The Dragon, the Earl ,and the Troll Read online

  Curiously, it was as if they were responsible only to what they considered their job or duty—and the way they did it was the way it had always been done. He, at best, was only their temporary overseer.

  It was as if he was there only to do his own job, which was to see they did theirs in traditional fashion and no other. If part of their duty required their going out and dying for him, then that was all right, too—but only if it was part of that unwritten contract that seemed to exist between them and him. They would instantly obey his wildest whim, if it did not disagree with that contract; and silently, politely, but immovably, they would resist anything that did disagree.

  Both he and Angie had found this out many times, to their great despair and frustration, in trying to make Malencontri Castle a livable place from their own twentieth-century point of view.

  "What will you do, James?" asked Brian.

  There, thought Jim, was the contract again. Brian was his best friend in this world—after Angie, of course. He was brave beyond belief, cheerful in the face of any adversity, loyal beyond imagining; and for his duty, his given word, or his Faith, he would resist the worst possible forms of torture and death without yielding.

  But he was also a simple knight banneret. Problems with Naturals like the troll, Mnrogar, lay outside the field of his ordinary responsibility. If a superior in that area was around, Sir Brian's place was merely to follow, not lead.

  It was up to Jim. Then, on a sudden inspiration, Jim grinned wickedly—but internally. He wrote on the inside of his forehead a magic statement.

  CAROLINUS I NEED YOU → JIM

  If an apprentice owed obedience to his master, the master also owed, in return, protection and help to his apprentice. That was one of the ways in which this contract was in Jim's favor. He could use the letter of this sort of agreement to his advantage, too.

  He held the magic in his mind for a moment, then let it go. He smiled at Brian, who was looking puzzled—and that was all Jim had time to do.

  He had expected a certain amount of delay. But Carolinus was simply, abruptly, there. He looked at Jim, looked at the sleeping Mnrogar, closed his own eyes for a second as if re-creating what had just happened here, opened his eyes again and looked at Jim with his usual glare.

  "You're not here to pamper trolls!" he said.

  For once, Jim felt on firm footing with the experienced magician.

  "That's not the problem," he said. "The problem's the other troll somewhere upstairs in the castle, complicated by the fact of what Mnrogar's shaking has been doing to the castle itself over the last thousand years or so—however long he's been at it."

  Carolinus was very often surprising in the way he reacted—there was no rule about it, except that, sometimes, completely unexpectedly, he would react very differently from the way everyone anticipated. Apparently, this was one of those times.

  "Hmm," he said, glancing at the troll and then around at the stone arches. "I can't believe… well, we'll have to see."

  He turned on Brian.

  "Brian," he said, "you can find your way back up alone, can't you?"

  Brian glanced around at the darkness beyond the troll-light, which seemed to enclose them like a solid globe.

  "The rush-light I brought down for James and myself along the way," he said, glancing at the formerly flaming end of the rush, now showing nothing but a sooty, cold stub where its light had been, "has burned itself out. In the darkness, Mage, I could wander, lost, for some time. Perhaps—"

  He was suddenly holding a completely new, brightly burning rush-light in his hand.

  "Go without delay," said Carolinus. "Go swiftly, but without attracting attention. Do not run, or move with undue haste. Go directly to Jim's quarters, where Angie may still be. In any case, have the servant let you into the outer room, and wait there until Jim joins you. Jim and I will be moving in ways magical by ourselves."

  "I understand, Mage, but—" Brian was beginning earnestly.

  Jim never heard what it was he might have said. The cellar winked out around him and Carolinus; and instead Jim found himself, with the elder magician at his side, standing just inside a dusty room. It was filled with old furniture, piled high against the walls, and was evidently a room above ground in the tower, for its outer wall was slightly curved; and from behind the furniture and other things piled in front of that part of it, little gleams of daylight were coming.

  "Wait a minute," said Jim. "We left Mnrogar down there just as he was. I just told him to sleep. He'll sleep forever unless that order is countermanded—"

  "Do you think I'm the same sort of addle-pated young fumbler you are?" snapped Carolinus. "Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs. I told him to wake in five minutes. Not only that; but if he tries to shake the castle again, both his arms will go limp for five minutes. That should hold him for now!"

  Carolinus turned his attention to the wall where the daylight was showing.

  "Out of the way, all of you!" he said to the furniture piled there.

  With apologetic squeaks, thumps and rattles, the furniture and other items that were there immediately began to move aside; and in a moment the stone wall itself was exposed. An arrow slit had been hidden behind them; and light was coming through it. But less than six inches from the right side of the slit there was a vertical, six-foot crack in the wall, the top and bottom of which began as nothing more than ends to a line in the rock; but in the middle it gaped widely enough to let in almost as much light as the arrow slit.

  "I have never seen the like," said Carolinus thoughtfully, gazing at the slit. "Our host came to me with this problem. But Hugo is not the man to discuss solutions with, since he goes by how he feels rather than how he thinks. There are cracks like this all over the main tower—probably two dozen or more, most of them smaller than this, happily; but he has kept word of them secret until now."

  After only that one brief meeting with the Earl of Somerset, Jim could well imagine the Earl exploding immediately, either in favor of or adamantly against any suggested solution, without taking time for any consideration of whether it was practical or not.

  "So," Carolinus was saying, "I took into my confidence Sir John Chandos, who has a level head; and the Bishop of Bath and Wells, whose thoughts in such matters are never to be despised. Also, both men have experience and information that I lack. John has seen many castles, old and new; and the good Bishop still has architects, masons and their like laboring on his cathedral in Wells. He has now sent for some of these to come view the damage, and see what can be done. Both to repair it, quietly; and also to ensure no more of it happens. But why or how it should happen at all, was a puzzle to all three of us."

  He looked directly at Jim.

  "Then," said Carolinus, "it occurred to me that you—"

  "Resonance!" said Jim, out loud without thinking.

  "Ah-hah!" Carolinus eyed him keenly. "So I was right. There is something in that other-place knowledge of yours that applies here."

  "I don't know about that," said Jim grumpily.

  He was very angry with himself for speaking out before he had thought over the possible results of saying anything.

  "I know as little about the actual mechanics as you or anyone else," he said, "and I'm just guessing."

  "But—" Carolinus said. "Go on!"

  "Well," grumbled Jim, "there's something called resonance. It's what makes a harp string, when plucked, make a sound as the string quivers to a halt. You can also set up resonance in other things, though they may not resonate as visibly. I don't remember if the practice goes back to the Roman army or not; but the rule in all armies used to be that when a mass of men were marching across a bridge, they'd change step. In other words, they'd hesitate; and instead of going forward with the left foot go forward with the right foot again—something like a sort of slow skip—which would break the steady rhythm of their feet hitting the bridge, and therefore the resonance, the vibration they were setting up in its structure by marching over i
t."

  Jim looked at Carolinus to see if the other was understanding him.

  "Ah?" said Carolinus brightly.

  "Yes," Jim said, "otherwise, you see, the bridge might break under them. Even though the resonance was small, it was being reinforced and made greater each time a number of feet came down on it together as part of a pattern."

  "Ah!" said Carolinus.

  "Now," Jim wound up, "I don't know if there could be any connection between that and this; but I suppose it might be possible. But, over a period of hundreds of years, if Mnrogar's found two particularly shakable arches to tug back and forth, he might be repeating a resonance that'll have an effect finally that'll make the whole fabric of the tower break apart."

  He stopped talking. He became conscious that Carolinus was beaming at him.

  "My boy," said Carolinus, "your command of words is admirable. Half of them make no sense, but I'm willing to believe that there was probably some sense behind them in the place from which you came. If so, there might be some sense in them here, as well. Now, if you're right, what do we do about the resonance? If we stop the troll's shaking, will the tower heal itself?"

  "No," said Jim. "If I'm right, the damage that's already done will just keep getting worse, even if you stop Mnrogar permanently."

  "I don't know if that would be ethical," Carolinus said, plucking at his beard. "After his being there eighteen hundred years, it could be a possible forbidden interference on my part with History."

  He thought for a moment, still plucking at his beard.

  "You must remember, Jim," he said, "how I explained to you the position of Magick in between History and Chance. We can assist History if Chance gets the upper hand—because if Chance had things all its own way we'd end in Chaos. And we can aid Chance when History seems to be having things all in its favor and there is a danger of its pushing Chance completely out of the picture—in which case we'd have Stasis. But we're not allowed to alter the normal course of History, or change the odds in Chance. However, never mind that—you did say the present damage would go on getting worse, even if he did stop?"

  "Yes," said Jim, "because the tower's already been weakened in its general structure, in addition to the cracks you see in it now; and ordinary daily wear and tear will simply increase the damage."

  "Yes," said Carolinus thoughtfully. "The troll must cease shaking the castle permanently, in any case—-that much is sure. But the other's also a problem; although I might—just might, understand—be able to do some mending here, ethically, with Magick. I'll have to look into it, and possibly consult with my two colleagues, the other AAA+ magicians in this world."

  He stopped talking and stared off into the distance. Jim let him stare.

  "Well, well, it's simply something that'll have to go through regular channels," wound up Carolinus. He turned his attention back to Jim.

  "As for dealing with the rest of the situation, clearly the only way to stop Mnrogar permanently is to find the cause of it. Undoubtedly he has been doing this shaking of the foundations for years—possibly as part of his long-standing feud with the Earl, and with the Earl's forebears—but the coming of this other troll he claims is somehow in this castle with none of us knowing about it has brought the situation to the brink. I swear, by all the magic I know, that I neither feel nor sense nor can discover sign of another troll. But if Mnrogar says there is one, there probably is."

  "Then how can we find it?" asked Jim.

  "That, of course, was what I was getting at." Carolinus looked sternly at him. "You must get busy at once, Jim."

  "Me?" said Jim. "What am I to do?"

  "Find the other troll, of course. Get to it, now!" said Carolinus. "Meanwhile I'll be about my end of the matter."

  With that he disappeared, leaving Jim standing. This, he suddenly realized, was the other part of the contract as it worked from the standpoint of one who is ordinarily stuck with the responsibility. You simply turn to an underling and say:

  "You do it."

  Chapter 8

  "My dear son," said the Bishop of Bath and Wells to Jim, "may I offer you a little of this excellent stewed eel?"

  Jim looked to his right. The Bishop was holding a deep serving dish of silver, from which he had just taken the top. Part of the top had been broken off at some time, but what was left and the dish itself were polished to a very high gloss. Jim detested eels in this form or any other. But the Bishop was showing him merely the ordinary table courtesy.

  "I thank you, my Lord," said Jim and watched as the Bishop used his knife to urge a section of eel out of its sauce onto Jim's trencher, a thick slice of bread that served as his individual plate, and later would be given to the poor or thrown to the dogs; for by that time it would have been soaked by a number of rich sauces and be high in nutriment. "Just a very little, please, my Lord. It's a good food for a fasting time like this Advent, but it bothers my conscience to eat much of anything before the midnight mass tonight that ends the fast."

  The Bishop solicitously took his eating knife—actually a rather sharp, small dagger—and cut off a somewhat smaller chunk of the eel than Jim had been afraid he would serve, and deposited it on Jim's trencher.

  He also looked with approval at Jim. It could not be said he beamed. Richard de Bisby was not a man to beam on anyone; but Jim's words had clearly struck him as being in the right spirit.

  He put the dish with the eel in it back on the table and replaced its cover.

  "I must admit," he went on in a lower voice, "I asked our host to seat us side by side like this so that we might have the chance to talk privily under the general noise of the dinner. You may have wished another table companion—say, such as the Lady Agatha Falon yonder—although I vow she seems most interested in my Lord the Earl."

  "The Lady Agatha Falon?" said Jim, instantly interested. He looked.

  So, the woman next to the Earl was the sister of the dead man they had found in the woods. She must indeed, he thought, have been a younger half-sister; for there was clearly a gap of at least twenty years between her and the dead man they had found. She was a little above the average height, which would make her not quite as tall as Angie, who sat even farther down from Jim, talking animatedly with Sir John Chandos who was beside her, the both of them beyond the Earl and Agatha Falon.

  At first glance Agatha Falon was unremarkable. She had a sort of general, somewhat bony, attractiveness; but in no way did she really resemble her dead brother. Her hair was black, her eyes were brown and a little wide-set, her nose was snub and she had a wide, rather thin mouth that looked as if it could fall into a disagreeable expression very easily—all this over a pointed chin that completed an oval, somewhat pale face.

  Right now, that face was animated; and above the puffed-up upper sleeves and tight bodice of her sky-blue gown, she seemed in her animated conversation with the Earl to be almost pretty. The Earl, his eyes popping even more than usual—Jim thought that possibly both his companion and his wine had a good deal to do with that—was clearly fascinated by her, or by what she was telling him.

  "Thank you for naming her to me, m'Lord," he said to the Bishop. "She is the sister of the unfortunate gentleman we were too late to rescue on our way here, as perhaps you know."

  "Yes," said de Bisby, dabbing his lips with a napkin held daintily in his powerful hand, "a cowardly and unhappy end for one of good family. But I trust the good fathers at Edsley Priory gave him proper Christian burial, and his new young wife as well?"

  "Indeed they did," said Jim. "But, my Lord, you were just saying you wanted to speak privily with me?"

  "Yes," said the Bishop, once more lowering his voice, which had climbed almost back to its normal patient, but resonant tones. "It has to do with that matter Carolinus will have spoken to you on. The matter of this castle."

  He looked knowingly at Jim. Jim looked knowingly back. They were two Powers-behind-the-scenes involved with what was almost a state secret.

  "You were unhappily delayed
in arriving here at dinner," said de Bisby. "But such delay is entirely understandable, since you have a young Christian soul—hopefully already baptized… by the by, it probably would do no harm to baptize the child again, since no one is left alive and the infant's immortal soul might still be in peril. But, in any case, I clearly understand how you might not find it easy to arrive as promptly as others, you and your Lady-wife. Still, I own I was concerned that you might not appear at all."

  "Oh, there was no danger of that, my Lord," said Jim.

  The delay had indeed been unavoidable. Carolinus had disappeared from the room with a crack in its outer wall, evidently forgetting completely what he had said about transporting Jim, as well as himself, by ways magical. Jim had been left to find his own way back to Angie, Brian and the banquet.

  Actually, it had turned out that it was not too difficult to do this. Jim stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him. He did not know enough magic to easily move the furniture back to cover the crack in the outer wall, except by very cumbersome, short, step-by-step magical commands. He had the somewhat resentful feeling that since it was Carolinus's doing in exposing the crack, the responsibility for the crack being discovered was clearly Carolinus's—if anyone did discover it.

  In the hallway outside, he confirmed the fact that the room he had just left was in the main tower, the same tower Angie's and his room was in. It was merely a matter of going down the corridor until he came to a stone wall at its end, going back again in the opposite direction until he came to the main stairway; and then trying up and down until he found the floor that their rooms were on—after which finding them was no problem at all.

  Within, Brian was impatiently waiting for him, and Angie was already dressed ready to go down; also impatient, but apparently not in a mood to take Jim to task for this. Angie, of course, knew Carolinus as well as Jim did, and would have guessed whose fault it was that Jim had not shown up before now.