The Complete Compleat Enchanter (33 page)

Chalmers became more embarrassed than ever. “That is—uh—the difficulty over which I owe you my sincerest apologies. It was undoubtedly due to an error of selectivity. Er, I had not intended to transport her from our universe at all. If you are familiar with the
Furioso,
Harold, you will remember that among Spenser’s imitations from it was a character called Belphegor, the cognate of Belphebe. . . . When the young lady arrived, there was a certain amount of—uh—confusion of identity, as it were, with the result, the unfortunate result, that she had no memory of another name or a previous existence. At the present moment I really cannot say where she is, except that she is undoubtedly in this universe.”

“Do you mean to tell me that my own wife doesn’t even know me?” yelped Shea.

“I fear not. I cannot express—”

“Don’t try.” Shea looked around the room gloomily. “I’ve got to find her. She may be in trouble.”

“I don’t think you need be apprehensive, Harold. The young lady is quite competent.”

“Aye, marry, that she is,” said Florimel. “She dealt Sir Roger such a buffet as will make his head spin for long when he would have let her from going without the castle but the now. Be comforted, Sir Harold.”

“Who is this Sir Roger, anyway?” Shea glowered.

“I think I had better introduce you to my—uh—your associates,” said Chalmers, and stepped around the desk to open the door behind Shea and Polacek. The air held an unmistakable faint odor of olive oil, and as they stepped across the threshold, their feet gave back a metallic ring from the floor.

“Ah, yes,” said Chalmers. “Perhaps I omitted to mention the fact that this castle is constructed of iron. That also is attended by certain—uh—inconveniences. Will you come this way, gentlemen?”

Another passage branched from that into which they had committed themselves, and led down a ramp towards a pair of double doors, with an oil lamp hanging from chains and throwing but little light. As they approached the doors, Shea heard the wailing sound of an instrument theoretically musical, like those in Xanadu. Polacek’s eye brightened as he ran his tongue between his lips. “Babes?” he asked.

Without answering, Chalmers waved his hand at the doors, which swung open smoothly. They were looking at the backs of a pair of Arab-dressed musicians squatting on the floor, one blowing into a tootle-pipe, the other slowly tapping with his fingertips a drum about four inches in diameter. Beyond, a slinky dark girl in gauzy drapes revolved in the paces of a slow dance.

Beyond her again a dozen or more men were visible in the dim light of more oil lamps, dressed in bright Oriental costumes that seemed to have been specially spotted with grease for the occasion. Sprawled upon cushions, they gazed at the dancer with unsmiling, languid interest, exchanging a word from time to time, and looking toward the farther end of the room, as though to take their cue from the man who sat there. He was bigger than the biggest of them, with the figure of a wrestler. His young face bore strong lines, but just now it showed a sulky, petulant expression. A dapper little graybeard, like a brown mouse, was whispering something into his ear to the accompaniment of fierce gestures.

He glanced up at the sound of the visitors’ feet on the floor and trotted toward them. He bowed low before Chalmers. “The peace of God be with you.” He bowed again. “Who be these lords?” He bowed a third time.

Chalmers returned one of the bows. “Let no less peace be with you, most magical lord of Carena. These are—uh—lords of my own country. Sir Harold de Shea, and the esquire Vaclav Polacek.”

“Oh, day of good luck!” exclaimed Atlantès de Carena, bobbing up and down like a ship in a storm. “O day of Allah’s grace that has brought two mighty lords of the Franks for these poor eyes to feast upon!” Bow. “Doubtless it is by some error that you have come to so poor a hovel, but in that error I am honored.” Bow. “Ho! Let the best rooms be swept out and new ceremonial garments be prepared for Sir Harold de Shea and the squire Vaclav, for these be veritably the bringers of benisons.” Bow.

Shea and Polacek kept up with the first two or three bows, but gave it up as the pace threatened to make them dizzy. Apparently satisfied that he had achieved something, the little brown man took each by the hand and led them around the circle where introductions and bows were repeated as though each man they encountered could not have heard what was said to the rest. There were Lord Mosco, the Amir Thrasy, Sir Audibrad—this last one in medieval European doublet and hose, without turban—and two or three more. In the intervals Polacek kept twisting his head to watch the dancer, until, at or about the third introduction, Atlantès noticed.

“You desire this handmaid, noble lord?” he said. “By Allah, she is worth not less than a hundred pieces of gold, but you shall have her to your concubine, provided only that our Roger, for whom all things are done, puts not his claim upon her. And you will find her a pearl unpierced—a filly unridden, a gem—”

Polacek’s face was reddening. “Tell him
no!”
whispered Shea fiercely. “We can’t afford to get mixed up in anything.”

“But—”

“Tell him no.”

Atlantès’ eyes were fixed on them, and there seemed to be an expression of amusement behind the wispy beard. “Listen,” said Polacek, “I’ll talk to you about it later. Since I’m just new here, I’d like to see some more of your castle before—enjoying your—uh—hospitality. And—uh—thanks anyway, your lordship.”

“Hearing is obedience.” His lordship led the way to the cushion that supported the sulky youth. “And here is the light of the world, the arm of Islam, the perfect paladin and cavalier of Carena, Roger.”

The perfect paladin gave a bored grunt. “More Franks?” he said to Atlantès. “Are they of better omen than that red-haired wench whom the Frankish enchanter laterly brought?” Shea stiffened and his heart gave a thump. However, the light of the world was addressing him. “Are ye the new tumbling jugglers my uncle promised? Though my heart is straightened, yet may it find ease in witnessing your tricks.”

Shea looked at him coldly down his long nose. “Listen, funny-face, I’ve been made a knight by a better man than you are, and I don’t like the way you talk about the ‘red-haired wench’. If you’ll come outside, I’ll show you a few tricks.”

Roger, surprisingly, broke into a smile of pure amiability. “By the beard of the Prophet (whom God sustain),” he said, “I had not thought to find a Frank so generous. For months have I slain no man, and my muscles rot from lack of practice. Let us then to the hand-play!”

“Lords! Light of my eyes! Coolth of my heart!” Atlantès bubbled. “You have no need of another death and know well that a doom lies on it that there be none in this castle, and more, these be my noble lords and guests, fellow—magicians, for whose life I would give my own. Come, sirs, let me show you to your quarters, which, though they be but pallets in a corner, are yet as good as Carena can offer. ‘Take what I have,’ said the Hajji, ‘though it be but half a barley-cake.’ ”

He clucked on ahead of them like a motherly hen. The “pallets” in a corner turned out to be rooms the size of auditoriums, elaborately hung with silks and furnished with inlaid wood. The rivetheads protruding from the iron plates of the walls and ceiling, however, reminded Shea of the interior of a warship.

Atlantès was soothing. “Coffee shall be brought you, and new garments. But in the name of Allah, magical sirs, let the voice of friendship avert the hand of disputation, and be not angry with the kinsman of your friend. Ah, lovely youth!” he brushed a hand past his eyes, and Shea was surprised to see a drop of genuine moisture glistening on it. “The glory of Cordova. I sometimes wonder that the perfumed Hamman bath does not freeze in despair of emulating such beauty. Would you credit it that such a’ one could think more on blood than on the breasts of a maiden?”

He bowed half a dozen times in rapid succession and disappeared.

Three

“For the love of Mike, Harold!” said Polacek, eyeing the voluminous robes with distaste. “Are we supposed to wear these nightshirts?”

“Why not? When in Rome, eat spaghetti. Besides, if you want to give any of the damsels around here the eye, you’ll have to be in fashion.”

“I suppose . . . That little wizard’s a smart guy. Say, what’s this, a scarf?”

Shea picked up a long red strip of textile. “I think it’s your turban,” he said. “You have to wind it around your head, something like this.”

“Sure I get it,” replied Polacek. He whipped his own turban around with nonchalant speed. Naturally it came apart in festoons around his neck, and another try yielded no better result. Shea’s own more useful procedure stayed on but settled itself firmly in concealment of one ear, and with a tail that tickled his chin. Polacek laughed and made a face. “Guess we’ll have to call for a tailor or wait till they dish out some real hats.”

Shea frowned. “Look here, Votsy, take it easy, will you? You’ll simply have to be less cocky around a place like this if you don’t want to get all our throats cut.”

Polacek jagged up an eyebrow. “Hairbreadth Harry telling me not to be so cocky? Getting married has made a different man out of you, all right. Speaking of which, what are the rules around this joint? I’d like to take Atlantès up on his offer and pitch a little woo at that dancer. She’s built like—”

The door was flung open with a clang by a man whose hairy, pendulous-eared head bore a startling identity to that of a Newfoundland dog. Without giving time for stares, he barked: “Lord Roger!” and stood aside to let the perfect paladin and cavalier stride in. Shea noticed he moved surprisingly light for so big a man. He would be a dangerous antagonist.

“Oh, hello,” he greeted the visitor coolly.

Polacek added: “Say, I’m a stranger here myself, but do you always walk in doors without knocking?”

“The lord is lord of his own saloons,” said Roger, as though his name were Hohenzollern. He turned toward Shea. “It has reached me, oh man, that you are of knightly order, and I may without shame or hindrance take on myself the shedding of your blood. Yet since I am a warrior experienced, a person of prowess, it would be no more than just did I not offer to handicap myself, as by bearing no armor while you go armored in this combat when the wizards have lifted the death-doom from the castle.”

If he had had the épée which served him so well in Faerie Shea would have returned the offer. Instead, he bowed: “Thanks. Nice of you. Tell me—do I understand that Atlantès is your uncle?”

“There is no other way to it.” Roger tapped delicate fingers over a yawn. “Though he is rather like a grandmother, an old nanny with one eye, who holds all here from high sports or unmannerly diversions. Yet even this may be overcome if there be one with a will to warlike valor, who yet knows some of the placing and lifting of spells.”

Shea was conscious of being keenly watched from behind the mask of boredom, and began to understand the purpose of the big man’s visit, but it would not do to commit oneself too soon. He said: “Uh—huh. Say, tell me what’s going on, will you? Sir Reed says Atlantès is worried about something. Are you expecting an attack by the Christian knights?”

“Ha! Christian knights I fear not, though it be all twelve paladins together.” He flexed his muscles. “But of ifrits and enchantments know I nothing, and there is little joy here for any since the Duke Astolph stole the Atlantès’ hippogriff.”

Shea stood still, his eyes boring into Roger. “By the way, what was it that you were saying about a red-headed girl?”

Roger failed to notice the elaborate casualness of the question. “There is no glory but in Allah: it was but a few days since, during the time when Lord Dardinell was with us, when Atlantès and the other wizard, your friend, colluded to effect some great spell, with burnings and groans of evil spirits. There was nothing for it but that they must fetch from some far place this wench of ill-omen; well shaped, but unwomanly in garb, a huntress; and having red hair, which of all things more surely foretells some disaster, of which I fear the loss of the hippogriff is but the beginning. Have you met this unlucky one before?”

“My wife,” said Shea.

“In the name of Allah! Are there no damsels of good augury in your land, that you must company with such a’ one? Doubtless she brought you a great dowry.”

Without arguing the point Shea rushed on: “Has anything been heard of her since she left the castle?”

“It has reached me that one of the hunters saw her afoot in the mountains with Duke Astolph, a conjunction which brings a dread like midnight on the heart of my uncle, though what it may mean he knows not.”

“Who’s Duke Astolph, by the way?”

“Allah forgive your ignorance! He is one of the twelve whom the Christians (may they be accursed!) call paladins; yet a doughty fighter, to whom I look for the best of sport when I may measure blows with him, though he comes from an island far in the north, where it is so chill that men’s faces turn blue, even though they be Franks.”

Polacek asked: “Say, Roger, if you dislike Christians so much, how come you’re wearing a Christian name?”

The perfect paladin went into such a grimace that for a moment Shea thought he was going to hit Votsy, but then Roger seemed to restrain himself with an effort. “Not for your question, which is the rudeness of a dog which lacks stripes,” he said, “but to the good will of this knight who has offered me the sacrifice of his blood, will I answer. Learn, oh unguided one, that we of Carena are of too noble spirit to engage ourselves in the quarrels of princes, but seek honor under whatever banners may offer it, so that if the battle be hot, it matters not whose name it be fought in.” Roger gave a snort, and looked at Polacek with unexpected keenness. “What said you but now of the slave-girl who danced for our entertainment?”

“Well,” said Polacek, “Atlantès had—uh—made me an offer—very generous of him, I thought, and I was just saying that maybe for politeness I ought to take him up—”

“Enough, base-born,” said Roger. “Learn that this castle and all in it were builded to my pleasure, and if it be my pleasure to take the damsel to concubine, there is no help for it but I must do so.” He growled “Peace of God,” and strolled out. The dog-headed man pulled the door to behind him.