The Dragon and the Gnarly King

  "A magickian like you should be able to protect yourself—" the Earl broke off on a cough, conscious he could be heading into dangerous territory—"but I will bridle and harness her, and keep her to other roads. There is no problem to that."

  "All right," said Jim. "Then you can start by giving me the letters of warrant for arrest made out for Sir Brian, Dafydd ap Hywel, myself, and anyone else like my wife who may have been warranted."

  "I do not know who may have those letters at the moment—"

  "Sir Simon said he did."

  "He may have said some such thing, but such is never so. A Crown knight charged with the duty of bringing in—" the Earl checked his next word just in time—"those warranted, never carry the actual letters for fear that they may be lost or taken. Now—"

  "My son, my son," said the Bishop, "barely are you shown the error of your ways than you leave the path again. Of course the poor knight, rest his soul, has the warrants with him."

  The Earl kept himself from glaring at the Bishop, but the effort was visible in his face.

  "I think so, too," said Jim. "So, my Lord Earl, if you will step down to his body and bring them back to—"

  "By High Heaven, itself!" shouted the Earl. "A King's son to run and fetch for you? You may do as you like with me. I am no man's servant but that of my elder brother who sits on the Throne; and he would not require such service from me!"

  "I will go," said Dafydd, speaking and getting to his feet so quickly that he was a shade ahead of both Brian and the Bishop.

  "My Lord Bishop," said Dafydd, "I have handled dead bodies before now."

  "As have I," said Brian.

  "Bowman and Sir Knight," said the Bishop, rising with dignified slowness, "I am a Prince of Holy Church; and it is only fit that my hands should be the ones to touch a man who has died without a chance to confess his sins. Consider also that in finding and taking the warrants from his body you would be raping the dead, which in itself is a sin; whereas I can do so without committing it."

  "Stay!" shouted the Earl abruptly. "Dammit all! I cannot permit this—I will go!"

  "My Lord," said the Bishop calmly, stepping down from the dais, "I have already gone."

  He reached Simon as he finished saying this.

  "Requiescat in pace," he said, making the sign of the Cross above the unmoving figure, and stooping to rummage inside the clothing on Simon's upper body. "Ah, here they are."

  He drew forth what looked like a package wrapped in thin yellow leather. It was bound by a black ribbon; and without moving back to the dais he untied the ribbon and took from its outer cover a thickness of folded sheets of parchment. Standing there, he unfolded them one by one and looked at them.

  Simon groaned.

  There was suddenly a remarkable stillness in the Hall. It was most brief with Jim, Angie, and the two Mages, and most deep and lasting in the cases of Simon's men-at-arms, who were now without exception wide-eyed and pale-faced.

  "Don't be a pack of fools, you men!" snapped Kineteté. "Your knight never was dead, after all, just knocked senseless! He's no dead man brought back to life to order you about!"

  The men-at-arms stared at her and turned to look at each other. They remained pale and silent.

  "Why didn't you tell them so if you knew it before this, then?" said Angie.

  Kineteté glared at her.

  "Whether I did or not, it was just as likely he was unconscious as dead," she said. "I am out of patience with men who are perfectly familiar with death and wounds, but still must go seeing a miracle or magick in every second thing that happens—"

  "This is very interesting," the Bishop's voice interrupted her. He was now examining the last parchment sheets. "My Lord Earl, aside from the question of how this knight of yours planned to make arrest of the Earl of Oxford or he of Winchester—what is this most remarkable document for the detaining of the King, signed by you as Regent for Prince Edward?"

  "Those damn scribes of mine!" cried the Earl. "Always playing at some foolery when there is a moment's pause in the work. If they forged my signature to it, I'll have the hide off them."

  "If they are of the Church and merely lent you for scribe-work, you will do no such thing!" said the Bishop sternly. "Privilege of Clergy is one of our dearest jewels, and the Crown of the Church; and the Church alone will consider their sin and correct them, if need be!"

  "They are common men trained by those I set to do so," said the Earl. "Certain matters they must write which are secret to the Throne; and I would not put men of the clergy at such work, where those who write for me might fall into the hands of those who fear not God and would try to wring information from them. I will take that parchment, and those where they have played at ordering the arrests of such as Oxford and Winchester—the rest can go to Sir James, here."

  "Nay," said the Bishop, "I will hand them all over."

  "My Lord Bishop," said the Earl, clearly making an effort to keep his voice down. "This is not a court where you sit as judge, and these matters have no concern with the Church—"

  "Hah!" said the Bishop, his eye lighting up with the same fire he showed whenever mention was made of Bishop Odo, his by-gone exemplar. "The King is king by appointment of God; and it is the duty of all in Holy Church to defend him from all who might try to do him harm. My concern is what threat this forgery might mean to his Royal Highness!"

  He strode to the dais and the Earl and pushed the parchment in his hand at him.

  "Do you warrant to me that your name written there is a forgery and not in your own hand?"

  "By the—" the Earl choked; and stopped, his face going red with anger, but apparently holding second thoughts about the oath almost on his tongue. It was difficult to find something to swear by that would express his feelings and still not be improper, roared out in the face of a Lord of the Church.

  "I—" Kineteté began, and broke off in her turn, looking at Carolinus.

  "You're quite right, Kineteté," said Carolinus cheerfully; "pass me the parchment, if you would be so kind, my Lord Bishop—"

  The Bishop, who clearly did not want to leave his commanding position standing over the seated Earl, passed the parchment to Dafydd, who passed it to Jim, who passed it to Carolinus.

  "Ah, just as I thought," said Carolinus looking at it. "There is no need to question his Lordship. I can tell magickally if there has been forgery at work… thank you. Yes, just as I thought. This was done by no trained scribe. Only one of a people who live very far from here and write in a fashion entirely different could have written my Lord Earl's signature, here. Look for yourself at its oddities."

  The parchment came back by the same route. Jim glanced at it as it passed through his hands, then took another look to make sure. The signature was—now at least—one that had been forged in a thoroughly familiar hand. His own.

  Dafydd had his hand outstretched. Jim passed him the parchment and turned to stare hard at Carolinus, who smiled back.

  "Indeed," said the Bishop, considering the parchment with a somewhat puzzled air, "it does look even more false than it seemed to me at first glance."

  "Hah!" said the Earl, with satisfaction. "Give it back to me, then."

  He all but snatched at the sheet, but his fingers closed on empty air.

  "No," said Carolinus, smoothly, now holding the parchment. "I will hold it and make some inquiries. Meanwhile, I'll put it in a safe place."

  The parchment vanished from his hand. Both the Earl and the Bishop looked disconcerted.

  But there was no time for them to say anything; because just at that moment a hollow, high-pitched voice, like that of a ghost speaking through a megaphone, made itself heard from the closest of the Hall's three fireplaces.

  "M'Lord?" It was the voice of Hob. He was obviously hiding well inside the fireplace chimney because there were strangers present.

  The men-at-arms had turned into statues again. Nothing now was ever going to alter their complete certainty that Jim could call devils t
o his aid if he wanted to. Telling them that what they had heard was just his Castle hobgoblin would make no impression. They had heard it, and now they knew with every fiber of their bodies what the real truth was. Even if they saw Hob, he would obviously be only a devil in disguise.

  "M'Lord, the Lady Geronde sent me with a message for him. Pray forgive me, m'Lord, for speaking, but it's more important than anything!"

  "Who's him?" demanded Jim. "What's it?"

  "I have to whisper it to you, m'Lord. Would your Lordship come over to the fireplace, so no one else can hear?"

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Grumbling to himself, Jim started toward the fireplace, and bumped into Carolinus, who was also on his feet.

  "It's all right, Carolinus," he said, a little more sharply than he had intended. "I can find out what Hob's worked up about by myself."

  "Then do so!" snapped Carolinus. "It happens I'm on my way to heal Sir Simon's wound."

  Carolinus pushed past him; and Jim, with an effort, kept the lid on his temper. But that lid was getting harder to hold down all the time. He had been outraged, seeing Angie tied up at Simon's order; but he had kept his surface calmness. He had been patient with the Earl, tolerant of Kineteté, and polite to the Bishop—all of whom had shown a tendency to act with a certain arrogance of authority, in spite of the fact that they had all come without invitation into his Hall, his home.

  Now it looked as if he would have to humor Hob, who had been absent when needed, just a short time ago.

  He tramped over to the fireplace, with Simon's armsmen watching him and nodding to each other in fairly obvious agreement that this was just the sort of thing they had expected him to do with his Devil. Ignoring them, he stuck his head into the fireplace—now down to a mere warmness—and tried to look up its chimney.

  "Here… m'Lord," a faint whisper came to him; and, turning, he saw—much farther up than he had expected—an upside-down, shadowy, Hob-like shape, both arms and legs spread out against the two walls making a corner of the chimney; and holding its position either by sheer pressure against the walls or some handholds and footholds it was too dark for Jim to see.

  "Come on down!" said Jim, "and speak a little louder. I can barely hear you!"

  "Yes, m'Lord," whispered Hob, creeping down perhaps half the distance between them. "It's just… Court's Hob… not stiff… or, you… nose… in air; and told me… so… Malvern—"

  "Closer! Louder!" snapped Jim. "I can't make sense out of what you say when I don't hear four words out of every five. Just tell me what's so important."

  "M'Lord, he'll hear me!"

  "No he won't. Who's he, I say? Anyway, no one's going to hear you."

  "Oh, that's all right, then," said Hob, in his normal voice. "I was afraid—anyway, if it's all right now."

  He scrambled down the chimney's interior without apparently needing anything to hold to, and stopped just before he could be seen by those in the Hall.

  "You see, m'Lord," he said, "the King's Hob, at that place called the Court, turned out to be a very good Hob. I took Malvern Hob to meet him; and we were still at the Court when Mage Carolinus came magickally with my lord Bishop to get the Earl of-of Zunder… the big man out there—"

  "Cumberland," said Jim.

  "Yes," said Hob, "m'Lord of Cumberland. Malvern and King's Hob were with me and we were still listening to him, just as Carolinus and m'Lord Bishop got there. M'Lord Cumberland was talking again to that Lady you don't like—"

  "Agatha Falon?"

  "That's her name—telling her how he had arranged to hire men to plunder his own lands; but Chandos had heard of it too quickly, and stopped them—as you know, m'Lord. Anyway, King's Hob and Malvern Hob ducked away up a chimney as soon as Carolinus and m'Lord Bishop showed up. I left too, before the Bishop could know we were there—Bishops have special ways of knowing things—and Malvern Hob and I rode the smoke straight back to Malvern. But then a thing happened. I'm very sorry, m'Lord!"

  "Sorry?" said Jim. "For what?"

  "Well, you know we Hobs can always be trusted not to tell people things. But of course I do tell you; and I forgot that Malvern Hob might tell m'Lady Geronde. She was his own people, you see."

  "I see. Well, all right. What did he tell her?"

  "About m'Lord Cum—the big man; and she was all excited. She said Sir Brian had to be told, so he could get it before the big man left Malencontri!"

  "Hob," said Jim. "That's enough of this hinting. Come all the way down, speak up, call things by their proper name, and tell me plainly what you want to tell me! If you're worried about anyone, I'll protect you. This is your home—you don't have to hide and whisper!"

  "Oh, if you say so, m'Lord! I'm not afraid!"

  Hob made a sudden flying leap from inside the chimney to Jim's shoulder. He pointed at Brian.

  "M'Lady Geronde is afraid Sir Brian might let the Earl of… the Earl go away without paying him. He's to be sure to get the money he earned!"

  The Earl's bellow would have taken over all possible conversation at this point if it had not been for the fact that Brian's all but drowned him out.

  "Money?" Brian said. "Geronde? Hob, what are you talking about?"

  "The Lady Geronde says the Earl should pay you the forty pounds he owes you, before he goes; and you're to make sure he does."

  The Earl's response, more an explosion than a bellow, did seize the floor, this time.

  "Forty pounds!"

  "So, my Lord," said Brian, getting up from his chair and stepping over to look down at the Earl in his, "Now I discover it. You owe me forty pounds for taking part in the appearance of a raid—a raid on your own property, by all that's strange! But you owe it all the same."

  The Earl shot to his own feet and towered over Brian, which did not change Brian's attitude in the least.

  "Like all the bloody flames in Hell, I do!" roared the Earl. "I never saw you before in my life until Carolinus brought me here!"

  "I was told," said Brian, "that the second portion of the moneys would be paid me by the highest in the land, promptly after the work was done. It has been some time now, and the second portion has never come; further, there is certainly none higher than you in the land, my Lord—barring his Majesty, our King, whom God preserve—and it is hard to give faith to the idea that his Majesty would arrange a raid on a possession of his favorite Earl to protest his Majesty's own taxes!"

  "Who told you of this payment?"

  "A certain gentleman in the service of my Lord of Chester. I had broken spears with him at a tourney; and knew him for an honorable knight, as well as one who held the post and duties he claimed."

  "His name?"

  "That concerns you not, my Lord. Our concern at this moment is with the forty pounds you owe me."

  "On the promise of a man unknown to me. Pah!" said the Earl. "He promised it. Collect from him—if you can find him!"

  "You deny you are the one who owes me?" Brian did not have the most forgiving temper, himself; and Jim, who knew him well, knew he was very close in this moment to losing it. Brian's hands were at his side, but they had already become fists.

  "Hob," Jim got out, hastily, "just told us he heard you admit to Lady Falon you'd hired Sir Brian's party, my Lord."

  "And I am to be held to account on the word of a creature, not merely not Christian but not even a man?" The Earl came close to spitting on the dais.

  "Go seek your fairy gold elsewhere and—"

  "Enough talk!" Brian's fragile grip on his temper had snapped. "Since you deny all, my Lord Cumberland, I name you under Heaven as liar and cheat—to which I will add 'craven' if you are not knightly enough to challenge and meet me over my words; and I will so proclaim you to all gentlemen I shall meet from this day forth!"

  "By God—" Cumberland's large right hand flashed to his waist, found no weapon there, and balled itself into a fist raised to strike down at Brian.

  "No!" said Kineteté. "There will be no fighting, no bloodletting. Carolinus,
will you—or must I?"

  "I'll take care of it," said Carolinus. "Robert de Clifford, look at me."

  The Earl deliberately looked away from him.

  "Robert de Clifford," said Carolinus, slowly, "you will look at me whether you wish to or not."

  Jim felt it. They all felt it. It would not be Devils from a fireplace that Simon's armsmen would remember best about this day—and what it actually was, would be the one thing they would find no way to describe to anyone who had not been here. In his several years in this fourteenth century, and in all his own making of magic or that he had merely observed, he had never known anything like that which was touching him—touching all of them—now.

  Power filled the Hall, and held all things animate and inanimate within it. The Earl's eyes were staring into those of Carolinus.

  "We Magickians," said Carolinus to him, in a calm, quiet voice, "have our own rules about hurting anything, Christian, human, or otherwise; and indeed the craft that nearly all of our Art learn to use is, except in unusual hands, incapable of hurting. But there are a few like myself and Mage Kineteté, here, who have reached a point in our studies where we realized there was more to be learned by such as us—but that by its very nature it would not be Magick that could be confined by a Rule not to use it for hurt."

  He paused. He and the Earl looked at each other.

  "Robert de Clifford Plantagenet," Carolinus went on, "I only tell you this. I do not threaten you. But from this moment on you will speak the truth when asked. Now, were you responsible for the group of raiders sent against your own property?"

  Something like pressure from what now filled the Hall closed around each of them.

  "Yes," said the Earl, hoarsely.

  "And was it your decision that the men approached were to be offered money for doing so?"

  "Yes."

  "Then pay him. Now."

  The Earl lifted his empty hands helplessly.

  "I carry no forty pounds."

  "But there are places where you keep moneys, places having forty pounds and more in them?"