The Incorporated Knight (7 page)

             
"Mother!" exclaimed the young man. "If you'd had my troubles—"

             
"Thy carriage-wagon?" asked Sir Dambert.

             
"Aye. The thing overset on a turn and spilt me into the mud. Lucky I wasn't slain, besides which, the vehicle has suffered scathes that'll take a fortnight to remedy. I fear the fabrication of such a
device be beyond our local wainwrights. I should have thought on that ere I entered into this compact with Baron Emmerhard."

             
"Belike," observed Eudoric's middle brother Olf, "your coach be too high and narrow."

             
"Aye, but there's no easy remedy. If I make the tread wider, the cursed thing can't pass the narrow straits on the Zurgau-Kromnitch road, for which traffic the wain's especially designed. If I make the wheels smaller, they'll give the passengers a fine bouncing."

             
Eudoric's sister asked: "Why go you not back to Pathenia, where this art be better understood, and buy a carriage-wain already made?"

             
" Tis an arduous two-months' journey, and the road over the Asciburgis is a mere track, impassable to wheeled traffic."

             
"Then," said Eudoric's younger brother Sidmund, "why not hire a brace of Pathenian wainwrights to come hither and work for us?"

             
"They would not depart their own land unless compelled by force."

             
"Then compel them!" snorted Sir Dambert. "By the Divine Pair, are we of gentle blood or are we not? Where's thy knightly mettle? Eh?"

             
Eudoric smiled. "Father, you know not the Pathenians' persnickety ideas of the rights of their citizens. 'Twould but get me mewed up in prison again, with none to go bail for me."

             
"The Emperor hath an one," said Sir Dambert thoughtfully. "This carriage must needs have been made by local wainwrights."

             
"Aye, I've seen it," said Eudoric. " 'Tis but a farmer's wagon with a fancy gilded body on top. Gives the passengers a fearful shaking; can't turn sharply-angled corners. My coach, contrarywise, suspends the body from springs and leather straps, to soften the jouncing, and can turn in its own length. I marked these virtues of the Pathenian coach when
I
rode in it, when Jillo and
I
were on our way to Velitchovo."

             
Sir Dambert sighed. "A fantastical land, this Pathenia, where dragons have the law's protection and villeins assert their rights against their betters. But let's to this question of the coronation. Wilt thou come, Eudoric? 'Twould pleasure me to have thee by me, but the choice is thine."

             
"Your pardon, Father," replied Eudoric, "but
I
plan to tarry here. Not being knighted,
I
'm not included in the royal command. Someone should remain to keep an eye on our demesne, lest that caitiff Rainmar raid us.
I
must, moreover, ride my wainwrights with a needle-spined spur, lest Baron Emmerhard seize the pretext to flout our compact."

             
"Doth he cool towards thee, then?" asked Dambert, frowning.

             
"Aye. 'Twas all firmly fixed: he to pay for the building of the coach and, upon its completion, to knight me and give me Gerzilda in marriage, in requital for a partnership in my coach line. Now he holds back the money and sidles around his promises like a crab on the strand. Meanwhile, my wainwrights grow loud in demands for arrears in their pay—"

             
"Part of thy trouble," said Dambert, "lies at the door of Emmerhard's lord. Petz of Treveria is a man of antique fancies, who likes not the grant of golden spurs for aught but deeds of dought upon the battlefield. Quotha, there's been too much purchase of honors and titles by baseborn tradesmen—"

             
"My spurs will be for the dragonslaying, not for carriage building."

             
"But, son, thy dragonslaying was done, not in the Empire before witnesses, but in a distant, heathen land. So Petz and Emmerhard have nought but thy word—"

             
"What ails my word?" began Eudoric angrily.

             
"Oh, I believe thee; so do we all. But these others know thee not as we do."

-

             
At an inn of Kromnitch, Baron Emmerhard admired his scarlet-and-ermine reflection in a pier glass. He ran a comb through his graying beard, slapped a sandstorm of dandruff from his robe, and said to his wife:

             
"Not bad for a man of mine age, my dear. Now, prithee, the coronet!"

             
The Baroness Trudwig turned to Emmerhard's body servant. "My lord's coronet, Sigric! 'Tis in the trunk with the scarlet stripes."

             
"Forgive me, Your Ladyship," said the valet, "but 'tis not there."

             
"How now?" said Emmerhard. "Let me see
...
Thou are right, varlet! Then where is the accursed bauble?"

             
"I know not, my lord," said Sigric. "Mona and Albrechta and I have already searched the twenty-three trunks and coffers. I know not how to tell you, sir, but I fear me it hath been left behind in Castle Zurgau—"

             
"What!"
roared Emmerhard, hopping and stamping. "Thou dolt! Ass! Noodlehead!" He aimed a punch at Sigric but was careful, even in his rage, to move slowly enough to give Sigric time to duck. Good valets were not easily come by.

             
A half-hour later, the contents of the twenty-three traveling chests of Baron Emmerhard and his family were spread around their suite, but there was no sign of Emmerhard's coronet. The baron sat in a chair with his face in his hands, while his wife and four daughters tried to comfort him.

             
"Nay, nay," he groaned. "By the God and Goddess, I cannot take my place in line without my regalia. 'Twere a slight to the fledgling King. I should never live it down. I'll send a message to young
Valdhelm, that I'm taken with a sudden tisic and like to die o't."

             
"Could not a hard-riding courier gallop back to Zurgau to fetch the thing hither in time?" asked the Lady Trudwig.

             
"Nay, with the fleetest steeds in relays, he could not return ere the morrow, and the coronation's at high noon today."

             
Gerzilda, the tall, willowy, blond eldest daughter, spoke up: "Father! Don't you call to mind that my lord Petz be abed with the gout? He hath been excused from the ceremony."

             
"W
e
ll
?"

             
"Why can ye not borrow Treveria's coronet?"

             
"Nay, 'tis a count's coronet. It hath more spikes and knobs than that of a mere baron."

             
"None would notice. If any do, ye can explain the circumstance and pass it off with a jest. And I shall die if I cannot attend in my new gown
...
"

             
Baron Emmerhard grumbled some more, but at length his womenfolk brought him round.

             
"Well," he said at last, "let's forth, stopping at Count Petz's on the way. Since his house be on t'other side of the city, this divigation will force us to miss the burning of the heretics; but that can't be helped."

-

             
Because of the gathering of the nobility, the narrow, winding streets of Kromnitch were more crowded than usual, despite a persistent drizzle. The chairs bearing Baron Emmerhard and his family were stopped a score of times as the chairmen bearing them slipped and staggered over the muddy cobbles. It took the party over an hour to reach Count Petz's mansion.

             
Knowing his master's vassals by sight, the doorkeeper promptly opened the portal for the Zurgau
family. He told Emmerhard: "My lord is with his physician, sir; but
I
'll send a message."

             
"A pox!" cried Emmerhard. "This brooks no delay. Petz knows me well enough. Stay here, ladies;
I
'll go up myself."

             
"But, my lord—" began the doorkeeper.

             
"My good man, take thine etiquette and stuff it.
I
'm in a very swivet of a hurry. Show me to your master's chambers or call me one who will."

             
When Baron Emmerhard, preceded by a frightened servant, burst into Count Petz's bedchamber, they found the huge old Count of Treveria sprawled on his bed, and a gray-bearded, bespectacled little man pottering around a tripod and muttering. A mixture of burning powders perfumed the air with a rainbow of aromatic smokes. The physician chanted:
"Abrasaxa, Shenouth—"

             
"Petzi!" cried Emmerhard, heedless. "Pardon the intrusion, but
I
must have your help instanter!"

             
"Oh, Emmeri!" growled Petz, heaving his great bulk up and rearranging his vast white beard atop the covers. "Why in the name of the Divine Pair did ye interrupt Calporio's spell against my gout? Now he must needs start over."

             
"A grievous
thing indeed, my lords," clucked the little man. " 'Tis the second such interruption.
I
might as well go back to bleeding."

             
"Which will doubtless finish off my liege lord altogether," said Emmerhard. "Doctor Baldonius tells me that bleeding's a useless, discredited—"

             
"Baldonius!" snorted Doctor Calporio.
"I
will not try Your Lordship's patience with my opinion of his servants, but if that mountebank—"

             
"Hold thy tongue, sirrah; we've no time for disceptation. Petzi, my trouble is this
...
" Emmerhard rattled off his tale of the forgotten coronet.

             
"Certes, ye shall have mine," said Petz. He spoke to the servant who had ushered Emmerhard in.

             
"Harmund! Give the baron my coronet to wear at the coronation. Yarely; he hath but little time."

             
"A thousand thanks, Petzi!" roared Emmerhard, turning with a wave to follow Harmund out. "Let me know when
I
can do aught for you."

             
Harmund led Emmerhard to Count Petz's strong room. After comings and goings with' key rings—for the door could be opened only by turning two keys in the lock at once—they entered the room. When a massive chest was unlocked and the lid thrown back, two coronets lay revealed, each in its padded, satin-lined box. Harmund hesitated, saying:

             
"My lord said not which to give you, sir. Shall
I
go back to ask—"

             
"Nay, nay, no time. Besides, 'twould grossly upset his little wizard, were his spell to be thrice interrupted. The crown on the left looks the worse for wear; let's try it!
I
would fain not expose my old friend's best headpiece to the risk of dent or downfall."

             
The old coronet proved a size too large. "Murrain!" said Emmerhard. "This thing rides upon mine ears."