The Dragon and the George (19 page)

He looked at her in surprise.

"This is none of my concern, as I said," he answered. "How is it you're making a comparison between this and what I would do for you, in your own case?"

"Sir Brian needs help! Does Sir James hang back and say it's none of his concern? He does not! I wondered about your courage with all those fine speeches you've been making. I see I was right to wonder!"

Dafydd frowned.

"Ah," he said, "you mustn't go making talk like that. My courage is as good as any man's—and, in fact, I think better."

"Oh?"

He stared at her with a sort of slow wonder.

"You will be pushing me into this, now?" he said. "Indeed, I see you will."

He turned to Brian.

"What I said was no less than the truth," he told the knight. "It is nothing to me, one way or the other, about this Sir Hugh of yours. Nor am I some knight-errant, look you, to go rescuing maidens. That is for those of you who are liking such things. But for this particular maiden with us now, and no other, you may count on me, too, for what I can do to aid."

"Good man—!" Brian was beginning, when Aragh interrupted.

"You've got visitors, Sir knight. Turn and look."

Brian turned. They all turned.

Emerging from the trees opposite the inn were the first of a number of men, all in steel caps, brown, green or russet hose, and leather jackets with metal plates fastened thickly upon them, wearing swords at their belts and with longbows and quivers of arrows slung from their shoulders.

"It's all right, Sir Brian," said Danielle. "It's just Giles o' the Wold, my father."

"Your father?" Brian turned back swiftly to dart a suspicious glance at her.

"Certainly!" Danielle explained. "I knew you'd need help, so I asked one of Dick Innkeeper's sons to ride secretly last night on one of his father's horses to summon him. I said to tell him you'd be glad to split whatever wealth was to be gained from Sir Hugh de Bois and his men in retaking the castle."

Brian stared at her for a second longer, then turned back to look at the newcomers, who were already halfway across the open ground to the inn. Slowly he got to his feet. Dafydd rose also, casually, his hand on his quiver. Jim found himself getting to his feet as well, and Dick Innkeeper materialized in the inn door, stepping out to join them. Only Aragh stayed seated, his jaws laughing.

The man in the lead was a lean individual who looked to be in his fifties. The ends of hair seen escaping from under his steel cap were iron gray, and his short, curly, jutting beard was pepper-and-salt in color. Beyond his air of authority, he seemed little different from the men behind him, except that the weapon at his belt was not the short sword the others wore, but rather a longer, two-handed weapon like Sir Brian's.

He came up to the ditch girdling the inn, crossed its bridge and stopped before the knight.

"I'm Giles o' the Wold," he said. "And these are my free brothers and companions of the forest. I take it you're Sir Brian Neville-Smythe?"

"I am," Brian answered, stiffly. "Master outlaw, I wasn't the one who invited you here."

"I'm aware of that," said Giles. Above his beard, his face was tanned to almost the color of old leather and the skin had gone into small, shrewd wrinkles. "My daughter sent for me—"

He glanced past Brian for a moment.

"I'll talk to you later, girl," he said. "Now, Sir knight, what matters who sent for me? If you need assistance, here am I and my men, and the price of our aid's not so high as to be beyond reason. Shall we sit like reasonable men and discuss it, or should my lads and I turn around again and go?"

Brian hesitated a second—but only a second.

"Dick," he said, turning to the innkeeper. "Bring another jack for Giles o' the Wold; and see what his companions will have."

"Ale," answered Dick, in a somewhat grim voice, "is all I have in such quantity."

"Ale, then," said Brian, impatiently. "Bring it!"

He sat back down at the table. Giles took the other end of the bench that Dafydd had been sitting on.

Giles looked curiously at Aragh, and then at Jim.

"The wolf I know—by reputation, if nothing else," he said. "The dragon—My daughter's message said you were a knight under enchantment?"

"This is the good Sir James," Brian explained. "The bowman next to you is Dafydd ap—What's that family name of yours, Master archer?"

"Hywel," said Dafydd, pronouncing it with a lilt that Jim knew his own tongue certainly could not have managed. "I am in England to teach the English that the longbow, as well as the true blood of they that best use it, are from Wales alone; and it is also that I am going to marry your daughter, Master Giles."

"He is not!" cried Danielle.

Giles's bearded face parted in a smile.

"If you ever get her permission," he said to Dafydd, "come talk to me about it. You might have to concern yourself not only with my feelings in the matter, but the intentions of some score or so younger members of my band."

"You've a clerkly way of talking, Master outlaw," said Brian as Dick came out with bottles and another jack for Giles, followed by his two men servants rolling a cask through the door into the yard.

"Use your caps," they could hear him directing the outlaws who came clustering around. "I've no store of jacks for such a number as this."

"I've been that, too," Giles answered Brian, carelessly. He took off his own steel cap and tossed it on the table, filled his jack from one of the bottles and drank deeply. His sparse hair stirred a bit in the light breeze that was blowing. "Now, Sir knights, Friend Welshman and Master wolf, I've heard some little about you all—"

His glance touched for a second on the unusual length of the longbow leaning against the table at Dafydd's side.

"—But to save time, perhaps it's best you tell me from the beginning all that bears on the matter here, including that about each of you."

They told him—Jim starting off, Brian taking up the story after he had met Jim, Aragh carrying the tale on from the defeat of the sandmirks, and Danielle, Dafydd and the innkeeper putting in their own reports. Giles drank and listened.

"Well, gentles and others," he said, when they were done. "Maybe I've brought my lads here on a fool's errand after all. My daughter's message gave me to believe you'd a chance to take this castle that only needed a few more stout fighters to secure. But a mixed bag you are—I mean no offense by that—and I know Malvern Castle, which is not a cattle shed to be taken by a rush and a few blows. My lads are fine bowmen, and swordsmen if need be, but no men-at-arms. My pardon to all, but how in hell did you think you might take half an acre of stone walls from perhaps fifty men in no less than half-armor and used to such defense?"

Brian scowled.

"I know Malvern Castle inside out," he said. "Fifty men scattered about it won't be more than two at a time in any one place. Here are three of us, at least—four if the wolf had joined us—who are each more than a match for any two of them in any place, at any time."

"I'll not deny that," said Giles. "But you'd need to be in the castle itself to match them. So, to take first things first, what magic had you planned to use to get into the castle?"

"Malvern will have food stored for siege," said Brian. "But that has to be dull stuff. There's better provender here. Sir Hugh tried to take this inn and failed—I don't doubt he knew there were choice wine and meats here. It was my thought that I could disguise myself as Dick Innkeeper, driving a wagonload of choice food as a peace offering to the new commander of Malvern. The wolf would ride along in the wagon as a dog of the inn, to snarl at any of the common sort that might be tempted to filch the dainties it carried before they reached Sir Hugh. Then, once within, and hopefully in the presence of Sir Hugh himself, he and I would kill the baron, and strive to reach my lady's quarters, where she will be held prisoner—"

"Why?" asked Giles.

"Why what, Master outlaw?"

"Why do you think the Lady Geronde will be locked in her own quarters?"

"Because," said Brian, with obviously hard-held patience, "Sir Hugh would waste no time in taking over the lord's chambers; and there'd be no place else but my lady's room below the solar, to keep anyone like her prisoner in good health and safety. Strong men have been known to last little more than a few days in dungeons, of which Malvern has two, and none of the nicest. Anyplace else in the castle my lady could not be guarded from her own people, who might help her to escape, or to attempt such an escape that death would put her beyond her captors' power. Nor could she be safely guarded elsewhere from Sir Hugh's own men, some of whom at least—as you'd know, Master outlaw, having lived long enough to have a knowledge of men-at-arms—will be no more able than brute beasts to think of the consequences for what they do, when drink is in them."

"Granted," Giles acknowledged. "Go on, Sir Brian. You've slain Sir Hugh and guards and broken into the lady's room. Now what?"

"Now, the good Sir James, who has been on wing and waiting, sees our signal from the balcony of my lady's chamber. He swoops down and carries her away to safety and to rouse a force from the countryside, to retake the castle. Nothing is left but for the wolf and me to escape, ourselves—if God wills it."

"God?" snarled Aragh, abruptly. "Your god, knight, not mine! If anyone saves Aragh, it'll be me. When I was half grown and a full-grown sow bear broke my right foreleg, so that in no way could I run, was it the god of humans who saved me? No, it was I—Aragh! I stood, and fought and got my teeth through the fur and loose skin to the great vein in her throat, so that she died and I lived. That's the way it's always been for an English wolf—the way it will always be. Keep your god if you wish, Sir knight, but keep him to yourself!"

He paused, licked his jaws with one flick of his red tongue and yawned elaborately.

"But I forget," he said. "I'd already told you this business of your lady and the castle has nothing to do with me."

"So. Then what of your plan, Sir Brian?" said Giles.

Brian scowled.

"Master outlaw, I'll remind you once more—it wasn't I who invited you here. Here, we're trying to decide what force is needed for a rescue, but how to do it with what we've got. If we lack the wolf, we lack him, that's all."

"How… ?" Giles began. "No, with all respect, Sir Brian, I think this trip of mine has been—"

"Wait a moment, Father!" said Danielle. "
I
was the one sent for you."

She turned and looked directly at Aragh. Aragh opened his jaws in silent laughter.

"This is Aragh!" he growled. "Did you think I was another lovesick bowman?"

"No…" Danielle replied, "I thought you were Aragh, my wolf-friend, who'd never betray me, any more than I'd betray Aragh. When I sent for my father and his men, it never crossed my mind that Aragh would abandon his friends, such as Sir James and myself. But, since he has—"

She turned back to the table.

"I may not be a match for any two men-at-arms, except with bow and from a safe distance," she said. "But I can be even more useful than a wolf for attracting attention away from Sir Brian, and with the help of surprise I could even aid in killing Sir Hugh and freeing Geronde. Once that's done, of course, I may not be so likely to fight my way to freedom, but I have an advantage over Aragh—like Sir Brian, I can leave my rescue to God."

"Girl—"

"Hush, Father! I'm my own mistress, now. So. Sir James—Sir Brian—count me with you in your attempt on the castle."

She looked back at Aragh.

"And you may sleep in the sun!" she snapped.

Aragh opened his jaws, licked them again and closed them. Then he did a thing that astonished Jim: he whined.

"No, you don't!" Danielle said, fiercely. "You had your chance. Now I'm going into that castle, and you're not going to have anything to do with it!"

Aragh's head dropped. It lowered and lowered until his nose almost touched the ground. He all but crept toward Danielle and pushed his head against her knees.

For a moment she merely glared at him. Then she sat down with a thump and put her arms around his furry neck and hugged his head to her.

"It's all right… it's all right," she said.

"I wouldn't have let Gorbash get hurt, either," growled Aragh, in muffled tones into the padding of her doublet. "I was just going to wait until time to go. What good am I if I can't kill for my friends?"

"Never mind." She rubbed behind his ears. "It's all's straight, now."

"I'll even get this knight out safely, afterwards."

"I know you will," said Danielle. "But maybe you won't have to."

She looked up from where she sat to her father.

"Now that Giles o' the Wold knows he'll have three strong allies inside the castle, maybe he can consider making use of himself and his men after all to take the castle?"

"Daughter," said Giles, "you stay clear of the whole affair."

"That's right," Aragh insisted, pulling his head out of her embrace. "
I
go. You don't, Danielle!"

"All right," she replied. "I won't go into the castle. Anything I can do outside, I'll do. Father… ?"

Giles refilled his jack and drank thoughtfully.

"My lads and I are no good unless we can get inside, too," he said. "If there was some way you could open the gate for us…"

"If it's to be a taking of the castle," said Brian, "I can then barricade my lady and myself in her quarters. Sir James, instead of carrying her off, can land somewhere within the walls and attract attention, during which the wolf can slip down, slay the guards and open the gate—"

He turned to Aragh.

"There's a rope hoist to the right side of the gate, within," he said, "by which one man may lift the bar. With your teeth in that rope, it should lift easily. Then throw your weight on the right-hand gate door—note, Master wolf, the
right-hand
door, not the left—and you should be able to swing it out enough for the archers to get in."