The Incorporated Knight (15 page)

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In the gloom of his tree-shadowed house in the forest, Doctor Baldonius pushed his spectacles up his falconine nose and contemplated Eudoric, who sat before him. "Ye'd fain know why ye, a likely fellow past thirty, of knightly rank and a capable man of affairs, be still unloved and unwed?"

             
"You've put your shaft in the gold, learned sir," said Eudoric. " Tis plain that in this demesne I've bungled. In Franconia, whither my business takes me, I may discover a lass who more esteems my virtues, however small, and is less critical of my faults, however vast. But I count not upon this happy upshot. Meanwhile, what's the answer? To put it curtly, what's the matter with me?"

             
Baldonius combed his gray cascade of beard with age-knobbed fingers. "Ye'll not take offense if I speak you plain?"

             
Eudoric's serious countenance wrinkled into an infrequent grin. "Wherefore? You've known me since erst I was sent to you to learn my letters."

             
"And whacked your small arse when ye put frogs in my hat. But,
lucide exponere,
whereas ye be a good man of your hands and your head,
et cetera,
ye want a very lovable nature. Ye be too coldly calculating, say the maids."

             
Eudoric sighed. "I feared as much. What's the remedy? Wanton foolery, like unto that ass Landwin of Kromnitch? I long ago learned that clowning was not my calling; my buffooneries offended many and tickled none."

             
Baldonius reached down his huge encyclopedia, unsnapped the iron clasps, and thumbed through the crackling sand-yellow pages. "When all else fail, consult the wisdom of Aristocles of Spheron, the master of them that know. Ah! Here we be! 'Human beings most readily love others of their species who, alpha, do services for them; beta, flatter them; gamma, refrain from reproaching them for errors; and delta, cultivate good nature and ease of manner.'
Ecce!
Canst comply with that formula, Eudoric?"

             
Although Eudoric's face had grown as long as an olifant's nose, he squared his broad shoulders. "I'll try; I am not yet quite a dotard. Ere I go, where's your lovely daughter, my whilom betrothed? I heard she'd come home."

             
"Lusina is out back, hiding. She hath besought me not to divulge her whereabouts to any, especially to you. Such is her shame at having run off with that dastardly vagabond."

             
"What fetched her back?"

             
"The actor lown got drunk and beat her, so she lost the child she carried. I lament my unborn grandchild." It was the old scholar-wizard's turn to sigh. "Its absence doth simplify life; but I'd liefer have a bastard heir than none."

             
"Tell her, pray, that I cherish no hard feelings; a grudge makes a starveling diet. In sooth, I am fain to resume our old acquaintance. That, howsomever, must await my return from Franconia. You'll lend me Forthred for my squire? Mine own has formed a passion to join the priesthood."

             
"Aye. Ye will find him no more foolish and flighty than most apprentices. But beware of his blundering efforts to cast wizardry spells! Because he hath mastered an incantation for finding lost articles, he thinks himself ready to turn Baron Rainmar into a butter churn."

             
"My thanks," said Eudoric. "Pray, bid him wait upon me early tomorrow, at the castle."

             
"Who'll command your stagecoaches?"

             
"I
'm leaving my assistant Jillo to direct the coachmen and my brother Olf to keep the books. Farewell!"

             
"A pleasant journey, and beware of Rainmar's ruffians!"

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A month later, Eudoric and Forthred, sweating in the summer's heat, drew rein at the eastern gate of Letitia, the mighty-walled capital of Franconia. Eudoric, in plain pine-green forester's garb, rode his dappled-gray palfrey Daisy. He had never replaced the destrier Morgrim, which he had lost years before on his dragon hunt in Pathenia. Since then, he had not been mustered for any war of the New Napolitanian Empire; and having little taste for jousting, Eudoric saw no reason to keep so much of his capital tied up in a huge, voracious steed, too massive for peaceful pursuits.

             
Forthred was a skinny blond youth with the protruding front teeth of a rodent. He rode a common hackney and led two spare horses and a sumpter mule. Among the burdens borne by the mule was a knobby, canvas-wrapped bundle, within which Eudoric's armor lay nested. One never knew when it might be needed.

             
Eudoric showed his identification to the guards. There was a letter from his father, Sir Dambert of
Arduen—a letter written for Dambert by the castle chaplain. There was a note on good parchment from his father's suzerain, Baron Emmerhard of Zurgau, who was Eudoric's silent partner in the stagecoach line. A third epistle, bearing a gilded coronet at the top, came from Emmerhard's overlord, Count Petz of Treveria.

             
Since Eudoric knew but little of the Franconian tongue and the guards not a word of Eudoric's native Locanian, a delay ensued while they hunted up an officer fluent in Helladic, the
international language. While one guard searched for this officer, another busied himself sealing Eudoric's sword into its scabbard by means of a peace wire.

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Eudoric had attended the Imperial Court at Sogambrium and the royal Locanian court at Kromnitch. He was, therefore, unsurprised at the delay in getting permission to see the King, and at the tips extorted by flunkeys before they would even put him on the waiting list. Another month went by before he obtained his audience. During this time, he worked away at the Franconian tongue, dragooning Forthred into tedious word drills.

             
At last, an official presented a pass to the King's next lev
é
e. Eudoric stood in line with foppish Franconian gentlemen, on the tesselated white-and-purple marble of the candle-lit ballroom in King Clothar's palace. The candles were unnecessary, since a brilliant morning sunshine streamed through the tall windows; but Clothar was given to ostentatious display. The candles twinkled; the sun gleamed on cloth-of-gold, cloth-of-silver, and brilliant silks from distant Serica. Incense candles obscured but did not eradicate the odor of the gentlemen, who were not famed for personal cleanliness.

             
In contrast to all this splendor, the Franconian peasantry, Eudoric had observed along the way, had seemed a singularly downtrodden, miserable lot. He recalled that, a generation before, they had revolted and been put down with merciless rigor.

             
A blare of golden trumpets announced the King. Clothar was a tall, blond, well-built man of approximately Eudoric's age, with nondescript features enhanced by a mustache and goatee meticulously waxed to three long points, and artificially curled hair down to his shoulders in the Franconian manner. He wore a crimson doublet in the latest style, with twenty-odd silver buttons down the front. The buttonhole had been invented a few-score years before; so the well-born, who had theretofore fastened their garments with pins, laces, and toggles, now embraced the fad of buttons, the more the better.

             
The heels of the King's high boots resounded on the gleaming marble as he passed along the line, presenting his ring-laden hand to be kissed. An usher read off names from a strip of parchment:

             
"
...
and next, Your Majesty, is Sir Ganelot of Charomois, who gained the prize at the tourney of Avral
...
"

             
"Enough!" said King Clothar suddenly. "We shall be late for our hunt." Holding his hand up with the palm turned outward, he raised his voice: "The rest of you, deem yourselves received. Our thanks for your courtesy. You may refresh yourselves ere departing."

             
The King strode out, followed by a scuttle of servitors and leaving the usher standing agape with the list in his hand. As the gentlemen began to mill about and chatter, scullions brought in trays of food and bottles of wine, which they set on tables at one end of the ballroom.

             
Eudoric spooned black caviar on a delicate biscuit and, in his stumbling Franconian, asked his neighbor: "Excuse, sir, but is—are all levees so short as this? I am foreigner."

             
"This was a long one," said the Franconian, scratching an insect bite. From the breast of his doublet a jeweled order flashed in the sunshine. "Know, good my sir, that His Majesty is a splendid sportsman. If 'tis not hunting, it's jousting, or billiards, or bowls, or tennis, or the Three True Gods know what." Although the man's mouth remained solemn, his eyes revealed a trace of twinkle.

             
"Then how, pray, do one—does one get one's business with him done?"

             
"Take up your affair with Master Brulard yonder." He indicated a pudgy, bald, little plain-clad man talking to a glittering noble.

             
"Who is him—I mean, that man?"

             
"The King's minister."

             
"Would you have goodness to present me? I have business."

             
The man cocked his head with a smile. "A gift for a gift, saith the wise Aristocles. Dost take my meaning?"

             
"What is—ah—customary here?"

             
"One golden noble should suffice. 'Twill go to a worthy charity, fear not."

             
Privately, Eudoric fumed. In the Empire, men of rank were known to solicit bribes, but not so blatantly, nor by amounts that would severely dent the funds he had brought from home. The "worthy charity," Eudoric was sure, would be the man before him. He dug into his wallet.

             
"Not so crass, young fellow!" murmured the man. "Let us shake hands on it." Eudoric palmed the coin and slipped it into the man's hand under cover of a handshake. The man caused the coin to vanish as by a conjuring trick. "And now, my dear young sir, what is your appellation?"

             
"Eudoric Dambertson of Arduen, knight," replied Eudoric. "And, sir, may I know your name?"

             
"Burgenne," said the man. "Come along! May I present my young friend, Sir Eudoric Dambertson?

             
This is master Brulard, Secretary of State to His Majesty. Give him a moment, Brulard; he seems to have some business in mind."

             
"I will, Your Grace," said Brulard. "What's toward, Sir Eudoric?"

             
As he bowed, Eudoric realized with a shock that the person whom he had bribed to introduce him was the Duke of Burgenne, the second most powerful noble in the kingdom. The Franconian nobility, he thought, must be the most grasping lot of aristocrats on earth. "Permit me, Your Excellency. Does —do you know about the novel form of transportation called stagecoaches? ..."

             
When Eudoric had made his pitch, Secretary Brulard said: "I shall take counsel with His Majesty and inform you of his decision. Come to my chamber of office in the palace two days hence."

             
Eudoric politely took his leave of the minister and endeavored to mingle with others at the
levée
; this, however, with only indifferent success. He hoped to strike up some acquaintance that he could eventually parlay into introductions to nubile young women, since the levee was a strictly male event. To ennoble his search for a mate, he had sworn off commerce with whores and light women. Hence his lusts were beginning to fever him.