by Gene Wolfe
“If we get there today at all,” I warned Ravd, “it will be very late.”
“The more reason to hurry.”
* * *
We camped that night beside a creek called Wulfkil, Svon and I putting up a red-and-gold tent of striped sailcloth for Ravd to sleep in. I built a fire, for I carried flint and steel now to start one, and we ate hard bread, salt meat, and onions. “Your family may worry about you,” Ravd said. “Have you a wife?”
I shook my head, and added that Bold Berthold had said I was not old enough yet.
Ravd nodded, his face serious. “And what do you say?”
I thought of school—how I might want to go to college, if I ever got back home. “A few more years.”
Svon sneered. “Two rats to starve in the same hole.”
“I hope not.”
“Oh, really? How would you support a family?”
I grinned at him. “She’ll tell me how. That’s how I’ll know when I’ve found her.”
“She will? Well, what if she can’t?” He looked to Ravd for support, but got none.
I said, “Then would she be worth marrying?” Ravd chuckled.
Svon leveled a forefinger at me. “Someday I’ll teach—”
“You must learn yourself before the day for teaching comes,” Ravd told him. “Meanwhile, Able here might teach us both, I think. Who is Berthold, Able?”
“My brother.” That was what we told people, Ben, and I knew Bold Berthold believed it.
“Older than yourself, since he advises you.”
I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Where are your father and mother?”
“Our father died years ago,” I told Ravd, “and my mother left soon after I was born.” It was true where you are, and here as well.
“I’m sorry to hear it. Sisters?”
“No, none,” I said. “Our father raised my brother, and my brother raised me.”
Svon laughed again.
I was confused already, memories of home mingling with stories Bold Berthold had told me of the family here that had been his and was supposed to be mine. It was all in the past, and although America is very far from here in the present, the past is only memories, and records nobody reads, and records nobody can read. This place and that place are mixed together like the books in the school library, so many things on the wrong shelf that nobody knows what is right for it anymore.
Ravd said, “You and your brother don’t live in Glennidam, from what you said. You’d know the name of Seaxneat’s wife, and the name of her new child, too, since there are only about fifty people in the village. What village do you live in?”
“We don’t live in any of them,” I explained. “We live by ourselves, and keep to ourselves, mostly.”
“Outlaws,” Svon whispered.
“They may be.” Ravd’s shoulders rose and fell by the thickness of a blade of grass. “Would you guide me to your house if I asked you, Able?”
“It’s Bold Berthold’s, not mine, sir.” I was glaring at Svon.
“To your brother’s then. Would you take us there?”
“Gladly. But it’s no grand place, just a hut. It’s not much bigger than your tent.” I thought Svon was going to say something; he did not, so I said, “I ought to become a bandit, like Svon says. Then we’d have a nice house with thick walls and doors, and enough to eat.”
“There are outlaws in this forest, Able,” Ravd told me. “They call themselves the Free Companies. Do they have those things?”
“I suppose they do, sir.”
“Have you seen them for yourself?”
I shook my head.
“When we met, Svon feared you would lead us into an ambush. Do you think the Free Companies might ambush us in sober fact? With three to fight?”
“Two to fight,” I told him. “Svon would run.”
“I would not!”
“You’ll run from me before the owl hoots.” I spat into the fire. “From two lame cats and a girl you’d run like a rabbit.”
His hand went to his hilt. I knew I had to stop him before he drew. I jumped the fire and knocked him down. He let go of the hilt when he fell, and I drew his sword and threw it into the bushes. We fought on the ground the way you and I did sometimes, he trying to get at his dagger while I tried to stop him. We got too close to the fire and he broke loose. I thought he was going to draw it and stab me, but he jumped up and ran instead.
I tried to clean myself off a little and told Ravd, “You can have your scield back if you want it.”
“May.” He had never stirred. “May governs permissions, gifts, and things of that sort. You speak too well, Able, to make such an elementary mistake.”
I nodded. I had not figured him out, and I was not sure I ever would.
“Sit down, and keep my scield. When Svon returns, I’ll have him give you another for tomorrow.”
“I thought you’d be mad at me.”
Ravd shook his head. “Svon must become a knight soon. His family expects it and so does he. So do His Grace and I, for that matter. Thus, he will. Before he receives the accolade, he has a great deal to learn. I have been teaching him, to the best of my ability.”
“And me,” I told him. “About can and may and other things, too.”
“Thank you.”
For a while after that, we sat with our thoughts. Before long I said, “Could I become a knight?”
That was the only time I saw Ravd look surprised, and it was no more than his eyes opening a little wider. “We can’t take you with us, if that’s what you mean.”
I shook my head. “I have to stay and take care of Bold Berthold. But sometime? If I stay here?”
“You’re very nearly a knight now, I believe. What makes a knight, Able? I’d like your ideas on the matter.”
He reminded me of Ms. Sparreo, and I grinned. “And set them right.”
Ravd smiled back. “If they need to be set right, yes. So tell me, how is a knight different from any other man?”
“Mail like yours.”
Ravd shook his head.
“A big horse like Blackmane, then.”
“No.”
“Money?”
“No, indeed. I mentioned the accolade when we were talking about my squire. Did you understand me?” I shook my head.
“The accolade is the ceremony by which one authorized to perform it confers knighthood. Let me ask again. What makes a man a knight, Able? What makes him different enough that we have to give him a name differing from that of an ordinary fighting man?”
“The accolade, sir.”
“The accolade makes him a knight before the law, but it is a mere legality, formal recognition of something that has already occurred. The accolade says that we find this man to be a knight.”
I thought about that, and about Ravd, who was a knight himself. “Strength and wisdom. Not either one by itself, but the two together.”
“You’re closer now. Perhaps you are close enough. It is honor, Able. A knight is a man who lives honorably and dies honorably, because he cares more for his honor than for his life. If his honor requires him to fight, he fights. He doesn’t count his foes or measure their strength, because those things don’t matter. They don’t affect his decision.”
The trees and the wind were so still then that I felt like the whole world was listening to him.
“In the same way, he acts honorably toward others, even when they do not act honorably toward him. His word is good, no matter to whom he gives it.”
I was still trying to get my mind around it. “I know a man who stood his ground and fought the Angrborn, with just a spear and an ax. He didn’t have a shield, or armor, a horse, or anything like that. The men with him wanted to run, and some did. He didn’t. Was he a knight? This wasn’t me.”
“What was he fighting for, Able?” It was almost a whisper.
“For Gerda and his house. For the crops he had in his fields, and his cattle.”
“Then he is not a
knight, though he is someone I would like very much to count among my followers.”
I asked if he had many, because he had come into that forest alone, except for Svon.
“More than I wish, but not many who are as brave as this man you know. I’d thank every Overcyn in Skai for a hundred more, if they were like that.”
“He’s a good man.” I was picturing Bold Berthold to myself, and thinking about all that we would be able to buy with two scields.
“I believe you. Lie down now, and get some rest. We’ll need you well rested tomorrow.”
“I want to ask a favor first.” I felt like a little kid again, and that made it hard to talk. “I don’t mean anything bad by it.”
Ravd smiled. “I’m sure you don’t.”
“I mean I’m not going to try to steal it, or hurt you with it either, or anybody. But could I look at your sword? Please? Just for a minute?”
He drew it. “I’m surprised you didn’t ask when we had sunlight, when you could have seen it better. Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to wait?”
“Now. Please. I’d like to see it now. I promise I’ll never ask again.”
He handed it to me hilt first; and it seemed like a warm, living thing. Its long straight blade was chased with gold and double-edged; its hilt of bronze and black horsehide was topped with a gold lion’s head. I studied it and gripped the sword to flourish it, and found with a sort of shock that I had stood up without meaning to.
After a minute or two of waving it around, I positioned the blade so that the firelight fell on the flat, just ahead of the guard. “There’s writing here. What does it say?”
“Lut. You can’t read, can you?”
I knew I could. I said, “Well, I can’t read this.”
“Lut is the man who made it.” Ravd held out his hand, and I returned his sword. He wiped the blade with a cloth. “My sword is Battlemaid. Lut is a famous bladesmith of Forcetti, the town of my liege Duke Marder. Your own duke, Duke Indign, is dead. Did you know?”
“I thought he must be.”
“We’re attempting to assimilate his lands, and finding them a bit too much to chew, I’m afraid.” Ravd’s smile was touched with irony.
“Was that Duke Marder on the scield you gave me?”
Ravd shook his head. “That’s our king, King Arnthor.”
“What was that on his shield?”
“A nykr. Lie down and go to sleep, Able. You can save the rest of your questions for tomorrow.”
“Is it real?”
“Sleep!” When Ravd sounded like that, you did not argue. I lay down, turned my back to the fire, and fell asleep as soon as I shut my eyes.
Chapter 5. Terrible Eyes
Something that sounded like a scuffle woke me up. I heard Svon’s voice and Ravd’s; and I decided that if I did not want to start another fight, the best thing might be for me to lie there and listen.
“I stumbled.” That was Svon.
Ravd said, “No one pushed you?”
“I said I stumbled!”
“I know you did. I wish to discover whether you will verify it. It appeared to me that you had been pushed from behind. Was I wrong?”
“Yes!”
“I see. You have your sword again.”
“I found it in the bushes. Do you think I’d come back here without it?”
“I don’t see why not.” Ravd sounded as though the question interested him. “If you mean you might need it to deal with our guide, it wasn’t of great use to you an hour ago.”
“We might be attacked.”
“By the outlaws? Yes, I suppose we might.”
“Are you going to sleep in your armor?”
“Certainly. It’s one of the things a knight must learn to do.” Ravd sighed. “Many years before either of us was born, a wise man said that there were only three things a knight had to learn. I believe I told you a week ago, though it may have been more. Can you tell me what-they are now?”
“To ride.” Svon sounded as if it were being dragged out of him. “To use the sword.”
“Very good. And?”
“To speak the truth.”
“Indeed,” Ravd murmured. “Indeed. Shall we begin again? Or would you prefer to omit that part?”
If Svon said anything, I could not hear it.
“I’ve been sitting here awake since you ran away, you see. Talking to our guide at first, and talking to myself after he went to sleep. Thinking, in other words. One of the things I thought about was the way he threw your sword. I saw it. Perhaps vou did as well.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Then you need not. But I will have to talk about it more, because you won’t. When a man throws a heavy object such as a sword or spear for distance, he uses his whole body—his legs and torso, as well as his arm. Able did not do that. He simply flung your sword away as a man might discard an apple core. I think—”
“Who cares what you think!”
“Why, I do.” Ravd’s voice was as smooth as polished steel, and sounded a good deal more dangerous. “And you must, Svon. Sir Sabel beat me twice, once with his hands and once with the flat of his sword. I was Sir Sabel’s squire for ten years and two. No doubt I’ve told you.”
Maybe Svon nodded. I could not see.
“With the flat of his sword because I attacked him. He would have been entirely justified in killing me, but he was a good and a merciful knight—a better knight than I will ever be. With his hands for something I had said to him, or something I had failed to say. I never did find out exactly what it was. He was drunk at the time—but then we all get drunk now and then, don’t we?”
“You don’t.”
“Because he was, I found it less humiliating than I would have otherwise. Perhaps I said that I cared nothing for his thoughts. That seems likely enough.
“Able flung your sword as a man flings dung, or any such object. I believe I said that. He merely cast it from him, in other words, making no effort toward great distance or force. If you were to cast a hurlbatte so, I would chastise you. With my tongue, I mean.”
Svon spoke then, but I could not hear what he said.
“It may be so. My point is that your sword cannot have been thrown far.
Three or four strides, I would think. Five at most. Yet I didn’t hear you searching for it in the dark, and I expected to. I was listening for it.”
“I stepped on it,” Svon said. “I didn’t have to look for it at all.”
“One resolves not to lie, but one always resolves to begin one’s new truthfulness at a later time. Not now.” Ravd sounded tired.
“I’m not lying!”
“Of course you are. You stepped upon your sword, four strides southeast of where I sit. You uttered no grunt of astonishment, no exclamation. You bent in silence and picked it up. You would have had to grope for the hilt, I believe, since you would not wish to lay hands on a sharp blade in the dark. You then returned it to its scabbard, a scabbard of wood covered with leather, without a sound. After that, you returned to our camp from the west, tripping over something with such violence that you almost fell into the fire.”
Svon moaned like one in pain, but spoke no word.
“You must have been running to trip as hard as that and come near to falling. Were you? Running through a strange forest in the dark?”
“Something caught me.”
“Ah. Now we’re come to it. At least, I hope so. What was it?”
“I don’t know.” Svon drew breath. “I ran away. Was your churl chasing me?”
“No,” Ravd said.
“Well, I thought he was, and I ran right into somebody. Only I don’t think it was really a person. A—a ghost or something.”
“Interesting.”
“There were several.” Svon seemed to have taken heart. “I can’t say how many. Four or five.”
“Go on.” I could not tell whether Ravd believed him.
“They gave me back my sword and brought me here, and
they pushed me at our fire, hard, just like you said.”
“Saying nothing to you?”
“No.”
“Did you thank them for returning your sword?”
“No.”
“Perhaps they gave you a charm or a letter? Something of that kind?”
“No.”
“Did they take our horses?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Go now and see to them, please, Svon. See that they’re well tied, and haven’t been ridden.”
“I don’t—Sir Ravd ...”
“Go!”
Svon cried, and right then I wanted to sit up and say something—anything that might make him feel better. I was going to say that I would go, but that would just have made him feel worse.
When he stopped crying, Ravd said, “They frightened you very badly, whoever they were. You’re more afraid of them than you are of me or our guide. Are they listening to us?”
“I don’t know. I think so.”
“And you’re afraid that if you confide in me they’ll punish you for it?”
“Yes!”
“I doubt it. If they are indeed listening, they must have heard that you didn’t confide in me. Able, you are awake. Sit up, please, and look at me.”
I did.
“How much have you heard?”
“Everything, or nearly. How did you know I was awake?”
“When you were truly asleep, you stirred in your sleep half a dozen times, and twice seemed almost to speak. Once you snored a little. When you feigned sleep, you moved not a muscle and uttered not a sound, though we were talking in ordinary tones within two strides of you. So you were awake or dead.”
“I didn’t want Svon to feel worse than he did already.”
“Admirable.”
I said, “I’m sorry I threw your sword, Svon.”
“Who caught Svon and returned him to us? Do you know?”
I had no idea. I shook my head.
Svon wiped his nose. “They gave me a message for you, Able. You are to be sure that your playmate is looking out for you.”
I suppose I gawked.
Ravd said, “Who are these friends of yours, Able?”
“I think ...”