The Knight. Part 49

Garvaon said, "He did."

I nodded. "What about the others, My Lady?"

"I don't think so."

"None of them? What about you, Swert? Would you have fought, if you'd been there?"

"I hope so, Sir Able. If I'd had something to fight with."

That evening I talked to all the servants, and to the archers and men-at-arms.

"I've only got three things to say to you," I told them. "I'll talk a lot about those three things, because I think you'll want me to. I'll answer your questions as well as I can. But everything I've got to say will come down to those three things, so I'd like to get them out of the way before we do the rest." I studied them, hoping my silence would lend weight to my words.

"I'm asking you to fight. All of you. Everyone here. Lord Beel has ordered you to, but he can't make you do it any more than I can. All he can do is punish you if you don't. Whether you fight or not is up to you--that's the first thing I've got to say.

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"You won't be fighting alone. Each man-at-arms and each archer is going to take charge of two or three or four of you, depending on how the numbers work out, teach you what you'll need to know, and lead you when we go to get our goods back from the Angrborn. Lord Beel himself will be leading the men-at-arms and the archers, and so will Sir Garvaon and I. That's the second thing."

They were looking at each other by that time, and I let them do it for more than a minute.

"Most of you have heard I killed one of the Angrborn last night. Sir Garvaon killed one too, but he had two archers and a man-at-arms fighting beside him. He likes to pretend that it makes what he did less than what I did. But what he did, and what I did, don't matter much. What matters is that our men-at-arms and our archers killed two before Sir Garvaon and I came down from the pa.s.s. It doesn't take a knight. A few brave men were able to do it without a knight to lead them. That's the third thing I have to say, and the most important." I stopped again.

"Some of you will have questions for me, or for Lord Beel, or for Sir Garvaon. Some may even have questions for Lady Idnn. Stand, and speak loudly. I've had questions for Lord Beel myself, and he's had questions for me. No one will be punished for asking a question."

A middle-aged servingman rose. "Is anyone not going to fight?"

"I don't know," I said. "We'll have to see." The servingman sat down quickly.

"Lord Beel is going to fight. Lady Idnn is going to fight. Sir Garvaon is going to fight. The archers and men-at-arms are going to fight, and I am going to fight."

Master Crol called, "So am I!"

"And Master Crol is going to fight, of course. I took that so much for granted that I forgot to mention it. But none of us know about the rest of you. That's one of the things we're going to find out."

One of Idnn's maids got hesitantly to her feet. "We're supposed to fight, too?"

"Didn't Lady Idnn tell you?"

The maid's nod was timid.

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"Then you know the answer. Let me explain. Ordinarily, women don't fight because they're not as strong as men. But what's my strength or Sir Garvaon's compared to the strength of the giants? You can fight them as well as we do, if you choose to do it. Lady Idnn's going to lead you and teach you. She and her bow have accounted for a lot of deer, but she's after bigger game now, and it's your duty to help her."

A cook sitting near the maid said, "Do we get to choose the man-at-arms we want?"

"Stand up." I gestured. "The rest can't hear you." The cook rose, somewhat embarra.s.sed. "You said that each two or three of us would have a man-at-arms to teach us. Do we get to pick which one?"

"Or an archer. No. They get to choose you."

The servingman who had stood up first stood up again. "I just want to say I'll fight, if you'll give me weapons."

I said, "When Lord Beel heard I'd killed an Angrborn, he asked how I did it. I told him with arrows, and he wondered how I could see to shoot, since we'd fought them at night. I explained that they're so big that they could always be seen against the night sky--so big I'd have found it hard to miss." I held up my bow. "I made this. I didn't make all my arrows, but I made the best ones. There are trees here, trees tough enough to bend under the mountain winds and stand up again when the wind dies. The Angrborn took a lot of the treasure we had, but they left us a lot in the way of iron grates and pots and bronze fittings for the pavilions. The man who shoes our horses and mules can shape those things into arrowheads, and you're sitting on more rough stones to sharpen them with than you'll ever need."

I shut up to let them think about that. The sun had nearly set, and the grave markers on the hilltop cast long shadows that seemed to reach toward us like so many fingers.

"Some of you may be helped by the Fire Aelf," I said. "I hope so. If you are, listen carefully to everything they tell you. They're good metal workers."

420.

CHAPTER 62.

AFTER THE RAIDERS.

T he mountains had dwindled to hills before I camped, high brown-and-yellow hills whose sand-colored stones were masked by dead gra.s.s. I had ridden--and walked while I led the limping stallion--until the sun was down, hoping for water and wood. The water hole I finally found held water nearly as thick as mud, but the stallion drank it thirstily.

I tied him to his own saddle, spread his saddle blanket on the ground, and laid another blanket over it. A fire would have been nice, but a fire might have caught the dry gra.s.s and burned half the world. That was how it seemed, anyway: a barren land that went on and on like the sea. Besides, there was no wood.

After that, for what felt like hours, I lay shivering, wrapped in my cloak and the other blanket, looking up at the stars and hearing only the slow steps of the grazing stallion and the soft moaning of the wind.

It was late summer. Late summer and warm weather at Duke Marder's lofty gray castle. Warm weather in the Bay of Forcetti. There would be no ice in that bay for months.

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Sweltering late summer in the forest where I had lived with Bold Berthold. The bucks would have begun to grow antlers for the mating season; but those antlers would have a lot of growing to do still, weapons of gallant combat still sheathed in velvet. Knowing that summer lingered along the Griffin had brought me little comfort, and my mail even less. I was on the northern side of the Mountains of the Mice now, far north of the downs, and I believe at an elevation a good deal higher than that of the smiling southern lands.

Waves crashed against a cliff, and I leaped and sported in them, together with the maidens of the Sea Aelf, maidens who save for their eyes were as blue everywhere as the blue eyes of the loveliest maids of Mythgarthr, fair young women who sparkled and laughed as they leaped from the surging sea into the storm that lit and shook the heavens.

That lit and shook Mythgarthr. Why had I not thought of that? I rolled over, seeking to close blanket and cloak more tightly about me.

Ga.r.s.ecg and Garvaon waited on the cliff, Garvaon with drawn sword and Ga.r.s.ecg a dragon of steel-blue fire. The Kelpies raised graceful arms and lovely faces in adoration, shrieking prayers to Setr; they cheered as a gout of scarlet flame forced Garvaon over the edge.

He fell, striking rock after rock after rock. His helmet was lost, his sword rattled down the rocks with him, and his bones broke until a shapeless ma.s.s of armor and bleeding flesh tumbled into the sea.

I woke shuddering. My sea was this rolling expanse of dust-dry gra.s.s, lit by a fading moon lost among racing cloud. The cliff from which Garvaon had fallen was the Northern Mountains now, mountains my stallion's hooves had somehow transformed into southern mountains; and the Kelpies were nothing more than a shrieking wind.

Shivering worse than ever, I tried to sleep again.

The Armies of Winter and Old Night advanced across the sky, monstrous bodies lit from within by lightnings. A flying castle, a thing no larger than a toy, barred their way--and barred their way alone. From its walls a thousand voices pleaded: Able! Able! Able . . .

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But I slept upon the downs while these greater Angrborn brandished spears of chaos and bellowed hate.

I woke, and found my face wet with rain. Thunder shook the sky, and white fire tore the night. A wave of driving rain wet me like a wave of the sea, and another, and another. There was no place to get away from the rain, no shelter anywhere. I tightened the studded chin-strap of my helmet and covered my head with the hood of my cloak, blessing its tightly woven wool.

I could not see. It might be night, it could be day--I had no way of knowing. The chain around my neck was held by a staple driven into a crevice in the wall. Once I had tried to pull it out, but I did not do that any more. Once I had sh ivered. I did not do that any more either. Once I had hoped some friend would bring me a blanket or a bundle of rags. That the seeing woman who had been my wife once would bring me a crust or a cup of broth. Those things had not happened, and would never happen. Once I had shivered in the wind, but I had disobeyed, and would shiver no more. I was sleepy now, and though the snow brushed my face and crept up around my feet, I was not uncomfortable. There was no more pain.

Something rough, warm, and wet scrubbed my cheek; I woke to see a hairy, familiar face as broad and as brown as my saddle peering into mine. I blinked--and Gylf licked my nose. "Time to get up. Look at the sun." It had climbed halfway up a cloudy sky.

"Found him." Gylf wagged his tail with vigor. "I can show you. Want to go?"

"Yes." I threw off my blanket; I was dripping wet but only moderately chilled. "But I can't, not now. I have to delay the Angrborn--and clean my armor and talk to you."

"All right." Gylf lay down. "Sore paws anyhow."

"But first of all, I have to find my horse. He seems to have strayed during the night." I got up and looked around, my hand shielding my eyes from the sun.

"Upwind. I smell him."

After half a mile, the track of the dragged saddle was so plain that even I 423.

could follow it. Snarling and snapping, Gylf held the stallion until I could grab its tether.

Back at the water hole, I pulled off helmet and hauberk and got rags and a flask of oil from a saddlebag. "I didn't have these when you and I were lost in the forest," I told Gylf, "but I've learned since. Being a knight's like being a sailor. You pay for the glory and freedom by oiling and scrubbing and patching and polishing. Or you don't get to keep them."

"Those were the days." Gylf rolled in the wet gra.s.s, rose, and shook himself.

"You liked it on the ship?"

"In the woods. I liked that. Just you and me. Good smells. Hunting. Fires at night."

I smiled. "It was kind of nice."

"Bad place." Gylf sneezed.

"The forest? I thought you liked it." My mail, well oiled when I left Beefs company, had not yet begun to rust. I shook it, dislodging a shower, then dried it with a clean, soft rag, working corners of the rag between the close-packed steel rings wherever I suspected a hidden drop.

"Here," Gylf explained.

I considered that. "Yes and no. I understand what you mean. It's too bare to have much game, and there isn't much water, though you couldn't say that last night. Then too, there's the Angrborn. This is their homeland, Jotunland, and they're terrible enemies. But Lord Beel talked about leading hundreds of knights against them, and this would be wonderful country for it. Give Lord Beel or Duke Marder five hundred knights and two thousand archers, and you might get a battle people would sing about 'til the sky fell." Gylf grunted.

"Brave knights well mounted, with long, strong lances. Archers with long bows and a hundred arrows apiece. This is lovely country for charging horses, and lovely country for bowmen, too." Just thinking of it made me want to be there. "A year from that day, the Angrborn might be as rare as ogres are now. A hundred years from that day, half the people in Forcetti would think they were just stories."

Gylf brought me back to solid ground. "You're hunting them. You said so."

"Yes, I am. They jumped Lord Beel's company while Sir Garvaon and I were 424.

gone, and Lord Beel and his daughter, too. We killed four, but the rest got away with the gifts we were bringing their king."

"Get 'em anyhow," Gylf remarked.

"Perhaps he may, or some of them. But it won't be the same as Lord Beel giving them on behalf of King Arnthor. So we're looking for those Angrborn. I rode on ahead, and the rest are following as quick as they can, although that isn't very quick since a lot are on foot now."

"I could find 'em. Want me to?"

"You have sore paws."

Gylf licked a front paw as if testing it. "Not bad."

"I want you to stay with me," I decided. "You were gone a long time looking for Pouk, and I didn't like it. Besides, you could use a few good meals."

"Sure!" Gylf wagged his tail.

"I've got some dried meat here." I took it from his saddlebag and gave Gylf a piece. "It's kind of salty. Can you drink the water in that hole? It's not so bad now, after the rain."

Busy chewing, Gylf nodded vigorously.

"You're probably wondering what happened to Mani." Gylf shook his head.

"He's back with Lady Idnn."

Gylf swallowed. "Bad cat! Bad!"

"Not really. We talked it over. He wouldn't have been much use while I was out giant hunting, but he can keep an eye on things in Lord Beel's company for me. It might not be necessary, and I hope it isn't. But it's always better to be safe when you can."

A cloud veiled the sun, and Gylf muttered, "Aelf."

"You mean Uri and Baki?"

Starting on his second strip of dried meat, Gylf nodded again.

"They're out looking for the Angrborn who robbed us."

"Nope."

"You mean they found you and freed you. I had them do that first. Now they're looking for those Angrborn."

"Smell 'em," Gylf muttered.

There were giggles behind me, and I turned.

425.

"Here we are," Uri announced.

Baki said, "If we had been Angrborn, we could have stepped on you."

"You Aelf can sneak up on anybody"

Baki shook her head. "Only on you stupid ones."