by Gene Wolfe
Pouk nodded reluctantly.
“We used practice lances made of wood not strong enough for real ones. You don’t want a practice lance to be strong. Somebody might get hurt or killed. A real war lance is as strong as it can be made. It has a sharp steel head, too. Ours were blunt. By hitting me hard with a stout dagger, one of the Osterlings was able to stab through my mail, remember? His stab opened a couple of rings, and that was enough.”
“Aye. We was a-feared you’d die, sir.”
“I just about did, and maybe I would have eventually if it hadn’t been for Garsecg. Now suppose instead of a dagger that mail was hit by a heavy war lance, with the weight of a knight and a galloping horse behind it.”
Pouk scratched his head. “Go through it like it was cheese, sir.”
“You’ve got it. What’s more, Sir Woddet and I aimed at each other’s shields. The shield’s what’s generally hit with a lance in a real battle.”
“An’ what good does that do? It’s just like what I was sayin’, sir.”
“Pretty often, none. But the shields used in battle are a lot lighter than our practice shields, and the lance-point will go through sometimes. Even if it doesn’t, the knight whose shield got hit may get knocked out of his saddle the same way I was. Remember what I said about a second line of knights behind the first? Now pretend you’re a knight who’s been knocked off his horse, pretty well stunned by the fall.”
We had reached the house. Pouk said, “If it’s all th’ same to you, sir, I’d just as soon not.” He dismounted, by that act alarming several ducks and a goose. “Maybe I ought to run in front, sir, an’ tell ’em who you are.”
A middle-aged farmwife had appeared in the doorway. I called, “We’re harmless travelers looking for water for our horses and ourselves. Let us have that, and we won’t ask for anything else.”
She did not answer, and I added, “If you’d rather leave us thirsty, say so and we’ll go.”
Pouk trotted toward her, leading his horse. “This here’s Sir Able, the bravest knight Duke Marder’s got.”
She nodded, and seemed to weigh me with her eyes. “You look brave enough. ‘N strong.”
“I’m thirsty, too. I’ve been jousting, and riding without a hat. May we have some water?”
She reached a decision. “We’ve cider, if you want it. It’ll be healthier. Maybe a couple hard-boiled eggs ‘n some bread ‘n sausage?”
I had not known I was hungry, but when she said that I found out quick. I said, “We can pay you, ma’am, and we’ll be glad to. We’re going into Forcetti to pay an innkeeper what we owe him, and we can pay you as well.”
“No charge. You come in.”
She ushered us into her kitchen, a big sunny room with a stone floor and onions hanging in braided strings from the rafters. “Sit down. We get you knights up ‘n down the road every day, almost, ‘n that’s good. The robbers don’t bother us, only the tax man. But most knights don’t stop here. Or speak, neither, when we wish them good morrow.”
“They’re not as thirsty as we are, maybe.”
“I’ll fetch the cider right away. Keg’s in the root cellar.” She bustled out. “Hard cider, it might be.” Pouk licked his lips.
I agreed, but I was thinking about the woman, and what she might want from us.
She came back with three basswood jacks, which she set on the table. “Fresh bread. Nearly fresh, anyhow. I baked yesterday.” She took a sausage from the pocket of her apron and laid it on a trencher, where it fell in thick slabs under the assault of a long knife. “Summer sausage. We smoke it three days, ‘n after that it keeps if it don’t get wet.”
I thanked her and ate some sausage, which was very good.
“Sir Able? That’s you? You seem like a down-to-earth person, for a knight.”
I interrupted my cider drinking to say I tried to be.
“You really the bravest knight the duke’s got?”
“Aye!” Pouk exclaimed.
“I doubt it,” I said, “but I don’t really know. To tell you the truth, I don’t believe there’s a knight in Sheerwall Castle that would hesitate to cross swords with me. But I wouldn’t hesitate to cross swords with them, either.”
“Scared of ghosts?”
I shrugged. “There’s no man I’m afraid of, and it doesn’t seem likely that a dead man would be worse than a live one.”
“Not a man.” She glanced at Pouk, who had drained his mug and was looking unwontedly sober. “Little more of that?”
He shook his head.
“If it’s a woman’s ghost,” I said, “she may be after some property or something she thinks is coming to her. I talked to an old lady down south who knew a lot about ghosts, and she told me that women’s ghosts generally mean the woman was murdered. More often than not, justice is all they want.”
“Not a woman.” The farmwife got up to fetch a loaf of bread.
“A child’s ghost? That’s sad.”
“I wish ’twas.” She sawed her bread with exaggerated care, I thought to keep her feelings under control.
“Are you talking about the Aelf? They’re not ghosts.”
“Guess you know how you knights got started?”
I admitted I did not, that I had never even wondered about it, and added that I would like to hear the story.
“No story. There was ogres all around here in the old time. Dragons, too. Monsters. These here giants that’s in the ice country now. Lots of them. A man that killed one, he was a knight, only after a while they was all killed off, so it had to be other things.”
“You still haven’t told me what the ghost is.”
“A ogre. Must have been one killed right here, ’cause it’s been haunting my farm.”
Pouk looked around as if he expected to see it.
“You don’t have to worry,” the farmwife told him. “He don’t come but at night.”
I said, “In that case we can’t help you. We’ve got to go to Forcetti.” I took another piece of her summer sausage, thinking she might pull it out of reach soon. “We can’t stay in Forcetti tonight, though. Or here, either. I promised Master Agr he’d get his horses back tonight.”
Her face fell.
“It will be late, I suppose, when we pass your house again. Dark, or just about. We could stop in for a moment, just to make sure everything was okay.”
“Me ‘n my sons would be pleased as pigeons, Sir Able. We’d give you a bite to eat then, ‘n your horses, too.”
I snapped my fingers. “That’s right, the horses haven’t been watered. See to them, please, Pouk.”
“Not good to give ’em too much, sir.”
“That’s when they’re warm from galloping. They can’t be hot now, they’ve been standing in the shade whisking flies while we ate. Give them all they want.”
“Aye aye, sir.” He hurried out.
The farmwife said, “Me ‘n my sons work this farm, Sir Able. They’re strong boys, both of them, but they won’t face the ghost. Duns did, ‘n it almost killed him. He was bad for more’n a year.”
I said I would not have thought just being scared could do that.
“Broke his arms, ‘n just about tore one off.”
As soon as I heard that, I wanted to talk to the son, but he was out seeing to something or other; it stuck in my mind, though.
Chapter 36. The Dollop And Scallop
In the tap of the Dollop and Scallop (it was a big, plain, dirty room where you smelled the spilled ale), the innkeeper gave me his bill with a flourish. “I can’t read,” I told him, “or not the way you write here. I wish I could—I’d like to learn, but you’ll have to explain this to me.” I spread the bill on the top of a table. “Now sit down and tell me about this. I see the marks on the paper, but I don’t know what they mean.”
He scowled. “Want to make a fool of me, don’t you?”
“Not a bit. I can’t read and neither can Pouk, but I’d like to know what I’m being billed for.”
He stood besi
de me and pointed. “This right here’s the only part that matters. Five scields up and down.”
“For three days? It seems like an awful lot.”
“Three days’ rent of the best room I got. That’s right here.” He pointed. “And food here, and drink.”
Pouk would not meet my eyes.
“And food for your dog. That’s here.”
I caught his arm. “Say that again. Tell me about it.”
“Food for your dog.” The innkeeper looked uneasy. “A big brown dog with a spike collar. Shark’s teeth, the spikes was. We give him bones from the kitchen, couple old loaves with drippin’s on ’em, and meat scraps and so forth, and I don’t charge you for none of that. Only he stole a roast, too, and that cost.”
“I didn’t have a dog when I checked in.” I tightened my grip because I had the feeling he was going to bolt if he got the chance. “But I used to have a dog. Pouk knows him. You showed him to Pouk, didn’t you? And asked Pouk if he knew who he belonged to?”
Pouk shook his head violently. “He never showed me no dog, sir, I swear.
Nor never talked about none neither.”
“I was going to punish you,” I told him, “for drinking at my expense when you knew I didn’t have much money. But if you’re lying about Gylf, I’m not going to punish you at all. If you’ve lied about Gylf, you and I are finished right now, and you had better keep out of my way from here on.”
Pouk drew himself up. “I never seen no dog in this here inn, nor heard tell o’
’un, sir. Not from him, an’ not from nobody here at all—not your dog Gylf what jumped over th’ railin’ that time we both remember, an’ not no other dog neither.”
The innkeeper was trying to pull away. I said, “Why didn’t you show the dog to Pouk?”
“I tried to, but he was asleep.”
“Last night, full of your ale. Did he tell you I had agreed to let him drink as much as he wanted?”
The innkeeper said nothing.
“You said the dog stole a roast. Why didn’t you show him to Pouk after that?
Wasn’t Pouk here until Modguda came to get him?”
“She sent a boy on a horse, sir,” Pouk explained. “Him and me rode back together, me sittin’ behind o’ him, like.”
I said, “It’s clear that Pouk was awake this morning, since Modguda’s boy found him and spoke to him.”
“We couldn’t catch that dog, Sir Able. He’s a bad one.”
“So are you.” I thought about the bill and the few gold ceptres that remained to me. I could pay; but when I had, that much more would be gone forever. “I won’t pay for the roast. You wouldn’t have fed this dog that other stuff after he had stolen a whole roast, so you knew he was here, and you did nothing to keep him from taking a big piece of meat that must have been left lying around in the kitchen. You were careless, and the roast is the price you’ve got to pay for it.”
“All right,” the innkeeper said. “Let go of my arm and I’ll take it off.”
“How much did you charge me for it?”
“Three cups. I’ll take it off. I said I would. Let me go.”
I shook my head, and stood up. “Not yet. I’m going to make you an offer. I’ll pay the three cups,” with my free hand, I fished big brass coins out of the burse at my belt, “if you’ll show me the dog, right now, and it’s mine. I’ll let you go, too. Will you do it?”
“I can’t. It run off.”
I swept up my coins again. “In that case I’m not going to pay you anything for the dog’s food. You let it run away instead of informing my servant. Neither will I pay a single copper for what he drank. Strike those off, and we’ll talk about the rest. If you haven’t cheated me on that, I’ll pay it all.”
“It’s five scields,” the innkeeper insisted. “Five, less the three cups for the dog’s food. That much—or I call the watch.”
I picked him up, turned him over, and dropped him. “I’m living at Sheerwall Castle now. You can go to Duke Marder for justice, and I’m sure you’ll get it if you do. Only first, it might be smart for you to think about whether you really want it. Sometimes people don’t.”
We left him lying on the floor and went up to the room that had been ours, washed and shaved there, and packed up everything we had brought off the Western Trader.
When we went downstairs again, there was a knight in a green surcoat lying in wait in the taproom. He cut at my head; when I ducked, his blade bit into the doorframe. I rushed him before he could get it out, knocking him off his feet.
With the point of his own dagger sticking him under the chin he begged for mercy.
I said all right, and got up and dusted myself off. “I’m Sir Able of the High Heart, and I claim your armor and your shield, your weapons except for your sword, your horse or horses if there’s more than one, and your burse. You can keep your clothes, your life, and your sword. I’m not going to ask any ransom for you. Give me those things, and you can go.”
“Sir Nytir of Fairhall am I.” He got up and bowed. “Your offer is generous. I accept it.”
Pouk said, “Pah,” and I gave him a look that meant shut up.
Nytir unbuckled his shield and leaned it against the bar, took off his steel cap, and pulled off his mantle of mail, his surcoat, and his hauberk, piling everything on the nearest table. “My helm is on my saddlebow,” he said. “May I keep the surcoat? It bears my arms.”
I nodded.
“Thank you.” He untied his burse and handed it to me. “Five scields and a few coppers. You said I might retain my sword. Does that extend to the scabbard and sword belt?”
I nodded again.
“The innkeeper called you a brigand. I shall have words with him, by-and-by.”
“So will I,” I said, and I told Pouk to have a look at the horse for me, adding that he should report on all of them if there was more than one.
“There are three,” Nytir said. A smart pull freed his sword. “You might tell my squire to come while you’re about it, fellow.”
Pouk hurried out.
I made the mistake of looking at Pouk as he left, and Nytir’s thrust almost spitted me. I jumped, half falling, and the point twitched the front of my tunic.
The overhand cut that followed it would have killed me, I believe, if the point had not raked the low ceiling. As it was, I got Sword Breaker out and thrust with her, driving the flat end of her blade into Nytir’s face. He was sitting on the floor trying to stop the bleeding by the time his squire came in. The squire hurried over and tried to help him, but Nytir would not take his hands away to let the squire examine his wound. Neither would he speak.
“Your horses are mine,” I told the squire. “Pouk, is there a charger among them?”
“There’s a good ’un what he rode,” Pouk said. “Don’t know if I’d call it a charger, but it’s a good ’un. Then there’s his,” Pouk gestured toward the squire, “an’ a pack horse, like.”
“Whatever goods are on that pack horse are mine too,” I told the squire. “I’m keeping that horse, and the one your master rode. Is the one you rode your own? Or does it belong to him?”
“It’s Sir Nytir’s, Sir ... ?”
“Able.”
“Sir Able. I—I ... You have no armor.”
“I do now. I’m giving you the horse you rode. Pay attention. It was Sir Nytir’s. I took it from him when I beat him, and I just gave it to you. Now that you own it, I want you to put him on it and lead it someplace where they’ve got a doctor.”
The squire nodded. “He has a house here, Sir Able. I ... You are a true knight. I hope to be a true knight myself, soon.”
I wished him luck.
“I must tell you that I was one of those who pummeled you in the practice field. You needn’t give me Stamper, and you should not.” Nytir said something, indistinctly.
“I won’t take Stamper back,” I told the squire. “He’s yours. Get your master up on him, and get him out of here.”
Pouk and I
went outside and watched them go. When they had vanished around the first bend in that crooked street, Pouk asked if I wanted him to look into the pack horse’s load. I shook my head and told him to find the innkeeper. “Here, sir? He’ll be outward bound under all sail.”
“Look for him anyway. There must be help of some kind here, a cook and so on. Look for them, too. I’ll be in the tap trying on Sir Nytir’s mail.” Nytir’s sword was in there, too. I did not want it, but I was glad to have a chance to look it over. It was a little bit bigger than Ravd’s, and a bit heavier too, although I did not think it was quite as good. Wanting to see what it would do, I drove it into the top of the bar. It went through five or six inches of wood and stuck, so I left it there.
I had Nytir’s hauberk on and was fastening the lacings (that can be tough when you are wearing the hauberk) when Pouk came back with a stout red-faced woman. “This’s the innkeeper’s wife,” he announced, “and this here’s my master, Sir Able o’ th’ High Heart.”
She bent her knee, and I explained that I had rented a room for three nights. “Upstairs, front,” Pouk added.
“I know this one.” The innkeeper’s wife jerked a thumb at Pouk. “Only I didn’t never see you up to now, Sir Able. He told me his master was a knight, only I never more’n half swallowed it. He’s a sailor, sir, and there ain’t much truth in ’em.”
“Sailors see things other people won’t believe.” I shrugged. “Would you believe him if he were to tell you of the Isle of Glas?”
“No, sir!”
“I don’t blame you. But I’ve seen it too, and even walked through its glades.
Seamen lie just as we do, of course, and for the same reasons. But I’m telling you the truth when I say that.”
“Far be it from me to give you the lie, Sir Able.”
“Thanks. Don’t he now, and we can be good friends. Do you know where your husband is? I’d like to talk to him.”
“I haven’t no notion, Sir Able. He’s gone out, seems like.”
“Yeah, it does. Before he left, he told me about a dog that came here. He said it was a big brown dog with a spike collar.”
