouldn’t blurt out the things I’ve got to say, but — well, I need help, and you two are kind enough to offer it. The fact is, though, that I’m not at all sure that anything can be done.”
“Shoot the story, if you don’t mind,” I suggested.
“I probably don’t mind as much as I should. As Golias already knows, I’m one of these damnable people who find it soothing to talk about their personal affairs.” He grimaced deprecatingly. “It’s easy to blow to strangers about being reared in luxury. It so happens, and I won’t bore you with elaboration, that I was. One consequence of this was that it did not occur to me that I had enemies. Another was that I was trained for nothing except to look after the land.”
“You mean be a farmer?” I asked.
He smiled. “You can call it that, though we say ‘baron.’ Seeing that the land keeps productive is one of the most important parts of the job, but there’s a great deal more to it. There are hundreds of people living on the land who have to be kept healthy, kept at work, kept out of jail, educated, rewarded, punished, helped in the pinches, and so forth. Others might not like it; but I consider it the best work in the world, and it’s all I know.”
My acquaintance with him so far hadn’t prepared me for a strain of idealism. I decided, however, to reserve that for future consideration. Taking my pipe out of my mouth, I pointed the stem at him.
“But you’re not doing that now.”
“I’m not, damn it, nor other things I’d like to be doing. Some of it’s my own fault, though, as I hinted, I have other enemies. No, wait a minute; I’ll speak of them a little later. To take things up in order, it was always believed that I’d fall heir to my grandfather’s title. My father, naturally, had been next in line, but he disappeared.”
“And you never could locate him?”
“My grandfather — I was an infant at the time — never could find out what happened, or who was at the bottom of it. It is only recently that I’ve had reason to suspect that his enemy was Don Rodrigo Monks Ravan, a cousin of mine — if I’m legitimate, that is.”
After a quick double take, I passed over this latter point. “What makes you think he’s the weasel in the hen yard?”
He made a roundabout answer to this question. “The fellow had shown me no enmity I was clever enough to detect, until I seemed likely to succeed in making what the world would consider a very good match, and I would view as the greatest happiness life could offer.” Jones showed his teeth. “In spite of the lady’s refusal, Don Rodrigo wanted her, or at least the property she is to inherit. He therefore produced evidence purporting to show that I was born out of wedlock.”
“So what?” I demanded.
Golias cocked an amused eye at me, and Jones looked startled. “Well, my grandfather — and he’s a dear old gentleman — probably wouldn’t care if I was his son’s bastard, but the accusation ran that I was my dead mother’s, aided by some third party. The property goes with the blood, and he now believes that I haven’t got it.”
“And this Ravan has, you say?”
Jones laughed harshly. “Would you believe it? I never gave the matter any thought even when a closer cousin was shot by a highwayman not long ago; but with both of us out of the way, my Lord Ravan is the heir.”
This Don Rodrigo was undoubtedly something you wouldn’t want to get on your shoes, but I couldn’t help shaking my head in admiration of this methods. “So in one move, without taking his feet off the desk, he pays you off for being your dad’s son, keeps you from marrying his girl, and deals himself a fortune. What did he have against your old man?”
“My father, assuming that I know who he is?” Jones shook his head. “If I knew that, I might have some idea of where to begin an investigation.”
“Never mind what you don’t know,” Golias cut in. “Tell Shandon just why you set out from home.”
“Aside from the fact I was no longer too welcome, you mean.” Jones had spilled a little wine in the course of his recital. Now he dipped his finger in it and began doodling on the table. “Well, when you can’t stay, you go, and hope for the best, but I’m trying to do more than that. That land is where I want to be, the only place I’ll ever want to stay, and I believe it to be mine. The key to retrieving it is the establishment of my legitimacy. I was starting out to try to do so, when I ran into Golias back there at the Reine Pedauque.”
There was still a matter he hadn’t dealt with. “What about your girl? Does she care whether you have a birth certificate or not?”
“She probably cares to eat,” Golias said.
“She does not!” Jones protested. “Well, naturally, she does, but she doesn’t care about money and title as such.” Jumping to his feet, he raised his glass. “Gentlemen, I give you the Lady Hermione Steingerd ap Hawthorn.”
“I can’t place her, unless she’s some kin of old
Penkawr’s,” Golias murmured thoughtfully. “A mean old coot.”
“I repeat,” Jones said, overriding this interruption, “I give you the lovely Hermione Steingerd ap Hawthorn, a lady who would go anywhere and live under any conditions with a man — ” Here he drank with a flourish, then let his glass hang from a limp hand to spill its last few drops on the floor. “ — if only she loved him,” he whispered.
This reversal of form took me aback. “I thought you said she did.”
“Exactly.” Reseating himself, he filled his glass moodily. “I used the past tense, and correctly. Two things happened. A witch — and one of the things I wish to find out is whether or not she is in Don Rodrigo’s employ — put a curse upon us.”
“Of what nature?” Golias asked sharply before I could comment.
“Its design was to bar our union,” Jones answered, “and so far it has operated to make all our meetings since then break off in bitterness. That’s just one of the things,” he went on, holding up his hand as Golias looked ready to speak again. “The other, which may or may not be related, is that Ravan, or someone, used some youthful peccadillos of mine to poison Hermione’s mind against me.”
Having just lost Rosalette myself, I could almost have echoed the sigh which trailed his statement, until I remembered something. “And is that,” I enquired, “the thing that was worrying you, when you bailed out of that window?”
Jones stopped looking soulful to glance at me sidewise. Finally he gave a shamefaced snicker.
“I’d have a hard time proving it, wouldn’t I? But I know better than my conduct witnesses. At present my soul — which my charmer can’t reject — is living on one level, while my person, which she has banished, exists on another. Only with her benediction can they join company in the heights to which they both aspire.”
Once having been stirred, my native skepticism still had its fur up. “Is that on the level, or are you just hitching words together for the fun of it?”
He put his hand on his heart. “I swear to you, Shandon, that if my Hermione had not exiled me from her favor, I would never again look twice at another woman.”