He paused once more, waiting until Sir George nodded.
“Very well. I will leave the details of the demonstration up to you. Be prepared to describe them to me in two days’ time.”
The Commander turned away without another word, and most of his dragon-man guards closed in around him. One remained behind, obviously to escort Sir George from the ship, but the baron ignored the alien creature, hot eyes fixed on the Commander’s arrogant back as the wart-faces fell in behind the demon-jester and his entourage.
Plan a demonstration, is it? Sir George thought venomously. Jesu, but I know what I’d like to use as a target! The sight of your precious hide sprouting arrows like peacock feathers ought to impress the “local lordlings” no end!
He snorted bitterly at the thought, then drew a deep breath and turned to the dragon-man as the hatch closed behind the Commander. The towering alien looked down at him, then gestured for Sir George to accompany him from the ship.
Sir George obeyed the gesture, not without a fresh flicker of anger. Yet there was no point in resenting the dragon-man, and he tried to put his emotions aside as the dragon-man steered him out of the unfamiliar portion of the ship.
To Sir George’s surprise, however, the alien did not stop when they reached the huge cargo deck which stood open to the local environment. Instead, the dragon-man actually followed him from the ship, as if it meant to accompany him all the way to the pavilion which had been set up for Sir George and Lady Matilda.
The baron paused, surprised by the departure from normal practice, but the dragon-man only gestured him onward. He hesitated a moment longer, then shrugged ever so slightly and resumed his progress.
The two of them passed the screen of shrubbery separating the English camp from the ship, and Sir George smiled as he caught sight of Matilda, waiting for him. He raised his hand and opened his mouth to call her name . . .
. . . and found himself lying on the ground with no memory at all of how he had gotten there.
He blinked, head swimming, and peered up as a small hand stroked his brow anxiously. Matilda’s worried face peered down at him, and beyond her he saw Father Timothy, Dickon Yardley, Sir Richard, Rolf Grayhame, and a dozen others. And, to his immense surprise, he saw the dragon-man, as well, still standing behind the circle of far shorter humans and gazing down at him over their heads.
“My love?” Matilda’s voice was taut with anxiety, and he blinked again, forcing his eyes to focus on her face. “What happened?” she demanded.
“I—” He blinked a third time and shook the head he now realized lay in her lap. It seemed to be still attached to his shoulders, and his mouth quirked in a small, wry smile.
“I have no idea,” he admitted. “I’d hoped that perhaps you might be able to tell me that!”
Her worried expression eased somewhat at his teasing tone, but it was her turn to shake her head.
“Would that I could,” she told him, her voice far more serious than his had been. “You simply stepped around the bushes there and raised your hand, then collapsed. And—” despite herself, her voice quivered just a bit “—lay like one dead for the better part of a quarter-hour.” She looked anxiously up at Yardley, who shrugged.
“It’s as Her Ladyship says, My Lord,” the surgeon told him. Yardley lacked the training and miraculous devices of the Medic, but he’d always been an excellent field surgeon, and he’d been given far longer to learn his craft than any other human battle surgeon. Now he shook his head. “Oh, she exaggerates a little—you were scarcely `like one dead.’ I fear we’ve seen all too many of those, have we not?” He smiled grimly, and one or two of the others chuckled as they recalled men who most certainly had lain “like one dead” until their masters’ marvels restored them to life and health. “Your breathing was deeper than usual, yet not dangerously so, and your pulse steady. But for the fact that we couldn’t wake you, you might simply have been soundly asleep. Have you no memory of having tripped or fallen?”