The Wizard

Chapter 27. Redhall

We could not return Garvaon to Finefield, however much we wished to; but a grave in Jotunland seemed a thing of horror. We resolved to carry him south so long as the cold weather held, and inter him as near his home as Parka decreed.

The Host of Jotunland held the pass against us, as is well known. Fewer know that we interred Garvaon before the battle, fearing there would be too many to bury after it. We dug his grave and laid him in it, offered such sacrifices as we could make, and together sang our hopes for him. Hearing us, the Angrborn’sent a flag of truce to inquire. “Sir Garvaon is no more,” Beel told the giant who carried it. “He was the bravest of my knights, and the best. We sing for his spirit, for we are not as you. And we have raised the cairn you see for him.”

He looked for it, but could not discover it ‘til Marder indicated it to him, for it rose higher than many a hill. “You made that?”

“I alone?” Marder shook his head. “No, I could not. Nor could Lord Beel, nor Sir Able, Sir Leort, nor Sir Woddet. We all did, working together.”

The Frost Giant leaned upon his sword. “I have to speak for those who sent me.” We nodded and said we understood.

“We’re going to kill you and tear it down. There won’t be two stones together when we’re through.”

“You must beat us first,” Svon declared, and grinned.

“You know me?”

Svon indicated the giant’s bandaged hand. “You are Bitergarm, and you were one of King Gilling’s champions.”

“That’s my name,” Bitergarm told Beel. “I fought them, him and Garvaon. You were there.”

Beel said nothing; Idnn told Bitergarm, “So was I.”

“I wanted to kill him myself.” Bitergarm’s deep rumble might have been a mountain’s talking. “He was tough as your hotlands grow.”

Svon and I agreed.

“So I’m sorry he’s dead. That’s for me. I’ll tear it down along with the rest, only—” He had caught sight of one of Idnn’s subjects.

Idnn herself advanced fearlessly and laid a hand on his arm. “I am their queen. Yours, too, Bitergarm.”

“Schildstarr’s the king.”

“A king who’d have you war on your queen, your mother, your wife, and your sisters. I don’t order you to fight for us against King Schildstarr. But I ask you, what sort of king is it who makes the right arm smite the left? You’re never loved, you Frost Giants. Not even by your mothers. I know it, and I pity you. But is the canard true? Is it true that you yourselves never love?”

He turned and left without another word.

They attacked by night, as we had feared they would; but our Aelf raised the alarm long before they reached our camp, and the fire-arrows turned them back with many dead, for all the Aelf see in darkness as well as Mani. We sent Org after them when they retreated, telling him to kill any who came to his hand, and to strike their rear when they fronted us once more.

The next day they held the pass against us, six of their grimmest shield-to-shield across the War Way, with a thousand more behind. There, in the pass I had held against the Black Knight who was Marder, those Mice they had driven out rained stones and spears on them until the sun was high.

Three times we charged them with the lance, and each time they threw us back and harvested their dead. At sunset I knelt for Idnn’s blessing, and on foot led their own women against them. Eterne drank their blood to the hilt, and the Knights of the Sword drank it too, some with two followers or three, and some with a hundred.

Within an hour the snow began, and Baki’s kin, with their bows and fresh fire-arrows, joined the Mice. The Sons of Angr broke and fled south into the mountains, where most who had not fallen, fell.

As for us, we struck off the heads of hundreds slain, and heaped them around Garvaon’s cairn, one on another until they covered it; and Beel and I, recalling his victory when he was young and how he had dragged a head behind two horses, wept.

That night Idnn sent Hela for me. In the pavilion that had been Marder’s, I sat with her (for she was gracious) and with Svon and Hela shared what little wine we had.

“You are an honorable knight,” she told me. “Sir Svon is, we believe, the most honorable we have known. But when we charge him with it, he says he’s but your image in that.”

I did not know how to answer her, but Mani did it for me, saying, “To Skai this Mythgarthr we cherish is only likenesses and wind, Your Majesty. But a likeness cherished is more.” His purling voice might have charmed a bird from its nest, I thought; yet I sensed that he meant all he said.

“Hela here and her brother have been of great service to us,” Idnn continued.

“To us all, Your Majesty.”

“As have you. No man and no woman has been of greater service than you.”

“Kneel,” Mani whispered; but I did not kneel.

“We are a queen.” Idnn touched the diadem she wore. “You have led our subjects against the foe.”

I remained silent, wishing that I might speak with Gylf. Cloud’s mind touched mine; although it was filled with love, she had no advice to give.

“You have not seen the lands we rule,” Idnn continued. “No more have we. Yet there are such lands, and they have been described to us.”

Svon said, “We’re going there when we leave the court. Her Majesty, my liege Lord Beel, and I.”

“As a queen, we have power to give estates. As we have power to raise to the peerage, power we would have even if we had no lands to give. We will make you an earl, Sir Able, if you’ll have it.”

Hela murmured, “Take the title and the lands refuse, if you will.”

“I will take neither,” I told Idnn. “I know I can’t refuse without insult, and I am loath to. But I must.”

“Your liege consents.”

“My liege in Mythgarthr, you mean, Your Majesty. He’s the best of men. But no. I insult you because I must. Sir Svon must be your champion. I’ve sworn to engage him when we reach the court. He’ll avenge you.”

Idnn glanced at Svon and shook her head, saying, “We wish to honor you, not to quarrel with you, Sir Able.”

“I have wished to honor you always, Your Majesty.”

Suddenly she smiled. “Do you remember when you came to my father to borrow a horse? You and Gylf and Mani?”

“It was long ago,” I told her, “and I have forgotten it—once. I do not believe I will ever forget it again.”

“It was in this present year,” Idnn told me. “We don’t think it’s seen two moons. Certainly it hasn’t seen three. But we want to say you’ve given Mani to us since, something we never dreamed would happen. Tonight we hoped to give you a great boon, for that and all your kindnesses, and for being an army on two legs. Instead, we’re going to ask more. You know what Hela and Heimir have done for all of us. You let Sir Woddet have Hela, and she wishes to remain with him. You retain her brother. So he says.”

I said I would not keep him against his will, and that I had seen little of him since Hela had gone to Sir Woddet.

“We’d like to reward Hela, and the boon she asks is that her brother be given to her.”

Hela herself said, “He is my brother, and as a brother I love him, Sir Able. I fear he would fare ill without me.”

“If he will serve you, you may have him,” I told her. “If you have him, Sir Woddet will have him too. Though his tongue is lame, he’s a first-class fighting man.”

She thanked me; when she had finished Idnn said, “Since you will not leave your liege for us—you will not? Not for an earldom? We offer it again.”

“I have to refuse it again. I beg you not to offer it a third time.”

“Very well. We must have your liege here. Will you fetch him for us, Hela?”

“And Sir Woddet, Your Majesty? You know that I must tell him all I hear, and he ask me. Would you send me out when I have brought the duke?”

Svon muttered, “I am with Hela, Your Majesty.”

“Sir Woddet, too,” Idnn agreed, “as quickly as may be.”

When Hela had gone Idnn said, “We mean to examine you. Hela prompted it. The sister’s mind is as sharp as the brother’s is dull, we find. She’s the edge of the blade—he’s the back. We’ve given her mother to Woddet, too, and he’s loaned her to us.”

I smiled, and she graciously smiled in return.

“Sir Svon has told us of Aelfrice. How he went there with Sir Garvaon and found you with a fleet that vanished. About his squire as well—how Squire Toug had gone down a stair between worlds in a haunted spire, where fair women had been held to draw mariners to its summit.”

“Sir Svon knows much of Aelfrice,” I said.

Svon coughed. “You must wonder how I learned it.”

“From Toug?”

Slowly he shook his head. “Toug will scarcely speak. When His Grace comes we’ll ask about the matter you and I spoke of in the wood. I might as well tell you. It wouldn’t be right for us to surprise you with it.”

I said that I had surmised as much.

Idnn said, “We’d hoped to question you as a vassal. Your honor might not let you evade my questions then.”

“It wouldn’t, of course, Your Majesty, if they were questions yours let you ask me.”

Svon said, “I’ve questions too, about Aelfrice. You told me you’d been knighted by an Aelfqueen. Remember?”

I shrugged. “It’s true, though Sheerwall mocked me.”

“When we camped by the river.”

“You went to the inn. Pouk and I camped there.”

He flushed. I saw that the boy still lived in him and liked him better for it.

Idnn said, “Do you mean the ladies mocked you? It was to get your attention. You may trust me here.”

I shook my head. “I don’t believe they did. Perhaps they pitied me. The men mocked me, save for Sir Woddet.”

“Who’s here with me,” Marder said. “Did I mock you? If I did, I was drunk. We’ll engage again if you wish it.”

“You did not, Your Grace.”

Svon yielded his chair and Hela fetched a bench.

Idnn said, “He will not answer us, Your Grace. You must ask him who killed our husband. We know he knows.”

Marder frowned. “Do you, Sir Able? Yes or no.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

He sat silent until Idnn said, “Will you not ask him?”

“Perhaps not. If he will not speak, he may have a good reason. I’ll ask that instead. Sir Able, much as I respect you, I ask as your liege. Answer as you are a true knight. Why are you silent on this?”

I said, “Because no good can come of it, Your Grace. Only sorrow and wretchedness.”

At length Marder said, “We might punish him, might we not? Or her. The guilty party.”

“No, Your Grace.”

“We could not?”

I shook my head. “No, your Grace. You could not.”

So softly that it seemed he wished no one to hear but me, Mani said, “Wasn’t it for love?”

I nodded.

Idnn made a sound but did not speak, and Svon filled the silence. “There’s a question I’ve been eager to ask. I hope you’ll answer. I never questioned you enough when I was your squire, and I hope you’ll forgive that. I didn’t talk with Sir Ravd as I should have, either. I hated him for trying to teach me, and for that I will never forgive myself. I’d like not to feel as bad about you as I do about him. I told you Toug would hardly speak. This was before the fog lifted.”

I reminded him that he had just repeated it.

“Perhaps I did. It’s like what you told us about the Aelfqueen. It’s true, so why shouldn’t I say it? But—but it’s not entirely true. He said that when Sir Garvaon died, you saw something the rest of us didn’t. He thought I might have, since I’m a knight too. He said—he said...”

Marder saved him. “That reminds me. Her Majesty’s father is anxious to speak to you. It concerns young Wistan, Sir Garvaon’s armor, and so on. He asked me to mention it.”

I said that I would wait on him that night if he were still up, and the next morning otherwise.

Woddet coughed. “I’m a knight too. By the Lady, I wish to every Overcyn in Skai that I’d been there with you.”

Idnn said, “Sir Garvaon would have lived, we’re sure.”

I said, “Don’t you want to ask me why I didn’t fight Setr? All of you? Go ahead.”

Hela said, “Then I ask. It was not fear, I know.” Svon muttered, “He’d been your friend, you said.”

“He had been. But there was another reason. It was because I knew Setr had to die.” To change the subject, I added, “When heroes die, they are carried to Skai to serve the Valfather. Sometimes at least. That’s what I saw, Sir Svon—what Toug saw I saw when he didn’t and you didn’t. I saw the Valfather’s shieldmaiden descend, and Sir Garvaon rise and go with her. We humans—we knights, whether we’re called knights or not—get to Skai sometimes. Suppose that one of us, the best of us, tried to seize its crown.”

They did not understand; I waved Skai and its crown aside. “Setr had to die. For him to die, my friend Garsecg had to die too, because Garsecg was Setr by another name. Setr feared me. He could have joined me here any time, but he’d shaped me, like Disiri, and knew I could kill him.”

Idnn asked, “Is that the Aelfqueen who knighted you? What are you talking about, Sir Able?”

I laughed, and said I did not know myself. The ghost of something taken from my mind had returned to haunt it.

Hela said, “It troubles him.”

And Idnn, “Who is this queen?”

“She’s Queen of the Moss Aelf, Your Majesty, and she educated and knighted me. She did what she did for a good purpose, though I don’t know what it was. Garsecg, who was Setr, shaped me too, and thought his purpose good, perhaps. I was to fight Kulili—as I did, not long before he died.”

Hela and Woddet wanted to ask about her, but I cut them off. “Having formed me nearly as much as Kulili had formed the Aelf, he knew I’d kill him if we fought. Because he knew it, he would never have fought me. He would have fled, and I don’t believe even Cloud could have overtaken him before he got to Muspel. Grengarm was trying to get to Aelfrice when Toug and I caught up with him, but I had no griffin to chase Setr on. So I said I wouldn’t engage him and set Sir Garvaon and Sir Svon on him, hoping they would be enough.”

“We weren’t,” Svon said.

I rose. “I should’ve entered the fight in time to save Sir Garvaon. I thought he was about to rescue you. Before I could draw, he was in the dragon’s jaws—the one I’d said I wouldn’t fight. Every word of blame you lay on me I deserve. I’ll redeem myself when I can.” I addressed Idnn. “Have I leave to go, Your Majesty?”

“There will be no word of blame from us, Sir Able.”

I bowed. “May I go?”

I left the pavilion and wandered alone, thinking about a death I could have prevented, and forgetting that I was to see Beel. At last I went to the fires of the Daughters of Angr, supposing that the women would be as conscienceless and violent as their husbands. I would goad them, all would fight, and I would leave Eterne in her sheath. Larger even than their men, they teased instead like girls and women everywhere. Having heard me shout Disiri’s name in battle, they wanted to know whether I had kissed her, and a thousand other things. I ate with them, and drank the strong ale they spice with willow bark.

Marder joined me there, speaking of wars fought before I was born and knights who had served his father. After a time he said, “They wished to question you on a matter we both understand. I would ask about another matter, though it bears on the first. I ask no oath. You wouldn’t lie to me.”

I confirmed that I would not.

“You know the Aelf better than almost any man—that much is plain. Was one present tonight, when we spoke with that fair lady who rules these great ladies?”

I said, “There may have been, Your Grace, but if there was I wasn’t aware of it.”

We sat sipping ale and staring into the fire, a fire too great for any human cook to roast meat on, until Marder said, “In speaking of that other matter, someone whispered that it was done for love. The words were addressed to you, I think. Was it the queen who spoke so?”

I said it was not, and begged him not to examine me further, explaining that any answer would betray a friend.

“That being so I will not, Sir Able. I will ask one question more, however. I did not know this person present. Did Her Majesty, in whose pavilion we sat, know it?”

“Yes indeed, Your Grace. She was aware of it from the beginning, rest assured.”

Then Borda, a fur woman as tall as the mainmast of a caravel, said, “The knight would leave our queen’s matters to our queen. I know little of knights and nothing of dukes. Still it seems knights are wiser.”

When I returned to my own fire, Pouk and Uns lay asleep; and a woman sat warming her hands while Gylf dozed beside her. I asked how I might serve her, and when she turned, I thought that it was Lynnet. “Sit with me,” she said, and her voice was not Lynnet’s. “No. You’re weary and fuddled. Lie here with your head in my lap, and I’ll talk to you.”

I did, and she told me many things: her girlhood in America, how she met my father, and how they came to wed.

The journey south was long and slow, and one day I asked leave to ride ahead, explaining that I wished to see Redhall. South I galloped down the War Way, telling Wistan, Pouk, and Uns to join me when they could; and when Cloud and I were out of sight, we mounted into the air, higher and higher until the whole land spread below us like a map on a table and we saw the War Way as a thread, and the company—Beel’s and Marder’s and the Daughters of Angr whom Idnn was leading to the south—like a worm crawling along that thread. Ulfa’s Glennidam was a dot by a silver stream, while on the margins of the Griffin I saw where Griffmsford had stood. Then the Irring, and ruined Irringsmouth where it met the sea. Behind us the mountains rose, a mighty wall with parapets of snow and ice; but Cloud and Gylf—and I upon Cloud’s back—rose higher than they.

Until I saw a castle like a star. The Valfather stood upon a battlement, tiny and far but clear. One hand was lost in his beard, the other gripped his spear; on his head, in place of the broad hat he wore when walking the little roads of Mythgarthr, was the horned helmet that is his crown.

Our eyes met, and Cloud rolled at his glance, her hooves to Skai and her back to our world, so that the Valfather and his castle were far below us.

Had he indicated that he wanted us to descend, we would have done it at once. As it was we rose, although I felt that he wished—or at least invited—me to return to his hall. We climbed far before Mythgarthr lay below us again.

This I am tempted to omit: that I mistook another manor for Redhall. Mistake it I did, and to its door came Cloud, Gylf, and I; and I hammered it with a great iron ring, and hammered again, for it was late. At last a servingman came. I asked if it was Redhall (it was on the road to Kingsdoom), and he assured me it was not, that Redhall stood some way to the south. He supplied particulars of the manor house and its gate, and offered me a bed for the night. I thanked him but explained that I was determined to sleep in Redhall. Even then I knew I would not spend many nights there, and I wanted to make them as many as I could.

Away we went, galloping hard, with Gylf running ahead as if hot on some scent, until (long after any horse would have been exhausted) I turned aside to ask again, for we had come far and I feared we had passed Redhall in the dark.

The gate was ruinous, the house beyond it more ruinous still. I was about to leave without knocking when I realized that the stone figure beside the entrance was a manticore. After that I knocked indeed, shouted, and beat the weatherworn panels with the hilt of my dagger.

The woman who came bearing a candle was old, bent, and nearly toothless. Knowing she might be frightened to find an armed man at her door so late, I gave my name and assured her that I was only a lost traveler who meant no harm.

“More’s the pity. I hoped you had come to kill me.”

“Only to ask directions,” I said, “and bring good news. Is this Goldenlawn?” She nodded in silence. “And where stands Redhall?”

“A league and a half.” She pointed south. “It has no lord. I doubt they’ll open for you, and we’ve little here.”

“It has a lord again,” I told her. “I’m him, but I haven’t seen it.”

At that she stood straighter; and although she did not smile, it seemed almost she did. “The Frost Giants came at first-frost, years and years ago.”

“Yes,” I said. “So I understood.”

“He was away, Sir Ravd was.” She sucked her gums. “Off to the wars. He would’ve helped us. You going to stay?”

“In Redhall? For a few days, perhaps.”

“Here.”

“No, I’ll sleep in my own bed tonight, though it’s a bed I’ve never seen. I said I was Sir Able of the High Heart, I know. That’s true enough—the name I’ve had for years. I have to learn to say Sir Able of Redhall, too.”

“I wish you rest, Sir Able.” Her door began to close.

“Wait,” I said. “You haven’t heard my good news.”

“I thought that was it. What is it?”

“Your mistress, Lady Lynnet, is returning.”

She stared at me so long I thought that she would never stop, and I backed away. At that she said, “You’re an Aelf!”

“No. Sometimes I wish I were.”

“Come to torment me!”

“I would never do such a thing. Lady Lynnet’s coming to resume possession, with Mistress Etela. You must sweep the house, and make everything as presentable as you can.”

“This is my house,” the old woman said, “and I am Lady Lis.” With that she shut the door; I heard her sobbing on the other side for as long as I stayed there.

No Angrborn had taken Redhall, or it had been repaired. Stone pillars topped with lions marked an entrance road of half a league, narrow but in good repair. It led to a broad gate flanked with towers in a wall by no means contemptible. The gate was barred, but a blast on the horn hung from it brought four sleepy men-at-arms. The eldest said, “You come late, sir knight. Early, rather. This gate closes with the rising of the evening star, and does not open again until a man can use the bow. Come back then.”

“It opens when I want it to.” I pushed him aside.

The bailey was pounded earth, wide and overlooked by a manor too lofty to blush before castles. The mastiffs who guarded it were scarcely smaller than Gylf, broad of chest and great of head. How they knew me I cannot say; but they did, and stood in turn with their paws on my shoulders to look me in the face, and fawned on me afterward.

“Who are you?” the oldest man-at-arms demanded. “What’s that shield you bear? I must have your name.”

I turned on him. “I’ll have yours right now. Give it, or out sword and die.”

To my surprise he drew. He was standing too near; I got his arm, wrenched his sword away, and laid him at my feet with his own point to his throat. Prodded, he gasped, “Qut. My name’s Qut.”

“From the south?”

“My mother—taken prisoner. Married and stayed.”

The others had stood gaping all this while. I told them they had to learn to fight if they were to be men-at-arms of mine, and offered to engage their best then and there with Qut’s sword. They knelt instead, three bumpkins with not a leader among them.

Taking my foot from Qut’s chest, I said, “I am the new owner, Sir Able of Redhall.”

The three nodded. Qut scrambled up to one knee.

“You.” I pointed. “Take Cloud to the stable. Wake my grooms. She’s been ridden hard. She’s to be unsaddled and turned out to pasture. Tell them I’ll know of any injury to her, however slight, and it’ll be avenged in blood.”

He took her reins and hurried away.

“There’s a steward here?”

Qut said there was, and that his name was Halweard.

“Good. Wake him. Wake the cooks as well.”

“It’s barred, sir. I’ll have to rouse somebody—”

A look and a gesture sent him. Our scuffle, brief as it had been, had ended any thought of sleep. I decided to eat—we had been on short rations, and I was ravenous—and stay up, retiring early the next night.

Which is what I did. I inspected Redhall, finding its barns, fields, and larders in good order but its men-at-arms and archers undrilled and a little slovenly.

Next day we began contests for the bow. I gave a ham to the winner. (I had offered a piece of Marder’s gold to any archer who outshot me; none did.) The one whose score was next to worst was to strike the one with the worst smartly on the bottom with his bow. He struck soft, so I had the next worst hit him for it. That was a whack that made dust fly.

My men-at-arms had been spectators to this and enjoyed it. Recalling the Angrborn, I decided to see whether they had profited as well. There were bows, as well as arrows by the hundred, in our armory. I gave each man-at-arms a bow and arrows, and had each shoot at very moderate range.

After that we held a contest (while the archers laughed and jeered) with the same prizes and punishment.

That evening Qut confided that there was grumbling among those who had done badly. The sword, they said, was their weapon—sword, partisane, and halbert. Thus on the third day we cut saplings for practice swords, as Garvaon and I had, and I drilled them all morning, and fought them that afternoon, knocking them about.

On the fourth day we cut quarterstaves, I explaining that the man who knew the quarterstaff would be a fighter to be reckoned with when armed with partisane or halbert. When I had beaten a round dozen, one knocked me sprawling with such a blow as might have done me real hurt had I not been helmeted. I gave him the promised gold, and engaged him again for another. The storm-surge returned in that match, and it seemed almost that Garsecg swam beside me. I broke his quarterstaff and knocked him to his knees when he tried to defend himself with the halves. After that I had him teach them first, and afterward set them against one another, with us to judge between them. Balye was his name.

That night I ate supper with Gylf. Halweard brought my bread and soup and ale, staying until I should dismiss him. “Winter’s blast tonight, Sir Able,” he said. “It was cold in the north, I’m sure.”

I said it had been very cold at times.

“We haven’t had it here.just a nip to ripen the apples. We’ll get it good tonight. Hear the wind in the chimney?”

I was on my feet in a moment and back in my boots in two. Out the sally port we kept barred but unguarded, and across three meadows. I found her in the wood, and our hugs were sweeter than any wine, and our kisses more intoxicating. She showed me a shelter her guards had woven for us, and in it we lay on moss and kissed a hundred times, and kept each other warm, my fur cloak for her and her great cloak of leaves over us both; we talked of love, and all we said would fill a book thicker than this. Yet all we said was only this: that I loved her and she loved me, and we had waited long and long, would be parted no longer.

At last she told me, “I took you for my instrument, and filled you with the words I’d have you say to Arnthor, and to every king of human kind through all the world, and made of you such a man as might speak to kings, and thought that I did well. It was foolishness, all of it, and there is only love. I’ll be your wife this moment.”

As she spoke, she changed, her green skin white. “No,” I said, and made as if to rise.

“I’ll be your wedded wife—or we’ll tell men so—and live in shadowed rooms, and comb my hair by the pearl of your night, and perfume myself for you.”

“No,” I said again. “I’ll love you in any shape you choose, but I love you best as you were here.”

“Do not speak to the king. Promise me that.”

I laughed. “I’ve faced an army of the Angrborn. Is there worse at Thortower?”

“For you? Yes.”

I thought about that; and at last I said, “What about you? Are you afraid just for me? Would you be safe there?”

She wept.

I returned to Redhall with snow in my hair. Halweard had waited and brought me a pot of hot ale, which was kindly done. I told him I would leave in the morning for Thortower.

“Do you know it well, sir?”

I sat. “Not at all. I’ve never been there.”

“It might be wise to find a friend to introduce you, someone familiar with the court.”

I explained that until Beel came I had no such friend, and sent him off to bed. That was where I should have gone myself. I did not, sipping ale that had been hot enough to hiss, staring into the fire, and thinking of what Disiri had said. She had not made me as Kulili had made her race; my parents had done that. Still she had made me in a sense, teaching me, and most of all teaching me what I was to say in Thortower. I shut my eyes and heard the cries of the gulls outside Parka’s cave, the waves, the fluttering wings. What was I to say?

It was no ordinary message, clearly, since I knew myself no ordinary man. I had burned for renown and skill at arms, and had not known I had burned for them so the king would listen. Toug had met Disiri as well as I; but she had no message for him, and he longed only for the plow—for the slow turn of the seasons and the life his father had, in which ambition was the wish for another cow.

In Redhall I could live for years, shaping my men and overseeing the fields and dairy. If Marder called on me for knight-service I would go. But if he did not, I would stay, visiting Forcetti once a month and Sheerwall three times a year. Disiri would come; and if it seemed to my maids that a woman not quite human frequented our corridors, why, let them gossip. What was it Ulfa had called me? A wizard knight, though Gylf and Cloud were wizardry enough for any man...

The darkest corner of the room, that point farthest from the fire, grew darker. I thought it no more than the failing of the fire, and told myself that there was small point in piling more wood on it; I would go to bed soon, and coals—and fire as well—would remain for morning.

Dark and darker. The hearth rug, the horns of the noble stag on the wall, and the pot that held my ale were lit as before. Yet night had come in and waited in the corner.

I called for Uri and for Baki, thinking it might be some trick of theirs, then to all the Aelf. Several clans were of that color, Mani had said, and they had often played tricks on Bold Berthold. But if the scraps of darkness there were Aelf, they made no reply.

At last I called for Org, although I thought him behind me with Svon and the rest. He answered from behind my chair. “Good Lord!” I exclaimed, and at that there was laughter from the corner, a laugh that made me think of ice in the northern caves, and the icicles that sang (as Borda had told Marder and me) if a spearhead touched them in the dark.