Here There Be Dragonnes (24 page)

"One's as warm as the other, and there's only one thing wanting to make it perfect," and he winked at the ceiling, but did not elaborate. "Tell you what, Thingumajig: I reckon we've cat-fallen on our feet here, and no mistake! My nose tells me dinner's on the way, and did you see Milady? Have you ever seen anyone more beautiful?"

"No," I said truthfully, for though our Mistress had been more lovely still in some of her Shape-Changes, that had been magic and not painted prettiness like the Lady Adiora. "Conn . . ."

"Mmmm?"

"Did you notice anything—odd—downstairs? I mean a sort of feeling, a strangeness in the air, a sort of—well, unhappiness?"

"Not a thing, Thingy, not a thing!" He leant up on his elbow. "Was that why you came over all unnecessary?"

I nodded. "I just—felt something. Queer. Nasty . . ."

He leant back again, obviously bored with my imaginings. "Well, there's nothing nasty here, I assure you. Just good living, a beautiful lady, and—"

"And" was a servant, attired in the castle blue and yellow, scratching at the door with a flagon of wine and a Roman glass, green and fragile. One glass.

Conn filled and raised it. "Here's to adventure, Thingy: may all quests be as promising! Oh, look here, the servant must not have been told you were with me . . . A sip from mine: come now, no need to sulk!"

I wasn't sulking, far from it, but I suppose it must have looked that way. Obediently I sipped from the other side of the goblet: it was sweet and heady. I watched Conn help himself to another glass.

"You haven't eaten yet."

"No hurry, no hurry!"

But by the time other servants brought hot water and cloths and filled the tub in the corner, I had practically to undress him. A lot of water went on the floor while he splashed and sang, a mournful ditty of great emotion and little tune, and I had to help him into the clean linen, hose and embroidered surcoat that the Lady Adiora had thoughtfully provided, both to please her eye and put him more firmly in her debt, I had no doubt.

He spoilt the whole effect by falling asleep, fully clothed, on top of the bed, waking up crumpled and cross when a great dinner-gong sounded below some half-hour later. I had taken advantage of his unconsciousness to use the cooling water for a bath myself, and felt immensely better and enormously hungry when he woke, and trotted down to the hall quite happily at his heels, telling myself that my earlier unease was merely engendered by fatigue, an empty stomach and an overactive imagination.

This time there was noise enough to drown any half-imagined sounds from beneath my feet and food enough to ease the stomach-cramps—which strangely enough had re-occurred quite sharply since we came to the castle—and entertainment to feast the eye as well. Though I was seated well below the salt I had a good view of Conn and the Lady Adiora. She had him on her right hand, Sir Egerton on her left, and I could see they were all enjoying themselves. The food was excellent—there was even the venison Conn had craved—and I stuffed myself on pig and truffles and roast duck till I had no room left for the other dozen or so dishes. So I relaxed, pleasantly full of rich food, and listened to the conversation on either side.

My companions were inferior servants of the other gentlemen who attended the feast—there were no ladies save our hostess—and, although they ignored me except for a nod of courtesy and a look of disdain at my shabby wear, they chattered quite freely amongst themselves, and once I had done pigging I listened more carefully. What I heard disturbed me. There were six knights in attendance on the top table, four of whom were staying at the castle, the other two neighbours. They were all well attired, handsome, and of an age or younger than Conn, but once I realized what their servants were saying I observed them more closely.

The conversation I overheard went something like this:

Servant One: "Yours doesn't look too chuffed . . ."

Servant Two: "Yours neither." (Belch) "What do you expect? Stranger appears and knocks their noses together!"

Servant One: "Yours had had it anyway. Six weeks . . ."

Servant Two: "So what? Yours took longer, but look at his eyes! Doubt if he'll carry those saddle-bags round much longer."

Servant Three, from across the table, picking at his teeth: "What gets me is how she does it! Cool as the lake and twice as deep."

Servant Two: "Cool? By'r Lady,
she's
no more cool than this stew! Randiest whore I ever seen."

Servant Three: "Anyway, this one's no better than his stamina, and by the looks of him he's travelled hard already—"

Servant One: "Nothing to the road he has to ride!"

The others sniggered, then one of them glanced at me and winked his companions to silence, and after that I turned to their masters with more awareness. I saw pinched faces under the handsome exteriors: hollow eyes, nervous fingers crumbling unregarded bread, sidelong glances; tongues licking lips, but not of gravy; a hand too ready to stray to knife or dagger; damp palms, pallor, greed—and all directed to where Conn sat, blissfully ignorant, picking at a capon with idle fingers, his gaze always toward the sparkling Adiora, looking more beautiful than ever in a midnight-blue dress sewn with silver thread, her hair unbound save for a silver fillet round her brow. In spite of the look of bemused happiness on Conn's face, and the sight of his moustache once more elevated in eagerness, I felt uneasy: it seemed the lady's interest had antagonized just about everyone except Sir Egerton, who was dozing happily.

All at once I wanted to be back on the quest again together, in spite of my present ease and comfort; I wanted the sweet horsey smell of Snowy's flank to snuggle up to; I wanted Corby's caustic comments, Puddy's good sense, Moglet's soft fur, even Pisky's endless reminiscences, tangled as a nest of grass snakes . . . I wanted Conn back with us, dusty, irritable sometimes, gentle always—

Oh heavens! Hours ago I had promised to go back and report to the others, and by now they must be starving! Pretending I was still hungry I helped myself to a plate of the beef and oyster stew, then slipped away from the table unnoticed and found my way back to the stables. I expected the usual wails and moans about hunger and promises not kept, but they were remarkably quiet. It appeared Puddy had caught a couple of fat bluebottles and had shared shreds with Pisky, so it was only Moglet and Corby for stew. I thought of telling them about Conn's infatuation, about the strange sounds I thought I had heard, but decided it would be foolish: everything would probably be different in the morning, and after all we should be on our way again in a day or so. In the meanwhile, I was missing the promised entertainment at the feast, so after ten restless moments I announced I was going back inside.

Then in their eyes, all five pairs of them, I saw the knowledge of my neglect and guilt lent an angry and spiteful spark to my tongue.

"No reason why I shouldn't go and enjoy myself once in a while! Everyone but me seems to have fun, gets to eat at a table like the gentry, sometimes joins in pleasant conversation, exchanges gossip, has a change of company every now and again! Everyone but me, it seems, finds themselves among their own kind! And what have I got? The promise of a smelly stable and a load of helpless animals!" And, thoroughly frightened at my reaction, guilty at my outburst and lonely as hell without either my friends or Conn, I went back to the feast, to be faced by a thoroughly distasteful entertainment I would have done well to miss.

This consisted of "performances," if you could call them that, by dwarves, manikins, cripples and deformed animals. I found it very easy to imagine myself and the others in their place, and it seemed worse when I saw Conn, his flushed face and sparkling eyes telling only too well their story of too much food and wine, applaud and laugh as heartily as the rest at some poor creature with but one eye in the centre of its forehead and no arms, doing a wretchedly inept tumbling act which ended with it falling into the hearth and setting up a bewildered howl as its hair caught fire. I felt even sicker when they put an emaciated dog with only three legs into a sack with a giant rat: I did not wait for the outcome but ran out to the coolness of the courtyard and was sick on their nice, clean cobbles.

After that I was too ashamed to return either to the others or the feast, so crept away to the shadows of a side-stair and up to our chamber, and there lay down by the fire and sniffled myself to sleep.

I must have slept heavily, for when I awoke the bed in the shadows was already occupied. Still feeling slightly sick and with a nasty taste in my mouth, I blinked sleepily at the fire, which someone had replenished for it was now leaping and dancing like those wretched creatures downstairs, throwing shadows crooked enough to give one the frights. And it was not only the flames that made the shadows caper on the wall, for somehow there was a different shadow-play from the bed. The firelight shone ruddily on Conn's red hair, his eyes, shining bright, and over his thin, white body. But not only Conn: the Lady Adiora hung over him, and her hands and legs and teeth were busy on him, holding, twisting, biting, clutching, pulling, tearing until I heard him groan as if in pain and jumped to my feet despite my thumping head and scuttled over to the bedside.

"Stop it!" I cried shrilly to the lady, who was clad only in her golden hair. "You're hurting him!" And I drew my dagger, prepared to drive her away by force, for he now lay gasping as in a fever, with her sitting across his loins and raking his chest with her pointed fingernails till the blood darkened his skin like sloe-juice on a pigeon's breast. But he only gazed at me with unseeing eyes and groaned the more and she leant across and struck me on the cheek.

"Don't you dare interfere, you dirty little hunchie! You're—you're no better than those others in the dungeons: you should never have been allowed inside! Now, get out! Out, I say, or it will be the worse for you!" And she spat at me so hard that the gobbet stuck to my mask and I had to wipe it away with the back of my hand.

Slowly I sheathed my dagger and looked again at Conn, whose eyes and hands were on the lady's breasts.

"Er . . . it doesn't understand, my beautiful." He turned for a moment to give me an apologetic smile. "Do as she says, there's a good, er . . . Thingummy."

"And don't come back!" she hissed.

"But—but she's hurting you!" I faltered, but at that they both gave such a snigger that I started back, and then suddenly knew what they were doing.

I understood all at once about our Mistress and her Shape-Changes and the sticky head of Broom; about the swineherd who had threatened me with that great thing sticking out in front; all about what it meant to be a female; most of all what the parts of Conn's body were for, and hers—and mine, and it was as if someone had flung me naked from the warm into a bank of snow, so that I gasped with shock and disbelief and ran to the curtained doorway and fought my way through the thick folds and stumbled tear-blinded down the steep stairs, my shadow running hunched before me from the flaming cressets in the wall, until I fell down the last few steps to lie, stunned, on the patterned marble mosaic of the empty hall.

It was the cold that brought me to: I suppose I must have lain there no more than a few minutes, yet in that time it seemed everything had changed. The oil lamps still guttered in their chains, the dampened fire still stuttered and lisped in the fireplace, but the air was filled with an echo like a great gong and the mosaic beneath me sweated with fear. I managed to raise myself to my hands and knees, and from where I crouched I could see the glazed eye of the great stag, running away from me, hear the beat of his terrified heart, the thud of his hooves, the harsh rasp of his breathing and wiped a fleck of bloodstained foam from my hand. And then I was running with him, crashing heedless through the undergrowth, careless of stinging bramble and whipping branch, and the ground sprang away from beneath my feet and the knot of fear in my stomach grew into a physical pain that made me cry out, but still the pursuers came on and at last I turned to face them and an arrow hissed through the singing air and thudded into my breast and I was bleeding, dying, dead—

"Come back, come away, dear one!" All at once I heard my friends calling me, and with a great effort I dragged myself back to reality, staggered to my feet and hunched my way to the great oaken doors that led to the courtyard, struggled with bolts and latches strangely heavy and stiff, flung myself through the gap that offered and stumbled down the shallow steps and across the cobbled yard to the safety of the stable, where Snowy took my arms around his neck, Moglet caressed my ankles, Corby brushed his sound wing across my face, Puddy hummed gently and Pisky sang me a bubbly song.

"I'm sorry, so sorry!" I sobbed. "And so afraid!"

"We know," whispered Snowy, "but you are safe now . . ." and he let me cry out my tears and remorse and wipe my eyes on his silky mane. When I was comforted enough they asked me what had happened, and first I told them about Conn and the lady and then of the fear and sorrow that I had experienced in the hall.

They listened attentively, but it was Corby who summed up our problem, in his own inimitable way.

"So he's temporarily not one of us," he said slowly. "And there's something nasty under the floorboards . . ."

After a good night's sleep we went over it all again, and I had to endure once more my memories of Conn and the lady, but my friends instinctively made it easy for me, and once again it was Corby's good sense that made it bearable.

"Time you grew up anyway, Thing dear, and my guess is that it was only a thing of the flesh and nothing to worry about in the long run. Sometimes with humans, I understand, it is a bit like eating: wasn't it the Rusty Knight himself that said he was tired of plain fare and craved venison? Fair enough, but a diet of venison day and night will make you liverish, and before long you're back to bread and cheese and ale, the stuff that keeps you going most of your life.