The Dragon and the Fair M

by Gordon R. Dickson

  Jim propped himself up on one elbow to stare down into her face.

  "Make it longer? Why? What do you mean?"

  "Ah, that's better," said Angie, lying happily still at last in her nest. "Well, you've got to understand it was Joan who came up with the idea, then did the real job of talking Geronde into going along with it. She's a very clever woman, Jim—a very clever woman!"

  Jim snorted. "All right. But what's this idea you were talking about?"

  "The idea of you having an audience with the King, of course. Well, as usual, she first had to talk Edward—young Edward—around to it, and she did that before he left. Since you can't let him bring this Verweather fellow here, he's been fretting about how to get Joan into Tiverton with him, without sending old Edward into one of his rages. You know—"

  "I know," said Jim. 'The famous Plantagenet temperament and all that. It happens I must know a dozen knights that're just as temperamental, or worse, but they're not royal, so nobody makes a big thing of it. But—the idea?"

  "I'm getting to it. Before young Edward left, she pointed out to him that the King had never met you, in spite of giving us Malencontri to hold directly in fief from him, and the coat of arms he gave you, and letting us have dear little Robert as your ward—"

  "It's all because of those half-witted ballad singers," growled Jim.

  "Well, old Edward's a king and used to being at stage center… Anyway—the point is, he actually was impressed with what you did, and since then he's heard other stories about you, Brian, and Dafydd. Joan pointed out to young Edward that Tiverton Castle may have the best service in the world and be safe from the plague, but it's still a far cry from the King's Court in the Tower of London, with intrigues, duels, fresh noble visitors with good-looking young daughters and ladies-in-waiting coming and going, and Cumberland talking to him all the time. At Tiverton the King's only got his servants, and nothing to do but eat, sleep, drink, and sign the few papers sent to him by Cumberland. In short, he's probably bored to death, and that's one of the reasons he'd be more ready to make it up with young Edward himself."

  "We've had jugglers and dancers and what-all in the way of entertainers showing up here for the celebration of the wedding. I suppose we could send some of them to him."

  "Much better than that. You remember he was quite the warrior when he was young. There was the sea battle of Sluys—and for that matter, his chevauche into Normandy not too long ago, that ended with the victory at Crecy."

  "What is this?" demanded Jim. His right elbow was beginning to ache from bearing all the weight of his upper body. "The water torture of deliberately withheld information? What was her bright idea?"

  "That instead of just summoning you—which would only be good for an interview or two—and me, because of course it was perfectly reasonable for you to assume your lady-wife would accompany you—young Edward could bring Brian and Dafydd, with Geronde and Danielle, and he could have the whole team there and hear firsthand stories from all the men who were in it."

  "Good God! Right now?"

  "Right now," said Angie, "or rather, as soon as young Edward gets back and we hear how his father liked the idea—and, of course, there's the side benefit that, since it would be awkward for you to empty Malencontri of gentlemen and ladies, leaving a Countess of Plantagenet blood all alone there—maybe Joan could come, too. She said old Edward knew her very well and always liked her. I believe her—people always like her, and as a girl she had lots of opportunity to cultivate the goodwill of the King."

  "But how about Geronde? Don't tell me she was happy with a plan that could put her wedding off indefinitely—a plan Joan just went ahead with on her own without asking her?"

  "She wasn't at first," said Angie. "But Joan—I told you she was clever—had her excuse set up ahead of time. She admitted it was a scheme to get her into Tiverton with young Edward, but pointed out to Geronde that everybody won with this, if it worked and the King liked them all. Brian's got a terrific reputation as a winner of tournaments, but he's never been in a real war. The result is that when war captains are talked about, he isn't even mentioned."

  "He was just a little too young for Crecy," said Jim, "and he didn't have the connections to get taken on as a squire by any knight of reputation—they were already loaded with squires from noble houses. There's a reason Chandos, Audley, and the rest are all about the same age. You can't make a name as a war captain if there's no war going on when you're the right age to shine in them—anyway, how's this going to help Brian?"

  "Why," she said, "if the King meets Brian and takes a liking to him—and I don't know how he can fail—it'd give Brian status at court. Then, if he and Geronde ever want a favor from the King, like we got the wardship of Robert, his chances are good. I think Brian knows more about weapons and their use than anyone else the King's seen in a long time—and remember, Chandos himself called Brian one of the best swords of the kingdom. It's a chance for her husband Geronde can't pass up."

  "I see."

  "I don't need to point out," she went on, "that it wouldn't hurt you either to make a personal friend of the King—and I can't imagine that not happening when he gets to know you."

  "Even if it does," said Jim—he realized that he felt deadly tired, more tired than he could ever remember feeling, "if Cumberland can turn him against his own son, his oldest son, the heir to his throne, Cumberland can turn him against any liking he develops for me. But in any case I don't want him to like me too much. I'm only one promotion from full Magickian, and I've decided to become active in their Collegiate and try to push myself up to a position where I can help steer them on a different course than the one they're on—"

  "You didn't tell me that!" said Angie.

  "I'll tell you about it—just as soon as we have some time to ourselves. There's no choice in magic—or magicks, however you want to pronounce it. It was talking in the dark to Merlin in Lyonesse that made me finally see that. If you stand still, you're done for in the long run. You've got to keep going, and know where you're going—but never mind all that now. The point is, I don't want to get tangled up with the Collegiate and the King's court, with all its plots and rivalries."

  "Just as soon as you can tell me more about that, you'll do it?"

  "The first minute, but for now we're in our own small piece of space—this Solar. Let's forget plagues, and Princes, and Kings and magick and this whole impossible, medieval world. I've got to get some sleep!"

  He dropped down from his aching elbow and buried his face in his pillow. He heard Angie say something indistinct, something he could not quite make out—but he was already plunging deep, deep into slumber.

  He woke with a start. It was daylight, though it seemed to him that only a second before he had heard Angie's last, incomprehensible words.

  He looked around and she was nowhere to be seen. The Solar was ablaze with sunlight, he had slept hours beyond his usual waking time. He raised his voice—it was an effort.

  "Ho! Servant here!" he managed to get out of his dry throat.

  The door opened a crack. Ellen Cinders, the Room Mistress, put her long, sharp-boned face in.

  "Can you make tea?" he demanded.

  "I can, please you, m'lord!" said Ellen. "My lady showed me how, some years past, in case of your need. Would you wish one now, then, m'lord?"

  "I would. The sooner the better."

  "Yes, m'lord. Soon as the water boils." She came in, a hawklike, unusually tall, rawboned, middle-aged figure, with a plump, brown-haired girl in her teens following her, someone Jim did not recognize. Another of the new recruits, of course. The coming wedding might have something to do with that. All the upper ranks among the servants would be busy as bees by this time—as Ellen Cinders probably should have been. Angie must have given her a special order to be on hand for Jim's waking. He added a few more pillows to the one behind his head and sat up.

  "—All right! Watch now!" Ellen was saying sharply to the girl. "Watch everything I do and how I
do it, so you can do it, too—watch, I say!"

  "Yes, Mistress!" said the girl hastily. "I've been watching everything. I have, too!"

  She had also been stealing quick glances at Jim sitting up in bed. He and Angie had long since fallen into the medieval habit of sleeping naked, and Jim, sitting up as he was now, had his bare upper body showing above the covers. To see a famous Magickian with no clothes on was something for the girl to tell her relatives about when at last she should be given the time and freedom to visit them.

  The tea came. It was hot and sweet, the two elements that had finally brought Jim to accept it as at least something of a substitute for the morning coffee he had once been used to. Under Ellen's direction, the girl brought it to him on a small tray, with Ellen watching like the bird of prey she resembled. The girl curtsied rather clumsily, and backed off.

  "If you'll excuse me, m'lord," said Ellen, "there's a mort of work for my people to do, and I needs be with them to get it all done right. Maybe I could go now, then? Lettice will do for you in my stead."

  "Certainly," said Jim, though he knew it would not work. The door shut behind Ellen. "So your name's Lettice?"

  "Aye so, m'lord." Lettice curtsied. She was having lurid, impossible daydreams of having caught the eye of this great Magickian and Knight at his first glance… and him being already there in his bed, with his clothes off…

  "How long have you been at Malencontri?"

  "Three weeks less a day, please m'lord."

  "I hadn't seen you before." In the back of her head, her imagination, he was saying… I command you! Come to me now…

  "I been in the fine rooms here, cleaning and such when just us servants are around, please, m'lord." Greatly daring, she added, "Would m'lord want another cup, now?"

  Ellen's tea had not been bad—but it was not a patch on Angie's. Lettice's could only be worse. Besides, he was awake now and felt like getting up.

  "No," he said. "Wait outside, of course, so you can hear me call."

  Pop went the daydreams.

  "Yes, m'lord," said Lettice sadly, going out the door.

  He rose and dressed. He was surprised to feel so totally rested and full of energy. The combination woke his usual optimism even more strongly than usual. For some reason he felt more than able to deal with anything the day might throw at him.

  He started to order his usual breakfast sent up—then caution laid a hand on him.

  "Ho! Servant here!" he called. Lettice put her head in the door. "Do you know who's in charge in the Serving Room right now?"

  "No, m'lord."

  "Never mind, then. You can go."

  "Yes, m'lord." She withdrew.

  He picked an apple—good ones were hard to find this fall, with all the rain—from the shelf where Angie stored a small supply of eatables that could keep fairly well, and went out the door, eating it.

  "Morning, Adam," he said, munching cheerfully, to the man-at-arms, paired with Lettice on door duty at the Solar.

  "Morn, m'lord," said Adam, concealing a grin, for Morn was a good four hours past.

  Jim paused and swallowed.

  "I'm going down to the Serving Room, Adam."

  "Yes, m'lord."

  He finished the apple and threw the core out an arrow slit as he went by, regretting the move immediately—he was becoming more of a medieval man all the time. The core would end in the moat. They had been at great pains, he and Angie, to teach the castle staff to keep the moat clean—with only partial success. At least Malencontri did not stink quite so badly as other castles.

  He was mulling over how to improve this situation, when two more turns of the stairs around the inside of the tower brought him face-to-face with Harimore, resolutely striding up toward him with a determined face.

  They met one step apart—which left Jim looking down into the face of the other knight—but that sort of symbolic gap in their social ranks had never seemed to bother Harimore in what little contact Jim had had with him. In a sense Harimore seemed something like Dafydd, too secure in his knowledge of his earned position in the world to bow very deeply to anyone else's.

  But in this particular situation there was a difference in the knight's demeanor Jim had never seen before. His face was pale with determination, mixed with something that looked to Jim rather like embarrassment.

  "My lord," he said. "I have not had the opportunity heretofore to make my apology to you—a regrettable thing in a guest. You will remember last Christmas at the Earl's celebration of that holy time, it happened that we spoke briefly, and I saw fit—to my shame—to make some personal remarks to you about the way you wore your sword and such. I was aware at that time of your being a Magickian, but took you for one who merely eked out little knowledge of arms with some equally small knowledge of magick. I have since learned—not merely from Sir Brian, but others—that indeed you are a true Magickian, and one of great skill and accomplishment. It was unthinkable that I so took the attitude I did."

  "Well, it's good of you to tell me all this—" Jim began.

  "Pray, hear me out. I honor over all any man who cares for one art above all others. For a Mage it is understandable that, if he must carry and use arms, he may not show quite that care and style with them that another might think he should.

  He has plainly given all to his first and chosen art, but wishes it plain that he is a gentleman and will defend himself. Consequently, in such a rare gentleman as yourself, a certain unpolished manner of carrying and using weapons is entirely permissible, and should be understandable. Whereas, in my eyes, at least, if a man only plays with two arts, but expects a name in both, it would not be."

  He paused, but before Jim could speak, went on.

  "Consequently, I do crave your gentle and gracious forgiveness for my early words, and I will quite understand if you would rather I left your castle, making such excuses to others as will keep this whole matter privy between the two of us."

  Jim winced internally. Harimore's face was looking even more bony than usual, and he was breathing harder than someone in his superb physical shape should, after merely climbing the tower steps. Also, his last words had all the ring of a prepared speech.

  He did not want Harimore to leave—particularly if trailing excuses which must clearly ring false to the ears of the other guests—but most of all in Brian's. Brian would be the first to feel that matters were not right, to read Harimore's emotional state more intuitively and correctly—and the first to come and ask Jim what he knew about the sudden departure. Brian's own honor could be at stake here. He was the one who had introduced Harimore to Malencontri—in effect, according to the manners of the day, guaranteeing him to be a gentleman worthy of acceptance.

  If Harimore for some reason turned out not to be so, Brian was responsible. Or, if someone else in the castle had offended him, that offense automatically also became the concern of Brian.

  "Sir Harimore," said Jim, with all the warmth he could muster, "I can't tell you how warmed I am, by not only your understanding of the state of one who must act both as Magickian and Knight, but the sensitive way in which you have told me of it. Your apology, of course, is as unnecessary as it is gentlemanly to one like myself who has often been offended by the clumsy misunderstanding of my necessary concern with magic. Give me your hand, my dear Sir, and I pray you, do not think of leaving for any reason other than your own desire to be gone!"

  "Hah!" said Harimore—that handy single syllable used by the gentlemanly class (and a good share of the gentlewomanly one as well) to express the otherwise not easily expressible. In this case Jim suspected both bafflement and relief. Harimore's hand in Jim's was as hard as a rock, and a sudden realization of what the apology had cost him suddenly occurred to Jim. Harimore had made this offer to leave in spite of knowing it could take him out of sight and sound of Joan of Kent, who, if Dafydd was right, had possibly stolen Harimore's heart away. This man would boil himself in oil on a point of honor, Jim told himself.

  Their handsha
ke ended, the topic of conversation was now past and sealed, and both men hurried on in their original directions of travel, relieved to have the matter over with.

  In Jim's case, his goal was still the Serving Room and whatever was best and available in the way of breakfast. But rounding the corner that would have brought him into it, he literally ran into Angie, coming just as fast from the opposite direction.

  "Are you all right?" he asked anxiously, after catching her from falling.

  "Fine," gasped Angie. "Battered and bruised, of course. You're like hitting a stone wall nowadays. But never mind that. The Prince is looking for you."

  "The Prince!" Jim stared at her. "He can't be! He'd have to have ridden out of Tiverton at three o'clock in the morning!"

  "Maybe he did," said Angie.

  Chapter Fourteen

  He's in the Great Hall," said Angie, "getting something to eat."

  "Eat," echoed Jim, his mouth beginning to water at the word.

  "And he wants to speak to you urgently," she said. "Urgently and privately. You'd better take him up to the Solar. It'll be cleaned and the bed made up by now."

  Jim thought of a High Table already laden with food.

  "That fast? Anyway, the Solar tempts him to talk too long," he said firmly. "I'll try and find out what he wants first. Pass the word to the staff—no listening in on pain of Magickal Penalty."

  "Don't eat too much yourself," said Angie. "Dinner's in three hours."

  He ignored the implications of that, already heading toward the Great Hall. Sure enough, he found young Edward there, stuffing himself on pastries and cold beef, and washing it all down, of course, with wine.