The Dragon Knight

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "Impossible!" snapped Carolinus. "Remember you're only a D-class magician James! And a pretty ignorant D-class, to be truthful about it. That shrinking spell is C-class at the very least—Unless, of course, you're talented enough to find it in the Necromantick yourself, and teach yourself how to use it. No, no, it's out of the question. Step by step, James. That's the only way to progress. Learn how to walk before you try to run."

  "But this sack of jewels is practically half as tall as I am!" protested Jim.

  "It is!" said Angie.

  "Yes, yes, Angie," said Jim, a little irritably, "as I say, it's up in the solar. I'll show it to you as soon as we're through here."

  "In the solar?" said Angie, rising. "I need to run up there for something, anyway. I'll just be gone a moment—"

  "Mage, you have to help me," said Jim seriously. "I'm responsible for jewels that must be worth more than the whole treasury of the kingdom of England added up together. How am I going to carry that around and keep it safe from thieves? Almost anyone who would even entertain the thought of robbery would risk his neck for just one of those jewels. Can you imagine the position I'm going to be in, if I lose even one of them?"

  "Well, well," said Carolinus. "Perhaps I'll have to help, after all. I'll shrink the jewels down for you."

  "I'll go get them," Jim said.

  "No, no, never mind that!" Carolinus waved his hand and the sack Jim had so carefully covered with furs up in the solar appeared upon the high table, between him and Carolinus. Angie abruptly sat down again.

  "Would you open—" she was beginning, when the sack abruptly shrank down to what appeared to be a speck on the table. Carolinus reached down and picked it up. If anything, it was smaller than the Encyclopedie Necromantick had been after he had shrunk it so that Jim could swallow it.

  "Here you are." Carolinus handed it over to Jim. His tone became testy. "Well, don't just sit there. Swallow it."

  "Swallow this, too?" echoed Jim, thinking uncomfortably of the bulk of this, plus the bulk of the Encyclopedie Necromantick, even though shrunk, inside him. What if something happened and they suddenly decided to explode to their natural size? He would explode right with them.

  "Of course!" said Carolinus. "You want to carry it safety, don't you? What safer way is there than inside you? Don't worry, it won't pass on through you any more than the Necromantick did."

  Jim put the tiny object on his tongue and swallowed it. It stuck a little in his throat. He washed it down with some wine. Angie sighed, a little bitterly.

  "But," continued Carolinus to Jim, "that's the last time I small anything down for you. You've got to learn to stand on your own feet. Study. Study. Practice! Practice!"

  He stood up abruptly.

  "Well, I must be going," he said. "By the way, James. If you want to produce those jewels simply cough twice, sneeze once, and then cough once again. To small them down, cough once. If you should ever need to produce the Necromantick, it's three coughs to start off with, two sneezes, and then a single sneeze—"

  Jim fumbled in his doublet pouch for a charcoal stick and hastily noted this information on the tabletop.

  "But actually that Necromantick should stay with you for life—however long you choose that to be," Carolinus concluded. "Farewell then."

  He turned about and started stalking toward the distant entrance to the Great Hall. Both Jim and Angie got up and hurried after him.

  They caught up with him halfway to the front door. For someone of his age and apparent fragility, Carolinus could move with surprising briskness. He took long strides and he covered ground.

  "Ah, spring," he said to them as they appeared one on each side of him, "always been my favorite season. For a little while my flowers and the season match better than any other time—by Sagittarius!"

  He slapped his forehead without breaking stride.

  "Edelweiss!" he ejaculated. "Why didn't I ever think of edelweiss? The one thing that's missing from among the rest of my flowers. Edelweiss. Yes, I must have it by all means… Edelweiss, edelweiss…"

  Carolinus sang the last two words in a hoarse and incredibly tuneless voice.

  "Beautiful flower! Beautiful!" he went on. They had reached the front door. Jim pushed the right-hand half of it open to let the three of them out onto the courtyard. Together they walked to the drawbridge entrance; and their footsteps sounded hollowly on the drawbridge's wooden surface as they passed over the waters of the moat which, in spite of all of Jim's and Angie's efforts and orders to the castle people, still contrived to smell pretty badly, particularly close up. Jim and Angie both had hopes that continued dredging, a redirection of sewage disposal, and a few other things could eventually get it to the point where it would be—if nowhere near swimmable—at least bearable to be close to. Not for the first time Jim blessed his magician's credentials. Any ordinary castle staff would have been up in arms long before this at the type of changes he and Angie were trying to make.

  The sound of their feet ceased almost immediately as they stepped off the end of the drawbridge onto the soft spring earth, unfortunately a little muddy and entirely free of grass in this particular area.

  "Well, thank you for your hospitality. Good to see you both again. I think I'll just dematerialize back to my cottage—quickest way—" He extended both his arms full out at shoulder level and began slowly to rotate, beginning to turn a little dim around the edges even as they watched.

  "Farewell!" Even his voice had dimmed, seeming to sound thin and a little bit farther away than it should have.

  "Ha!" he cried, distant and far away.

  He stopped revolving suddenly. His outline firmed up, his arms fell to his sides, and his voice, when he spoke again, was at its usual strength. His blue eyes snapped at Jim.

  "I've just remembered, James," he said, "the reason I came over to see you. King Jean of France has a very powerful minister named Malvinne."

  "Oh?" said Jim. "Will that be important to me?"

  "It could be," said Carolinus. "He's a mage. Triple A, doesn't have the plus after his three A's the way I do, of course. Has a large estate on the Loire there below Orléans. You'd be well advised to steer clear of it. An excellent master-of-arts. Great grasp of thaumaturgy. Brilliant. Stinky, we used to call him in college—"

  Jim started. It was the first he had heard of any school, let alone a college, existing upon this other world.

  "Obnoxious little beast." Carolinus was winding up. "Never could stand him myself. Look out for him."

  With that he spread his arms again, spun rapidly into a blur, and disappeared.

  Chapter Eleven

  Five days later, Jim and Brian marshaled their forces and left for Hastings, the closest of the Cinque Ports, that confederation of seaports which acted as shore headquarters for the English navy of the time. Hastings was the chief of these ports, which included New Romney, Hythe, Dover, and Sandwich; to which Jim knew would afterwards be added Winchelsea and Rye.

  Their leaving was almost a festive occasion. For several weeks now Angie had shown almost a lighthearted attitude toward Jim's going. But the night before he was to leave she suddenly burst into tears in the solar under their heap of furs, and clutched him tightly to her.

  "Don't go!" she said.

  He did his best to comfort her, but he also had to point out how impractical it would be for him to change his mind at this late date. It was only at the very beginning that he might have refused to go—and even then at the expense of being scorned by everyone else in the region, very probably including Brian himself.

  "I have to go, now," he said to her.

  But it was a long time before her storm of emotion passed.

  "There's that Malvinne, Carolinus warned you against," she said.

  "Don't be silly," answered Jim, stroking her hair. "I wont be going within of miles of him. Why should I?"

  "I don't know!" wept Angie. "I just know if you go I won't like what's happened to you after you get back—if you get back!" />
  There was no good answer for this. Jim merely continued to hold her; and eventually, they both fell asleep.

  The next day Angie was as cheerful as ever. Whether it was a real cheerfulness, or simply a front she was putting up for his benefit, was impossible to tell. Jim suspected it was only a front. But what he had said to her the night before was incontestable. He could not change now.

  So they left, he and Brian leading the way on their palfreys, with their war-horses being led behind them by their squires. They went almost directly south, avoiding London, since Brian had feared that the men might be tempted by the attractions of that metropolis. Most of then had never been to anyplace larger than Worcester or Northampton. Below Reading they swung eastward, passed through Gilford and out onto the north downs, and then headed directly southeast to Hastings.

  It was a port town that had built up in two converging valleys running seaward, that split through the shoreline of chalk cliffs. Most of the important buildings were clustered near the shore; including the inn to which Brian had sent a couple of his men-at-arms ahead, two and a half weeks earlier, to reserve space for them. It was an inn called the Broken Anchor and both Brian and his father had used it before on trips to Hastings.

  The space in the inn would be only for Jim, Brian, and their squires. The rest of their men would be making do with whatever space the stables afforded, or neighboring stables, if the inn's were too small. They could expect, Brian had said, that Hastings would be swarming with gentlemen and their troops headed for France.

  The landlord was a powerful, genial, but shrewd-looking man in his mid-forties. His hair was already growing thin but the muscles on his half-bare arms swelled like cords as he stood with those same arms folded to welcome them to his inn.

  "Well pleased am I," Brian greeted him, "that you had room for us, Master Sel. As we foresaw, the town is overloaded with visitors."

  "Indeed so, Sir Brian," answered the landlord, "but if room there was, it would be yours for your father's sake, if not your own. He was a worthy gentleman, and much respected by my own father who had this inn before me."

  He turned to Jim.

  "And this will be Lord James of Malencontri," he said, ducking his head in the shadow of a bow. "Welcome, my Lord. If you will just follow me, Sir Brian and m'Lord, I'll take you to your quarters upstairs."

  Their quarters turned out, Jim thought, to be nothing special. They consisted of one fairly large, almost empty room, with a rather small bed in one corner. But they did have two casement windows that opened on the street below.

  "You'll not be disturbed here, Sir Brian, m'Lord," said the landlord. "The bed, of course, is for your noble selves; and there is plenty of floor space for your squires and any belongings you might wish to bring up. As for stable space, I can take care of a good half of your men. I have made arrangements for several of my neighbors to make stable room for the rest."

  "You do us well, Master Landlord," said Brian. "We are not only housed, but well housed."

  "This inn has always taken good care of its guests," answered the landlord modestly, and bowed his way out of the room. The door, Jim noted, had neither lock nor latch. But then, he had already learned enough about this world and its people to realize that the landlord would assume that if they had valuables there, somebody would be with them at all times.

  "You stay here for the present," Brian said to Jim. "I'll take my squire and seek out the king's representatives in this town, to find out what I can about our chances of sailing soon. For the moment, if you wish it, the bed is all yours."

  Jim politely declined the bed, on the grounds that he had made a vow that until he had achieved something toward the rescue of the Prince, he would sleep on the floor. His real reason was that he knew without checking that the bed would be full of lice and fleas. Sir Brian might be able to lie there all night, and even sleep soundly, ignoring the bites and the itching. Jim had never learned how to do this; and profoundly hoped he would never have to.

  Brian went out, taking his squire John Chester along with him in case it should be expedient to send a message back by the young man to Jim. Jim rather liked John Chester. He was obviously not the brightest of youngsters; and the fact showed in his wide, innocent gray eyes, white-blond hair, and a face that would have looked well on someone four years younger than his sixteen years. Nonetheless, he was loyal and honest to a fault; and clearly worshiped Sir Brian.

  Jim was left alone with Theoluf, whom he had elevated to the post of his own squire. A man-at-arms named Yves Mortain had replaced Theoluf as chief man-at-arms.

  "Theoluf," said Jim now, "go out to my sumpter horse. It's probably in the stables by now. Bring in my valuables and necessary goods, and in particular that pallet stuffed with soft cloths that Lady Angela had made for me. Bring them up here."

  "Yes m'Lord," said Theoluf, and was gone.

  Left alone, Jim looked around the room and congratulated himself on not making the mistake of trying to share the bed with Brian. Aside from the fleas, lice, bedbugs, and what all else there might be in its furnishings, the structure was barely big enough for a single person, let alone two. The idea of sleeping as entangled with Sir Brian as he might with Angie, was a rather uncomfortable prospect.

  He was just turning his attention away from the bed when an uproar arose downstairs, the noise of which filtered up through the thin floor of his room. He could hear the voice of their landlord and someone else clearly enough so that, while he could not understand everything that was being said, he got the gist of the argument.

  Whoever the unknown voice was, it was demanding that the landlord give it the very room that Jim and Brian had been assigned.

  In spite of the wisdom acquired in the last years that had taught him to prudently keep his distance from any disagreements, he found himself feeling a certain responsibility in this situation. He reached for his sword belt, which he had taken off a moment before, and strapped it back around his waist so that he was now armed. It was not that he had any intention of using it—in fact he fervently hoped that no occasion like that would come up—but a gentleman just did not appear in public without one. He went downstairs.

  In the large common room that took up most of the ground floor of the inn, just inside the front door, their landlord was being confronted by a somewhat stout-bodied young man a few years younger than Jim, with a beaklike nose above a flourishing mustache, and taffy-colored hair on a round skull.

  "Did or did not your great-grandfather run this inn?" this individual was demanding fiercely as Jim came down the stairs. His thick mustache went out to points that bristled as fiercely as the tones of his voice. It was of even a paler blond than his hair. Below this was a generous mouth and a strong, determined chin. In spite of the fact that he was possibly half a head shorter than Jim, he struck Jim as possibly a rather tough customer.

  "Of course, Sir Giles," the landlord answered him, "but that was eighty years ago; and never a word have I heard from one of your family from that day to this."

  "Nonetheless," snapped the other, "did or did not your great-grandsire promise my grandsire that there would always be room for him under this roof?"

  "Well, yes he did, Sir Giles," said the landlord, "but it never occurred to him that your respected great-grandfather or any of his family would show up without sending a message in advance to prepare for them. Also, it happens that I have just given out the last private room I had to a worthy knight and Lord from western parts."

  "Which was the first promise?" roared the short gentleman, "the one to my great-grandfather, or this recent one of yours to these two gentlemen—whoever they may be?"

  "To your grandsire, of course," said the landlord, "but as I have explained already, Sir Giles, I received no message that you were coming; and I did receive a message from them. Also, you see how full the town is with gentlemen of rank from every part of England, all eager to find quarters for themselves and their men until they can take ship to France. What else
could I do, not knowing one of your family was coming, but give out a room which otherwise would have stood vacant when many would like it?"

  "Confront me with them!" roared Sir Giles. "Let them show themselves to me. If so be it they are willing to abandon peaceably what is rightfully mine, then they may go their way. If not—I, Sir Giles, will prove my right to have that room upon their bodies!"

  He twisted the right end of his mustache savagery.

  "Sad I would be, to be the occasion of a dispute between gentlemen over room in my house," said the landlord. "Further, with all respects, Sir Giles, I must say that I do feel they have a better right to the room than yourself—under the circumstances, that is—"

  He broke off suddenly, catching sight of Jim approaching.

  "M'Lord!" he said, "I am dismayed—"

  "I do not know this gentleman!" snapped Sir Giles, glaring at Jim.

  Jim felt a slight prickle of temper beginning to germinate inside himself, in spite of his better intentions. There was something so fiery and combative about this Sir Giles, that he seemed to automatically heat up anyone who came within range of his voice or eyes.

  "M'Lord," stammered the landlord, "may I introduce Sir Giles de Mer. Sir Giles, this is the noble Lord James, Baron of Malencontri et Riveroak."

  "Hah!" said Sir Giles, twisting his mustache and shooting glances of fire at Jim. "M'Lord, you are occupying my room!"

  "As I keep pointing out, Sir Giles," interrupted the landlord, "it is not your room. It has already been given to Sir James and his companion-at-arms, Sir Brian Neville-Smythe."

  "And where is this Sir Brian?" demanded Sir Giles.

  "He is momentarily gone," said the landlord. "Nonetheless, he will be back shortly to the room that most assuredly is his and Sir James's."

  Sir Giles advanced his left foot, put his left hand on his hip and jutted out his jaw pugnaciously, his eyes boring into Jim.

  "Sir James," boomed Sir Giles, "I dispute your right to my room! I challenge you to defend with your body your right to it. Let us step into the courtyard. You may arm yourself as you like. I will do likewise; or failing the convenience of the proper arms and armor to me, I will meet you even as I am!"