The Knight twk-1

by Gene Wolfe

  Garvaon said, “Gladly, Your Lordship.”

  “Because I wish to say it one more time, now that I’ve failed. We hoped th at coming in peace and bearing rich gifts for King Gilling, we might make contact with his Borderers and be given an escort to Utgard. Now those gifts are gone.”

  Idnn glanced at me, then looked away.

  “Gone, from what Sir Garvaon has told me, and the mules that carried them as well. We have failed.”

  Garvaon said, “It wasn’t your fault, Your Lordship. You did as much as any man could.”

  “I wasn’t even there. I never drew my sword, and I must tell His Majesty so.”

  “I know I am to blame for your absence.” I stood as straight as I had before Master Agr. “You don’t have to say it. But if you want to, you can.”

  “May,” Garvaon muttered.

  “Make it as long as you like. So may your daughter. Or Sir Garvaon. Nothing any of you say will be worse than the things I’ve said to myself.”

  Beel raised his shoulders and let them fall. “Idnn, Sir Able wished to find his servant, his horses, and his weapons—his shield and helm, I suppose, and his lance and so forth and so on. If you want to play the fishwife again, this is the time for it.”

  She shook her head.

  “Go on. Tell him his mismanagement has resulted in our disaster.”

  “No, Father.”

  “I thought not. I would invite Sir Garvaon to abuse a fellow knight who fought shoulder-to-shoulder with him, if I didn’t know him too well to imagine that he would accept my invitation. Swert? Come over here.”

  The mousy-looking servingman hurried over. “Yes, Your Lordship?”

  “You’re a servant, Swert. My servant.”

  “Yes, Your Lordship.”

  “I wish to consult you because Sir Able here also has a servant. Another servant, in addition to the beggar.”

  “Yes, Your Lordship. Pouk, Your Lordship. Sir Able told me, Your Lordship.”

  “This Pouk has been captured and enslaved by the Angrborn.”

  “Yes, Your Lordship.”

  “Sir Able sought to rescue him, and sought my help in his attempt. I gave it, and thus I have been ruined, and the errand I undertook for His Majesty has ended in failure. Sir Able is to be reviled on that account, and I feel you’re the person to do it. Coming from you, the abuse should be doubly painful. You need not fear that Sir Able will strike or stab you. Sir Garvaon and I are here to protect you, though I feel sure nothing of the kind will be needed. Proceed.”

  “To—to ..,.?” The servingman looked helplessly from Beel to me and back again.

  “To revile him,” Beel explained patiently. “I have no doubt you command a hundredweight of filthy names. Employ them.”

  “Father ...” Idnn’s eyes were full of tears.

  “To—to Sir Able, Your Lordship?”

  “Exactly.” Beel was adamant. “Begin, Swert.”

  “Sir Able, you—you ...”

  “Go on.”

  The servingman gulped. “I’m sorry, Sir Able, for what’s happened, whatever it was. And—and ...”

  Idnn drew herself up. “Proceed, Swert. You know what my father wants. Do it.”

  “And if you’re to blame, Sir Able, you’re a very bad man. But ... But so am I. Whatever anyone calls you, they can call me that too.”

  “There,” Beel said. “Your disgrace is complete, Sir Able. You have been abused by my valet. Now cease this juvenile posturing and listen to me.”

  “I will, Your Lordship.”

  “I am His Majesty’s ambassador to Jotunland. Had my embassy succeeded, the credit would have been mine and mine alone. It has failed, and the blame is mine. I accept it, and I am ready to stand before King Arnthor, to report that I have lost his gifts, and to welcome whatever punishment he may decree.”

  I glanced at Idnn, but she did not speak. If she felt joy at the prospect of returning to Kingsdoom, nothing in her face showed it. Garvaon looked grim and unhappy.

  At last I said, “You’re going back, Your Lordship?”

  “Yes. I had thought of remaining here with Idnn until Sir Garvaon and Master Crol joined us with what remains of our party, but we must bury our dead. A good many of them, from what Sir Garvaon tells me. And no doubt there are other tasks too. We will return with you, and spend the night in whatever is left of our camp. I hope to inter our dead by sunset, and set out tomorrow morning. We’ll see.”

  “Set out for the south?”

  “Yes. I’ve told you so.”

  From his place in Idnn’s lap, Mani raised an eyebrow.

  I said, “You don’t expect me to come with you, I hope, Your Lordship?”

  The mousy-looking servingman smiled. That smile was suppressed almost at once, but not before I had seen it.

  “I really hadn’t thought about that,” Beel said, “but you’re not one of my retainers. You may do as you choose, though you would be very welcome if you chose to come with us. The horse I gave you is yours, of course. As is that helmet. What will you do?”

  Uns arrived, panting and sweating. After glancing at him, I said, “I’ll try to find a mount for my servant there, My Lord.”

  “We’ve none to spare now, Sir Able. So Sir Garvaon informs me. We will not have horses and mules enough, even, for our own needs.”

  Garvaon nodded.

  “I know that as well as he does,” I told Beel, “but the Angrborn will have plenty. I’ll get one of those for Uns, if I can.”

  “You’re going after them alone?”

  “Yes, My Lord.”

  Uns, bowed already by his deformity bowed lower still. “Not ‘zacly aw ‘lone, Ya Lordship, sar. I’ll be holdin’ Sar Abie’s stirrup, sar.”

  “Alone except for this—this hunchback?”

  Mani sprang to my shoulder, an astonishing leap.

  “I’ll have my cat too, I think, My Lord, and the charger you gave me. My dog’s still looking for Pouk, but he might come back. I hope so, and the Angrborn will find him harder to handle next time. The friends I described to you last night will be with me too, at least some of the time.”

  Idnn rose and hugged me. She was crying, and did not say anything that I can remember.

  Beel drew a deep breath. “If my daughter’s arms weren’t around you, Sir Able, my own would be. No doubt you prefer hers, but do you really believe we stand a chance?”

  “We,’ My Lord?”

  “I am a baron of the realm, entitled to a seat at the king’s high table. They may say in Thortower that I failed, but they shall not say that I was bested in courage by a cripple.”

  “Then I do, My Lord. I listened to you. Will you listen to me, if I stop the juvenile posturing?”

  Beel nodded.

  “We talk about the Angrborn as if they were as big as a tower, or as tall as a ship’s mainmast. I was told once by a good friend that I’d be shocked anytime I saw one.”

  I had decided to lie, and not to lie by halves, either. “All right, I was. But I was shocked at how small they were. They’re no bigger, compared to Sir Garvaon and me, than we would be to boys. We call them giants and Frost Giants, and we say they’re the Sons of Angr. But they’re just big, ugly men.”

  “Brave words.”

  “When it’s brave deeds we need. I understand.” I took Mani off my shoulder, petted him, and set him down. “I need a number for them, so I’m taking thirteen. It may be off, but I won’t argue now. We were taken by surprise last night by thirteen big men. Even so, we fought, and we killed about a third.”

  Beel nodded again.

  “Sir Garvaon and I weren’t there for the first part of that fight, and I’d like to think it would have made a big difference if we had been.”

  Garvaon said, “I’m as eager for this as you are, but let’s not forget we’ve lost some men ourselves.”

  “I know it. I’ll get to that in a minute. First I want to ask what would happen if things were turned around. What if we were to catch those nine big
men off guard?”

  No one spoke.

  “I’m asking you, My Lord, but everybody else, too. I’m asking Lady Idnn and Sir Garvaon. And Swert and Uns.”

  At last Uns said, “I fit Org, sar. Wid me bare hands I done it.”

  “And alone. I know. I know what happened to you, too. Would you fight again?”

  “If ya do, Sar Able, sar.”

  “That’s all I can ask.” I stopped to think things over. “When I came, Lady Idnn, you said the archers and men-at-arms hadn’t run like your servants. Did you expect your servants to fight?”

  “My maids? Certainly not.”

  “What about Master Crol? The muleteers? Swert there?”

  Beel said, “Master Crol may well have fought. It would not surprise me if he had.”

  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.

  “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 pass. 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.

  “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 embarrassed. “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.”

  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 grass. 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 grass 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.

  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.

  Garsecg and Garvaon waited on the cliff, Garvaon with drawn sword and Garsecg a dragon of s
teel-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 mass of armor and bleeding flesh tumbled into the sea.

  * * *

  I woke shuddering. My sea was this rolling expanse of dust-dry grass, 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 ...

  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 shivered. 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.