Quillifer the Knight

by Walter Jon Williams

  Tendrils of smoke began to rise from the cave. The carcass was a type of ball shot covered with tar and filled with a mixture of sulfur, tallow, saltpeter, antimony, and other tools of the alchemist. In sieges they would be used to set fire to buildings, but I was interested more in the possibility of suffocation.

  I looked at the knights and grinned. “We’ll see if the worm needs to breathe!” I said.

  Billows of white smoke rose from the cave. Perhaps fire was the drake’s natural element, and it was basking in the flames like a dolphin dozing on the sun-kissed waves; but I thought the worm seemed more like an animal than an alchemist’s salamander, and should not care to breathe sulfur for long.

  I waited until the smoke began to grow thin, and then I fired a second carcass into the worm’s lair. The art of making these munitions is inexact, but this particular carcass seemed more successful than the last, for the smoke fairly gushed from the cave with a great hissing noise. The leather gun was loaded with cartridge and wad, and I had it trained on the cavern entrance. Two gunners stood by, one carrying another carcass, the other a roundshot. I stuck the butt end of the linstock in the ground, took my telescope out of its case, and viewed the mouth of the beast’s lair.

  I hoped that I did not have to fire more than once or twice more, for Lipton had told me that his guns always burst sooner or later. Yet he had assured me that this particular gun was an improvement on the others, and I tried to take some comfort in that.

  It was difficult to see anything properly amid the gushing, swirling, gray smoke, but a surge of blood prickled my arms as I thought I saw a dark shadow bob up in the cavern entrance and then duck down again. I said nothing, and waited for the worm to more plainly show itself. Then the drake heaved its great coils out of the cave and appeared in plain sight, its rainbow colors shimmering against the smoke, its head bobbing as it tried to make out its surroundings. Perhaps it was blinded by the sun, or the smoke had brought tears to its eyes.

  It was about seventy-five yards away, point-blank range even for a small gun.

  “Roundshot!” I cried. The six-pound ball was rammed down the leather gun’s short barrel. I looked at Peel and gave a silent command with my eyes, and he jumped behind the gun to train it. His crew made a few fine adjustments, and Peel pushed the quoin in to lower the barrel.

  “Now, sir!” he said, and I brought the linstock down.

  The gun bounded back with a crash, and I saw the ball strike the worm just below its neck. For a brief moment there was frantic writhing, like a nest of snakes that had been stirred with a stick, and then the drake fell still. I ran for my Phrenzy and found Rufino Knott ready, bent over with his hands cupped. I put my boot in his hands, and he threw me up into the saddle. I reached for my pollaxe.

  “Grape atop roundshot!” I called, in case my next stroke failed, and struck spurs to my horse. Phrenzy gave a ferocious snort and bounded up the meadow. The gunshots and the taste of powder had perhaps reminded my steed of his warhorse days, for he seemed more angry and more animated than he had been in years.

  The gallop was over in an instant, and the fire-drake was stretched before us. A sulfur scent tainted the air. The body, with its shimmering rainbow scales, lay slack in its coils, and the beast’s scarlet mane stretched on the damp grass. The fanged mouth snapped at the air, and the golden eyes rolled toward me, filled with malevolence. The drake was not dead, but stunned.

  I realized as I dropped out of the saddle that I had forgotten my large shield and could not stand the beast’s fire, and therefore I should not give it the chance to breathe on me. I jumped behind the head somewhat, raised the pollaxe in both hands, and brought the axe-blade down on the fire-drake’s neck with the intention of severing the spine. The blade bit deep, and the serpent’s great coils heaved up from the ground and snapped like whips. I jumped back to keep from being bowled over, and Phrenzy reared and struck the coils with his hooves. I did my best to locate the head in the coiling chaos and struck again with the axe-blade.

  The fire-drake fell still, one golden eye staring at the sun. I stood with the pollaxe cocked, ready to strike again, but the scales’ rainbow colors were already fading as the magic passed away. Phrenzy struck the worm with a disdainful hoof, then snorted and backed away.

  The last of the carcass-smoke drifted away. I viewed the dead animal at my feet and saw that it had four small, rather delicate clawed feet. They seemed too weak to support the worm’s great weight, and there were recesses in the body where the legs might be tucked when the beast writhed on its way like a snake. I supposed the claws were of use in climbing, or in dismembering prey.

  There were also the remains of two leathery wings. They had been enough, I suppose, to support the young drake on its flight to Bonille, but would hardly sustain it once it had reached its full growth.

  “Hurrah for Sir Quillifer!” The two sailors in the wagon led the cheers and fired their swivel guns into the air. “A salute to Sir Quillifer!”

  I began the business of cutting off the dragon’s head. Its ichor was dark and glittered like black diamonds. By the time I had severed the head, the other knights had arrived, having walked up from the lane with many of their servants. They marveled at the beast and pulled on its tail to stretch it to full length. I had been nearly right that each knight would have a fathom of worm to kill, for it was ten or twelve paces long. One of the servants came forward with a knife to dig the teeth from the dragon’s jaw, and I told him to step away.

  “The head is a gift for Her Majesty,” I said. “I shall deliver it entire.” I looked up and saw Sir Edelmir frowning at me.

  “This is what you had planned all along,” he said.

  “Ay.”

  “We just got in your way.”

  I had no answer for that. Gorge it with those idiots, Floria had said, and kill it while it’s sleeping off the feast. That was near enough to what had happened.

  The cannon boomed, and I jumped at the sound, which was followed by the whine of brass shards singing. In salute Peel had fired the gun harmlessly toward the next field, but the weapon had burst under its double charge of roundshot and grape, and sent pieces of its barrel sawing through the air. None of us was hurt, but I sagged with relief that I had not had to fire the gun a fourth time.

  And then I felt my heart lift. I had killed the deadly worm, and the world would have little choice but to take notice.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The return to Howel was accomplished with greater dispatch than the journey outward. I carried the worm’s head in a sack in the wagon, and kept one of the claws as a memento. Another claw, one of the wings, and some scales I kept as a gift for the duke, to be placed in his cabinet alongside his carvings, coins, and other curiosities.

  We bore as well a burden far more melancholy. We had found Majerle and Molyneux in the cave, partly devoured. As Woolfardisworthy had abandoned us, the remains were placed in Woolfardisworthy’s wagon for transport to the capital. Woolfardisworthy’s wagons and servants we kept for ourselves, in the middle of the convoy, so that he could not reclaim his belongings without confronting us. Along the way we commissioned a village carpenter to make some simple coffins, and the two fallen knights were given a better home.

  The recreant Woolfardisworthy did not appear.

  One night we spent as guests of Queen Natalie, who was as voluble and hospitable as before. Sir Brynley Wilmot, we discovered, was already lodging there. He had not entirely recovered his wits, and though he would walk and speak and knew his name, he could remember little else, and had no memory of the quest or his encounter with the dragon. He stayed in his room, waited on by his own servants. The others called upon him, but I did not, for I did not want him to recall the occasion of our quarrel.

  Doctor Smolt admonished us. “I told you my spell would take three days,” he said. “Yet you attacked on the second day, and lost two men.”

  “We lost two more on the third,” I pointed out.

  “I had not c
ompleted my spell,” said he. “Sir Quillifer, you were fortunate to attack just as I had finished.”

  Success has a thousand fathers, I thought, but failure is an orphan.

  When I left the divorced queen the next morning, I carried letters to her daughter and to friends at court.

  The November weather was mild, for the Cordillerie blocks or weakens most of the winter storms that sweep in from the sea, and we made good time on the dry roads. It was the eighteenth of November when at last I bade farewell to the company at Oliver’s Cross and made my way to Rackheath House, where Master Stiver promptly ordered me a bath, and set a plate of wine and cakes in my study.

  There I paid off the cannoneers and gave them some extra silver to drink my health; and I gave a generous vail also to those already in my employ, like the sailors and my groom Oscar. To Rufino Knott, I paid the agreed sum, and while I ate and drank, he revealed the new verses to the Quillifer song he had composed on the return journey.

  Quillifer, Quillifer, dragon-lord singular

  Brought to the battle the weight of a gun

  Quillifer, Quillifer, knight-errant counselor,

  Touched fire to powder, and the worm he did stun

  There was more in this vein, in which I inflicted vengeance for the death of the knights. I gave Knott more silver to play the song at Ings Magna and in the town, and then I made him another offer.

  “Would you like more steady employment?”

  He viewed me with surprise. “As what, sir? Do you wish me to recruit an orchestra, or to form a band of minstrels?”

  “I do not at present have a varlet,” I said. “I will give you the job if you want it.”

  Knott was surprised. “I do not know what a varlet’s duties might be.”

  “You would be my body servant. You would look after my clothes, whet my razor, fetch my shaving water, make my ink, run my errands, tune my guitar, deliver my letters, and otherwise exert yourself to make my life comfortable.”

  “I have little training in such things.”

  I picked up a lemon cake and waved it. “I am an easy master. I would hardly starve you at all, and would beat you only on alternate days. Of course, I would still expect lessons on the guitar.”

  “And my wages?”

  I ate the cake while I considered. “We’ll start at ten crowns per quarter, not counting vails and special commissions. Plus, of course, you will have a room in my house that is cold only in winter, your livery will be at my expense, and you will enjoy the privilege of dining with the other servants, and the joy of lording it over all downstairs but the cook, the steward, and the housekeeper, who share with me the duty of beating you when your inconstant nature requires correction.”

  Knott affected to consider. “Sir, your liberality is beyond description.”

  “There is one condition only, and it is your discretion. Servants are the masters of tale-telling, rumor, and scandal, and as you will have unequaled access to much that is personal to me, I desire that my business remain private until I choose to reveal it.”

  Knott nodded. “Yet may I have leave to praise your ingenuity in regard to the dragon? And perhaps to sing the song for your staff?”

  “You may praise me as you like.” I gave the matter thought. “Yet I pray you, keep the praise within the bounds of plausibility. I have not scaled the walls of the Castle Perilous, nor retrieved the Seven Pearls from the Floating Island of the Fay, nor ridden the Comet Periodical through the sky.”

  He smiled. “I’m sure it is only a matter of time.”

  “It is indeed a rare master who basks in the admiration of his servant.” I took a sip of moscato bianco, sweet as a summer strawberry, and considered what I had heard about Lord Edevane, the queen’s spymaster. “It may be that someone will ask you for information about me. He may offer to pay you. In that case, you may take the money, but report to me, and we shall decide between us what you shall tell him.”

  Knott nodded. “That is prudent, Sir Quillifer.”

  “Now, if we have reached agreement in the matter of your employ, please report to Master Stiver, have yourself enrolled in the books, and then have someone show you to my wardrobe. I go to court this afternoon, and I wish my costume brushed and laid out for me.”

  Knott put a hand to his breast and bowed. “I obey, my master.”

  Hiring Rufino Knott and paying off my gunners had given my bath-water enough time to heat, and so I went to my bath and emptied the copper reservoir into Lord Rackheath’s marble tub. I thoroughly enjoyed scrubbing the scent of horse and saddle-leather off my person, and, with the aid of a steel mirror, I shaved, after which I went to my chamber, where Knott and one of the footmen had laid out a selection of clothing. I chose a brilliant blue doublet of watered silk and matching trunks, finely contrasted with white silk hose and linen, matching the blue and white of my banner. I told Knott to make himself presentable and bring his guitar to the boathouse, and while I waited for my boat’s crew to assemble, I skewered the fire-drake’s head on a half-pike I had found mounted in a display of weaponry in Rackheath’s great hall.

  My boat’s crew turned out in livery, blue and white like my flag and my person, and they took me along the lakeside to Ings Magna. The air was balmy with the scent of autumn flowers. The lawns that ran down to the river were filled with courtiers brilliant as butterflies, and I saw that the day being so fine, Their Majesties had decided on a day of lawn games. So I summoned my boat’s crew, who in their livery looked very like an escort, and, with Knott, I carried the dragon’s head past the games of bowls, of lawn billiards, of battledores and shuttlecocks, of shovel-board, of quoits and lawn darts, to where Queen Berlauda stood over her mallet on the palle-malle court. I had with my parade attracted a large crowd, and I led them to the royal presence, where I dropped to one knee and pulled off my cap.

  “Your Majesty—” I began, but I saw that Berlauda was concentrating on a shot, and I fell silent while she gave the wooden ball a solid hit with her mallet. She failed to make her iron hoop, and the ball rolled out of bounds.

  “It is my fault you were distracted, Majesty,” said I. “You should take the shot again. But while someone fetches your ball, please allow me to present the head of the fire-drake that lately spread terror in the Cordillerie.”

  The royal blue eyes looked down at me in benign surprise. “We were told that you were killed,” she said.

  I had not expected that answer. “The report was, at best, premature,” said I. “But three of our party were slain, and another injured. Dom Lorenso d’Abrez was the first to fall, and—”

  Here I fell silent for a moment, for the death of the great champion caused a stir in the crowd. “We are saddened,” said the queen. “He was a doughty man-at-arms.”

  I then reported the deaths of Molyneux and Majerle, and Wilmot’s injury.

  By the time I finished this narration, the crowd had grown, and now included King Priscus. “And you killed the beast yourself?” he said.

  “I cut off its head, Your Majesty,” I said, “but prior to that, I stunned it with a roundshot from a cannon.”

  There was a stir in the crowd. The king viewed me with some surprise. “You brought a cannon in your train?”

  “It was a leather gun, designed by Coronel Lipton of your Royal Regiment of Artillery. It is small and light, and required only three men to bring it into the field.”

  “We have seen such a gun,” the queen said. “Coronel Lipton has shown it to us. We found it winsome, as guns go.” She approached the drake’s head and examined the dagger teeth and the lifeless golden eyes. “How large was the animal?”

  “It was more than twelve yards long, Your Majesty, and nearly a fathom across at its widest part.”

  “Most formidable!” she said. “We are gratified that you returned without further mishap.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

  Berlauda called for grooms to bear the head away, and then she picked up her mallet and returned to he
r game of palle-malle. “Fifty royals I make my hoop,” she said, and as soon as one of her company took the wager, Her Majesty took her shot again, and again missed.

  Fifty royals vanished, I suppose, from the treasury.

  “Well, Sir Keely-Fay,” said Priscus. “It is very good that you read the rule book, yes? Caw-caw-caw!”

  Pleased with his witticism, and also with hearing that witticism praised by his retinue, he strolled away.

  I rose from my kneeling position and brushed soil from my white hose. Though the royal couple seemed to have lost interest in my adventure, there were still a great many in the crowd who wished a more thorough account, and this I was pleased to offer. Rufino Knott, strolling over the lawn, found an audience for his ballad.

  After relating my tale several times, I found myself dry, and went in search of refreshment. I got a glass of cider from one of the refreshment tables, and, turning away, I saw Lady Westley, who stood on a path from the palace, framed by a pair of topiary shaped to resemble rearing hounds. I paused for a moment to appreciate the sight. Her gown was a deep red, almost purple, and in the shadow cast by the great bulk of the palace seemed almost black. Her lustrous face and hands seemed to rise from the shadows about her like pearls coming up from the sea. I saw that she wasn’t wearing her yellow diamonds, or any other jewelry beyond a few rings, and that she seemed to have paused on the path, uncertain of her next step. I approached and saw that her eyes were rimmed with red.

  “My Girasol,” I said, “are you distressed? May I be of service?”

  She looked at me. Her eyes glittered with frustration. “I’m furious,” she said. “There was a report that you and my husband were killed. So I went to our house to change into mourning, and while I was there, my husband arrived on the doorstep.”

  “The queen mentioned something about such a report. Who gave it?”

  I thought I knew the answer before she gave it. “A knight called—was it Woolsey? He arrived this morning and said he was the only survivor of your party, because in the fight with the dragon he’d been knocked into a river, and was thus saved from the drake’s fiery breath, while the rest of you were consumed.” Her gaze turned fierce. “And he said it was all your fault, for your cowardice disordered the company and caused them to miss their strokes.”