The Dragon and the Gnarly King

by Gordon R. Dickson

  Nor could he leave the horses behind. Horses were valuable—those like Gorp were more than valuable; they were necessary for someone like himself. And Brian would never forgive him if he lost or left Blanchard.

  He concentrated on Malencontri and two places in it: the stable-yard for the horses, and the Solar for himself and Brian. He closed his eyes with the effort of getting it all plain and clear in his mind. It did not matter that Blanchard, Gorp, his riding-horse, and the sumpter-horse were now separated—he visualized them standing side by side, at the entrance to the stables—and sent them on their way. They disappeared.

  He concentrated now on the Solar room, in the Castle tower; and—abruptly—he and Brian were there, on the Spanish rug by the side of the bed. Angie was not there; but looking right at them was one of the female servants, who was in the process of tidying up the room.

  "Eeek!" cried the servant, for once in very real alarm, rather than in the ritual polite scream. She ran out of the room.

  Jim dismissed her from his mind. She would tell Angie he was here; and since she would not have been any help with Brian, there had been no reason to keep her. He turned back to Brian, grateful the rug was there, to keep him off the stone floor.

  There were no such rugs made in England at this period in history, but they were just starting to make rugs in Spain. Jim and Angie had gotten this, with Carolinus' help, through a magician in Castile. Jim realized now he should have transported Brian to the bed, bloody clothes and all; and he was still trying to figure out a way of physically lifting him onto the bed without doing any more damage to him—like all unconscious people, Brian seemed to weigh a ton—when Angie herself burst into the room.

  "Jim—" she began, but Jim interrupted her.

  "Brian's in bad shape!" he said. "He's had a lance through him and lost a lot of blood. I took out the piece of lance and healed the wound; but he's still unconscious. Order a bedroom cleaned for him, will you? And some men up here with a stretcher to carry him to it? As quick as possible!"

  The color had drained from Angie's face as she stared at him.

  "As quick as—" she began, staring at Brian. "Oh, of course! I'll take care of it!"

  She turned and ran out the door of the Solar.

  Jim turned his attention back to the motionless Brian. The carrying would have to be done carefully. Even though theoretically the magic had healed his wound, it might not be the smartest idea in the world to manhandle his limp body. It would be best to wait for the stretcher to show up. While waiting, he searched his mind once more for first-aid procedures.

  There was the business of the pulses in various parts of the body. If a pulse could be felt in the carotid artery, then the heart was beating more than forty beats a minute. He felt around Brian's neck under the back angle of his jaw, found the carotid, and felt the pulse. His fingertips pressed in and he counted to the time of one-Mississippi two-Mississippi three-Mississippi—his counting was inexact. Brian's heart might be beating even faster than that. The next point to check was the femoral artery, in the inside of the upper leg.

  He felt around for some time; and when he finally did find the correct spot, he was barely sure he was not imagining a pulse. Brian was unconscious, and that worried Jim. It was impossible to believe in Brian's dying. He was always so boundingly alive—Angie came striding back into the room with four of their older men-at-arms.

  They were carrying a stretcher, which had been one of Angie's innovations, the result of having to take care of a steady stream of accidents or sickness among the servants. The stretcher was no more than two wooden poles threaded through the folded-over edges of a strip of stout cloth; but it was surprisingly useful for carrying someone, as long as the bearers were careful.

  Almost on their heels came Ellen Cinders, Room-Mistress at Malencontri. She was a somewhat raw-boned, severe-faced, lean woman, remarkably tall for this period in time, towering several inches even above Angie.

  "M'Lord, m'Lady," she said, curtsying. "The room with the new shutter, just below the Solar here, is almost readied. We can move the good knight down right away. There are already fresh bed-stuffs on the bed there, the chamberpot is clean, the floor dusted, and a fire is lit. Are there other needs for Sir Brian?"

  "There will be," said Angie. "I'll be down shortly. You go with the men and wait for me there. All right, all four of you lift him together—carefully. That's right. Now, lay him on the stretcher—carefully—and carry him carefully down the stairs and move him carefully off the stretcher to the bed. You understand?"

  There was a chorus of "Yes, m'Lady's.

  Jim and Angie watched as they carried Brian out; and, with Ellen following closely behind them, they went out the door and it closed behind them. Angie turned back to Jim.

  "Angie—" began Jim hastily.

  "No, you listen to me!" said Angie. "Brian's taken care of now; and this is more important than anything you've got to say to me. Jim! We've lost Robert! Robert's been taken—"

  Her face suddenly crumpled, and she began to cry. After staring for one astonished split second, Jim stepped to her and put his arms around her. She was as rigid as a statue. Angie did not cry often or easily; and the tears forcing themselves from her eyes now had to fight against her will to keep them repressed.

  Jim had some experience with her under such conditions; and he continued simply to hold her. After a few minutes, the stiffness went out of her, and she sagged against him and finished her tears off in a very normal manner.

  "I'm sorry," she said, wiping her eyes and standing back.

  "Not at all!" said Jim, gruffly. "Perfectly normal!"

  Angie hugged and kissed him.

  "I love you," she said.

  "Well, so do I," said Jim, "—I mean, I love you!"

  Angie patted him gently on the arm.

  "Anyway, it's all right now," she said. "Let's sit down, and I'll tell you about it."

  Angie sat down on the edge of the bed, half-turned to face Jim; and he sat down also, facing her. She sounded perfectly calm and reasonable now, but he knew that this simply meant her self-control had taken over.

  The baby Robert Falon, who was Jim's ward by order of the King, was really much more Angie's. It was Angie who loved him fiercely and had wanted him from the first moment she had found him, left alone and crying in the snow, the only survivor of the party that had contained his father and mother, who had been—like Jim and Angie—on their way to the annual Christmas Party of the Earl of Somerset.

  Jim had a strong impulse to put his arm around her; but right now that might be counter-productive. He sat and waited for her to speak.

  When she did, her voice was perfectly level, but hard.

  "A few days after you left," she said, "I heard Aargh howling, and I went out to meet him. He said that the day before, he had been passing by Malencontri and found a deep hole in the ground. There was a scent of some creature he'd never smelled before. The hole was back in the trees, just a little bit beyond the cleared space. Aargh had done what he usually does—gone to find Carolinus and tell him about it first. But Carolinus wasn't there; and he hadn't been in his cottage the last couple of times Aargh had tried to find him; so Aargh came to tell me directly about it."

  "I'm surprised he'd be that concerned—about just a hole in the ground, I mean," said Jim.

  "I was, too—then," said Angie. "But, just to be on the safe side, I invited Aargh in to see if he could smell anything inside the walls. But he wouldn't. You know how he is about going into a human building. But he said he'd watch the hole and see if the scent was freshened, which would mean whatever'd made it had been back. The hole was big enough that a small bear could have dug it, he said, but no bear would dig straight down. He said he'd be close to the Castle in case I needed him."

  She stopped, looking fiercely at Jim.

  "But just today, Robert was gone. No sound—but there was a hole in a stone wall, Jim! The nurse said she knew nothing about it. I think she told the truth.
She was terrified of the hole, and of what I might do to her for losing Robert. She begged for a cross, and when she got it, she swore on it Robert'd been there when she went down to bring up her lunch to eat in his room, but when she came back in just minutes, the hole was there and Robert was gone."

  Angie stared at Jim.

  "A hole in a stone wall?" said Jim. "And nobody heard anything? Nothing at all?"

  "I was out of the Solar—out of the tower, completely. The man on watch on the tower-top, just over our heads, said he heard nothing. But the hole went down through the thickness of the wall out of sight! I had them put a weight on the end of a rope and lower it down the hole. It went down and down until it reached the end of the rope. There was nothing there, and no way out."

  "Angie!" said Jim, with a dry throat. This time he did reach out to put his arms around her after all. But she was once again like a stone statue; and she shook her head.

  "No!" she said. "The way I feel doesn't matter. We've got to find him and get him back. Do you know of any magician, or Natural, or creature that could make a hole in the wall like that and dig straight down—or up—and carry a baby away?"

  "No," said Jim, "I don't—but, Angie, I'm sure if whoever-it-was took Robert, they didn't take him with the idea of doing any harm to him. Otherwise, they wouldn't have gone to so much trouble to get him. I'm not surprised Aargh couldn't find Carolinus. The last time I saw him, myself, he sent a projection of himself. He's someplace else; and I can't contact him at all."

  They stared at each other.

  "It's never been like this!" said Angie. "Magicians, trolls, sea serpents—never anything like this!"

  "Well," said Jim, "you're right, we're going to have to put our heads together. Now, how long ago was this?"

  "Just a couple hours, that's all," said Angie. "It seems like a million years already. But I didn't know whether I'd see you again for months or when—I might even not see you at all! And Carolinus—I tried to call him myself, the way you do. When he didn't come I sent a man on our fastest horse to the Tinkling Water."

  "He's not there," said Jim. "But he told me I could call Kineteté—she's one of the other AAA+ Magicians. I'll call her now."

  He tried. No voice replied. No magician appeared.

  "I guess I'll have to go to her, wherever she is," said Jim "I'll have to figure a way to do it—and that means sticking the problem in the back of my mind and letting it work itself out. It's this business of each magician having to invent his ways of working magic."

  He looked at her, sitting bolt-upright beside him.

  "I'm sorry," he said.

  "How long will that take?" she asked.

  "Oh… a day or two at most."

  "Two days!"

  "I'm sorry," said Jim again. "I'll be as fast as I can. You know I will!"

  Angie sat unmoving for another moment, then stood up.

  "All right," she said, in a voice with no emotion in it at all, only her usual, businesslike tones. "Now, what needs to be done with Brian?"

  "Are you sure you—"

  "Certainly. I'm going to be right beside you, day and night, to hear when you've worked it out, so we might as well be doing what else needs to be done. What does he need?"

  "The same as Dafydd that time we'd been in that fight with the pirate. Blood. That time Carolinus had to do the transfusion with his magic. But I think I know how to do it myself now."

  "Then we'll get busy." She stood up, Jim rising with her, and started to turn away from him toward the door. Abruptly, she checked and turned back, to stare closely into his face. "There's something important you're not telling me. What is it?"

  "It'll keep," said Jim.

  "No, it won't. I want to know. Now!"

  "All right," said Jim. He had been tired—exhausted, he had thought—from the moment he had awakened alone with Brian in the rain. But now he was wide-awake. He looked out one of the Solar windows and guessed from the sunlight that it was no more than early afternoon.

  "Actually," he said, "I'm back earlier than I would have been, because of Brian. He was one of the raiding party Chandos and I went up there to fight. I had to get him back here as soon as possible, after he got that lance in him."

  "He'll be all right," said Angie. "Remember how he's recovered from things before. He practically springs back to life before your eyes. But you fought those he was with?"

  "Yes," said Jim, somberly.

  "You ended up fighting together after all, then!"

  "No," said Jim. Suddenly he felt exhausted again. His knees gave and he sat down on the bed again.

  "It was my lance that went into him."

  Angie stared back.

  "Oh, Jim!" She took his closest hand in both of hers.

  "I couldn't help it," said Jim in a voice that sounded dead even in his own ears. "We were charging in a line. The horses started crowding Gorp over to where I was opposite Brian. Then my lance slid off the shield of the man I was facing and went into Brian. Brian was next to him."

  Angie's grip tightened on his hand.

  "Did he recognize you?" she asked.

  "He must have," said Jim. "He would have recognized my shield long before I recognized his—and he lifted his lance point so he wouldn't hit me. Gorp's weight and my lance knocked him and Blanchard down; and Gorp fell with me, too. When I crawled to Brian, he was already unconscious."

  "Jim…" said Angie, gently.

  Jim nodded, and squeezed her hand back. Then he got to his feet.

  "Well, that was it!" he said. "But I'll have to face him as soon as he's conscious again. In any case, as you said, let's do what needs to be done, now. Carolinus might have helped, but he can't as things stand. Dafydd's nowhere near us—"

  "Oh, but he is!" said Angie. "He's on his way. I sent a messenger-pigeon to the Giles-o'-the-Wold pigeon-cote, a few days after you left—I thought I'd feel better if they were around while you were gone. He and Danielle were there with their children, and sent an answer back saying they'd start right away."

  "Well, thank God for that," said Jim. "We've got one friend."

  "We've got Rrrnlf, too," said Angie, "if that's any help."

  "Rrrnlf?" said Jim, staring at her. "The Sea Devil? What's he doing back here?"

  "I don't understand it," said Angie. "It's something about that little man—or whatever—he's carrying around. Anyway, he was ready to wait for you; and I thought he might be useful, so I didn't object. He's in the courtyard as usual."

  Of course, Jim thought. Where else could he be? Rrrnlf, unusually large even in proportion to his thirty-foot height, could not possibly come in through any Castle entrance, large as they were by human standards.

  "Well," said Jim. "I'll look at Brian now, and we'd probably better get the signal out for Aargh right away, so he can show me the hole outside. And I should look at the hole in the Castle. Then I'll try getting in touch with Kineteté again, or moving myself to her. But Brian first…"

  He leaned back on his elbows on the bed and blinked. He was suddenly dizzy, and his head swam.

  "Jim, are you all right?"

  He heard Angie's voice as if from some distance away.

  "All right, I think. Yes," he said, sitting up. His head was clear again.

  Just a momentary unsteadiness, he thought. Things had been coming at him too fast.

  "I'm fine," he said. "Come to think of it though, it's probably just as well I can't talk to Brian and disturb him right now. Maybe I need to hear Aargh's story first—"

  He was babbling, and he knew it. Happily, he was interrupted just then by the hasty opening of the Solar door, with no preliminary scratching or other warning, and Ellen Cinders was back with them.

  "Beg pardon, m'Lord, m'Lady—" she said breathlessly, "but I thought you'd like to know. Sir Brian's no longer unconscious. It's sleeping he is."

  "Fine, Mistress!" said Angie. "Now you go back down and stay with him. Next time send one of the men up here with any message. I'll be down shortly. L
et us know if anything changes about the way Sir Brian is feeling or acting, or if his wound's giving him trouble."

  "Yes, m'Lady."

  Ellen Cinders was gone again.

  "When did you eat last?" said Angie. She had been eyeing Jim narrowly ever since he had leaned back on his elbows for a moment.

  "Oh," said Jim. "I've had some meat and bread, wine this morning; I'm not really hungry… maybe a hot dog in its bun, with lots of mustard…"

  "What?"

  Jim came back to his present world with a thump.

  "Just daydreaming," he said. "I meant—I think what I'd really like right now is a good, strong, hot cup of tea."

  "Ah!" said Angie, turning to the fireplace, where a kettle swung just outside the heat of the fire, on a metal arm that could be rotated to put it right over the blaze. Angie swung it over now.

  "Coming right up!" she said.

  Meanwhile, Jim's body had reminded him of another need. He was already halfway to what he and Angie called the bathroom, but which their neighbors would have simply called a privy, for all its luxury. True, that luxury consisted of running water from a cistern on the open top of the tower, and lead plumbing down the outside of the tower that bridged over the moat to an underground gravel-layer septic field.

  The room also had a marble bathtub, taken from an old ruin of the centuries when Rome had ruled in England—but the water to fill it now had to be heated and brought in buckets.

  "Be right back," he said as he disappeared. When he returned, Angie was at the open door of the Solar, speaking to the man-at-arms currently on duty outside there.

  "—down to the Serving Room immediately. Tell Mistress Plyseth—for your Lord we want bacon, hot breads—" (some weird foods had appeared when they had asked before this for toast) "—and four eggs in an omelet; milk, honey, butter, and some fruit preserves. Mistress Plyseth knows what I want. You stay with her until she sends it back up. Now let me hear you repeat what I told you!"

  Jim heard the man's voice faithfully repeating each item Angie had mentioned, and almost with her intonations. One of the blessings in their situation here was the medieval memory; which had to remember things, since nobody except clerics and other particularly trained people could write. Angie closed the door and came back. Jim flopped on the bed again, while Angie busied herself with the tea.