The Complete Compleat Enchanter (42 page)

“Go on, take it,” said Shea. “It’s for you. Honest.”

With a snatch it was in the dwarf’s hands, and he rolled over and over, holding the precious thing before his eyes and gurgling with delight. Shea picked up the coffee and took a long pull, then almost gagged. It was so cloyingly sweet as to be almost syrup. He asked Belphegor: “Is all the coffee like that around here?”

“ ’Tis coffee. What else would you have?” she said, sipping her own.

“Why, you know how I like . . .” He checked himself; no use starting the same old argument with a real amnesiac, and it would only antagonize her. He amended: “I’d have a lot else. Hey, George!”

The dwarf, having ceased his antics, came trotting over to duck his head three times. Shea asked: “Have you got any of this stuff without sugar in it?”

The servitor seemed to be overtaken by some inner ill, for he put both hands to his belly and rocked from side to side, pointed to the cups and put both hands beneath one ear, then closed his eyes, jumped up, ran to the window and went through the motion of leaping out, then pointed to Shea.

“What’s the matter?” asked Shea. “Can’t you say anything?”

For answer the little man only opened his mouth and pointed again. He had no tongue.

“That’s too bad, George.” Shea turned to the girl. “What’s he trying to put over?”

She gave a tired little laugh. “Meseems he would convey that this be a brew so potent another cup would make one leap from a height. Marry, the one will not affect me so.” She set down her cup, raised a small hand over another yawn, picked out one of the less dirty beds, and stretched out on it.

“Me, either,” said Shea. It was too much trouble to argue. He stretched out on another; it might be straw under the disintegrating rugs, but his weary muscles found it softer than down. “Sweet dreams, kid.” At least the fact that there was a multitude of beds precluded any silly arguments about lying his sword down the middle, as in the medieval romances. Though if a man were too feeble to climb over . . .

Just as he was whirling down into the pool of sleep it occurred to him that maybe the dwarf was trying to let them know that the coffee was doped, but he forgot before he could do anything about it. . . .

###

Somebody was shaking him, and the side of his face stung with the memory of a slap. That goddam innkeeper! “Lay off!” he growled, his head fuzzy, and wriggled from the grasp. Slap!

This was too much. Shea rolled to his feet and started to swing, or tried to, for his arms were instantly pinioned from behind. Clearing eyes showed that he was in the center of a circle of armed Saracens. In another and larger group, some of whom turned as he came erect, he caught the sheen of Belphegor’s bright hair, now mussed. Two of them were holding her. One had a black eye; the other had lost his turban, and his face bore an interesting crisscross pattern of scratches.

“O my lord,” said the innkeeper’s voice from well in the rear, “did I not warn you that these were indeed Franks, and violent?”

“Verily, you are a mountain of wisdom,” said a commanding voice. “What shall be your reward for having at once provided a pearl beyond price for my couch and an arm of the best for my battle?”

“Lord, I ask no more than the sunlight of your favor, and the payment of my proper reckoning. This unlucky Frank keeps the gains he has doubtless made from the robbery of true believers in his belt.”

The owner of the commanding voice turned: a tall man with an unpleasant, dish-shaped face. “Seek if this be so,” he ordered one of the men holding Shea. The latter, seeing that it would do no good to struggle, refrained from doing so.

“Verily, Lord Dardinell,” said the one who was robbing him, “he has fourteen dirhams and a half.”

“Give them to the innkeeper,” said Lord Dardinell, and, turning back to that worthy, added: “You shall surely wait upon me in my tent after the hour of the second prayer tomorrow, when I shall have made proof of this Frankish damsel. If she prove a filly, as you have declared, your reward shall be ten times this amount; but if not, then only the double.”

“Hey!” shouted Shea. “You can’t do that. She’s my wife!”

One of Shea’s holders hit him across the face as Dardinell, expression going glum, turned to the girl. “Is this indeed the truth?” he demanded.

Before she could answer, another voice, somewhat high-pitched, spoke up: “O Lord Dardinell, it cannot be. When lately we saw this damsel at Castle Carena, she was surely neither wife nor widow, but a free maid of the forest, the inspiration of poetry.”

Dish-face ran a tongue around red lips. “There is but one resource,” he said, “and that is to smite the head of this dog of a Frank from his body, so that if wived, the damsel shall be widowed.”

“Yet it is written,” said the other voice, which Shea noticed belonged to an olive-skinned young man with delicate features, “that one shall not deal unjustly even with unbelievers, lest it be held against you at the last day. It is also lawful that even if the damsel be widowed this very day, the three-day ceremony of purification is necessary before one shall go in unto her. Therefore I say, my lord, that we should hold them both in a secure place until a learned Kazi can find the line of truth among these thickets. Moreover, O Prince of warriors, was it not your own word but now that here was a good arm to the service of the Prophet, on whose name be peace? Yet of what avail the arm without a head to guide it?”

Lord Dardinell put a hand to his chin and bowed the spiked helmet surmounted by a crescent. “O Medoro,” he said finally, with somewhat ill grace, “you argue more finely than a doctor of law, and in a manner to make one believe that your own eyes are set on the damsel. Yet I can find small flaw in your doctrine.” Shea, who had been holding his breath, let it out in a long
whoosh,
and the other Saracens murmured approval.

Dardinell stepped over to Shea and felt his biceps. “How came you hither, Frank?” he asked.

Shea said: “I had a little run-in, you might say, with some of the Emperor’s paladins.” That ought to put him in the best light, and had the advantage of being true.

Dardinell nodded. “Are you a fighter of proved worth?”

“I’ve been in a few scraps. If you’d like a little demonstration, just turn me loose from this gent holding my right arm . . .”

“That will not be needed. Will you faithfully serve the Amir Agramant in this war?”

Why not! Shea felt he owed nothing to the paladins, while consenting would at least keep him alive long enough to figure out something. “Okay. Bring on your dotted line. I mean, I’ll swear to uphold your just and merciful Amir and all that, et cetera, so help me Allah.”

Dardinell nodded again, but added severely: “It is not to be thought that even if the Kazi decides that your marriage to this damsel be lawful, you shall retain ownership in her, for it is my wish that you pronounce upon her the formula of divorcement. Yet if you bear yourself well, I will give you sixteen others from the spoils, with faces like full moons. How are you named?”

“Sir Harold Shea.”

“Sir Harr al-Sheikh. Hear a wonder: he bears both Nazarene and Muslim titles! How became you a chieftain?”

“I inherited it,” said Shea ambiguously. “You know, border family,” he added, remembering the Carenas. He felt easier as the grip on his arms relaxed. No, he decided looking around, there was no chance of getting the jump on the situation and releasing Belphegor. Too many of these guys had sharp-looking scimitars in their hands.

Lord Dardinell appeared to have lost interest in him. “Let the maiden be bound, but lightly, with silken cloths,” he ordered. “O Medoro, you shall take this new warrior into your troop and see him armed; and your courage shall be responsible for his.”

As the girl was led past, she looked toward Medoro instead of him, and Shea’s heart ached. At the street a number of horses were tied, one of which was held for him to mount. It was a damn shame that there was no chance of going back for one crack at that innkeeper, but that would have to wait until more important things were cleaned up.

Shea winced as he climbed into the saddle, for his crotch muscles were as hard as cables after the long centaur ride. But they soon loosened under the rugged massage of the high saddle, and Shea was able to go along with only nominal discomfort.

As the cavalcade set off through a hot sun that had already passed noon, it occurred to Shea that it would take something more than magic to make his wife try sleeping in a bed again after this.

Eleven

Tents were pitched in all directions with a maddening disregard of order. Over the whole brooded a smell suggesting that the sanitary arrangements were primitive. Muslims of every size and complexion wandered among the tents, though there was little about them to suggest that this was an army. In fact, it looked more like an imitation Oriental bazaar at a big fair. Little groups argued and haggled over bargains or just argued; men lay asleep, ignoring the flies that crawled over them; from somewhere came the banging that might mean a smith. As the cavalcade picked its way among the tents, the arguers stopped arguing and some of the sleepers sat up to watch.

They made audible and highly personal comments on Belphegor. Shea felt his own face burning and began to invent a long series of ingenious tortures for them. However, she held her head high, paying no attention as she was carried past sidesaddle on a led horse. She had not so much as spoken to Shea since their capture. He did not blame her, remembering how much his fault it had been for not being careful about that scoundrelly innkeeper and for failing to interpret the dwarf’s warning aright. It was certainly a poor payoff for the way she had got him out of a jam to dump her into one like this. Still, the question was . . .

Medoro touched his arm: “We ride this way,” and led off to the left, followed by three or four of the group. Presently they arrived before a large striped tent, before which stood a pole from which hung what looked like the tail of a horse. Medoro dismounted and flung open the flap. “Will you enter, O Harr?”

Inside it was at least cooler than on the road. Medoro motioned toward a pile of carpets near the cloth partition that divided this outer room from another, and sat down cross-legged on another pile adjoining. As far as Shea, no expert on Oriental ruggery, could judge, they were very expensive specimens. The young man clapped his hands, and then said to the straggly-bearded servitor who appeared from within: “Bring bread and salt. Also sherbets.”

“To hear is to obey,” said the man, and ducked out. Medoro stared moodily at the carpet in front of him for a minute, then said: “Will you have a barber? For I perceive that you follow the Frankish custom of shaving the face, even as I myself, and are long from the pleasure of this cleanliness.”

“It might be a good idea,” said Shea, feeling his rasplike chin. “Say, tell me, what are they going to do with her?”

“It is written that the tree of friendship may grow only beside the fountain of security,” said Medoro, and lapsed into silence again until the servitor returned, followed by two more. The first carried a ewer of water and an empty basin. As Medoro extended his hands over the latter, the servitor poured water on them and then produced a towel. Then he performed the same service for Shea, who was glad to get off a little of the grime.

The second man had a tray on which stood something that looked like a flannel waffle, with a little dish of salt. Medoro broke off a piece of the waffle, sprinkled a pinch of salt on it, and thrust it toward Shea’s face. The latter reached for it, but Medoro skillfully avoided his fingers and poked the morsel closer. Shea inferred that he was supposed to open his mouth; when he did so Medoro popped the object in and waited expectantly. It tasted fierce. As something more seemed to be expected, Shea in his turn broke off a piece of the flannel waffle, salted it, and returned the favor. The servitor disappeared. Medoro picked up his bowl of sherbet and sighed heartily.

“In the name of Allah, the Almighty, the gracious,” he said, “we have partaken of bread and salt together and have no harm towards each other. I have written a poem on that theme; would it broaden your bosom to hear it?”

The poem was long and, as far as Shea was concerned, did not make much sense. Medoro accompanied himself on a goose-necked lute he picked up from behind the rugs, caterwauling his refrain in a series of minors. Shea sat, sipping his sherbet (which turned out to be merely fresh orange juice) and waiting. In the midst of one of the refrains there came a squalling of many voices outside. Medoro flung down his lute, seized up one of the smaller rugs, and rushed outside for the afternoon prayer.

When he returned he flopped down on the rugs again. “O Harr, verily you sheikhs of the Franks know no more of the spirit of life in Allah, whose Prophet is the True and Indubitable, than a pig knows of the nuts whereon it feeds. Yet you shall now tell me nothing less than the truth: are you indeed an approved warrior?”

Shea thought that one over for a moment. “How the hell do I know?” he said finally. “I’ve done a little fighting when I had to, but I’ve never been in a regular formal battle, if that’s what you mean.”

“Aye. On bread and salt I cannot conceal it; I am myself as a stick in the sand. None dare love me but for my verses alone; yet I am of great family, and nothing less than the tradition of might will serve.”

He picked up the lute again and struck a few melancholy chords. “May I be forgiven,” he said languidly, “and let it not be borne overlong against me on the Day of Days. The Lord Dardinell said nothing less than that you were to be armed. Are you one of those Franks who will strike with the lance?” He brightened momentarily. “I have composed a poem on the subject of blood. Would your soul be soothed to hear it?”

“In a while, maybe,” said Shea. “Don’t you think we ought to get this arming business over with first, chum? Lord Dardinell with be coming around on a tour of inspection, and I don’t think it would look good.”

“Ah, Allah, deliver me from this life whose weight is irksome to me!” said Medoro, and without appearing to exert himself threw the lute across the tent, so that Shea heard it crack against some solid obstruction on the far side. Medoro, after a moment of silence, clapped his hands and ordered the thin-bearded servitor: “Summon my armorer.”