The Knight

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 beside 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.”

She nodded. “And a bit of chain hanging off it, where it had broke.”

“I see. Your husband thought it might be mine, and I’ve been hoping he was right. I lost my dog a while ago. Do you know where it is?”

“No, sir. I seen it yesterday, only I don’t know where it’s got to. We was all chasing it and trying to get the roast it took back, and it run off. Real big, it was, drop ears and thick in the chest.”

“That sounds like Gylf. If he comes back, be nice to him and send word to me. I’ll be at Sheerwall Castle.”

“I’ll try, sir.” The innkeeper’s wife’s attention had strayed to Nytir’s sword. I told her who it belonged to; and I said that she and her husband were to leave it where it was until he came back to get it, at which she bent her knee again.

“I know it will be in the way—” I began.

She shook her head. “They’ll come in to see it, Sir Able, and have one or two while they gawk and we tell about it. It’ll be money in our pocket.”

“I hope so. But when Sir Nytir comes back, you’ll have to let him take it. Tell him that I didn’t want it and left it there for him.”

“Is he a friend of yours, Sir Able?”

Pouk laughed.

“He had it in for me,” I told her. “He must’ve followed me here, and he seems to have scared your husband away before we had it out. Did you notice what we did to the doorframe?”

Reluctantly, she nodded.

My bill was where I had left it. I got it and showed it to her. “Your husband and I were talking this over. He made it five scields. I didn’t think that was fair.”

She examined it. “He goes too far, sometimes, Sir Able, Gorn do.”

“No doubt we all do. Can you write?” She nodded.

“Then I’ll pay you four scields in good silver if you’ll write ‘paid in full’ across this and sign your name. You’d better date it, too.” She hurried away to fetch ink, sand, and a quill.