The Wizard

Chapter 13. The Third Knight

The clouds had sailed above me in scores of fantastic shapes, and I had not known them for the lands of Skai; yet they had told my fortune as well as they could.

I shut my eyes and wished those prophetic clouds and that kindly sky back, but all that I saw was darkness. Only in my imagination: the Valfather’s flying castle. Eyes open, I saw the stars. If clouds were the mountains and meadows of the Overcyns of Skai, weren’t all these stars the country of winged people like Michael? No, because the stars had been the wildflowers in the Lady’s meadow...

“Lord?”

I was sleepy enough to believe for half a minute or twelve that the word had been addressed to somebody else.

“Lord?” A winged figure bent above me, blotting the stars. Its wings dwindled; its muzzle melted into a face.

“A Khimaira? What has a Khimaira to do with me?”

“I am Uri, Lord. There is a plot, and I have flown here to tell you of it.”

I sat up and found that Gylf was on his feet already, not quite showing his teeth, but near it.

“If you will hear me out, Lord, and ask no questions until my tale is done, it will go faster.”

I nodded.

“Garsecg you know. He taught you. You think he lied, feigning to be one of the Water Aelf. It was not feigning, though he dwells in Muspel. The Sea Aelf have welcomed him and made him greater than their king, calling him Father. How then is it false for him to wear their shape?”

“If I am not to question you,” I said, “it might be best if you don’t question me.”

“As My Lord wishes. Vile, I remain your slave.” Uri knelt. “As I am Garsecg’s. Indeed, I serve My Lord because Garsecg will have it so. My Lord recalls that when Baki and I were ill on the Isle of Glas, My Lord left us in Garsecg’s keeping. As Setr he had us serve you, saying that we who had been his slaves were to be yours. We were not to tell you of his gift, for Garsecg does good in secret when he can.”

“You’ve asked no question,” I remarked, “and I ask you none. I’ve got a comment, though. You haven’t obeyed him.”

“If he punishes me, I will bear it, or try. If you punish me, I will do the same. I disobey because the matter is deadly, and one that Garsecg himself, though the wisest of men, cannot have foreseen. I will not ask whether he has been a friend to you, you know your answer. Nor will I ask whether you swore to fight Kulili for his sake. You did, and though I do not know it as well as you yourself do, Lord, I know it well enough.”

I groped for Eterne, and found her. “He summons me.”

“No, Lord. He does not. Did I not speak of a plot? It is my sister’s.”

Gylf growled, “Get to it.”

“I serve no dogs,” Uri told him, “not even you.”

“Worse!”

She sighed, and there was more despair in her sigh than speech could express. “Now we know what your dog thinks of me, Lord. You may agree, knowing I betray my sister.”

I wrapped the blanket about me, for the wind was cold.

“Baki plots to send you against Garsecg. To that end she has stabbed King Gilling, who lies near death. And to that end she has enlisted Toug and his sister. The witch’s cat helps too, I would guess from malice. Now my tale is done. Lord, will you give me your word that you will never slay Garsecg? Or try to?”

“No.” I lay down and studied the stars.

“Did you not give your word to Garsecg, as I said? To war on Kulili? Alone if need be? Upon your honor?”

“I did. Does he summon me?”

“No, Lord.” Uri’s voice sounded faint and far away. “He fears you too much for that, Lord.”

We were too many for one fire; but Woddet and Yond, and the Knight of the Leopards and Valt, ate at mine, with Hela, Heimir, Gerda, Bold Berthold, and Uns, who had made it. When venison was on my trencher and wine in my flagon, I said, “I have news. It may mean a lot or a little to us—I don’t know. Neither do I know it’s true. It was told as true, no pledge of secrecy was asked, and it would be wrong not to share it. Believe it or not, as you choose.”

The Knight of the Leopards asked, “When came this news?”

“Last night.” I forked meat into my mouth on my dagger.

“We must set a better watch. My men were our sentries.”

“I don’t say they slept,” I told him.

Woddet looked from one to the other. “Who brought it?”

“Do you have to know? It’ll mean useless argument.”

“No argument from me,” Woddet declared.

Hela swallowed a great gobbet of meat. “He trusts not the bearer. Do thou, most dear knight, trust me?”

Woddet flushed. “I do. Though you lack gentle blood, you are a true maid, I know.”

“As for blood, I have seen thine. You think my lineage foul. Does Sir Able here, a wiser knight, think it foul, too? I am of the blood of Ymir, Sir Able, for so my ancestress Angr was. Did you not tell me once that blood has drenched your sword arm to the elbow? That foul blood?”

I nodded, for I had told her things that had happened in Skai. “Say fell blood, rather.”

“You are kind.” She turned back to Woddet. “Dearest knight, as I am a trusty maid I counsel you to ask nothing, save you stand ready to credit any answer. Fell blood? Fell swords are here. Which swordsman would you see fall?”

“None.” Woddet smiled ruefully. “What is your news, Sir Able, if it will not provoke strife?”

I sipped my wine, put down my flagon, then sipped again. “We agreed that if the Angrborn march south we’d resist them together, even though you and Sir Leort are my prisoners.”

Woddet and the Knight of the Leopards nodded.

“This news may bear on it, if it’s true. In fact it may bear on it if it’s false, if it’s believed. It is that the Angrborn king has been stabbed and lies near death.”

Bold Berthold did not raise his blind eyes, but his voice was warm. “Who did it?”

“The sister of the person who told me. So she said.”

Gerda ventured, “A slave woman?”

“Yes, but not King Gilling’s or any other giant’s.”

Hela said, “You know her, sir knight. Your voice speaks louder than your words.” I nodded.

“I have no sister, and am glad of it. Sisters are talebearers always. You know her and are her friend. What think you? Would she do a deed of blood? Strike a throne?”

“She might,” I said slowly. “If she were provoked or desperate, she might. If a particular youth were threatened, for example. If she had a good reason.”

“I have one more question.” Hela grinned, revealing crooked teeth in a mouth the size of a bucket. “Ere I ask, I give you thanks for suffering me as you have. If ‘twas for Sir Woddet’s sweet worth, why fiddle-de-day. Suffer me you did. Why did her sister hasten here, taking her news to you? Do you know?”

“I see I’ve got to tell all of you more than I’d like to. As a reward I’ll have Hela’s counsel, or anyway I hope so. If her counsel’s as pointed as her questions, it’ll be worth a lot.”

Uns nodded and edged nearer to hear.

“There is a man called Garsecg. Not a human man. Will we all agree that Hela’s sire was no human?”

“I am,” Heimir declared. “I’m human just like you.”

“I haven’t denied it.” I tried to make my voice gentle. “But Bymir was not human. However good he may have been, or brave, or generous. Nor was this man Garsecg human.”

I waited for more objections, but got none.

“He befriended me. I owe him a lot. I think that he acted as he did to recruit me—as he did—against an enemy, one I wouldn’t fight if I had a choice.”

The Knight of the Leopards asked what troubled me.

“You know about the woman I love. She’s where Garsecg is, and I wish I were with her now.”

“Go to her then!” the Knight of the Leopards exclaimed. “Are you the only man in Mythgarthr who doesn’t know the tale of the knight and the tumbrel?”

“I’ve sworn to stay until midwinter. I’m also bound by an oath sworn to the greatest and best of men. It’s only by his grace that I’m as near her as I am.”

“Now say, sir knight, think you more of your honor than your lady?” Hela’s smile held something like pity. “Think well before you answer.”

“For one smile from her, I would throw all honor in a ditch,” I said. “Yes, and stamp on it. But I couldn’t ask her to marry a dishonored knight.”

Trying to understand, the Knight of the Leopards said, “You value her honor more than your own. You would die to preserve it.”

Woddet began, “Now see here, how does this—?”

“We’ll talk of that when the time comes. Let me finish. The lady is where Garsecg is. The person who came last night said her sister wanted to get me to fight him. She wanted me to bind myself not to.”

“Deeper and deeper,” Hela muttered. “Would this paltry cup were half so deep.” She held it out, and Woddet poured more wine for her.

Old Gerda asked, “An’ did you swear, sir?”

“No, mother. I’ve given oaths enough already. I want to be with the woman I love.” I sighed. “If I fight him, it’s possible she’ll try to kill me. I’d welcome it.”

“We wouldn’t,” Berthold rumbled.

“Wounded though I am,” Woddet said, “I may throw my parole to the winds and kill you myself, if you won’t get to the point. The King of Jotunland is sorely wounded. Isn’t that what you said? What has that to do with us?”

“Do you think they may blame my cousin for it?” asked the Knight of the Leopards.

“We’ve had raids by no more Angrborn than we could count on our fingers,” I explained. “By twenty at most, and more often by fewer than a dozen. It was these raids that your cousin hoped to persuade King Gilling to stop. Berthold, you were captured by Angrborn. How many were there?”

Bold Berthold fingered his beard. “Eight they was, when the outlaws sold me to em.

“What about you, Gerda? How many took you?”

“Lard an’ Lovey, I can’t say, sir, it’s been that long.”

“Twenty?”

“Oh, bless you, sir. Not half so many. Five it might a’ been. Or six. Some was kilt, sir, for our men fought. So comin’ or goin’, sir? Comin’ they might have been ten.”

I nodded, and spoke to Woddet. “Suppose King Gilling dies? Might not his successor—we know little enough about Gilling and nothing about the successor—send a hundred?

“Berthold, Gerda. What about five hundred? Would you call that an impossible figure?”

Bold Berthold only shook his head, whether in denial or bewilderment. Gerda said, “Well, sir, I never seen that many all to onest, but when I think back on them I seen one time or the other, it’s hundreds. More’n that, even.”

“Hela? Perhaps I should have asked you first.”

“As to their number? Five hundred I would think no very great figure. We have frequented this road, my brother here and I, and seen fifty one day, and twenty the next. Look up, you bold knights. What flies above?”

“Geese,” the Knight of the Leopards answered her, “but they are too high for any arrow of mine.”

“How many?”

“Thirty, it might be.”

“Forty,” Woddet offered.

“Forty-three and their leader, making forty-four in all. Forty-four that the three of us see now, for brave Sir Able will not look. How many geese do you suppose there are in all the world, knights? Hundreds?”

No one spoke while Hela gulped half her wine, coughed, and drank the rest.

At length I said, “Let us say one hundred and no more. Could we stand against a hundred? We three, and Gylf, and the men who follow the leopards, and those who follow the sun? And Hela, Heimir, and Uns? Would we?

The silence grew until the Knight of the Leopards said, “Would you, Sir Able? Would you lead us? Answer truly.”

I told him, “I’ve sworn to hold this pass.”

“A rider on a blown horse, Sir Leort!”

The Knight of the Leopards cupped his hands around his mouth. “Just one?” There was a lengthy pause, during which Woddet, Valt, and Yond hurried over. “Just the one, sir!”

“Coming from the north?” Valt inquired of everyone and no one. “Do the giants ride horses?”

Yond shook his head. “They’re too big.”

The Knight of the Leopards silenced them with a gesture. “How do you know his horse is blown?”

Woddet snorted.

“She’s tryin’ to get it to trot, sir!”

The Knight of the Leopards opened his mouth, then shut it again, staring at Woddet while Woddet (his honest face a mask of confusion) stared back at him.

“A woman?” Valt muttered.

The Knight of the Leopards whirled. “Fetch my horse!”

North of the pass the War Way angled down, descending the mountainside in a score of breakneck curves. The Knight of the Leopards took them all at a gallop, and many a stone, dislodged by the flying hooves of his spotted warhorse, dropped down an abyss of air.

The last twist of that coiling road was behind him when he caught sight of the rider; when he did, she (topping a rise on a drooping palfrey dark with sweat) was so near that he nearly rode her down. She screamed, and seeing the shield he carried burst into a flood of tears.

He dismounted and lifted her from her saddle, holding her as he had when he was no older than Valt, and she a pretty child with flashing eyes and raven locks.

Pure white was the tabard of the herald who brought the Black Knight’s challenge to me, and the charge on it was a sable. “My master,” he announced to our own herald, “would pass into the north. His affair is urgent,” he paused to smile, “and his purse heavy. Here are twenty pieces of broad gold, so that your own master stands aside.”

“I am acting for Sir Able of the High Heart,” our herald responded stiffly. “My master, Sir Leort of Sandhill, abides with him until his ransom is paid.”

The Black Knight’s herald lifted an eyebrow the breadth of a stem of clover. “Should you not be galloping south to attend to it?”

“Another is seeing to that. You will, I take it, see to your master’s? Our brother left this place days ago. It is too late, I fear to ask him to act for you.”

“He need not.” The herald of the Black Knight held up the purse he had proffered a moment before, jingling it so the mellow chink of gold on gold could be heard through the deerhide. “My master pays his ransom in advance.”

The herald of the Knight of the Leopards shook his head.

“Will you not examine them, so as to give report to this Sir Able you speak of?”

“You know my master’s name—Sir Leort of Sandhill. I have declared that I act for him who overmatched him, Sir Able of the High Heart. I would know your own master’s name and that of his manor, for with so much gold at his command he cannot but have one, before we speak further.”

But speak further they did, with that overcareful avoidance of rancor characteristic of heralds, before the herald of the Knight of the Leopards returned to me.

“His master he styles the Black Knight,” the herald explained, “and will not name him. Nor will he state his master’s business, nor denote his castle.”

I stroked my chin.

“A manor I called it, though I’d seen the broad pennant. I hoped to sting him, but it availed nothing.”

“He is a knight banneret?”

“Or greater. He offers twenty gold pieces.” The herald cleared his throat. “I examined them. He insisted on it.”

I waved the gold aside. “He may not pass. Tell his herald . . .”

“What is it, sir?”

“That if his master wishes to ride north, he must engage me or go by another road.” I paused. “I was thinking of Sir Woddet’s herald. What was his name?”

“Herewor, sir.”

“He left four days ago. Did they meet him on the road?”

“They did not. He may have met with mishap, sir. Let us hope they came by a different way.”

“We must ask them when the fighting’s over. Your master has not returned?”

“No, sir. Should I send a hobliar after him, sir?”

“I doubt that it’s needed.” I cupped my mouth as the Knight of the Leopards himself had not long before. “Sentry! To the north?”

“Your servant, Sir Able!” The sentry’s mailed arm caught sunlight as he waved. “What do you see of your master?”

“Ridin’ slow with the traveler!”

I nodded and waved.

“Tell the Black Knight I’m ready to engage him.”

The herald was visibly unhappy. “I must speak before you do, Sir Able. First the gold—”

“I don’t want it.”

“Twenty pieces of eastern gold, broad and fair, every one of them. I bit two, sir, and they were soft as leather. The head of some caan on every one.”

“Does Sir Woddet know him? Or any of Woddet’s party?”

“I don’t know, sir. Shall I ask?”

I nodded; Uns, who had come up while we were speaking, said, “I’ll do hit, sar. Right smart ta.”

“I’ll go with him in a moment, by your leave, sir,” the herald said, “Sir Woddet may not like talking to such a hind. But first, sir, I must tell you this Black Knight fights to the death and only to the death. He accords no gentle right, and thus—” The herald took a deep breath and plucked up his courage. “You’re not bound to engage him, as I see it. To fight to the death is war, and no proper trial of arms.”

I smiled. “Sir Woddet was of this knight’s mind also. Does that not seem strange?”

The herald began to speak, thought better of it, and hurried away.

Cloud took three steps forward, and I saw in my mind’s eye my own image charging with couched lance. “Nope,” I whispered, “nor should I tire you like this with my weight.” I dismounted, and side by side Cloud and I advanced until the Black Knight’s herald was in plain view, and the Black Knight also, waiting a long bowshot off beside his black charger.

“He has a skull for a crest,” I explained to Cloud. “That’s a human skull.”

Gylf, who had followed us, grumbled, “Cat pride.”

“It’s boyish,” I agreed. “We should get on well.”

“To scare you.”

“Of course. Only I’m not scared. Do you remember how I told you not to interfere when Sir Woddet and I engaged? You’re not to interfere in this either. Would you like me to have Uns chain you up?” I turned to whisper to Cloud. “You’re not to treat this knight as you treated Sir Woddet.”

In my mind, Cloud stood riderless, her head down.

The Black Knight’s herald was waving. “Sir Able! My master is ready to engage. Are you?”

“Soon, I hope!” Uns and our own herald were returning. As I watched them,l caught sight of Idnn and the Knight of the Leopards. I waved, and both waved in response, she with a white scarf.

“Dey’ll aw talk, sar.” Uns arrived first, breathless and panting. “‘Cept fer him ‘n he won’t look me inna face.”

“I see.” I had a hand on the pommel and a foot in the stirrup. “What do the others say?”

“Nothin’, sar. On’y dey say hit ‘n he won’t.”

“They know nothing of a Black Knight, sir,” announced our herald. “So they say, and I credit them. Sir Woddet surely knows, but he’ll no more tell me than Uns here.”

I mounted. “I’ll ride to that rock that crowds the road, and turn. When you see me lift my lance, I am ready.”

Awaiting the signal, I searched my memory. The Black Knight was known to Woddet; that was certain. Woddet had ridden untold leagues to defeat me, so that I would not have to face the Black Knight. Woddet was a friend, but who was this knight he’d feared would kill me? I tried to recall the knights at Sheerwall. I could remember only the knights who had been my companions in the Lady’s hall, the knights in the Valfather’s castle. Sir Galaad, Sir Gamuret...

No. Woddet had been willing to kill me if necessary to keep me from fighting this Black Knight.

Clarion and trumpet sounded, their clear, shrill notes echoing from snowy rocks. I couched the lance I had shaped from spiny orange and heard above the thunder of Cloud’s hooves the whistle of wind in the carved dragon on my helm.

The Black Knight’s point, directed at the eye slits of that helm, dropped at the final moment, striking my shield with force enough to stagger Cloud. My own point struck the pommel of his saddle, and the black charger was overthrown, crashing to the roadway.

I reined up, dismounted, and gave Uns my lance. The Black Knight lay motionless, and I noticed (in the way you notice a hare between two armies) that the skull had broken, losing part of an eye socket.

Then our herald was kneeling beside the Black Knight and asking again and again whether he yielded.

The black charger struggled to its feet; even with its pommel half torn away, its war saddle held the Black Knight still, though he drooped in it so that he was sure to fall. I tapped the herald’s shoulder. “Enough. He’s wounded or dead. Let’s help him if we can.”

Woddet and Hela were at my elbow by then, Woddet with eyes wet with tears. The three of us lifted the Black Knight from his saddle and laid him on the frozen roadway. Although he could scarcely talk, Woddet managed, “Will you remove his helm, Sir Able? Or should I?”

I shook my head. “Will you, Hela? A favor to us both?”

She did. “He is not slain, good knights. See his eyes flutter? Life stirs still.” The Black Knight’s face was pale as death, and his hair and beard were white: Woddet and I fell to our knees beside him. Berthold was groping the fallen knight with his stick. Hela told him, “He is as old as you, Father, and a noble face.”

His herald began, “Know you that my master is none other than—”

The Black Knight completed the thought in a voice stronger than anyone could have expected. “Duke Marder of Sheerwall.”

“Your Grace.” I bowed my head. “I did not know.”

“Nor were you meant to, Sir Able. Are you landless still? And penniless, too?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“You need not—Sir Woddet? What are you doing here?”

“He rode ahead of Your Grace,” I explained, “fearing I might kill you.”

“You overcame him.” Marder tried to sit up, and with Hela’s help succeeded. “I wished to test you, Sir Able. To see if you could be tempted, mostly. You passed both tests.” He coughed. “I myself failed the second, alas.”

“Your lance bid fair to split my helm,” I told him. “You dropped the point.”

“Of course, of course. I wanted to test you, not blind you.” Marder caught sight of Berthold, and his face fell. “I beg pardon, sir knight. I did not intend to offend.”

“Ain’t but a poor man, sir.”

“All these people.” Marder looked around in some confusion. “This—this toplofty maid. And over there, the biggest man I’ve ever seen.”

“My brother, Your Grace, and by Your Grace’s leave a true man, though not supple-tongued. Yonder stands another noble knight, Your Grace, good Sir Leort of Sandhill.”

Uns whispered in her ear.

“This trusty servingman has named the maiden with him, that I may make her known to you, Duke Marder. She is Lord Beel’s lady daughter, called Idnn.”

Idnn herself came forward, smiling and offering her hand to Marder. “We meet rough, Your Grace. Let’s not meet wrong, too. We are Idnn, Queen of Jotunland.”