The Dragon and the George (17 page)

"Not likely," said Brian. "Sir Hugh's not fool enough to waste any more men than he has already, even to take an inn as valuable as this one."

It was unfortunate—also involuntary—but at the word "valuable" Jim felt again that sensation that had kindled in him back at the dragon cave, when the word "gold" had been mentioned. Unfortunately, avarice seemed to be a built-in dragonly vice. He forced the reaction out of his mind. The innkeeper was still talking.

"…But what would you wish in food and drink, Sir Brian?" he was saying. "I've meats both fresh and salted, bread and fruits of the season . . . ale, beer and even French wines…"

Jim felt a new sensation kindle in him.

"And what can I give the dragon?" The innkeeper had turned to Jim. "I've no cattle, swine, or even goats. Perhaps, if the good beast—"

"Dick," said Brian, severely, "this gentleman is Sir James Eckert, Baron of Riveroak in a land beyond the seas. He's been ensorceled into this dragon shape you now see him in."

"Oh! Forgive me, Sir James!" Dick Innkeeper wrung his hands. Jim stared at him, fascinated, having never seen it done before. "How can I make amends for my stupidity? Twenty-three years keeper of this inn, and never before have I failed to know a gentleman when he stepped through my door. I—"

"That's all right," Jim said, awkwardly. "It's a natural mistake."

"No, no, Sir James!" said Dick, shaking his head. "You're kind; but one who keeps an inn doesn't make mistakes, natural or otherwise, or he doesn't stay long in business. But what, then, can I bring you to eat, Sir James? Will you dine on what I can supply the others? I know not what food is preferred in lands beyond the seas. True, my cellar is stocked with great variety—"

"Why don't I just take a look down there," said Jim. "You did mention… wine?"

"Indeed. Wine of Bordeaux, of Auvergne, of—"

"I think I'd like a little wine."

It was a massive understatement. The moment the innkeeper had mentioned the word "wine," Jim had experienced a glow inside him that very nearly equaled the feeling he had had at the mention of gold. In addition to their taste for treasure, it appeared, dragons had a fondness for wine.

"And I'll find something down in your cellar to eat," he said. "Don't bother about me."

"Then perhaps you'd come with me, Sir James," Dick offered, turning toward an interior doorway. "I think you can get through here all right? As for the entrance to the cellar, since we need to pass casks through it, it should be wide enough and the staircase stout enough to bear you…"

Talking, he led Jim through the doorway, down a passage that was narrow but adequate for Jim to pass, and into a large room that was obviously a kitchen. In the kitchen wall to their right a wide door stood open, with steps leading downward beyond it. Jim followed the innkeeper into the cellar.

The cellar, in fact, turned out to be worthy of the innkeeper's evident pride in it. Apparently it ran a full length of the inn building and was a storehouse of everything from what might be found in a medieval attic to what might be found in a medieval castle storehouse. Clothing, furniture, sacks of grain, bottles full and empty, casks of drinkables…

"Ah," said Jim.

…And toward the far end a forest of hooks in the heavy wood beams overhead supported heavy planks of smoked meats, including a small wilderness of good-sized hams.

"Yes," said Jim, stopping by the hams, "this should do me nicely. Where was that wine you were talking about?"

"All along the far wall, Sir James," said Dick, bustling about. "In the bottles—but perhaps you'd want to taste the wine I've got in casks, of which there's a greater assortment…"

He was rummaging on a dark shelf—the cellar was unlit except for the single torch he had carried down. Now, he came up with a large container of darkened leather, with a wooden handle fixed to it by metal straps. It looked as if it might hold perhaps three-quarters of a modern American gallon. He handed this to Jim.

"Why don't you try the various wines—the wines are at this end of the row, beer and ale at the other—while I take some meat and drink up to Sir Brian and the others? I'll be back shortly, to carry up what you choose."

"Don't bother," said Jim, craftily. "Actually, the furniture up there doesn't suit this dragon-body of mine too well. It's embarrassing trying to eat with other humans in their natural bodies. Why don't I just eat and drink down here?"

"Whatever you wish, Sir James."

Dick went off, considerately leaving the torch he had brought down in a holder near the wine casks.

Jim rubbed his forepaws together, looking around him…

Jim woke, under the vague impression that a conversation was going on somewhere in his vicinity. A pair of voices, both male, seemed to be talking in attempted hushed tones; but which, under the stress of emotion on the part of one voice or another, broke out occasionally to sound louder than its owner intended. Waking up a little more, but without opening his eyes, Jim identified one voice as Brian's, the other as that of the innkeeper.

Jim listened idly, only half paying attention to what he heard. He felt far too comfortable to concern himself about anything. For the first time since he had found himself in this body, his stomach was comfortably upholstered. He felt no further inclination to add to its contents, no matter what might be available within arm's reach. And the wine had been all that a dragon could have expected. Nor were there any noticeable aftereffects. Perhaps dragons did not get hangovers… ?

He was gradually drifting back to full consciousness as he lay there. His eyelids were bright with what must be additional torchlight—he remembered that the torch Dick had originally left had guttered out sometime before he was through eating and drinking; but his dragon-body was quite at home in the dark, and also by that time he knew the location of everything in the cellar which interested him. The two voices were now completely understandable, so that he found himself following the conversation in spite of himself, and despite the fact that the two were obviously trying not to disturb him.

"…But Sir Brian," the innkeeper was saying, forlornly, "hospitality is one thing; but—"

"The bowman may have saved you from that small pack of rascals," Brian answered, sternly, "but if Sir Hugh's to be driven off and you and your family live once more in full safety, it'll be Sir James here, as well as myself, who'll provide you with that peace. How will you answer my lady, once she's been put back in possession of her castle, when she hears that you begrudged one of her rescuers a little food and drink?"

"A little!" Jim could imagine Dick wringing his hands again. "Forty-six of the choicest hams! A quarter of a tun of Bordeaux and perhaps two dozen bottles of other wines! Three such meals by Sir James, Sir Brian, and you'll see me a ruined man!"

"Lower your voice!" Brian snapped. "Want to wake the good knight with your complaining and crying? For shame, Master innkeeper! I've been with Sir James since two days ago and he's not eaten until now. It may well be he won't need to eat again until the castle's recovered. But, in any case, I've told you I'd see you paid for any costs he puts you to."

"I know, Sir Brian. But an innkeeper can't merely put your pledge instead of food before hungry guests, with the explanation that his cellar's empty. It takes time to gather such a store of foodstuffs as I have—
had
—downstairs here. As it is, ham alone is going to be a rare dish under my roof until Eastermass of next year—"

"Hush, I say! Come away!" hissed the knight sternly.

The torchlight and the sound of footsteps withdrew together.

Jim opened his eyes in utter darkness. The strong jaws of his conscience began to nibble at him. This strange world with its talking creatures, its magic and its Dark Powers, had somehow put that part of him to sleep. Now it awoke, a giant with its strength redoubled. However fairy-tale his existence appeared to be here, this was in fact a world where people were born in the ordinary fashion, suffered and died—were killed, too, like that poor child in the village with her hands cut off. He remembered how, back in his own world, he had wished to change modern times for a medieval period when problems were more solid and real. Now, here he was, surrounded with solid and real problems even if the rules were a little different—and far from appreciating that solidity and reality, he was acting as if it were some kind of dream in which he had no responsibility.

The innkeeper had a point. He had more than a point—he had a serious problem that was the result of Jim's simply helping himself to whatever and how much of the man's stock-in-trade had tickled Jim's appetite. The ripoff was no less than it would have been if Jim had walked into a supermarket back in his own world and made off with a hundred and twenty-six full-sized hams and twenty cases of wine.

And the fact that Brian had made himself responsible for the cost of the gargantuan meal made it no better. To begin with, Jim had no idea that he and the knight had become close enough friends so that one might be expected to undertake such an obligation for the other. Guiltily, Jim had to admit that if the situation were reversed, he, with his own world's twentieth-century attitudes toward someone he had only known for a couple of days, would have felt that the other had gotten himself into the situation and that it was up to the fellow to get out of it on his own…

An inspiration broke suddenly upon Jim like the light of a torch abruptly kindled in a pitch-black cellar. Some of Gorbash's memories seemed still to linger in this body Jim was using. Perhaps the memory of where Gorbash kept his hoard was still there also, if only he could evoke it. If he could discover where the hoard was, he could pay back Dick Innkeeper himself, and rid his conscience of its uneasy sense of obligation to the knight.

Feeling much better, now that he had thought of this, Jim roused himself and, with a dragon's sureness in the dark, strode back along through the cellar and up its stairs into the kitchen. No one was there but a stout woman of about the innkeeper's age, who bobbed him a curtsey when he appeared.

"Uh… hello," said Jim.

"Good morning, Sir James," replied the woman.

Jim went down the passageway and into the tavern room. He felt shamefaced about the idea of encountering the innkeeper or Sir Brian, but the room when he stepped into it was empty. Once more the front door was open—a natural response to the need for some circulation of air, Jim realized, since the windows of the inn, even unshuttered, were mere slits—designed more for defense than for light and ventilation. He stepped outside and heard the voices of Brian and the innkeeper again, but from a distance. They were down at the stable end of the building, concerned with Brian's white warhorse, which had also been slightly cut up in the fight at the village.

Talk of the horse's cuts reminded Jim of his own. He had hardly been conscious of them yesterday. Today, however, he felt them—not seriously, but in the same way half a dozen small razor cuts might feel on his face after he had done a clumsy job of shaving.

His Gorbash-body felt a sudden impulse to lick them; and he discovered that his supple neck and long tongue had no trouble reaching any of the wounds.

With the cuts all cleaned by his tongue, the discomfort from the wounds fell to a point where he could ignore them. He sat up and looked around, to discover Aragh sitting on his haunches not ten feet from him, watching.

"Good morning," said Jim.

"It's good enough," said Aragh. "Spent the whole night inside that place, did you?"

"Well, yes," answered Jim.

"Suit yourself," Aragh said, grimly. "You'll never catch me going into one of those boxes."

"You didn't come in at all?"

"Of course not," growled the wolf. "That sort of thing's for humans. Something soft about all humans, Gorbash, even if they can hold their own like that knight and the bowman. I don't mean just soft in the body, I mean soft in the mind. Takes ten years for one of them to be able to take care of itself, and they never get over that. They remember being petted and fed and looked after; and later on, when they get the chance, they try to set up things so they get petted and cared for some more. When they get old and feeble, that's all they're good for—more petting and caring. Not for me, Gorbash! The first warning I'll get that I'm growing feeble is going to be when somebody who oughtn't to be able to, tears my throat out!"

Jim winced slightly. This assessment of human nature, coming on top of his guilt about last night's indulgence, struck a more tender spot than it might have done otherwise. Then he thought of something.

"You liked having Danielle scratch under your ears, yesterday," he said.

"She
did it. I didn't
ask
her to," Aragh replied, gruffly. "Hah! Wait'll she catches up with you!"

"Catches up with me?"

Aragh's jaws parted in one of his noiseless wolf-laughs.

"I know her. You and your nonsense about having a human lady, Gorbash! Now, you've got two!"

"Two?" said Jim. "I think you're imagining things."

"I am? Go see for yourself. She's just off there in the trees with that bowman."

Jim looked away in the direction Aragh's muzzle was pointing.

"Maybe I will," he said.

"Good luck!" Aragh yawned and lay down in the sun, jaws on forepaws, eyes closed.

Jim went off toward the area Aragh had indicated in the surrounding woods. Stepping into the shade of the first big trees, he saw no one. Then his dragon-ears caught a murmur of voices that would have been inaudible to his human ones, coming from a short distance farther off. Feeling like an eavesdropper, he moved quietly toward them, and halted when the speakers came into view.

They were standing in a small opening among the trees. The grass under their feet, the sunlight upon them and the tall elms all around them framed a picture that was almost too perfect to believe. Danielle, in her hose and doublet, looked as if she had just stepped out of a book of legends; and Dafydd, who stood with her, was hardly less imposing.