The Dragon and the Gnarly King

  She, it appeared, had sent May Heather back to the Serving Room, Tom to the Kitchen, and all the others—after a brief but sharp lecture on their own duties and not neglecting them to gawk at a couple of fighting children—back to work. The courtyard was emptying fast.

  The three started toward the Great Hall; and as they went Jim explained to Angie about the hole in the Kitchen floor, and the fact that the chimney was mysteriously stopped up with earth.

  "I wonder if there was a servant left anywhere else in the Castle?" he said. He meant it humorously, but Angie blanched.

  "If there's something around the Castle that shouldn't be here—" she began, her face stricken—"if she's left that baby alone, I'll kill her!"

  She left them, running ahead for the door, and disappeared through it.

  "Why, is there danger about?" asked Sir John, his voice alive and interested. The note in it was very much like that Jim always heard in Brian's voice when it looked like there might be some entertaining combat in prospect, and abruptly, Angie's alarm registered on Jim.

  "Excuse me, Sir John," he said, and broke into a run himself.

  But Sir John ran with him. In spite of his extra years, the older knight seemed in as good condition as Jim. They went swiftly in through the Great Hall and through the Serving Room, past its Mistress, sternly confronting May Heather, whose face was now washed and her clothes at least straightened.

  "—and are you to blame for that, too?" demanded Gwynneth Plyseth, looking back from the astonishing sight of, not one, but two knights running—running—through her Serving Room.

  "Oh, no, Mistress," said May Heather, her freshly-washed face radiant with the conviction of complete innocence. "It was only a little dispute with Tom, I had."

  Meanwhile, Jim had slowed somewhat on the stairs. Provokingly, Sir John also slowed, just behind him—but from the sound of his breathing, the older man did so more to accommodate Jim and stay with him than because he himself was running out of breath.

  It was understandable—people like Sir John and Brian, to say nothing of the servants, had been engaged all their lives in daily physical activity to the limit of their strengths. Still, it was irritating to someone who had been rated AA-class in college volleyball, to find a middle-aged knight slowing down out of consideration for him.

  They did, however, catch up with Angie, just in time to see her pounding on the door to the room that held Robert Falon and his nurse and shouting through the panel.

  "Open up!" she was calling. "It's me, Lady Angela. Open up, I say!"

  A squeaky answer came from within, not resolved into intelligible words. But a moment later there were sounds of heavy objects being dragged away from the door, and then of the bolt being shot back. The door opened, and in it appeared the absolutely terrified face of the nineteen-year-old nurse. Angie pushed past her and rushed to the cradle. She stopped, and heaved a great sigh of released tension.

  "He's all right," she said. She breathed deeply for a moment, then whirled around to face the nurse—who backed away into Jim, who with Sir John was now also in the room.

  "P-p-pardon, m'Lord," she quavered, then turned back and literally fell on her knees before Angie. "Oh, pardon, m'Lady! But I was so afeared!"

  "Frightened? Why? Answer me!"

  "Something tried to get in the door!" quavered the nurse. "I had it locked just like you said I should always do, m'Lady. When it couldn't get in, it hammered at the door. I called out 'who is it?' But there was no answer. Just this hammering and it trying to get in. So I shoved everything in the room, except his little cradle, against the door! Then I leaned against it myself. When you started knocking and calling, m'Lady, I thought it had come back!"

  Jim and Sir John were already examining the outside of the door. It was no flimsy bit of carpentry, but a solid slab of wood a good two inches thick. Surprisingly, it did show dents… not around where the latch was, but level with it and more or less in the middle of the door.

  "If you'll step out into the corridor with me, by your favor, Sir John," said Jim, grimly, "I'm going to set up a ward on this room."

  Sir John followed him outside.

  "A ward?" he echoed Jim.

  "A magic protection, Sir John," said Jim. At the word "magic," Sir John backed across the corridor until his back was to the wall. Jim pointed his finger at the doorway.

  Not long ago, he would have needed to work up a rhyming spell to set a ward on Robert's room. Now, however, he had learned how to concept—to build in his mind an image of the magic he wanted to create. In the back of his head he seemed to see it now, like invisible silver threads penetrating stone, wood, and empty air. He wove his finger back and forth before him for a moment, and it was done.

  "Let no one who is not of this Castle enter this door or window," he told the threads, "unless taken in by Lady Angela or myself."

  He turned back to Sir John, and saw no evidence of fear in the other man—but there was something else: John Chandos had a face that could go completely expressionless when he was most dangerous, and it was expressionless now.

  "That takes care of it, Sir John," said Jim, speaking as lightly as he could. He spoke through the open door.

  "It's all right, Angie," he said. "I've warded the room. Nothing can come through the door or the window—Matilda, you can feel safe now, but still keep the door locked—Angie, there's no more need to worry. Why don't you come back downstairs with Sir John and myself?"

  "I pray your forgiveness, Sir James," said Chandos, "but what with dinner eaten and the fact that you and I should be ahorse at dawn, I believe I would rather go directly to my room, if a servant can be summoned to show me the way. You may have things to make ready also, and no doubt you yourself would prefer to go early to rest."

  "Oh, of course, Sir John," said Jim, with a sinking feeling. In spite of the fact that Chandos had said he was expecting Jim to leave with him tomorrow, he had not connected that with leaving so early.

  "You're on the floor below," he went on. "I'll take you there myself."

  Having escorted their chief guest to the best visitors' room, Jim found Angie already laying out travel clothes for him in the Solar. Quietly, he joined her in the work. Sir John could hardly deny him the use of a sumpter-horse to carry extra baggage for his own use. He had learned the hard way to carry as much as he conveniently could, after experiencing a number of trips on his own and with Brian and Dafydd.

  His mind began to make plans. Nor could Sir John object to his taking his squire as a personal servant—no, come to think of it, that wouldn't be wise. His squire, Theoluf, was the only real experienced fighting man in Malencontri, and the men-at-arms would need a leader in case of real trouble. To leave Angie and everybody else here lacking both their chief commanders at a time when outlaws were marauding, King's men were dropping by, and something unknown was invading the Castle—perhaps—would not be wise.

  He could, of course, take one of the other men-at-arms, or one of the Castle's servants. But none of them had any real experience in this sort of traveling duty.

  No. He would travel alone. One of Chandos's men-at-arms could lead his warhorse, Gorp, and the sumpter-horse.

  Working together, he and Angie did not take long to get everything packed and ready to be taken down and loaded on the horse. Jim called the servant on duty outside the Solar and sent her down to summon John Steward. When John arrived, Jim pointed at his travel necessities.

  "John," he said, "this is to be loaded tomorrow morn on a sumpter-horse; and a riding-horse, plus my war-horse Gorp on a lead rope, must be ready for me so I can travel with Sir John Chandos at dawn. If Gorp is fractious from being stalled so long, lately, someone should exercise him before sunup."

  "Yes, m'Lord."

  "You will take care, of course, of providing breakfast, not only for myself but for Sir John and the knights with him, also for his men outside the walls, along with three more days of provision for them to carry—all of this should be in the Great Ha
ll before we have to leave."

  "It shall be done, m'Lord," said the Steward, without turning a hair. "All shall be as you desire. M'Lord would like to be woken an hour before sunrise?"

  "A little earlier than that, I think," said Jim.

  "Very good, m'Lord."

  The Steward went out. Jim and Angie got ready for bed.

  As they crawled into it—it was their latest version, very large and comfortable, with a complete canopy and side-curtains, to keep drafts out, as well as a sort of bubble of warmth enclosed—Angie said what had been in Jim's mind all the way along.

  "I didn't think he'd take you so soon," she said, once they were settled in bed.

  "Neither did I," said Jim. "But it's probably just as well. The sooner I leave, the sooner I'll be back."

  The words were nothing more or less than Angie had expected from him; but she felt a sudden strong twinge of unhappiness at the thought of his leaving. Since young Robert Falon had come into their lives, she was not only full of intense protective feeling toward the child, but she also found herself wanting Jim around more—preferably where she could see him.

  It was not that she was afraid of being left alone in the Castle. She had thoroughly adjusted to this rough period they now lived in; and Geronde had given her many lessons, information about many things useful to a Chatelaine managing a castle without her Lord. So it was nothing like that. It was just that she wanted him—Jim—to be there; and now that he had to leave, she wanted him back safely, and as soon as possible.

  "You'll use your magic, now, won't you—if you really need it?" she said. "Won't you?"

  "Oh, of course," said Jim.

  But Angie knew that lately he had come to regard the magic energy he possessed as too precious to be used, except in the case of an absolute need such as the ward in Robert's room.

  She closed her arms around her husband and snuggled up against him; but a small cold feeling remained inside her. She was afraid that in spite of his saying so, he might well be saving of his magic when he really needed it, and possibly fall into danger because of it.

  Chapter Seven

  True to Sir John's words, they were, indeed, off with the dawn. They rode west by north to Bath, and then to the Bristol Channel, where they took ship to Caerwent. From there they took the old Roman road over to Caerleon, and northward from there, through Kenchester, Leintwardine, Roxter, and on to Warrington, Wigan, Ribchester, and Lancaster. After that, it was almost straight ahead, due north.

  The scent was cold.

  Aargh, the English wolf, moved upwind toward its source, silent as his own shadow, flickering on the sun-dappled forest floor and against the green small bushes, where the majestic oaks and ashes let light enough through for such smaller leaved things to grow. His nose was to the ground, his ears were upright and pricked, for the scent was not "cold" in the sense of having been laid down sometime ago, rather, it had a special element of taste that came to him as a coldness.

  Aargh's nose was what mouth-taste and color-sight were to human beings: it gave him access to a whole rich spectrum of information that humans passed by without ever having sensed, or to which they paid scant attention if they had. So that when he read this scent as "cold," it was only because no word existed for it in spoken language. It was as a human might describe a flavor tasted or a color seen for the first time. It was a scent that spoke to him of darkness and deep chill.

  In the many years that he had held this territory against incursions by other wolves, he had never encountered this scent before; and from nose-tip to tail-end he was alert.

  It was not a ground-trail of someone or something that had passed this way earlier. It was an odor riding the faint breeze that stirred the hairs of his face as he moved toward it from downwind. It grew stronger as he came closer to its source, which might be anything. Only one thing was certain. It belonged to some unknown; and he went with all a wolf's natural caution.

  Caution it was, not fear. Aargh had not known fear since he was a wolf-pup; but caution he knew, and wariness. If there was something dangerous up ahead, then it was well to know what it was before it knew him.

  The forest was thinning. There were more of the sunlit open patches between the great trees; and without needing to check, he knew he was drawing closer to Malencontri Castle, the home of his friends Jim and Angie Eckert, the unlikely Baron and Lady of the Castle. The scent was stronger now, and he followed it more slowly, picking his cover as he went. Abruptly, he stopped, lifting his nose to get its full quality, and peering through the branches of a small bush, his ears cocked forward.

  But what his ears gave him was silence, and what his eyes gave him was merely a hole in a slight rise of the ground, like the mouth of a den.

  There was no sign of any living creature; but still Aargh waited. The scent, strong and close now, spoke ever more certainly of chill and an even deeper darkness—some place far removed from a forest such as this. At last he moved again—but now one slow step at a time, as he came near the hole, careful that no footfall might send a vibration through the earth to warn whatever might be in beyond that entrance.

  But nothing responded, nothing emerged. He came to the very edge of the hole and explored it carefully with his nose. Some of the earth dug out and encircling its opening had been moved within the last few hours. It was still not completely dry.

  It was a strange, unnatural opening in the hillside, a puzzling opening. It looked very like the mouth of a den, but it was too small for a bear, and too large to be comfortable for a wolf, who liked his den entrance to fit snugly around his shoulders like a collar, in case he might have to stand within it, the den protecting the rest of him, while only his jaws and teeth were outside. In that position, any wolf could stand his ground.

  But, on the other paw, it was also too large for any badger, the next largest den-digging animal belonging to these woods—although a young boar might have used this—if it had been dug sometime since. But boars did not den in summertime like this, only in winter and bad weather.

  Nor was it likely to be the den a troll might make. Trolls, also—particularly Night-trolls—denned up only under unusual conditions, such as when the females were giving birth. Nymphs, dryads, and other smaller Naturals, of course, would have no need for a den.

  As far as he could tell—and he was careful not to allow his nose or any other part of himself to be silhouetted against the light at the mouth of the den, even now—whoever had dug it was not here at the moment. As if to prove this, his searching nose now told him that there was a clear, fresh trail leading off at an angle, toward Malencontri.

  He followed it.

  The trail led straight toward the Castle. Whatever or whoever it was went on two feet, and there was no sign of hesitation along the way—or even of caution. Aargh preserved his own caution, but followed more swiftly now—the trees did not thin out any more, but there were fewer bushes between them.

  The woods were the King's, with everything in them; but common people were entitled to the fallen branches—only—for their fires. This rule had been amplified illegally by some earlier lord of the Castle—doing, like many did, anything he could get away with, by letting his serfs and tenants also take out the living shrubs and bushes for a distance from the Castle clearing, back into the wood.

  This allowed them extra firewood, while leaving less cover for enemy forces and less handy material for fascines to fill up the moat so they could storm the walls.

  Here, the forest was lighter. Aargh slowed. He had followed the trail now right to the edge of the wood; and he stopped to look out around a tree at the clearing itself, kept around every castle, a bowshot from its walls, to give a clear field of fire against any attacker.

  It was one of those days in England when everyone had given up on the English summer after a steady diet of rain and chill, in spite of the fact that it was late June—only to have the weather play its usual trick; so that, suddenly, the sky was blue, the temperature warm, the breez
e light and friendly, and all things seemed to be going well.

  It was exactly the time of day and the kind of day in which Aargh would normally be taking a nap in the shade somewhere, himself. And so he would have been, if not for this strange scent and trail.

  That trail led out into the open space; and looking out, Aargh saw, within the shade of one of the trees to his right, a cradle, within which he scented young Robert Falon. Not far from the child was his wet-nurse, who had found a comfortable seat on the ground with her back against the trunk of the tree and was showing a wolf-like common sense by taking a nap herself.

  One of the Castle's young men-at-arms, obviously posted here as protection for the baby, was right now half-a-dozen paces away and looking in a completely different direction, absorbed in a game between the off-duty men-at-arms and the stable help.

  It was a rough game, as might be expected. It bore some faint resemblance to football, except that you were not restricted to using your feet only to propel the ball, but could get it to its destination—the goal line of your opponents—in any fashion. If anyone got in the way, he could be dealt with by any means short of a knife. It was quite all right to bite, knee, kick, gouge, and wrestle around on the ground with an opponent, to take the ball. Right now the stable-lads were winning.

  Aargh considered the situation.

  The Unknown had clearly been interested either in Robert or the wet-nurse. Also, it had not been afraid to go out in plain view of the walls or the sentry on the tower. There might be nobody on the battlements, and the sentry might be as fascinated by the ballgame as the man-at-arms was. But going out in the open like that was not the action of any stranger who was not sure that he could get away quickly and safely, if seen.

  It could be that the trail did not go all the way to the cradle or the tree where the nurse snored lightly. Aargh turned and, well inside the trees, trotted until he was level with the cradle, but still safely out of sight. Then he moved forward cautiously, using individual trees for cover, until he was less than three wolf-lengths from the cradle and about five from the sleeping nurse.