The Knight twk-1

by Gene Wolfe

  “Is it your son Heimir we’re going to meet?”

  “Oh, no, sir. I don’t know where he’s at, sir. It’s the man I told you about, him I was going to marry all that time ago. He’s got took now, sir, if you can believe it. Got took for fighting them like he did, with a white beard, if you can believe it. An’—an’ I hope your horse don’t fright him, sir. The noise a’ it, I mean.”

  I smiled. “He clops along no louder than other horses, I hope, and somebody with guts enough to fight the Angrborn isn’t likely to be afraid of any horse. Besides, he’ll see you on his back, unless the moon—”

  “Oh, no! He won’t, sir. He can’t, sir. It’s—it’s what makes him think, sir, deep down, you know ...”

  The old woman sounded as if she were choking, and I glanced back at her. “Makes him think what?”

  “That I’m like I was back then, sir. You—you’re young yet, sir.”

  “I know, mother. Younger than you can guess.”

  “An’just to have him think like he does, deep down ... Oh, I’ve told him, sir. I couldn’t lie about nothing like that. Only when he sees me inside a’ himself—an’ that’s the only way he can, sir ....”

  “You’re young again. For him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sometimes I’d like to be young again myself, mother. Young outside as well as inside. I take it he’s blind?”

  “Yes, sir. They blinds ’em, sir, mostly. The men I mean. Big as they are, they’re a-feared a’ our men.” The old woman’s pride kindled new warmth in her voice. “So they blinds ’em, an’ they blinded him, old as he was. He sees me, sir—”

  Whining, Gylf had trotted out of the night.

  I dropped the reins and laid a hand on Gylf’s warm, damp head. “You found someone.”

  Although I could scarcely see Gylf’s nod, I felt it.

  “Dangerous?”

  A shake of the head.

  “A blind man with a white beard?”

  Gylf nodded again.

  From the white stallion’s back, the old woman said, “Up there’s where we meet, sir. See that big tree up against the sky? It’s on top a’ a little hill, only we got to go through the ford, first.”

  “We will,” I told her.

  Chapter 65 I’ll Free You

  T he ford proved shallow when we reached it, its gentle, quiet water scarcely knee deep. On the other bank, I dried my feet and legs as well as I could with a rag from my saddlebag, and pulled my stockings and boots back on.

  “It’s deeper in the spring,” the old woman explained. “It’s the only place where you can cross, then. Will you help me down, sir?”

  I rose. “On the War Way I saw a ford so deep we didn’t dare ride across it for fear we’d be swept away.” I took the old woman by the waist and lifted her down. “We had to hold each other’s stirrup straps and lead our horses, while the water boiled around us.”

  “You couldn’t have got across, sir, in spring. Only the giants.”

  I nodded.

  “From here I’d better go ahead, sir. I’ll walk fast as I can, if you’ll follow me. You won’t leave me, will you? I want you to see him, sir, an’—an’ you an’ him talk.”

  “I won’t,” I promised. “I need to speak to both of you about the road to Utgard.”

  “You an’ your horse’ll have to go pretty slow or else get to where he is afore I do.”

  I nodded as I watched her vanish into the night. Under my breath I said, “We’d better wait here for a minute or two, Gylf.”

  “Yep.”

  “Was there just the one old man?”

  “Yep. Good man.” Gylf seemed to hesitate. “Let him pet me.”

  “Was he strong?”

  Gylf considered, “Not like you.”

  Some distance off, a hoarse voice called. “Gerda? Gerda?”

  “Close now,” Gylf muttered.

  “Close enough for him to hear her footsteps, anyway. And for us to hear him.” I picked up the lame stallion’s reins.

  “Hungry.”

  “So am I,” I conceded. “Do you think they might find a little food for us? There ought to be tons in the house of one of the giants.”

  “Yep.”

  “Where is the house, anyway? Did you see it?”

  “Other side of the hill.”

  I tossed the reins onto the stallion’s neck and mounted. “There should be sheep and pigs and so forth, too. If worst comes to worst, we can steal one.” I touched the stallion’s sides with my spurs, and he set off at a limping trot.

  “Got your bow?”

  Bow and quiver were slung on the left side of my saddle; I held them up. “Why do you want to know?”

  “They blind them,” Gylf said, and trotted ahead.

  The hill was low and not at all steep. I stopped near the top to take a good look at the black bulk of a farmhouse a good way off that seemed, in the moonlight, too big and too plain.

  “Over here, sir,” the old woman called. “Under the tree.”

  “I know.” I dismounted and led the stallion over.

  “Dog’s here already.” It was a man’s hoarse voice. “Nice dog.”

  “Yes, he is.” Wishing I had a lantern, I joined them, leaving the stallion to get whatever supper he could from the dry grass. “I’m a knight of Sheerwall Castle, father. Sir Able of the High Heart is my name.”

  “Able,” the old man said. “I’d a brother a’ that name.”

  I nodded. “It’s a good one, I think.”

  “His name’s Berthold, sir,” Gerda said. “Bold Berthold, they called him when we was young.”

  In a little spot of moonlight, I could see Bold Berthold’s hand grope for hers, and find it.

  Chapter 66. Which Am I?

  O f course I knew who he was then, and I wanted to hug him and cry; but I knew, too, that he would never believe who I was. And if he did, he would believe all over again that I was the brother he had lost. I could not have handled it, and I knew it. I made my voice as hard as I could, and I said, “I’ve brought Gerda safely to you, and that’s what I promised her I’d do. You two have got a lot to talk about, and I’ve got urgent business in Utgard. How do I get there?”

  “North,” Bold Berthold muttered. “Follow the star. That’s all I heard.”

  “You’ve never been there yourself?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I haven’t neither,” Gerda said. “You must have heard reports.”

  “It’s a bad place, even for them, sir. I hate to see a young man like you goin’ there.”

  Bold Berthold was groping for me. “Can I feel of you? You sound like my brother.”

  I touched Bold Berthold’s hand.

  “Bigger’n mine.” His hand had clasped mine. “He ain’t but a slip of a lad, my brother ain’t.” Gerda said, “I recollect Able now. He was little when you was big, that’s right, but he must be as old as us, or near it.”

  “Able was took. Gone years and years. When he come back he wasn’t no older than before. ’Twasn’t last year. Year ‘fore that, maybe.” Bold Berthold fell silent, and from the twitching of his white beard I knew his mouth was working, “Thought he’d come get me. Maybe he’s tryin’. Wasn’t but a slip of a boy. Only he growed.”

  “There’s a Able here now,” Gerda reminded him; Gylf wagged his tail, a faint rustling among the fallen pine needles.

  “I been tryin’ to get her to run with me, sir,” Bold Berthold explained, “only she won’t, and I won’t without she does. So we don’t, neither one.”

  I nodded, although Bold Berthold could not see it and it is doubtful that Gerda could. “That’s right, she told me she didn’t want to escape.”

  “I only said it ’cause I wasn’t sure I could trust you, sir. Not then I wasn’t. I’d like to, if we could an’ not get caught.” She spoke to Bold Berthold. “That’s why I brought him. He’s a knight, a real knight an’ not feard a’ anything. He’ll help us.”

  “They don’t care ‘bout co
mmon folk,” Bold Berthold mumbled.

  “I’ll help you if I can,” I told him, “only there’s no point in either of you going to Utgard with me, and I have to go there to free my servant.” I sighed, wondering whether I could really pull it all off. “Also a woman called Ulfa who helped me one time. Pouk’s blind now, I suppose; but I have to free him just the same. No—more than ever.” I had not meant to add, “Just as I’ve got to free you and Gerda,” but it slipped out.

  “Thank you! Oh, thank you, sir!”

  “After that, I have to help a certain baron take back the treasure he was bringing King Gilling. Then maybe I can find Svon and Org. Svon’s my squire. Org is ... I don’t think you’d understand. But I wish he were here, and Svon, too.”

  At my elbow, a new voice said, “I will find them for you if you want me to, Lord.”

  Gerda gave a small shriek.

  “Not yet,” I told Uri. “I’ve been wondering where you two were.”

  “Scattering the mules, of course. The Angrborn would have them all back by this time if it were not for us.”

  “Are you all over black?” Gerda asked Uri. “I can’t hardly see you, even. It’s like I was blind myself, or as bad as.”

  “I am a woman of the Fire Aelf,” Uri explained, and brightened until she glowed like a red-hot poker.

  “Comin’ to torment me?” Bold Berthold rumbled. “Well, do your worst, all of you.”

  “I am on my lord’s business,” Uri told him. “If you desire to be tormented, I will try to find someone to do it when I have more time.”

  Bold Berthold’s right hand darted out, catching her by the neck. “There. I got her, Sir Able.”

  “Please let her go. She’s no enemy of yours or mine.”

  Bold Berthold’s left hand found Uri’s arm, and he released his hold upon her neck. “Don’t feel solid, like. They never does.”

  “They seem less real here than we do, just as we seem more real in Aelfrice than we do here.” Inwardly I was full of doubt, but I kept going. “Uri and Baki—Baki’s another Aelfmaiden—fade and get weak under our sun.”

  Uri said, “Will you not make him release me, Lord? What have I done to you or to him that was less than good?”

  Gerda muttered, “Let her go, Bert,” and tapped his hand; but Bold Berthold did not.

  “Well, you picked me up and flew away with me one time,” I told Uri, “you and Baki and some more of your friends.” I paused, considering. “I don’t think you should have asked me that question.”

  “Then we will say I did not ask it.”

  “It’s a little late for that.” I rubbed my chin. “Was I more real than you and Baki in Aelfrice, Uri? Garsecg told me I was.” Gerda tittered nervously. “These are questions for philosophers, Lord.”

  “You and Baki have visited me here many times. Why doesn’t Garsecg come to me here, the way you do?”

  “These’s bad ’uns, Sir Able,” Bold Berthold declared. “Don’t you trust ’em!”

  “I have already.” I sighed again. “Often. Why doesn’t Garsecg come, Uri?”

  “You have asked previously, Lord. Inquire of Garsecg himself.”

  “I don’t have to, because I know the answer. So do you. Why don’t you say it?” I tried to sound like I had not just thought of it.

  Uri did not speak. Her fire died, so that for a moment it seemed Bold Berthold held empty darkness.

  “Okay, let’s go on to another question, one you won’t be able to say I’ve asked already. Since you Aelf can fight any time in Aelfrice, and there are thousands and thousands of you there—”

  “We cannot fight like you, Lord.”

  “Why does Garsecg want me to fight Kulili for him? A whole host of you Aelf couldn’t kill her. Yet Garsecg, who’s afraid to come here and talk to me, wanted me to fight her for him. Doesn’t that seem peculiar?”

  “May I speak freely, Lord?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “These are high matters. It is not well to speak of them before persons of no distinction.”

  “Before Gerda and her friend, you mean.”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  “I don’t agree that they’re without distinction, Uri. But to spare your feelings, I’ll just say one thing, then we can talk about something else. The one thing is that Garsecg did come here to Mythgarthr. He came when I was wounded, and we talked a little on the Western Trader. He came again when we were on the Tower of Glas. Did I promise I’d say one more thing? Only one?”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  “’Twasn’t no promise,” Gerda put in.

  “If it was a promise, I’m going to break it,” I told her, “because I want to tell Uri that Garsecg looked unreal in both places. He looked like thin blue glass, even when I saw him by starlight. Is that enough, Uri?”

  “More than enough, Lord.”

  “Do you understand that I know the answers to all the questions I asked you?”

  “Yes, Lord. I am your slave, Lord. Your most humble worshipper.”

  “You’ll tell Garsecg when you return to Aelfrice. Don’t you and Baki meet with him there, to report on me?”

  “Lord, I have no choice!”

  I shrugged. “Where’s Baki?”

  “Still scattering the mules, Lord.” Uri sounded very, very relieved. “There remain a few the Angrborn have not yet caught. She affrights them in various ways, as I did where they were more. We also took the forms of donkeys and other things to lead the Angrborn astray.”

  “What will she do when the last is caught?”

  “Come here, Lord, to tell us so.”

  “Good. Bold Berthold, is that the house of your owner to the north?”

  “Must be. No others ’round here.”

  Gerda added, “Yes, sir. Bymir’s his name, a harder master no one never found.”

  “Has this Bymir no cattle? I saw no barn.”

  Bold Berthold chuckled. “Eyes don’t know ever’thing, sir knight. Cow shed and barn’s on the other side of the house. House’s big, but the cows ain’t.”

  “I understand. Who milks them?”

  “I do, sir.”

  “That’s good. Gylf and I are tired and hungry. So is my horse. We’re going to sleep in that barn. Don’t tell your master.”

  “No, sir.”

  “We’ll go now, and take Uri with us. When you get home, I want you to find some food for us. Can you do it?”

  “Yes, sir. An’ I will.”

  “Thanks. We’ll leave in the morning, and we won’t take anything else or do any harm while we’re there.”

  Gerda said, “What about us, sir?”

  “I have to go to Utgard for Pouk and Ulfa. I told you about that. When I’ve got them, we’ll come back this way and take you south with us.”

  “You’re a good man! I knew it soon as I saw the old lady with you, sir.”

  “Can’t pay,” Bold Berthold muttered. “Wish I could.”

  “You’ll pay with the food from your master’s kitchen.” I had not understood Gerda and decided to ignore it. “Let go of Uri now.”

  Bold Berthold did, and Uri skipped from the shadow of the pine into the moonlight. “Thank you, Lord!”

  “You’re welcome. Go and have a look at that farm for us. Then come back and tell me about it.”

  The lame stallion had strayed quite a way down the hillside while we talked, but Gylf caught it without much trouble. When we were some distance from the hilltop (and about half a mile from Bymir’s hulking farmhouse) he said, “Which one’s really me?”

  I asked what he was talking about.

  “You said about Garsecg. He isn’t real here.”

  “That wasn’t quite it.” I considered what I ought to say. “Do you remember the man with wings?”

  “Sure!”

  “You liked him.”

  “A lot!”

  “Then maybe you noticed that the log he sat on didn’t seem as real as he did. Neither did the pool, or the woods. It wasn’t that they wer
en’t real, and it wasn’t that they had changed, either. Mythgarthr hadn’t changed, but he was more real than Mythgarthr, or anything in it. When Uri and Baki come here from Aelfrice, they seem like they’re as real as we are. But they’re not, and when the sun hits them, you see it. When Garsecg came here, you could see it even at night.”

  Gylf trotted on in silence for a minute or two; then he asked, “Is it the way I am now? Or is it the way I am when we fight?”

  “I don’t know. I understand a lot more of this than I used to, but I don’t understand it all. Maybe I never will.”

  “Do I seem realer like this? Or the other way?”

  “Maybe you’re real both ways. I know you want to talk about you, but I’m going to talk about Garsecg some more, because I don’t understand you and I never have. But I think I’m beginning to understand him better than I did at first. You got him to heal me. Did you like him?”

  “Nope. Not much. But they said he could do it.”

  “He said he didn’t. He said the sea healed me. But later on, when I was hurt in Sheerwall, Baki did it. You weren’t there then.”

  “Nope.”

  “I bit her and drank her blood. It sounds horrible when I say it like that.”

  “Not to me,” Gylf declared.

  “Well, it does to me. Only when we did it, it wasn’t really horrible at all. It was nice, and I understood the Aelf better afterward. Maybe Garsecg couldn’t have come up here at all if his father hadn’t been human. Was it the Kelpies who told you to find Garsecg? It must have been.”

  “Yep.”

  “Maybe they bit him, when they were hurt. Did I ever tell you about the dragon? I mean, about Garsecg’s turning into one?”

  Gylf looked up in surprise. “Wow!”

  “Yes, it jolted me, too. But when I had time to think about it more, which wasn’t ’til we separated, it surprised me a lot more. We were on a really narrow staircase, and the Khimairas were diving down at us to knock us off, Uri and Baki and a bunch of others.”

  Gylf grunted to show he appreciated the seriousness of that situation.

  “Dragons can fly. There were pictures in Sheerwall, one on one of those embroidered wall hangings they had and one on a big flagon that Duke Marder drank out of at dinner. They had wings, both of them.”