The Knight

Chapter 15. Pouk

I need to get to Forcetti,” I told a sailor. “Do you know if any of these ships are going there?” I had already gone to Scaur’s house, but he was out on the boat, and Sha had not recognized me and was afraid to talk to me.

The sailor looked at me for a minute, then touched his cap. “You try th’ Western Trader, sir.”

When he looked at me like that, I saw he was blind in one eye; the eyeball was still there, if you know what I mean, but it looked like the white part of a fried egg. What was more important, I liked the other one, and how it looked. He was not scared of me, but he did not want to fight me or cheat me. I do not think anybody had looked at me like that since I had left the forest.

I said, “You’re sure it’s going to Forcetti, to the town where Duke Marder is?”

“I dunno, sir, but it’s th’ only ’un in port now what might. Depends on what they find here, an’ you’d be part o’ that, sir.”

I thought about that, and finally I said, “I need your advice. If I give you a scield for it, will you give me the best advice you can?”

He touched his cap again. “An’ carry your bags aboard, sir. What do you want to know?”

“How much I ought to pay to get this ship to take me to Forcetti.”

He scratched his head. “Depends, sir. Think I could see th’ color o’ that scield?” I got out a scield and showed it to him. “Goin’ to sleep on deck, sir?”

I had slept outside a lot since I got to Mythgarthr, sometimes with a fire and sometimes without, and I would have two blankets from the cave; so that would not have bothered me if I had not been carrying so much money. But Ulfa and old man Toug and I had sold things from the cave and split what they brought among us. My share was a lot. So I said I would have to have a room of my own, with a door that locked.

“If you was, I’d say three o’ them like you showed me ‘ud do it, sir, if you bargained ’em hard. Since you ain’t, you got to find a officer what might share his cabin, sir, an’ take a look at it.”

I asked if they really had cabins on the ships, because I was thinking of our cabin back in America; then I thought I saw one and pointed it out to him.

“That there’s a deckhouse, sir. Cabins is what you’d call rooms ashore, sir. Officers has ’em. Only sometimes there’s two or three sleeps in one. Depends on th’ vessel, sir.”

“I see. If I could find an officer who had a cabin by himself, he might share it?”

“Aye, sir. If th’ price was right.”

“How much, would you say?”

He looked thoughtful. “For a good ’un, a couple o’ ceptres ‘ud do it, most like, sir. For a bad ’un, mebbe eight, ten scields, dependin’. Between ’em,” he shrugged, “a bit more or mebbe a ceptre. Goin’ to bring your own rations, ain’t you, sir?”

“Should I?”

“I ‘ud. Even if they say they’ll feed you right, sir, it’s good to have a bit over, ain’t it? An’ you can always eat it after if there’s any left.”

I saw the wisdom in that. “Maybe you could tell me what I ought to take.”

“Go with you an’ help you pick it out, sir. Carry for you, too, like I said. You a fightin’ man, sir? You look it.”

“I’m a knight,” I said; I always said that, because I knew I could never get people to believe me unless I believed it myself. “I’m Sir Able of the High Heart.”

He touched his cap. “Pouk Badeye, sir. At your service.”

We joined hands the way they do here, not shaking them but just squeezing. His hand was as hard as wood, but mine was bigger and stronger.

“A fightin’ man can get a better price, sir, ’cause o’ his helpin’ protect th’ vessel,” Pouk explained. “Only I’d get a sword first, sir, if it was me.”

Thinking of Disiri, I shook my head.

“Got ’un already back where you’re stayin’, sir?”

“No,” I said. “I’m not going to get one here, either. An ax, maybe.” You know what I thought of as soon as I had said that, so I said, “Or something like that.” I knew how dumb it sounded.

“There ain’t none but Mori that’s a good armorer in Irringsmouth these days, sir. I can show you.”

“Then let’s go. I’ll need food, too.”

“Dried stuff, sir, an’ smoked. Apples is good, an’ we should be able to get ’em this time o’ year. Small beer to drink. That don’t spile in th’ cask like water, sir.”

“Wine?”

“Crew’ll snaffle it, sir, ‘less you watch it day an’ night.” Putting his thumb to his mouth, Pouk pretended to drink.

I said, “You’d know all about that, I bet.”

“Do it myself you mean, sir? Not I.” (As well as I could judge, his denial was entirely serious.) “Can I ask why you’re bound for Forcetti, sir? Not that it’s on my watch, just friendly like, sir?”

“To take service with Duke Marder, if I can. He’ll need another knight, and if he doesn’t want me he may be able to suggest somebody who might.”

“Right there’s Mori’s, sir.” Pouk pointed to a long dark shed from whose several chimneys smoke issued. “You could get a good sword there—”

“No.”

“Or a ax, sir. Or whatever you fancy. Did you see somethin’, sir?”

I shook my head, not knowing whether I had or not.

“You jerked around, like.”

I pretended I had not heard that, and went into Mori’s front room. It was big and dim, full of tables upon which weapons and armor were displayed. More covered every wall—swords, daggers, and knives of every kind, war-axes and half-axes, war hammers, morning-stars, and studded flails. Helms that covered the entire head, and helmets that left the face bare. Hauberks, gauntlets, and other mail. Buff-coats of wild-ox leather, byrnies of brass-studded leather, gambesons of quilted canvas, and much more—far too much for me to name even if I knew all the names. Bundles of lances, pikes, spears, bills, and halberts stood in corners. Through a wide door at the other end of the room I could see two brawny men in leather aprons working at a forge, one holding a glowing brand with tongs while the other hammered it.

After a time, an old man who had been watching them noticed us. “A knight, I see. We are honored, Sir ... ?”

“Able of the High Heart. May I ask how you knew me for a knight, sir? By my clothes?”

The old man shook his head. “By your bearing, Sir Able. By the set of your shoulders, particularly. I confess there are some called knights these days I wouldn’t have known.” He sighed. “Knights used to guard the fords in my time. They’d help poor travelers, and fight any other knight who wanted to cross.”

I said, “I don’t believe I’ve heard of that.”

“It went out, oh, thirty years ago. But ’twas a fine custom while it lasted, for it weeded out the fakers. A good custom for me, because they’d bring me the swords and armor.”

Pouk chuckled. “Claimed th’ salvage did they, sir?”

“Indeed they did, sailor. As is still done, in knightly combat. The winner leaves the loser his clothes and a nag to ride home on. But he takes the arms and armor. The charger if it lives, as it generally does. He takes its tack, as well—its saddle, its bridle, and the rest. A ransom, too, in many cases. Now if you want to buy something, I’ll have my clerk take care of you.”

“I’m wit’ Sir Able. His servingman, like. Thing is, Master Mori, I want him to get a sword. He don’t have none an’ says he don’t want none, so I steered him to you.”

I explained that I was expecting a sword from another source, and needed another weapon I could use until I got it.

“It ain’t th’ same! Th’ skipper o’ the Western Trader won’t never believe you’re a knight without you got a sword, sir.”

Mori said, “Not all my swords are costly, Sir Able. I can show you a fine arming sword with a good plain grip—”

I raised my hand to cut him off. “Let’s say I’ve sworn not to carry a sword.” The next was hard to get out, but I managed it. “An ax might be more useful on a ship anyway. Isn’t that right?”

Mori looked thoughtful. “Does this oath preclude the use of a falchion? I’ve a very fine one just now.”

“There isn’t any oath. I made it up. I just wanted to make you and Pouk here understand how I feel. I—if I take a sword now, I won’t ever get the one I’m hoping to get, and if I don’t get that one, I won’t see the person who might get it for me. So no swords. Not any kind. Can’t you show me some axes? What about that double-bitted one with the yellow tassel?”

“There ain’t no ax that’s a sword!” Pouk insisted.

Mori’s eyes gleamed under his shaggy brows.

“What about this?” It had a long handle and a narrow blade. I picked it up: and swung it over my head. “A cutting edge on one side and a hammer on the other, so it’s an ax and a mace, too.”

“If I say you’re a knight an’ th’ skipper sees you with that, he’ll laugh us both ashore!”

Mori laid his hand on my shoulder. “Will you listen with patience, Sir Able, to what an older man has to say? I am no knight, but I’ve had years of experience in these matters.”

I said that I would be glad to hear him, but that I did not want a sword.

“Nor will I ask you to take one. Hear me out, and I’ll tell you of another weapon which, though not a sword, is as good in some respects, and in others better.”

I nodded. “Go on.”

“Let me first address the utility of swords and axes. The ax is like the mace in that it finds its best employment against heavy armor. It will split a shield—sometimes—in the hands of a man as strong as you are. But let a man in light armor, or a man in no armor, fight an axman, and he will kill him inside a minute or two, if he has a good sword and knows the use of it. As for that war hammer, it would be valuable indeed on horseback against another rider. But for a man afoot—a man aboard a ship, for example—well, you might be better off with an oar or a handspike.”

Pouk grunted with satisfaction.

“Socially, too, your man is quite correct. A sword is preeminently the weapon of a man of gentle birth. A man who bears one, who meets another similarly armed whom he thinks no gentleman, may challenge him, and so on.”

I tried to nod as if I had known it.

“May I introduce a hypothetical? Say for the sake of argument only that your man and I conspired to introduce a sword among your baggage. A sword so cleverly concealed that neither you nor anybody else could see it. What good would it be to you, do you think, when you boarded your ship?”

“Not any. When I found it I’d drop it in the water.”

Pouk groaned under his breath; Mori said patiently, “Before you found it, Sir Able.”

“If I didn’t know I had it, it couldn’t be of use.”

“Would not captain and crew acknowledge you a knight?”

I shrugged. “They will. But not because of a sword they never saw.”

“Now we come to it. It is the seeing of the sword—the perception of it—that matters. Not the sword itself. Look here.” Mori limped across the room, and from the table farthest from the door picked up a richly trimmed scabbard of white rayskin holding a weapon with a hilt of hammered steel. “What have I here, Sir Able?”

I knew there was some trick, but I was clueless about what it was. I said, “It looks like a sword. It’s on the short side, I’d say, and from the way you picked it up it can’t be very heavy. The blade’s probably narrow.” I waited for him to say something, and when he did not, I asked, “How are you fooling me?”

Mori chuckled. “As to its weight, I’m not as feeble as I may look to a man your age, and I’ve spent many a busy day forging blades.”

Pouk had gone to check it out. “You’re sayin’ it ain’t a sword at all?”

“It is not.” Mori carried the weapon, still sheathed, back to me. “It’s a mace, a mace of the Lothurings who live where the sun sets. I doubt that there is another on this side of the sea. Will you draw it, Sir Able?”

I did. The heavy steel blade was four-sided, only slightly wider than it was thick; its edges had never been sharpened.

“When it came into my hands,” Mori said, “I thought it the strangest thing I’d ever seen. But I dug out an old great helm, one that was dented and had lost its clasp but was still good and strong. I set that helm on the end of a post and tried the mace you’re holding on it, and came away a believer. Two ceptres’ weight in gold, if you want it.”

Seeing my expression he amended his price. “Or a ceptre and ten scields, if you’ll promise to come back and let me know how it served you.”

“We’ll take it!” Pouk declared.