But then, glancing over her shoulder, she saw the knight keeping a polite position some three paces behind her. She stayed ahead of him, therefore, through the door to the courtyard, still half-open from Jim's passage; and it swung so nearly closed behind her that Chandos would have to open it again for himself.
Jim had stopped just outside the door; and he caught her arm as she started to pass him. They walked forward together. None of the crowd had taken notice of them yet. It was an unnaturally silent crowd, though on its edges some were skipping and hopping like excited children—but still as quietly as possible.
"What's going on here?" roared Jim suddenly when they were not more than a dozen feet away. Everyone froze, some of them in awkward positions. All heads turned to stare at Jim—who, Angie suddenly realized, was now wearing a red magician's robe such as Carolinus habitually wore.
"I thought it was illegal until you became a class-A magician," she hissed in his ear.
"It is," he muttered back. "But only magicians are supposed to know that."
But whether it was the robe or not, if he had turned into his dragon form he could not have produced a greater effect. He decided to strike while the iron was hot.
"Do you all want to be turned into beetles?" he roared in his best magician's voice. "—Turned into beetles and sealed up in amber until the Day of Judgment?"
The threat clearly carried conviction—perhaps too much. None of them had ever seen him like this; and any threat involving magic was only too believable to all of them.
They were white-faced and silent as they opened a lane for him and Angie—Sir John was now politely but interestedly waiting, just outside the Great Hall door. At the end of that lane, right in front of the Kitchen entrance, Tom the Kitchen boy stood wide-legged and unsteady over a figure lying still on the hard-trodden ground.
"Oh!" burst out Angie on a note that was a curious mixture of sympathy and anger, running ahead to the fallen figure. She knelt beside it, and it lifted a blood-streaked head that was barely recognizable as belonging to May Heather.
" Tis all right, m'Lady," she said, if in a somewhat thin voice, "I'm all right—just winded, like."
"As for that," said Angie, ominously, "we'll carry you up to a bed and clean you up and then decide how right you are."
"You lost!" said Tom suddenly and fiercely.
"Ay," said May. "Lost, I did." Her head flopped back onto the ground.
"You, you, you, and you…" said Angie, jabbing a finger toward one male servant after another. "Pick her up. Carefully! And carry her—carefully, I said—to the first empty guest room on the lowest level of the tower—"
"M'Lord!" May Heather managed to lift her head again as the four men prepared to pick her up. "Pray m'Lord, don't turn Tom into a beetle!"
"Don't care!" muttered Tom in a low voice.
Jim turned his eyes with what he hoped was an awful slowness on the boy, who paled, but still stared back at him unyieldingly. The crowd held its collective breath to hear Tom's doom pronounced, and Jim let them hold it for a long minute before speaking.
"Since it's May Heather you beat so badly that asks it," he said, "just this once I'll leave you as you are."
The crowd breathed again.
"But, oh m'Lady! A room in the tower for a Serving Room apprentice—all to herself?" cried the voice of Mary Becket, the Wardrobe-Mistress, from the crowd.
"So, there you are, Mistress!" said Angie. "Watching this disgraceful exhibition with everyone else when you ought to have been at your duties. You go along with the men carrying May; and make sure it's a clean room with clean linen and everything as it should be."
"But the bed'll be lousy after she's lain in it—"
"Go!"
"Yes, m'Lady."
There was the murmur of quiet-voiced conversation beginning at the back of the crowd and Jim thought he heard something suspiciously like a relieved chuckle. It struck him that this could be turning into yet another instance in which he threatened them, but let them off after all. They might be beginning to count on him to talk tough but never follow it up with action.
"As for the rest of you—" he raised his voice, and abruptly there was neither talking nor breathing going on about him. "The only reason I don't turn you all into beetles this moment," he went on, "is because I want you to keep doing your necessary duties around the Castle for me—at present. But you're all going to have bad dreams, tonight!"
He whirled about and stalked off, red robe billowing above his feet. This time the silence behind him stayed unbroken. Angie hurried to catch up with him. Sir John was still politely waiting just outside the door to the Hall, so she had time enough to whisper a question to him.
"How can you come up with a dream for each of them between now and dark? And won't it use up a huge amount of your magic?"
"None," said Jim, grinning privately down at her. "I don't have to come up with even one dream, and I don't have to use any magic."
"Stop that!" she said, in a low, sharp voice. "Tell me!"
"They believe they're going to have them, so they will have them. They'll each have some kind of nightmare, and in the morning each one'll try to out-horrify ail the rest telling what he dreamed. So anyone who actually didn't dream will make one up—and come to believe he actually had it, eventually. In the end, they'll remember tonight for the rest of their lives."
They joined Chandos. As they turned back through the door, Jim glanced back. The crowd in the courtyard had already vanished, except for a few laggard figures now making their best speed toward wherever they were supposed to be.
"Everything settled, Sir James?" asked Chandos as they went down the still-empty Hall toward the High Table.
"I think so," said Jim.
"I must say," said Chandos, "your servants know their duties admirably. Hardly a word. Only one question from that woman about the room—and all over in a second."
"It's good of you to say so," said Jim. "Look, why don't the two of you go ahead with dinner. I'll be right back down; but I've got to get out of this robe; and for magic reasons I can't use magic the way I did when I put it on. I'll run up to the Solar, change, and be back in no time at all. You might as well start eating."
He turned and left, taking their agreement for granted. He had suddenly become fully conscious of what he had done when he put on the robe. The sooner he had it off, the better.
He went rapidly through the now-populated Serving Room, where no one met his eye; and on to the foot of the tower stairs. As he started up, the warmth of self-congratulation that had come from the lucky thought of punishing Malencontri's people with their own bad dreams began to fade in him.
There was no good reason to congratulate himself. He had been feeling his oats when he had no oats to feel. All he had really done with the crowd outside was pull another quick trick on them. If and when they should realize it, it would only confirm whatever suspicions they already had of him.
The climb up the stairs seemed a long one, and at the same time it went too fast. Very shortly he would be going back to face Angie and Chandos again. Angie already knew he was a fake, of course, even though she loyally insisted on denying it, and he would not be surprised if Chandos already did also—it would be like the knight to keep the information to himself against a possible future need, meanwhile smiling to himself over it.
Jim reached the Solar and went in. He shut the door behind him, pulled the red robe off over his head, and laid it out carefully on the bed. For a moment he simply stood still in the empty room, the now-cool breeze from the open windows exploring his forearms and most of his legs, left bare by his fourteenth-century underwear.
Then he took a deep breath and spoke out loud to the emptiness.
"Carolinus?"
He waited. There was no answer.
"Kineteté?"
No answer.
"Kineteté, Mage," he said after a long moment. "I just called you because you might hear and be able to pass a message to Carolinus, wherever he is.
I just wanted to say it was just a momentary impulse to put on the red robe—I didn't think. It was just the first thing that came to mind as a way of getting control of these servants of mine. I'm sorry. It was the wrong thing to do in any case. Anyway, I've taken it off now, and I won't be putting it on again until I have the right to wear it; and if I did any real harm while I was wearing it—it's only me who's responsible, no one else."
He waited; but there was no sign or answer. He sighed, dressed in the same sort of clothes he had been wearing when he had used magic to assume the red robe; and left the Solar once more to go downstairs.
On the way, it suddenly occurred to him that if he should go back down without looking in on how May Heather had been taken care of, that would undoubtedly be the first thing Angie would ask him about.
He stepped off the stairs, accordingly, on the lowest floor of rooms in the Tower, and went looking for the one that should contain May. There was an emptiness inside him, as strongly as it had been there after he had put his lance through Brian in Cumberland, and then had to be the one to tell Brian he had done so.
Magician, medieval warrior, knight, Lord of a castle—now that he looked at these things closely, it seemed to him he had failed at being each one of them. It should not be possible for him to tangle up a brief visit to a sickbed; but there was a sense of foreboding in him that told him he would find some way of doing it.
He put the thought resolutely out of his mind, and went on until he came to a door that had swollen, or sagged on the pintles that held it up, so that it would not shut completely. Peering through the crack between door and frame, he was able to see May Heather lying on a bed. She was wearing a robe, too big for her, of blue that had faded almost to white. She was awake, simply lying there and staring at the ceiling. He pushed the door all the way open and walked in.
"Well, May—" he began.
"M'Lord!" May started to scramble out of the bed.
"No, no!" he said, waving her back down. "Stay there. I'm just looking in so I can tell Lady Angela how I found you. How are you feeling?"
"Very good, m'Lord. Very good indeed. I feel like a princess, m'Lord; here in this great bed, in this fine room. Never I thought to know what it was like to be in such."
"Just see you stay there until you're told you can leave," said Jim, gruffly.
"Oh, indeed I will. But I ought to be downstairs, helping, like, with dinner. I really am very good, m'Lord."
She did not look very good. Her face was swollen in three places and there were several cuts on it—though none of them was bleeding; and both face and arms had obviously been washed—possibly more of her than that. Her hair had even been brushed, or perhaps combed.
Jim tried not to feel for her—her combat wounds, her lowly position in life, her ridiculous sense of duty—and failed. He had learned the hard way that the last thing any of these people wanted was sympathy.
Sympathy, evidently, implied weakness in the one sympathized with, and could be taken as veiled contempt or mockery—just as Kineteté had warned Angie when she had been moved to comfort the Earl of Cumberland, after Jim's magic had thrown him into the most desperate of despairs.
But now Jim's feelings won. A powerful urge to try one last time to think as one of them—from Brian down to this Serving Room apprentice—took him over. He looked around for something to sit on, found one of the armless chairs with which these rooms were furnished, carried it over to the bed, and sat down with his face more on a level with the girl's.
"Tell me, May," he said, "why do you and Tom fight so much?"
"We don't do it no more nor other folk, m'Lord," she said. "Everybody fights."
"Well, then," said Jim, "why do you always have your fights out in the courtyard, and why do all the other servants and men-at-arms come to watch?"
"Don't know, m'Lord. Just happens we get to fighting, more than not, outside the Kitchen where I used to get the foods from Tom's hands to take to the Serving Room—before I got to be apprenticed to Mistress Plyseth."
She would never tell him any more than that, he realized by the tone of her voice. Jim remembered the two men-at-arms he had heard outside Brian's room after he had brought his friend back from Cumberland. Their low-voiced conversation had clearly seemed to be about betting on whether May or Tom would win. But of course May would tell him nothing about that, either.
"What about all those coming to watch?"
"They just comes, is all."
"It wouldn't be because they've got some special interest in your fight that isn't there in all these other fights?"
Her face for the first time showed unhappiness, and for the first time he saw how pale and exhausted she looked. His conscience jabbed at him for cross-examining her like this.
"Never mind," he said, getting up from the chair. "We can talk about that sometime later. Just forget I asked, for now, and get some sleep—"
"But I want to tell you!" she burst out without warning. "You and m'Lady, m'Lord… I want to tell you!"
Jim opened his mouth to say there was no need to, recognized that would be doing the opposite of what they both wanted—and sat down again on the rock-hard chair.
May looked away from him.
"You and M'Lady ought to know!" she said. She kept looking away as she went on. "Like twins we was. From differ families but same age, same size, same weight. I even looked like Tom; and Tom, he looked like me. Then, when we both were let in to work at the Castle here, it couldn't ha' been no better, both of us here."
She stopped, and stared directly at Jim for a second, with shiny eyes.
"Am I saying it so's you'll understand, m'Lord?"
"Perfectly," said Jim. She looked away from him again.
"But then," she went on, "after a few years I started growing." She glanced back at him. " 'Ee grew, too, but not like me—you know how it is with women?"
Jim nodded. She looked away again.
"When we'd had our fights, sometimes I'd win and sometimes he'd win. But it came then that he couldn't no more. I was bigger nor him, and stronger; and that was bad enough. But then all the others started to notice it. So I told him to bide his time and not pick fights with me; and I'd walk wide o' him. But no, 'ee had to keep trying to fight and win; and by that time it was too late. Everybody knew."
She either ran out of voice or simply stopped talking. After a little silence, Jim spoke gently.
'You mean the other servants began making fun of him about it?"
"Ay, they did that. But worse, they started betting 'ee never would make no man; and when 'ee'd offer to fight the one who said it, whoever it was would say't'wouldn't be fair to do that to a lad who couldn't even win over a maid. He'd hit out anyway to make them fight, but you know 'ee couldn't prove nothing against a full-growed man. But he kept trying…"
She looked down at the sheet and plucked at it with her thumb and middle finger.
"So it went on," said Jim, after the new silence had lasted a small while.
"It just went on," she said, nodding. And looked straight at him again, finally. "We're going to be husband and wife, M'Lord. We settled that atween ourselves long ago. There couldn't be no goodwife for him but me, and no goodman for me who wasn't him."
"So today you let him win," said Jim, sympathetically.
She sat up abruptly, fiercely, in the bed.
"Never I did! I don't lie down for nobody! Nobody, m'Lord!"
He looked into her angry, swollen face.
"I see," he said. "I was wrong."
" 'Ee just got his strength at last or 'ee had to win, or something—but he won, fair and square!"
"I believe you, I believe you," said Jim. "Lie back now. It's you we're worried about at the moment, not Tom."
Slowly, she did.
" 'Ee won it fair," she repeated in a voice that was almost a whisper. "Don't matter about me. But now, 'ee's as much a man as any one of them. Any making a mock of 'im now'll have to fight him, or back down! And we'll be husband and
wife come apple-harvest time this fall."
Jim looked at her and a strange feeling, a deep, powerful affection, rose in him. These two children… but children in a time when they were considered old enough to take on the responsibility of marriage… he got to his feet and fumbled in the little leather purse hanging from his belt.
"Here," he said, grabbing a coin and passing it to her. She took it automatically, staring at it. "For your wedding."
She still stared, eyes and mouth open. Finally, the words in her came out.
"A whole gold leopard, m'Lord?"
A sick feeling made itself known in his stomach. His instinct had been right. He had made a mess of this visit, after all.
Like everyone else, she would know what the coin she held was worth. It was the smaller of two coins called florins, both minted in this century for the first time in England. Its value was that of three shillings—and a shilling a day was what a knight with a servitor and his own weapons, armor, and horses was paid for going into battle. Almost certainly, she would never have seen the actual coin in her life before, let alone handled one. She held it now, gingerly in her fingers, as if afraid it would vanish if she squeezed it too hard.
"Wedding present," said Jim, suddenly hoarse. He backed out of the room. "Lie down now. That's an order. Get some sleep."
May obediently closed her eyes. Jim slipped out the door, leaving it ajar. His conscience was already at work upon him—damn fool thing to do. Now probably every servant in the place would come up with some excuse to be given a coin. It was far too much of a gift for any servant, let alone a Serving Room apprentice.
He had been reaching into his purse for a groat, about the same size but thinner and silver—worth fourpence only. Even that would have been an eye-popping gift to someone like May or Tom. It could well be the only leopard they had in the Castle right now, and Angie, if she heard—he checked the way his thoughts were running. He might feel like the idiot of two universes, but—it was done and that was that.
At least it would make May and Tom happy… instead of just being included in part of some tax payment.
He stopped. Had she really obeyed him and tried to get some sleep? If she was still awake she could be doing anything. She might try to swallow the coin to keep it safe; and it was far too big for that. She would certainly choke herself to death if she tried. He turned and went quietly back to the unlatched door. Maybe it would be better for everyone if he simply explained that the leopard had been a mistake, and found a groat for her after all—or four silver pence, if it turned out he really did not have a groat.