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

persistent drizzle. The chairs bearing Baron Emmerhard and his family were stopped a score of times as the chairmen bearing them slipped and staggered over the muddy cobbles. It took the party over an hour to reach Count Petz's mansion.
     
                  Knowing his master's vassals by sight, the doorkeeper promptly opened the portal for the Zurgau family. He told Emmerhard: "My lord is with his physician, sir; but I 'll send a message."
     
                  "A pox!" cried Emmerhard. "This brooks no delay. Petz knows me well enough. Stay here, ladies; I 'll go up myself."
     
                  "But, my lord—" began the doorkeeper.
     
                  "My good man, take thine etiquette and stuff it. I 'm in a very swivet of a hurry. Show me to your master's chambers or call me one who will."
     
                  When Baron Emmerhard, preceded by a frightened servant, burst into Count Petz's bedchamber, they found the huge old Count of Treveria sprawled on his bed, and a gray-bearded, bespectacled little man pottering around a tripod and muttering. A mixture of burning powders perfumed the air with a rainbow of aromatic smokes. The physician chanted: "Abrasaxa, Shenouth—"
     
                  "Petzi!" cried Emmerhard, heedless. "Pardon the intrusion, but I must have your help instanter!"
     
                  "Oh, Emmeri!" growled Petz, heaving his great bulk up and rearranging his vast white beard atop the covers. "Why in the name of the Divine Pair did ye interrupt Calporio's spell against my gout? Now he must needs start over."
     
                  "A grievous thing indeed, my lords," clucked the little man. " 'Tis the second such interruption. I might as well go back to bleeding."
     
                  "Which will doubtless finish off my liege lord altogether," said Emmerhard. "Doctor Baldonius tells me that bleeding's a useless, discredited—"
     
                  "Baldonius!" snorted Doctor Calporio. "I will not try Your Lordship's patience with my opinion of his servants, but if that mountebank—"
     
                  "Hold thy tongue, sirrah; we've no time for disceptation. Petzi, my trouble is this ... " Emmerhard rattled off his tale of the forgotten coronet.
     
                  "Certes, ye shall have mine," said Petz. He spoke to the servant who had ushered Emmerhard in.
     
                  "Harmund! Give the baron my coronet to wear at the coronation. Yarely; he hath but little time."
     
                  "A thousand thanks, Petzi!" roared Emmerhard, turning with a wave to follow Harmund out. "Let me know when I can do aught for you."
     
                  Harmund led Emmerhard to Count Petz's strong room. After comings and goings with' key rings—for the door could be opened only by turning two keys in the lock at once—they entered the room. When a massive chest was unlocked and the lid thrown back, two coronets lay revealed, each in its padded, satin-lined box. Harmund hesitated, saying:
     
                  "My lord said not which to give you, sir. Shall I go back to ask—"
     
                  "Nay, nay, no time. Besides, 'twould grossly upset his little wizard, were his spell to be thrice interrupted. The crown on the left looks the worse for wear; let's try it! I would fain not expose my old friend's best headpiece to the risk of dent or downfall."
     
                  The old coronet proved a size too large. "Murrain!" said Emmerhard. "This thing rides upon mine ears."
     
                  "I 'll fix it, my lord," said Harmund. A strip of parchment stuck with flour paste to the inside of the lining made the coronet fit passably well; and the baron, beaming with relief, rushed off to join his women.
     
                  As Emmerhard had anticipated, they were too late to view the