I don't know what you mean by its shadow, said Jim.
Come now, answered Carolinus, of course you do. For some time now you've been thinking that I was ignoring you more than you'd like; and not always explaining things fully to you—even thinking that I was possibly lying to you at times. It's true that in some cases I've had to tell you only part of the truth. When at last you're fully fledged as a Master Magickian—if you ever reach that day—you'll understand. In any case, none of this alters the fact that right now you have a decision to make that you must make by yourself. I can watch; but I can't help.
Carolinus disappeared; and an instant later Jim was back in his own body, his solid body sitting at the table, watching Sir Mortimor still taking coins away from Brian in bout after bout
Jim's mind felt torn this way and that; and then suddenly everything fell into a simple, clear choice between two alternatives. One was keeping the relationship he valued highest—aside from what he had with Angie—a relationship with Brian that had to a large extent made his existence in this fourteenth-century world not merely bearable but possible. The other was that he could risk losing that friendship, but see Brian with a chance that might never come again—to find Geronde's father at last and marry Geronde—the chance for those two to end up married, as they had wished to be for so long.
There was no comparison between the two choices. The first was an entirely personal, selfish one on Jim's part. The other was something that could better the whole lifetime of the two closest friends he and Angie had.
The hell with it! thought Jim. That money belongs to Brian; and Brian's going to have it.
He had expected to have to hunt and search for the ideal magic to do it; but it presented itself to him, almost as if it had been in waiting there in the back of his mind. He half closed his eyes and visualized the two sets of dice in Sir Mortimor's possession. Magically, he would cause them to trade places under certain specific conditions. Whenever Sir Mortimor turned the dice over to Brian, it would be the winning dice that Brian picked up, and whenever Brian turned over the dice to Sir Mortimor, they would become the losing dice again.
Sitting, he watched the luck at the table change. Brian won, and won, and won… until Jim suddenly woke up to the fact that his run of luck had been unnaturally long. Hastily he amended his magic command, so that he could cause the changing of the dice to be such that Brian would lose when Jim decided he should, and Sir Mortimor would win until Jim decided to change the dice he was throwing back to the losing pair.
To begin with, he allowed Sir Mortimor to win back quite a fair amount of what he had lost. The tall knight had begun to look very darkly indeed at the way things were going at the table. But now his face cleared up. Jim altered things back so that Brian won again and after a short bout of winning that just about matched what Sir Mortimor had won back, Jim had him lose and Sir Mortimor begin to win again.
But only briefly so. Controlling the game silently as he sat there, Jim gradually continued to shift the balance of winnings over to Brian's side. It continued until there were no coins left on Sir Mortimor's side of the table.
"By all the Saints!" said the tall knight, getting to his feet. He was not exactly scowling, but he was not far from it. "Luck seems to have deserted me, sir. If you will wait while I fetch more coins to wager with—"
"By all means," said Brian. "By all means, Sir Mortimor. But—much as I enjoy winning, it pains me to see you losing so steadily. If you would wish to take your revenge at a later time…"
"Hell, no!" said Sir Mortimor.
"Then, sir," said Brian, "I'll be glad to wait until you return with fresh funds."
Sir Mortimor stalked over to the staircase and disappeared down it.
"James!" said Brian in a delighted whisper, turning to him. "Did you ever see the like? Why, I have recouped more than half of all I have lost to him, already. May Heaven be with me for a while longer; and if I once come out of this with anything like the weight of purse I had to begin, I take my oath never to touch dice again until I am once more safely back in England."
"That would be a wise decision, all right, Brian," said Jim. His voice stuck in his throat a little. "I'm delighted you're winning."
"I give you leave to be so delighted!" said Sir Brian. "It is the most perfect thing!"
He sat back, waiting and silent. Jim waited with him in equal silence; and it was not long before Sir Mortimor's steps were heard on the staircase again and he emerged onto the floor to stride over and sit down in his place at the table.
This time, what he dumped on the table was a combination of rose nobles and moutons d'or. A much greater stake than he had placed on the table before.
Jim remembered hearing someplace that seasoned gamblers, as long as they knew the odds were at all even for them, believed that the trick was to keep on gambling, because sooner or later the tide of good fortune would begin to flow in their direction.
Looking at Sir Mortimor now, particularly with eyes remarkably clear since he had made his hard decision, Jim thought he saw in the man a clear case of the fever of addictive gambling, such as he had suspected from time to time in the case of Brian. However baffled Sir Mortimor might be that his tricks with the dice were not working, Sir Mortimor had clearly set that problem aside now, and was thinking of only one thing—dicing until he won.
The pressure at the table seemed to have gone up a hundredfold; and the tension between the two men was such that Jim had the feeling that if he put out his hand he would feel it stretched between them like a tightwire.
There were emotions at work here that could explode into violence all too easily. But in spite of that, Jim had made up his mind. He shifted the winning once more back into Brian's hands.
The pile of gold in front of Sir Mortimor continued to melt, with small reversals now and then; and gradually, as it dwindled, his jaw tightened, his face darkened and his tall body settled into a crouch like that of a leopard about to pounce. All resemblance to the scholarly, elderly man Jim thought he had seen at first glance was lost and he was pure warrior.
But now Beaupré was at Sir Mortimor's elbow again.
Sir Mortimor ignored him.
"M'lord," said Beaupré, at last.
"Go!" said Sir Mortimor, without looking up from the table.
"M'lord," said Beaupré, "the carpenter and one other man I sent out have come back. The Moroccans are building somewhat in front of our door that goes level back some little distance; but is supported on the hillside some ways down. They have made remarkable progress with it in the darkness; and it may be finished before first light."
"What of it?" muttered Sir Mortimor, watching the dice rattle from Brian's fist. "As soon as there's light we will burn it."
"They have covered the wood they build with goat hides. So many it is thought they must have carried some here in their ship as they came. With that protection, what they build will not burn easily."
"I told you to leave," growled Sir Mortimor.
"M'lord," said Beaupré, "something must be done."
"See to it then, Beaupré." said Sir Mortimor.
"M'lord—"
"See to it, Beaupré!"
There was a moment's pause.
"Yes, m'lord," said Beaupré, turning away. He went down the stairs out of sight. The game went on with hardly a word from either of the players. Only the sound of their breathing could be heard, the rattle of the dice and the scrape of the money being pushed out as a wager, or raked in as winnings. Jim found his eyelids beginning to feel heavy. It seemed they had been at this for hours now; and he gave in a little to the temptation to let Brian's winning stretches be longer ones, and Sir Mortimor's shorter.
Sir Mortimor's face grew darker still as his supply of money dwindled; darker and more dangerous-looking. As the dice went over to Brian for yet another time, he had reached a point where Jim found his tendency toward sleepiness suddenly evaporating, Sir Mortimor was watching each movement of the dice like a wild a
nimal about to pounce, and the tension at the table had grown to the point where the very air about them seemed to quiver with it.
Jim looked from Sir Mortimor to Brian. His friend may have been innocent in some ways, but he was not lacking perception when danger was in the air. Brian's face also was showing a change. It was not in him to show the kind of dark threat that Sir Mortimor was showing; but in his own way he was displaying a matching readiness to violence. His face seemed to have sharpened, the skin drawn tighter over cheek bones and jaw; his blue eyes appeared smaller and sharper, and their gaze was unwavering on the man sitting opposite him and on the dice.
A sudden temptation seized Jim to have Brian lose and let the dice move back to Sir Mortimor before an explosion could occur, but he hated to make Brian's winning stretch so short, when indeed he had given Sir Mortimor quite a stretch of wins; and the plan should have been at this point for Brian to match that with an even greater amount of wins.
As a result, he let Brian go on winning. The gold moved from Sir Mortimor's side of the table to Brian's.
At last, Jim let the dice go over to Sir Mortimor, on a loss from Brian. The tall knight snatched them up and stared at them closely.
"Why, these dice are cracked!" he said, jerking to his feet. "It were a shame on me that I offered such dice to a guest to play with. I will be back in a moment with another pair."
He turned on his heel and in a second he had reached the staircase and disappeared down it. Brian stared at the empty opening through which the other had disappeared.
"That was not done as a gentleman should," said Brian in a quiet but steely voice, staring at the opening around the staircase where Sir Mortimor had disappeared. "I would be in my rights if I should say that in taking away the dice he took away my luck. But though he may lack manners, I do not. Nonetheless, I will remember this."
"Brian—" began Jim.
Brian turned and looked at him, with the same implacable gaze with which he had been staring after the missing Sir Mortimor. Then his face relaxed.
"Do not concern yourself, James," he said. "If necessary, I will tell our host that I do not care to play any longer; and since I have not even yet won back all I have lost to him over the last week or so—though I am close to that amount, indeed—he can hardly object—"
He broke off at the sound of feet on the staircase, and Sir Mortimor was back with them.
He dropped into his seat and spilled from his hand a clean, white pair of dice on the table.
"These are new, and I warrant them sound," he said carelessly. He gathered them into his long hand again, shook them in his usual fashion and spilled them on the table. Jim made sure that he won.
Sir Mortimor smiled. He threw again and matched his point, taking in the wager that Brian had already pushed forward. The dice were still with him, and he threw again for three more bouts, winning.
His smile came back.
"Strange that I did not notice that crack before," he said. "A gentleman should be able to be aware of such things—"
He broke off abruptly, because Jim had just arranged for him to lose again. He stared at the two dice on the table and their uppermost surfaces as if he could not believe his eyes.
Brian reached for the dice.
"Hold—" said Sir Mortimor—and Brian's hand stopped before it touched them. Brian's eyes slowly lifted from the dice until they looked directly into the eyes of Sir Mortimor, and a wild bell of alarm sounded in Jim's mind. All he could think of at the moment was that neither man was wearing a sword. But they both had their poignards at their belts, since no one walked around without at least one edged weapon.
"I smell smoke!" cried Jim hastily—it had been the first thing he could think of, since Sir Mortimor with that one word had already crossed the border of acceptable politeness; but now that the words were out of his mouth it came to him that indeed he did smell smoke. He had been smelling smoke for some little time, and paying no conscious attention to it, as obviously neither had the other two men.
A smell of smoke where there should be none, in a castle, meant fire; and fire was something universally feared by those who lived within such stone walls.
These same thick barriers that enclosed them and protected them could make it almost impossible to come close to and successfully put out a fire once it was started inside the castle structure; so that, unstopped, it crept from room to room, while smoke was building up from it, and herding those in the castle that were alive farther and farther back from the flames they needed to come to grips with.
In the end it became an unstoppable enemy. The only escape from it was to leave the castle; and to leave this castle right now meant only one end for those within it.
Both other men lifted their heads and sniffed the air, and the sudden change in their faces signaled their recognition of the danger.
"Forgive me, Sir Brian," said Sir Mortimor swiftly, seizing on the opportunity for the one excuse that could take any possible danger out of the word he had just uttered. "I had indeed just smelled the smoke myself. Beaupré!"
Beaupré appeared even as the word rang on the air. Clearly he had already been on his way to them.
"M'lord," he said to Sir Mortimor, "they have built their shelter right against the outer door, and in their shelter, had burning coals against the bottom of it for some time now, without our realizing. The lower part of the door is almost eaten through by fire. The carpenter believes that they have made a flat platform on which men can also swing a battering ram. They are just beginning to hammer now."
"Five more men here! Ho!" Sir Mortimor ordered the empty air.
It struck Jim, rather ridiculously, that Sir Mortimor was the equivalent of his own PA system. All he had to do was speak with a raised voice and anyone in the castle would hear and obey. He had not specified where "here" was. It was obviously up to the five men he wanted to know where Sir Mortimor was calling from.
A second thought suggested to Jim's mind that there was no real trick in that, either. He had no doubt that when he and Angie were at home in Malencontri, every servant then in the castle would know where either of them was at any moment. It was part of their business to know; and the word of any shift of either their Lord or Lady from one place to another was transferred immediately throughout all the body of those who worked in the castle, as if by telepathy.
The five men appeared, one of them carrying a bow and with a quiver of arrows slung at his belt.
"You," said Sir Mortimor, pointing at the bowman, "to the roof. Have them empty the oil that's in the kettle up there and fill it instead with water. Get men to help you and slide it forward on its rails so that it will pour out over the walls down before the door. Keep the oil that's taken out in buckets handy to be put back in, however. Go!"
The bowman ran off and up the stairway.
"You other four and Beaupré gather everyone in the castle who can fight. Join me in the large room behind the inner entrance door on the first floor. These gentlemen and I will be down as soon as possible. Beaupré, I must be fully armed, and these gentlemen will need help arming too. See to it!"
"By your leave, sir," said Brian coldly. "Sir James and I can armor each other."
"Good," said Sir Mortimor with no hesitation. "I will meet you down on the ground floor there."
He strode off to the stairs and disappeared down them, followed by Beaupré and the remaining four men. Jim and Brian went after them.
"I think that smoke is coming in through the arrow slits and windows," remarked Jim, as he and Brian were helping each other to buckle on armor and fasten sword belts.
"Most like," grunted Brian. He paused and looked Jim frankly in the face. "I own I am happy at the prospect of action. It was becoming other than pleasant, there at the table."
"You've got the money you've won back?" Jim asked.
"As much as I won tonight," said Brian. "I am still lacking somewhat of what Sir Mortimor won originally; but he is welcome to it. I would rather not d
ice with him again."
"But you'll fight alongside him," said Jim, as they began to leave the room.
"I have eaten his food and drunk his wine. What else can I do?" said Brian. "Also"—he added, looking over his shoulder at Jim—"if those outside get in, we all die. We fight for our own lives, you and I. That Sir Mortimor does the same thing beside us is of less import."
Chapter Thirteen
However, as Brian said these words, he did not look to Jim as if he was facing a fight for his life. The expression on his face was more the happy excitement of someone going to a picnic.
It was characteristic of Brian to look like this before any action. Jim had seen it before; and curiously, in this strange place, under these strange conditions, it made him feel better. They finished helping each other put on their armor and weapons and left their room to go down to the ground floor.
Jim had not paid close attention to the ground floor when he entered the castle, since his escorts had hurried him up the stairs to Sir Mortimor and Brian. Now he saw that it was mostly taken up with a large open space, one end of which had been divided with wooden partitions some five feet high, as stalls for horses, so that these could be brought inside if necessary; though Jim found it hard to imagine what kind of horse could climb the switchback road up to the steps leading to the castle's front door—let alone up the steps itself.
Right now, however, these stalls were filled with villagers. All the rest of the space was taken up by what looked like a hundred or more armed men, packed as tightly as sardines; and all, to Jim, looking rather pale, caught between the ominous figure of their Lord, towering over them, and the ominous knowledge of the enemy outside who was burning a route into the castle.
"Sir James! Sir Brian!" roared Sir Mortimor, as he saw Brian and Jim coming down the stairway. He broke off what he had been saying, pushed his way to the stairs and took three double-step strides up to meet them before they reached the floor.