The Dragon and the Djinn Page 10

  "Effective indeed!" said Brian.

  And so they were.

  To Jim, looking down from the tower, it was as if half of the closest pursuers had suddenly collapsed on the ground; and those still on their feet had turned and were in panicky flight back down the road. The rearmost of these also fell; but by the time they reached the bottom of the road, most of the slingers had stopped whirling their slings and were looking to Sir Mortimor for further orders.

  Sir Mortimor shook his head.

  He had evidently signaled for wine, and someone had brought it to him. He stood with a mazer in his hand, nearly full with the red liquid, but was not drinking from it. There was silence on the tower top.

  Down below, however, the invaders were making enough noise for both sides. Looking down from the battlements, Jim could see that most of them had crowded into the little space between the houses of the village and the beginning of the zigzag road up the slope. They howled and shook their weapons, looking upward at the battlements. A few of them evidently had bows, for arrows flew from among them, none getting any higher than three-quarters of the way up the tower before hitting the stone sides and dropping back.

  "Not surprising, that," said Brian, watching beside Jim. "Hard to judge the distance to your mark looking so sharply up hill as this."

  Sir Mortimor sipped at his mazer.

  A few more arrows lofted into the air high enough to fall harmlessly onto the tower top. Minutes went by, and gradually the noise below dwindled and dwindled until there was silence there as well. Then a strong voice shouted alone.

  "English knight!" it called. "Sir Mortimor, I know you are there. I am Abd'ul Hasan, and these are all my men. You cannot hope to hold out against us. I would speak with you, Sir Mortimor. English knight. Show yourself at your battlements!"

  Watching from those same battlements, Brian with Jim saw the crowd below move apart to reveal a single tall individual in a red turban and a long, flowing white robe standing almost on the beginning of the road up the slope itself. He was taller than most of those around him; but even from this height, Jim could see that he was nowhere near the height of Sir Mortimor. His brown face looked upward, waiting.

  Beside Jim, Sir Mortimor leisurely stepped forward to stand towering over the serrated rock teeth of the battlements and looked downward.

  "What is it?" his remarkable voice rang out and down to those below.

  "We will take your castle, burn it around your ears and crucify you!" cried Abd'ul Hasan. "But this, only if you force us to fight our way in. I give you a choice. Come out now, leaving all behind; and you and everyone with you shall go safely. I repeat, come out now, and you and all with you shall go free, safely. We only want what is inside your castle!"

  Sir Mortimor stood, not answering, simply looking down at him. After a long silence the man below shouted up again.

  "What do you say, English knight?" he said. "Answer me now. You will not get a second chance."

  "I am German," Sir Mortimor's voice over-rode him.

  "I care not what you call yourself," shouted Abd'ul Hasan. "Do you accept my terms? Say yes or no now. You will not get another chance."

  Sir Mortimor looked down at him thoughtfully. As the seconds fled by he lifted the mazer to his lips but only sipped at it again, then took it from his mouth. Slowly and deliberately he turned his wrist to pour its contents through the empty air, to splatter on the last few steps leading up to the front door of the castle. He tossed the empty mazer after it. The cup was of metal; it fell in a straight line to the stone steps, hit and bounced, hit again, and half tumbled, half rolled, now an unrecognizable pounded lump of metal, almost to the feet of Abd'ul Hasan. Then Sir Mortimor turned and walked away from the battlements.

  For a long moment there was silence below and then a swelling roar of rage came up from the attackers. On top of the tower Sir Mortimor's voice came clearly through the tumult.

  "Ten men on duty here at all times," he said. "Everyone to sleep with their weapons and—Beaupré!"

  "Yes, m'lord," said a narrow-bodied man with a sword at his side and European body armor above the waist, as well as a steel helmet. His hair was dark brown and plentiful; but smallpox had made a pitted ruin of his otherwise sharp-featured face.

  "You will have the charge in keeping," said Sir Mortimor. "A special watch to be kept on the stairs and a guard on the door; the kettle up here to be filled with oil and a low fire under it, ready to heat it swiftly if there's need. You will tell me, asleep, awake, or whatever I am doing, if they begin to show signs of attempting to force the front door. Otherwise, it is in your hands. I expect little for a day or so; but make note of when they try us from above, and if they try gunpowder against the walls and any else of the usual things."

  "Yes, m'lord," said Beaupré.

  "Well, gentlemen," said Sir Mortimor to Jim and Brian, "shall we down stairs once more; and try again if we may not have a little time to ourselves?"

  He did not wait for an answer; but turned and went directly to the stairs opening and down it. Jim and Brian followed.

  Chapter Nine

  "Beaupré will be my squire if I have need of such," said Sir Mortimor, in an unusually quiet voice.

  They were seated once more at the table where they had been before, with three more of the apparently endless supply of mazers filled with wine before them, Sir Mortimor had waited until the servant who brought them had left the floor.

  "As it is," the tall knight went on, "he is my second in command. If he should call on you to do something, you will please me by regarding it as a request from myself. I expect nothing much to happen for a day or two. They will try all the easy things. We may hear stones poured upon the tower from above, and some attempts to break through the walls at ground level, but nothing serious. Beaupré will take care of this, all of it, and call upon you only if needed."

  "Sir Mortimor," said Brian in a level voice, "I crave pardon if I misunderstand you. But it seems to me that you are suggesting that two belted knights fight if necessary under the orders of a squire."

  "So I am," said Sir Mortimor, meeting him eye to eye. "You gentlemen do not know wars as they are fought in this part of the world; and Beaupré does. I assure you he will use the best of manners in speaking to you."

  "That is hardly the point, Sir Mortimor," said Brian. "We are guests of yours, I believe?"

  "You are," said Sir Mortimor. "What else might you be?"

  "I expect nothing else," said Brian. "But I also expect that if my host would welcome my assistance in defending his house, then my host would ask it himself, rather than sending someone of lesser rank to demand it of me."

  "Very well," said Sir Mortimor. "I do so ask."

  "In that case," said Brian, "I will be only too ready to help as much as I can."

  Jim felt the pressure of the conversation on him.

  "And I too, of course, Sir Mortimor," he said.

  "Then I think we are agreed, gentlemen," said Sir Mortimor. He stood up, leaving his wine untouched.

  "While I have put Beaupré with the charge in keeping," he said, "it is nonetheless my castle, and my decisions rule. I will therefore be aware of all that is going on, and this will leave me little time to pay attention to my guests, Sir Brian, if you would accept Sir James into the quarters I gave you, I would appreciate it. The possessions you brought with you when you came here by water, Sir James, have already been carried to that room. If in any way you are not comfortable, simply call a servant and say what you want. If it is possible to supply you with it, my castle will supply it. Now, if you will excuse me, I will be about my own circuit of the castle to see how things are being readied."

  He turned, strode to the stairs and went down out of sight.

  "Brian—" began Jim. But Brian raised a forefinger and brushed it across his lips, and Jim broke off abruptly.

  Brian got to his feet, picking up his mazer as he did and beckoning Jim. Jim followed his example, but left his wine behind. Bri
an led him to the staircase and down a single level into a small space from which three doors opened off. He took the one to the left, and led Jim into a room that was obviously intended as a guest bedroom.

  In contrast to what Jim had been used to finding in castles in England, it was more spacious than most such guest rooms were; the bed was much bigger, with four posts and a canopy all the way around it; and what might have been otherwise considered an arrow slit in the wall was several times as wide as the ordinary arrow slit—making a good bid at calling itself a window. There were, however, no shutters on it. In case of bad weather not only wind, but rain, would enter.

  Jim's possessions were piled in a corner; and, among them, he was happy to see, was his personal, rolled-up and vermin-free mattress. There was also a table and barrel chairs in the room. Brian carefully closed the door behind them, beckoned him over to the table, sat down himself with his mazer and motioned Jim to a chair.

  "James," he said in a low voice, "unwittingly, I have led you into a trap. If your magic gives you means of escaping from here, I beg that you will use it. This attack on Sir Mortimor's castle should be no concern of yours. I am heartily sorry you have become involved even this far with it."

  Jim looked across the table at Brian and saw that he was in deadly earnest.

  "Of course," he said, "I could get away by magic. In fact, we both can get away by magic. What have you got yourself into here, Brian?"

  It was not until the last words were out of his mouth, that he had realized that he had committed an unpardonable social error by asking such a personal question of Brian, in spite of the fact that Brian was his closest friend. He had no right to ask Brian to tell him why he was in any kind of situation. He opened his mouth to apologize, but Brian spoke before him.

  "Never mind it, James," said Brian, as if he had read Jim's mind. "I understand you speak only out of concern for me. No, if you can escape, you must do so. I, myself, am not free to leave."

  "Why not?" asked Jim.

  "I came here as an invited guest," Brian said, "after meeting Sir Mortimor in Episcopi, where I was visiting with some other good knights—English knights—whose grandfathers settled here at the time of an earlier crusade, Sir Mortimor has not failed in his duties as a host toward me; and I cannot fail in my obligation as a guest to him, now that he has a difficulty on his hands. It is not so with you. You came only to find me, and you find me tied here while you are free to go. I beg you, James, leave while you can; and if a message must be sent back to Geronde and Angela, say that I was well the last you saw of me, and merely had a small bicker on my hands which might delay me slightly in getting on with what I came here to do."

  Jim felt Hob stir again in the knapsack on his back. The little hobgoblin had ducked down out of sight before Sir Mortimor had come back up to join them, at the time when they had been talking about Brian's childhood and his early knowledge of Hob. Now the hobgoblin stuck his head out of the knapsack, and his breath tickled the back of Jim's right ear as he looked about.

  "Oh!" he said happily. "Fire and smoke. A fireplace. M'lord, is it all right if I take a look up that chimney?"

  "Go right ahead, Hob," said Jim—and in a moment the gray figure of Hob had launched itself from his shoulder toward the fireplace and to all appearances simply disappeared. Jim turned his attention back to Brian. The last words that Brian had said had rung oddly false in his ears.

  "Brian," he said, "forgive me—and you don't have to answer me, if you don't want to—but is something wrong? Is there something you're not telling me that's badly out of kilter? Will you really be ready to go on as soon as this is over?"

  "I pledge myself to do so," said Brian. "And that pledge I am not going to fail upon. I give you my word I will do my best to go back to my search for Geronde's father, the minute I am away from Sir Mortimor and this castle."

  "Then why don't we both leave?" said Jim. "Your obligations as a guest—"

  "Are my obligations!" said Brian with a snap. "I have never failed on my word; and, before God, I never will."

  "You're talking about your word to Sir Mortimor, now, aren't you?" said Jim. "What word exactly did you give him?"

  "James—" began Brian on an almost angry note, and then stopped abruptly. He looked down at the table, looked at his mazer of wine, took a drink from it and looked back up at Jim. "James, I will continue in my search. There may be a slight delay, however. You are right. There is something I have not told you; and it concerns an error and a weakness on my part. It is—the fact is I have almost no money left to travel with."

  "No—?" Jim broke off. "I don't mean to—" he continued, staring at his friend. Brian's square, lean-boned face with its blue eyes and aggressively hooked nose had something defiant about it. He checked the word "pry" that had been on the tip of his tongue and rephrased what he was going to say.

  "—Ask any impolite questions of you," he went on, "but how does it happen you could be out of money so quickly? It seemed to me you had more than enough for a search here that could take you months, or even a year."

  "So I had," said Brian. "The fault is my own, James. We are all sinners and have our weaknesses. One of mine, as you know, is the dice. I should have sworn off all such things for the period of this search, but I did not think of it."

  "But what happened, then?" asked Jim.

  "I came to Cyprus, as perhaps Geronde told you," he said, "because a certain Sir Francis Neville, a cousin twice removed, was a knight of the Hospitallers; and I hoped for advice from him. I knew that he was here on Cyprus on some business between the Hospitallers and certain well-placed and powerful gentlemen on the island. Perhaps Geronde told you all this."

  Jim nodded.

  "But when I got here," Brian said, "Sir Francis had already left again for the headquarters of his Brotherhood, which has long been elsewhere than the hospital they founded in Jerusalem, in the name of St. John of Jerusalem, whereby, of course, comes their name of Hospitallers. Their proper title at present is the Order of the Knights of Rhodes. I had hoped to learn from him the best way to take myself to Palmyra, and also how I should conduct myself and what I should be wary of on the way there."

  Brian paused. Jim, thinking he was done speaking, opened his own mouth.

  "But surely," Jim said, "his being gone shouldn't have cost you most of your money—unless it was stolen from you."

  "No," said Brian, "it would be a brave robber that tried to take what I had on my person. No, my cousin Sir Francis was no longer here; but he had many friends, of course, whom I discovered by mentioning his name to other gentlemen; and those friends welcomed me in a right neighborly manner. But you must understand, James, they passed me from one to the other—since one would have some knowledge of Palmyra, but not of the best route toward it, where another might know of the route, but not the city, and yet another might know more about ships plying back and forth between here and Tripoli, that being the best port to come close to it. Palmyra, you must understand, is some distance inland from Tripoli and all other port cities to the south."

  "Go on," said Jim.

  "The trouble was, James," said Brian, "of course, each new gentleman I met must dine and drink and entertain me—and, of course, together with all this there was a certain amount of dicing."

  "Oh," said Jim. "And it added up to your losing all your money?"

  "Oh no," said Brian, "not all of it, by any means. A small portion, only. I was most careful. But then, in Episcopi, I was introduced to Sir Mortimor, who was up there from his castle for business of his own, and he joined us at the dice; and I won."

  "You won?" Jim stared at him.

  "Yes. I won a good deal," said Brian. "I ended up with more than I had when I first came to Cyprus. And I won it all from Sir Mortimor, who seemed then to live only for dicing and drinking. I have a fair capacity for wine, you know that, James. But Sir Mortimor's is heroic!"

  "I can believe it," said Jim.

  "So, I did not refuse," Brian went on,
"when Sir Mortimor invited me up here for a short stay. We were to enjoy the fishing, actually. He had promised me that there was almost as much pleasure in trying to boat a fish as large as a man, on a single line, as there was besting one in single combat; and you know that we do not usually have fish that large, to be taken by only an angle, in England. Indeed, he was quite right. He did take me fishing at first, and I had the experience; and it is something to remember, James!"

  "I can believe that too," said Jim. "But the last I heard you still had money. In fact, more than you had started out with."

  "Not more than I had started out with, James," said Brian reproachfully. "More than I had by the time I had gotten here to Cyprus."

  "I stand corrected," said Jim.

  "But, of course, in the evenings we would be dicing; and—I know not how it is, James—but what I had experienced in Episcopi could only have been the most unusual run of luck; for here at the castle it has been just the opposite. I have lost steadily; until now I have lost almost every coin I possess. I cannot leave without trying to get it back; and even if I could, my sense of honor would insist that I stay here to help Sir Mortimor in his hour of trial."

  "I'm not sure he regards it as that much of an hour of trial," said Jim. "So you won gaming against him in Episcopi? Won steadily. But back here at the castle you have lost steadily? Were you always using his dice?"

  "Why, yes," said Brian. "I never carry dice, James, you know that, for that I might be tempted to lose what little I own. I have this abiding fear that one day I might forget myself and even wager Blanchard of Tours, when the fever is on me—and lose him."

  Jim nodded soberly. Brian had given all his patrimony, except the rundown Castle Smythe itself, in order to buy Blanchard, the great white stallion that was his war horse, and who had the intelligence and the fighting spirit that made such horses worth a prince's purse. And indeed, without Blanchard, Brian would be hard put to win the tournaments in which he essentially made his living; and in which a horse of such weight, power and speed was a vital necessity.