The Knight twk-1

by Gene Wolfe

  Both of them said no, and Garsecg wanted to know why I was asking about it.

  “When I carried Disiri I thought she was just a regular human woman. Did I tell you about that?”

  “No,” Garsecg said. “Nor did your dog, who confided that you had spoken often of your love for her when I was loath to come and heal you.”

  “Did you think I’d be afraid of you?” I asked him.

  “No, I feared you would attack us, as so many of your kind do.”

  “Well, I didn’t. Anyway, I never had carried a woman before, and I thought she’d weigh a lot more than she did. She wasn’t much heavier than a little kid, even though she was ... You know.” I made curves with my hands.

  Garsecg smiled. “You shape a viola d’amore of air.”

  “If you say so. The thing is, I liked it and the real Disira wasn’t anywhere near as nice. I liked it a lot.”

  “You were intended to.”

  “I guess. Only just now I found bones over there where you sent me to get the cup, and I thought it must have been one of the sailors you’d talked about, because the Aelf are so light and change shape. But I wanted to make sure.”

  Garsecg said, “I doubt it.”

  “Well, if they’re human bones ...”

  “They were the bones of a woman. Before you woke, I found the pelvis. The pelvis always settles that question.”

  “I wouldn’t think you’d know about that.”

  “Because we see no human bones? I wish that you were correct. Do you also suppose that though your men sometimes enjoy Aelfmaidens, we in Aelfrice are never favored by human women?”

  Baki wanted water too, and I brought her some. Her hands shook too bad for her to drink until I held the cup for her. I was thinking about Garsecg and what he had said and how he had sounded while she was drinking, and when she was finished I said it was none of my business, but maybe he had known some human girls?

  “Yes, and seen their bones.”

  I said, “I’m sorry.” I did not know what else to say.

  “So am I. You are still young, Sir Able. You’ll find that life is a cruel business.”

  “Let’s not make it any worse. Were you wanting to go down to those armories now?”

  Garsecg shook his head.

  “That’s good, because I’m not going to leave them until they feel better.”

  When I said that, Baki whispered, “I’ll go with you.”

  “As far as the armories, maybe. I think that ought to be all right.”

  “Wherever you go, Lord.” Baki’s voice was so weak I could hardly hear her.

  A voice like that should not scare anybody, but it scared me. I said, “Are you talking about going to fight Kulili? That’s crazy.”

  “Wherever you go ...”

  Garsecg said, “Do not argue with her, Sir Able. You’ll tire her.”

  “All right.” I had way too much to think about, but I was trying to think about it just the same. “You said I was still young, and you’re right. I’m younger than you probably think. I don’t know if I told you I’d been to Aelfrice twice before, only one time I don’t remember it. We’re going to have lots of time now, it seems like. So I’d like to tell you.”

  “Then do so.”

  “Like I said, I don’t remember it. It’s not like I lost track of the time, I lost track of everything. I don’t know who I talked to, or what I did. I told a lady named Parka about it when I got back. It seemed like she was one of the Overcyns or something. Do you know her?”

  He shook his head.

  “She said I was supposed to know about the wrongs of the Aelf so I’d tell people up here. Did you know me when I was in Aelfrice before?”

  “No. Do you think the Aelf stole your memories?”

  “I guess they must have.”

  “I cannot be certain,” Garsecg said thoughtfully, “but it seems more probable this being you call Parka did it. Why should the Aelf complain to you and cause you to forget it?”

  “I told her I didn’t like them. It didn’t make her mad or anything.”

  His eyebrows went up. “Do you still feel that way?”

  I shook my head.

  “That is well. I was going to explain that it would be pointless of the Aelf to rob you of your memories when there was something they wished you to remember.”

  “Can you do it? Take memories away?”

  “I cannot. Some say I am wiser than any Aelf, but I do not know a way to do that. What memories would you like to discard?”

  “About America. My real name, and living there.”

  Uri said, “Is America your real name?”

  “It’s a place where I used to live. That was before I went to Aelfrice the first time.”

  Garsecg said, “A bad place, since you would forget it if you could.”

  “Not really. Only ...”

  “Only what?”

  “Only I’m like that girl in the movie. I can’t get it out of my head. I’m not going back, not even if I find the ruby slippers, because Disiri’s here and not there. But I wish I could just forget about it. Sometimes I think Bold Berthold was my real brother, you know? He wasn’t, but I think he was. I love him like he was, but I know he wasn’t.”

  “Which you would like to forget.”

  “Right. He used to be a big strong man with a big black beard. He’s told me about it, and he thinks I remember it. Then the giants came. The Angrborn. They hurt him really, really bad, and I don’t think he’ll ever get over it. I used to think that when people got sick, someday they’d be well. I may just be a kid, but I know better now.”

  “You miss the man you never knew.”

  “Yeah, sure. He was strong and smart and brave. We used to sit in his little hut at night—this is before Disiri—and he’d talk about things that had happened before he got hurt, and I could see what he had been like. I kept thinking it would be wonderful to be like that, only I never could be, not really.”

  Baki sat up. She still looked pretty shaky. “You could never be what you are now?”

  I tried to smile. It was not easy, but I tried and I guess I did it. “Oh, I’m plenty strong. Garsecg showed me all about the sea, so probably I’m stronger now than Bold Berthold ever was. But I’m not brave, and I’m not smart. Inside I’m still a kid. Outside I’m a man, I guess, or anyhow I look like one. But I was scared to death when we fought the Osterlings.”

  Nobody said anything then, so I asked Garsecg if I had told him about that.

  “No, but your dog did. You fought like a hero, and received the wound that the sea has healed.”

  “But I was scared. I was scared to death. Our sailors were fighting them through the rope net we’d put up, and I shot through it until all my arrows were gone.”

  “Slaying many.”

  I nodded.

  “Then that was the best thing you could do. My Sea Aelf do not use the bow, which is of no value under water; but your Disiri’s Moss Aelf are expert with it, and I have seen what slaughter one fine archer can make among his foes.”

  “They cut through the net.” I was remembering a lot more than I was listening. “They were made of good tough ropes thicker than my thumb, but they cut them and our men were running. There wasn’t anything else I could do.”

  Garsecg smiled. “It required no courage, I am sure.”

  “That’s right. I had to. I had Sword Breaker, and I yelled and jumped off the castle and one stabbed me and I fell down.”

  “Thus your ship was taken, and is now in the hands of the dreaded Osterlings.” Garsecg shook his head like he felt sorry for me. “I failed to notice any when I went aboard, but it was due to my inattention, I feel sure.”

  “No, we chased them back onto their own boat. They cut the ropes and left some hooks behind, and—and went away.”

  Uri rolled her head to look at me. “Why, Lord?”

  “I guess they were afraid we’d take it and kill the rest of them. We might have, too, if they hadn’t cut the r
opes.”

  Garsecg said, “Then you have omitted something from your account. I suspected it all along. You spoke of your fear, Sir Able of the High Heart.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And of leaping from the sterncastle, sword in hand.”

  I explained about its not being a sword.

  “Sword Breaker in hand, in that case. After that you spoke of being stabbed. Through your armor, as I understand it from your dog. You fell, I suppose to the deck.”

  I said yes.

  “Yet your being stabbed and falling to the deck cannot have taken place immediately after your leap. What did?”

  I said I had hurt some people, hitting them with Sword Breaker and so on.

  “Some Osterlings.”

  “This isn’t what I wanted to talk about,” I told him, “this isn’t it at all. I want to say how brave Bold Berthold used to be, and how strong. Only when I knew him he wasn’t like that anymore. He was bent over, and sometimes he didn’t think quite right. His beard had white in it, and he didn’t want to go back to Griffins-ford to stay. Not ever. He just wanted to live in the forest where they couldn’t find him. But they did. They found him, and now he’s gone.” I had to wipe my eyes with my fingers then, and after a while I said, “I’m sorry.”

  “For mourning the loss of your brother? The strongest may weep at such a time.”

  “This is what I wanted to say. I think what Disiri did was to make me grow up the way I would have if I hadn’t been in Aelfrice.”

  Garsecg did not seem to want to say anything about that.

  “It seems like ten years. I mean thinking about how I was before that night when she made me grow, and the way I am now. About ten years.”

  “Or less.”

  “Only Bold Berthold, he’s maybe thirty, forty years older—”

  Uri said, “I feel better now, Lord. I think I can stay up if you’ll help me.”

  I did, and she sort of snuggled.

  Baki said, “You just wanted his arms around you.”

  Uri grinned at her. “They’re very nice arms.”

  Kind of under my breath, I told Garsecg, “Sometimes I dream about the Osterlings.”

  “So do I—they sacrificed to us while they held the Mountain of Fire. Do you want my opinion on these matters?”

  I said yes, I would really like it.

  “I do not believe you will. Or at least I doubt that you will be willing to accept every side of it.” For a minute Garsecg seemed to be thinking about where to start.

  “The first item, the Osterlings. You believe you lack courage because you feared them. Do you imagine that your brother would have felt no fear?”

  “He fought the giants.”

  “And you the Osterlings, Sir Able. You were afraid, but you mastered your fear. Do you imagine they were not afraid of you? If you do, we will find a pool in which you can look at your reflection. You had armor?”

  “A mail shirt and a steel cap. I bought them before we went on the boat.”

  “And Sword Breaker in your hand. Besides all of which, you were the man who had laid waste to them with the bow. Believe me, Sir Able, they feared you from the moment they laid eyes on you.”

  “Well, they sure didn’t act like it.” I found the durian I had been trying to eat and started all over again trying to get it open with my fingernails. It was just as bad as it had been the first time.

  “Did you act as though you feared them?”

  There did not seem to be anything I could say to that.

  “I was not present, yet I know the answer. So do you, who were present. You mastered your fear until you fell wounded. They mastered theirs—for a time. When a knight is on a ship, that ship flies his pennant from its foremast. Did yours do that?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t have one, and I didn’t know about it anyway. Maybe that’s why the captain didn’t think I was a real knight.”

  “In most cases, the Osterlings will not attack such a ship. They must have been surprised, and frightened, when they found you were on board.”

  I said all right, what about the rest?

  Chapter 26. The Second Item And The Third

  “Very well, let us move on to the next item. You brought a glass tube, as well as the goblet, back from the lime tree. Certainly it must have struck you that I would see it sooner or later. Are you going to let me examine it?”

  I said, “After we had talked about the other things, I thought.” It had been pretty well hidden in the long grass, and it was green anyway. But I picked it up and passed it to Garsecg. “There’s a paper rolled up inside.” He nodded. “Did you break the seal?”

  I told him there had not been any, and Uri leaned over to look. Baki came over so she could see better. They did not have anything on, then or after, and it was hard for me not to look at certain places, but I did it.

  Garsecg pulled out the stopper and took out the paper. “It is a scroll,” he told us. “A kind of book.” He was untying the strings.

  “I untied them too,” I said, “but they were tied just like that.”

  “Did you read it?”

  I shook my head. “I looked at it, but I can’t read that kind of writing.”

  “Nor can I. This is the script of Celidon, presumably.”

  He handed the scroll to Baki, who said, “Huh-uh. I can read our writing, but not this stuff.”

  Uri snuggled closer. “If Baki cannot, I cannot.”

  Garsecg took the scroll from Baki, rolled it up again and tied it, and put it back into the tube. “This may be the testament of the woman whose bones we found, but I have no way of knowing. You may keep it if you like, Sir Able, or return it to its place.”

  After I had put it back under the tree, I asked if he thought she knew she was going to die.

  Garsecg pointed to the goblet. “When one finds a cup beside a body, one assumes poison. That was why I advised you to rinse it thoroughly, although it has certainly been weathering here for a long time. If she was poisoned, she may have poisoned herself, and grasped her testament until she died.”

  I tried to imagine why a woman would kill herself in such a beautiful place.

  “You may have more questions about this. Ask them if you like, but I confess I have no more answers.”

  “You said you’d seen the bones,” I reminded him. “Did you see that glass tube too?”

  He shook his head. “I looked around, but the sun was only just coming up. I did not see it.”

  “You were talking about a big war when the Aelf drove out Setr.” I said it like that because I thought Garsecg did not want Uri and Baki to know who he really was. So I felt like I was being smart, but Uri started shaking and I had to promise her I would not say the name any more.

  “We were supposed to die,” she told me. “If we came up here, we were supposed to die.” Baki said that, too.

  “He forgives you,” Garsecg told them. I could see they did not understand, but the way he said it made them believe it, or almost.

  “A thousand of your years have passed since that war,” Garsecg told me. “I can give you a wealth of detail, if you want it. But do you?”

  “I guess not. Only I was thinking about that woman. Those bones can’t have been here that long, can they?”

  “In this well-watered place? Certainly not.”

  “Then the person who built this skyscraper we’re on didn’t put her up here?”

  “Who can say? A thousand years here might be a hundred in Aelfrice, or even less.”

  Baki said, “Besides, he comes back. Let’s not talk about him at all.”

  I was thinking hard. For one thing it seemed to me like the woman might have been shipwrecked, but if she had been, why did she kill herself? I asked Garsecg again about the top of the skyscraper being an island in Mythgarthr, and he said again that it was. Then I said, “All right, if it’s an island, why don’t I hear the sea? I haven’t heard the sea the whole time we’ve been up here.”

  “When it is ca
lm, as it often is, it makes no great noise.”

  “Well, I’m going to look. You stay here with these sick girls.”

  Really humbly Baki said, “Uri and Baki, Lord. I am Baki.” That was when I got them straight. I never did get them mixed up again after that.

  Garsecg shook his head, meaning he was not going to stay, but I did not pay any attention. The sun was still only halfway up the sky, so to keep it out of my eyes I turned my back to it and went west. I broke twigs and let them hang every hundred steps or so, and after a while I heard Garsecg behind me. He said, “Why do you do that?”

  I did not look. “So I can find my way back, of course.”

  “And why do you want to go back?”

  “Because those girls are sick, and we ought to be taking care of them. I was hoping you’d stay with them and do it.”

  “The Aelf have struggled to free themselves from the monster called Kulili throughout their history. You are their last hope, and their best. I am not letting you out of my sight—no, not for ten thousand puking maidens.”

  I had stopped to look at a tree of a shade of green I had never seen before. I am sure it came from Aelfrice, but it was so fresh and new-looking that it seemed like God had just made it. Like He had planted it a minute before I got there. It had blue and purple flowers, and the long feelers or whatever you call them inside the flowers were bright red. I have never seen another one like it, and I have remembered it all this time.

  Anyway, I heard Garsecg laugh behind me, but I still did not look at him. But when I started walking again I asked if we were going the right way.

  “I have no means of knowing. Or say, rather, that I know that any direction will prove right if we cleave to it long enough. This may be the shortest way. It may be the longest. In any event, it will take us to the sea in the end.”

  “I still don’t hear any waves.”

  “Nor do I. But if we continue as we have begun, we will hear them if there are any.”

  I thought about that, and the weather. There was hardly any wind, and so I said, “That’s right, it’s pretty calm.”

  “It is, and it is in just such weather as this that this isle is most often sighted by seamen. It is a thing of heat and calm, most often seen at twilight.”