The Dragon At War

by Gordon R. Dickson

  Jim happened to know that the pearl was the single item left in Secoh's hoard. It was his single heirloom and most precious possession. His father had told him never to sell it; and he never had, no matter how hungry he had gotten, out on the meres. Now it was in a French dragon's possession.

  "Yes," said Secoh simply.

  Jim noticed the faint sheen of moisture in the little dragon's eyes.

  "Don't worry, Secoh," he said. "You'll get your pearl back. I give you my word on it, both as a knight and as a magician. I'll get you back that pearl if everything else has to go smash!"

  "Oh, thank you, your Lordship!" said Secoh. "Thank you!"

  He dithered with the claws of his forepaws, obviously tempted to take Jim's hand and kiss it, after the george fashion; but uncertain what damage he might do with his claws if he tried it. Jim found himself feeling very guilty.

  "We'll say no more about it, then," he said gruffly.

  "Yes, m'Lord," said Secoh, gratefully dropping his fore-paws back into a comfortable position close to his body.

  But if Secoh was now radiating reassurance and comfort, Jim was beginning to feel the first sharp point of more than a small uneasiness and apprehension. Between the slats of the shutters that closed the window, the pale light of first day was definitely now showing.

  "Giles and Brian have been out all night," he said to Secoh—but more to himself. It was somehow a comfort to hear his vague fears given shape by his spoken words. "In fact, come to think of it, I haven't seen them since late yesterday. Also, come to think of it, Dafydd hasn't shown up all night. He was going to sit down in the common-room. I better go hunting for them."

  "I'll go with you!" offered Secoh eagerly.

  The other's words brought Jim up short. He had not stopped to think of what it would do to have Secoh discovered by anyone in the inn, let alone half the population of Brest in broad daylight.

  "You can't—" he was beginning. He thought for a moment. "You definitely can't be seen by people here in the inn or in the city, the way you are now. Seeing a dragon moving about the streets would really draw attention to us, even if it didn't cause a lot more trouble than that. I'm going to have to disguise you."

  "Oh!" said Secoh. "What does 'disguise' mean?"

  "I'll show you," said Jim.

  He wrote on the inside of his forehead:

  SECOH CHANGE TO HUMAN → SHAPE

  Before him, there stood suddenly—naked of course—a rather wizened, small man who was quite young, but whose face and body showed the evidence of years of privation. His hair was the color of dark dragon's hide. His nose was long and thin. His mouth was wide and his chin firm but small. His shoulders were narrow and his arms and legs were as thin as his body. He stood perhaps five feet two inches in height.

  He looked down at himself.

  "Oh, no!" he cried on a note of anguish.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jim realized instantly what he had done. He had forgotten entirely about that one aspect of the dragon character that even he had come to realize only some time after getting to this world.

  The dragons were not remarkable for their intelligence. Also, in many ways, though they could talk like humans, they were pretty well an animal equivalent of the medieval man and woman that Jim had to do with every day. They were primarily concerned with their individual survival and their own possessions, although they paid lip service to more important virtues.

  But there was one thing about them that Jim had simply stumbled across, late; possibly because the dragons themselves never talked about it. Apparently they simply took it for granted in themselves and other dragons, that they were immensely proud of being what they were—dragons.

  To defend that pride, they would even throw themselves into a fight that otherwise they would go to great lengths to avoid.

  In retrospect, after finding this out, Jim had been better able to understand how Smrgol—the grand-uncle of Gorbash, half-crippled by a stroke in his old age—and Secoh, a mere waif of a dragon, could launch themselves into battle against a dragon as large and fierce as Bryagh, the Cliffside dragon who had been seduced into the services of the Dark Powers, at that tight Jim and the others had had against the creatures of the Loathly Tower.

  "I'm sorry, Secoh," said Jim. "But there's no other way, you see. The only way you can go around this town with me and stay with us safely in this inn is if you seem to be a human being. I promise I'll turn you back into a dragon just the very moment I can. You know me, don't you? You know I keep my promises!"

  The anguish lessened in the face of the human that was Secoh, but did not go entirely. Jim was already puzzling over another problem.

  "Come to think of it," he said, "I'm going to have to get some clothes for you."

  At first thought, the problem seemed insurmountable. He could magically put some clothes on Secoh, but, here in France, he was not sure of what a servant, such as Secoh would seem, would wear. And Jim wanted the other not to attract attention.

  Then Jim remembered, as he so often had to do, that this was the fourteenth century, that he was an English Baron; a guest of the inn, and by the contemporary standards here, a rich man who had rank and authority. It was daylight outside, therefore the servants of the inn had to be stirring. He walked past Secoh, opened the door of his room and walked down the hall to the top of the stairs that led to the floor below.

  "Ho!" he shouted. "A servant here for Lord James! Immediately! A servant!"

  He went back to the room, closed the door behind him and spoke to Secoh quickly.

  "Now, listen closely, Secoh," he said. "I've just called for a servant. When he gets up here I'm going to send him out with you to buy some clothes. Now, I'll give you the money. Don't give it to the servant. Merely pass it over after they've fitted you with the clothes, and say in a haughty voice, 'Take care of this for me.' Then turn around and stroll outside as if you simply wanted some fresh air. Wait for him outside. He won't know you don't know what the money's worth. He won't know you don't know what the clothes actually ought to be priced at—for that matter, I don't know myself."

  "You don't?" said Secoh, astounded. Jim ignored the question and went on.

  "—But if you hand him the money and walk away, then he'll be too afraid of not bringing back a proper amount of change to try keeping everything that's left over for himself. He'll try to drive the best possible bargain he can with the shopkeeper, and steal a little bit of it, but he'll give back to you most of what you ought to get back. You hang on to it until you get back here. Then I'll toss him a coin or something like that; and we'll be all set."

  "Y-yes," said Secoh slowly. "I understand."

  "I'm sorry you have to walk around the town without any clothes on until he buys some for you—" Jim was beginning, when the surprise on Secoh's face halted him.

  "Why?" asked Secoh.

  Jim mentally pounded his head with his closed fist for being stupid. Of course, as a dragon, Secoh knew nothing about clothes, and saw nothing wrong about going without them, in public view or otherwise. He knew that georges wore clothes; but never having been a george before, he was still thinking like a dragon, who was perfectly content just to be in his skin. Luckily, the medieval world was not shocked by naked men the way the modern world would be.

  "It's not important," said Jim. "Forget I mentioned it."

  "Yes, m'Lord," said Secoh, a little wonderingly.

  It was only a few moments until the servant arrived; Jim gave him his orders. He had already passed a gold coin to Secoh, who held it hidden in one skinny fist.

  "Now remember," Jim said sternly to the servant, "this is my personal servant, who just caught up with me. I want you to treat him with respect. He's not one of your ordinary kind!"

  "Yes, m'Lord," said the servant.

  Awed enough by Jim's being able to get what was probably the best room in the house for himself and his friends, the inn servant did not even attempt a subtle sneer as he answered. Possibly, knowing Ji
m was English, he might not be too sure that Jim would not haul out his sword and slash him with it, if he was at all insolent.

  They went out, and Jim paced the floor, opening the shutters and watching the brightening day, until the servant returned with Secoh, dressed in gray hose and shirt and blue jerkin, with a flat cap on his head. The hat was somewhat similar in style to what people of knightly rank and upwards wore themselves, but different enough so that it would be perfectly plain that Secoh was only a servant.

  "Everything went all right?" Jim asked eagerly, once the servant had been tipped with a couple of copper coins from the change Secoh had brought back, clutched as firmly in his fist as the gold coin had been when he left. "Did he try to talk to you? What did you say to him?"

  "Oh, he tried talking," said Secoh, sticking his nose in the air, probably in imitation of how he had done so when the servant had spoken to him. As a dragon, there was at least one humanlike thing Secoh knew almost instinctively; and that was how to be haughty. "I simply said, 'Don't bother me with your chatter!' "

  "Good!" said Jim. "That would shut him up."

  "Well, not exactly," said Secoh. He wriggled inside his clothes. "Do georges wear these all the time? They don't feel natural. They itch. But they do wear them all the time, is that right?"

  "Except when they go to bed," said Jim. "But you said he did some more talking. What'd he say?"

  "Oh, something about how the landlord at this inn beats his servants all the time. They say he likes doing it. Anyway," Secoh said, "this one wanted to run away. He said something about it being against something else called a 'city law' to leave without getting permission from your master. But he said he and I could both take this chance to run off, with the money I had; and we'd practically be rich until we found a better place to live and work. I told him I liked being with you. He mumbled something about 'All right then, don't let me stick with you, and you can end up in the cellar, too.' "

  "The cellar?" said Jim.

  Brian and Giles could have been overpowered and locked up in the inn cellar. But surely not without the kind of noise that would have alerted him even up here in the room.

  "The man did say 'too'?" said Jim.

  "That's what he said, m'Lord," said Secoh. "Did he mean something by it? What was it he meant, then?"

  "Perhaps our Companions are locked up in the cellar," said Jim.

  "Oh! Then we'd better go get them out right away!" said Secoh.

  He had already taken a step toward the door when he noticed that Jim wasn't coming along with him. He turned around with a curious look on his face.

  "It's not that easy," Jim told him. "We can't just go down there and break open the cellar door, or whatever we have to do, without rousing the whole inn. We could easily find ourselves fighting more people than we could handle. Particularly if some of the other guests join in—as they undoubtedly would—on the side of the landlord, just for the fun of the fight."

  "Might be," said Secoh. "In that case, you better get me one of those long, sharp things like you have hanging from your belt. Not one of the short, sharp things but the longer one—you know!"

  "It's called a sword," said Jim absently. "But I only have one spare one; and anyway, it wouldn't do you any good unless you knew how to use it."

  "I thought you just hit other georges and everyone else with it," said Secoh. "I think I could do that all right."

  "It isn't simple hitting. Take my word for it," said Jim, a little grimly. Brian had been trying to teach him about the sword for two years now, and he was still nowhere near fit to stand in front of a person with Brian's training and survive for more than a minute or two.

  "I know," he went on. "A leg off that table would make a pretty good club. And that you can just hit people with."

  "Oh? Good." Secoh was already across the room and tugging at one of the legs. "It won't come off!" he said, puzzled.

  "You don't have your ordinary dragon strength," explained Jim. "Here, I'll help you."

  Together, tugging at the end of the table leg, they managed to wrench it loose from its joint with the table by breaking off the part of it that had been pounded or glued into the thick wood of the top. Secoh took it in one hand and swung it. Then took two hands and swung it.

  "I think I'll do it this way," he said to Jim confidentially.

  "Good. Then," said Jim, "I'll tell you what we're going to do. You and I will go downstairs together. I'll order some wine; and I'll keep you by me, supposedly because I may need you, or something like that. Then, when nobody is paying much attention to us, I'll get up as if I was going out back to the jakes; and we'll hunt around for the entrance to the basement. If it's locked we'll try to figure out some way of breaking the lock and getting in."

  "I'm all ready!" said Secoh, brightly hefting his table leg.

  "You're not to use that until I tell you, now," said Jim severely. "In fact, it's going to make people wonder seeing you carrying a broken-off table leg downstairs. I'll have to think of some way—"

  He was suddenly struck by an inspiration.

  "I've got it!" he said. "It'll not only explain the leg, it'll also make it easier for you to stick by me when I head back, apparently looking for the jakes. I can wear my sword, all right. No one's going to think twice about that. I can carry the other sword by sticking it under my shirt and down my pant-leg; and then just walk stiffly as if I had a limp. Now, come to think of it, that'll help explain the table leg. I'll use the table leg as a sort of makeshift cane to lean on. I'll take it. Then I'll give it back to you when it's time for you to use it."

  "Oh," said Secoh. There was a definite note of disappointment in his voice. "But you will give it to me then?"

  "Just as fast as I can," said Jim, "because I'll want you to start using it just as fast as you can."

  "Oh, I will," said Secoh.

  "That's it. My leg will be stiff because I've turned my ankle and I'm walking with the cane for the same reason; and it's all their fault because I fell because their inn is so ramshackle!" said Jim. "I couldn't have come up with a better plan if I'd sat up all night to think of it. Let's go!"

  He took the table leg from Secoh, hunted around among his things for the extra sword that he, like Brian and Giles, and almost any other traveling knight, would carry against damage happening to his ordinary blade. It fitted all right, down inside his hose; which, being made of knitted material, stretched easily. The blade made a noticeable bulge there, and felt coldly uncomfortable against the skin of his leg; but the bulge itself he could always blame on bandaging.

  "All right, now," he said to Secoh. "Here we go."

  They left the room, Jim limping and also leaning on Secoh's shoulder as if he needed support. Secoh held the arm that leaned on his shoulder as if to help steady him in that position. Slowly they descended the stairs. At the bottom a servant had stopped going wherever he was going and stood open-mouthed, watching them descend.

  "Is m'Lord hurt?" he asked when they reached him.

  "Yes, damn it!" Jim roared. "I've turned my ankle and wrenched my knee on your damn, bloody…" He went on stringing together as many profanities and obscenities as he could think of. The servant watched with admiration. On the continent the English were known to be great swearers; but Jim may have been setting a new record—at least for that particular inn. "… stairs!" he finally concluded.

  "I'm—I'm very sorry, m'Lord…" said the servant. "Shall I get the landlord? Do you need a chirurgeon?"

  "Do you think I want my damn leg sawn off?" roared Jim. "No! I want wine! The strongest wine you've got. As quick as you can get it! James—"

  He turned to Secoh beside him and Secoh blinked his eyes at being addressed by this strange name.

  "Get me to a table, James. Oh, and you there—"

  He had raised his voice to a shout on the last few words; and the servant, who was already on the run toward the back of the room to get the wine, skidded to a halt and turned around.

  "Yes, m'Lord?"r />
  "And get a stool for this servant of mine!" yelled Jim. "He needs to sit by me and hold me up. That way I can put my foot up on something."

  "Yes, m'Lord," said the servant, and vanished.

  He was back in a remarkably short time with a stool, a glass for Jim and a brimming pitcher. Secoh looked wistfully at the single glass, but said nothing. Jim noticed it.

  "Bring another glass!" Jim shouted after the servant, who was again turning away. "I'm going to drink with both hands!"

  Impressed once more, the servant hurried off for the second time.

  "That'll make him believe my leg is hurting like hell," said Jim, pouring the first glass he'd been given full from the pitcher.

  Lifting it to his nose he realized that he had indeed been given strong wine. What was in his glass reeked of what seemed to be a combination of wine and brandy—or some other distilled liquor. He took a swallow and almost choked. He had been right. The wine had evidently been blended with some sort of raw alcoholic liquid. Interesting, he thought.

  Distillation was not unknown in the fourteenth century; but it was rare.

  Also, one thing more the wine was not, obviously—and that was properly aged. Evidently they thought that with the raw spirit added, the taste was ruined anyway. Whatever this stuff was that had been added, it was obviously the equivalent of pure moonshine whiskey; as that had been, back on Jim's original world.

  At any rate, he managed to down a good half of a glass before the servant got back again with a second glass. Still pretending to drink from the glass in his hand, Jim waved at the pitcher and took the glass from his lips long enough to order. "Fill up the other one so it's ready."

  The servant did so; and stayed there, ready to continue being of service.

  "You don't need to stand around!" snarled Jim at him. "James will keep it filled for me. James—" He turned his head to look at Secoh, who gave a start. Slowly Secoh reached out and refilled the other glass. The servant had turned and gone, and Secoh leaned close to Jim's ear.