The Dragon and the Fair M

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "But—" said Dafydd, "if you only wanted to harass our enemies, I notice you have many of your tenants and serfs sheltering here in the castle at present. Even with the plague, there must be near thirty still on-site and well enough for duty—"

  Brian crossed himself. Common people as they might have been, those who would die would still have souls.

  "They cannot be called archers, of course," Dafydd was going on. "But there will be none of them among the men who have not had a bow in their hands since they were ten—only, of course, for shooting such as rabbits for their cooking pot—or even an occasional deer, illegal as that is for common folk. If you only wish them for harassing the goblins, and give them bows and shafts, they might help. As Brian says, it would be like a shoot into the village duck pond—short range, slow-moving targets—and aim is hardly needed. If no other thing, they could shoot high into the air, all together, as archers are used to doing in battles nowadays, and hope that a number fall with effect on the massed enemy below."

  "It is well thought of," said Brian with unusual seriousness. "Archers have been used to good effect in our wars, lately, and while these lads of the fields and forest fringe are no more archers than I am—"

  "You are accurate, Brian, however," said Dafydd, "which speaks well of one who makes only occasional sporting use of the bow. You give yourself too little credit."

  "Hah! Well—" said Brian, looking embarrassed, "at duckpond range, as I say… But does that fill our need for bowmen, James?"

  "Well, yes," said Jim, "except that I'd been counting on those same men to make footmen with spears when the proper moment in the fight came."

  "There is no reason they cannot do both," said Dafydd. "Put down their bows and take up the spears."

  "They will have to be taught to charge together in ranks, though," said Brian. "I can take care of that if you wish. But, James, this is all beside the point. What you will really need for such a number of those without, weak and unorganized as they are, we'll need knights and armsmen ahorse, armed and armored as best they can be. Aside from annoying the enemy, all else we have spoken of will only tickle and distract a force that large. The point of a battle is to kill or rout your foes, not bother them."

  "We're getting pigeon messages off to the neighbors for help of that kind."

  "God send it does," said Brian. "Here we are but the King's five knights and one squire, besides ourselves and Sir Harimore, who is a good man, but only one to add to our little number—I do not say that we could not make good effect still upon even those numbers outside, but rout them? You cannot stop with a few spades the ocean tide from coming in."

  "Carolinus has promised to speak to the Earl of Somerset for help. If his castle has not been hit hard by the plague, he could bring possibly even a dozen equipped knights."

  "That would be a help, James," said Brian, but still doubtfully.

  "And you forgot to count the Prince among us. I had thought of him for our war captain—"

  "The Prince? Are you serious, James?" exploded Brian. Even Dafydd came as close to looking astonished as Jim had ever seen him.

  "He is still little more than a boy, in many ways," went on Brian. "Yes, yes, I know he did well at Poitiers, and proved his right to the knighthood his father gave him the moment he was ashore. But he had Chandos and half a dozen other seasoned captains by his side to guide him! But of course, you are speaking of his commanding in name only."

  "Well, yes and no," said Jim. "I had hoped to help bring him back into that same father's good graces, something that would make him stand out. I've had a quiet word that the King might want that as well as young Edward, he could not easily choose to bring to the throne a son as weak and useless as the lies of Cumberland have been continually painting young Edward."

  "But surely, James," said Brian, "if nothing else you will take the actual command in keeping for yourself?"

  "Better yet—if you will forgive me," said Dafydd, "if you will make Brian the real commander—under your own privy authority, of course."

  "Indeed! But mayhap even better would be to make the three of us the leaders in secret, holding the reins on the Prince!" said Brian. "For I swear to you that otherwise he will find a way to lose the battle at his first chance, on some inexperienced choice!"

  "You're right, of course!" said Jim. "I didn't want to suggest it myself, but if the two of you think so… if you do—"

  The two other men nodded vigorously.

  "Well, then," Jim went on, "that gives me courage to mention there's one other possible source of armed help for us. I hadn't yet mentioned the hobs."

  Brian stared at him. Dafydd's gaze took on a marked seriousness.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  "James!" said Brian. "Did you say 'armed force'?"

  "Yes," said Jim.

  "James, I am not given to unreasonable objections, you know that. Surely, all that lives will fight when it comes to a matter of keeping its life. But even if hobs are in such manner willing to fight the goblins, they are not fighters by nature. To my best knowing they have never been known to fight—anything. But even if I am wrong about these matters, they have no knowledge of battle, or the use of weapons. What weapons could they use?"

  "I told Hob when he invited them to each bring their own."

  "Broken kitchen knives and lost eating knives, no doubt!" snorted Brian. "James, what under all that is reasonable possessed you to have Hob invite them?"

  "Hob and Tiverton hob were champing at the bit to fight, themselves."

  "Your hob—now that is possibly understandable. He has been with you when swords were out, and in divers other adventures. I will not say he has no courage. But as for Tiverton hob… I can think of no excuse for such attitude, unless he picked up from your hob."

  "He was caught by the goblins when they invaded Tiverton, Brian, and cruelly tortured by them."

  "Ah. That at least is possibly more of a reason even than that of your Malencontri hob. But as you said, James, I got to know Hob when I was a very young boy, left alone among strangers for no notion of how long, and I know him for possibly the gentlest creature in Christendom… Well, well, probably only a handful will show up. I cannot imagine my hob of Castle Smythe attacking the enemy, broken knife in hand."

  "How many will come is something I don't know," said Jim. "But if they do, they're ways they could be useful. They can ride on the smoke, as you both know, and could maybe be useful spying out the goblins—perhaps even get close enough to the goblin leaders—"

  "Do they have leaders, James?" asked Dafydd.

  "I don't know," confessed Jim. "But if they have, maybe our hobs can get close enough to overhear their planning—oh, come to think of it, I forgot to mention that I haven't had a chance to ask Secoh this, but I'm all but positive the young dragons of the Dragon Patrol—"

  "You mean the ones who fly over Smythe days, and even on nights from time to time?" asked Brian.

  "Those are the ones. We can't let them get into the fighting, even if we wanted them to. Have you ever had to face a mother dragon who thinks you've been putting her sixty-year-old son or daughter in peril?"

  "No," said Brian. "But I take your point."

  "And so do I," said Dafydd. "I have seen my wife, Danielle, when one of our sons has been let wander into a part of the forest where there might have been bears—or even trolls. I tell her that boys will adventure, that it is part of growing up to manhood, but at such times I hardly recognize the gentle lady I married."

  Jim said nothing to that, though "gentle" was the last word he, himself, would have chosen to describe Danielle. She was as good a forester as any man in her father's outlaw band—not counting Dafydd, of course. But Dafydd had seemed to have a remarkable way of winning arguments with her, normally.

  "In any case," said Brian briskly, "if you plan to use your tenants and serfs—and even some of your castle people—as both archers and footmen, Dafydd and I should waste no time in training them as best we can to adva
nce in order, and simple matters like that. We could be worse off, even if the plague keeps neighbors from helping. Poor Verweather is out of it—"

  Jim started to point out that Verweather had been working for their enemies all along, but decided that silence was a fine course just now.

  "—but all told," Brian was going on, "we have two squires, your Theoluf and the one of the King's party, also eight belted knights—five of the King's, you and I, James, and Harimore—"

  The ear-splitting sound of the alarm gong on the tower roof, right above their heads, interrupted him. They all pelted out of the Solar, Brian first, Dafydd close behind him and Jim making a plainly distant third, even at his best speed. The man-at-arms on duty overhead was shouting something, but in the narrow staircase the tremendous clamor of the gong made his words incomprehensible.

  They burst out on to the top of the tower and heard him clearly for the first time.

  "—Aux armes—to arms!" he was shouting to the whole castle. "Escaliers on the curtain wall and tower sides!"

  Dafydd, nearest to the circular wall of embrasures about the tower, ran to it to look out and down, just as Brian and then Jim reached his side and looked down for themselves through the same opening of the embrasure.

  "Here's one," said Dafydd, with his usual calmness—Brian had already seized one of the long, thick poles lying around the circumference of the tower below the embrasures, against just this sort of eventuality. Dafydd and Brian helped him to get it up and slide it out through the opening, pointed downward at the rough ladder that was leaning against the side of the tower. The ladder's top was just below the embrasure itself, its lower end now sunk deep in the mud of the moat by the weight of the goblins that were clinging to it, carrying their glinting, pointed spears held balanced—unbelievably—between the teeth of their wide mouths.

  The towertop was suddenly swarming with people. Men and women servants came running up with buckets of oil to pour into the enormous caldron above the sand-filled heating bed ready to light beneath it. Others, male servants, seized poles and began sliding them out through the low bottom ledge of embrasures as Brian, Jim and Dafydd had done, to push at the tops of the ladders resting against the wall.

  Theoluf was already on the curtain wall, below them on the castle's other side.

  "Spread out! Spread out!" he was shouting to the men-at-arms coming up the stone stairstep to the wall. "Take the servants between you. Four or more to a ladder. Let them push—you be ready to fight any who come in over the wall! Spread out! Spread out—"

  The top of the ladder that Jim and the two others were pushing was starting to lean out, its middle curving in toward the tower like a monstrous bow.

  "Much lighter, these goblins," grunted Brian, "than escaliers wearing full armor—there they go!"

  The ladder suddenly broke, and with sharp screams, the goblins upon it fell with its two parts into the moat.

  "Hah!" said Brian, looking around, "where else now?"

  Dragging their pole, they made a circle of the towertop, but all the scaling ladders were already being pried away from the wall by others.

  They laid their pole down in an empty space at the foot of the embrasure where Dafydd had found it. Jim ran to the nearest chimney sticking up through the tower roof.

  "Hob!" he called down it.

  "I'm here, m'lord," said Hob, popping up like a spring-activated toy out of a nearby chimney. "I've been watching from here so as not to get in the way."

  "I want to catch a goblin and ask him some questions."

  "Let one up over the wall, then, m'lord," said Hob, hopping out on to the roof. "I'll capture one."

  Jim turned to the nearest pole-party prying with their pole through the embrasure before them.

  "Let one up!" Jim told them. "Brian, Dafydd, we'd better stand by on either side, in case more than one gets up."

  They moved into position, Brian on the far side of the pole-party, his sword drawn and raised. Dafydd was beside Jim, the long knife that served him equally well as a sword in his hand. Hob flattened himself against the wall on Brian's side.

  A goblin, spear balanced between his jaws, came through the embrasure, his dark eyes glinting fiercely. Hob struck down, half-severing the spear about a foot behind its point. The goblin, suddenly unbalanced by the weight of the blow, staggered sideways. Hob brought down the flat of his sword on the round, furry head, and the goblin dropped.

  "Well, damme!" said Brian, in a tone of surprised admiration. "Not at all badly done!"

  The goblin began to stir. Hob raised his sword again.

  "No," said Jim, shaking his head. "Still!" he ordered the goblin, who ceased moving but went on coming to. His eyes, now aware, fastened balefully on Hob.

  "Stand!" ordered Jim.

  The goblin got to his feet, but then ceased moving.

  "All right," said Jim, moving to confront him. "Who told you about making and using scaling ladders to storm the castle? You didn't know about them or you would have used them before this. Answer me! You can't move still, but now you can talk."

  The goblin turned his hate-filled eyes from Hob to Jim, but not a sound came from his mouth.

  "Do you want me to take him on the smoke into a chimney and question him there, m'lord? There're good fires in all the fireplaces, below."

  The goblin made a single, short half-strangled grunt, and began to speak.

  "The female!" he said in his high, sharp voice.

  "He means a human woman, m'lord," Hob said. "These goblins are very ignorant."

  The goblin directed another brief hate-glance at Hob, but said nothing more.

  "All right," said Jim. "Back into the moat with you!"

  The goblin disappeared.

  "M'lord!" protested Hob.

  "Yes, James," said Brian. "Why in the names of the Seven Foolish Sinners did you let it go?"

  "He'll carry back word," said Jim, "which will finally reach Agatha Falon—it has to be her behind this—Cumberland couldn't deal with the goblins in Deep Earth himself. She'll learn I know she's here, and she knows that, even without Carolinus's help, I'm stronger in magic than she is. It may slow her down in helping the goblins. The more time we can gain, the more help may arrive from neighbors or our own Earl here in Somerset. Besides, it's just good sense to scare her—"

  "James!" broke in an angry voice. "Why didn't you call me before, instead of going ahead as if I was not even here?"

  The Prince was upon them.

  "There you are, Your Grace," said Jim, with a gesture about the towertop. "We had not time to." Most of the pole-parties were standing idle, looking at the Prince, Jim and the rest. The defense against the goblins' attempt to scale the walls of the tower had obviously been successful.

  "—You and I must talk, Your Grace," Jim went on quickly, looking back at the still-angry face of the Prince. "I think the Solar is the best place for that."

  Instantly the two of them were in the Solar.

  "Never move me around with your magick without permission from me!" shouted the Prince. "Who do think you—"

  "Still!" ordered Jim. The Prince froze as he was, suddenly silent, with the outraged look also frozen on his face.

  "Edward," said Jim, "I am going to have to speak to you like the magician I am and with the powers I have. It's true that normally only the highest among us have the right to speak plainly so even to all men and women, Kings and Emperors, addressing all alike and speaking to all by their given names. But that freedom is required to be taken, if necessary, by the senior magician present, even if he is still only a lowly apprentice—providing his magic can be of first use in the present duty of we magicians."

  He paused a moment to let his words sink in on the mind behind the motionless face before him.

  "Our present duty at this time—which supersedes all other things, even the rank of the heir to the throne—is to keep your father alive. You may move and talk now."

  The Prince stared at him, his scowl fading into an a
stonished look.

  "But… surely," he said, after a long moment, in an almost reasonable voice, "if my father was safe from those masquerading goblins at Tiverton, he must be safe here."

  "The situation has changed, Edward—" The Prince's face jumped into angry lines again for only a second, before smoothing out again. Jim was going on. "—At Tiverton the plan of his foes was that he should die of plague, so that no one could question his death. Now, they hope he will die while visiting Malencontri, by the spears of the goblins. That way, also, leaves your father's enemies free of suspicion, for the goblins themselves can retreat to Deep Earth, where no one lacking magic can reach them. This matter is beyond your commanding."

  "But I am the only experienced war captain here!"

  "Edward, we are facing attack by an enemy you don't know, in a situation beyond your experience. This conflict will involve the use of magic on both sides. You have no magic, nor do you understand it. Nor do you have at your elbow a hobgoblin who, like all hobs, was ages ago a goblin himself and knows how goblins think and in what ways they're vulnerable."

  The Prince's face showed bewilderment almost to the point of piteousness.

  "Surely what I know and what I can do can be put to use?" he said. "My father!"

  It was almost a cry for understanding.

  "It can," said Jim. "Brace yourself, Edward, because I'm going to be brutally frank. You proved your manhood and knighthood at the chevauche that led to success at Poitiers. You had Chandos and others there to advise you. It's going to help us all if you do take command of the battle here—but in name only. Here, as at Poitiers, you will be guided in all things by what I, Brian, and Dafydd ap Hywel will tell you when the experience needed is in our area!"

  Rage flared up on the Prince's face again.

  "A country knight and a common archer?" he cried.

  "Exactly that—they will command equally with me, and you will listen to those two as I, myself, will listen to them, and as I will listen to you, or to anyone else who might know better than I. Besides, you know perfectly well that Brian is no ordinary country knight. What you do not know is that Dafydd is no ordinary archer, and while I've promised never to tell anyone of this, I believe this is a time when you must be told that he actually has a rank that would cause you to address him as your equal."