Two
Chalmers spoke first. “Astounding! I should have thought the passage more difficult.”
“Uh-huh.” Shea looked around, sniffing the air with his head up. “Looks like a plain forest to me. Not as cold as the last one, thank God.”
“I . . . I suppose so. Though I’m sure I don’t know what type of tree that is.”
“I’d say some kind of eucalyptus,” replied Shea. “That would mean a warm, dry climate. But look where the sun is. That means late afternoon, so we better get started.”
“Dear me, I suppose so. Which direction would you suggest?”
“Dunno, but I can find out.” Shea dropped his rucksack and swarmed up the nearest tree. He called down: “Can’t see much. No, wait, there’s a slope off that direction.” He waved an arm, almost lost his footing, and slid down again in a small torrent of bark and leaves.
They started toward the slope in the hope that it represented a river valley, where they could expect to find human habitations. After half a mile a scraping sound halted them wordlessly. They crept forward, peering. A tall, spotted buck was rubbing its horns against a tree. It flung up its head as it heard them, gave a sneezelike snort, and leaped gracefully away.
Shea said: “If he’s just getting rid of his velvet, it ought to be late summer or early fall.”
“I wasn’t aware you were so much of a woodsman, Harold.”
“What the hell, Doc . . . Doctor, I’ve been having practice. What’s that?”
Something far off had gone, “Ow-ooh.” A sort of musical grunt, as though somebody had casually scraped the C-string of a cello.
Chalmers fingered his chin. “It sounds remarkably like a lion. I trust we need not expect to encounter lions in this country.”
The noise came again, louder. “Don’t bet on it, Doctor,” said Shea. “If you remember your Spenser, there were plenty of lions around; also camels, bears, wolves, leopards, and aurochs, as well as human faunlike giants and Saracens. Not to mention that Blatant Beast, which had the worst qualities of all and slandered people besides. What worries me is whether lions can climb trees.”
“Merciful heavens! I don’t know about lions, but I’m afraid I shouldn’t be equal to much climbing. Let’s hurry.”
They strode on through the wood of open glades with little underbrush and no recognizable paths. A little breeze came up to make the leaves whisper overhead. The coughing roar of the lion came again, and Shea and Chalmers, without realizing, stepped up their pace to a trot. They glanced at each other and slowed down again.
Chalmers puffed: “It’s good for a man of my age to have a little . . . uh . . . exercise like this.”
Shea grinned with one side of his mouth. They came out onto the edge of a meadow that stretched a couple of hundred yards downhill. At the bottom of the valley, more trees evidently concealed a stream. Shea scrambled up another tree for a look. Beyond the stream and its wide, shallow vale stood a castle, small in the distance and yellow in the low sun, with pennants writhing lazily from its turrets. He called down the news.
“Can you make out the devices on any of the pennants?” Chalmers answered. “I was . . . I am . . . not altogether inexpert in matters of heraldry. It might be wise to learn something of the character of the institution.”
“Not a damn thing,” said Shea, and swung himself down. “Air’s too quiet and she’s too far away. Anyhow, I’d rather take a chance on the castle than on being part of a lion’s breakfast. Let’s go.”
###
In the tone of an announcer offering the express for East Chicago, Laporte, and South Bend on Track 18, a voice cried at them: “Who would enter Castle Caultrock?”
There was nobody in sight, but the travelers’ eyes caught a flash of metal on one of the projecting balconies where the drawbridge chains entered the wall. Shea shouted back the rehearsed answer: “Travelers, to wit, Harold Shea, gentleman and squire, and Reed Chalmers, palmer!” Wonder what they’d say about the “gentleman,” thought Shea, if they knew my father was head bookkeeper of a meat-packing concern?
The answer floated back: “This is a castle of deeds and ladies. The holy palmer may enter in the name of God, but no gentleman unless he be accompanied by his fair dame, for such is the custom of this place.”
Shea and Chalmers looked at each other. The latter was smiling happily. “Perfect selectivity!” he murmured. “This is exactly right; right at the beginning of Spenser’s fourth book—” His voice trailed off and his face fell. “I don’t quite know what to do about your being left out—”
“Go ahead in. I’ve slept in the open before.”
“But—” Just then a movable section in the bars of the portcullis creaked outward, and a man in armor stumbled through, apparently pushed from behind. There was a shout of derisive laughter. A horse was squeezed through the opening behind. The man took the reins and came toward them. He was a small man with close-cropped hair. A scar intersected one corner of a mouth drawn into a doleful expression.
“Hi,” said Shea. “Did they throw you out?”
“I hight Hardimour. Aye; it is even the hour of vespers, and being ladyless I am put forth from the fair entertainment within.” He smiled wryly. “And what hight you? Nay, tell me not now; for I see my dinner and bed approach, mounted on the back of a jennet.”
The travelers turned to follow Hardimour’s eyes behind them. Across the even meadow came a pair of horses, bearing an armored knight and his lady. The latter rode sidesaddle, clad in rich garments of a trailing, impractical kind.
The little knight vaulted to his saddle with a lightness that was surprising, considering the weight of his hardware. He shouted, “Defend yourself, knight, or yield me your lady!” and snapped down his visor with a clang.
The smaller horse, with the woman, swung to one side. Shea gave a low whistle as he got a look at her: a slim, pale girl, with features as perfect as a cameo, and delicately rounded eyebrows. The other rider, without a word, whipped a cloth covering from his shield, revealing a black field on which broken spear points were picked out with silver. He swung a big black lance into position.
Heads appeared along the battlements of the castle. Shea felt Chalmers pluck at his sleeve. “That Sir Hardimour is in for trouble,” said the older psychologist. “Sable, semé of broken spears is the bearing of Britomart.”
Shea was watching the knights, who had spurred their horses to a heavy gallop. Wham! went lances against shields, and there were sparks in the fading light. The head of the little knight from the castle went back, his feet came up, and he turned a somersault through the air. He landed on his head with the sound of thirty feet of chain being dropped on a manhole cover.
The stranger knight reined in and brought his horse back at a walk. Shea, followed by Chalmers, ran to where Sir Hardimour sprawled. The little knight seemed to be out cold. As Shea fumbled with unfamiliar fingers at his helmet fastenings, he sat up groggily and helped get it off. He drew in a long breath.
“By’r Lady,” he remarked with a rueful grin, “I have stood before Blandamour of the Iron Arm, but that was as rude a dint as ever I took.” He looked up as the knight who had overthrown him approached. “It seems I was too ambitious. To whom do I owe the pleasure of a night with the crickets?”
The other pulled up his visor to reveal a fresh young face. “Certes,” he said in a light, high-pitched voice, “you are a very gentle person, young sir, and shall not spend a night with the crickets and bugbears if I can help it. Ho, warder!”
The castle guard’s head came through the gate in the portcullis. “Your worship,” he said.
“Have I fairly gained admittance to Castle Caultrock as the knight of this lady?”
“That is most true.”
The knight of the shivered spears on their field of black put both hands up to his own helmet and lifted it off. A sunburst of golden hair burst forth and flowed down to his—her—waist. Behind him Shea heard Chalmers chuckle, “I told you it was Britomart.” He remembered that Britomart was the warrior girl who could beat most of the men in the Faerie Queene.
She was speaking: “Then I declare I am the lady of this good knight who has been overthrown, and since he has a lady he may enter.”
The warder looked worried and scratched his chin. “The point is certainly very delicate. If you are her knight—and yet his lady—how can she be your lady and he your knight? Marry I warrant me this is a case Sir Artegall himself could not unravel. Enter, all three!”
Shea spoke up: “Beg pardon, miss, but I wonder if I could arrange to go in as your friend’s man?”
“That you may not, sir,” she replied haughtily. “She shall be no man’s lady till I restore her to her husband; for this is that Lady Amoret who was foully stolen from her spouse’s arms by Busyrane, the enchanter. If you wish to be her knight, you must even try Sir Hardimour’s fate against me.”
“Hm-m-m,” said Shea. “But you’re going in as Sir Hardimour’s lady?” They nodded. He turned to the latter. “If I had a horse and all the fixings, Sir Knight, I’d fight you for the privilege of being Miss Britomart’s man. But as it is I’ll challenge you to a round on foot with swords and without armor.”
Hardimour’s scarred face registered an astonishment that changed to something like pleasure. “Now, that is a strange sort of challenge—” he began.
“Yet not unheard of,” interrupted the statuesque Britomart. “I mind me that Sir Artegall fought thus against three brothers at the Ford of Thrack.”
Chalmers was plucking at Shea’s sleeve again. “Harold, I consider it most unwise—”
“Shh! I know what I’m doing. Well, Sir Knight, how about it?”
“Done.” Sir Hardimour unbuckled himself from his chrysalis of steel. He stepped forward, his feet feeling uncertainly on the smooth grass which he was used to crossing in metal shoes.
Hardimour stamped and swung his sword a couple of times in both hands. He shifted it to one and moved toward Shea. Shea waited quietly, balancing the épée. Hardimour made a couple of tentative cuts at Shea, who parried easily. Then, feeling surer of his footing, Hardimour stepped forward nimbly, swinging his sword up for a real clash. Shea straightened his arm and lunged, aiming for Hardimour’s exposed forearm. He missed, and jumped back before the knight’s sword came down, gleaming red in the setting sun.
As the blade descended, Shea flipped it aside with a parry in carte, being careful not to let the heavy blade meet his thin épée squarely. Hardimour tried again, a forehand cut at Shea’s head. Shea ducked under it and pricked Hardimour’s arm before he could recover. Shea heard Chalmers’ quick intake of breath and an encouraging word from Britomart, “Bravely done, oh, bravely!”
Hardimour came on again, swinging. Shea parried, lunged, missed again, but held his lunge and drilled the knight’s arm properly with a remise. The slim steel needle went through the muscles like butter. Britomart clapped her hands.
Shea withdrew his blade and recovered, keeping the épée flickering between them. “Had enough?” he asked.
“By God’s wounds, no!” gritted Hardimour. The sleeve of his shirt was turning dark red, and he was sweating, but he looked thoroughly grim. He swung the sword up in both hands, wincing slightly. The épée flickered out and ripped his now-dripping shirt-sleeve. He checked, and held his sword out in front of him, trying to imitate Shea’s fencing position. Shea tapped it ringingly a couple of times, gathered it up in a bind in octave, and lunged. Hardimour saved himself by stumbling backward. Shea followed him. Flick, flick, flick went the thin blade, Hardimour’s eyes following it in fearful fascination. He tried to parry the repeated thrust, but could no longer control his big blade. Shea forced him back zigzag, got him into the position he wanted, feinted, and lunged. He stopped his point just as it touched the smaller man’s chest. Hardimour put a foot back, but found no support. His arms went up, his sword whirling over and over, till it went plunk into the moat. Sir Hardimour followed it with a great splash.
When he came up with a green water plant plastered on his forehead, Shea was kneeling at the edge.
Hardimour cried: “Glup . . . pffth . . . ugh! . . . help! I can’t swim!”
Shea extended Chalmers’ staff. Hardimour caught it and pulled himself up. As he scrambled to his feet, he found that villainous épée blade flickering in his face.
“Give up?” demanded Shea.
Hardimour blinked, coughed up some more water, and sank to his knees. “I cry craven,” he said grudgingly. Then: “Curse it! In another bout I’ll beat you, Master Harold!”
“But I won this one,” said Shea. “After all, I didn’t want to sleep with the crickets, either.”
“Right glad am I that you shall not,” said Hardimour honestly, feeling of his arm. “What galls me is that twice I’ve been put to shame before all these noble lords and ladies of Castle Caultrock. And after all, I must stay without.”
Chalmers spoke up. “Hasn’t the castle some rule about admitting persons in distress?”
“I bethink me this is even the case. Sick or wounded knights may enter till they are well.”
“Well,” said Shea, “that arm won’t be well for a couple of months.”
“Perhaps you caught a cold from your ducking,” advised Chalmers.
“I thank you, reverend palmer. Perhaps I did.” Hardimour sneezed experimentally.
“Put more feeling into it,” said Shea.
Hardimour did so, adding a racking cough. “Ah me, I burn with ague!” he cried, winking. “Good people of the castle, throw me at least a cloak to wrap myself in, ere I perish! Oooo-ah!” He sank realistically to the ground. They got him up, and supported him, staggering, across the drawbridge. Britomart and Amoret followed, the former leading the three horses. This time the warder made no objection.