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bedroom for privacy. The fact of the matter was,there were not a great many
places in the castle that were not essentially public. The result was that
both Jim and Angie had fallen into the medieval habit of simply living and
talking with all sorts of people around them. Eventually they had simply
gotten to the point where they ignored being watched and overheard, except in
their most private moments. Sir Brian was seated at the high table in the
great hall with Angie, pretty much as Jim had expected. Jim strode up to the
table, clasped hands with Sir Brian, and joined them.
"Jim!" said Angie. "What happened to you?"
It wasplain, to Jim at least, that the minute the words were out of her
mouth, she was wishing that she had not said anything. However, his appearance
was bound to be remarked on in any case; and Jim had already come up with a
temporary, stopgap answer.
"Oh," he said, "it's a matter of magic gone wrong.Nothing important. We'll
just have to get these clothes of mine sewed back together properly and my
armor straightened out where it needs to be."
He was conscious of at least twenty other people in the hall drifting close
as he spoke.
"Indeed, you do look somewhat the worse for wear, m'Lord," said Sir Brian.
"Nothing important, Brian," Jim said, wincing a little at being "m'Lorded" by
Brian.He covered up the reaction by hastily half filling one of the extra
flagons on the table with wine from the pitcher that had been placed between
Angie and Brian.
When they had first met nearly a year before, in the matter of the Loathly
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Tower, and Sir Brian had offered to be the first of Jim's necessary Companions
in matching forces with the evil powers within that tower Jim had informed the
other, purely in a spur-of-the-moment attempt to give himself some status,
that he was Baron of Riveroak, back in the land he came from.
Sir Brian had accepted this quite naturally; but had always addressed Jim
simply as Sir James, until Jim had taken over the castle and lands belonging
to the Baron of Malencontri. After that, he had begun using the "m'Lord" term
of address to Jim something that made Jim very uncomfortable indeed. They were
old friends now. Close friends. Jim had argued with him on this point of the
"m'Lord" several times, asking Brian to simply call him by his first name of
James, as he called the other Brian. Still, Brian had a tendency to slip from
time to time. Habit was strong.
Sir Brian was now sitting at a forty-five degree angle from Jim, since he,
Jim, and Angie were clustered around one corner of the high table, with Jim
along the long axis of it, and Brian on the short, with Angie in between. Of
the three of them, Sir Brian would have seemed to almost any eye to stand
apart from both Angie and Jim.
The good knight was in his twenty-fifth year (as Jim happened to know),
actually a good three years younger than Jim.
But any observer seeing them together for the first time would have
undoubtedly assumed Brian was at least ten years older than Jim.
Partly this was due to his angular, clean-shaven, suntanned face, which
showed evidence of exposure to outside weather. But also a great deal was
simply due to the fact that Sir Brian radiated an air of confidence,
self-possession, and natural authority to command; which Jim simply did not.
Brian had grown up taking it for granted he would be a leader. He had always
led, he was a leader now; and, a little like Aragh the English wolf, the day
that changed for him, he would be dead.In which case any question about his
right to his appearance would be beside the point.
Compared to Jim and Angie, he was poor. He was a knight-bachelor, which
simply meant he was not a knight-baronet. The "bachelor" part did not refer to
his unmarried state. He awaited the return of the father of Geronde Isabel de
Chaney, another neighbor, from theHoly Land  which return might never
happen so that Brian could ask for permission to marry Geronde. His castle,
Castle Smythe, was old and in poor repair. His lands were small, compared to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]