The Knight

Chapter 43. The War Way

Out of all our long trip north, the night I remember best was the one on which we separated. Svon took care of the horses, making Pouk do most of the actual work but watching to see that it was done right. Gylf had gone hunting, and I sat at our fire, looking into the flames and thinking of Sir Ravd, of Muspel, and of nights at our cabin in the woods—how you and I had gathered sticks, building a big fire in the little stone fireplace and roasting weenies and marshmallows.

And wondering, to tell you the truth, how the heck I had gotten from there to where I was now. Agr had told me that if I hurried and had good luck I could be in the mountains in six weeks. When he said it, it had not seemed possible that it was going to take that long.

We had met in a big, pleasant room in the duke’s private quarters, we being Agr, Caspar, the duke himself, and me. I would have liked to have Hob there, too; and in a way he was, because he was what the rest of us were thinking about. Org had killed and eaten him.

“This pet of yours,” Marder said to me, “this ogre you put into my dungeon, is the least of our troubles. So let us deal with it first. Can you send it away?”

“To send him away would be to doom him, Your Grace.” I had argued the whole thing out with Agr already, before we went in to see Marder. “You’re going to say that he should be killed, and so is Master Agr. Master Caspar, too. All right, maybe the three of you are right. But I’ve accepted him into my service. I can’t send him out to die.”

Marder fingered his beard and Agr tried to pretend that none of this had anything to do with him. Finally Caspar said, “We got to get it out of there, Your Grace. Get it up in the bailey where the knights can get at it.”

Marder shrugged; I had never seen him look so tired and old. “Sir Able will not order it out of the dungeon, knowing that he would be sending it to its death. I can send knights into the dungeon and have them kill it there.”

Caspar shook his head. No way.

“But I could not guarantee their success. From what you say, they might not even be able to find it.”

Agr repeated something he had said already, rephrasing it. “If this ogre is Sir Able’s servant, Sir Able should have given it the strictest instructions, emphasizing that his protection would be lifted if it disobeyed.”

“I ordered Org not to hurt anybody,” I said, “and he promised he wouldn’t. I think he must have heard that I’d hit Hob. He must have thought Hob was my enemy and it would be okay.”

Marder nodded, I suppose mostly to himself.

“Hob would have been, if Hob had lived. Everyone in your castle is afraid of the warders, Your Grace, except me and you. I don’t know what’s behind all that, but it’s got to be more than ugly faces and black clothes. If I go down in your dungeon, Master Caspar and his men will do everything they can think of to see I never come out. I know that. But if you want me to—”

“Your Grace!” Caspar had jumped up. “I swear—he—Sir Able don’t—”

Marder shut him up by moving his hand about an inch.

I said, “I’ll go anyway, if you tell me to. And I’ll make it clear to Org that he shouldn’t kill anybody else, not even Master Caspar.”

Marder hid his mouth behind his hand, but I saw his mustache twitch.

“Only I’ve got a better plan, if I can just get you to agree to it. This will solve all the problems we’ve been talking about. It gets Org out of your dungeon. And it will be my punishment, too, one none of your knights can resent or argue about.”

Marder sighed. “It will get you killed, you mean. The more I see and hear of you, Sir Able, the more reluctant I am to lose you.”

“I hope not, Your Grace. You were going to send me out to make my stand. We talked about that outside my room.”

He nodded. “I recall it.”

“Then you remember you said you might send me to fight the Angrborn. Do it. Do it now. I don’t know exactly how they go when they come into your duchy—”

Agr said, “I’ll draw you a map of the War Way.” (He did that, too, afterward.)

I nodded to show I had heard Agr. “But there can’t be a lot of roads through the mountains. Let me take my stand someplace they have to go through. I’ll take Org along, and I’ll stay there until snow blocks the passes.”

We talked about that for a while, Marder saying that as long as I did not come back before there was ice in the bay he would take my word that I had not left until the passes were closed. Agr sent Caspar for a page, then sent the page to that armorer back in Forcetti to tell him he had to hurry up with all my work.

Then Marder said, “There is another difficulty whose solution I see in this, Sir Able.”

That was Svon. I remember looking up from the fire that night to get a good look at him, and seeing he was asleep and that Gylf had laid a dead hare pretty close to his head. I got it and skinned it, and stuck one haunch on a long stick the way you do, and held it over the fire.

It was getting brown when Svon sat up. “Are you going to eat all of that, Sir Able?”

I held up the rest. “There’s more here. Take whatever you want.”

“Good of you. We’ve been on short commons, eh?”

I reminded him that he had bought extra food for himself when we had stopped at inns or in villages. It was easy—too easy, to tell you the truth—to get mad at Svon. Maybe it was even as easy for us to be mad at him as it was for him to be mad at us. When I thought about it, I understood him well enough. He was still a squire, when there were a lot of knights younger than he was.

I was one of those myself.

He went off to cut a stick. When he came back, he put the other haunch over the fire too. “I could eat it raw, like your monster, Sir Able. But I’m a man, so I’ll try to soften it up.”

I stayed quiet, knowing he was trying to get me mad.

“Your ogre, I ought to have said. I don’t like him.”

I had another look at my meat, and turned the stick.

“I had a nice nap until I smelled this rabbit. Have you slept at all?”

I said no.

“Because you’re afraid to sleep without your dog and your monster to guard you. Isn’t that right? You’re afraid I might stab you.”

“I’ve been stabbed before,” I told him. His lips tightened. “Not by me.”

“No.”

“Allow me to tell you something, Sir Able. I know you won’t credit it, but I’d like to say it whether you credit it or not. I won’t stab you, not while you sleep at any rate. But your pet ogre will turn on you someday, asleep or awake.”

“Would you defend me, if he did?”

“How am I to take that? Am I to say yes so you’ll have something good to say of me when we return?”

I shook my head. “You’re supposed to take it seriously, that’s all. And answer it honestly—even if it’s just to yourself.” I was trying to get the meat I had been cooking off the stick without burning my fingers; when I did, I took a bite. It was hot enough to burn my tongue, and tough too. It tasted wonderful.

“You always tell the truth. Correct?”

My mouth was full, but I shook my head.

“You know you try to give that impression.” He pointed his forefinger at me. “That impression itself is a lie.”

I chewed some more and swallowed. “Sure. Since you’re awake now, go see to the horses.”

He ignored it. “You told His Grace that you had guided Sir Ravd and me in the forests above Irringsmouth. Another lie.”

The scream of some animal made us both jump up.

Svon took a deep breath and grinned at me. “Your pet’s killed somebody else.”

I walked around the fire and knocked him sprawling.

He may have touched Pouk when he fell, because Pouk sat up. He stared at Svon, blinking and rubbing his eyes.

I picked up the stick Svon had dropped and passed it to him. “Here. The meat’s got ashes on it, but they won’t hurt you.” After that, I went over to where our baggage was piled and got my bow and quiver.

Svon sat up. (Maybe he thought I had gone—I had found out already that I could be hard to see sometimes ever since Baki.) He fingered the back of his jaw and the side of his neck, which was where I hit him.

“Had it comin’,” Pouk told him.

Svon said, “I ought to cut off his base-born head,” and I stepped back a little farther. I did not want to kill him, and I knew that if he saw me I might have to.

Pouk had been looking at the meat I had given him. He decided it needed more cooking, and held it over the fire. “Wouldn’t try, not if I was you, sir.”

“I am a gentleman, and gentlemen avenge any wrongs they suffer,” Svon said stiffly

“Had it comin’,” Pouk repeated, “so it ain’t wrong.”

“You couldn’t know. You were asleep.”

I turned to go. Behind me, I heard Pouk say, “I knows him, sir, an’ I knows you.”

“I’ll kill him!”

Very faintly: “If I thought you meant it, sir, I’d kill you meself.”