"Gordon R. Dickson - Dragon Knight 03 - The Dragon on the Border" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

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CHAPTER ONE

тАЬAh, spring,тАЭ said the good knight Sir Brian Neville-Smythe, тАЬhow could it be better, James?тАЭ

Sir James Eckert, Baron de Malencontri et Riveroak, riding beside Sir Brian, was caught slightly off
guard by the question.

True, the sun was shining beautifully, but it was still a little chilly by his own personal, twentieth-century
standards; and he was grateful for the padding underneath his armor. Brian, he was sure, was feeling if
anything a little on the warm side- certainly he seemed to find the day balmy-and Dafydd ap Hywel,
riding a little behind them, wearing nothing but ordinary archerтАЩs clothes, including a leather jerkin
studded with metal plates, should by JimтАЩs standards also be feeling chilly. But Jim was ready to bet that
he was not, either.

There was, in fact, some reason for BrianтАЩs reaction.

Last year it had been good weather for them all, both in France and in England all through the summer.
But the fall had made up for that. Autumn had been steady rain; and the winter had been steady snow.
But now the winter and the snow had passed; and spring was upon the land even as far north as here in
Northumberland, next to the Scottish border.

It was toward this border that Jim, along with Brian and Dafydd, was now riding.

Jim woke suddenly to the fact that he had not answered Brian. An answer would be needed. If he did
not echo the otherтАЩs cheerful sentiments about the weather, Brian would be sure that he was ailing. That
was one of the problems that Jim had learned to accustom himself to in this parallel fourteenth-century
world, in which he and his wife Angie had found themselves. To people like Sir Brian, either everything
couldnтАЩt be better, or else you were ailing.

Ailing meant that you should dose yourself with all sorts of noxious concoctions, none of which could do
any good at all. It was true that the fourteenth century knew a few things about medicine-though these
were usually in the area of surgery. They could, and did, cut off a gangrenous limb-without the use of an
anesthetic of course-and they were sensible enough to cauterize any wound that seemed to have infected.
Jim lived in dread of getting wounded in some way when he was away from home and could not let
Angie (the Lady Angela de Malencontri et Riveroak, his wife) take care of his doctoring.

About the only way he would have of fending off the mistaken help of people like Brian and Dafydd
would be to claim that he could take care of the matter with magic. Jim, through no fault of his own, was
a magician... a very low-rated magician, to be sure, but one who commanded respect for his title among
non-magicians, nonetheless.

He still had not answered Brian, who was now looking at him curiously. The next thing Brian would be
asking was if Jim had a flux or felt a fever.