The Dragon and the Fair Maid of Kent

  "But then," went on Jim in his friendliest way, "there should be no danger to any hob, anyway, since I do not need you to actually go to earth level. I would like you to break out of your stoops well above throwing range of the goblin spears."

  That should he more than enough—I hope, he told himself, for the goblins to believe that they were suddenly also under attack by the mighty, goblin-eating dragons of up-earth.

  He went on talking.

  "All together, the goblins must conclude that we knew you were coming to our aid, and that was what had given us the courage to sally in attack against their superior forces—we must have known you would come to help."

  Dragon heads nodded. Of course, the whole world knew they were not only the most fearsome, but the bravest of all living beings—naturally.

  Carolinus had discreetly shrunk back down to his normal size while Jim had gone on talking. Now, Jim looked directly at Gorbash, who, while bitterly opposed to Jim sharing and controlling his body at the time of the Loathly Tower fight, had since grown in social stature and influence among his peers, since some of the glory of killing the ogre had inevitably remained with him.

  He had found he had more to gain by pretending he and Jim had been in a willing partnership than to admit Jim had simply taken control of him, in his desperate search for Angie. In any case, Gorbash was equal to the occasion now.

  "I, at least, if no one else here!" he roared. "I will confront those goblins together with the george-dragon, as we confronted the ogre!" And he rolled forward several steps in the awkward stumping gait of any dragon proceeding over a solid surface on his hind legs.

  The others were thinking happy thoughts. Glory! A place in legend! A story to tell countless younger generations of heroic deeds against the terrible goblins!—and with no real danger to themselves. To a dragon, those about Gorbash stumped forward, roaring that they were with Jim, also.

  "Thank you, dragons of Cliffside. Your kindness and neighborliness will never be forgotten. And now," Jim turned to Carolinus, "we must waste no more time, but go. Shall we, Mage?"

  "Whatever you wish!" said Carolinus grimly, refusing to play the part of the one who had been behind this visit from the start.

  The two of them vanished and reappeared in the Solar. The single figure of Hob, still sitting cross-legged and looking down at the floor before him, remained in the room. Jim went to him and gave him a hand up onto his feet.

  "Hob," he said, "don't look so disappointed. I didn't have time to explain things to you—and then all the others were here."

  Happily, Jim now found that his mind had had time to come up with something that might help to mend his decision about the hobs, something that was only half a lie. If it should happen to turn out that the dragons would really turn the tide against the goblins, scaring the interlopers back into Deep Earth to save their lives, then he could throw the hobs in at the last minute. They could not come to much harm if the enemy were already fleeing, and it would be some recompense for their coming here in their numbers with their almost useless reaping hooks, discarded knives, and other odds and ends of cutlery.

  "You see," Jim said, "it's known in military terms as throwing in your ready reserve. I couldn't mention it in front of the others without seeming to doubt what they can do with their small numbers. I meant what I said. If the opportunity is there, I'll let you know, and you can take the other hobs in."

  "In where?" asked Angie's voice, and Jim turned to see she had just walked into the Solar. "Oh, Carolinus," she went on, "you're still here, after all. I was afraid you'd already left us."

  "I'm waiting for my orders." There was more than a touch of sarcasm in Carolinus' voice.

  "Carolinus! Forgive me!" said Jim. "Have I been sounding that commanding? Forgive me. I never forget for a second you're my Master-in-Magick and I'd be helpless without you—"

  "No need to make a great matter of it!" said Carolinus, in a different tone of voice entirely. "I get too used to being listened to rather than told. Pay no attention. I'm with you to the end of this—just as we all were at the Loathly Tower."

  "Still—" Jim was about to apologize further when Hob broke in, excitedly.

  "Forgive me, m'lord, but may I go now to tell the other hobs what you said?"

  "Go ahead," he told the little fellow with sinking heart. Of course the others had to hear this wild promise of his. "But come right back and stay with me. I need you for information on the goblins."

  "I'll be back before another spark goes out in the fire! Thank you again, m'lord. Oh, the hobs will be so happy to know they're a real ready reserve!"

  He disappeared up the chimney. Jim winced.

  "Quite an explanation, that of yours," said Carolinus.

  "Will the two of you please tell me what you're talking about?" said Angie.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  "I was just explaining to Hob why I was holding the hobs back from the battle until there was a good time to come in," said Jim to Angie.

  "When's that? You're going to use them, after all?"

  Jim sat down in one of the chairs as if suddenly very weary, looking, as Hob had looked, at the floor directly in front of him. Angie studied him for a long moment.

  "Carolinus," she said, "forgive me for doing something very impolite and disrespectful. I'm going to ask you to leave us here alone together for a bit, then I'll call you and ask you to come back."

  "No need to ask," said Carolinus, "and nothing impolite or disrespectful about it. When you've lived as long as I have, you understand requests like that better than those who haven't. No need to ask. Just call, I'll be right back."

  He disappeared, just as Hob erupted from the fireplace.

  "M'lord!" he cried excitedly. "Let me tell you how happy the hobs were to hear they were a ready reserve—"

  "Now you, Hob," said Angie decisively. "M'lord and I wish to be alone. Off you go, and we'll call you back in a little while. I don't have to tell you not to listen."

  "Oh no, of course, m'lady, and I'll make sure no other hob does—" And in his turn, Hob vanished, up the chimney. Angie turned back to Jim, who had buried his face in his hands.

  She went to him, putting one arm around his shoulders and stroking the hair of his bent head.

  "What is it?" she said.

  "I don't know," he said indistinctly through his hands. "I'm just out of gas. Empty inside. Maybe it's from the plague or overdoing with my magic—"

  He dropped his hands suddenly, put his arms around her, pulling her roughly to him, burying his face in the warm softness that was the front of her body.

  "Angie!"

  She bent down, whispering in his ear as she continued to stroke his head.

  "Jim, sweetheart," she whispered. "My Jim. Tell me."

  "I've lost it, somehow," he said muffledly. "What I always had. Optimism, maybe."

  They were pressed together into one person, and as part of that one person she read the answer through their contact without having to make him say it aloud.

  "You think we're all going to lose to the goblins, no matter what you do?" she asked.

  He did not answer for several seconds. "Yes," finally.

  She waited. After a second he went on.

  "We can't win. We can put on a brave show, but in the end they'll win because there're just too many of them. They're as unequipped as savages, with just their spears, but they want to win—they know they can win. There're just too many of them."

  "How can you be sure?"

  "I just am. I even enlisted the dragons, flattering them like a politician. Carolinus is going to back me with magic from everyone in the Collegiate—but it won't help. There's something missing on our side—missing in me. I've always been able to pull a rabbit out of my hat to turn the tide at the last minute, but the hat's empty now… I'm just going through the motions because the people here are going to be happier to go down fighting against whatever odds under someone they trust. They trust me, and they're wrong to do it.
I could always pull a little more out of myself, play harder, a few minutes longer, fight on anyway when I was out of strength. But not anymore."

  "Jim," she said, "this is Angie. I know you, my Jim. You can't lose what you think you've lost. It's in there, a part of you. If it'd gone, you'd be gone. But you're still here, and so is it—this thing you think you've lost. Believe me, I know. You just go ahead and trust it to be there when you want it. It'll be there. Because you've been sick, you tire easier than you think, and so you think something's missing—but it's not. I tell you it's not!"

  He pulled his face back from her and looked up at her face looking down at him.

  "I wish I could believe that… that you're not just saying it—"

  "Jim!" she said strongly. "I don't just say things to you. You know that! Have I ever?"

  "No," he said slowly, "no, you never have."

  He sighed deeply and his fierce grip around her relaxed.

  "All right," he said, "I'll trust you. You're the only one I would trust about this. I'll just plow ahead and hope."

  "Don't hope. Be sure. Go looking."

  "All right!" His arms fell away. "God, but I love you, Angie. Love makes the impossible possible."

  "Of course," she said. "Everyone knows that. So get busy."

  He stood up, shaking himself like a dog.

  "Where's Carolinus?" His voice strengthened. "And Hob?"

  "Just call them."

  "Carolinus! Hob!"

  Carolinus was there instantly. Hob was a few seconds behind him, but came tumbling out of the fireplace in his rush, and had to do a complete forward roll to come up onto his feet.

  "M'lord!" he cried. "Wait'll I tell you—" He broke off, seeing Carolinus standing there. "Forgive me, were you and the Mage talking—"

  "No," said Jim. "But it's only polite to let him get a word out first."

  "Terribly sorry, Mage, m'lord—"

  "Nonsense!" snapped Carolinus in his normal acerbic fashion. "Jim, always take the smallest ones first. Matters are always bigger to them—any Magickian worth his salt should know that."

  "I know it now," said Jim. He turned full on Hob. "What is it, then?"

  "The hobs, m'lord. I told them all about being your ready reserve, and they're all so proud and happy. They all trust you, m'lord, and we've all waited so many centuries for this chance to strike back. There isn't one out there who wouldn't give his life and everything to pay the goblins back! And now they're sure you'll get them into the fight, one way or another."

  "Then I better get busy thinking just how," said Jim, and suddenly he was sure he could do it. Of course it was always possible to throw them in later, just making sure first that they didn't get in the way of the men out there who could really fight. And of course they had earned the right to be in this—he had forgotten all that in his personal misery, the misery that had gone now.

  "You're thinking how to use us!" said Hob joyously. "Can I tell them that, too—that you're thinking of us, m'lord, now?"

  "I suppose so," said Jim, and at once Hob was gone once more up the chimney.

  Angie had exorcised his feeling of failure, as if it had been evil magic—but of course it couldn't have been that, because Carolinus would have instantly recognized it for what it was, and told him so.

  It was just something he had done to himself, temporarily. What was it the English would be calling it some hundreds of years from now? A "blue funk."

  Anyway, it was gone now. His old confidence was back.

  "And there you are, Carolinus!" he said. "I wish I could set up a trigger to remind me what I'd like to do," he added. "Then I could get busy at something else meanwhile and not waste time, knowing I'll remember when it's due."

  "For an apprentice, you—" Carolinus broke off. "Don't concern yourself, Jim. You'll be finding your own way to it."

  "I suppose." To his own surprise, Jim found himself feeling not only confident again, but cheerful. Bless Angie! he told himself, and turning to her, said aloud, "Hob will be back in no time—"

  "He will be," she said.

  There was a moment's wait, then Hob shot from the fireplace, landing running forward towards Jim.

  "M'lord!" he cried joyously. "I told them you were thinking how to use them. Now they're all taking turns resharpening their reaping hooks on anything they can get. It won't be over before we get there, really, will it?"

  "Not if I can help it," said Jim grimly, thinking of a totally different meaning to the word "over" than Hob had in mind. "Stand by, now—for questions."

  "Yes, m'lord."

  Jim glanced around for Angie, to let her know by their own private code that he was back in operating condition again, but he failed to see her.

  "M'lady left just now, m'lord," volunteered Hob.

  "Oh, that's all right, then," said Jim, out of his regained clear-headedness. "Forgive me, Carolinus." He turned back to the Mage. "I didn't mean to ask you to come here to just stand around. But I'm going to need to call up Brian for the mounted men and Dafydd for the archers and footmen while you're here, so we'll both know how ready they are. Then I'll talk to you about necessary magick I may have to ask you for. I wanted you to hear what they had to tell me, too."

  "Very well—if it won't take all day!"

  Brian, Dafydd, he formed the messages in his mind. Come as soon as you can. Just think of me, and you'll be up here in the Solar with me..

  "It'll just take a few moments," Jim said.

  "You'll have to learn to speed it up," said Carolinus. "It shouldn't."

  "I mean," said Jim, "it'll take Brian and Dafydd a few minutes to get here."

  "You mean you didn't import them? Shameful!" said Carolinus. "And here I've already put you up for membership! Teach yourself how to do that, at once!"

  "The second I've got a spare minute!" said Jim desperately. "Meanwhile… Hob, you said once the goblins didn't like fire?"

  "Yes, m'lord. They're deathly afraid of it. That's why they can't get into houses by going down chimneys like us. Of course, they can't get in any way at all if there's a cross or any other great symbol on its door, with humans inside faithful to it."

  There was no criticism of Jim intended by Hob. Nonetheless, Jim felt a slight note of disapproval in the very words themselves, where he was concerned—he pushed it away firmly. I'm not Hugh De Bois, he told himself—unfortunately, that very name brought back to mind his long-enduring failed promise to himself to get rid of the scar on Geronde's face where Sir Hugh had slashed her.

  Roughly, he ordered himself to concentrate on matters at hand.

  "Fire would frighten goblins, then?" he demanded of Hob.

  "Yes, m'lord—you could arrange a great forest fire that would creep out to the open space where so many of them are now and destroy them."

  "Not practical," he said, looking at Carolinus.

  "Burning living things is not allowed!" said Carolinus emphatically. "That's offense, not defense!"

  "I wasn't going to consider fire that way, Carolinus," he said quickly. "I've too many practical uses for what you can lend me."

  "Lend! Hah!" said Carolinus.

  Jim pushed the implications of that last statement firmly from him, also.

  "You remember we saw the dragons, just now," he said. "I'd like to make sure they not only threaten the goblins—just by their stooping to earth like falcons to kill—but also actually, magickally arrange for their wings to seem to be on fire as they do. That ought to panic the goblins."

  "Oh! Yes, m'lord!" said Hob gleefully. He added wistfully. "But if you could just really set them on fire—"

  "You heard the Mage," said Jim.

  "They burn like torches!"

  "They do?" said Jim, wincing inside. But causing his enemies to be burned alive was not in his sort of battle plan—even against goblins. A bloodthirsty hob was a new and difficult individual to adjust to. "No, we'll do it the way I just said. Now, since magic can't touch animals, we're sure the magic poison in the gobl
in spears can't poison the horses?"

  "Certainly not!" Carolinus snapped before Hob could answer. "I explained all about the innocents to you! Magick is strictly a matter for humans and Naturals. They alone can make it, use it, be touched by human magick, but never touch any non-magick-using creature—and well is it so. Trees," he added pointedly, "are innocents."

  "Quite right!" said Jim humbly—and became aware that Angie was once more standing at his elbow, but with her was the Countess Joan.

  "Go ahead, James," Joan told him. "I can wait until your more important matters are done. Edward is down with the other knights, God keep him, in the first rank, and can hardly wait to sally. Someone in your castle here made him a royal banner, and the lone squire from the King's party is carrying it—a knight's duty, ordinarily, but the desire was to have all the best fighters free to fight."

  "Quite right," said Jim, who had never known that before—it made sense, though, with Edward a Prince. "Good of you to wait. If you wouldn't mind stepping out for a bit, I'll send a servant or armsman to get you when we're done."

  "Certainly, James." She left. Angie stayed, watching him like a personal guard.

  "Good," said Jim. "Thank you, my lady. Carolinus, about that false fire for the dragons—we can talk about that in a moment. What I'm more interested in, right now, is whether you can supply other magick to ward the lower parts of both the horses and their riders. Even without poison, being stuck full of those goblin spears could drive the horses crazy—and of course the legs of the men riding them are vulnerable to the poison. If only those parts could be protected, too—oh, there you are, Daffyd."

  "I am here. I wait," said Dafydd.

  "I suppose I can protect that much more, too, if it's absolutely necessary," said Carolinus wearily. "I'll fight the matter of all this use of extra magick with the Collegiate, afterward."

  "We'll all really appreciate it, Mage," said Jim. "Hello, Brian. Carolinus just told us his magick can possibly protect the legs and bellies of the horses and the legs of the horsemen from the goblin poison—an extra kindness."