The Incorporated Knight (17 page)

             
The last thing Eudoric wished to do was to set off on a wild-goose chase in pursuit of an unknown woman, when he should be promoting his proper business. Were it not better to slip away quietly back to his home and be satisfied with what he had? On the other hand
...

             
"Your Majesty," he inquired, "said you not that your sister was unwed?"

             
"Aye, Sir Ruderic."

             
"I pray, tell me about this lady. If I undertake quest, my lord, shall need all information I can get."

             
The king bit his lip in thought. "Our sister is three years our junior and a woman of eminent gifts and royal bearing. As for her person, behold!" He unbuttoned some of the silver
buttons at his throat and displayed a miniature suspended on a golden chain. Hoisting the chain over his head, he passed the miniature to Eudoric.

             
The picture, set in an oval frame of gold and surrounded by sparkling diamonds, showed a beautiful, strong-featured, brown-haired woman; but Eudoric could not make out much detail from the miniature. Besides, he felt sure that the painter had depicted the lady, not necessarily as she was, but as she wished to appear.

             
Still for one who, like Eudoric, was actively seeking a wife, a chance to place a king's attractive sister under obligation was not to be scorned, although he thought a woman nearer his rank in the feudal hierarchy would prove a more suitable mate than a royal. While Eudoric hesitated, Brulard spoke:

             
"And by the bye, Sir Eudoric, think not that we make a leap in the dark by nominating you. We have investigated your history and know somewhat of your deeds of dought in distant lands. Ye are indeed the rational choice."

             
Eudoric sighed. He had the uneasy sense that events were rushing along too fast to control. So much for the name of a hero! It would do no good to protest that his repute was founded more on luck than on prowess. Although this was true, the Fran-conians would merely accuse him of false modesty. He said:

             
"Very well, my lords. I will undertake mission." Brulard looked at the King, saying: "Ere we strike
hands upon the bargain, were it not prudent to have Tsudai inspect him for sincerity?"

             
Clothar sniffed. "That old he-witch! An unbelieving mountebank from some far, uncivilized land, where doubtless men have tails beneath their trews."

             
"Sire, remember the good advice he gave us in the matter of Dorelia's—"

             
"Oh, do as you list." To a guard, the King said: "See if Doctor Tsudai be in his cabinet. If so, bid him hither."

             
Awaiting the return of the guard, Eudoric said: "Your Majesty, if I take up quest, I shall need money."

             
Brulard smiled. "Knowing your repute for astuteness in such matters, we anticipated your request. Let us assume that, at current prices, one mark per month—"

             
A knock announced the return of the guard, who snapped to attention beside the opened door. After him came a man who, to Eudoric's eyes, appeared fantastically exotic. He was small and elderly, with a mere wisp of mustache and whiskers. His features were flat, and his yellowish skin was beseamed by a multitude of tiny wrinkles. A shimmering robe of emerald green, embroidered with golden dragons, embellished his spare form. On his sparse gray hair rested a small, round, black cap, surmounted by a great crimson jewel. Brulard said:

             
"Sir Eudoric, behold Doctor Tsudai the Serican. We rely upon his arcane powers to warn us of gins and snares, as did His Majesty's sister ere she went to Armoria. Doctor Tsudai, this is Sir Eudoric Dambertson of Arduen, somewhere in the barbarous Empire."

             
Doctor Tsudai inserted both hands into his voluminous sleeves and bowed low, first to the King, then to Brulard, and lastly to Eudoric. He said:

             
"How can this humble one serve Your Omnipotence?" While the sage's Franconian was fluent if not altogether grammatical, his accent was even stronger than Eudoric's; and he employed curious turns of phrase, which Eudoric supposed to be literal translations from his natal tongue.

             
Brulard answered for his less articulate sovran: "We propose to entrust Sir Eudoric, for a consideration, with a task that be imbued with difficulty and danger. We are fain to know how far he may be trusted beyond the reach of our authority."

             
The Serican bowed again. "May this person seat Sir Eudoric and myself at yon small table?"

             
The King waved a jeweled hand. "Shog along."

             
Guards drew up two chairs. From a flowing sleeve, Tsudai produced a foot-long ebony rod, from which he opened out three hinged brass feet at one end and three brackets at the other, and set the stand on the table. From his other sleeve the seer produced a crystal ball and carefully placed it on the brackets.

             
When Tsudai and Eudoric were seated opposite each other, the former brought his eyes up close to the crystal, as if he were looking through it. Staring back, all that Eudoric saw was a blur, with now and then a glimpse, as Tsudai shifted position, of a slanting brown eye grotesquely magnified.

             
After a period of silence, the Serican sat back, saying: "To best of my negligible knowledge, I perceive no abodements. Whereas Sir Eudoric hath little of those fanciful notions of honor, for which your Franconian gentlemen lose battles and cheerfully butcher one another, he is punctilious in matter of trust and obligation. Whereas he is no quarreler, if conflict be forced upon him, he will valiantly defend. He sees further ahead than most. Despite his title, his character bespeaks the qualities of an upright tradesman. Your pardon, Sir Eudoric; this worm means no offense. But His Majesty hath demanded a scrupulous answer."

             
"No offense taken," said Eudoric with a rare grin.

             
"Better an honest tradesman than a noble nitwit, dead in some footling quarrel."

             
"Huh!" grunted the King. "The world is going to the dogs, with false religions sprouting like weeds despite burnings; agitators spreading subversive doctrines by that reprehensible new device, the printing press; and noblemen demeaning themselves by earning vulgar money. These
evils waft across the Helvetians from those accursed republics in Tyrrhenia. One day we must liberate the Tyrrhenians from republican turbulence by imposing our just and orderly rule upon them.

             
"Dost know that one madman, whom we hanged but last week, in sooth proposed that the
nobility
be taxed like the common rabble? Did one of our titled subjects attaint himself in an enterprise like unto yours, Sir Ericson, he would have his spurs hacked off and his sword broken over his head. Since the nobles of the Empire are less fastidious, it would seem, you'll do as manager of this coach line— provided you meet your end of the bargain. You have our leave, Doctor Tsudai."

             
As the Serican bowed himself out, Eudoric, suppressing his anger at the royal sneer, turned to the King's minister. "And now the matter we began on when your wizard came in
...
"

             
"Ah, yea," said Brulard. "Let us assume that, at current prices, one golden mark per month should suffice to maintain you and your man and beasts along the road
...
"

-

             
Half an hour later, Eudoric in turn bowed himself out of Brulard's chamber of office. The minister said: "Come back hither at the time erst appointed, Sir Eudoric—two days hence—and ye shall have your coin."

             
"Good-night and good luck, Sir Eudovix!" said King Clothar heartily, awakening from his torpor. The King had yawned through the lengthy bargaining between Eudoric and Brulard and almost fallen asleep, but he roused himself to bid a gracious farewell.

             
A guard escorted Eudoric through the halls and out the gates of the palace. At the exit Eudoric, suddenly conscious of the fact that his sword was back in the rented room with Forthred, asked: "Wilt guide me home? I fear getting lost in this warren of alleys. I can pay." He did not voice his real concern— the fear of being, in his unarmed state, set upon by footpads.

             
"Nay; duty forbids," said the soldier. "It's easy
enough. Three streets that way, left one, right one, half a block and there ye be. The Three True Gods give you good night!" The guardsman vanished.

             
Eudoric started upon his route with an uneasy feeling of being watched. A crescent moon was setting, leaving the streets in Acheronian darkness. We do things better in the Empire, thought Eudoric. Emperor Thorar had decreed street lighting at night in Sogambrium, and King Valdhelm had followed suit in Kromnitch. To be sure, the lighting was from cressets affixed to the walls of buildings at the principal crossings, and the municipal servants supposed to replenish the firewood often neglected to keep the fires alight; but even this feeble ruby flicker was better than a moonless night's funereal gloom.

             
As his eyes adjusted, Eudoric became aware of motion ahead in the otherwise deserted street. He was following someone or something at the very limit of vision. Since the figure got
no closer, Eudoric inferred that at least the person did not mean to
p
ause to waylay him. Still, he would have been happier with his sword, or even with his dagger or a stout walking stick.

             
The unknown one ahead, Eudoric thought, must be at the crossing where Eudoric had been told to turn left. Suddenly there were more shadowy figures in motion. Someone shouted a phrase in an unfamiliar tongue.

             
Eudoric lengthened his stride and soon perceived that one shadow, he thought the person whom he had been following, was ringed by three additional shadows. As Eudoric approached, he perceived that the three newcomers were armed with one sword and two daggers, while the wayfarer kept his attackers at bay by whirling a curious weapon. This consisted of two batons or short clubs connected by a length of chain. The defender held one of these billets of wood and whirled the other in loops and figure-eights. As Eudoric neared, the swinging club hit one attacker with a hollow sound and sent him staggering back howling. Again the defender shouted the unknown phrase.

             
Unarmed as he was, Eudoric had a fleeting urge to slip into his alley and let the incident take care of itself. But the whim was gone in a flash. While he might not take to heart all the arrogant Franconian code of knighthood, such flight, he felt, would be unworthy of his knightly station.

             
Coming up behind the swordsman, Eudoric threw himself at the fellow's legs and clutched them tightly. He had once seen this form of attack employed by a group of pilgrims from Celtica, who played a game with a leather-covered bladder, which they threw, kicked, carried about the field, and wrested from one another.

             
The swordsman had scarcely turned his head when Eudoric hurled him prone. Bounding to his feet, Eudoric stamped with all his force on the man's sword hand. Snatching up the weapon, he sent a quick thrust into the fallen one's body and faced the remaining attackers. These twain backed away, took to their heels, and vanished into the darkness, while the man whom Eudoric had sworded heaved himself slowly to his feet and staggered off, holding his side and groaning.

             
"Should have kill him," said the small man whom Eudoric had rescued. Eudoric recognized the singsong accent as that of the Serican sage, Doctor Tsudai.