The Dragon and the Fair M

by Gordon R. Dickson

  There was an extended moment of silence at the table in the Great Hall.

  "This is not the place for any further discussion on such a matter," said Brian to Jim. "And, since supper is now over, I, for one, will beg forgivess. My Lady Geronde will be with the other ladies in the Solar—I have not had a chance to say two words of ex—that is, two words to her—since she got back here. Come, James, let us go up to my room where we can sit close and talk as friends should."

  At this none-too-gentle hint, delivered in Brian's usual straightforward fashion, Jim rose when he did.

  Chapter Twelve

  In honor of their status as the soon-to-be newly wedded couple, Brian and Geronde had had Malencontri's largest spare bedroom set aside for them by Jim and Angie. At least in part this had been done with an eye to the number of guests who would want to crowd in after them when it came time for them to go to bed on their wedding night.

  Angie had been all for ruling out this raucous crowd who would seek to follow the newlyweds up the stairs to be witnesses at their bedding. Jim had finally managed to convince her that in fact Brian and Geronde would want those followers along—even though the curtains around the bed would be drawn shut, those people would be the required legal witnesses to testify to the consummation of the marriage vows, which was necessary to make the marriage legal in the eyes of the Church.

  With the women who had left the table of course in the Solar now, as Brian had suggested, Brian's room on the floor just below the Solar should be empty. Brian and Jim reached the door—unlocked, of course, like every other bedroom door in the castle—and Brian pushed it open and led the way in… and they both stopped.

  Geronde was there, after all—alone, standing beside one of the arrow slits that looked out on the same area Jim had seen before sunup that morning. She turned her face to them, then, and it was a face Jim had never seen on her before.

  "Geronde!" Brian said, walking toward her. "We—I thought you would be with the other ladies, talking in the Solar."

  She held up a forbidding hand, and he stopped. They were only a single long step from each other, but now the distance was marked.

  "Forgive me, my lord," she said, in a curiously harsh voice, "had I known you might wish the use of this chamber—"

  "It but happened James and I were left, the two of us, alone at the High Table and were merely seeking some other place to talk."

  "No doubt. As men talk. I have noticed, my lord, your partiality for the conversation of men all your life, over that of women—or at least of the woman who is myself. But I shall vacate this room immediately for your use. Excuse me—"

  "Geronde!" said Brian. "Wait—there is no reason the three of us cannot sit and talk. James and I had nothing in mind for conversation such as one wanders into after a good dinner. Please… join us."

  "You are too kind, Sir Brian. But I am sure my presence would only be an intrusion…"

  It was an exquisitely painful moment for all of them, including Jim.

  "No, I beg you. James, I'm sure, would be not averse to leaving the two of us to ourselves—" Brian suddenly exploded into his full roar—"Damn it, Geronde, what's wrong? Why won't you tell me?"

  "Our wedding is put off at least a week!" shouted Geronde. "A lifetime of working, and loving and waiting—I break my neck only to get to Smythe Castle and not find you there so we can go over the grounds together and I can plan how to make the lands pay! And you—you are down here! Out without a care in the world—hunting!"

  Without warning, she suddenly hurled herself into his arms, and Jim saw tears rolling down her face, over the ugly scar left by the knife of Sir Hugh de Bois.

  "How could you do this to me?" she cried.

  Jim slipped discreetly out the door, shutting it softly behind him.

  Going away along the curving corridor with the sweat cooling on his face, he swallowed, thinking of those tears. He had never thought of Geronde as someone who could cry. This was the woman who had spat in Sir Hugh's face when he had slashed that left cheek and threatened more of the same.

  He came to a halt in the corridor. Once again, he had had Carolinus at his side and forgotten to ask the Mage if there was not some magic that would take away that scar completely—it was beyond his own apprentice powers—leaving Geronde untouched and beautiful, for she, too, was beautiful in a delicate, fine-boned way. He had sworn to himself he would get that scar healed if he could before her wedding to Brian.

  "Hell's bell's!" he told himself. He would do it yet. He would do it now—whatever Carolinus was busy with.

  "Carolinus!" he said loudly—and his voice rang enormously, strangely, off the blank stone walls, floor and ceiling of the curving corridor, without as much as an arrow slit on its sheer outer side, forty feet to the ground.

  "What is it?" said Carolinus, appearing immediately.

  "Sorry to interrupt you—"

  "Sorry to interrupt me—" began Carolinus, his gray eyebrows flying up his forehead and his voice rising. "Did it ever strike you I might be involved in—well, never mind what I was involved in. You do not call me unless it's an emergency! One you can't handle!"

  "Well, it is something I can't handle," said Jim awkwardly. "It's about a scar on someone's face I don't know how to take off, magically."

  "A scar? Already? Who do you know with a scar?"

  "The same person you do!" said Jim, nettled as he so often and easily was by Carolinus' attitude. "Geronde has one."

  "Hmm," said Carolinus, "so she has."

  Jim stared at him.

  "You never paid any attention to it?" he said.

  "I—well, of course I noticed. It's been there…"

  "Some years," said Jim harshly.

  "Some years. Well, there you are. Of course I noticed, but with so many other desperate things, this and that on my mind…" Carolinus's eyes avoided Jim's and his voice descended into an unintelligible mumble. "But why call me now, of all times?" he wound up, his voice stiffening—but he still avoided Jim's eyes.

  "I think we both forgot," said Jim, feeling much better the moment he had admitted it. "But you see there's that ugly scar spoiling her face, and she's just about to be married…"

  "Oh, yes," said Carolinus in more normal tones. His eyes came up to meet Jim's. "Then, of course—just how old is this scar?"

  "She was cut by Sir Hugh de Bois right after Angie and I got here. Four? No, five years ago."

  "Then I can do nothing with it. Fresh wounds you can handle yourself, of course. But a scar, particularly an old one, is part of the living flesh around it. Maybe a specialist… there must be some Magickian in the Collegiate who's taken an interest in working with older wounds, or other disfigurements. Let me inquire."

  "Time's short," said Jim.

  "How short?"

  "A little over a week now, I think," said Jim. "It was to be three days away, but it may be put off a bit."

  "Thank all good spirits!" said Carolinus. "Well, I'll do the best I can—"

  "Any idea what it'll cost?" asked Jim uneasily, remembering the high price he had paid for the white silk he and Angie had given the Bishop, and which Carolinus had got from some Far Eastern Magickian intermediary. It was the first time he had become uneasily aware of the soaring amounts of magical energy changing hands in any deal between Magickians.

  Usually the supplying Magickian had a monopoly on what was wanted and intended to make the most of it.

  "Never mind that. You've only got an apprentice's resources, and I forgot, too," said Carolinus, vanishing.

  Jim went on toward the tower stairs, feeling somewhat lighter of heart—but only somewhat. If Carolinus could have handled it, removing the scar would have been a great deal easier. Now it was surrounded by question. Could Carolinus find the specialist? And if he found him, could the specialist do it—above all, could he be found and do it in time?

  But in any case it was out of Jim's hands now. He had reached the stairs and the choice. Up or down? Upstairs, the odds
were the other women were still in the Solar. Downstairs one flight was the room of Sir Harimore, but he might not be welcoming visitors just now, and if Dafydd was with him, then the two would be best left alone together for what good Dafydd's words would do him—if Harimore listened to them at all, that was.

  In the end Jim decided to return to his command post at the now abandoned High Table and get a status report of how work was progressing from those who had been put in charge of the various jobs of preparing against the plague. By the time he had dealt with that, it would be late enough so he could reasonably go up to the Solar, and by the simple fact of appearing there, hint that it was time for the chamber to abandon its present role as a salon and return to the more private one of being his and Angie's bedroom.

  It was a clever thought and he felt rather pleased with it until, halfway down the stairs, his conscience accused him. Angie had little enough opportunity at the company of other women. It was rare that Malencontri held at the same time so many other talkable-to females. The rigid rules of rank of this historic period dictated that it would not do for her to make close friends with those of lower class. In any case, her position as Chatelaine of Malencontri made it unwise for her do anything that would give the appearance of favoring one servant more than another among the staff.

  Some years of early-to-bed and early-to-rise habit had made him ready to fold up much earlier than he had once been used to. He came to the bottom of the stairs and plodded on, undecided, to the Great Hall. Perhaps he would just sit there until Angie came to fetch him. It was usually the wives on these occasions who had to look for, find, and drag their more-or-less drunken husbands off to bed.

  The Great Hall was just as he had expected: clean, with fires blazing in all of its three large fireplaces, and a fresh, white tablecloth on the table, with a few dishes of cold finger-foods at one end, together with a couple of large pitchers of wine, another of water, and half a dozen ordinary wine cups. It was, of course, now doing duty as a table dormant: a twenty-four-hour source of food and drink if any guest woke hungry or thirsty in the night, or if some latecomer should arrive, needing sustenance. True, the gates were closed, but this castle was the home of a Magickian and anything could happen.

  A whole castle, Jim said to himself, sitting and staring at the far end of the table, with its food and wine—neither of which attracted him. Here I've got a whole castle with no place in it for me to lie down or no one to talk to…

  He woke up suddenly to the fact he had been sitting here for several minutes and no one had come to see what he wanted—which was unnatural. There was supposed to be someone on Serving Room duty night and day.

  Normally there would be a man-at-arms and a servant outside any room he was in, and he could not go out without the word being passed that he was out and about. But the last room he had been in was Brian and Geronde's, and evidently no armsman or servant had been posted there yet.

  Still, it was odd.

  He got up, descended from the dais and walked into the Serving Room. At first he thought it was deserted, and then he discovered the mouse, curled up asleep in the little niche between the smaller stove and the wardrobe holding the mazers and other tableware. A warm spot—both stoves were banked for the night, ready to be fired up if serious heating of food was required. He stood for a moment looking down at her, so completely childlike, tucked into that small space. Something turned over inside him at the thought of waking her up.

  But wake her he must. This was no way to pass a night's Serving Room duty—particularly with guests in the house and a table dormant. She was probably not only the newest but the youngest recruit, and the least able to fight for her rights, and so she had been stuck with the job. But it would have gone hard with her had anybody but Angie or himself caught her like this. He would have to wake her.

  He leaned over and gently shook one narrow shoulder.

  She did not respond for a long minute. Then her eyes opened sleepily, and she looked up at him with no recognition at all for a long second—until they flew wide open and she scrambled to her feet.

  "My—my lordship!" She smoothed her short gown, which had been washed to the point that there was no telling what its original color had been.

  "Just 'my lord,'" said Jim, still gently. "If you keep calling me 'lordship' the others will make fun of you. Are you all the way awake now?"

  "Aye, my lordship—my lord!"

  "Well, you run down to the servants' quarters and get either May Heather or the first servant you see—asleep or awake. Tell whoever it is to get to me here as fast as she or he can—don't tell them you were asleep and I woke you."

  "No, m'lord."

  "Well, get going, then."

  He watched her scoot off. He did not feel like going back to the High Table, so he wandered around the Serving Room, looking at the stoves, the other wardrobes, which held everything from clean, neatly folded tablecloths to certain dried or otherwise cookable-on-short-order foods, and racks holding cooking tools and tableware. It really, he decided, packed a great deal into a remarkably small space.

  May Heather came out of the passage to the servants' quarters, looking as if she had been up for some time. The mouse tagged along behind her.

  "M'lord?" said May.

  "May! There you are!" he said, as if she had just materialized out of thin air with the unexpected suddenness of Carolinus. "I can't have this. This won't do at all—particularly with guests in the house—" He pointed toward the mouse who had started to dodge behind May, then checked herself just in time. "She's far too inexperienced and too young for night duty alone in the Serving Room."

  "Certainly, my lord," said May. "But when I was her age, I—"

  "How old are you now, May?"

  "Thirteen, please m'lord."

  "And how old is she?"

  "I don't know," May turned to the mouse. "What years have you, Lise?"

  "Don't know," said the mouse, shrinking. Did this question mean she might be too young to have a job in the castle? "Please m'lord, please mistress. Maybe eleven years?"

  "At eleven you were half a stone more than she is, May, and already able to give Tom Kitchen a hard fight. Can you imagine Lise doing that? And already you're practically Mistress Plyseth's right hand."

  " 'Tis only because of her knees and the fall damp, m'lord."

  "Nonetheless," said Jim, "we aren't all made alike. I'm giving you an order, May. I want you—you personally—to keep an eye on Lise here. Don't let the others bully her—"

  "Got to have some of that in life, m'lord."

  "You know what I mean." He turned on Lise. "If you were named for Serving Room night duty, you were supposed to be let sleep during the day. When you tried to sleep, did others keep waking you?"

  "I—" Lise glanced at May.

  "Tell m'lord!" ordered May.

  "Well, yes they did, m'lord—a little," said Lise, glancing uneasily at May.

  "What did they do? Throw cold water on you? Put things on your pallet so you'd roll over in them and wake up? Did they try to make you drink extra beer when suppertime came?"

  "Well, yes, m'lord—and other things," said Lise, now squirming with embarrassment.

  "You hear, May?" said Jim. "No more of that until she's settled in here. Tell them it's my orders. It disturbs my magic-making! You don't want that happening, do you—either of you?"

  He glowered at them.

  "Oh, no, my lord" they both said, in perfect chorus and perfect sincerity.

  "Then that's settled," said Jim. "And, May, teach her how to fight while you're at it. Lise, you take a nap here in the Serving Room for the moment." As he spoke, he walked back toward the High Table, with May Heather, perforce, following.

  "Now, May," Jim went on, "who's in charge of setting up the pavilion for the quarantine place outside the gates? I want to talk to him. Now!"

  "The carpenter, m'lord," said May, hesitantly. The Master Carpenter was one of the civilian officers of the castle—a somewhat c
rotchety old man, and miles above May in the hierarchy of the civilian castle staff. "But I doubt not he's been asleep these three hours past."

  "Now, my lord," came the voice of Angie, approaching behind him, "don't go waking up Master Carpenter at this hour after one of the hardest days he's had in years. All my guests are gone from the Solar, and it's time we two were getting some rest for tomorrow."

  "What's tomorrow?" asked Jim, turning to see her approaching from the direction of the corner next to the tower stairs.

  "Tell you when we get upstairs," said Angie. "May, handle it anyway you want, but make sure someone's on duty in the Serving Room—and take that child in there now off to her pallet before she falls over sideways."

  Chapter Thirteen

  It wasn't Lise's fault," Jim finished explaining. He was already in bed, watching Angie go through her last few moves before doing the same. "Because she was little and didn't know the ropes, the older servants were having fun—their idea of fun—picking on her. I just had her bring me May because I wanted May to take care of her until she was able to take care of herself. But what was all that about tomorrow? You said it was going to be a full day."

  "Oh, that was mainly to start a rumor among the servants that something even more might be expected of them. They're all going to be big days, even with an added five days to be ready."

  She crawled into bed.

  "So Geronde's reconciled to waiting another five days?"

  "I wouldn't say reconciled—but she knows as well as anyone else that if it's not this weekend, it's got to be on another. That means more time for even more neighbors to get here, and two Masses instead of one—a Sunday Mass as well as the wedding one, since the chapel will be in shape and the priest from Malvern here to celebrate it—not many of our neighbors have household priests, and none locally have anything resembling a chapel… I do have something to tell you."

  "Good news or bad?" said Jim, preparing himself for the worst.

  "Both, I think," said Angie, wriggling around to get herself into her favorite position under the covers and plumping up her pillow. 'There's the matter of this idea of all of us going to Tiverton with you. Geronde wasn't happy about an added wait for the wedding—not happy at all. The only thing is—though I don't think that Geronde suspects it, not knowing as much as you and I do about kings and their courts, it might make her wait even longer than she expects. She thinks it's going to be just a few days so you can have your audience with the King—with the rest of us maybe having to show up once, briefly, so His Majesty can get a look at us."