They were seated once more at the table where they had been before, with three more of the apparently endless supply of mazers filled with wine before them. Sir Mortimor had waited until the servant who brought them had left the floor.

“As it is,” the tall knight went on, “he is my second in command. If he should call on you to do something, you will please me by regarding it as a request from myself. I expect nothing much to happen for a day or two. They will try all the easy things. We may hear stones poured upon the tower from above, and some attempts to break through the walls at ground level, but nothing serious. Beaupré will take care of this, all of it, and call upon you only if needed.”

“Sir Mortimor,” said Brian in a level voice, “I crave pardon if I misunderstand you. But it seems to me that you are suggesting that two belted knights fight if necessary under the orders of a squire.”

“So I am,” said Sir Mortimor, meeting him eye to eye. “You gentlemen do not know wars as they are fought in this part of the world; and Beaupré does. I assure you he will use the best of manners in speaking to you.”

“That is hardly the point. Sir Mortimor,” said Brian. “We are guests of yours, I believe?”

“You are,” said Sir Mortimor. “What else might you be?”

“I expect nothing else,” said Brian. “But I also expect that if my host would welcome my assistance in defending his house, then my host would ask it himself, rather than sending someone of lesser rank to demand it of me.”

He turned, strode to the stairs and went down out of sight.

“Brian-“ began Jim. But Brian raised a forefinger and brushed it across his lips, and Jim broke off abruptly.

Brian got to his feet, picking up his mazer as he did and beckoning Jim. Jim followed his example, but left his wine behind. Brian led him to the staircase and down a single level into a small space from which three doors opened off. He took the one to the left, and led Jim into a room that was obviously intended as a guest bedroom.

In contrast to what Jim had been used to finding in castles in England, it was more spacious than most such guest rooms were; the bed was much bigger, with four posts and a canopy all the way around it; and what might have been otherwise considered an arrow slit in the wall was several times as wide as the ordinary arrow slit-making a good bid at calling itself a window. There were, however, no shutters on it. In case of bad weather not only wind, but rain, would enter.

Jim’s possessions were piled in a corner; and, among them, he was happy to see, was his personal, rolled-up and vermin-free mattress. There was also a table and barrel chairs in the room. Brian carefully closed the door behind them, beckoned him over to the table, sat down himself with his mazer and motioned Jim to a chair.

“James,” he said in a low voice, “unwittingly, I have led you into a trap. If your magic gives you means of escaping from here, I beg that you will use it. This attack on Sir Mortimor’s castle should be no concern of yours. I am heartily sorry you have become involved even this far with it.”

Jim looked across the table at Brian and saw that he was in deadly earnest.

“Of course,” he said, “I could get away by magic. In fact, we both can get away by magic. What have you got yourself into here, Brian?”

It was not until the last words were out of his mouth, that he had realized that he had committed an unpardonable social error by asking such a personal question of Brian, in spite of the fact that Brian was his closest friend. He had no right to ask Brian to tell him why he was in any kind of situation. He opened his mouth to apologize, but Brian spoke before him.

“Never mind it, James,” said Brian, as if he had read Jim’s mind. “I understand you speak only out of concern for me. No, if you can escape, you must do so. I, myself, am not free to leave.”

“Why not?” asked Jim.

“I came here as an invited guest,” Brian said, “after meeting Sir Mortimor in Episcopi, where I was visiting with some other good knights- English knights-whose grandfathers settled here at the time of an earlier crusade. Sir Mortimor has not failed in his duties as a host toward me; and I cannot fail in my obligation as a guest to him, now that he has a difficulty on his hands. It is not so with you. You came only to find me, and you find me tied here while you are free to go. I beg you, James, leave while you can; and if a message must be sent back to Geronde and Angela, say that I was well the last you saw of me, and merely had a small bicker on my hands which might delay me slightly in getting on with what I came here to do.”

Jim felt Hob stir again in the knapsack on his back. The little hobgoblin had ducked down out of sight before Sir Mortimor had come back up to join them, at the time when they had been talking about Brian’s childhood and his early knowledge of Hob. Now the hobgoblin stuck his head out of the knapsack, and his breath tickled the back of Jim’s right ear as he looked about.

“Oh!” he said happily. “Fire and smoke. A fireplace. M’lord, is it all right if I take a look up that chimney?”

“Go right ahead, Hob,” said Jim-and in a moment the gray figure of Hob had launched itself from his shoulder toward the fireplace and to all appearances simply disappeared. Jim turned his attention back to Brian. The last words that Brian had said had rung oddly false in his ears.

“Brian,” he said, “forgive me-and you don’t have to answer me, if you don’t want to-but is something wrong? Is there something you’re not telling me that’s badly out of kilter? Will you really be ready to go on as soon as this is over?”

“I pledge myself to do so,” said Brian. “And that pledge I am not going to fail upon. I give you my word I will do my best to go back to my search for Geronde’s father, the minute I am away from Sir Mortimor and this castle.”

“You’re talking about your word to Sir Mortimor, now, aren’t you?” said Jim. “What word exactly did you give him?”

“James-“ began Brian on an almost angry note, and then stopped abruptly. He looked down at the table, looked at his mazer of wine, took a drink from it and looked back up at Jim. “James, I will continue in my search. There may be a slight delay, however. You are right. There is something I have not told you; and it concerns an error and a weakness on my part. It is-the fact is I have almost no money left to travel with.”

“No-?” Jim broke off. “I don’t mean to-“ he continued, staring at his friend. Brian’s square, lean-boned face with its blue eyes and aggressively hooked nose had something defiant about it. He checked the word “pry” that had been on the tip of his tongue and rephrased what he was going to say.

“-Ask any impolite questions of you,” he went on, “but how does it happen you could be out of money so quickly? It seemed to me you had more than enough for a search here that could take you months, or even a year.”

“So I had,” said Brian. “The fault is my own, James. We are all sinners and have our weaknesses. One of mine, as you know, is the dice. I should have sworn off all such things for the period of this search, but I did not think of it.”

“But what happened, then?” asked Jim.

“I came to Cyprus, as perhaps Geronde told you,” he said, “because a certain Sir Francis Neville, a cousin twice removed, was a knight of the Hospitallers; and I hoped for advice from him. I knew that he was here on Cyprus on some business between the Hospitallers and certain well-placed and powerful gentlemen on the island. Perhaps Geronde told you all this.”

Jim nodded.

“But when I got here,” Brian said, “Sir Francis had already left again for the headquarters of his Brotherhood, which has long been elsewhere than the hospital they founded in Jerusalem, in the name of St. John of Jerusalem, whereby, of course, comes their name of Hospitallers. Their proper title at present is the Order of the Knights of Rhodes. I had hoped to learn from him the best way to take myself to Palmyra, and also how I should conduct myself and what I should be wary of on the way there.”

Brian paused. Jim, thinking he was done speaking, opened his own mouth.

“But surely,” Jim said, “his being gone shouldn’t have cost you most of your money-unless it was stolen from you.”

“No,” said Brian, “it would be a brave robber that tried to take what I had on my person. No, my cousin Sir Francis was no longer here; but he had many friends, of course, whom I discovered by mentioning his name to other gentlemen; and those friends welcomed me in a right neighborly manner. But you must understand, James, they passed me from one to the other-since one would have some knowledge of Palmyra, but not of the best route toward it, where another might know of the route, but not the city, and yet another might know more about ships plying back and forth between here and Tripoli, that being the best port to come close to it. Palmyra, you must understand, is some distance inland from Tripoli and all other port cities to the south.”

“Go on,” said Jim.

“The trouble was, James,” said Brian, “of course, each new gentleman I met must dine and drink and entertain me-and, of course, together with all this there was a certain amount of dicing.”

“Oh,” said Jim. “And it added up to your losing all your money?”

“Oh no,” said Brian, “not all of it, by any means. A small portion, only. I was most careful. But then, in Episcopi, I was introduced to Sir Mortimor, who was up there from his castle for business of his own, and he joined us at the dice; and I won.”

“You won?” Jim stared at him.

“Yes. I won a good deal,” said Brian. “I ended up with more than I had when I first came to Cyprus. And I won it all from Sir Mortimor, who seemed then to live only for dicing and drinking. I have a fair capacity for wine, you know that, James. But Sir Mortimor’s is heroic!”

“I can believe it,” said Jim.

“So, I did not refuse,” Brian went on, “when Sir Mortimor invited me up here for a short stay. We were to enjoy the fishing, actually. He had promised me that there was almost as much pleasure in trying to boat a fish as large as a man, on a single line, as there was besting one in single combat; and you know that we do not usually have fish that large, to be taken by only an angle, in England. Indeed, he was quite right. He did take me fishing at first, and I had the experience; and it is something to remember, James!”

“I can believe that too,” said Jim. “But the last I heard you still had money. In fact, more than you had started out with.”

“Not more than I had started out with, James,” said Brian reproachfully. “More than I had by the time I had gotten here to Cyprus.”

“I stand corrected,” said Jim.

“But, of course, in the evenings we would be dicing; and-I know not how it is, James-but what I had experienced in Episcopi could only have been the most unusual run of luck; for here at the castle it has been just the opposite. I have lost steadily; until now I have lost almost every coin I possess. I cannot leave without trying to get it back; and even if I could, my sense of honor would insist that I stay here to help Sir Mortimor in his hour of trial.”

“I’m not sure he regards it as that much of an hour of trial,” said Jim. “So you won gaming against him in Episcopi? Won steadily. But back here at the castle you have lost steadily? Were you always using his dice?”

“Why, yes,” said Brian. “I never carry dice, James, you know that, for that I might be tempted to lose what little I own. I have this abiding fear that one day I might forget myself and even wager Blanchard of Tours, when the fever is on me-and lose him.”

Jim nodded soberly. Brian had given all his patrimony, except the rundown Castle Smythe itself, in order to buy Blanchard, the great white stallion that was his war horse, and who had the intelligence and the fighting spirit that made such horses worth a prince’s purse. And indeed, without Blanchard, Brian would be hard put to win the tournaments in which he essentially made his living; and in which a horse of such weight, power and speed was a vital necessity.

“But you cannot be suggesting that Sir Mortimor has been less than honest in our bouts,” said Brian, staring at Jim. “A knight would not- oh, I know there have been cases, hedge knights and pitiful fellows not fit for a gentleman’s table. But for someone like Sir Mortimor who owns this castle and property here... He could not survive without the help of his neighbors; and he would not dare cheat his neighbors for fear that sooner or later it would be discovered; and then all would turn against him.”

“You may be right, Brian,” said Jim. “But I think you forget something.”

“What is that?” Brian was very close to bristling.

“This is a part of the world where taking all you can get from anyone else is the normal way of life. In fact, you know as well as I do it’s not the only part of the world where this can happen to a visitor. And I might point out that you’re a visitor here, a stranger. That could make you fair game.”

“He dare not!” said Brian.

“From what I’ve seen of him,” Jim said, “Sir Mortimor is not slow when it comes to daring things.”

Brian sat, slowly adjusting to the idea of Sir Mortimor as someone who would cheat a fellow knight. Gradually his face became more and more grim until the bones of it seemed to push against the skin.

“However,” he said at last with a sigh, “there is nothing to be done about it. It would be all the more impolite if I were to question his honesty without proof certain-now that I am a heavy loser to him. But game with him I must, if I am to have any hope of regaining my funds. In any case, there is no way to tell whether he plays honestly, or not.”

“Maybe not for you,” said Jim. He had his magic. But at the moment he could not think how he could use it to check on the honesty of Sir Mortimor’s dice playing. There must, however, be a way. “But if he won’t object to my sitting and watching while you play... if he doesn’t suspect that I’m watching to see if I can tell that in some way or other he’s less than honest...”

“He would not suspect the honor of a fellow knight-“ Brian broke off. ‘ ‘By St. Giles, James, it just may be that if you are right, he would indeed be suspicious. How to avoid that, I know not.”

But Jim’s mind was working now.

“What about this, Brian?” he asked. “Would you say that Sir Mortimor was the sort of knight who could be counted on to take up a challenge?”

Brian stared at him.

“Of an absolute certainty!” said Brian. “Courage, he does not lack.”

“Then maybe we could get him into a dice match, where his attention would be more on the match itself with you than on any reason I might have for watching. If you challenged him to it, for example, at a moment when things were at risk and two gentlemen would normally not sit down to wine and dice. You could do that?”

“I could, of course,” said Brian. “But when? And James-I have only a few pieces of gold left. It may be that I would have to give the appearance of having more. It is a great deal to ask of you, but is it possible-“

“Certainly,” Jim interrupted him. “I can give you enough extra money to make him interested. That’s no problem.”

For that matter, he thought, he could make any amount of money that might be needed, magically. Of course it would turn back into whatever he had made it out of, twenty-four hours later-and also to use such false money to cheat someone would be against the laws of Magickdom-as Carolinus would spell that word. But to use it to catch a cheat ought to be allowable.

“We’ll wait until the attack against this castle heats up,” he said.