Free The Incorporated Knight by L. Sprague de Camp, Catherine Crook de Camp Page B

we pooled the twain. For the other, I had done a deed of dought in slaying a dragon in Pathenia; although, because of distance, I could not trot out witnesses to the act. Ask the learned Doctor Baldonius whether the two square yards of hide I fetched him from the East be not the integument of an authentic dragon." Eudoric refrained from mentioning that, first, Jillo Godmarson had actually killed the beast; and second, Eudoric had promptly been thrown in jail for breach of the Pathenian game laws.
     
                  "That may be." Rainmar ran thick fingers through his beard, in which a few threads of silver appeared amid the copper. "But I'm not quite satisfied. Dost thou adhere strictly to the code of knighthood: to be loyal to thy suzerain, protect the female kind, and so forth?"
     
                  "To the best of mine ability," said Eudoric. "Hm. Well, now, I have a task for thee, which will test thy mettle. Accomplish it, and Maragda shall be thine. Knowest thou the deadly wood of Dimshaw, in the farthest reaches of my demesne? "
     
                  " Who does not?"
     
                  "Hast heard of the great spider, whom we call Fraka, that haunts it?"
     
                  "Yea, and how she has slain the men who blundered into her web. What—?" With sinking heart, Eudoric realized what was coming next.
     
                  "In fine," said Rainmar, "thy task is to slay this monster."
     
                  Eudoric gulped, acutely aware of the obligation of knighthood to show no fear, no matter how one felt. "Why don't you simply burn that part of Dimshaw where Fraka dwells?"
     
                  "That were to waste good timber, which I mean to cut to sell to the Emperor's shipwrights. Besides, in a dry spell such as we now undergo, such a fire might get out of hand and devastate the barony. Nay, this is a task for one fearless hero—to wit, thyself."
     
                  "How shall I do this deed, sir?" said Eudoric, feeling anything but fearless.
     
                  "That's thine affair. Thou shalt, howsomever, do it in true knightly fashion. No magical sleights or base commercial tricks! I demand a proper stand-up fight, in accord with the ethic of chivalry. Mine own past may not have been utterly sinless," (which Eudoric thought the understatement of the century) "but my lass shall wed none but the purest and most unsullied gentleman of the realm."
     
    -
     
                  Eudoric hastened to the forest dwelling of Doctor Baldonius, who got out his huge, iron-bound encyclopedia and turned the pages of crackling parchment.
     
                  "Here we be," he said. " 'Arachnida ... The class is remarkable for the variety of its methods of copulation and fertilization. Among the Scorpiones, copulation takes place front to front by apposition of the genital orifices of the two sexes, located forward on the underside of the cephalothorax. In the Opiniones ... ' Let's omit those. In most of the Araneae, the terminal segments of the palpi of the male are modified into intromittent organs—' "
     
                  "Very interesting," said Eudoric, "but I would fain kill this creature, not make love to it."
     
                  "I shall come to that," said Baldonius. " 'The females of most species of spiders readily seize and eat the smaller specimens of their kind. To avoid being thus devoured, spiders male have instinctive patterns of behavior to inhibit the cannibalistic tendencies of the females, at least until after copulation. Some perform courtship dances, displaying colored tufts on one pair of appendages.
     
                  "Forsooth, must I dance a fandango before Fraka, whilst waving a feather duster at her?"
     
                  "Nay. Be patient but a little longer. 'Among the web-spinning spiders, recognition is effected by