The Dragon and the Gnarly King Read online

  He tested the air with his nose again. It was hard to tell, at this distance, if the trail of the Unknown led right up to the cradle or the nurse. Whoever laid it could have turned off again and headed directly toward the Castle, or simply circled around it at a distance and continued on.

  Happily, Robert's cradle was side-on to the tower, which meant that by keeping low, Aargh could use it for cover once he had crossed the small open space to it. Normally, when Aargh had anything to do with someone in the Castle—which meant Jim or Angie—he stayed in the woods and howled from time to time. Either Jim or Angie would hear the howl, or their attention would be drawn to it by one of the servants or men-at-arms. In either case, one of them, probably Jim, would come out to their set meeting-place.

  That was a safe way. But, in this particular case, Aargh did not want to spend half a day waiting. The distance to the cradle was very short, and if he moved swiftly and silently—which he would do in any case—he should be able to reach the cradle without being spotted by anyone in the Castle.

  Low to the ground, he slipped out.

  In a moment he was beside the cradle, and his earlier feeling was confirmed. The trail he had been following came around this side of the cradle, close to it—and when he put his head down under the cradle, he could sniff it on the other side also. On his side, particularly, there was a spot where it was more than a passing trail, a spot where whoever it was had stopped, presumably to study Robert. From that point the trail led off at a further angle, back into the woods, and possibly back to the den.

  But in any case, the baby was perfectly unharmed. When Aargh peered over the edge of the cradle, Robert's eyes were open wide and he gurgled happily at seeing the furry mask of the wolf above him. His tiny arms reached out toward Aargh's closest ear.

  Wise in the ways of human as well as wolf pups, Aargh carefully furled the ear, rolling it inward until it was a tight small bundle against his head, closed his eye, and laid his head down for a moment on Robert's chest, letting the baby hands pull and tug and explore harmlessly through Aargh's coarse forehead hair—unable to touch eye or ear that might be damaged by such exploration.

  After a few moments, the tugging hands gave up and he withdrew his head, looking down at a still cheerful Robert, now reaching vainly toward a butterfly that was passing some three feet above his cradle. Aargh withdrew his head and slipped back into the trees. He began to circle the Castle toward its back where the curtain-wall joined with and became part of the tower, the inner keep that would be the final stronghold to which the Castle's defenders would retreat in case an enemy got over their first defenses and into the courtyard and outbuildings of the Castle proper.

  The back of the Castle was blind, having no windows and few arrow-slits, and an unbroken vertical face eighty feet high that could not be climbed and would not be practical to assault. Here the wood came close to the wall, the clearing narrowed, and it was safe for Aargh to cut across the clearing itself in the direction in which he had been headed before he had run across the scent he had followed.

  As he cut close to the wall, he passed, too close to be out of sight from, an arrow-slit that he knew from the smell allowed air and some light into the Serving Room. As he passed, he heard two female voices, one obviously younger and shriller than the other, raised in argument. Aargh was fond of Angie and Sir James, and prepared to tolerate the rest of those in the Castle; but like all their kind, all of them spent a lot of their time making noise.

  It seemed to be their way, and Aargh had no time or interest in things like going around changing the world; but he disapproved. He trotted on past the Castle now toward the comfortable obscurity of the farther trees—the trees he would be re-entering in a moment. Noise never got a wolf anywhere.

  Chapter Eight

  It was less than a week until the party led by Sir John Chandos was crossing the Low Borrow Bridge, approaching Penrith Castle, south of Carlisle. They rode into the Castle, where the three younger knights, the men, and the horses settled down for several days' rest in the stables.

  In the Castle itself, Sir John, Jim, and Sir Bertram Makeworthy—the Earl of Cumberland's Seneschal, with the authority and care over the Earl's lands, mines, and fisheries in the district—settled down to dinner and a talk over a snowy tablecloth.

  But first, Sir Bertram had to hear the story of Jim's first adventure in this world, from its most famous participant.

  Jim had not kept count, but the Seneschal was probably the three-hundred-and-twentieth person who had to hear it for himself.

  Whenever Jim told it, he tried to emphasize that it had only been with the help of his Companions, Brian, Aargh, Dafydd, Danielle, and Carolinus, plus two dragons, that he had won against the Dark Powers at the Loathly Tower.

  The disclaimer seemed to make no impression on Sir Bertram, as it had not on all the others before. All those people had heard the story told before they ever met Jim, in wildly varying songs from wandering minstrels—which all made Jim the necessary, if not almost solitary, hero.

  In any case, it made it special to them, hearing it directly from Jim. Having done so would make their own versions—as it would Sir Bertram's—that much more authentic to future listeners.

  Finally, with the legend told, the three of them got down to business.

  "You're aware of why Sir James and myself, with our men, are here—aren't you, Sir Bertram?" asked Chandos.

  "I am," said Sir Bertram. He was a tall, heavy man in his late forties with a long, pale face. It was a face that looked as if it seldom found anything to smile at. "I understand you believe trouble is expected here. But where? In Carlisle itself? In the fisheries? In the mines—out on the grazing-lands?"

  "I do not know," said Chandos. "Perhaps I should ask you. Have you had trouble recently in any such places? More to the point, are you having trouble with any just now?"

  "Trouble!" said Sir Bertram, his face living up to its promise by turning extraordinarily grim and gloomy. "When is there not trouble? I hear of it from all sides. The Scots border-reivers have stolen away the cattle! The herring are not running! The miners must have an advance on the ore they have dug, or they'll starve—the ungrateful dogs know I can't permit them to starve! Who would work the mines, then? Trouble is with me all the time. Most lately, with the miners, as I say—they won't go down into the diggings, because of Piskies."

  "Piskies?" asked both Jim and Sir John together.

  "Yes, yes," said Sir Bertram, a little testily. "Fairies, as you might say. Earth-fairies. The miners say they can hear them digging. And when one or more say they've heard Piskies, then they all think they hear them—and they all put down tools, leave, and won't go back into the pits and drifts—the holes, trenches, and short tunnels in the earth between a couple of pits, as you might say. There's nothing to be done but wait until they have courage enough to go down again. First, one or two will go. Then the others will take heart and follow, and for a little while we will get mining done again."

  "Indeed," said Sir John, "such are sore troubles, Sir Bertram. But what I am looking for is the harrying of your Lord Earl's lands and possessions. And I do not mean the occasional raids of thieving Scots, but deliberate attempts by a force of armed men to do damage and make cost for his Lordship."

  "Of that, no," said Sir Bertram. His face added alarm to the other emotions visible upon it. "Are we to have that too? I knew you had come to deal with some disorder, but I did not know it was to be something that large. Armed men—men of war, no doubt—Lord save us! If it is that, I do most need your help. I do not have enough men-at-arms to set guards on all the properties."

  "I am afraid guards would be of little use," said Sir John. "This will be a considerable force, with intent to damage, destroy, and cause difficulties for your overlord."

  He paused to take a drink of a rather good French wine. "I had hoped that you could tell me which property or place is most likely to attract them first—mayhap one more isolated than the rest, less pr
otected, or more vulnerable. If you can point me to such a place, then I and those with me would wait for the trouble-makers there, and engage them when they come—hopefully driving them back in such manner that they will not come again."

  "Hum," said Sir Bertram, consulting the wine in his mazer. "Let me see. They could do the most mischief in the shortest time by attacking the mining areas. But there are several such, and I know not how to tell you which one is the best place to guard."

  "Such is not necessary," said Sir John. "I believe Sir James would agree with me, that such a force would want to gather in some central spot—for they will surely come up here in small groups, so as not to attract attention—and then rendezvous in a convenient place."

  Sir Bertram thought, frowning, for a moment.

  "I think, sirs, that Skiddaw Forest might be such a place as you describe," he said. "If they gather there, they will be within striking distance of Alston, where the lead and silver mines are; and, in another direction, of Egremont, which is close to the iron mines."

  "And is this Skiddaw Forest," Sir John asked, "such a place that we could move down there and set up a camp, with little notice being taken of us?"

  "Without question," said Sir Bertram. "I shall send some with you who can take you to such places as you might desire. It is rising ground, most of it, with some good stands of trees. If you set up your camp well hidden and set out watchers, none will find you."

  "And may I ask you," said Sir John, "to send word to the surrounding towns, and to those who might be about in the forest, to bring us word of any other armed party forming in the same woods?"

  Sir Bertram nodded, and Chandos went on. "I take it," he said, "that Skiddaw Forest is not too far distant?"

  "Some fifteen to twenty-five miles west," answered Sir Bertram. He sat watching them. Chandos turned to Jim.

  "What think you, Sir James?" said Chandos. "Indeed, it might be wiser if we were to set off tomorrow morning, for this Skiddaw Forest. Our men can rest once they get there."

  Jim understood very well that the question was merely a formality. Chandos was the man making the decisions here.

  "I don't think we could do better, Sir John," he said.

  "It is settled then," said Chandos, turning back to Sir Bertram. "However, because those with us have expected to have at least a few days' rest, we will not leave early in the morning. Could we pray the Castle to have a meal for us at, perhaps, mid-morning, before we start?"

  "Certainly, certainly, Sir John!" said their host, his face looking almost cheerful. "It will be our happiness to do so. And I will be sending with you three or four men who know the district, and once you find where you want to stay, they can go about the area and alert those who are usually there to watch for strangers."

  "Good," said Chandos.

  "—The men won't be too happy about it," he told Jim later, after they had left Sir Bertram and were about to go to their separate rooms. "They've been looking forward to a few days' sleep, drink, and the local women."

  "I suppose not," said Jim. "Give you good night, Sir John."

  "A good night to you, Sir James."

  The men-at-arms, thought Jim, as he followed a servant to his own room, would certainly not be pleased, but they would not dare to grumble. As the servant left, Jim took off his Knight's belt and wedged his sword sheath under the door-latch—which should at least delay anyone trying to open it, and cause enough noise to wake him.

  The three young knights would have to look happy about it. They had no other choice. Jim himself could have used at least a couple of days without being in the saddle. He would sleep heavily tonight.

  He ignored the bed, which was likely to have vermin. Beds like this were normally re-made with clean bedclothes after a guest left, out of courtesy to the next honored visitor. But servants were all too likely to sneak in and catch a nap, or to engage in some love-making "like a Lord", and servants, like everyone else, could harbor fleas, lice, or even infectious skin diseases.

  Unrolling his bedroll before the pleasantly burning fire, Jim undressed partially—not completely, of course, because the fire would die down; and in spite of the fact that it was summer, the room would be icy by morning. He unrolled his second bedroll, so as to have the extra blankets ready as needed; and pulled a single blanket over him, lying back with a sigh of contentment.

  "That's that!" he told himself. "Now for a few hours of really solid slumber."

  But, unreasonably, slumber did not come. He lay there, a thread of uneasiness cold within him, watching the red-hot underside of the bottom log in the fireplace. The fire had eaten much of its surface down to segmented coals that blushed—first bright, then dim—as small, wandering airs in the room blew through, then passed on; while flame-wraiths danced between them.

  Something, he told himself, was wrong. It was not just his imagination. Something was very wrong.

  First, there had been the change he had felt in the attitudes of his Castle servants. That had been so even before the boomp noises began. Then there had been Brian's too-quick joining in an armed action against a chief Counselor of the King—which could be read as against the King himself.

  This last, apparently only because of Brian's great need for money. It was not at all like the Brian Jim had thought he knew. Brian was a chivalric idealist. He carried his passion to do what was right to almost ridiculous limits, sometimes.

  Jim would have believed him willing to cut off his right hand—literally—before using it to draw a sword in any way that could be considered against the King. But Brian had embraced it almost joyfully.

  And now here was Jim, himself, meekly allowing himself to be swept up in Chandos' expedition to counter the very movement that Brian had agreed to join.

  Jim was not fooled. He had not been dragooned into this business because of his powers as a magician—which were actually at little more than the beginner level, though non-magicians never seemed able to believe that. He was here because he was also popularly thought to be a Paladin—a mighty warrior, and the truth was, he was even less of that than he was a magician.

  He had been in a few actual, if unimportant, medieval combats, usually beside Brian. But these had been the sort of encounter people like Brian all but sneered at, refusing to dignify them with any description more weighty than "a brush," "a bicker," or "some small disturbance…"

  Brian, who had worked hard to train him in the proper use of sword, dagger, and lance, knew better than to speak at all highly of Jim's fighting skills. Chandos, old in war and skilled at sizing up fighting men, must have recognized Jim's lack quickly. Just last Christmas, Sir Harimore Kilinsworth, Brian's chief rival with sword and lance, had seen through Jim at a glance, and had not hesitated to tell him so. That was what had started him examining his conscience.

  This was, in many ways, a cruel, primitive time. But he and Angie had made the decision to stay, after he had rescued her from the Loathly Tower—when for a short while he had owned the magic energy needed to take them home to their own time and world.

  They had agreed that, when all was said and done, they liked it here. It was a time to be alive in—in many ways a noble time, when courage and loyalty to principles were acknowledged and respected above the place they had in the minds of the twentieth century…

  … Still remembering the moment of that decision, he smiled; and smiling, drifted off to sleep thinking about what had led up to it.

  —He woke again, suddenly. Someone was standing over him, but it was not Angie. It was Carolinus, his Master-in-Magick, firelight making shadows from his wispy beard on the red robe that he always wore.

  "Well, well," said the Mage, in a notably hoarse voice, "awake now, are we?"

  "No," said Jim, annoyed at everything at the moment, and replying without thinking, "I'm asleep!"

  Abruptly, everything blanked out.

  Chapter Nine

  Jim drifted slowly, lazily, up toward wakefulness, from the deep waters of unconsciousness. It
was a comfortable way of returning to the world, this effortless business of coming to. However, as he began to get near to the surface of awareness, there began to creep into him a growing feeling that something was wrong—or that something had gone wrong—immediately before he had plunged into the deep abyss from which he was now ascending.

  The feeling of worry exploded inside him. He finished waking with a jerk, and sat up.

  "What happened?" he said.

  The Mage looked down at him.

  'You put yourself to sleep," said Carolinus dryly.

  "I did?" said Jim. "How did I do that?"

  "I've no idea," said Carolinus. "Your methods are your methods. You used Magick, of course."

  'You mean—" said Jim, "I put myself to sleep with my own magic?"

  "Now, what else could I mean?" said Carolinus, an edge to his voice. "Of course you put yourself to sleep with your own Magick. Whose else could you do it with?"

  "But I didn't think my own magic would work on me!" said Jim.

  "Well, now you know differently," said Carolinus. "Live and learn. One of the most simple things, I should think, in the world to assume—but you evidently hadn't assumed it. Of course a Magickian's art will work on him—or her. When you transport yourself by Magick to someplace else, isn't that your Magick working on you?"

  "Well…" said Jim, and could not think of anything more to say.

  Of course, Carolinus was right. As one of this world's only three AAA+ Magickians, he should know—Jim thought of his own rank, a mere C+, and that only due to a recent promotion.

  Still, there was something startling about the idea. It was a little too close to absentmindedly using magic to make yourself feel happy, or to change your mind about something, or… he could not think of exactly what would be a good but ridiculous example. But there was something circular about a magician being able to magic himself.