The Knight

I picked up the stick Svon had dropped and passed it to him. “Here. The meat’s got ashes on it, but they won’t hurt you.” After that, I went over to where our baggage was piled and got my bow and quiver.

Svon sat up. (Maybe he thought I had gone—I had found out already that I could be hard to see sometimes ever since Baki.) He fingered the back of his jaw and the side of his neck, which was where I hit him.

“Had it comin’,” Pouk told him.

Svon said, “I ought to cut off his base-born head,” and I stepped back a little farther. I did not want to kill him, and I knew that if he saw me I might have to.

Pouk had been looking at the meat I had given him. He decided it needed more cooking, and held it over the fire. “Wouldn’t try, not if I was you, sir.”

“I am a gentleman, and gentlemen avenge any wrongs they suffer,” Svon said stiffly

“Had it comin’,” Pouk repeated, “so it ain’t wrong.”

“You couldn’t know. You were asleep.”

I turned to go. Behind me, I heard Pouk say, “I knows him, sir, an’ I knows you.”

“I’ll kill him!”

Very faintly: “If I thought you meant it, sir, I’d kill you meself.”

Chapter 44. Michael

If I had known where I was going when I walked away from the fire, I would tell you. The truth is that I did not have any idea. I wanted to get away from Svon, and I wanted to get away from Org. That was all there was to it. I wanted to find a place where I could rest and get my head straight before I had to deal with them again. I could have built a fire where I stopped; but working in the dark it would have taken a long time, I was tired, and it was not really very cold at all then, even at night. I suppose it was about the end of June or early July but I do not know.

Anyway, I just closed my cloak around me the way you do and lay down. I did not even take off my boots, something I heard about from Uri and Baki later. They found me while I was lying there asleep, and so did Gylf, who went back to our fire and tracked me by scent. All three stayed around to protect me, I am not sure from what.

When I woke up, the sun was high and bright. As soon as I was awake Gylf licked my face; he had been waiting his chance, and it was something he did only when he thought I needed bucking up. I kind of grinned and told him I was okay, and when he did not say anything back to me I knew somebody else was around.

Baki waved from a shadow when she saw I was looking her way, and Uriwaved from under the same tree. “We feared that you might come to harm, Lord. All three of us were afraid for you.”

“Thanks.” I stood up and looked around for a stream, hoping I could get a drink and splash some water on my face, and maybe even take off my clothes and take a sponge bath after they had gone. There was not any, so I asked where I could find Pouk and Svon.

“I do not know where they are now, Lord,” Uri said, “but Baki and I will search for them if you wish us to.”

Baki said, “Gylf might know,” but he shook his head.

Uri drifted toward me, a pretty girl about as slender as girls get, dark red but transparent in the sunshine. (Think of a naked coppery-red girl in a stained-glass window.) “Why did you go into this forest alone and by night? Surely that was foolish.”

“It would have been foolish to stay where I was. Is there any water around here?”

“No,” Uri told me, “not for a league or more.” But Gylf nodded.

“You had water where you camped,” Baki pointed out. “It was in your water bottles.”

“If I had stayed there, Svon and I would have fought,” I explained. “Besides, I knew Org had killed, and I wanted to see what it was.”

Baki said, “Oh, we can tell you that.”

“It was a mule,” Uri said. “A woman came up the road on a mule, and Org rushed at it. I do not think he was going to kill her.”

Baki added, “But she thought he was.”

“The mule reared and threw her. Then Org got it. That was what you heard.”

“He ate it, too. A lot of it, anyway.”

I thought that over. “The woman escaped?”

“Yes.”

A cloud passed between us and the sun just then, and Baki came forward, very real. “She had a sword, but she ran just the same. I cannot blame her for it. Who would want to fight Org in the dark?”

“I would,” I said, “or at least, I did. Maybe I’ll want to again someday. I don’t suppose you know where he is right now?”

Both shook their heads.

“Then find him for me. Or find Svon and Pouk. When you’ve found somebody, come back and tell me.”

They faded to nothing.

“You said you knew where to find water,” I told Gylf. “Is it very far?”

He shook his head. “A nice pool.”

“Please lead me to it.”

He nodded and trotted away, looking over his shoulder the way dogs do to see if I was coming.

I had to trot too, to keep up. “Nobody else is around, are they? You can talk?”

“I did.”

“Did Uri or Baki know about this water of yours, too?”

“Uh-huh.”

“But they wouldn’t tell me. It can’t have been because they wanted me to die of thirst. This is a forest, not a desert, so it can’t be very hard to find water. Why didn’t they want me to know about this water of yours?”

“A god’s there.”