He peered through the narrow crack. May was lying on her left side, facing him, her right hand clutching something that must be the coin to her breast, and her eyes tightly closed. A pair of the tears that had refused to show themselves while he was there, were sliding down her cheeks. No, he could not tell her, now. It was impossible.
But her stillness was profound enough to make it seem as if sleep had claimed her after all. Jim opened the door a little farther to poke his head into the room to make sure she was really asleep—it creaked; and her eyes flew open.
He jerked his head back swiftly, leaving the door agap. Outside, he stood frozen, listening; and for a few seconds, there was no sound within.
"M'Lord!" her voice called from the room. "Pray m'Lord, can I ask one question?"
He stopped, breathed deeply, turned and went in.
"You might as well," he said. He came slowly into the room.
She was sitting bolt upright in the bed now, her elbow at her side, her lower arm outstretched and the hand belonging to it open. The leopard lay in the center of her palm, glinting in the sunlight from the room's small, single window.
"Pray, m'Lord," she said. "Take it back."
"Why?" he managed to say.
Two more tears chased the path left by the earlier one, down her swollen cheeks.
"I'm afeared 'tis bad luck for me to keep it. Th-thanking you anyway, m'Lord."
"Nonsense!" snapped Jim, suddenly determined that hell, high water, and the whole population of the fourteenth century on this world was not going to stop him from making a gift of that coin to May now. "How can it be anything like bad luck? I tell you, as a magician, it isn't bad luck!"
"Oh, m'Lord! Then you're not never going to leave us after all? You and m'Lady!"
"Of course we—" Jim broke off, suddenly floundering at the change of topic. "That is, we haven't any plans—"
"We has to know, m'Lord. Not just me and Tom. All the Castle people has to know!"
"But why?"
"Because it's you we loves, m'Lord, you and m'Lady. Never could any of us settle to another Lord and Lady, here at Malencontri. Everyone says so. It'd be the end of everything if you left. So you never will, will you, m'Lord?"
He stared at her. She blinked hard, for the tears were starting again.
"No!" he said gruffly, after a moment.
Angie would never leave young Robert behind here. That was certain. Taking him from his native world, where he would be rich and lead as good a life as possible, was somehow also unthinkable.
"No, we won't be leaving," he said. "What gave all of you that idea in the first place, anyhow?"
"All that me and Tom planned"—she was looking at him with desperate earnestness—"it was with you and m'Lady and wouldn't never be with no other Lord and Lady! It's the same with everyone else here at the Castle; and they've all been trying and trying to make things so you like it here, but you don't seem to pay them no mind. So all been sure you were going. Not no other Castle people in England has such—a Lord and Lady like the two o' you."
"Well…" said Jim.
"We's Castle people, m'Lord; and we has to think of our childer, too. Tom and me—why, ours might all live to grow up; and some might come to be anybody, if you and m'Lady stay. Please, m'Lord, take the leopard back, and then I'll be sure everything'll be all right!"
Jim's throat was tight.
"No," he said strongly, putting his hand around hers and closing her fingers on it. "You keep it. I give you my word we'll stay. But if anything unexpected should happen to us, you've got my word—the word of a knight and magician—you'll all be taken care of as if we were here for the rest of your lives. Now, are you through worrying?"
May stared at him for a long moment, then really burst into tears.
"Oh yes, m'Lord!" she managed to say, clutching the coin.
"Good!" he said; and all but ran out of the room toward the stairs and the Hall below.
Chapter Forty-Two
He went down feeling a strange division of his spirits. The greater part of them was filled with happiness and relief, like a lighter-than-air gas within him, so that he fairly floated down the long spiral of stone steps. But a very much lesser part was concerned with giving his "word." He had never thought he would take it so seriously, or find it so hard to do.
There was a special seriousness to that word, however, in this time, and now that he was beginning to take this era itself seriously… but the happiness in him overwhelmed the concern for the moment. He could hardly wait to tell Angie everything.
He had been so used to thinking of each of the Castle's people as individuals, he had forgotten they were also a community; a village bounded by stone walls in which he and Angie were the monarchs. Like any community they had their own group feelings and aims.
He had even been aware of their continuity in time. He had known there were servants' children being born within these walls, quietly, well out of his and Angie's hearing. There was even a secret nursery for the youngest—called the "baby-room"; though, officially, the two of them pretended not to know of it.
The children's chances of survival—an improved diet, the availability of extra caretakers, and the like—were indeed better in the Castle. Also, servants and their children shone in a reflection of the light from the higher ranks they served. They were generally thought to be more capable and of improved stock. No wonder May had dreams for the progeny she hoped to have.
He passed rapidly through the Serving Room. Nobody met his eye this time, either, but this was because they were all very busy. He passed on into the Hall and reached the High Table, with Angie at the end closest to him.
"Look who's here!" she said, leaning back so that he could see further along the table. Just beyond her sat Kineteté, and beyond Kineteté, Carolinus—looking thin and somewhat fragile, but otherwise as good as ever.
Jim felt a sudden coldness inside him. Kineteté's eyes under her dark brows were fixed upon him.
"Ah… Kineteté. Mage." It was difficult to meet the unblinking eyes under those eyebrows. "I called you a little while ago—may I talk to you privily?" He could not let his servants, nor even Sir John, know that he had no right to the red robe.
"I know," said Kineteté. "And that's the last I want to hear of it. I take it you're going to join us at table, now? Take the chair on the other side of Carolinus; and don't let him get excited."
Sir John's three young knights, Jim noticed as he moved toward Carolinus, were seated at the table's far end. They were silent, eyes on the others there—not surprising, thought Jim. They were sitting at table with two of the world's three top magicians… it didn't seem to have affected their appetites, however. He sat down and greeted Carolinus, bone-thin, but looking unusually genial.
"—I must say," Carolinus was saying, a few moments later, in answer to a query from Angie, "I look forward to getting back to my cottage. It, and the Tinkling Water—both the way I made them. Restful, with everything in its proper place."
"I can understand—" Angie began, but broke off as a servant came up to whisper in her ear. "Crave pardon, all my guests, but I must leave you for a few moments."
She got upend hurried toward the Serving Room.
But Jim only heard her with half his attention. Everything else had been knocked out by a memory, exploding into life in his mind. One thing of Carolinus' was not back in its proper place. Jim cleared his throat and looked at Carolinus uncomfortably.
"There's something I meant to tell you," Jim said. "I was at Court and needed a scrying glass, and I'd seen a magician in the Holy Land using a bowl of water for scrying. There wasn't any proper bowl available, so I borrowed one from your cottage—"
Carolinus' white eyebrows waggled up and down.
"A bowl of mine? You borrowed it? What bowl?"
"Oh, it was just a bowl that didn't seem to have any particular use. Just a bowl you happened to have lying there. I was sure you wouldn't mind—"
"What bow
l?"
Carolinus' voice had risen. Kineteté was looking around.
"A sort of green crockery bowl, its top edge bent for a lip and four little orange fishes—"
"NOT MY LUNG CH'UAN BOWL, FROM THE SUNG DYNASTY? My nearly three-thousand-year-old celadon bowl? Where is it?"
Jim stared at him, aghast.
"Well, that's the thing," he said. "At the moment I don't remember, exactly—"
"DONT REMEMBER?"
"You see with everything going on—Hob!" called Jim desperately. "If you're listening, do you know what happened to that bowl?"
"I'm sorry, m'Lord. Pray pardon, m'Lord." said Hob, immediately appearing in the mouth of the nearest fireplace and soaring across to land on the High Table in front of Carolinus.
"I thought the children would like it; and you left it behind—oh!"
He covered his mouth with one hand. Too late.
"Left it behind, did he?" Carolinus' voice was now bouncing off the rafters overhead, and all other conversation in the Hall had stopped.
"But here it is, m'Lord, Mage," said Hob, producing the bowl from behind his back with his other hand and thrusting it into the grasp of Carolinus. "It's not at all hurt—"
An ominous shadow fell across all of them. A tall shadow.
"Carolinus!" said Kineteté's steely voice. "You promised me you wouldn't lose your temper! Jim, I told you not to excite him!"
"It's all sooty," said Carolinus sulkily, but in much lower tones.
"I'll clean it. Give it to me, Mage—" gabbled Hob. He and Jim reached for it, simultaneously. Carolinus pulled it away from them.
"And maybe scratch it?" he said. "Besides, it's not necessary, now."
It wasn't. The bowl had become sparkling clean.
"Very well," said Kineteté. "That's all very well. No harm done. But it was a mistake for you to try to come to this occasion, Carolinus. Here we go."
They both blinked out and almost immediately blinked back in again.
"No we don't!" said Carolinus.
"Do you want to kill yourself?"
"I want to stay through this meal, with my beloved Apprentice, Jim, and his beloved wife Angie—and all my other beloved friends. And I'm going to."
"All right!" said Kineteté. "But one more bout of temper, and you could be done for. So you stay—on one condition. When we leave, you come home with me until I say you're fit to leave. Otherwise I wash my hands of you."
"I shall go to my own cottage."
"Then that's that."
"However," said Carolinus, "if it'll make you happy I could pay you a small visit first."
"And you'll be calm and collected here?"
"Certainly. I—"
"Your word on both things?"
"Oh, if you must—" Carolinus looked ready to chew nails; but, of course, as Jim knew from his own recent experience, it was not all that easy to give one's word.
"Very well. My word on it!"
Jim looked at him with admiration. He had seen Carolinus work a lot of magic, but never suspected he could speak in small type. Kineteté turned to Jim.
"You should have realized," she said, "that when you went back to the Gnarly Kingdom, where your magick could not work, your command to the bowl to be invisible and stay with you would be negated."
"I understand," Jim said, feeling humble. "But how did it get here?"
"The Hobgoblin, I think, can answer that," Kineteté said. She looked at Hob.
"Right after we went back to that place, just before Hill's fight started, I saw the bowl just appear behind us and start to fall to the ground," Hob said. "I caught it before it could break on the ground, and took it back on the horse." He looked downcast. "Did I do wrong, my Lord?"
"Not at all, Hob," Jim said. Hob smiled. Jim turned to Carolinus.
"I really am very sorry, Carolinus," he said. "If I'd had any idea the bowl was so…"
But Carolinus was paying no attention to him, He was fondling the bowl, running a finger lovingly over its contours.
Jim stood up.
"If by your grace, the table will excuse me for a few moments," he said, "I must go in search of my Lady."
He walked off. It was not the most graceful of exits from what had been an embarrassing scene. All of those at the High Table table, of course, had heard every word said by him, Hob, Carolinus, and Kineteté. But his little politeness just now had set him free. He was still bursting with what he had to tell Angie—privately, of course. He almost bumped into her, coming out of the Serving Room.
"It was the pudding—" she began, and broke off. "You're grinning like a Cheshire Cat. What is it?"
He looked past her at Mistress Plyseth—who had apparently abandoned her seat in the Hall's celebration to oversee her domain—and the other servants in the Serving Room.
"Not here," he said in a low voice. "Come on."
He led her through the Serving Room to the dead spot at the foot of the tower stairs where voices did not carry. "You're acting very strange," she said. "What was all that out there with Carolinus?"
"Tell you later. Nothing. By the way," said Jim, "I promised May Heather—gave my word on it, actually. Hard to do, but it's not as impossible as it seems, however; Carolinus just had to give his at the Table—"
"What are you talking about?"
"Too much to tell you. Too little time. Not here. Later. The point is, I gave my word to May Heather, if you and I ever had to leave Malencontri, she and all the Castle people would be taken care of here for the rest of their lives."
"How could you promise something like that?" She stared at him. "How could you ever make sure that would be?"
"I can plan for it, talk to Brian and Carolinus about ways to handle it. Maybe give Malencontri to Brian and Geronde; probably use some magic to make it happen. But that's not the important thing."
"What could be more important? You say you told May—when did you see her?"
"On my way back down. I thought you might want to know how she's doing."
"How—"
"She's fine. Tell you more later. The important thing is I decided to have a talk with her, and in the process she told me about the servants. I was wrong. They hadn't been seeing through me, after all. Angie—they love us, all of them do, May said. They couldn't have the life they wanted with any other Lord and Lady. Angie, they love me, she said! That's why they were acting the way they were."
He was beaming at her, and Jim could see she was having to fight hard to keep from beaming back, because when one of them was happy, the other had a hard time not being happy, too.
"I told you so," said Angie, game to the last.
He kissed her, anyway.
Gordon R. Dickson, The Dragon and the Gnarly King
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