The Knight

Chapter 40. A Citizen Of Cellars

Supper was fresh bread hot from the oven, with butter and big bowls of good vegetable soup. Nukara had cleaned out a spare room for me, put clean blankets on the bed, and so on. While we ate she told me how nice it was.

I shook my head. “I’ve promised to get Master Agr’s horses home tonight, and I know the duke wants me to spend every night at Sheerwall ’til he lets me go north. I thought the storm would give me a good excuse for staying here with you, but it’s over. Pouk and I will have to say good-bye as soon as he gets our horses ready.”

She stopped smiling; she had really wanted us to stay.

I said, “I think I may get a crack at your ghost just the same. If we’re lucky, he may be gone forever by the time Pouk’s finished loading our pack horse.”

“So quick?” I could see she did not believe me.

I nodded and passed some bread down to Gylf. “If you’ll lend me Uns. Will you?”

She looked at Uns, and so did I, but he just looked down at his soup. “He’s shy,” she said.

He still would not look up.

“You’re not—will he get killed? Or hurt the way Duns was?” I shook my head. “I’m going to fight the ogre, if Uns and I can find him. Uns won’t get hurt.”

Pouk cleared his throat. “I’d main like to watch, sir. With your permission?”

I was soaking bread in the soup for Gylf; it gave me an excuse to think things over before I answered. Finally I said, “You’ve got work to do. Uns and I will be going out into the fields to look for the ogre. Maybe into the woods. You’d probably get lost trying to find us. I think you’d better stay here.”

Duns said, “Be dark soon, Sar Able.”

I told him I was pretty sure the ogre would not show himself by daylight, so we had plenty of time to sit and talk and blow our soup. “When it’s over,” I said, “Pouk and I can ride home by moonlight. There’ll be a good big moon tonight, and when we get there the sentries will let down the bridge for us.” I kept waiting for Uns to say something, but he never did.

I left the house with Gylf trotting beside me and Uns lagging behind us. Knowing nothing better, I followed the narrow path that had taken me between fields and into the wood, the path Duns and Uns must have used when they cut firewood. When we came to the first trees, we stopped. I remember that the moon was just clearing the eastern peaks then. When Uns caught up, I told him, “I didn’t come out here to hunt your ogre, and I know as well as you do that he’s not here. I came so you and I could have a private talk.”

I waited for him to speak, but he did not.

“I’m pressed for time. You know about that. It’ll save some if you tell me everything now. I don’t want to hurt you and I’ll take it as a favor.”

He opened his mouth, hesitated, and shut it. After a moment he shook his head.

“Whatever you want. After this, you’re to ask nothing from me. I gave you fair warning, so you get no favors.”

Gylf growled low in his throat.

“Before I came here,” I said, “a couple of friends of mine came to wait for me. They call themselves my slaves, but they’re really friends.”

With his crippled back, it was hard for Uns to look up, but easy for him to look down. He took the easy way now, staring at his muddy feet.

“Gylf couldn’t find a trace of your ogre in these woods. Gylf’s my hound. I think I told you. He has a fine nose.”

Uns nodded.

“But there really is an ogre. Your brother wrestled it and was laid up for a year. I don’t know if I believe in ghosts, but I sure don’t believe in ghosts that act exactly like they were alive. I got one of my friends to watch in your house while I was away. Do I have to tell you what she saw? This is your last chance, Uns.”

Uns turned and ran. I nodded to Gylf, and he brought him down before he had gone ten yards.

“She saw you go into the cellar and talk to the ogre,” I said while Gylf crouched over Uns snarling. “That’s where it hides, I guess. I suppose it steals food from your mother’s kitchen. You wanted me to sleep there. Was it so your ogre could kill me while I was asleep? Or was it to stop it from stealing for one night?”

Uns said, “Git him off!”

“In a minute. It’s a live ogre, it has to be, if it’s an ogre at all. Is it?”

“I dunno. Guess sa.”

That was the first time he had admitted anything, and I thought it would be better to pretend I had not noticed. I pulled my chin and asked what it said about that.

“Don’t talk much.”

“But it does talk?”

“A lil. I learnt him.”

I smiled, although I certainly did not feel like it. “I guess you caught him young. What’s his name?”

“Org. Git him off or I won’t talk no more.”

I told Gylf to let him go, and Gylf backed away, still growling.

Uns waited a minute, not sure Gylf would not take off an arm if he got up. Finally he did. It was not easy for him, because his bad back made it hard to keep his weight over his feet.

I said, “Maybe I sound like I know everything. I don’t. What’s important to me is that I don’t know if I could beat your ogre in a fair fight. You can’t tell me that, even if you think you could. Did you catch him young?”

“Din’t ketch him a-tall,” Uns muttered. “Da ma was dead, layin’ inna woods wid arrows all over in her ‘n Org starvin’. I ought ta let him. I knew. On’y I’se a mop ta ‘n wanted him ‘n I tooked him hum.”

“You hid him in your mother’s cellar?”

“Yessar, dere’s a ol’ storeroom ma’s forgot, ‘n dat’s Org’s place.”

“I see.”

Uns craned his neck to look up, seeking understanding. “He stinks, he do, from sleepin’ in his shit, ‘n sumptimes I wants ta turn him out. On’y he’d git stock. Dat got his ma kilt. Sa I don’. On’y I want ta, ‘n I will, ta, ’un day.”

I waited, pretty sure that he would keep talking if I gave him a chance to think about things.

“Learnt him ta talk a li’l, sar. Tried ta teach him ta say ogre ’cause he is.

On’y he says org. Sa Org’s wat I calls him, sar. He says yes ‘n no ‘n Uns. Li’l words like dat.”

I nodded. “I suppose knowing you had him—a monster in the house that nobody knew about—made you feel like you were better than your brother. Maybe better than your mother, too.”

“Made me good as dem, dat’s aw, sar. Ma ...”

“Go on.”

“She’s my ma, dat’s aw, ‘n sumptimes it’s like I’se still a mop. ‘N it’s her farm, ‘n she’ll give it ta Duns when she passes.”

I nodded to myself.

“Sa Org means I count ta.”

“Can you get him from the cellar and bring him here without being seen?”

Uns hesitated, gnawing his lip. “Ya goin’ ta kill him, Sar Able?”

“I’m going to wrestle him, if he’ll wrestle me. Maybe he’ll kill me, breaking my back or my neck. If he does—”

Gylf growled; you have heard the same noise, but you thought it was distant thunder.

“You and Gylf and Pouk will have to sort things out. Or I may kill Org, the same way. We’ll see.”

“Ya goin’ ta wresde him fair, sar?”

“Yes. Without weapons, if that’s what you mean. Can you bring him? Don’t let anybody see you.”

Uns bobbed his head. “Yessar. Outta da cellar door, sar. Dey won’t know.”

“Then bring him. Bring him now, and I’ll do my best to see that no serious harm comes to him.”

Gylf wanted to go with Uns, but I would not let him. When Uns had gone, I took off my boots and my sword belt and laid them aside, with Sword Breaker and my dagger still in their scabbards. After that, I took off my clothes. They were still pretty wet, but I found I was a lot colder without them than I had been with them on. I had put my sword belt on my boots to keep it off the wet ground, sticking Sword Breaker and my dagger into the boots. Now I piled my clothes on top of everything, trying not to get them any wetter than they were already.

When I had stripped, I stretched the way they teach you to in gym, leaning right and left as I touched my toes. The swing of the sea was strong in me, and I called upon it as I loosened up my muscles. I was a big man, thanks to Disiri, a head taller than almost everybody, with big shoulders and arms thicker than most men’s legs. I knew I was going to need all that, and the sea-surge most of all. The big waves pound, and drain away. They are strong, not stiff, and they swallow everything you throw at them and throw it back at you harder.

Gylf snarled, and from the sound of it I knew Org was coming. I took a good deep breath and let it trickle away.

Then I folded my arms and waited. This would be the test, and I had no idea how it would come out.