The Knight

Chapter 20. Sword Breaker

There were shouts outside the cable tier. The door opened, and a seaman looked in . “Cap’n, Sir Able. Nothink ter worry h’about, sir. We’re watchin’ an’ won’t let ’im h’in.”

I said I wanted to talk to him, but the door had already closed. It got quiet again, just the creak of the timbers and the slap of the waves on the side of the ship, things I had been hearing so long I hardly heard them at all. I had a blanket and a bottle of brandy. The blanket had been one of mine, Pouk said, and he had pinched the brandy from the captain’s private stock. I had drunk some; it made me terribly dizzy, and I swore I would not drink any more.

“I’m just a kid,” I told Pouk between mouthfuls. He did not understand kid, so I said, “A boy who’s supposed to be a man after one night with a woman.”

“Aye, sir. I’ve felt th’ same many’s a time.”

Right here I want to stop everything and say something like this has happened to me a lot. I have tried to tell other men about Disiri and me and how I changed. And they have said the same thing happened to them. I do not think it did, really. They felt like it did. I felt like it did too, but I felt that way because it really did. Of course they would say the same thing.

“Just a boy,” I told Pouk. “A boy who thought he was a brave knight.”

“I ain’t never seen no braver man nor you, sir.” Pouk sounded ready to fight anybody who contradicted him. “Why, when them Osterlings got through the net, who was it went for ’em?”

I stopped eating to consider the question. “The dog, I’m sure. The dog Megister Nur couldn’t find.”

“No, sir! It was you. The rest o’ us come after, an’ if you hadn’t gone, we wouldn’t o’ gone at all, sir. Them Osterlings, they didn’t never think we’d have no knight aboard. You had ’em beat ‘fore anybody caught breath. Time you went down, they was cuttin’ free.”

It took a while, but I nodded. “I remember. Or anyway I think I might. Enemies in front of me and on both sides. Striking them with the mace we bought from Mori. Where is that, by the way? Do you know what happened to it?”

“Cap’n got it, prob’ly, sir.”

“Find out, if you can. I’d like to get it back.” I stopped talking for a while to eat and scratch my head. “I need something for my left hand, Pouk. A shield, or at least a stick I could use to stop blows. I had to do it with the mace.”

“Aye aye, sir. I’ll keep my eye out for somethin’.”

“Then look for my bow and quiver while you’re at it. And for the dog. Is the dog still on board?”

“Wyt seen it last night, sir. Mighty thin it looked, Wyt says, and slavered like to eat him.”

“At least the captain hasn’t got him.”

Pouk coughed. “Speakin’ of Cap’n ... As we was, sir, ’cause he’s prob’ly got

’em. Speakin’ o’ him, I’ve learnt what he’s plannin’, sir. He told Mate, an’ Mate told Second, and Njors heard him an’ told me. When we get to port, sir, he’ll pay off the crew and let ’em go ashore. He thinks everybody’ll go, only I won’t, sir. Him an’ Mate’ll come down here to do for you then, only I’ll be with you.” I said no. “I won’t wait for them. How long before we get to port?” Pouk shrugged. “I ain’t no navigator, sir. Could be five days. Could be ten.”

“Forcetti?”

“No, sir, Yens, sir. That’s what they say. If you’re through eatin’, sir—”

“No.” I got to my feet, without help and without a lot of trouble. “Let me take that back. I’m through eating, but I’m not through with this stewed beef you brought me.”

“I wouldn’t talk quite so loud, sir. First might be around.”

I had not even noticed that I had raised my voice, but I raised it some more.

“I’ve been trying to keep quiet, like you said, but what good is it? The captain’s made his plans. I’ve got to stop him from following through. I want my bow, as soon as you can get it. The bow and the bowstring—the string’s very important.

My quiver too, and all the arrows you can find, if you can find some.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

I opened the door of the cable tier. “Gylf!” I made it loud, but it had not been loud enough. “Gylf! Here, Gylf!”

“Sir? Who’s-?”

“My dog. He really is my dog, Pouk, until his old owner wants him back. I didn’t want him because I was afraid of him. I tried to get rid of him before we forded the Irring. I made him go and told him never to come near me.” I took a deep breath. It hurt bad, but I took it. “GYLF! Come here, Gylf!”

I think Pouk would have run if I had not grabbed him. “I thought I’d shaken him when you and I got on this ship.”

I stopped to whistle.

“It’s night now, isn’t it? That’s why it’s so dark in here—no sunlight leaking in.”

“Aye, sir.”

“I’ll talk to the captain tomorrow, after he’s had his breakfast. I owe him that much. You can tell him, if you want to.”

I heard the scrabble of dull claws out in the hold, and I opened the pan Pouk had brought and put it on the floor for Gylf.

I knew that cabin, and I knew there was no way to lock the door if you were not inside. If the captain had eaten in there, I was going to go in when Hordsvin’s helper came in to clear away the dishes; but it did not happen like that. He ate on the roof of the sterncastle, which was what I had been expecting, and Gylf and I just came up out of the hold and walked into the cabin like we belonged there. Which we did.

By the time he came in, I had found the foreign mace I had gotten in Irringsmouth and strapped it on. He opened the door and saw us, yelled for Kerl, and then (I guess because I was sitting down and had not pulled out my mace) shut the door and barred it. His sword was under his mattress, like before. I had found it already and left it there. I could have stopped him from getting it, no problem, but I did not.

When he had it I said, “Don’t you trust Kerl?”

The captain just looked at me, not saying anything. I told Gylf to let him see him then, and he did. He had been lying in a corner where it was dark and he came up out of there like brown smoke but all solid and snarling. “I can kill you if I want to,” I told the captain. “I beat you before, and I can beat you again. Gylf could kill you, too, and you won’t stand the ghost of a chance against both of us. Do you own this ship? Some of the crew told me you did.”

“Half.”

“Fine. I don’t want it. I never did. I don’t want to kill you, either.” I stood up and held out my hand. “Put that sword away. I don’t think we can ever be friends, but we don’t have to be enemies either.”

He stood there looking at us for maybe half a minute. Then he laid the sword down on his bed and sat down beside it. “You don’t object to my sitting in my own cabin?”

“It’s my cabin,” I told him, “but only until I get off at Forcetti.”

“I’m sitting, so you can sit down again. Go ahead. Your wound can’t have healed already.”

I did. “I want my bow and I want my money. Somebody told me you had them, but he was too scared of you to come in here and get them for me. So I’m here to get them myself. You’ve got that sword, which is yours, and you’ll have some money of your own. Go get it, and give me mine. All I want is what belongs to me. Give it to me, with my bow, the case, and my quiver, and you can go away without fighting.”

He shook his head.

“I didn’t think you would. All right, here’s my last offer. Gylf and I will go out on deck. Before the next watch, you clear out of this cabin, leaving all my stuff—money, bowcase, armor, and so forth—where I can find it. Twenty-two gold ceptres, most of them new and all real gold, plus my other stuff. Will you do that?”

He stood up and Gylf growled. I was afraid he was going to grow into the black thing that had killed the outlaws, and I told him not to.

“You’ll return my ship and its cargo to me when we reach port?”

“Sure,” I said. “But I don’t want them in the first place. I don’t—” He was grabbing his sword. I got the mace out just in time to block the cut.

It sounded like a big hammer hitting an anvil. The next cut would have lopped off my head, but I blocked it too. I never had stood up. I was on one knee in front of the chair. The third cut came very fast and broke his sword blade. That was when I decided to call my mace Sword Breaker. Gylf jumped on the captain as soon as his sword broke and pulled him down, and I hit him with Sword Breaker thinking I would knock him out. I hit him too hard, though, and the diamond-shaped blade went deep into his head instead. It came out with blood and brains all over it. I just stood there looking at it, and thinking of Disira and saying, “Good lord, good lord,” about twenty times. Then Gylf said, “Shall I eat him?” and I knew he was right and we had to get rid of the captain. So I wiped Sword Breaker on his coat and pushed him out a window, and we cleaned up. After that I went out on deck and talked to Kerl. I told him he was captain now, and Nur was the first mate. I said that the captain had jumped me, and told him what had happened after that. I said if he wanted to tell somebody when we got to Forcetti, that was all right, but they would probably keep the Western Trader there a long time for the trial and so on.

He said it might be better if everybody just said the captain had died on the voyage, and we had buried him at sea. I said that was fine with me, and it really was the truth or pretty close. So he got the crew together and told them, and nobody seemed to mind very much.

After that I thought maybe Head Breaker or something, but somebody was sure to ask whose head it had been, so I stuck with Sword Breaker. Later I gave Sword Breaker to Toug and he called her that too, because that was what I told him.