The Knight

Chapter 49. The Sons Of The Angrborn

Upward, always upward sloped the land that day and the next, and as day fol lowed day I came to understand that we were among the towering, rocky hills which I had glimpsed a time or two from the downs north of the forest in which I had lived like an outlaw with Bold Berthold, and that the true mountains, those mountains of which we had scarcely heard rumors, the mountains that lifted snow-covered peaks into Skai, were still before us, and still remote.

Then I left the War Way and Beel’s lumbering train of pack horses and mules, and rode up one of those hills as far as the white stallion he had given me could carry me, and dismounted when my stallion could go no farther, and tied him to a boulder and scrambled up to the summit. From there I could see the downs, and the dark forest beyond them, and even glimpse bits of the silver thread that was the Griffin. “Tomorrow I’ll find the spring it rises from,” I promised myself, “and drink from the Griffin in honor of Bold Berthold and Griffinsford.” I did not say that to Gylf, because Gylf had stayed behind to guard my stallion. Or to Mani, because Mani was riding with Idnn, tucked into a black velvet bag, generally with his head and forelegs sticking out. I would have said it to Uri and Baki if I could, but I had not seen either of them since Baki had peeked around Idnn’s curtain.

I said it to myself, as I said, and even though I knew how foolish it was, I did not laugh. The wind was cold enough up there to make me wrap myself in the gray boat cloak Kerl had kept for me and pull up the hood, and blowing hard enough to make me wish the thick wool was thicker, too; but I stayed up there for more than an hour looking, and thinking about the kid I used to be, and what I was now. I was all alone, the way I used to be when I told Bold Berthold I was going hunting and wandered off hunting memories through the forest and sometimes out to the edge of the forest and onto the downs, where I always sighted elk but the elk were always too far.

All right, I was not going to write this, but I will. When I had been up there a long time and settled everything in my mind, I remembered Michael; and I tried to call Disiri to me the way he had called the Valfather. It did not work, and I cried.

The sun was low in the west by the time I got back to Gylf and the stallion. “They went on,” Gylf said, and I knew he meant that the last mule and the rear guard—I was supposed to be bossing the rear guard—had passed him on the road below a long time ago.

I said I knew it, but that we would catch up to them pretty quick. “Want me to scout?”

I thought about that while I rode down the hill. I had been alone for quite a while and had enough of it. I wanted company and somebody to talk to. But I knew Gylf pretty well by that time, and I knew he did not volunteer to go hunting or protect something, or anything else, unless he was pretty sure it ought to be done. So he had heard something or seen something or most likely smelled something that worried him. Naturally I started listening, and sniffing the wind, and all that, even though I knew perfectly well that his ears were sharper than mine and I might as well not have had a nose.

“Want me to?”

So he was really worried. “Yeah,” I said, “go right ahead. I’d appreciate it.” As soon as I said that, he was off like an arrow. It was a brown arrow at first, but a black arrow before it had gone very far. Then I heard him baying as he ran, that deep bay you hear from clear up in Skai, when the lead hound is all alone out in front of the pack and even the Valfather on his eight-legged hunter cannot keep up.

He woke the thunder. You will say no way, but he did. It boomed way off among the real mountains; but it was there, and getting closer. I wanted to spur my stallion then, but he was still picking his way among the rocks. Finally, just to make myself feel better, I told him, “Go as fast as you can without breaking your legs or mine. I don’t think a broken leg’s going to be much help out here.”

He nodded like he understood. I knew he did not, but it was nice just the same. Mani liked to brag and he liked to argue, and right then I liked my white horse a lot better.

“Hey,” I said, “I get to do all the talking. Cool!”

His ears turned to me. I think it was his way of saying that he was a good listener.

As soon as he had grass under his hooves, I gave him the spurs (gilded iron spurs that Master Crol had found somewhere for me) and he galloped hard until we got to the War Way, and harder after that, up and up through a cleft that seemed just about as high as that hilltop I had been on, and then along a narrow gorge until I caught the rumble of stones. I pulled up sharp when I heard that, because I already had a pretty fair idea what it might be.

The side of the gorge was a shorter climb than the hill had been, but I was tired already, it was cold, and the first stars were coming out. I could not see handholds, and when I did they were usually just shadows or something. I had to feel my way up, and it seemed like it was taking hours.

The stones rumbled again when I was about halfway up. Then it got quiet. Somebody gave a wild yell. That must have been quite a way off, but it seemed closer because of the way it bounced from rock to rock. The moon rose. For some crazy reason I looked at it; and when I did the flying castle passed in front of it, black against the white face of the moon and looking like a toy. Back then I was not even sure it was the Valfather’s (which it is), but seeing it like that helped a lot. I know you will say there is no sense to it, but it did. I was the sea, and I was looking up at the moon and that six-faced castle and reaching for it with big foaming waves like white hands. And bang! I was at the top with my fingers all torn up and the blood running off them a little and there was war in the wind and it was too dark to shoot a bow. I sprinted down that way, jumping over cracks and down little cliffs and nothing in the world was going to stop me.

Then a hairy hand about as big as the blade of a spade did it. Two hands picked me up, but my left arm was free and I stuck my dagger into that big man’s neck before he could throw me over the cliff. When he fell it was like a tree falling, and we both ended up too close to the edge, with him bleeding and thrashing around and trying to get up. I got up first and hit him in the head with Sword Breaker, and heard the bone break under the blow. He fell back down after that, and he never moved again.

Down below someone was shouting, “Finefield! Finefield!” I guess I recognized Garvaon’s voice, because I knew it was him and figured it must be the name of his manor. I did not have one, so I yelled, “Disiri! Disiri!” so Garvaon would know I was up there helping.

After that Disiri! was always what I yelled whenever I fought. I may not remember to write that down every time I talk about fighting, but that was the way it was. When I got to Skai (let me say this before I forget) I did it there too. Finally Alvit asked what it meant and I could not remember. After that I tried and tried. It hurt, way down deep.

Naturally when I was running along the top of the cliff I did not know any of that. Pretty soon I came up to three of the biggest men I had ever seen. They were rolling a boulder to the edge. Sword Breaker got the first one in the forehead—that was about as high as I could reach—when he turned to look at me. A rock hit my steel cap and knocked it off. I think I sort of stumbled around a little after that. Somebody grabbed my wrist and I cut with my dagger and he let go. I remember seeing his knee as high as my crotch, and hitting it with Sword Breaker for all I was worth.

Somebody else threw a spear. It did not go through my hauberk but knocked me down. We both grabbed for it, and he lifted it up and lifted me too because I was holding on to the shaft. I kicked him in the face and he dropped it. I jumped up and hit him pretty much like I was playing football and knocked him over the edge, and just about went over myself. When I got my balance I looked down, and he was still bouncing off rocks. He bounced out of the moonlight, and right after that I heard him hit bottom.

I had dropped Sword Breaker and my dagger. The dagger’s blade was polished bright and shone in the moonlight, but I had to grope around for Sword Breaker.

I straightened up, and there was a great big man, more than tall enough for the NBA, coming at me with a club. I crouched—I guess I was going to rush him as soon as the club came up—but something black and a lot bigger than he was grabbed him. All of a sudden he was not a big man at all, only another little man that had walked around awhile and was going to die now. He screamed when the jaws closed on him. (I could hear his bones breaking—it always sounds terrible.) Gylf shook him like a rat and dropped him.

“You better clear out of here, Lord.” It was Uri and she was right at my elbow with a long, slender blade; I had never seen her come, or heard her either, but there she was.

On my left Baki whispered, “You will be killed, Lord, if this goes on much longer.”

“You can see in the dark better than I can,” I said, “are there any more around here?”

“Hundreds, Lord, the way you’re going.” I told them to follow me.

When the fight was over, the dead horses and mules had to be unloaded and their loads put on the ones we had left. Then we had to put the dead people on top of the loads. We got going again around midnight, and we traveled until it was light, with Garvaon out in front and Gylf and me out in front of Garvaon maybe a hundred or a hundred and fifty paces. The sun came up right about when we came out of the gorge and onto a mountain meadow that had thick green grass and even wildflowers. It slanted like the deck of a ship with the wind hard abeam, but it looked really good to us by then anyway. We stopped and unloaded the animals and put up the pavilions. Most of us went to sleep then, but Garvaon and a dozen men-at-arms stood guard, and Gylf and I went back to where the battle had been. Mani went with us, riding on my saddlebags.

We stayed in that meadow all day and all night. The next morning Beel sent for me. The table was up, just like before, and there were two folding chairs. “Sit down,” he told me. “Breakfast should be here in a moment or two.” I said thank you.

“You climbed the cliffs to fight the Mountain Men. So I’ve been told, and once I caught a glimpse of you up there myself. Or so I believe.”

I nodded. “I’m gratified, My Lord.”

“Great stones fell among us.” Beel sounded like he was talking to himself. “And bodies, too. The corpses of our foes. While the mules were being reloaded I amused myself, and Sir Garvaon as well, by examining them by lantern light. Perhaps you did the same, Sir Able?”

“No, My Lord. I had to go back for my horse.” I would have passed on breakfast just then if I could have gotten up and gone out of that pavilion.

“I see. Normally I breakfast each day with my daughter, Sir Able. She is not here today. You will have observed it, I feel sure.”

I nodded. “I hope she’s not sick.”

“She is well and uninjured. Thanks to you, in large part, I believe.”

“I’d like to believe that too.”

Beel made a steeple of his fingers and sat looking at me until the food came. “Help yourself, Sir Able. You need not wait on me.”

I said I would rather wait, and he took a smoked fish, and some bread and cheese. “I like to breakfast with my daughter.”

I nodded like before. “She must be good company, My Lord.”

“It gives me an hour or so in which to speak with her. I am busy, often, all day.”

I said, “I’m sure you are, My Lord.”

“There are many of my rank, and of higher rank than I, who do little work, Sir Able. Little if any. They lounge about at court, and lounge equally on their estates. Their stewards manage their estates on their behalf, just as mine does for me. Should the king try to persuade them to fill some office, which as a sensible man he seldom does, they beg off on one excuse or another. I have endeavored to be a man of a different stamp. I will not trouble you with all the offices I have held under our present Majesty and his royal father. They have been varied, and some have been onerous. I was First Lord of the Exchequer for near to seven years, for example.”

“I know it must have been a hard job,” I said.

Beel shook his head. “You may think you do, Sir Able, but you really have no idea. It was a nightmare that seemed it would never end. And now this.” I nodded, trying to look sympathetic.

“Breakfast gives me one hour a day in my daughter’s company. I have tried to be mother and father to her, Sir Able. I will not say I have succeeded. But I have tried.”

Beel sat up, straightening his shoulders. He had not eaten a bite. “I sent her off this morning to breakfast with her maids. She was surprised and pleased.”

I said, “She can’t really have been pleased.” I had not eaten either up to then, and I decided I might as well start.

“Thank you, Sir Able. She was, however. I sent her away because I wanted to speak with you. Not as a knight, but as a son, for I wish with all my heart that the Overcyns had vouchsafed me such a son as you.”

I did not know what to say. Finally I said, “That’s a great honor, My Lord.”

“I am not trying to honor you, but to speak the truth.” Beel paused; I think to see how I felt about what he had said. “Men like me, noblemen high in His Majesty’s councils, have no great reputation for truth. We are careful about what we say and how we say it. We must be. I have lied when my duty demanded it. I did not enjoy it, but I did it to the best of my ability.”

I said, “I’ve got it.”

“Now I am going to tell you the truth, and only the truth. I ask to be believed. But I ask more. I ask you to be as honest with me as I am with you. Will you do it?”

“Of course, My Lord.”

Beel got up and went to a chest, opened it, and took out a roll of parchment. “You have a manor, Sir Able? Where is it?”

“No, My Lord.”

“None?”

I said, “No, My Lord,” again.

He sat back down, still holding the parchment. “Your liege sends you to take your stand in the Mountains of the Mice. For half a year.”

“I hadn’t heard them called that. But yes, he does.”

“It is the designation the Angrborn use. We name them the Northern Mountains for the most part, or merely instance some individual range. Why do you think the Angrborn speak of them as they do?”

I put down the slice of bread I had been about to eat. “I can’t imagine, My Lord, unless it’s because there are many mice here.”

“There are no more than in most places, and fewer than in many. They name it as they do because of the men that you fought last night. They are the sons of the Angrborn—sons that the Angrborn have fathered upon our women. I see that I have surprised you.”