The Dragon and the Gnarly King

  "We'll have visitors in a short time now," Jim told him. "There'll be no need to sound an alarm. John Steward will talk to them—nobody else should. They're King's troops, and Theoluf already knows they're coming."

  "Yes, m'Lord. I understand."

  Jim went down the stairs to the next floor, where he found Angie and Geronde on their way to the Solar. Geronde went on into the room, but Angie paused outside the door, and Jim filled her in on what he had seen from the air.

  "So these men are coming from the direction of Castle Smythe?" she said. Jim nodded. "But Brian and Geronde came in from Malvern, in the other direction," she went on. "So they're not likely to know anything about this."

  "That's what I think, too," Jim said.

  "But you're very concerned about this, aren't you?" she said, looking at him. "What is it?"

  "I don't really know," he said. "There's something going on, but I don't know what. Brian isn't acting his usual self, I think—or maybe I'm wrong about that. But it's just barely possible that word of his anti-tax sentiments has gotten back to the Royal Court and that could be bad."

  "Yes," she said thoughtfully, "I can see why you're not here just now." She looked up decisively. "I'll handle it, if John Steward sends for me." She stepped forward to give him a quick hug, then turned to the Solar door. "Go on down to Brian, now. He's already in Carolinus's room."

  "Look," said Jim, on a sudden impulse. "There's something I want to talk to you about. It's about the servants."

  "Fine," said Angie. "As soon as we get time."

  "As soon as we get time," said Jim. He went.

  Going down the stairs, he remembered that hug. Sometimes he wondered in all seriousness if Angie could be psychic. The possibility that Brian might be in danger from what he had been saying publicly about the new Royal taxes had reawakened a fear that had been growing in Jim lately—a fear for his and Angie's very survival: the suspicion that, in spite of the several years he had spent in this medieval century, people were beginning to see through him.

  He was able to change bodies and be a dragon because of the accident that had brought him and Angie here. That same accident had stuck him with magical energy and with being a magician, like it or not. He was a knight—and therefore able to be a Baron—only because he had lied protectively about himself to Brian, the first time they had met.

  He was no real magician—he only used knowledge from hundreds of years later to make himself look like one. He was no hand with a lance, and able only to hack and hew amateurishly with the sword, only because of Brian's earnest teaching. The manners of the time he had picked up by imitating those around him.

  Face it, he was a fake.

  He and Angie had been able to survive only because they had had the unbelievable luck to pick up great friends. Brian was a champion at tournaments—and there was no one as loyal as Brian. Dafydd ap Hywel was, probably quite actually, the Master of all Masters as an Archer, bowyer, and fletcher. And Carolinus, Jim's Master-in-Magic—who must have seen through him long ago—was one of only three AAA+ magicians among all the magicians in this world.

  If he had learned one thing in the last few medieval years, it was that—in this time—you had to have friends to survive. All of those he had just enumerated would not give him away. But what of all the other people in England to say nothing of the rest of the Earth.

  Like his servants and men-at-arms here in the Castle. He was supposed to be a magickian as well as their Lord. It was his responsibility to get rid of the boomps, which they were all sure would come and eat them some night.

  But he had not. The depth of their disappointment could be the beginning of a disillusionment about him, generally. He had noticed them recently indulging in familiarities, seemingly aimed at comfort and care and highly unusual for servants dealing with a Lord of their own time.

  It was his own fault. He had been unable to bring himself to order the harsh penalties, like floggings, for their sins of failed duty, the way the usual Lord of the demesne would have done. He had talked to them too much, been too familiar in his own actions. They normally expected to fear their ruler and protector—otherwise how could he be someone who could defend them against their enemies? Friendliness came only after that.

  Therefore, they had not really allowed him to make himself their friend because he had yet to prove himself. It was their duty to die for him, if necessary. It was his to prove himself by the usual actions, worth dying for. Their apparent care lately could be only pretended; and if so, why?

  The trouble was, he was afraid he knew the answer to that—

  He realized suddenly he was face-to-face with the door to the room ordinarily given to Carolinus when visiting at Malencontri. Walking in, he found Brian already peering out of one of the two arrow-slits at the courtyard below.

  "Active fellow," Brian said, turning from the arrow-slit as Jim closed the door behind him, "and I have indeed never seen those arms before—although I may have heard them mentioned to me. There's something tickling in the back of my head about them; I may have heard the man's name. Broadbent? No, that's not it. Well, it'll come to me—"

  He was interrupted as the door opened again; Jim turned to see Mistress Plyseth sailing in with a jug of wine, one of water, and four glasses. She was followed by May Heather, balancing a plate with small cakes on it. Both were beaming powerfully at the two knights. They brought their burdens forward to the table and set them down, curtsied, and then backed out as if leaving the presence of royalty, their determined smiles persisting to the point where Jim could not avoid wondering if the smiles would remain after the door closed.

  As it shut, the answer came to Jim: May Heather was being given a lesson in one of the ways of the Serving Room. This must have been a demonstration of how to deliver food and drink to their Lord and his guest.

  The curious thing was that this was not the way he was ordinarily served. Gwynneth had never before beamed upon him while serving him, that Jim could remember. In fact, if she ever delivered any food to his table or to him with her own hands, it was usually set down on the table with a very definite gesture, as if to say that he had better eat it and enjoy it. It was good for him.

  None of this, however, seemed to have registered on Brian. He was already munching on one of the small cakes and pouring wine for both of them.

  "Ah, well," he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed and leaving the room's one comfortable chair to Jim, "it doesn't matter. We'll find his name quickly enough, once your Steward comes up to tell you of his visit."

  Since Brian had so pointedly left the chair open, Jim took it—although he had intended to perch on the bed and let Brian, as the guest, have the more comfortable seat.

  "You're right, of course," he said.

  "These matters unravel themselves in any case," said Brian, cheerfully raising his wine-glass. He checked himself abruptly and turned to the jug of water. As Jim watched, his old friend splashed some of the water into his wine.

  Jim stared at him. Brian never watered his wine, except on formal occasions. Jim opened his mouth to ask about it; then closed it again. Brian—very deliberately, it seemed—did not notice. He drank off half of his watered wine almost at a gulp, and with an air of relief. "Ah, James, it is good to be with you again!"

  "And it is good for me to be with you again, Brian," said Jim with great sincerity. Brian, he told himself, would get around to explaining the watered wine when he was ready.

  Meanwhile, he also drank, and the two of them set their glasses back down on the table at almost the same instant.

  "What's the latest news?" Jim asked. It was a socially acceptable way of inviting Brian to tell him anything he had come to Malencontri to say, without seeming to pry.

  "Why, things are well enough, James," said Brian. "Not that I could not wish for happier days at Castle Malvern. You know how high my expectations were, when we brought Geronde's father home at last from the Holy Land."

  "Indeed I do," said Jim.
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  The reunion of Geronde with her long-absent father, Sir Geoffrey de Chaney, had revealed a rift between daughter and father. Geronde had long been silently bitter about her father's wandering ways and his dreams of coming home laden with riches.

  But the reunion had taken place months ago, and they were all safely back at Malvern Castle. Jim had assumed that father and daughter had been reconciled—nothing he had heard since had suggested otherwise. Brian was splashing more water into the wine that was left in his cup.

  "Geronde," grumbled the knight, "has been driving me mad, wishing me to put water in with every damn glass of wine I take, just as if I was at a damned banquet."

  He filled his glass with wine on top of the water-wine mixture already there.

  "Makes some sense at banquets, where you sit together from noon until dark and want to stay half-way sober," he went on. "But by all that's holy, it spoils the taste of the wine! I told her I'd rather have nine glasses of water and one of untouched wine, than twenty glasses of watered wine. But she says practice will make it comfortable. Hah!"

  Jim stared at him, surprised. This was the first time he had ever heard Brian grumble in any way about Geronde, and one of the rare times in which he had seen a sudden black scowl on his friend's face.

  "—You know me, James," Brian was going on, "I am no wine-worm. Nor a malt-worm, even, like some I could mention, who think ale a harmless drink. If there is wine before me I partake. If there is none, I do not miss it—even as we are accustomed to rich times and lean ones as far as food is concerned, summer and winter. But by Saint Brian, my name-Saint, unwatered wine is a comfort to me!"

  Jim looked at him closely.

  "Is something wrong, Brian?" Jim asked.

  "Outside of the wine—" Brian began, looking at Jim, hesitated, and then burst out, "—Yes, damme, yes! There is something much amiss! I have something great in prospect but cannot be happy about it because of what should not be!"

  "Brian," said Jim, "empty out that watered wine in your glass."

  Brian tossed the remnants of his refilled and adulterated glass—onto the floor, of course.

  Once, Jim would have winced at seeing him do that. But the time he had spent here had accustomed him to behaviors like it—and it was quite true, of course, that the servants would clean it all up afterward. But Brian was already reaching for the pitcher again.

  "No, no!" said Jim, holding up a warning finger; and when Brian hesitated, staring at him, Jim reached out, took the pitcher, filled Brian's glass three-quarters full of wine only, and pushed it toward him.

  "You did not give yourself this cup of wine," he said to Brian. "I gave it to you. And it would be most un-guestly of you to refuse it."

  "Oh? Ah—" said Brian, his eyebrows going up, and then down again as understanding took place. His hand closed around the wine-cup. "Yes, yes indeed, James. Most un-guestly!"

  He took a large swallow from the cup, and his face beamed with sudden happiness.

  "Aaahh," he said on a long, satisfied exhalation of breath.

  "But you were saying something had gone amiss," Jim reminded him.

  "So I was," said Brian, at least part of the scowl coming back temporarily, but then clearing again. "However, I should not bring my troubles to you, James—"

  "I give you full leave, Brian," Jim said before Brian could finish speaking.

  "And by my soul, that is like you, James," said Brian. "I'll not deny I rode over here with some notion of speaking of it to you. But speaking does not come easy. The man is one I will call 'Father' in a few months' time if all things go well. But I swear to you, I will not live under the same roof with him."

  Jim looked appropriately shocked; but it was not necessary. Words were already tumbling out of Brian.

  "—My Lord of Malvern is worse than the Devil's Ass, who could scarcely imagine a manger heaped full of fodder without immediately imagining two mangers, equally full—and thinking so would remind him instantly of four full mangers. I had expected to have the banns for our marriage published long ago, and to be married the month before this."

  "Years now, Geronde and I have waited—and her life has been in danger more than once because I was not by her side. Because I was not there, she bears that scar put upon her face by that Hell-hound who owned Malencontri before you—you remember, when he would force her to marry him—and that mark she will carry for life! I tell you, it is close to more than a man can bear, and still pretend politeness!"

  Jim felt a deep surge of sympathy. The Hell-hound at point of discussion—Sir Hugh de Bois de Malencontri—had lied his way into rich Malvern Castle, with sufficient men to take it over.

  Trying to force Geronde into marriage was illegal, of course, since only Geronde's father—or the King, if her father was adjudged dead—could give consent to a marriage. But Sir Hugh was a great believer in doing things first and getting people to accept them afterward.

  And there would have been a real chance of his succeeding. The King did not really want to be bothered with the troubles of his Kingdom, in spite of the best efforts of his Counselors. He much preferred to be left alone, and to leave the affairs of England to handle themselves. And a goodly bribe by Sir Hugh would have strengthened the Royal inclinations.

  Jim made a mental note to check with Carolinus—the Master Magician whose apprentice in the Magickal Art Jim had become—and see whether magic could not somehow be used to take that scar from Geronde's cheek, after all.

  He had grown so used to the brave way in which Geronde faced the world with it—and indeed, she had a remarkable, small, fine-boned beauty of feature, except for that one grim scar—that he had almost forgotten it was there. But Geronde must always be conscious of it, particularly whenever she met someone who had never seen her before.

  "I'd guess Sir Hugh'd be dead, now," said Jim. "Certainly he wasn't moving, just lying on the ground, outside the protection of Carolinus' magic staff, the last time we saw him."

  "But he was not there afterward—" Brian said, leaning forward, "after the rogue-Mage Malvinne had been drawn up like a hanged man, all limp and lifeless, to the King and Queen of Death. We cannot know for sure. But if de Bois lives, and if he crosses my path again…"

  Brian's eyes had become unmoving, focused on something in his mind, and the falcon look was back on his face, but it was not the happy warrior look. It was his dangerous face, one Jim had seen only seldom.

  "In any case," said Jim, to get off the subject of Sir Hugh, "you were saying that Sir Geoffrey had turned against you and Geronde for some reason?"

  "You mean kindly by including Geronde," said Brian, his face more human, "but it is me Sir Geoffrey aims to trouble. James, he has set a bride-price on Geronde—a bride-price of eighty pounds! Can you believe such a sum? As if she was some fabled princess, loaded with jewels! Why, eighty pounds is nearly enough to keep Castle Smythe, and all of us within it, alive for two years."

  "Hmm," said Jim.

  "Oh, he says it is for Geronde's good, not his. He says he will immediately turn the sum over to her, that she have wealth therewith to protect herself in case something should happen to me. Damned nonsense! He first said two hundred, but Geronde beat him down, finally, to the eighty. There he stuck, but he's to hand it to her the moment I give it to him. Still, did you ever hear the like?"

  "No," said Jim, seriously. He knew that the minimum necessary income of a landed knight, to keep up appearances, with something in the way of a decent stronghold and enough staff to run it, was at least fifty pounds a year. Brian's income was barely that in good years; and it came more from his winnings at tournaments than from the cultivation and rents of his meager lands.

  A capful of gold pieces had been awarded after the tournament at the Earl of Somerset's Christmas party, last winter; but such a prize was highly unusual. A crooked gambler on Cyprus had taken much of that from Brian, in any case, the more normal award was something showy but of no great value. But because the horses and armor of the me
n Brian overthrew became his property, he could sell them.

  Nevertheless, winning at tournament was an erratic and undependable form of support—particularly as it was quite possible to lose. Accidents or luck could favor a competitor who was almost as good as he was. To Brian's credit, that did not happen often.

  "Well," Jim said, "if he's simply going to turn around and hand it to Geronde, then Geronde can hand it back to you, if necessary, to keep Castle Smythe going. It'll be her home as much as yours, after the wedding."

  "Oh, and in need she will," said Brian. "She was quick to tell me so, as soon as Sir Geoffrey was out of earshot. But I must have the wealth first, to hand to him—and where am I going to find eighty pounds, James?"

  He looked at Jim.

  "I tell you," he went on, "that question has been driving me mad. I am like a true madman, stamping up and down my Great Hall thinking of a hundred different ways, but always coming back to where I started. All that I could win in a year will simply not add up to that sum. Besides, Geronde and I have waited a number of years already!"

  "I know," said Jim. He would gladly have lent Brian the money if he had it, and that was so well understood that it had not needed to be mentioned between them. With Malencontri, he was a good deal better off than Brian. His lands and other income brought in close to a hundred and twenty pounds in a year. But that did not mean that at any time he had a spare eighty pounds of cash in his hands.

  "But what made Sir Geoffrey ask a bride-price, anyhow?" he went on. "Something must have set him off, to think up a condition like that."

  "The Devil if I know!" said Brian, refilling his own cup, hesitating, and then putting a very small splash of water in it. "Geronde might guess, but I am baffled!"

  As it happened, Geronde could, and was busy telling Angie about it up in the Solar.

  Chapter Four