The Wizard

Chapter 18. Night

At the suggestion of the lean Angrborn called Thiazi, we met in a room in which the king sometimes entertained friends, a room rather larger than the banquet hall of the Valfather’s castle. Richer too, and far colder, filled not with the trophies of the hunt and the shields of the brave, but with clumsy furniture that must have seemed massive even to the Angrborn, and a wealth of polished silver and pewter platters and cups, things lovely but overlarge, like the shelves that could scarcely hold them crowded and piled together.

“We’ve got to wait for that Schildstarr,” Ulfa murmured at my elbow; I had not known she was there until she spoke. “Unless you need me, I’m going to get something for the girl. Toug says she hasn’t eaten since yesterday.”

I nodded.

“Would you like me to get you something, too?”

“No. But thanks. Please hurry back.”

Pouk appeared at my other elbow. “You was wantin’ to talk to me, sir? Might be a good time.”

“The only time we’ll get, I’m afraid. Our horses—that black charger Master Agr gave me. Where are they?”

“Horses is in the stable, sir. Them stablemen...” Pouk looked as though he wanted to spit.

“I didn’t recognize them. The stable was dark, and I was in a hurry. I should have spotted them just the same.”

“I go out when I can, sir, an’ do what I can. Only I can’t go often as I’d like an’ can’t do much. I fought them stablemen at first, but they got worse to show me an’ you can’t hardly fight a man what runs.”

I murmured agreement, reflecting that Pouk, whose bad eye and squint had always made him appear blind, was blind now in fact. “You can’t have gotten out there since the king was stabbed, I suppose.”

Pouk chuckled. “Oh, I slips out just th’ same, sir. Twic’t, so far. I got a way.”

“Good.”

“Only t’other’s gone, sir. Your traps, or most is.”

“I understand.” I had come to a decision. “I want to get you out, you and Ulfa both. I’m going to take Ulfa with me tonight, if I—”

“Bless you, sir!”

“If I can. I’m going to leave you here for the time being to look after my horses and get my things together, if you can. Find them, even if you can’t move them. I’ll be back with the duke and others before much longer, and next time I go you’ll be with me.”

Ulfa returned with a thick slice of dark bread, a lump of smelly cheese, and a wooden pannikin of what was probably small beer. She gave them to the ragged girl.

I leaned to my left to talk to Toug. “Is this another relative of Ulfa’s?”

“No, Sir Able. I found her when I was out scouting. It’s complicated.”

Beel said, “We should hear it in any—”

An Angrborn entered as he spoke, a giant so big and ugly that for an instant I thought he might be one of the Giants of Winter and Old Night, followed by four more only slightly less hideous Angrborn.

“Yourself alone,” Thiazi told Schildstarr firmly. “Your followers will not be permitted to stay.”

He pulled out a chair and sat, and motioned for the four who had come with him to sit as well.

Wearily, Beel said, “We cannot have this.”

“Then you’ll nae ha’ me.”

“You think we can’t drive you out. You’re wrong. We can, and if necessary we will.”

Schildstarr shook his head. “Fetch thy hotland lads and we’ll go.”

His followers protested.

“You’re hot to fight shieldmates. I’m nae.” He turned to Beel. “Count thy-selves.” He did, raising a thick finger for each man and woman as he pointed to Beel, Toug, Ulfa, Etela, Pouk, and me. “Half dozen. Fer me an’ mine, Thiazi an’ me? I’ll nae stand for’t.”

“You have a point,” Beel conceded.

“It’s our king in the bed, an’ our land you tread.”

I said, “You’re Schildstarr? I called this meeting, and I haven’t a lot of time.” I stood on the seat of my chair and offered him my hand.

“You’re nae hotlander,” Schildstarr said when our hands parted. “Ne’er felt the like.”

“You counted me among them,” I told him. “You’d go, you said, if Lord Beel brought force. I’m here, so he has all the force he needs. But if you go without fighting, I’ll go with you. I have to leave soon anyway.”

“We stay.”

“I want Sir Garvaon here,” Beel said, “and Sir Svon. Refuse, and you have seen the last of me. You may call two more of yours, if you must counter us man for man.”

Schildstarr shook his head, and Toug went to fetch them.

“Toug’s been in the town this night,” I told Svon, when they arrived. “I thought it too dangerous when I heard of it, but he says the danger was less than might be imagined—that King Gilling’s foes weren’t watching the castle. I can confirm that. I saw no one when I came here.”

I turned to Toug. “You suggested we seize or burn the tools you found. They weren’t guarded?”

“Only by the smith.”

“His name?” Beel asked sharply. “Did you learn it?”

“Yes, Your Lordship.” (I felt certain Toug was nearer exhaustion than Beel.) “Logi, Your Lordship.”

“Do you know him, My Lord?” Beel’s question to Thiazi was nearly as sharp as his question to Toug.

“I have heard his name.” Thiazi shrugged.

“You would not expect him to be a ringleader?”

“A smith?” Thiazi shook his head. “Hardly.”

“Might talk.” Schildstarr rumbled.

“If we had him here,” Beel said, “I agree that means might be found to persuade him to speak. But he’s not here, and I see no way to get him.”

“Might come,” Schildstarr rumbled, “if I try him.”

“He’s dead!” Toug burst out. “He chased us—chased Etela and me, and I killed him.”

Schildstarr’s laugh shook every ewer and cup.

Svon was grinning. “How’d you manage that?”

“He fell and dropped his dagger, and I stabbed him with it before he could get up,” Toug said. “I need to talk to you about that when we’re alone.”

“You,” Beel told Toug, “are a remarkable young man.”

“Thank you, Your Lordship.” Toug swallowed. “Except I’m not. Not really. I’m a really ordinary kind of young man, aren’t I, Ulfa?” She smiled warmly.

“Do you think we could go out and get those tools, Sir Able? Like I said?”

“I doubt it. What were the numbers? Sixty spades?”

“Yes, Sir Able. About that.”

“And there were picks.”

Toug nodded. “About half as many.”

“I see.” I paused to study Toug’s serious, boyish face. “Did you handle any of them?”

“One of the mattocks.”

“Could you have carried it back to this castle?”

Toug considered, then nodded again. “It was pretty heavy, but I think so. Not fast.”

“No, not fast. Any of these Angrborn could carry more, of course. Let us say an Angrborn could carry four tools.”

I paused to do the arithmetic, then turned to speak to Schildstarr. “You have more than these four, since Lord Beel suggested you bring two more into our meeting. How many?”

“Mysel’ and eighteen mair.”

I returned to Toug. “Let’s say sixty spades, thirty picks, and ten mattocks—one hundred in all. Schildstarr and his eighteen could carry seventy-six, leaving twenty-four to be carried by twenty-four of us.”

“We don’t have enough men to defend this tower now!” Beel exclaimed.

“Right you are. Even if you stripped this keep bare we wouldn’t have enough. If there’s serious resistance—as there almost certainly will be—not nearly enough.”

Pouk spoke up. “Me an’ my mates could carry. There’s more’n a hundred in our crew here.”

I nodded. “Or we could use the horses from the stable. There are oxen there, too, so there are presumably carts as well. Schildstarr, you’re shaking your head.”

“‘Tis a brave lad, but nae gud. ‘Twould be fight begun an’ ne’er won.” He leveled a huge finger at Garvaon. “Could you hold off a hunnert a’ us? In the open, noo.”

“We’d do our best.”

“An’ die.”

Svon said, “If we went out, might not others rally to the king’s side?”

“To me an’ mine, it might be. Nae wi’ you wi’ us.”

Toug said, “We don’t really want those tools. Maybe we could burn them.”

“We could burn the handles,” I told him, “if our force made it that far. The heads are iron, aren’t they?”

Toug nodded.

“They’d survive the fire, and anyone could easily fit new handles.”

The girl on the other side of Toug tugged at his sleeve, and they whispered together. When he straightened up, he said, “Etela and me have another idea. Can I ask Schildstarr something?”

“Ask awa’.”

“The place where they’re making the shovels and the other tools belonged to Logi. That’s what Etela says, and she did too. Her mother’s a slave there. Only Logi’s dead now, like I told you. Will they sell them? The slaves?”

Schildstarr nodded. “Aye.”

Etela spoke up. “Well, it seems like the king’s got lots of money.”

Toug nodded. “It does, and Logi can’t make any more shovels and picks and things now, so his slaves would have to make them. But they couldn’t if you bought them and brought them back here.”

Pushing out a lower lip as big and black as a burnt roast, Schildstarr raised his eyebrows.

“You could buy all the slaves,” Toug added. “Etela’s mother, too.”

Beel said, “It might even be possible to buy the tools that have been completed.”

I stood. “I got you together to make sure you wouldn’t do anything rash before Duke Marder arrived—that you realized your limitations. I don’t think I needed to worry, and I have to go.”

“We should all go.” Thiazi yawned hugely. “Back to bed. We should sleep on this and talk again in the morning.”

“I need a word with Toug,” I told him, “and another with his sister. May I have them?”

Mani climbed Toug’s chair.

“I suppose, if Lord Beel concurs.” Thiazi yawned again. “Toug is his, as long as he cares for the king’s cat. Who’s his sister?”

Ulfa said, “I am, Your Lordship.”

“I see.” Thiazi stood up. “Would you like to own your sister, young man?” Toug stared; and Beel, watching him with some amusement, whispered, “Yes, My Lord.”

“Yes. My Lord. Yes, I would.”

“I’m acting for His Majesty during His Majesty’s unhappy indisposition.” Thiazi picked up his gold rod, which he had laid on the table when he had taken his seat. “As His Majesty’s surrogate, I feel you should be rewarded for your activities on His Majesty’s behalf tonight. In recognition of them, I present you with this healthy female slave. I’ll have my clerk draw up a paper in the morning.” He asked Ulfa’s name, and she curtsied and provided it.

“This slave Ulfa. You don’t really need a paper since Schildstarr and his friends can testify for you if a problem comes up. Which it won’t. But we’re trying to keep things neater than they have been in the past.”

“Say, thank you, My Lord,” Beel whispered. “Say thank you very much.”

At the door of the sally port (separated by a wilderness of stone from the room in which we had met) I halted. “Sir Garvaon, Sir Svon, I apologize. To you particularly, Sir Svon. I must speak with Toug privately. Will you wait here? And you, Pouk, and your wife? I’ll come back as quickly as I can. Maybe Sir Svon could hold Queen Idnn’s cat.”

“I will,” Ulfa said, and took him from Toug.

The sentry opened the big iron door with a grunt, and Toug and I stepped out. “It was Org,” Toug said as soon as the door closed. “I didn’t say it up there because I know Sir Svon doesn’t want people to know about him.”

“I see. Org actually killed the smith?”

“No, I did. But Org saw he was chasing Etela and me and went for him. I said he fell down and dropped his dagger and I stabbed him, and that was all true. But it was because he was fighting Org.”

I set off for the stable, motioning for Toug to follow.

“Maybe you’re worried because Etela’s sleeping in my bed for now. I know Ulfa is, but I’m not going to hurt her, and it’s a real big bed.”

“I’d hardly thought of it,” I admitted. “I was talking with Sir Svon and Sir Garvaon while you and your sister were putting her to bed.”

“Then I don’t know what we’ve got to talk about, but there’s one thing I ought to tell and I should whisper it.”

I stopped at the stable door. “Go ahead.”

“Pouk isn’t really blind. I mean, only in one eye, and he was that way before.”

“I noticed that myself.” I felt suddenly that I was as tired as any of them, and reminded myself that I could not afford it—that I had a long ride ahead.

“You did?”

Gylf trotted up before I could reply. “There you are.”

“At last. Is everything all right?”

“I bit one.” Gylf yawned.

“He’ll recover, I’m sure.” I turned back to Toug and asked how he had hurt his cheek. He was telling me all about the fight in courtyard and the attempted assassination of King Gilling more or less as Idnn had, when iron-shod hooves on the wooden stable floor interrupted us. Cloud had trotted out to greet me, and for a second or two we hugged, I with my arms about her neck and she squeezing me between her neck and chin.

Toug patted her flank. “She’s such a beautiful horse. I’ll bet you were worried about her.”

“I was, but she could have told me if anything had gone wrong. We don’t exactly talk, but each of us knows what the other’s saying. Have I told you about that?”

“Kind of.”

“Come with me.” I led the way into the stable, followed by Gylf and Cloud. Their footfalls mingled with the scrape of shovels.

“This is the room where the stablemen sleep.” I took a stick from the fire and swung it until it burned brightly. “We want light, and I think there must be candles or lanterns here somewhere, even though the stablemen don’t use them.”

“Right here, Sir Able.” Toug had opened a cabinet; a large lantern of pierced copper held a candle equally large.

I lit it. “Thanks. I suppose they must use this when they have to light their masters’ way, and we’ll use it too.” I tossed the stick back into the fire.

“I think I know what you want to show me.”

“If I were a teacher, I’d have left that stall the way I found it,” I told him. “I’m a knight, and can’t treat a good horse like that. I got this so you can see that his stall’s clean—it had better be—and that he has water and food.”

We found the white stallion that had been mine, and Toug stared at him for a minute or more, holding the lantern high.

“He’s dirty.” Toug might have been choking.

“And thin.”

“Yes. Sir Able...”

“I’m listening.”

“We—everything was barricaded. They’re plotting against the king. Nobody could go out. Lord Beel said so.”

I took the lantern from him and hung it on a nail. “Lord Beel isn’t a knight.”

“I guess not.”

“Neither are you. I expected you to say that.”

“You said it, Sir Able. I know it’s true, but I won’t say it.” Toug wiped his hands on his cloak. “There must be things to clean horses with around here somewhere. Sponges or rags or something. Water. I’ll get some.”

I shook my head. “You’re a squire, and there are men here who’ve neglected their duty. Tell them what you want done, and see that they do it.”

“You made them shovel this out, didn’t you?” Toug stooped, and picked up a handful of clean straw. “What was it like before?”

“You wouldn’t have wanted to see it. I have to go now. Sir Garvaon and Sir Svon have been waiting too long already. So have your sister and her husband.”

Toug nodded. “I’ll see about Laemphalt.”

“I want to say one more thing before I go. It’s that you went out of this castle tonight.”

“Lord Beel told me to.”

“You risked your life and fought like a hero.”

“Org—”

“I know about Org. Any of us who kills an Angrborn is a hero. Most men would have stood aside and let Org do the fighting. You didn’t. But neither did you spare a thought for your mount. And you should have.”

Toug nodded again.

“Pouk came out here from time to time to see about my horses, the horses he had when the Angrborn captured him. If he had not, things would have been worse than they were. Did Sir Svon ever attend to his own mount?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then he didn’t.” I sighed. “You’d know if he had. He was my squire, and Sir Ravd’s. Neither of us trained him the way we should have. What about Sir Garvaon and his squire? I don’t recall the squire’s name.”

“Wistan, sir. I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Neither do I,” I said, and left.

I was leading Cloud when I met the knights, Pouk, and Ulfa in the cold moon-shadow of Utgard.

“We thought we’d better have a look for you,” Garvaon told me. “We were afraid something might have happened.”

I smiled. “I’m okay, just tired. I guess we all are, Toug especially.”

Garvaon nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Ulfa touched my arm. “Where is he?”

“In the stable, seeing to his horse. Pretty soon it will hit him that he ought to see to Sir Svon’s. Maybe it already has.” I paused. “You belong to him now. Do you feel you’ve got to have his permission to leave here?”

“You—you’re...?” Her mouth was open.

“I’m going to take you where you’ll be free. Pouk, you agreed I could. Have you changed your mind?”

“No, sir!”

Dropping Mani, Ulfa kissed and embraced Pouk.

“The two of you will be back together soon,” I promised them. “I hope so, anyway.”

Svon said, “I came down because I want to ride with you. I know you said you met no resistance, but we may have to fight our way out, and you’ll be burdened with this woman.”

“You can’t ride where we ride,” I told him.

I lifted Ulfa onto Cloud’s back and swung into the saddle behind her. So mounted, my eyes were not as high as the eyes of Schildstarr or Thiazi; yet I felt that I looked down on Svon, Garvaon, and Pouk from a great height—that Cloud stood upon an invisible tower, but a real tower just the same. I whistled for Gylf and watched him leap into the air, running toward the palisade of logs that crowned the curtain wall; and then (the palisade passed) toward a bank of somber winter cloud and the pale moon that peered around it.

Ulfa blew a kiss to Pouk, and he came forward and caught her hand and kissed her fingers.

Then I touched Cloud’s flanks, and pictured myself (and Ulfa, too) on Cloud’s back as she galloped across the sky. And at once it came to be, and the pennant on my lance, the green pennant the old captain’s wife had sewn from scraps, snapped in the cold wind of Cloud’s passage.

Ulfa moaned and shut her eyes, clinging with all her might to the high steel pommel of the war saddle. I wrapped my cloak around her, and turned to look back at Utgard as it dwindled and faded into night, becoming scattered points of light, a few stars in the general darkness of Mythgarthr.

Toug had run from the stable as Pouk kissed Ulfa’s hand. He knew Ulfa was not looking; yet he felt it was his duty to wave, so wave he did, knowing his eyes had filled with tears. In his boyhood, Ulfa had held authority. He had protested that authority often and loudly, and acknowledged it only when he might have something to gain. As he had grown older and stronger they had come to blows.

Now he might never see her again; the past reclaimed in her face and voice was gone once more. So he waved, knowing she was not thinking of him, and knowing that his tears were soaking his bandage. Knew shame, but wept and waved still.

I whistled and Gylf ran up a hill of air. A few seconds more, and Ulfa and I followed upon a proud, long-legged mare as gray as cloud and as swift as the wind. Together we four dwindled into the south as swans dwindle when ice closes the marshes, great solid birds that seem too large to fly, seen only as specs of white against Skai, specs that wane and fade and are seen to be very small indeed.

“How—? How did he do that?” Garvaon spoke to everyone and no one.

Nobody answered, and Toug wondered momentarily whether Pouk would continue to maintain the pretext of blindness or confess that he, too, had seen Cloud canter into the sky.

A strange, high keening filled the courtyard, coming from everywhere and nowhere, a sound more lonely and less human than that of a dog howling on his master’s grave.

“What’s that, sir?” Pouk grasped Toug’s arm.

“Org.” The name had slipped from his lips.

Garvaon asked, “Who’s Org?”

“Org isn’t anybody.” Toug sensed Svon’s gaze. “I just meant Pouk was hurting my arm.”

“We’re all tired,” Svon said. “Let’s get to bed.”

“But you saw it.” Garvaon pointed. “You and Toug. You saw it just like I did.”

“ With a lance of prayer and a horse of air,’” Svon quoted, “‘summoned I am to tourney, ten thousand leagues beyond the moon. Methinks it is no journey’”

Garvaon shook himself, the rings of his mail whispering. “He’s crazy, the knight in that song. That’s the whole point of the song. Sir Able’s not crazy.”

“We will be,” Svon said softly, “if we talk about this.”

He caught Pouk’s shoulder. “You saw nothing, I know, but you heard us talking about it.”

“Aye, sir. Only I ain’t figured out yet what happened. I know Sir Able went an’ took my Ulfa with him like he said, only I don’t remember hearin’ his horse go.”

“It would be well for you to remain as silent regarding all this. I speak as a friend.”

“Oh, I will, Sir Svon, sir. They’ll ast me what’s become o’ Ulfa, though, I knows they will. All right if I say Sir Able’s took her? They’ll know he was here.”

“Certainly.” Releasing Pouk, Svon turned to Toug. “You haven’t always been as discreet as I might like.”

“I know, Sir Svon. But I won’t say a word about what happened just now.”

“See that you don’t.”

“Have you seen Mani, Sir Svon? Lady Idnn’s cat? I mean the queen’s.”

“He’s the king’s cat now. You brought him here. What did you do with him?”

“I didn’t, Sir Svon. My sister did. Only she didn’t have him when she went with Sir Able.”

“You’d better look for him before you go to bed,” Svon told Toug; and when Toug went to search the shadows around the keep, Svon muttered, “I myself am going to bed, cat or no cat. Good night, Sir Garvaon. Pouk, you and I’ve been foes. I’m a knight now, and you’re blind. If you harbor ill will toward me—”

“I don’t, sir. Not I!”

“I would not blame you. Nor will I seek revenge, now or ever. I offer my hand.” Svon held it out. “Let’s hope we quit Jotunland alive together.” Pouk groped for Svon’s hand, found it, and clasped it.

Garvaon said, “You were Sir Able’s squire. You must know more about him than the rest of us.”

Looking back at them, Toug saw Svon shake his head and heard him say, “I didn’t learn a tenth as much as he could have taught me. I wish I had.”

The three went under the pitch-dark arch of the sally port, and Toug saw them no more. He spat, clenched his thumbs in his fists to warm them, and leaned for a blissful moment against the rough stones of the keep.

“I could lie down right here,” he murmured, “lie down and roll myself in my cloak and sleep. I’d freeze before the night was over, but I could do it.” He yawned and shook himself more or less as Garvaon had, and set out for the stables. Mani was certainly capable of getting back into Utgard without help, and Toug decided that Mani was probably in their turret room that very moment, curled warmly beside a sleeping Etela.

In the stable, the slaves Able had awakened and set to work were just going back to the bed. As loudly as he could, Toug said, “Listen up, all of you! I’ll be back tomorrow morning when I can look this place over by daylight, and I won’t just be concerned about my own horse. Every horse you’ve got had better have food and water, a clean coat, and clean straw to lie in. Don’t say you weren’t warned.”

Several muttered that they would attend to it.

“Meanwhile, I’m looking for a cat. A big—” Almost too late Toug remembered that these slaves were truly blind. “A big furry tomcat. He belongs to the king. Keep him if you find him, treat him well, and tell me when I come back.”

They swore they would, and he returned to the keep more tired than ever. Long knocking got him inside at last. “I thought all had come back that was comin’,” Arn said, and Toug explained that he was the last and told him about Mani.

No doubt Arn had promised to keep an eye out. As soon as he had begun the long jump-and-scramble up the too-high stairs, Toug could no longer remember. This part of the keep was practically solid stone, he knew. Solid stone with a few passages let into it. A few suffocating rooms like the guardroom, and stairs to dungeons dug like mines into the native rock. He felt the whole weight of Utgard around him waiting to crush him, a threat before which he ought to cower, and before which he would have cowered had he not been so tired.

“If the witch appears I won’t even talk to her,” he told himself. “I’ll lie down and cover my head. If she wants to kill me she can.”

But Huld did not appear, and the stair, which always seemed endless, and never more endless than it did that night, ended at last. The fire in the turret chamber was burning brightly; and though Mani was nowhere to be seen, Sword Breaker lay upon the wide bed next to the sleeping Etela, with the sword belt and dagger of human size I had bought in Irringsmouth.

“It’s been a long ride and a cold one,” I said, “but it’s almost over.”

Ulfa spoke through chattering teeth. “I wouldn’t care if it were twice as a long, as long as it’s the ride home.” And then, “You’ll bring Pouk? Bring him back to me?”

“Have you been a wife Pouk would want to come back to?”

“I think so. I’ve tried to be.”

I said, “Then Pouk will bring himself if need be.”

Only tossing black treetops were visible below; but Cloud was cantering down a slope. Gylf, who had gone chasing wild geese, was lagging and nearly out of sight. I whistled.

Ulfa said, “You know, I’ve heard that in the night, but I thought it was the wind.”

“It may have been. See how it’s blowing now. This wind whistles louder than I.”

“But it isn’t as cold as it was.”

“Only autumn here. A storm’s brewing.”

“Is that Glennidam? The houses? Those little fields in the forest?”

“I think so, though it’s possible I lost my way.”

“Put your arm around me. Hold me tight.”

I did, holding her as I had when Cloud first mounted into the sky. “Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not.” Ulfa sighed. “When I left—it seems like a long, long time ago...”

“It was.”

“That’s Glennidam!” She pointed. “There’s our house!” I nodded, and slowed Cloud to a walk.

“I used to think you and I would be married, and we’d come back here, a knight and his lady, riding together on one horse. Hiding myself in bushes beside the road to sleep, lying there with leaves and sticks in my face, I’d think like that so I wouldn’t be afraid. It won’t happen.”

“No,” I said.

“I wouldn’t want it to, not anymore. I love Pouk and Pouk loves me. But this is close—as close as I’ll get. We’re going to have children. We want them, both of us do. When they’re old enough to understand, I’ll tell them about Utgard and how I left it, riding with you on this gray horse, between clouds like cliffs, and the moon so close I could touch it. They’ll think I’m making it up.”

A gust swayed Cloud, and her mane flew like a banner.

“They’ll think I’m making it up,” Ulfa repeated, “and after a while so will I. Hold me tighter.”

I did.

“This is the moment of my life, the golden time.”

Neither of us spoke again until Cloud’s hoofs were on solid ground. I dismounted and dropped her reins, and lifted Ulfa from the saddle. She said, “Thank you. I can’t ever thank you enough. I won’t even try, but I’ll tell about you as long as I live.”

“Have I ever thanked you for the clothes you sewed for me? Or apologized for taking your brother?”

“Yes, and it doesn’t matter anyway.”

I turned to go, but she caught my arm. “Won’t you come in? There’ll be food, and I’ll cook what we have for you.”

“I don’t want to leave Cloud outside in this.”

“Just a moment. Please? Warm your hands at the fire before you go.” I hesitated; then nodded, seeing what it meant to her.

The door was barred. She led me to the back, to the door through which I had left the house long ago, and fished out the latchstring with a twig. The kitchen in which her mother had cowered was dark, though a fire smoldered on the hearth. Ulfa fed it fresh wood and knelt to puff the flames. “It seems too small!”

The autumn wind moaned outside as she opened a door to reveal two pigs, headless and gutted, hanging by their hind feet. “My father’s butchering already. I can roast slices on a fork as fast as you can sit down.”

Warming my hands as she had suggested, I shook my head.

“Sit anyway. You must be tired. I’ll cut some bread—”

Gylf, who had followed us, said, “I’d like that meat.”

Ulfa looked at him in some surprise. “Did you do that?”

I shook my head.

“I know that cat can talk. I’ve heard it.”

The wind moaned in the chimney, stirring the ashes.

“Raw pork’s not good for dogs. Not good for anybody.” She threw wide the doors of a tall cupboard and found bones with a good deal of meat on them. “Ma was saving these for soup, I’m sure, but I’ll give them to your dog.”

There was no reply. I was already outside, and for a moment there can have been no sound in the kitchen save the creaking of the hinges of its door, which swung back and forth, and then (caught by a gust of wind) slammed shut.

One sunny afternoon I had jogged through this field on the same errand, a field full of barley. The barley was reaped now. I ran on stubble, my left hand clutching Eterne to keep her from slapping my thigh. “Disiri? Disiri?”

There was no answer; and yet I felt an answer had come: the leaves had spoken for her, saying here I am.

“Disiri!”

You can’t find me.

I stopped, listening, but the leaves spoke no more. “I can’t,” I admitted. “I’ll search the seven worlds for you, and turn out Mythgarthr and Aelfrice like empty sacks. But I won’t find you unless you want to be found. I know that.”

Give up?

“Yes, I give up.” I raised both hands.

“Here I am.” She stepped from behind the dark bole of the largest tree; and although I could scarcely see anything, I saw her and knew she was tall as few women are tall and slender as no human woman ever is, and too lovely for me to understand, ever, exactly how lovely she was.

My arms closed around her, and we kissed. Her lips were sweeter than honey and warm with life, and there was nothing wrong that mattered because there was nothing wrong we could not mend; and there was love as long as we lived, and love did matter, love would always matter.

We parted, and it seemed to me that we had kissed for centuries, and centuries were not long enough.

“You have the sword Eterne.” Her voice smiled.

I gasped for breath. “Do you want her? She’s yours.”

“I have her already,” she said, “because you have her. Know you why she is called Eterne?”

“Because she’s almost as beautiful as you are, and beauty is eternal.”

We kissed again.

“You’re older,” she said when we separated. “Your hair is giving up your temples.”

“And fatter. I can forgive you anything.”

She laughed. Her laughter was bells of delight. “Even a younger lover?”

“Anything,” I repeated.

“Then I will have a younger lover, and he will be you.”

The wild wind whirled about us, and I wrapped my cloak around her as I had wrapped it around Ulfa. “I could make myself younger, but it would be by the power of Skai.”

“Really?” All the merriment of all the maidens was in her laugh.

“I’d have to go back then, honoring my pledge.”

“Yet you ride among clouds.”

“Cloud bears me up. I do not bear her.”

Our lips met; when we parted we were lying upon moss. “The game is nearly over,” she whispered. “That is what I came to tell you. Did you think it would go on forever?”

When Gylf found me, I was sitting alone, wrapped in my cloak and weeping. “I ate,” Gylf said. “We ought to go.”

I nodded and rose.

Cloud was waiting in the village street, her rump to the wind. On her, I rose higher and higher until I was above the storm; but the wind blew hard even so and it was very cold. When at last we reached the camp in Jotunland I found I could scarcely dismount, and nearly fell.

“No more night riding,” I promised, and Cloud nodded happily, and filled my mind with thoughts of sunlit cloud-mountains, mountains ever changing because they are ever new.

“Ya wanna blanket, sar?” The voice was Uns’. “I been keepin’ ya fire goin’.”

I nodded, and the truth was that I wanted a blanket and a fire badly; but I said, “You’re supposed to be serving the queen, Uns. Not me.”

“Her’s sleepin’, sar. Her don’ want me. I’se sleepin’, ta, most a’ th’ time. On’y I’d rouse ‘n t’row onna stick.”

“Thank you.” I took off my helmet and rubbed my scalp with fingers stiff with cold. “But you must sleep. It’s only a little before sunrise.”

“Soon’s I help wit’ ya boots, sar.”

Knowing that I should have removed them myself, I sat and let Uns pull them off; and while Uns was brushing them, I struggled out of my mail. “I need clean clothes,” I said sleepily. “I can get some in Utgard, I suppose.”

“Take ‘urn off ‘n I’ll wash ‘um inna river fer ya,” Uns declared. “Dry ‘um at th’ fire real quick.”

The temptation was too great.

“Uns?”

“Yessar?”

“A woman told me my hair was receding, that it was leaving my temples bare.”

“Yessar.”

“It’s true.” Naked, I stretched myself on blankets Uns had spread near the fire and pulled them over me.

“Yessar,” Uns repeated. “Looks nice, sar.”

“But I was wearing my helmet, so it didn’t look at all.” Seeing that Uns had not understood, I added, “It was dark, too. She can’t have seen my hairline.”

“Guess she seen ya some udder time, sar.” Uns collected the soiled garments I had discarded.

“She must have, and must have seen me since I returned from Skai. One does not grow old in Skai, Uns.”

“Yessar.”

“No one does. I was there twenty years, and looked no older when I left than I had when I arrived. Now those years have overtaken me. Not that it matters.”

“Nosar.”

“What matters is that she’s been watching me. I knew Baki and Uri watched from Aelfrice, as we watch Overcyns.”

“Never seen none, sar.”

“Those who look see them. We see what we want to see.”

“Awright, sar.”

“You’re going to wash my clothes now?”

“Yessar.”

“I wish you’d do me one more favor before you go. You unsaddled Cloud, didn’t you?”

“Nosar. Not yet. Will, sar.”

“Please do, and see to her needs. When you do, you’ll take my bowcase and quiver with the saddle. I’d like you to open the bowcase and take the bowstring off the bow.”

“Yessar.”

“Bring it to me. If I’m asleep, put it into my hand.”

No doubt Uns said, “Yessar”; for all his crudity, Uns was a good servant. Although he must have, I did not hear him.