Cumberland twitched slightly as if he would turn back to the Bishop, and then evidently thought better of it.
"Well, what is it?"
"You have been at Court all your life," said Jim, "and it has been well there with you. But none can tell when the warmest place on a bright and cloudless day may suddenly lose its warmth as a cloud covers the face of the sun and shadows begin to fall about him—"
"Warm spots? Shadows? What in the name of the Devil himself are you talking about?" roared the Earl.
Jim held up a placating hand.
It was his own fault. The Earl's lack of understanding was something he should have expected.
The Earl was not short of intelligence. He had not held his position at the right hand of the King, all these years, only by the uncertain tie of blood. He was alert and quick to use his mind profitably.
But it had been a mistake to start making mysterious allusions. That might have worked in Jim's own time, to make someone uneasy. But hinting at what one meant simply was not the way of the fourteenth century—at least in England. The Middle Ages had been a time of plain speaking—or at least the appearance of such—where a man had to be as good as his word, and his word plainly understandable.
Jim put mysterious allusions aside.
"If certain rumors started circulating about you, my Lord," he said now, "you might find that there was no longer any room for you at Court."
"No room for me?" Cumberland burst into laughter, quite hearty, natural laughter.
"Rumors of Witchery, my Lord," said Jim.
The Earl stopped laughing and sobered up, but his answer was almost good-natured. "Oh, that gabble about the Lady Agatha," he said. "I have answered that quite plainly, and in public. All nonsense, of course!"
"But you did sponsor her introduction to the Court," said Jim. "And I was thinking more of rumors about you having no choice about doing that, because you were involved in Witchery yourself."
The hint of a smile on Cumberland's face, which had appeared there with his own last words, was suddenly wiped away. He stared at Jim.
Chapter Thirty-Five
For a long moment, the Earl just stared at Jim. Then he snorted.
"You fool! Such a rumor might harm lesser men. But me? The King's brother?"
"Even Kings have been weakened by rumors, my Lord. Particularly when such start being passed about by the common man and woman. Rumor, rhymes—and a sudden silence in the marketplace when you and those with you ride through. Perhaps even a stone, or a lump of dung, flying out at you, suddenly, from the hand of someone hidden in the crowd."
"So, these are the shadows you would alarm me with," said Cumberland, heavily. "Let me tell you I am not to be frightened by such. There are none of those things you mentioned that will ever happen to me."
"Perhaps my Lord should not be too sure," said Jim. "After all, they can happen to anyone. The danger is what they do to power and place. Those who are not with one of whom tales are told, will tend to withdraw, so as not to be stained with the same color; and you know, my Lord—as well as any man—that in high places those who are not with you tend to be against you. So it is that by the time there is marketplace talk and disrespect, there is already talk that the subject of rumor is ready to be brought down."
"Ah?" said Cumberland, jutting his lower jaw out at Jim. "And who is going to start such rumors, throw such clods, and bring me down when I am weakened? You?"
"I am distressed your Lordship should think so," said Jim.
"You did not answer me," Cumberland growled.
"I meant," said Jim, "to say that, as a magician, even though a lesser one, I can see shadows of the future. I am only warning your Lordship against them."
"Hah! So then I am warned!"
"That being so, my Lord," said Jim, "it only remains for you to tell me where the warrants are being kept that accuse us of treason, so that I may magically destroy them. I need not doubt, I take it, that no new warrants will be issued, nor that I, nor Sir Brian Neville-Smythe, nor Dafydd ap Hywel will be bothered by any such things in the future."
The Earl chuckled.
"Hah!" he said, again. "Well, now, Sir Dragon Knight, I am not at all sure those warrants can be delivered up to you, or that you can be assured that there will be no more investigation of your loyalty in the future. For one thing, such matters are out of my hands. It will be up to the Justices that may have already been named to judge you once you get to the Court."
"You think so, do you?" said Jim. "I am afraid I disagree with you, my Lord. I want those warrants now, and also your word that we won't be troubled again."
"And I said," replied Cumberland, his voice rising, "that you weren't going to get the Goddamn warrants. As for your being what you call 'bothered' in the future—"
Reaching inside himself for the link to Carolinus' supply of magic, Jim caused the daylight striking in through the windows of the Hall to be blanked out, and all light within the Hall to be extinguished. He allowed the moment of total darkness to last for perhaps ten seconds, before he brought light back.
"You were too late, my Lord," he said. "The word has already gone out throughout England and through the Court itself, that perhaps you, yourself, are involved in Witchery, and have been for many years. You will hear the whispering in the Court as you walk by, and in the streets you will find silence—and yes, even possibly some things thrown. I doubt that the King will long wish to have someone close to him of whom that is said."
He looked closely at Cumberland. The business of the moment of darkness had been no more than that, of course. Everything else depended upon how much the Earl would believe. He had certainly been shaken by the sermon that had resulted when he asked the Bishop's blessing, and Jim was now betting everything on his hope that the Earl's imagination would do the rest.
But he was mistaken. The Earl's face was very pale indeed this time, but his jaw was still set like a bulldog's.
"In the land from which I've—I came to England," added Jim for good measure, "the art of managing a rumor is well understood."
"Ah?" said Cumberland—but with a growing uneasiness Jim thought that the tone of his voice signaled not a further acceptance of defeat, but a sudden arousal of hope. "Yes, I doubt not, it is a high Art, and no one in England would know it as you know it. But as for these warrants you ask about, Sir Simon is carrying them. You will have to have him in here—though I see no one you could send for him. Perhaps the archer could go."
"Indeed," said Dafydd, before Jim could express his anger at the contemptuous tone in which the last words had been spoken, "I will be glad to do so. I will bring whoever is necessary back in a moment, Sir James."
He turned and started up the aisle between the two long tables, toward the door, carrying his longbow and with his quiver over his shoulder, having produced both from under the table the moment his hands were unbound. They all watched him in silence.
A faint scraping noise was almost drowned out by Brian's shout of warning. Jim turned swiftly to find the Earl had snatched up Jim's eating-knife from the table. It was nothing of a weapon, compared to ordinary daggers and swords, but it was some five inches long, with one keen edge and a sharp point. With it, the Earl was lunging at Jim.
Jim grabbed up his mazer, the only thing within easy reach, and met the point of the eating-knife with the inside of the metal vessel. Wine splashed all over the Earl's houppelande; and the knife-point jarred against the inside of the now empty table utensil. With a surprisingly quick move, the Earl pulled his arm back, weaving the unbroken knife in his big fist expertly, feinting this way and that, to draw the mazer out of line with Jim's body, where it could no longer protect it.
"What's the matter with you?" said the voice of Kineteté, with sharp disgust in Jim's head. "What was the use of Carolinus so putting himself at odds with the Collegiate's rules—rules he helped write himself—if you're not going to use the Magick he gave you? Don't you know how to set up a ward?"
&nb
sp; Disgusted at himself, Jim envisioned a ward—not around himself but around Cumberland—who now suddenly found himself blocked by an invisible wall on all sides. Just in time, too—a moment after the ward was up, there was a scratching noise on the far side of the Earl; and Jim saw Angie had just barely been stopped from driving the blade of her own eating-knife into the Earl's back. The ward had been created just in time. She had a look on her face that Jim had never seen before; and it did not fade quickly as she stood staring at the now-encased Earl.
Jim reached across the small space between them and put his hand gently on the forearm of her hand that held the knife. She looked sharply at him; and as their eyes met, the fierce look slowly faded from her face.
"I just warded him," said Jim quietly. "It's all right. I think I can handle this, now."
She looked at him for a long moment, then put the knife down on the table and sat down in a chair, herself.
"It's all right—" Angie was beginning, when a roar from Cumberland interrupted her.
"Simon!" His voice rang out with surprising volume. "Now! All of you!"
The twin doors from the courtyard swung open with a speed that could only result if the men outside had been waiting closely beyond them, expecting some signal. Dafydd, who had stopped on his way to the doors when the Earl had attacked Jim, turned and ran back, easily and as swiftly as a deer, bounded to the dais, stepped around behind the table and was suddenly sending arrows from his bent bow, with devastating effect at this short range, into the front of the onrushing men-at-arms.
Simon alone, sword in hand, came on untouched.
"He is mine!" shouted Brian; Jim heard a ripping sound behind him and Brian burst into his sight, carrying in both hands the heavy, bladed pole of an ancient halberd, pulled down from among the weapons on the wall behind the dais.
"And so I have been leaving him for you," Said Daffyd calmly, his voice pitched only high enough to be heard over the clamor of the attacking men. These were being channeled into a column four abreast by the long tables on either side; and those still on their feet were beginning to hang back slightly as the front rank fell to Dafydd's arrows.
The archer, Jim saw, had nowhere near enough arrows to deal with the rest of Simon's men; and as he watched, Dafydd nudged the quiver out of sight around his hip, quietly laid his bow, still strung, on the table, and loosened in its sheath the long, slim knife he wore on his leg.
Brian leaped from the dais, the halberd balanced in his hands and held diagonally across his chest with the blade at head height. Sir Simon had stopped some ten or twelve feet from the dais and was waiting for him, sword held high.
Three years—even two years—ago, Jim would have read nothing in that high-held blade. A couple of melees in which his one concern was to survive, plus having been put through an extended course of practice bouts with the friendly, but rough, Brian, had opened his eyes to many truths about broadswords and other medieval weapons.
Jim had learned that he was—despite the heroic legends about him—never going to be any kind of a match for anyone who had trained in the use of edged weapons on foot and horseback since childhood. But he now had a rough idea of what certain positions probably indicated.
In this case, Sir Simon's sword, carried high, signaled a clear purpose. His sword was too light to directly parry the massive steel head of the halberd. Simon was counting on making as little contact with it as possible, ducking or dodging Brian's first swipe of the polearm, then going in point-first for the kill, once the weight and force of Brian's swing had left him unable to get the heavy blade back up in time to block or parry the sword.
Brian took a step forward, the curved edge of the halberd above his head and pointing forward. Simon watched him intently. The eyes of each man focused on the other with no expressions of enmity or fury on their faces. They watched only each other, with the steady gazes of chess players.
Brian swept the head of his weapon in a sweeping curve downward, toward the middle of Simon's body—a blow not possible to dodge except by moving the whole body. Simon smiled thinly; and stepped—not back, to where his movements would be blocked by the men pressing close behind him, but one step forward.
Clearly he was planning to leap the pole itself behind its axe-head, and then drive in with his sword blade before Brian had a chance to check the momentum of his heavy weapon and bring it back in a parry.
It was a gamble on his own ability—but not that much of one for a knight of this century, trained to leap into the saddle of his already running horse, wearing full armor—five hundred years before the cowboy of the American West was doing the same thing, but without armor.
However, in the same moment, Brian's swing curved up from its downward arc, to become one aimed at Simon's head. It was the counterpart of a rather uncommon sword stroke that Brian had shown Jim, and Jim had seen him use in serious fights. But what made it remarkable here was that, even with Brian's two-handed grip on the polearm, the axe-head should have been so heavy that its momentum in its original direction could not have been changed as a sword blade's might have been.
But Brian did it. Jim had forgotten once more how strong the people of this time were from lifetimes of exercise. The sharp edge of the axe-head leaped back up toward Simon's chest and throat. Simon tried to both lean and back away in the same movement. He was partly successful, in that the axe-blade missed his chest—but the sweep of the axe-head brought it against the side of his head as it continued upward.
He dropped, loose-limbed, to the Hall floor and lay there, utterly without motion.
"A pretty blow! By Saint Michael, a pretty blow! Well struck!" shouted the Earl from inside his ward. "So, what are the rest of you waiting for? Take him!"
With a growling roar, the untouched men-at-arms rolled forward toward Brian. There was no more time for thought.
Jim took a deep breath and became a dragon. He leaped at the oncoming men-at-arms.
Chapter Thirty-Six
"The last straw," said Kineteté in Jim's head, sounding perilously close to chuckling—if a soundless voice could be said to convey a near-chuckle.
Jim had landed on the bare floor between the tables where the forefront of the men-at-arms had stood. Sir Simon still lay there, off to one side. As for the rest—he turned to stare at Kineteté—to his astonishment, she was demonstrating that she could magically send into his mind what the men-at-arms were currently thinking.
It was not telepathy as Jim had ever imagined it. Rather, it was a sort of mass telempathy—a sending to him of what Simon's men-at-arms as a group were thinking and feeling—as if he were getting a sort of instant, condensed report of their thoughts and feelings as a group.
His turning into a dragon and attacking them had clearly overloaded their capacity for new threats. They none of them lacked courage where ordinary opponents were concerned. But now they were each on their way to get as far from Jim as fast as they could, by going over benches, under tables—whatever was necessary—until they could reach the front door of the Hall and escape.
They had, Jim learned, all been aware that this particular bit of duty was bad luck from the start. Arresting a magickian was nothing a man ought be ordered to do. They had all thought so, and they had all been right—this proved it. For a little while they had been reassured by the sight of the Bishop at the High Table; but plainly not even someone as holy as he could control a knight who could also become a dragon. Sir Simon should have known it was going to be like this.
Simon was a good knight, as knight-officers went. There had been a lot of merry sport, and profit, taking his orders.
But he was gentry. He should have known that old Fumblehand was sending them into trouble… magickians appearing from nowhere, and even bringing old Fumblehand with them, dragons walking in and then being sent to Hell—then a devil of an archer picking them off while Sir Simon himself got his head bashed in. And now this!
A knight who knowingly led his men into something where they we
ren't going to stand a chance, deserved to die. Usually, they'd be trying now to bring his body out with them, so as to give it to his lady—whoever she was at present—for proper burial. It was what they were supposed to do. But to hell with that! If he had cared for them the way he should have, they'd be caring for him now. So let him end up in the dragon's belly, instead—let him lie where he was, the bastard!
All this came to Jim in a sudden single flash of understanding, which his mind could divide up into words at his leisure. But at the moment there was no leisure. The men-at arms would be out of the Hall in seconds.
The inspiration he needed had come to him. He had not been ready for this before—it was too magically expensive, Carolinus might expend that much of his own magic for his own purposes, but Jim could not simply borrow an amount it would take to produce a crowd of people, just for his.
But he did not have to use magic. Here was his crowd, ready-made for him.
"Still!" he shouted, forgetting entirely that he was using his dragon-voice, which was enough to stop them dead even if the magic command had failed.
"Thank you, Jim," said Kineteté, sourly, in his head once more.
"Sorry," said Jim in a lower voice, sweeping his gaze over the other people on the platform. "Unstill, everyone on the dais. Oh, Brian, forgive me—I forgot you were down on the floor, too. Unstill, Brian. Now, would you step back up to the High Table? Good, thanks."
Hastily, he changed back to his human form.
"All you men-at-arms," he said, "may unstill enough to turn around and face the High Table. Good. Now, all of you have now forgotten everything that happened after Sir Brian bested Sir Simon; and you'll keep forgetting everything that happens, as it happens, until I tell you to start remembering, again…"
Jim turned back to face the High Table. "And you, my Lord Earl," he said, "you also will forget everything that has happened since Sir Brian's fight with Sir Simon. You will continue to forget every new thing that happens, as it happens—until I tell you otherwise…"