The Incorporated Knight (21 page)

             
On the slope below, two burly men, each clutching a pale, strong-muscled arm, marched a tall woman out upon the Rock. She wore but a single silken rose-pink garment.

             
"Is she to be chained in her shift?" asked Eudoric of Corentin.

             
"
'
Twas her wish. She gave her gown to her maid, saying she saw no reason to sacrifice a good robe to the monster's gluttony."

             
The woman was hauled to the crest of the Rock and thence to the farther side, where the bulge of the stone concealed her from Eudoric's view. As the guards of her escort busied themselves out of sight, Eudoric imagined how they fastened chains to the woman's limbs.

             
A voice broke into his thoughts. "Here's your poker," said Corentin, handing Eudoric a stout boar spear. The weapon had a hand-broad head and a crosspiece below the head, to restrain a beast already impaled upon the spearhead from forcing its way up the shaft to reach its attacker. "May the Old Gods help you. Ye'd best sit atop the Rock and rest, to gather your forces. The beast may not appear for hours."

             
"And try to keep your feet dry," said the King innocently, "lest ye catch your death of cold."

             
Laughing scornfully so that his bells tinkled, Corentin declaimed:

"Sir Morhot the Fierce was a hero of might;

He hunted down dragons and demons to fight;

He dreaded no foeman or basilisk's bite,

So long as his feet he kept dry!

He scoured the land in his quest for the right;

He rescued fair maidens, their captors to smite;

He slew every brigand and villainous wight,

But colds in the head he would fly!"

-

             
Using the spear as a staff, Eudoric picked his way down the slope to the Rock. He wondered how he, who prided himself on prudent caution and rational reasoning, nevertheless so often found himself in one fantastic predicament after another. Behind him, the notables hastened away to the front-row benches reserved for them on either side of the promontory.

             
On the landward side, the Rock sloped gently up from the surface of the beach, rising some fifteen feet above sea level. On the seaward side it dropped off steeply. As he began the ascent of the Rock, Eudoric could not see the Princess Yolanda, but sounds from the far side of the Rock made him pause. He heard a loud splash, followed by angry shouts. Presently the two soldiers who had brought the princess to the Rock appeared upon the summit, hastened down the slope, and trudged away, arguing furiously. One was dripping wet.

             
Curious, Eudoric strode up to the stony summit. On either side, shallow water washed back and forth. To left and right stretched the silvery beach, upon which scores of benches had been set; and on these benches sat hundreds of Armorians in colorful holiday finery, while sellers of cakes, sausages, and beverages circ
ul
ated among the gabbling throng.

             
As Eudoric reached the summit, a cheer arose and swelled to a roar. Spectators waved hands, scarves, and kerchiefs in encouragement, so that to Eudoric they were but a flickering, amorphous mass.

             
He idly wondered, if he wounded the monster but failed to kill it, whether it would come ashore to attack the spectators. He visualized the multitude stampeding away in wild panic, screaming and trampling one another. It would, he sourly thought, serve them right; but doubtless the fickle Armorians would blame the disaster on him and slay him for it.

             
Where the seaward side of the Rock dropped sharply, Eudoric found himself looking down on the captive princess, who sat upon a ledge. Rusty iron chains, with a lot of slack, connected the manacles on her wrists and ankles to staples driven into the stone. To Eudoric's startled gaze, the woman at first appeared nude. Then he realized that her clinging, filmy garment, soaked to transparency by the spray, had become all but invisible. She sat huddled, looking out to sea; as he peered more closely, he saw that she was trembling.

             
"God den, my lady!" he said.

             
The woman started. Then she raised her head. She was, he saw, quite the ineffable beauty he had seen in Clothar's miniature; if anything prettier, dark of hair and gray of eye.

             
"What—who are you?" she quavered.

             
"Permit me, my lady.
I
am Eudoric Dambertson of Arduen."

             
"Where is that? Somewhere in the Empire, to judge by your accent."

             
"Aye. I've undertaken to fight your monster.
"

             
"
Oh." She seemed at a loss. At last she said; "May the True Triunity strengthen your arm! Did my brother send you hither?
"

             
"
For that and other purposes.
"

             
"
Why has no one told me that I should have a champion? 'Twould have eased awaiting my doom." She sounded querulous.

             
"I know not, Princess. But methinks it better to leave such questions till later, whilst we diligently watch for the monster. Its master called it by some Pathenian name: Drugov? Druzik?"

             
"Druzhok," said Yolanda. "That was long before I came hither. But the Armorians well remember Svor the Stroller and his curiosities."

             
"I had better climb down to your ledge," said Eudoric. "Wilt hold this?" He reached down the spear. "I fain would avoid a tumble into the deep. Which gives me to think: What befell out here ere I arrived? Did one of the soldiers fall in?"

             
"I pushed him in. I'd have done the like to the other, too; and gleefully watched the pair drowned by their mail. But the second cuttle skipped back out of reach, my gyves having been locked; and he fished his comrade out."

             
Eudoric picked his way down the remaining distance, hooking his heels into the niches cut in the rock to make a rudimentary stair. As he landed on both feet on the ledge, one foot slipped seaward; but Eudoric recovered, if he had it to do over, he thought, he would not wear clumsy riding boots but would come either barefoot or in thin slippers. He had thought of donning his armor for the conflict; but the fate of the would-be monster-slayer, Sir Tugen, had dissuaded him.

             
"We might as well take our ease whilst waiting," he said. As Yolanda rose to hand him back his spear, he realized that the princess was substantially taller— more than a handsbreadth—than he.

             
Taking the spear, he lowered himself to a sitting position with his feet hanging over the edge. From where he sat, he could see the masses of spectators around the curve of the Rock to right and left. Splash from the waves soon soaked his boots. He considered taking them off but decided that the ledge was too narrow to do so safely.

             
For a while they sat silently, watching seaward. Eudoric strained his eyes for sight of a dorsal fin or a patch of leathery hide. Several times he saw something; but each time it proved to be merely a trick of light and shadow upon the restless waves.

             
Then he turned his attention to Yolanda. She was a big woman, not only tall but well-fleshed; her form, so clearly visible through the rosy silk, would arouse carnal thoughts in a statue. She was certainly the most beautiful woman he had ever known in person, even if built on a somewhat larger-than-human scale.

             
"I wonder if Druzhok be coming today," mused Eudoric. "If it fail to appear, do they set you free?

             
Do they take you from the Rock and bring you back on the morrow? Or do they leave you here for ay?"

             
"I know not. I am told it has always appeared on this day of the year."

             
"Some day it
11
die, in the natural course of events," said Eudoric. "What then will the Armorians do with the woman they've chosen thus to honor?"
"You are too full of questions!" snapped Yolanda. "
'
Twere better to study the waters." After a pause, she added: "Oh, I cry your pardon! I confess I am tetchy; waiting to be devoured doth not improve one's manners."

             
"I understand," said Eudoric. "I did but think that such light talk might take your mind off your predicament."

             
"So indeed it may. Continue, pray."

             
"Well then, tell me: The Armorians call you a witch, and others hint that you possess uncanny powers. Why can't you use these powers to free yourself and dispose of the monster?"

             
" 'Tis true that I've made some small study of the wizardly arts. I have, for ensample, a splendid spell for freezing a creature to immobility, as if it were turned to stone. Therewith, I could render Druzhok as stiff and harmless as if it were stuffed and mounted in the Letitian museum. But the spell requires costly apparatus, which I brought not with me from Franconia. When they arrested me, they seized my few bits of magical gear, all but the tube and powder for the Lesser Immobility. Those were on my person, which they failed to search. My rank protected me at least from that indignity."

             
Eudoric clucked sympathetically. "What is the Lesser Immobility?"

             
"Another spell, like unto the Greater Immobility, save that it be worked with a simple blowpipe and a pinch of powder. It has but a short-lived effect— say, half an hour."

             
"How long does the Greater Immobility endure?"

             
She shrugged. "I have never watched a victim of it long enough to ascertain; but the wizard who sold it to me asserted that, if well and truly performed,
'twould hold the subject fast for a decade or more. Besides, Corentin the jester is a more puissant enchanter than I. When his men-at-arms seized me, he cast a countervailing spell against my minor magics. Another spell, placed upon these chains, prevents my sundering them by my arts. If the Three True Gods ever vouchsafe me a chance to take Corentin's head
...
" She smiled grimly.

             
"What had Master Corentin against you?
"

             
"
He feared that I should subvert the affections of King Gwennon to make myself Queen of Armoria, thus to overthrow the jester's mastery of the King. In a civilized land, to treat a sovran with one tenth the insolence wherewith that sneering malapert Corentin uses Gwennon would cost a subject his head. These Armorians are nought but a pack of bloody savages, beneath a film of culture as thin as this Serican silk wherein I shiver. As for Gwennon—as if I'd ever bed down with that senile lump of lard, that puppet in Corentin's hands!"

             
A formidable dame, thought Eudoric, not to be thwarted or crossed with impunity. He wondered whether he could somehow defer the fateful step of winning the hand of this prickly princess, at least until he knew her better.

             
"Speaking of matters conjugal," said Eudoric, "know you that the Armorians intend, if I defeat the monster, to wed the twain of us?"

             
She started visibly. "Why, the whoreson knaves! Dost mean you and me, to each other?
"

             
"
Aye."