The Knight

Chapter 57. Garvaon’s Boon

Outside, the other pavilions had been erected as well. The kitchen fires were burning, although a dozen men were still fetching wood, and the ring of axes sounded from the mountain slopes. Muleteers led strings of braying, weary mules over the edge of the gorge and presumably down the precipitous path to the stream.

In Garvaon’s pavilion, three men-at-arms were setting up cots. Mine was up already; the blanket Garvaon had found for me had been laid on it, and Mani was seated on that. “Well, well,” I said, “where have you been?”

Mani gave the three men-at-arms a significant look.

“All right, you spoiled cat.” I sat down and pulled off my boots. “You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to. Just let me lie down.”

Mani did, and laid himself so his head was at my ear. After that, I dozed off for a few minutes.

When I woke up again, Mani said, “I have news. Those Aelf girls found your dog. One of the giants has chained him up.”

I yawned and whispered, “Can’t they free him?”

“They’re trying. I wouldn’t, but apparently they think you’d want them to. At any rate, that’s what one told me, and she made me promise to tell you. She wanted to get back to getting the chain off your dog—or whatever the brute actually is.”

To give myself time in which to think, I asked, “Which one was it?”

“The ugly one,” Mani whispered.

I turned my head to look at him, and opened my eyes. “They’re both quite pretty.”

“You at least wear fur.”

“Clothes, you mean. They could wear clothes too, if they wanted to. But it’s warm in Aelfrice, so most of the Aelf don’t. Clothes there are for ...” I groped for a word. “For dignity. For kings and queens.”

“Every cat is royal,” Mani declared in a tone that said he would be mad if you argued. “I am myself.”

The last of the men-at-arms was leaving the pavilion as he spoke, and I noticed he was holding two fingers pointed at the ground.

“You were overheard, Your Most High and Catty Majesty,” I told Mani.

“Don’t mock me. I won’t tolerate it.” Mani sat up and spoke a little louder.

“I apologize. It was rude of me, and I’m sorry.”

“Then the incident is forgotten. And don’t worry about those fellows, nobody believes them anyhow. As for your Aelf girls, I admit the fire color is attractive, and they have fur here and there. When I say the ugly one, I mean the one who looks least like a cat.”

“That would be Baki, I suppose.”

“I’ll not dispute it.” Mani began to clean his private parts by licking them.

“Mani, I just had an idea.”

“Really, Sir Able?” Amused, he looked up. “You?”

“Maybe not, but I thought of something. You must have seen a lot of spells cast, a lot of fortunes told and so on.”

“I’ve watched my share,” Mani admitted.

“So you probably know a good deal about magic yourself. Tonight Lord Beel’s going to try to find Pouk by magic.”

Mani purred softly.

“I’ll be there, and so will Lady Idnn. I doubt that anyone will object if I bring you along. Will you come?”

He licked a large black paw, studied it, and licked it again. “I’ll consider it.”

“Good. That’s all I can ask. Watch what goes on, and if anything occurs to you, tell me.”

“I don’t know Pouk,” Mani said thoughtfully. “Does he like cats?”

“Absolutely. There was a cat on the Western Trader, and Pouk was very fond of it.”

“Really?”

“Really, I wouldn’t lie to you about something like that.”

“In that case, what was this cat’s name?”

“I don’t know, but Pouk—”

I broke off as Garvaon entered the pavilion. “Ready for your next lesson, Sir Able?”

“Absolutely.” I sat up.

“It’s nearly dark already.” Garvaon sat down on his own cot. “So I’d just like to talk about foining tonight. We won’t have a lot of time anyway. You can see the moon above the mountaintops.”

“What’s foining?”

“Stabbing with your sword. Pushing the point.” Garvaon gestured. “I have the feeling we may be fighting again soon. I could be wrong, but that’s the feeling I have.”

“I think so too.”

“Foining’s one of the best ways of taking down your man in a real fight. People don’t like to talk about it.”

I waited.

“I don’t myself, because quite a few of us consider it unfair. But when it’s you or him ...”

“I understand.”

“It’s not lawful in tournaments, not even in the melee. That’s where the business of unfairness comes from. But it’s not lawful because it’s so dangerous. Even if you grind the point off the sword, you can hurt somebody pretty badly by foining.”

I got up. “Can I show you my mace?”

“That thing that looks like a sword? Sure.”

I drew Sword Breaker and handed it to Garvaon. “The end is squared off. See?”

Garvaon nodded. “I do, and I think I know what you’re going to say.”

“I hit another knight in the face once with the end.”

“How’d it work?”

I had to think about that. “He was as tall as I am, as I remember. But he fell down, and I had no more trouble with him. He kept his hands on his face after that.”

Garvaon nodded and smiled. “You gave yourself a better lesson then than I could ever give you. You probably knocked some teeth out, and you may have broken bone, too. But if you’d had a real sword with a sharp point, you’d have killed him. And that’s better.”

He drew his sword. “This’s the best kind for foining. A little taper to the blade, and a good sharp point. You want a light point for finesse, but you want some weight to your blade, too, so it foins hard. Foining’s the best way to get through mail. Did you know that?”

I shook my head.

“It is, and it’s the best way to give him a deep wound, whether he’s got mail or not. The Angrborn don’t wear mail very much.”

“I didn’t know that, either.”

“I think they think they don’t need it with us. Have you ever fought one?”

“No, I saw one once, but I didn’t fight him. I was scared stiff.”

“You’ll be scared next time, too. Everybody is. You see one, and you think you need a whole army.”

“Have you fought them?”

Garvaon nodded. “One. Once.”

“You killed him?”

Garvaon nodded again. “I had a couple of archers with me, and one put an arrow in his chin. He threw his hands up, the same way your man did when you got him in the face. I ran in and cut him right over the knee.” Garvaon’s finger indicated the place. “Right here. He fell, and I foined all the way through his neck. We brought his head back to show Lord Beel, pulling it behind two horses.” Garvaon smiled at the memory. “It was about as big as a barrel.”

“They’re as big as people say, then. I know the one I saw looked terribly big.”

“Depends on who the people are, like always. But they’re big, all right. It’s a jolt anytime you see one. They aren’t made quite like us, either. Their legs are thicker than they should be. They’re wide all over, and their heads ought to be smaller. When you cut one off like I did, it’s so big it scares you.”

For perhaps the hundredth time, I tried to visualize a whole raiding party of Angrborn. Not one alone, but a score or a hundred marching down the War Way. “I understand now why this road’s so wide.”

“The thing is, they’re slow. I don’t mean slow walkers. They’ll get someplace a lot faster than you will, because their steps are so long. But slow at turning and things like that. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“Speed is everything,” I said.

“Right. I’ve fought you. With those practice swords we use, I mean. You’re strong, one of the strongest men I ever came up against. But you’re not stronger than one of them, so you’ve got to be faster. And smarter. Don’t think it’s going to be easy.”

“I never have,” I said. “I knew a man who fought them.”

“Did he win?”

I shook my head. “I want to ask you more about foining. But first, what do you think about what Lord Beel’s going to do tonight?”

“My honest opinion? Between the two of us?”

“Between the three of us.” I smiled as I stroked Mani’s head.

“All right. I doubt anything will happen, and probably we won’t find out anything.”

“I thought you were worried about it,” I said, “when we were in his pavilion, I mean.”

“I was.” Garvaon hesitated, and looked around. “I’ve been with him before when he’s tried to do something like this. Usually nothing happens, but sometimes something does. I don’t like things I can’t understand.”

“May I ask what happened?”

Garvaon shook his head. His face was grim.

I let out my breath. “All right. I’ll see for myself tonight. Do you think we ought to have a look at the moon?”

“Not yet. I want to talk to you a little bit more, and it hasn’t been long enough anyhow. We haven’t been together very long, but I’ve been doing my best to teach you, like I said I would. You’ll allow that?”

“Of course.”

“We fought the Mountain Men together, too.”

I nodded. “Yes. We did.”

“So we’re friends, and you owe me a boon.”

Mani, who had been ignoring us since it became apparent that there would be no more talk of magic, regarded Garvaon with interest.

“You’ll admit that, Sir Able?”

“Sure. I never denied it.”

“I reserved my boon, and I wasn’t going to ask it, since you won. We both know it.”

“I owe you a boon,” I said, “you only have to tell me what you want.”

For a second or two Garvaon sat studying me. “I’m a widower. Did you know that?”

I shook my head.

“I am. It will be two years this fall. My son died too. Volla was trying to bear me a son.”

“I’m sorry. Darned sorry.”

Garvaon cleared his throat. “Lady Idnn has never showed any interest in me.”

I waited, feeling Mani’s claws through the thick wool of my trousers. “Not until today. Today she smiled at me, and we talked like friends.”

“I’ve got it,” I said.

“She’s young. Twenty-two years younger than I am. But we’re going to be living in this Frost Giant king’s stronghold. There won’t be many real men around.”

“You and her father,” I said. “Your archers and men-at-arms, and her father’s servants.”

“Not you?”

“Right. I won’t be there. I’m going to find Pouk and get back my horses and the rest of my stuff. When I’ve done it, I’ll take my stand someplace in these mountains. That’s what I promised Duke Marder I’d do, and it’s what I’m going to do.”

“You aren’t going to stay?”

“I’m not even going as far as King Gilling’s stronghold, if I find Pouk before we get there. Do you still want your boon? What is it?”

“You’re younger than I am.”

“Sure. A lot.”

“You’re bigger, too, and you’re better-looking. I know all that.”

“I’m a knight with no reputation at all,” I reminded him. “Don’t leave that out. If you’ve wondered why I’m so hot to find Pouk, one reason is that he’s got everything I own with him. You’ve got a manor called Finefield, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“A big house with a wall around it.”

“And a tower,” Garvaon said.

“Fields, too, and peasants to plow and plant and herd your cows. I don’t have anything like that.” All the time we were talking, I was thinking about what Idnn had said about Beel giving her to King Gilling, but I could not tell Garvaon and I would have been afraid of what he might do if I did. And underneath those things I kept thinking over and over that if Idnn really wanted to be rescued, here he was.

Garvaon said, “You wish me to name my boon. This isn’t easy for me.”

“I think I can guess it, so you don’t have to.”

“I want you to give me your word, your word of honor, that you’ll do nothing else to lessen me in her eyes. You’re a better bowman than I, and everyone knows it. Let it be enough.”

“I will.”

“If she rejects me, I’ll tell you. But until she does, and I tell you so, I want you to promise you won’t try to win her for yourself.”