The Dragon and the Gnarly King

  Now that he was close, the grimy prisoner's words also came clearly.

  "… But 'ee'll slay me! Tis the second time 'ee sent me back't'im!"

  "What's that to do with me, sirrah?" snapped Agatha. She was making no effort to keep her voice down; not only this part of the dungeons, but the torture-room beyond, must presently be unoccupied. It was hardly likely she would speak so openly where she might be overheard. "Can you break those heavier chains they've put on you?"

  "Oh, them," said the Gnarly, glancing down at the links. The tied-at-the-end sleeves on his abnormally long arms dangled over the chain. "Ay, them's easy enow. But 'ee'll slay me—'tis bad luck having a messenger bring 'ee bad news, without you slays 'im!"

  "Well, you belong to him, not to me," said Agatha. "You have my answer; and your task is to take it back to your King. So take it! If he tries to keep that boy when I require him—our deal will be done, and he will get nothing. What do I want with a Mage? But once I am ready here, all is possible. I shall decide then how much tin-mine land your King may get. He can agree to those terms, or have nothing! I must get back to my rooms, now."

  She turned and began to walk toward Jim. Startled, he turned, hurriedly, himself, to hastily return the door to its frame, and himself to the other side of it. He started climbing the stairs, Hob riding the smoke up beside him.

  "She has to come back this way, doesn't she?" Jim panted at the hobgoblin.

  "Yes, m'Lord." said Hob.

  Jim climbed faster. He was becoming short of breath, but Agatha could hardly be mounting the stairs any more quickly than he was. Thanks to the tower stairs at Malencontri his legs had plenty of spring in them. If his wind would just last him until the top of the steps at least…

  "How'll Agatha get back to her own quarters? The King's with Cumberland. She'll have to go past them," he panted.

  "I don't know, m'Lord," Hob answered. "Maybe she could go through a door to the hall. Then she can go down the hall to the outside door of her own rooms. Would you like to ride the smoke the rest of the way up?"

  "Oh," said Jim breathlessly, feeling foolish. Things were getting to a fair pass when he was out-thought by a hobgoblin. "Never mind. I'm almost there now." Indeed he was. The end of the stairs was in sight, and his thoughts were racing.

  Maybe the situation was beginning to take shape, finally. Agatha Falon was acting as if she really had a chance to become not merely the King's favorite, but his wife and Queen. The very idea was ridiculous: she was no more than minor nobility. The Court had been said, for a year now, to be gleefully awaiting her downfall and certain disgrace—if not banishment or even execution. Surprisingly, so far, she had obstinately escaped any such thing.

  It seemed impossible that the King could marry someone like her. True, his first Queen was dead; but there were other massive obstacles—obstacles of Church and State. Theoretically a King should only marry someone of Royal blood. Further, the marriage—his taking of a new Queen—should be an action benefiting not only him, but his country, such as cementing an alliance with another national power that would prove a help in time of need.

  But still—could it be possible she had some plan in mind that actually might give her a chance to win the King?

  It was all but inconceivable, but she had talked to the Gnarly messenger as if she was confident of it.

  However, that evidence alone was no help to Jim. Whether her plan had any real hope of success was beside the point, just now; Jim had to deal with the current situation, which was that she was already in a position of influence with the King, and in some sort of alliance with the Gnarly King, who had young Robert Falon.

  Her ambition had to be overreaching itself. There were no two ways about that. But whatever she was doing was much more complicated than he could have guessed.

  And where did the Earl of Cumberland come into all this? Jim could well believe what Chandos had said about the Earl's plots against the young Prince, but he could see no way that the affair of young Robert Falon affected that. Still, Carolinus had said that the King and Prince must be protected; this must be what he had referred to.

  It was lucky he had at least this much of a head start on Agatha. It struck him suddenly that there was one thing he should do immediately: Edgar was a spy, not only by profession, but by nature. If he, while tagging along with Jim, heard anything at all important, he would immediately begin to think of ways to turn it to his own advantage. It would be like adding the Town Crier to their company.

  "Come on, Hob," he said.

  Hob followed him as he hurried back along the stone passage and out into Cumberland's quarters. Edgar was still there, waiting.

  "Edgar," Jim said, "I'm going to send you back to your own room. I'm also going to put a ward around it, so you can't get out and no one can get in. Don't worry. I'll be along to set you free in a little while."

  Edgar's face paled, taking on a rather pasty look, so that his little mustache and Van Dyke beard looked like cheap bits of makeup attached to his face.

  "It'll be all right, I say!" said Jim impatiently, clamping his teeth on the words. Without waiting to hear any protest, Jim visualized the man back in his own two small rooms, with the ward surrounding both and the invisibility spell gone. Edgar disappeared.

  "Have I got to leave, too, m'Lord?" Hob said in a small voice next to his ear.

  "No, not you, Hob. You stay with me," answered Jim. "Now, nobody can hear or see us, but don't say anything to me unless you think it's really necessary—and don't bother me for a minute."

  "Yes, m'Lord."

  Jim was wondering just how far behind him Agatha was, while reflecting that he had inadvertently saved some magic, after all, by climbing up from the dungeons. Certainly, he must still have some lead over her.

  He headed toward the first room of Cumberland's suite—the room where Cumberland and the King had been talking. He hoped they still were; it would be interesting to see what Agatha would do on discovering she had to pass by them to get out. Of course, she might take another route, but…

  Hob abandoned his waft of smoke, hopping onto Jim's shoulder, as Jim tracked back through the intervening rooms. Cumberland, he found, had by this time pushed the King into something perilously close to argument.

  "—I tell you, Robert," the King was saying testily, "things are all very well as they are. Chandos is the last man I'd suspect of anything treasonable; and if others want to dabble in it, let them dabble. They'll lose their heads in due time. But when they are capable men, doing as they ought, and there's no one I can think of who could replace them, leave them as they are, for God's sake!"

  "Oh, my Liege," said Cumberland. "On my honor, there are a number of men of family and title who could take their place and do their duties as well, if not much better."

  "Maybe so, maybe so," said the King. "But I'm used to the men I have. The way things are now, my governing works. Why must we always go around looking under bedsheets and behind curtains and trying to find reason to get rid of men who are giving me no trouble? I believe you when you say there are many who grumble and groan under my taxes. But, if you will remember, a number of those taxes were at your suggestion. You also, at the time, agreed to the men charged with gathering the monies—some of those you suspect of high treason now. No, no, I shall need a great deal more reason before taking some of the actions you suggest."

  There was finally some sound of Royal wrath in the King's voice, but otherwise nothing new and interesting to be learned here at the moment, Jim thought. It was simply more of the same debate between King and Earl. He looked back into the room he had just left and was almost run into by Agatha.

  Hastily, Jim ducked out of her path. Still invisible, he and Hob moved back into a corner of the room.

  Agatha was walking quickly, like someone who knew her way well. But the sound of the King's voice checked her before she reached the half-open door. She stopped dead, then moved forward in short, quick, silent steps until she could see through t
he opening without being seen herself.

  Jim, trusting to his invisibility, moved quietly up behind her, to see what she was seeing. Her position gave her a full view of Cumberland; and, if Cumberland looked in the right direction, he would see her. But the King could not be seen at all from this angle and, therefore, could not see her.

  Meanwhile, both she and Jim could hear him talking. The subject had changed to horses, and, temporarily at least, Cumberland seemed to have given up trying to hold his monarch on the subject of lords with treasonable intentions.

  "—sending me a stallion from Tours, which I have bought," the King was saying. "If the beast is half as good as those Frenchmen promised, I should have a warhorse beyond price."

  Cumberland did not make the obvious answer, that the King was well beyond the age of needing a warhorse and his only use for one would be to look at it and preen himself on possessing it.

  "I know a young man," said Cumberland, "of the Lockyear family, who are known to have an excellent eye for horses. Perhaps I could send him to look at the horse?"

  "Never heard of them," said the King. "In any case, I have already made up my mind about this horse. They tell me that at the gallop he will leave any other destrier behind…"

  Jim's mind was doing some galloping of its own. Somehow, the King would have to be maneuvered out of this room, if Agatha was to escape to the hall unseen. He waited with interest to see how she would manage it.

  He moved from behind her to a position at her right, from which he could see into the room at an angle that showed him the King. His Majesty was sagging a little in his chair, as if the wine was getting to him. Not surprising if it did, thought Jim, considering his age and probable physical condition.

  As he watched, the King looked down at the floor and his eyes closed, momentarily, as if he might be about to slip into a doze. Cumberland's gaze lifted. He exchanged looks through the partly open door with Agatha, then nodded slightly and looked again at the King, who was opening his eyes once more.

  "In any case," said Cumberland, "let us drink to this new horse of yours, your Highness. A noble steed like that deserves a toast." He filled up their glasses, lifted his to the King, and poured its contents down his throat, almost ostentatiously emptying the container.

  The King took up his wine more slowly. "A toast—" he said, but his voice had thickened—not a great deal, but enough to be noticeable if you were listening for it. He also emptied his glass, but he took somewhat longer than Cumberland had; and when he put it down, hand and glass together dropped heavily onto the table beside his chair. The empty glass goblet toppled over.

  He took a deep breath.

  "Robert," he said heavily, "since Agatha has chosen to ride and you will have things to do, I think I shall rest me a little while—'lay me down to bleed a while, and rise to fight again…' eh, Robert?"

  Cumberland smiled that grim smile again and reached down with one arm, literally hoisting the older man to his feet—and revealing considerable strength. He had not even bent his body to do so; and the King was heavy from years of rich living and idleness.

  "Your arm, Robert…" Edward said again, the thickness in his voice now blurring his words almost beyond understanding.

  Cumberland offered his arm, and the King passed his own through its angle. Leaning heavily on the taller, middle-aged Earl, and with uncertain steps, the older man first let himself be led, then stopped and pulled back, on seeing the direction they were going.

  "I thought, Majesty," said the Earl, in answer to an uncertain mumble from the King, "since a bed of mine was closer… for a short nap…"

  "You're a good lad, Robert. Let us go…" The two of them disappeared from view.

  "Bah!" said Agatha to the thin air. She strode into the room, took the Earl's goblet, filled it with wine, and, sitting in the chair the King had abandoned, took some hearty swallows.

  "Well?" she said, when Cumberland reappeared and sat down. "How did his Highness take it when you told him I was riding?"

  "He did not take it happily, my Lady," said the Earl. "But he accepted it. Still, I would suggest the excuse is wearing thin."

  "And why do you call it an excuse, my Lord?"

  "Yesterday, you were riding," said Cumberland. "But today you were down visiting that manling in the dungeons, were you not?"

  "And what gives you the right to say that?" said Agatha. "Do you have spies following me now?"

  "Of course," growled the Earl. He poured a small amount of wine into the goblet the King had emptied and sipped at it, then set it down again. "Do you not have your spies on me? Does not everybody have their spies on everybody else here at Court? Do not take me for a child, my Lady."

  "I would take it amiss, my Lord," said Agatha slowly, "if you were to insist to his Majesty I have done anything but ride, this day."

  The Earl laughed shortly, and drank a little more.

  "Your wits are astray, I think, Lady Falon. You have one claim on the King. I have several. This I have told you before: Those who last long around the Throne do not do it on a single moment of favor. It is a game I know well. You will find that out if you count me as one you can play with."

  "I think not in my case, Sir."

  "Time will tell, Lady Falon."

  "What do you want from me, then?"

  "Some of whatever you get. You surely did not expect it otherwise? There are only two powers here. One is the King. The other is those of us who advise him. And of those, I am the strongest."

  "And you are the King's half-brother, after all," said Agatha. "It could be that has bred in you, somewhat, and given you an illusion of greater strength than indeed you have. I may be a weak enemy, my Lord, but I warrant you I can be a valuable friend."

  "This is not a public market, my Lady. I am neither to be frightened nor bought. I repeat, there are those of us who advise his Majesty—too many for you to think of having your own way with all, even if you were powerful enough to do so. Like the King himself, you will have to live with us, as we live with each other. His Majesty is not a fool, you know. He will not have forgotten the hard death of his father, strangely and secretly, after he had been forced to resign the throne. He will make sure nothing like that happens to him, and the best way he may do so is to keep the powers of those about him in balance."

  "And what then is supposed to be the sum of this lesson you rede me, my most wise and experienced Lord?" said Agatha.

  "Simply that he has a use for me in keeping that balance," said the Earl. "Not so you. I may control him utterly one day. You never will. For now you have my assistance as long as I earn by it in the long run. There may come a time when I will demand of you what your aim and plans are. When that time comes I would counsel you against telling me less than the full truth, Lady Agatha."

  "I thank you most graciously for your kind advice, my Lord Earl," said Agatha, standing up. "Now, I must return to my own rooms."

  The Earl bowed from the chair where he sat and she turned, heading toward the door that opened to the hallway outside. Time to go, Jim told himself. He paused only to work the magic that would remove the ward on Edgar's room.

  "Kineteté?" he said; aloud, but safely, since neither the Earl nor Agatha could hear him.

  Abruptly he was back with that one of the three most potent magicians in this world.

  Chapter Thirty

  He was back on the stage of the auditorium, but this time it was empty, except for Kineteté and Barron, who had turned to look at him.

  "So you found what you were after?" said Kineteté.

  "Not exactly," said Jim. "Cumberland's trying to control the King. So's Agatha. I think she and Cumberland are working together—they talked like partners that don't like each other, at all. Agatha's also ready to trade the Gnarly King a third of England's tin mines for little Robert; though how she can do that when she doesn't own one of them—but I suppose you already knew all this."

  "Of course we did!" snapped Barron.

  "Not
about Agatha and the tin mines," said Kineteté.

  "Anyway," Jim went on, "it's time I got back to Robert, Carolinus, and the rest in the Gnarly cave. Can you send me there now? Or should I try to use my own magic to get there?"

  "I'll send you," said Kineteté. "I assume you want the hobgoblin, there on your shoulder, to go back with you?"

  "Well—" Jim began.

  "Oh, yes," said Hob, quickly. "I must be at my Lord's side if peril threatens."

  "Very good," said Kineteté. "But first I want to know more about Agatha and the tin mines. How did you find that out?"

  "I heard her talking to the Gnarly King's messenger," Jim said. "He's chained up in a dungeon directly below the King's quarters at Court, and he seemed to have just carried a proposal to her from the Gnarly King. I heard her turning down his latest offer."

  Then, to the best of his memory, he repeated the conversation he had overheard between Agatha and the Earl.

  "Interesting," said Kineteté.

  "I thought so, too," said Jim. "But it doesn't explain how she managed to get to Lyonesse the way she did at just the right time to try and have us killed by those giants. Also, Edgar couldn't help me find the two men who'd been with her in Lyonesse."

  "They're probably unimportant," said Kineteté.

  "Maybe," said Jim, "but I wanted to ask them why she did it. It was a lot of trouble just to kill me if it was only out of sheer spite. I know she doesn't like Angie and me, or anyone who likes us."

  "No," said Kineteté dryly.

  "Do you think it was the Gnarly King who moved her magically into Lyonesse?"

  "Impossible," said Kineteté. "The King of a Land of Naturals could only move you out of his Kingdom back to wherever you came from. Any competent magickian could move you to him. True, once she was in his Kingdom, the Gnarly King could have moved her to the opening of that tunnel you used to enter his Kingdom from Lyonesse. But that still leaves the question of how she got there in the first place and afterward got herself and those two courtiers back to Court, where you just saw her. Unless she had help from somewhere else—"