The Wizard

Chapter 15. Giant’s Blood!

Toug sat on the stone floor of the guardroom and listened to Thiazi, Garvaon, and Svon argue with Schildstarr. No one except Wistan paid the least attention to him; if they had, they might have thought him inattentive. Although he heard and considered all that was said, his eyes remained fixed on the darkest corner of the room.

“Won’t stand,” Schildstarr repeated stubbornly.

“Forever?” Thiazi’s bass voice was smooth. “You’re correct. It need stand only until His Majesty recovers.”

“How do we know he’s not cold?” Schildstarr leaned forward as he spoke, and his huge chair creaked under two tons of muscle and bone.

“You asked before,” Thiazi said. “You know our answer. I am his chief minister. If he were dead, I would declare a year of mourning for our fallen king and hail a successor. If he dies, I’ll do exactly that. He isn’t dead, and by Geror’s blessing may recover. You call yourself his loyal subject. Very well, he has need of you. Show your loyalty.”

“Give me sight a’ him and I will.” Schildstarr sounded as intransigent as ever.

Garvaon said, “He’s asleep. No man’s wounds heal unless he sleeps. You must know that—I see your scars.”

Schildstarr’s laughter seemed to shake the walls. “Nae half a’

’em!”

Mani lay curled in the dark corner Toug watched, his luminous green eyes opening and closing; the shadowy figure behind him seemed Idnn at times, at others an ancient crone, and at still others both, or mere emptiness. And though the fire on the broad hearth had faded to smoke and ashes and the windowless guardroom was freezing, Toug was sweating. Beyond or beside his fear he wondered whether Wistan could see the witch, too, and decided he could not.

“I’ve questions of my own,” Svon told Schildstarr. “We have answered yours. When the king wakes, we’ll take you to him, provided he consents to see you. I’ll answer one more, one you haven’t asked but should. I think it likely that he will consent. Do you concur, My Lord? Sir Garvaon?”

“I do,” Thiazi said; and Garvaon, “Yes.”

“In which case you can do one of two things,” Svon continued. “You can wait here like a sensible man, or you can leave this castle and return tonight with the others. You’re not a prisoner.”

Schildstarr snorted.

“You think we couldn’t hold you, and no doubt you’re right. But since we don’t intend to try, it’s neither here nor there.” Leaning back in the oversized chair on which he sat cross-legged, Svon shaped a tower from his fingers. “You’re the king’s loyal subject. Does your loyalty extend to the queen as well?”

“King Gilling’s nae wed.”

“You’re wrong. I won’t try to prove it to you. You wouldn’t accept my evidence, and there’s no need since he’ll tell you himself when he wakes. But when you hear it from his own mouth—as you will—will you be loyal to her? She’s a human woman.”

“One a’ you little hotlanders?” Schildstarr rubbed his huge jaw.

“Yes,” Svon said, “and your queen, whether you’re ready to believe it or not. When you believe it—when you have proof of it—will you obey her?”

“Depend on wha’ she wants, is my view.”

Garvaon grunted and would have pushed his chair back, had chair and table been smaller. “You’ll obey your queen if it suits you. Spoken like a true Son of Angr.”

“You pick chains and lock ’em on you.” Schildstarr’s tone carried deadly hatred. “My folk dinna take to chains. Somebody else has got to do it.”

“As you say. Someone does.”

Thiazi raised a hand. “Enough!”

“I agree,” Svon said. “We’ve need of friends here. We have plenty of foes already. I meant no insult, Schildstarr, and imply nothing. Do you know who struck down the king?”

Slowly the Frost Giant’s head swung from side to side. “I was there. Close by, only I dinna see it. There’s tittletattle noo. This one and that one, and some braggin’s wha’ I hear. Mebbe yes. Mebbe no. I don’t know.”

“Is anyone preparing to storm the castle?”

Cunning crept into Schildstarr’s eyes. “There’s talk. Tomorrow, mebbe. Why we come.”

“Eighteen of you Angrborn?”

“Nineteen wi’ me. Good fighters every one a’ us. How many knights you got?”

“It’s not we who have them, but your king.”

“We have Angrborn, knights, men-at-arms, and archers enough to defend His Majesty’s home against a determined assault,” Thiazi told Schildstarr, “and defend it we will. My fear is that young bloods, foolishly contemptuous of those smaller than themselves, will assail us without reflection. That could ignite a new rebellion.”

Schildstarr rose, a process that consumed some time. “You’ve nae a’ us.”

“That is not true,” Thiazi told him.

“Nae muckle to eat, neither. Month’s food?” He looked from face to face. “We might fetch some.”

“Lord Thiazi. Sir Garvaon. Sir Svon.” A slender woman dressed as slaves were had appeared in the doorway; a breath passed before Toug recognized her. “His Majesty has regained consciousness. He calls for the queen.”

The corner Toug had watched was empty. Mani looked behind him and grinned.

Baki stepped hastily out of the way when Schildstarr and Thiazi hurried out, and curtsied to Svon, Garvaon, and Wistan as they passed. Toug remained behind. “Is this a trick?”

Baki curtsied again, this time to him. “La, sir, and I am but a simple girl.”

“He’s really awake?”

“Yes. That is good for you, I think.”

“It would be better for me if he died.” For a moment, Toug was sick with fear. ‘I’m going to kill him, and since I am the man I am, I’ll have to do it in a fair fight.” The words came of their own volition, and the pitiful thing in him that cringed and wept was locked away. “That means a fight after he has recovered, a fight in which he has a chance to defend himself. I’m not looking forward to it.”

“Lord Toug,” Baki said, and knelt at his feet.

“Don’t do that,” Toug told her. “What if someone should see us?”

“I see you.” Mani yawned. “I’m wondering whether you see yourself.”

“Stand up, please.” Toug took Baki’s hand. “You wanted to bring Sir Able, so you could take him to Aelfrice because you can’t fight...” He had lost the name, and groped for it.

“Garsecg, Lord. Setr. We can fight him, and fight those who cling to him still. But we cannot win that fight without someone like Sir Able. Or you.”

Mani stepped in to rescue Toug. “What will Sir Svon say when he looks around for you?”

Toug gulped and nodded. “You’re right. They’re going to see the king. I better hurry.”

He found Wistan waiting at the bottom of the stairs. “You were talking privately to that slave girl,” Wistan said. “I stayed away, so I couldn’t overhear you.”

“Thanks.”

“This is a funny place, isn’t it?” They began to climb as Toug agreed.

“There were a couple things just now.” Wistan cleared his throat.

“Sir Garvaon and Sir Svon talking to that giant, you mean? I liked it better when we fought them.”

“So did I.” For a moment Wistan appeared to contemplate a change of subject. “Do you trust him?”

“No. Never. I’d sooner trust Seaxneat.”

Wistan stopped. “Who’s that?”

“A man I used to know. A thief.”

I see.

“A coward, too. I didn’t think so then, because he talked so brave. Now I know he was trying to make himself believe it, but I believed him. I was a lot younger.”

“I understand,” Wistan said, and offered Toug a hand up.

Toug shook his head. “It wasn’t really very long ago. It just seems like a long time. So much has happened.”

They climbed for a minute or more; then Wistan said, “She’s not bad-looking, is she?”

“Queen Idnn?”

“No, the redheaded girl.” Wistan grinned.

“Oh. Baki.”

“So many girls have dark hair. There’s nothing wrong with that, but red hair or yellow hair makes a nice change.”

Toug said nothing.

“There’s all the freckles, of course. A lot of people don’t like them, but I say what’s wrong with freckles? She kept her eyes down, did you notice? Maybe not with you, but when I was in there, and our masters and the giants.”

“No,” Toug admitted. “Not with me.”

“When they won’t look you in the eye, it’s because they don’t want you to know what they’re thinking.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“So you know what they’re thinking about. Only I wanted to say I’m not going to pick your flowers.” Wistan mounted the next couple of steps.

“Don’t try to pick that one,” Toug told him.

“I won’t. We’re friends, right? We’d better be, since we’re the only squires here.”

This time Toug accepted the hand Wistan offered.

“But there’s things I wanted to ask. Like, the voices. After everybody left? The two giants and our masters and me. So that left you and the slave girl.”

Toug devoted his attention to the next step.

“I couldn’t hear what you said, but I could hear voices—three people. One was you and one was the girl. There was somebody else with a thin, rough voice, too.”

“What do you think the king will say?” Toug paused to catch his breath. “About Schildstarr and eighteen more?”

Wistan shrugged. “Another thing. I don’t think this will bother you.”

“I’m not bothered,” Toug declared.

“There was something in the corner. Did you see it?”

“The king’s cat.”

“Is it the king’s? I didn’t know. It’s a good thing you told me, I’ll have to leave it alone. No, I meant something else, something in the shadow there.”

“There are lots of things that live in shadows.”

“You saw it, too. Was that the voice I heard?”

“Yes,” Toug said, “what you saw in the corner.”

Again, Wistan was silent for a time. Toug climbed as fast as he could, hoping to outdistance him.

“You were Sir Able’s page. That’s what I heard. Then when Sir Able made Sir Svon a knight, he made you Sir Svon’s squire. Sir Able isn’t like most people.”

Toug agreed.

“There’s something of that about you, too.”

The rush of pride Toug felt was almost overwhelming.

“I’m your senior. If you won’t acknowledge that, we can have it out right now.”

“You were a squire before I was,” Toug agreed.

Wistan nodded. “As senior squire I order you to tell me who the third voice belonged to.”

“I already have,” Toug said.

“The thing in the corner. Sometimes it looked like a woman. What was it?”

“A ghost, I think.”

“What’s its name?”

“I don’t know.”

“We gently born fight with swords.” Wistan’s voice was cold. “And we give others a chance to draw. Draw yours.”

“I don’t want to fight,” Toug declared, “and I surely don’t want to kill you.”

“Coward!” Wistan’s hand was on the hilt.

Toug took a step backward that put his back against cold stone. “I yield.”

“I’d fight you,” Wistan was furious, “and I’d beat you.”

“I know it,” Toug said. “I yield.”

“You fought the Angrborn.”

Toug nodded. “So did you. I know that, too.”

“But you won’t fight me?”

“No.” Toug shook his head. “We may both have to fight the giants again soon. Can I keep my weapons? I swear I’ll never employ them treacherously.”

Wistan’s grin was triumphant. “Hand them over.”

Toug nodded and unbuckled his sword belt.

Wistan held out a hand. His grin widened.

“She’s not a sword,” Toug told him. “She’s a mace. Sword Breaker’s her name.” He paused, caressing the hilt. “I’ll give her to you, but I’ve got to tell you something. When Sir Able and I were boys, another boy and I tried to rob him. He beat us and took our weapons.”

“You’re lying! Sir Able’s much older than you.”

Toug nodded. “He is now, and when we met again he didn’t remember me. Or if he did, he didn’t say anything.”

Wistan did not nod.

“Sword Breaker used to be his,” Toug added as he handed her over. “He gave her to me. I told him I didn’t deserve her, but I didn’t say why. Maybe that’s why I’m losing her like this.”

Wistan was examining Sword Breaker.

“I hope you’ll take care of her. She really was his.”

“There’s a cistern in the cellar,” Wistan told Toug, “and they say it’s so deep it’s never been full. I’m going to drop this in there, the first chance I get.”

Toug watched Wistan climb until he was out of sight.

Toug was refused admission to the king’s bedchamber; but he argued so persistently with the giant on guard that Svon overheard him and let him in.

It was such a sight as he had never imagined, a room bigger than the biggest barn in Glennidam and rich as a casket of gems: the huge gilt bed, its surface higher than Toug’s head, on which the king lay pale as his own sheets, propped by silk pillows the size of mattresses; the gold-embroidered bed hangings of crimson velvet (more cloth and richer cloth than Toug had ever seen) drawn back by massy chains of gold; Schildstarr (rough as a wolf, filthy as a cur, and thrice as big as anyone had a right to be) leaning over that bed as attentively as the best nurse; Thiazi, reserved and alert, his face tight with secrets; the resolute knights and the swarming slaves straining to see and hear.

A slave drew Toug aside. “He sez th’ queen was wit’ him inside the stuns’ls, only she warn’t, ’cause these gals,” the hand gripping Toug’s arm tightened, “what kin see, they’d o’ seen her, wouldn’t they, mate?”

Toug managed to nod. “You’d have heard, too, wouldn’t you? If the queen came in they’d say good morning, I’m sure, or something like that, so you men would know to kneel.”

“Aye. That’s so.” Pouk’s whisper declined until Toug could scarcely hear him, though Pouk’s lips were at Toug’s ear. “Under th’ big bed, mate.”

Toug nodded and edged nearer the vast bedstead, waiting for a moment when no slave woman was looking at him.

“You’re a good friend,” the king was saying; and his voice was the sound of that sad and weary wind which stirs the dead leaves blanketing the dead, warning of cold rain. “We’ll remember,” the wind moaned. “Remember. Remember...”

“Your Majesty must not tire yourself.” That was Thiazi, like Schildstarr, bending above the bed.

“The question is who’s to command, Your Majesty.” The stern voice was Garvaon’s. “We obey His Lordship. We’re his men, and our men obey us. We obey My Lord Thiazi now because His Lordship has ordered us to. But if Schildstarr and the Angrborn he says he can bring us will obey only you...”

Garvaon let the sentence hang, but there was no reply from the king.

Schildstarr chuckled in a way that made Toug shudder. Still, no one spoke.

“Rum, ain’t it?” Pouk whispered.

All eyes were on the king. Nodding, Toug ducked and stepped under the bed, where lips brushed his.

“Lord.” Having kissed him lightly, Baki knelt.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you.” Mani sounded smug and knowing. “Females always make a lot of noise, even if you don’t. Someone’s bound to look under here then.”

Toug, who wasn’t certain he knew what Mani was talking about, sat on carpet so thick and soft that he felt he might sink into it. “Pouk said you wanted to see me.”

“I do, Lord. Lord, that boy Wistan has the sword that is not a sword. Did he steal it from you?”

“He won it from me,” Toug confessed. “He wanted to fight, because I wouldn’t tell him about Mani and the witch. He thinks I should obey him as if he were already a knight, and I was his squire. He’s not a knight, and I’m no squire of his. I wouldn’t break my promise to Mani, and if I had told him about the witch it would have been something else. And something after that, doing his work for him or whatever, and I could see that, too. I told him about the witch and did it in a way that made him think he’d heard her when he’d really heard Mani.”

Mani said, “It’s almost the same, after all.”

Baki nodded; her eyes were candle flames. “You did not tell him about me?”

“No. No, I didn’t. I didn’t tell him anything else, except that Sword Breaker had belonged to Sir Able.”

“As did I,” Mani said.

“He was going to push me and push me.” Toug found that he was explaining to himself as much as to Baki. “Push ‘til I was his slave or ‘til I fought. If we’d fought, he’d have been killed or wounded—or else I would. He thought he’d beat me, and he may have been right.”

Baki said, “I do not think that.”

“Thanks. He—he’s never lost a fight. That’s what I think, anyhow. When that’s how it’s been for you, you keep pushing ‘til you do. I used to be like that too. The funny thing is that nobody’s a good fighter ‘til he’s lost at least one fight, and won one, too.”

Mani said, “Well, you seem to have lost this one.”

Toug shook his head. “I lost Sword Breaker, and I hate that. But I didn’t lose the fight, because there wasn’t any. I was dumb. I thought if I yielded he might let me keep my weapons and neither of us would get killed. I’ll know better next time.”

Baki said, “I will steal it back for you, if I can. We helped Sir Able like that.”

“It wouldn’t be honorable.” Toug hesitated. “Wistan said he was going to drop it in the cistern, but he went up the stairs. I thought he’d decided to throw it into the moat. But it’s outside the wall, and we don’t have the wall, just this keep. Can you stop him from doing something like that? Dropping it in the cistern?”

“That would be the best thing that could happen, Lord. I could get it for you without theft. Anyone may pick up what another throws away. Let us see what he does with it.”

Toug thanked her and meant every word of it.

Mani said, “Baki has things to tell you. So do I.”

“Just one, Lord. I have mentioned my sister Uri.”

“Was that the one who didn’t want me to heal you?”

Baki nodded. “You know my heart’s desire—it is that Sir Able lead us against Setr. You promised to help with that, just as I promised to help you to do your duty.”

“We’ve both promised to help Ulfa and Pouk get out here,” Toug reminded her, “and Mani said he’d help us.”

“The keep’s surrounded,” Mani remarked somewhat dryly. “I could get out and so could Baki. None of you could.”

“I didn’t know that. Have the rebels laid siege to it?”

Baki shook her head. “They are only concerned for their king, and curious. Let me get to my news, Mani.”

“I wouldn’t think of preventing you.”

“My sister Uri has been talking to Beel, who knows Sir Able is riding to aid you. Mani says you know, too, Lord.”

“Yes. Thiazi saw it in his crystal and told us.”

“He told Lord Beel as well, it seems. He is overjoyed. Now he hopes for a happy end to all his efforts, the throne secure, and peace between the Angrborn and Arnthor’s folk.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with that,” Toug said.

“Just this, Lord. My sister has told him I intend to take Sir Able from him and send him to Aelfrice. A brief sojourn in Aelfrice will mean a lengthy absence here.”

Toug nodded.

“Lord Beel is determined to prevent it. If he learns that you and your sister have promised help, it will go ill with you.” Toug felt Baki’s hand on his, hot and as light as a butterfly’s wing. “I do not think he will have you killed, or even get the king to. Sir Able and Queen Idnn would be sure to hear of it. But he will keep you from Sir Able, and send you into danger if he can.”

Toug said, “Good.”

“You have lost the weapon Sir Able gave you, and are smarting still. Sleep will cure it. You have been warned.”

“I have,” Toug said, “and to tell the truth, I feel I’ve gotten wonderful news. I need a battle cry, and Spears of the Maidens will be it ‘til I get a better one.”

“You ridicule me.”

“Never. Never! Oh, Baki...”

Mani coughed as cats do. “Excuse it. Hairball. Let me give my news, and I’ll leave you two alone. My mistress took the guise of my other mistress when she spoke to you on the stairs, remember? It seems she’s become fond of it and has been wearing it to talk to King Gilling, and now he thinks Queen Idnn’s here. And that’s—”

Something dark, round, and wet fell with a plash on Mani’s head, and he jumped backward snarling, every hair erect. “Blood! Giant’s blood!”

A second drop, as big as a cherry, fell where Mani had been sitting. Bent nearly double, Toug hurried to the velvet ruffle that had curtained their assembly and ducked through.