The Knight. Part 46

Y ou'vegot my word." I offered Garvaon my hand.

He took it; his own was like he was, no bigger than most but hard and strong. "You want her, naturally."

"I don't."

"She's beautiful."

"She sure is." I nodded. "But she's not the one I'm in love with."

"She's the daughter of a baron, too." For a moment Garvaon looked ready to give up. "His only daughter."

"You're right. Beel won't make it easy."

Garvaon squared his shoulders. "I have your word, Sir Able. What was it you wanted to ask about foining?"

"What should I do when the other man foins? How can I guard against it?"

"Ah." Garvaon stood and picked up his s.h.i.+eld. "That's a good one. First you 398.

need to know that it's hard to guard against. If he likes it, you've got to take that very, very seriously."

"I will."

"Second, you need to know when he's most likely to do it. Do you still have that s.h.i.+eld you used last night?"

I shook my head. "I gave it back to Beaw."

"Then take mine." Garvaon got out the sticks that were our practice swords.

"Don't we need more light?" I put Mani down.

"We're not going to fight. I just want to show you a couple of things. You remember what I said about not coming at your man right leg first? Another reason is that if he knows much about foining, he can stick his sword in it.

"That's right, square up. Now I'm not going to put my point in your face or your leg, which is what I might do in a real fight. I'm just going to foin your s.h.i.+eld. I want you to stay squared up, but back away until I can't foin your s.h.i.+eld without taking three or four steps toward you."

I took a couple of short steps backward, still on my guard.

"That it? Get set." Before Garvaon finished the last word, the tip of his stick hit the s.h.i.+eld.

He sprang back. "Did you see what I did? I was leading with my left leg a tri fle. I took a long step with my right. Add the length of my arm to the length of my blade and it's as tall as I am."

"It was like magic," I said.

"Maybe, but it wasn't. You've got to practice that long step. It isn't as easy as it looks. Also you've got to hold your s.h.i.+eld up over your head when you take it. You're wide open to an overhand cut, if your man's fast enough."

"I'd like to see that," I said.

Garvaon glanced at the doorway. "It's brighter out there. I'll teach you how to make anybody back off, then we'd better call on His Lords.h.i.+p." With his s.h.i.+eld on his arm, he demonstrated the thrust and had me do it. At the third, I felt Mani tugging my leg.

"Ready to go?" Garvaon asked.

"I should go back and dig out my helmet," I told him. "Lord Beel will want to see me wearing it. Tell him I'll be along in a minute or two." Back in the pavilion, I stooped to talk to Mani. "What is it?" 399.

"I ran over to Idnn's to watch the preparations," Mani explained, "and he's going to do it right there. He ought to go back to where the ashes were. Tell him to put some ashes in the bowl, too."

The front of Beel's pavilion was lit with a dozen candles. The stony ground had been smoothed, and a carpet laid over it. Beel sat cross-legged on the carpet with a wineskin, a gold bowl, and a gold cup before him. Idnn was in a folding chair in front of the silk curtain, with Garvaon standing beside her. "There you are," Beel said. "Now we can begin."

I bowed. "Would it be possible for me to speak in private with My Lord for a moment?"

Beel hesitated. "Is this important?"

"I think so, My Lord. I dare hope you'll think so too." Idnn said, "Sir Garvaon and I will wait outside, Father. Call us when you're ready."

"I will not order my daughter out into the night." Beel turned to me. "If we go a short distance from the camp, will that be sufficient?" We walked a hundred yards up the valley. Beel stopped there, and turned to face me. "You might begin by explaining why you would not speak in the presence of my daughter and my trusted retainer."

"Because I needed to advise you," I explained. "As a mere knight--"

"I understand. What is it?"

"You called me a wizard. I'm not, but I've got a friend who knows a little about magic."

"And he--or she--has taught you a few simple things, I suppose. Your modesty becomes you."

"Thank you, My Lord. Thank you very much." I looked around for Mani, but Mani was nowhere in sight.

"I've a question, Sir Able. In the past, you have not been entirely dising enuous in answering my questions."

"Maybe not. I apologize."

"If I listen to your advice--this friend's advice, though I supposed that you came to me alone when you first sought the loan of a horse--will you answer one question fully and forthrightly? Upon your honor? Because I will not hear 400.

your advice otherwise."

I shook my head. "This is very important to me, My Lord."

"All the more reason for you to pledge yourself."

"All right, I'll promise. But only if you take my advice as well as listen to it."

"You would command me?"

"Never, My Lord. But. . . Well, I've got to find Pouk. Won't you do as I advise? I'm begging."

"The choice is mine? Save that you will not pledge yourself unless I do as you wish?"

"Yes, Your Lords.h.i.+p."

"Then let me hear you."

When we returned to Beel's pavilion, he ordered horses brought for all of us. Another horse carried the carpet, the wineskin, and other things; and a sixth, his servingman.

"We are going back up to the pa.s.s," Beel told Garvaon.

"You should ride before us, I think. Sir Able can bring up the rear, which may be the more dangerous post."

What it really was, I thought as I rode rear guard, was the loneliest. If that were not bad enough, I had to rein in my stallion every minute to keep him behind the sumpter that carried the baggage. The rocks, and the occasional tree and bush to either side of the War Way, concealed no enemies that I could see; and although I listened hard, I could hear only the cold, lonely song of the wind, and the clop-clop of hooves. The moon shone bright, and the cold stars kept their secrets.

When I rode out on a rocky spur far up the mountainside and looked down on the camp, its dark pavilions and dying fires seemed every bit as far away as those stars. . . .

401.

CHAPTER 59.

IN JOTUNLAND.

B eel ordered the carpet spread between the ashes and asked everyone why there had been two fires. I shook my head; but Idnn said, "Sir Garvaon will know. Wilt tell us, sir knight?"

"They built their first fire here." Garvaon pointed. "That was because it offered the best shelter from the wind, which is generally in the west. The next night, or it could have been the night after that, one of them saw it could be seen from the north."

"And it was seen," Beel muttered. "Now we will see what I will see myself, if I see anything. I must caution all of you again that this may not prove effectual." He glanced down at the bowl his servingman held. "Why that's silver!

Where's my gold bowl, Swert?"

"I told him to bring this one, Father," Idnn said. "You charm by moonlight, and not by day. This is my fruit bowl. I think it may bring you good fortune tonight." Beel smiled. "Have you become a witch?"

"No, Father. I know no magic, but I had the advice of a friend who does."

"Sir Able?"

402.

She shook her head. "I had to promise I wouldn't tell you who it is."

"One of your maids, I suppose."

Idnn said nothing.

"Not that it matters." Beel knelt upon the carpet. The servingman handed him a silver goblet and a skin of wine, and he filled both bowl and goblet. Mani had crept up to, watch; to get a better view, he sprang onto my shoulder.

"I ask all of you to keep silent," Beel said. Reaching into his coat, he produced a small leather bag from which he took a thick pinch of dried herbs. Half he dropped into the bowl, the rest into the goblet. Closing his eyes, he recited an invocation.

In the hush that followed, it seemed to me that the song of the wind had a ltered, humming with words in a tongue I did not know.

"Mongan!" Beel exclaimed. "Dirmaid! Sirona!" He drained the silver goblet at a single draught and bent to look into the silver bowl.

So did I, crouching beside him. After a moment I was joined by Idnn, and she by Garvaon.

As through the mouth of a dark cave, I beheld a forest of unearthly beauty. Disiri the Moss Queen stood in a glade where strange flowers blossomed, naked, more graceful than mortal women and more fair; her green hair rose twice the height of her head, nodding and flowing in the breeze that stirred the flowers. The younger Toug cowered before her, and I waited on my knees. With a slender silver sword, she touched both my shoulders.

"This is of the past," I murmured to Beel. "Drop ashes into the wine." Beel regarded me with empty eyes; but Idnn brought a pinch of ash and dropped it into the bowl, where it seemed to dull the l.u.s.ter of the surface. It became the gray coat of a thickset man who walked a long and muddy road across a plain veiled by cloud. Towers, squat and huge, rose in the distance. With his staff, this man struck down a woman no larger than a child. A ragged figure who had been driving before them horses no bigger than dogs threw himself over her, offering his back for hers. The man in the gray coat struck him contemptuously, then nudged both with the toe of his boot. The toe of the black boot nudging Ulfa grew until it filled the bowl, which held only ashes floating on wine.

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"Listen!" Garvaon rose.

I rose, too, and listened; but I heard nothing except the moaning of the wind--an empty moan, as if the thing that had come into it was gone. Idnn and the servingman were helping Beel to his feet. In another moment Garvaon was in the saddle and clattering away.

"Our camp is being attacked," I told Idnn; I got Mani off my shoulder and handed him to her. "I have to go. Stay here 'til I come for you." She shouted something as I rode away, but whether she had pleaded for me to stay, or wished me good luck, or begged me to keep Garvaon safe, I had no idea. I wondered about it, and other things, as I spurred the stallion down the steep mountain road.

For a minute it seemed trees were walking where the camp had been. No fires remained, and no pavilions. My stallion s.h.i.+ed as something large and loud hit the ground beside it.

I got my bow and quiver from behind the saddle and slid off the stallion's back. Somewhere in the darkness, another bow sang.

A second stone flew, hitting the white stallion. He screamed with pain and galloped away. Bracing the foot of my bow against my own, I leaned my weight on the supple wood and fitted the looped bowstring into the notches at the bowhead.

I pulled an arrow to my ear and let fly. A hundred paces off, the giant who had been stoning the white stallion bellowed, a noise like thunder. I sent a second arrow after the first, and a third after the second, guessing at eyes I could not see.

The giant crumpled.

Dawn found two weary knights making their way back up to the pa.s.s. My white stallion was lame, and I walked more than I rode, giving my saddle (a big armored one that weighed as much as some men) to Uns to carry. Garvaon could have outdistanced us easily, but he seemed too tired even to urge his horse forward. The scabbard that had held Battle Witch hung empty. Then Idnn waved to us from a point of rock not far below the snow line, and he drove his heels into his horse's sides and disappeared around the next bend. 404.

"Ah, love!" sighed an insolent voice not far from my ear; I looked around, surprised, and saw Uri on my stallion. "You're back!" She grinned at me. "No, that is my sister."

"Aren't you afraid Uns will see you up there? He's not very far behind us."

"I care not a whit if he does, and I will leave anyway as soon as you are out of this shadow."

I stopped, biting my lip while I stroked the stallion's muzzle. "I told Lord Beel about you and your sister. I had to."

"She is not really my sister. We just say that."

"Aren't you angry?"

Uri grinned again. "It will make a lot more trouble for you and for him than for us. Did you explain that my sister and I are your slaves?" I shook my head. "I called you my friends. I wanted him to come up here when he tried to see where Pouk was for me, and he promised to if I'd answer one question, a complete answer. I've forgotten the words he used, but that was what he meant."

"And did you?"

"Yes. I kept my promise, and he kept his. He wanted to know why I couldn't use my own powers to look for Pouk, and I had to explain that the only way I had to look for him was to send you two after him." I paused. "I didn't tell him your names."

"That is well." Uri smiled.

"I said I'd sent Gylf after Pouk and now you two were trying to find out what happened to Gylf."