The Dragon At War

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "I forgot I was James," he murmured in Jim's ear in as low a tone as his human voice could manage.

  "Right you are, James!" said Jim loudly, then quickly lowered his voice. "That's all right. Drink the other glass yourself. That's what it's for. I may have you drink most of the pitcher. I can't risk drinking much, but if you get drunk, they'll just figure you were sneaking drinks when I wasn't looking, and you can't hold your alcohol as well as I can."

  "What's drunk?" asked Secoh, eagerly taking the other filled glass and pouring it down his throat. He blinked his eyes. "That was good!"

  "Remember," said Jim, looking at him closely, "you're not in your dragon body now. You can't hold as much wine as you could ordinarily. And that's particularly strong wine. They've added some raw alcohol to it."

  "What's alcohol?" asked Secoh.

  "Alcohol is what—" Jim paused. "There's no time to explain that now. But just remember you can't drink as much as you were used to drinking. If you do you'll get drunk. If you get drunk, from then on you'll know what 'drunk' means."

  He continued to eye Secoh a little cautiously as he refilled both glasses and Secoh eagerly tossed off a second one after smuggling it down below the top of the table and bending down to hide the process of getting it into his mouth and down his throat.

  Dragons, Jim knew—unfortunately, from his own experience—could hold unimaginable quantities of wine and never had hangovers. But Secoh now could not weigh much more than about a hundred and thirty-five or forty pounds. There was no telling what would happen to him.

  Still, if one of them had to get drunk—then it had better be Secoh rather than Jim.

  They managed to empty the pitcher between them; and Jim called the servant for another. He had drunk about a glass and a half himself, and he could already feel the effect of it; but he did not think it was enough to interfere with him greatly. Secoh had drunk all the rest and showed no sign of reaction to it whatsoever.

  When the servant returned with a new pitcher Jim asked him where the jakes was. The servant looked surprised. Most men or women of the upper class used the chamber pot in their room, rather than the common jakes. But the servant pointed, as Jim had expected, toward the back of the inn and went off.

  Jim waited until he was out of sight, then laboriously got to his feet. Thankfully, since it was early in the day, once more they had the common-room to themselves. Stumping along with the table leg as a makeshift cane in one hand and leaning with the other hand heavily on Secoh's left shoulder, Jim made his way toward the back of the inn.

  There was a door to the left, there, that he knew to be the door to the kitchen. It was through this that the servant had vanished, and it was from it which nearly all servants came.

  To his right, at a short distance, were the bottom steps of the stairs he had just come down; and along a short corridor behind the stairs were two more doors. The corridor went a little distance past the two doors and then turned to its left and continued out of sight around the bend.

  Jim headed down past the two doors. The first one he came to was secured by an iron bar, the unhinged end of which fitted into an enormous square dark iron lock. Locks, also, were not unknown in the fourteenth century, Jim knew from his medieval studies.

  When Jim got close, it was a typical example of the Nuremberg type of lock he had read about. The heavy iron bar was bolted at its fixed end to what was obviously a heavy wooden door; and was hinged to swing upward from between the two fingers of a piece of ironmongery that was part of the lock.

  The lock itself was, as Jim had expected, beautifully designed, ornate and artistically decorated. Also, as he had read in his studies, it should have a keyhole that even he could pick open with his dagger point. Locks of that time had depended for their security mainly on the warding, and not in the subtlety of the lock mechanism itself.

  The trick would be to find the keyhole among the layers of artificial iron leaves and flowers on the lock's face. It would be hidden under one or more of them.

  Even as he was standing there he thought he heard a sound on the other side of the door. He knocked on it cautiously. There was a moment's pause and then a knock came back and a voice called from within.

  "Brian? James? Giles?" The voice filtered thinly through the obviously thick woodwork. "It's me, Dafydd ap Hywel! I've been locked up in here!"

  Jim did a quick search of the face of the lock. He had no time to find it now. One of the inn staff could come along at any moment. He searched for a moment in his mind and put together an incantation.

  ALL LOCKS → OPEN

  There was a small grating sound from in front of him. Jim made an attempt to lift the bar; and it came up quite easily. He pushed the door open, and Dafydd stumbled out.

  "Quick," said Jim in a low voice, "back up to our room." But at that moment men armed with clubs, knives, and even a few swords erupted from both the kitchen entrance and the opened door of the room just beyond them in the corridor.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jim reached in under his shirt, pulled out the extra sword from his hose, and shoved it into the hand of Dafydd. The two bodies of men from either side suddenly found themselves confronted, not by one startled and possibly unarmed—except possibly with a knife—individual; but instead by two men with broadswords and a servant of some sort with a table leg held as a club, ready for them. As a result, they did the instinctive thing.

  They paused—and that was their mistake.

  What they did not know, and what Jim himself had forgotten, was that Secoh was still really not a man. He was simply a dragon, temporarily enchanted into man-shape. He had once seemed to have an excessive amount of dragon caution; which is the same type of caution all wild animals and young children instinctively have. He had seemed, in fact, a complete craven; until he took part with the rest of them in the fight at the Loathly Tower.

  But since his share in the victory there against the Loathly Tower creatures, he had lost all caution. Consequently he had been left only with the other side of the instinctive coin of his species, the "dragon instinct," which caused his kind to go completely berserk when he did get into a fight.

  Ever since then he had been known as the most feisty dragon for miles around. Much larger dragons tiptoed around him. He carried a chip on his shoulder that a breath of air could knock off; he was ready at any time to attack any opponent, regardless of size. He clearly believed he had nothing to lose; and those who did saw no profit in combat with him.

  Consequently, now, when the people of the inn hesitated, Secoh did not. He flung himself at the men from the farther door, a couple of them carrying swords—and laid into them with his club.

  It is one thing for a swordsman to face a club-wielding opponent who has a decent respect for the sword one holds. It is quite another to face a completely wild, red-eyed, apparent madman with a club. Secoh was not the least concerned about what those swords might do. Like many of the medieval knights, his thoughts were not on what they could do to him; but what he could do to them.

  The result was that the better armed body of about six men found themselves on the defensive, instead of the attack, and backing away from this madman.

  Jim and Dafydd, by mutual agreement, saw their moment and took advantage of it. They charged the people from the kitchen who, in addition to the two swords, were armed with such things as carving knives and cleavers, plus a few long daggers.

  Jim, as he had freely admitted not once but many times—and as Brian had heartily agreed—was a very ordinary swordsman. But he at least knew what he was supposed to do with the weapon. Dafydd had had less training than Jim, but he had picked sword-work up as if he had a natural talent for the weapon.

  The result was that when they charged, they came at the kitchen crew as men who knew their business.

  The crew did not even back up. They turned and fled, back through the door through which they had come.

  "Back up to my room," panted Jim. Dafydd turned to the stairs wit
h him; and Secoh followed. Once in the room, with the door shut behind them, Jim and Dafydd collapsed panting; Jim on his bedroll, Dafydd on the pile of their other luggage. Secoh, who was not out of breath at all, looked at them with a mild amazement.

  "M'Lord?" he asked, hesitatingly, after a moment. "Did I do right?"

  "You did—just fine—Secoh," gasped Jim. "Now give Dafydd and me a chance to catch our breath."

  "Yes, M'Lord," said Secoh, almost primly, grounding his now—sad to say—somewhat bloody table leg. Its far end was splintered and broken. Secoh stood waiting for them. Dafydd was the first to recover. Of course, thought Jim with a tinge of that same jealousy he had felt when he had asked Angie if she had ever been attracted to the bowman, Dafydd would be first. In spite of all Jim's exercising, and the active, physical fourteenth-century life he now led.

  "Do you think they'll come after us?'" said Secoh hopefully, as they started to stir and sit up and move over to the seats at the table.

  "Sooner or later," said Jim. "What do you think, Dafydd?"

  Dafydd had poured himself a full glass of wine and he now emptied it down his throat thirstily; something he almost never did. Jim's attitude turned to one of concern.

  "There was nothing to drink or eat down in the cellar?" he asked.

  "There was food," answered Dafydd, pouring some more wine into his glass, but this time only sipping from it, "but the only drink was in kegs that had not yet been unsealed. I had no bung starter. Their bottled wine must have been stored elsewhere."

  "But," began Jim, "how—"

  "It was my own fault, look you," said Dafydd. "I should've been more ware and gone out with the lad and seen him safely on his way. But one of the servants had, it seems, been set to watch me; and followed the lad out to question him on what we spoke of. So the inn people found all out. Therefore, at a moment when the common-room was empty they fell on me, four or five of them, haled me to the cellar and locked me in. That was early last evening—"

  He interrupted himself, stopping and shaking his head.

  "But I tell this all wrong end to," he went on to Jim. "James, I have sad news. Brian and Giles are prisoned at the King's court, since about the middle of yesterday."

  "They're prisoners?" echoed Jim. "How did you find out?"

  "You may remember I said to you that sometimes more is to be learned by sitting still and waiting for news to come to you?" said Dafydd. "I sat and drank and kept my hands busy with little things such as shaping an arrow; and in a while, among those with whom I said a word or two, came this lad, an apprentice, though somewhat old for his 'prenticeship, and possibly in his last year of indenture."

  "What's a 'prentice?" asked Secoh, wide-eyed. Neither Jim nor Dafydd answered him.

  "Now, the 'prentices talk among themselves and know all that happens in the town. I bought him drink and he talked to me; so that I learned from him about two Englishmen, just lately come to the city, who had been found and taken by men-at-arms of the French King's court. They had been carried off to the court—there to be imprisoned. Whether they are in dungeons or some other place, I could not discover. But there they are."

  He stopped speaking, his eyes steady on Jim.

  "We can rescue them, can't we, m'Lord?" asked Secoh.

  "We can try," said Jim grimly. "In any case, we can't waste much more time here. Those people down there will be getting some actual men-at-arms to come after us; and we won't be able to drive those off as easily as we did inn servants."

  He got to his feet and they began hastily gathering what they would need. This consisted mainly of extra weapons and light armor for Brian and Giles. The full suit of war armor would be too cumbersome to wear.

  "Now," he told the other two, "I'm going to make us invisible."

  It had not been advisable to do this before. Ever since Carolinus had argued with the Accounting Office on his behalf, he had been allowed to draw on a certain amount of extra magic. But he did not know how much; and lately he had begun to worry he was close to exceeding even this extra limit.

  But there was little choice now, if they were going to enter the French King's court safely.

  The magic he chose to use was some he had come up with before on the eve of a battle between the French and English armies, at which Sir Giles had been killed. Giles would have been dead for good, then, if he had not been a selkie; and if they had not been able to return his body to the sea, where it had come back to life as a seal.

  There was a tree just outside the room's window. Reaching out, Jim broke off three twigs to put in their headgear. On second thought he broke off and took two more. The incantation did not consist of words that made them actually invisible, physically. It simply, magically, induced a form of hypnotic trance in all people who saw the twigs, so that those people would refuse to believe what their eyes showed them.

  It was as in the case of a person who had been hypnotized, who is told that someone in the same room is not there. The hypnotized person sees the person mentioned; but his conscious mind refuses to acknowledge the fact.

  "Now," Jim said, once this was done, "you carry the extra arms and armor, would you, Secoh? Knights aren't supposed to be walking around carrying burdens; and I want Dafydd free to use his bow and arrows."

  He glanced at Dafydd, who had lost no time in getting those items back hung about his person, the bow over his shoulder and the quiver full of arrows at his hip.

  "Now," he said, "come outside with me. Secoh, have you got weapons, chain shirts and helms for both Giles and Brian?"

  Secoh nodded, a large cloth-wrapped bundle in his arms.

  Jim led them out into the corridor and closed the door behind him. Using the same warding spell he had used around the broken sapling and red cloth that had been a signal to Aargh, earlier, he set up a ward around the room. Then on second thought he thought of an addition of his own to this. He mentally wrote on the inside of his forehead:

  REINFORCE WARD WITH EVER-INCREASING → FEAR

  Since he had been doing all this in his head, his companions had been staring at him, wondering what he was about. He stopped now to explain to them.

  "I've put a ward—that is, I've set a protection—about this room, so no one can get into it," he told them. "Also, I added a little extra flourish. I've got it fixed now so anyone trying to get in is going to be very frightened."

  "Frightened?" said Dafydd curiously. "May I try?"

  "Certainly," said Jim. "Go ahead. You'll find the door will open and let you in a little ways. But I don't think you'll go any farther."

  Dafydd took hold of the latch of the door and pushed it inward until it was only partly open and then attempted to put a foot through the entrance. He backed away hurriedly, closing the door behind him.

  When he turned to Jim, his face was pale and there was a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead.

  "I'm not a man prey to many fears, look you," he said, "but what you have there is something I believe no one could face."

  Secoh opened his mouth, as if he would offer to try himself; but at a frown from Jim closed it again. They went back down the stairs. At the bottom, the common-room looked as usual. There were no more than three customers. Whatever preparations were being made for storming the room belonging to Jim and the others had to be going on behind closed doors, someplace else.

  The customers in the common-room looked right through them, so clearly the invisibility element was working well enough. They got out into the street.

  "Hold on a second," said Jim, catching Dafydd by the arm, so that the other turned to face him. "We don't even know where the court is."

  "I know," said Dafydd. "It was one of the things I felt we would need, so I got from the 'prentice as much as he knew of the court and where Giles and Brian might be. I can lead us to the chateau which holds the court itself; but I am less sure that I can easily find the entrance within to where the dungeons would be. But since we're invisible, we should be able to search and find them for ourselv
es. Think you not so, James?"

  "Yes. Absolutely," said Jim.

  The Royal Chateau, it turned out, was some distance away. It was a somewhat long hike, consequently, clear across Brest to its east side and away from the harbor near which the inn was set. Also, this was now an embarkation port; the streets swarmed with horses and men, knights, crossbowmen, men-at-arms and servants—all of whom could not see them and whom they had to avoid. But they came at last to the chateau. The main entrance had guards; but it was a simple matter to wait until these stood aside for someone recognized to enter, and follow closely behind him. Once inside they spoke in whispers.

  Jim had thought, but too late, of also making their voices unhearable. Now, he did not want to take the chance of making fresh magic in the building holding the court, itself. It was reasonable that his magic would not be likely to trigger off whatever warnings Ecotti had set up. But this close, the danger was too great.

  Accordingly, he waited until they were in the building and could find a corner where they could stand invisibly without being walked into by the inhabitants. Once there, he pulled Secoh and Dafydd close to him; and they discussed in whispers which direction in the building they should take next.

  It was in fact, a long, rambling structure, but stoutly built, like a one-storied castle with an occasional tower or section of second story interrupting it. Plainly it had not been built to any plan, but more or less grown, as successive owners had added what they wanted to its architecture.

  "The 'prentice seemed to think," whispered Dafydd, "that the quarters of King Jean and his immediate attendants were at the very end of the west wing."

  "All right," said Jim, "we'll try there first. Dungeons should be close, but underground. Keep your eyes open, though, for any stairs that lead down. Dafydd, since you know more about the place than either Secoh or myself, why don't you lead?"

  "I will that," whispered Dafydd.

  He glided off. Aside from his invisibility, his skill as a woodsman to move silently made him an excellent leader here. His gaze was alert for anything which might be an intersection, or a place where they might be confronted by a gathering of people it would be difficult to go either around or through.