Reinald blinked once or twice in a way Shea found not altogether pleasing. “The Lady Bradamant would stand our certain aid, I doubt not,” he said. “Is aught of philosophical apparatus required for your enchantment, Sir Harold?”
“No-o-o. Not that I know of; unless you have a night light.”
“That wot I not of; but since there be no bar and our composition waits but on your action, speed on. It is good law that the vavasour render his service before he have his sustention.”
Shea looked at Belphegor (whom he insisted upon calling Belphebe in his mind), but she was looking in the other direction, after a single glance. He was not at all sure that he understood what Reinald was saying and he would much rather have a tête-à-tête with his wife, but as near as he could make out, the two paladins were making a deal with him to get Doc and Florimel out of Castle Carena if he got Count Roland out of what seemed to be a case of simple throwback amnesia. He sighed and addressed himself to the task by turning toward the still softly sniffling paladin:
“There, there, that didn’t hurt much, did it? But when little boys are bad, they have to learn . . .” Belphegor’s mouth fell open a little as he droned on, but the wild man looked at Shea interestedly, then suddenly seized him around the neck and implanted a greasy kiss on his cheek.
Reinald laughed openly; Astolph seemed to have some difficulty in controlling his breath for a moment and announced that he was for bed. Shea turned toward the pale blue eyes now fixed on his in adoration.
“Want a story?” he asked. “If you’ll come along I’ll tell you one about three—dragons.” The pattern seemed simple; age was suppressed beyond about a three-year-old level. He said rapidly over his shoulder to the others: “This is going to take some time, if the spell will work at all. You all will have to get away from here and wait a while. I could use insulin shock, but that piece of philosophical apparatus isn’t around, so I’ll probably have to work half the night by my own method.”
They went, willingly enough and yawning under the declining light. Roland listened with interest to the story of the three bears, translated into dragons, and demanded more. “No,” said Shea. “You tell me a story instead, ’cause it’s way past my bedtime. Then I’ll tell you one.”
Roland laughed delightedly. “They’re all silly go-to-bed-earlies. What ’tory you want?”
“Well, tell me who you are.”
“I’m me.”
“Sure. You live in a cave, don’t you?” Bits of the Orlando Furioso were floating through Shea’s head; or was it the Chanson de Roland? He wished he could get them straight, but seemed to be doing all right so far, since his patient remained attentive. “And your mother’s name is Madame Bertha. But what does she call you?”
“Gay-gay. That means ‘snookums,’ an’ it’s white and red.”
Shea grunted internally. This mass of muscle, hair and dirt was about as far from a snookums as he could conceive; but at least the white and red was a tiny advance; those were Roland’s colors. That was in the book. “What else do they call you?”
“Rufly.”
“Not much there. What’s your father like?”
A pout. “Don’t know. Gone to fight Saxons.”
“Didn’t he come back?”
The heavy face became woebegone. “Don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. No tell, no story.”
Roland began to sniffle a little and Shea did not altogether blame him. It must have been pretty rough to move out of a castle into a cave where you didn’t get enough to eat. But he was inexorable; Roland finally stopped sniffling and remarked: “Mama said he gained glory, and the syndics said we mustn’ live there anymore, and I was cold and had a fight and saw a fat man sitting in an inn and somebody blew a music and I don’t like it here and I’m hungry.”
The ice was beginning to crack. Shea felt a jump of joy in his heart and looked around for Belphegor, but she had vanished. With elaborately affected scorn, he said: “I know a better story than that.”
“You do not, either! The fat man was a crowned king, and he was my mama’s brother . . .”
A solemn moon came up and winked through the leaves, then settled slowly toward disappearance-point again as Shea desperately flogged his own memory and the paladin’s on the details of the vanished career. Once he thought he was going to lose his man, when Roland mentioned the name of Angelica, put down his head and wept for quite five minutes; once he thought all would come clear at once, when Shea threw in the name of the giant Ferragus, and the paladin seized a bone from the table, leaping up and shouting “Montjoie!” But that one only collapsed into babbling, and it must have been well past midnight, a poor hour for this country, when Roland once more got to his feet, and pressed the heels of both palms to his eyes.
“Sir,” he said, “I know not your name aright nor true condition, and I am hindered from giving you the kiss of peace, since I perceive my own condition is less than that which knight and gentlemen should hold. You have my favor; are you a necromancer?”
“I suppose I know something about magic,” said Shea, suddenly feeling modest.
“I trust your penance will be small. There be others of our brotherhood about, an I mistake not?” He looked toward where the moon was losing its struggle. “Let us seek them; I see it all, we must seek mount and away for time will press. Is the Lady Bradamant among them?”
Nine
The Lady Bradamant was not in the headman’s house where Duke Astolph and Reinald were laid out with straw in their ears, the latter on his back and snoring like a Diesel engine. What was more important for Shea, neither was the Lady Belphegor. He felt deflated, but Count Roland was quite evidently not of the same mind.
“Ho!” cried that worthy paladin, in a voice that would have made the windowpanes shake if there had been any windowpanes. “Will you lie slugabed when there are deeds to do? Rouse out, I say!”
In the dimness of the hut, Shea saw Astolph roll over, swinging his arms. Reinald’s snores checked for one moment, then began again in a higher key.
“Ha, rouse!” Roland shouted again, and somewhat unexpectedly, deposited a resounding kick on the recumbent form as Astolph came up, all standing. Reinald whipped up, light as a cat, one hand to his belt, and Shea caught a gleam of steel, but Roland laughed and extended both arms: “Nay, nay, my noble lord and brave friend, will you slit my weazand while still the Paynim danger lies on France?”
Reinald relaxed with a growl. Astolph threw a branch on the dying fire, and as it blazed up, looked keenly into Roland’s face. “I believe he’s all right again,” he remarked.
“Aye, my own man; grace to this young knight.” Roland swung toward Shea. “Sir Harold, were I not sworn to poverty, the treasures of Babylon would be too small for your reward. Yet know that you have all my heart and true support in whatsoever shall not run counter to my knightly vow of fealty to the Emperor Charles. I have the ring. And now gentles, we must out and away.” He cocked his head on one side. “Hark, I hear the shrill trumpet!”
“Then the trumpeter will have outwatched the bear,” said Reinald, dryly. “Look you, good Roland, this quest of Roger gains naught by a nightmarch while we have Astolph, who can ride after him by day on the wings of the wind. Take then your rest; with the dawn we’ll woo fortune.”
“He’s quite right, you know,” said the Duke through a yawn. “Besides, I daresay you could do with a bath and some weapons before undertaking anything serious, and tonight there’s precious little chance of your getting—”
He stopped, looking over Shea’s shoulder, and the latter turned with a jump of the heart to see standing in the low doorway—Belphegor, arrow on string and the firelight throwing lovely shadows on her face.
She came a couple of paces into the room. “I heard the bruit, my lords, and thought—”
Said Reinald: “That there was something toward which might permit that after all you should take comfort in my arms?”
“Nay, my lord, I sleep lonely
this night—and every other, where you’re involved.” She returned her arrow to its quiver and relaxed the string.
“Hey!” said Shea. “I want to see you.” If that antiquated technique could work such wonders on Roland, there was better than a good chance that—
The girl inclined her head gravely. “Sir knight, you have made me your service. You may see me to my rest.”
“Where is it?” he asked, as they reached the door.
“I have made my bed in the branches of an oak that overlooks these cots,” she said. “My lonely bed.”
Shea smiled a narrow little smile. “Mean to say you positively, positively don’t remember being my wife?” And thinking that at best he’d probably have to break her of claustrophobia all over again. Being married to a girl who wouldn’t sleep in a bed, he had found, was an experience that did not grow on one with repetition.
She drew away from him a little. “Now, sirrah, seek you to cozen me again? Certes, you’d be a more adroit seducer than yonder lord of Montalban, but I’ll not be seduced.”
Shea grinned. “I should hope not by that big lug, anyway. But say, don’t you remember things?”
“Nay—that water of Forgetfulness whereof he drank have I never seen. I am free of the forests . . . and yet, and yet—there is a passage. I know not how I came to Castle Carena, save that I stood within beside a gray-haired wizard whom they called Sir Reed for his fair bride—ah, faugh!” She made a gesture of disgust.
“What’s the matter with Sir Reed?”
“Not he, but that great loutish booby of a Roger. It had been insupportable but for the visit of Lord Dardinell and his squire Medoro.”
“Huh?” said Shea in alarm. “What about this Medoro?”
“A most sweet lad. He took my part when all the others would have trapped me like a hare. Could I but count that he’d be more true to me than to a religion that bids him keep four wives—”
“My God, you can’t do that!” cried Shea. “That’s bigamy! Maybe I’d better—”
“Sir, you lose my favor when you still hold to the old tune like a musician who has only one note.”
“Oh, all right, all right. Honest, darling, I’m only trying—well, skip it. How did you get out?”
“How—? Oh, one of the men there leaned on a staff, so I borrowed it from him, clouted a couple of pates, and it was ho!—and away.”
“Didn’t they chase you?”
“Marry, that they did, but I am somewhat lightfoot.” (Shea could believe that. Looking at her hungrily as she paused under the big oak, he could remember her in a red bathing suit, easily outdistancing himself and a squad of friends along the beach of Lake Erie.)
“Okay. Now to go back a little. You don’t remember meeting Reed Chalmers and me in Faerie by shooting a Losel that was after us? And you don’t remember joining us in the campaign against the Enchanters’ Chapter? Or that fight in the air with Busyrane on his dragon?”
“No. Should I? These names have a barbarous, outlandish sound to me.”
“You certainly should remember, and you should remember some other things, too,” he said, grimly. “I think I can—”
“Put a spell upon me to work me to your will? Nay, I will assuredly contempt you from my grace, though I bade you accompany me that I might do you service.”
“I’m sorry. Honest.” (Shea wondered whether he ought to get down on one knee and kiss her hand, but decided he’d be damned first.)
She reached out one hand and touched his arm. “So. Well, the service is yours in any case—not for the pretty apology, but because we of the woods love not injustice.”
“What injustice?”
“Think you you have a true composition with these lords? Then think again. Duke Astolph may be moderate well affected toward you, but not Lord Reinald, who holds it lawful to deceive and despoil all Saracens, among which he’d place yourself and all your friends.”
Shea grinned. “I imagined they might be trying to clear out. But I’ll be watching.”
“Small service will that be. Astolph is to cast a spell of deep sleep on you tonight and they depart at dawn. He offered to take me and make me his leman, but I’d have none of him.”
“The—excuse me for what I’m thinking. I thought Astolph was on the square.”
“Oh, aye; a good wight, surely. But wrapped in law, like all the English, and when Lord Reinald spoke of his liege duty to the Emperor, and how with Roger beyond the castle, the victory of Christendom would be delayed by contention with you for his body—why then, Duke Astolph let himself be overborne.”
Shea mused. “Will Roland let them get away with it? He seemed grateful enough when I saw him, and he certainly owes me a favor.”
Belphegor laughed tinklingly. “I give him not a fig’s weight—oh, a most accomplished gentle knight that will swoon devotion like a rose, but will set duty to the Emperor and his war above all else, even more than Duke Astolph. Has he found the Lady Bradamant’s ring?”
“He said so.”
“Then even more. For look you, this Castle Carena is a haunt of paynim sorcery and nest of vipers, which being entered by the power of the ring, Roland would destroy and hold it for the day’s best deed.”
It was probably true. Shea remembered that the Count had made a reservation in favor of the Emperor in his promise of gratitude. “I guess I’m stuck with finding Roger on my own, then,” he said, a little sadly. “What are you going to do?”
“I? In sooth, live my free life of the woods and fountains, sobeit Medoro . . . Since Roger’s free of the castle, I hold myself free of my promise to help Duke Astolph hale him forth.”
“Why not help me find Roger then?”
“Wherefore should I?”
Shea felt his throat dry up. “Oh, to help beat injustice, or just for the fun of the adventure . . . or something.” He finished lamely, then went on again. “After all, you did promise to help Astolph.”
“Ah, sir, but a debt lay there. It was Astolph and none other who turned the pursuit from Castle Carena when they would have taken me with horse and hound.”
“What! You didn’t tell me that.” Shea felt a homicidal impulse toward Sir Reed Chalmers, who hadn’t told him either. Sir Reed evidently felt that he’d put his foot into it about as far as he cared to.
“Aye; slew one of the Saracens and scattered the rest. But come, sir, you impose sleepless hours upon me to no purpose. You must find me an acuter reason if I am to join your search for this Roger.”
“Well—he’ll head for the Saracen camp to get into the war, won’t he? You might find—Medoro—there.”
“Oh, fie, Sir Harold! Would you have me pursue a man like that great, buxom warrior-wench, the Lady Bradamant? You think but ill of those to whom you pay your devoirs. . . . Not that you are wrong as to the fact; poet though he be, Medoro will hardly neglect the summons of the trumpet at such an hour. Nay, your reason is against companioning with you for a search in that quarter. Now I must have a new one, doubly strong.”
So, the dope’s a poet, is he? thought Shea. “I don’t know anymore reasons,” he said stoutly, “except that just I want you to come along because I love you.”
Belphegor-Belphebe caught her breath for one second, then extended her hand. “So you have found the key at last, and are my true knight. It is covenanted. I give you rendezvous at this spot, so soon as the paladins be again in slumber. Now go, ere stark suspicion o’er spread their minds.”
“What shall we do? Steal their horses?”
“Nay, the hippogriff? And Roland’s steed is the great Bayard, who’d rouse his master on the instant.”
“Oh, damn. I know a man named Bayard, but he’ll never wake anybody up. What else—?”
“Go, sir, I said. Nay, no embraces.”
“Goodnight,” said Shea, and made for the hut, feeling a tremulous half-hope such as he had not known since they were both prisoners of the Da Derga in Faerie.
He found the three squatting around the sma
ll fire on a hearth in the center of the floor. A hole in the ceiling above let out about a third of the smoke.
Astolph stretched, yawned, and with the air of a man preparing for a long sleep, began carefully unwinding his red-blue-brown scarf. Catching Shea’s eye fixed on him, he remarked, “School” then: “One can’t exactly wear a tie in this country, you know. I had the colors made into a scarf instead.”
“What school is it for?”
“Winchester,” said the Duke, with just the right note of pride. “Oldest of ’em all, you know. Merlin’s on the board of trustees. Wonderful thing, the public school system, though I don’t know what will become of it with all this socialism.”
“I went to a public school in Cleveland myself.”
“I daresay.” Astolph regarded him with an air redolent of mistrust, and Shea perceived he had not taken the right way to influencing people. Before he could smooth matters out, Reinald lifted his head from where he was already down in the straw again: “Peace, you twain! A pox on your babble that keeps honest men from their rest.”
“Righto. But first I fancy I’d better make certain Sir Harold here doesn’t wipe us in the eye. Oh, you’re a man of honor and a jolly good fellow, but this is merely a sensible precaution.” Astolph had reached his feet as lightly as a cat while speaking and picked up the big sword, which he now pointed at Shea. “Lie quietly, old thing and take your medicine.”
“You lie on a blanket of cloud, soft and white,
And you sleep, sleep, sleep through the murmuring night,
Your limbs are so heavy, your eyelids must close,
You’re torpid, you’re drowsy; you loll, drift and doze—”
Shea, fully aware that this was a sleeping-spell, fought to keep his mind alert while casting about for a counterspell. There was the one with the paper . . . no, that was a weakness spell . . . no . . . his thoughts were losing coherency.
The Complete Compleat Enchanter Page 34