The Knight

Chapter 31. Back To Sea

A brighter, nearer star burned some distance below us—a campfire where the lower stair began. We made our way down to it, moving very slowly and snatching mouthfuls of snow, I carrying Pouk and supporting Thunrolf when he needed it. We were not far from the lowest step when Thunrolf said, “Aud!”

The men sitting around the fire sprang up, and Thunrolf stumbled down the last few steps to hug them, and cried. I laid Pouk near the fire and cut away his breeches, and was very happy to see the broken bones had not poked through the skin. Bold Berthold had warned me about that when I fell out of a tree, saying that when it happened the person generally died.

“This is Aud, my steward,” Thunrolf told me, “and this is Vix, my body servant.” Tears were running down his face. “I have never been happier to see two rogues in my life.”

They had wine and water, and we sat with them, drinking it and coaxing Pouk to drink. He was dizzy and sick, and seemed not to know where he was or who we were.

“It was a year ago this day, Your Lordship,” Aud told Thunrolf, “that you went into the Mountain of Fire. We came tonight to remember.”

Vix said, “We were going back to Seagirt, Your Lordship. Leaving tomorrow. Lord Olof would give us places, but we didn’t want them.”

“So there’s a new lord in the Round Tower.” Thunrolf seemed to speak only to himself. “I don’t care. I don’t care at all. I am out.”

“The king sent him, Your Lordship,” Aud said.

“Then I can go home. We’ll go home.” He shook himself, and drained his cup. “I’m so tired—you’ll have to help me up. Able, too. Sir Able. Help him too. Wilt journey to Seagirt with me, Sir Able? You shall be my chief knight, and my heir. I’ll adopt you.”

I thanked him, but explained that Pouk and I had been on our way to Forcetti to take service with Duke Marder.

“I’m going to sleep here. Cover us, Vix.” With that Thunrolf lay down and shut his eyes, and Vix covered him with his cloak.

They had come on donkeys, and Aud rode to the Round Tower to fetch a leech. I was asleep myself before he came, and it was one of the few sleeps I had in Mythgarthr in which my dreams were not troubled by the people whose lives wove the bowstring Parka bit through for me. Nor did Setr trouble me, though he troubled many dreams of mine afterward.

I have never been less willing to wake, or less willing to rise than I was the next morning. The sun was high when I sat up, for the leech had covered our faces with muslin. “Your friend has been carried to the Round Tower,” the leech told me. “I’ve done what I can for him, splinted his legs and his arm, and salved his burns. I’ve salved yours, too, and of course Lord Thunrolf’s.”

I had not even known that Pouk’s arm was broken.

“Lord Olof agrees that you should not be moved until you’re ready.”

Probably our voices awakened Thunrolf. He pulled the muslin off his face and tried to sit up. Vix and Aud ran to help him.

“I don’t know whether I can walk,” he told the leech, “but if you can get me on a horse, I think I might ride.”

“That won’t be necessary, Your Lordship. We have litters for you, and for Sir Able as well.”

“In which I will not ride,” Thunrolf declared. “No. Not if I must die here. Help me up, Aud. Where’s my horse?”

There was no horse but the leech’s. Aud and I helped Thunrolf mount, and I walked next to him holding his stirrup strap. I was afraid he would fall off, and I think he was afraid that I would fall down. When we were nearly there, he said softly, “A boon, Sir Able. You owe me none, I know. I crave one anyway, and you’ll not find me a worthless friend.”

I explained that I did owe him one. I had borrowed a ceptre and lost it, and promised any service I could perform.

“I’d forgotten that. Very well. I ask that you forgive me. Will you?”

I looked up at him. “Yes, My Lord, but that’s no boon. I’d done it already.”

“It is the boon you owed. Now I ask another, Sir Able. May I have it?”

“Sure.”

“Let me speak when we reach the Round Tower. Agree with what I say, and say nothing that will disgrace me.”

I was still trying to think of something polite, when half a dozen knights met us. Some were his, and some were Olof’s, but they had all caught on that something was going on and come out to see what it was. Thunrolf’s could not believe their eyes.

“We encountered a dragon,” he told them, “and I lost my sword. I would like to get that back, but not at the cost of another dragon. Had you seen a dragon before, Sir Able? I had seen them pictured, but the pictures are nothing.”

I said, “Once before, My Lord, but that didn’t help. I don’t think anybody ever gets used to them.”

He smiled. It was a twisted smile because of the burns, but a smile just the same. “I will not, if I have anything to say about it.”

Then we got the chain taken off; there was a lot more after that, but I am going to cut it short. He left pretty soon, going down to the port and getting a ship home. Nearly all his men had left already, going overland because of their horses. Pouk and I stayed until Pouk could walk, and Olof was very nice to us. He had Sword Breaker and my bow and quiver, and gave them back along with a lot of presents. When we left he loaned us horses, and sent some of his men with us to bring them back.

We stayed in an inn for three nights, I think it was, and did not like it much. After that, Pouk found an old man and his wife who would put us up cheaper than the inn, and better, too. The old man had been captain of a ship, but he had to quit when his eyes got bad. He knew a lot of stories. They were all worth listening to, and lots of them were worth remembering. We stayed with those people for over a month.

During the day I would practice with my bow, or with Sword Breaker, or I would go to the stable and get a horse. It was all day for a copper bit, or two for a better horse. I would ride around the country and gallop and trot, and so forth. I thought I was getting to be a good rider, too, but I was just getting started.

Pouk would go down to the docks and watch for a ship for us, and talk to the sailors and longshoremen. One day I came back and he was at the house, all smiles. He said there was a ship in port that was going to Forcetti, and it would take us there.

I said, “Fine! Let’s go and see how much they want. You think it’s a good one?”

“Aye, sir! That I do. Only I already booked, sir, by your leave. A snug cabin, sir, and straight up the coast to Forcetti.”

I wanted to know how much. Thunrolf had given me a lot of money but I knew there were a lot of things I would have to get in Forcetti. A knight’s mail is not cheap, and a horse like Blackmane (that was Sir Ravd’s) costs the world.

“You’ll like the price, sir.” Pouk was grinning like a monkey.

“You mean you paid it yourself? I was going to pay for us both.”

He laughed a little. “Aye, sir. I did.”

“Then I’ll pay you back.”

“Oh, that’s all right, sir. I paid wit’ what th’ dragon give me.”

I knew perfectly well that Setr had given him nothing but bruises.

It was the Western Trader, and I know you guessed it a lot quicker than I did. It did not look much better than it had a year ago; but it did not look much worse either, and when we went on board and had a chance to look around I saw that most of the sails were new.

Kerl and I hugged, and he told me how he had gone to the Round Tower looking for Pouk and me. That had been a week after we had gone down inside the Mountain of Fire, and he had been told we were dead, and Thunrolf was dead, too. So I told him most of what had happened, just saying that Thunrolf had wanted to shame his knights, which was true, and leaving out his trying to kill me when he saw Setr and I would not run.

I got the old woman to sew a pennant for me while we were waiting for the Western Trader to unload and load and get ready for sea again. It was silk and made of scraps left over from when she had made a gown for the daughter of the Captain of the Port. It was made of green silk, and she cut hearts out of red silk and sewed one on each side. Kerl flew it on the foremast for as long as I was on board. Later I put it away and sort of forgot it until I made a lance out of spiny orange. Then I remembered it and got it out, and put it on that lance. It was on there when that lance was hewn through.

Pouk and I stayed on shore with the old captain and his wife until the ship was ready. First, because we had gotten very comfortable there. And second, because I wanted to let Kerl keep his cabin for, as long as I could. He was not going to charge me anything and would not hear of our paying, but I had decided that when we got to Forcetti I would leave behind the Osterling knife Olof had given me. It had a silver hilt and a silver scabbard, both set with corals, and so it was pretty valuable, but it was too close to being a sword for me to like it.

I did that, too.

It seemed like we were never going to sail. The big spar broke, and Kerl had to find a long piece of good wood so the carpenter could make a new one, and he had to make it, and after that they had to load the rest and get everything stowed. Back when I was living with you, I read stories about sailing ships and pirates, and fighting Napoleon and all that, but it had never really gotten through to me how slow everything was. How long everything took. There are about a thousand things that have to be ready all at once, and when everything else is set you load the water, because the water starts going bad the minute it gets in the casks. Small beer is nicer, like Pouk said, because it keeps better. But it costs, and water is free.

Pouk and I had small beer in our cabin. Wine, too. The wine there is not real wine because they cannot grow grapes. But they make other stuff out of fruits they can grow, the same way we do cider. It had been cheap there in the little port town where the Mountain of Fire is, and we had gotten used to it. We had ship’s bread too, and cheese and jam, and three different kinds of salt meat, two kinds of smoked fish, and a lot of other stuff. The old woman had fixed a basket for the first day: sandwiches and fruit, and all kinds of pickles. There was so much in it we ate it for the first three days. The old captain gave me his brass marlinspike that he had in the seabag he carried onto his first ship. He said I ought to learn to splice rope while I had the chance. It was a handy thing to know, and I might need it sometime. So I did.

Because we finally did put to sea. When it happened we had been waiting so long it did not seem possible.

Most people here have never been on a ship, and some of them have never seen the sea. (Disira had not.) People in America are the same way, and it does not bother them. So there are some things I ought to explain, and one is about bread and cooking and so on. There is a stove in the galley, and the cook bakes bread for the crew when he can. But he never lights his stove in bad weather because some coals could spill out and burn the whole ship. In bad weather you get ship’s bread and cold meat. Everybody does, even the captain. In good weather the cook boils your meat in seawater to get some salt out. But any cooking he does costs firewood, and there is only so much of that. In cold weather there is no heat except for the galley stove. None. It got colder and colder as we went north up the coast. Winter was about over, but it was still cold north of Kingsdoom. I had been gone about three years with Garsecg in Aelfrice, and one year exactly with Thunrolf in Muspel. Time always runs slower in the worlds underneath Mythgarthr, but you can never be sure how much. Sometimes it is just a little slower, but sometimes it is a lot.

When I think back on those days, all the days and weeks and months after we got out of the Mountain of Fire there are two things I remember more than any of the rest. One is how bad Pouk looked after we got him out. When he was lying on the rock waiting for the leech, and later in his bed in the Round Tower. He was not what anyone would call handsome, besides being pretty small. He had a big hook nose and a big lantern jaw. His blind eye looked terrible, and his good eye was little and squinty. But he looked so pitiful when he was hurt so bad, and he was so brave about it. When Thunrolf told him he would never do anything like that to him again, he just said, “Thankee, sir. Thankee.” And shut his eyes. I never knew how much I liked him until I saw him suffering like that, hurt so bad and trying to smile. He drank too much sometimes, but I could never get mad about it like I should have.

He was with me, on and off, until Disiri and I went away. After we had gone I saw what he had meant about my being his big chance. He was important (and Ulfa was, too) just because he had been with me so much. He was Master Pouk then, and worked for the king.

The other thing that I will never forget is seeing the Isle of Glas. The sun was almost down, and I was up on the sterncastle deck talking to Kerl. I thought I saw something and borrowed his big brass telescope.

And there it was. The tall, proud trees and the waves lapping a beach of blood-colored sand. I looked and looked, and pretty soon I started to cry If I could tell you why, I would, but I cannot. Tears ran down my face, and I could not breathe right. I took the telescope down and wiped my eyes and blew my nose. And when I looked again, it was gone. I never saw it again until I went into Thiazi’s Room of Lost Loves.

So those are the things. But I ought to say right here that I did not know Uri and Baki were looking for me. I had no idea, and of course my going to Muspel had made it really hard for them. They had searched the Western Trader three or four times, and had given up on it a long time before Pouk and I boarded it again.