The Knight

“She will? Well, what if she can’t?” He looked to Ravd for support, but got none.

I said, “Then would she be worth marrying?” Ravd chuckled.

Svon leveled a forefinger at me. “Someday I’ll teach—”

“You must learn yourself before the day for teaching comes,” Ravd told him. “Meanwhile, Able here might teach us both, I think. Who is Berthold, Able?”

“My brother.” That was what we told people, Ben, and I knew Bold Berthold believed it.

“Older than yourself, since he advises you.”

I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Where are your father and mother?”

“Our father died years ago,” I told Ravd, “and my mother left soon after I was born.” It was true where you are, and here as well.

“I’m sorry to hear it. Sisters?”

“No, none,” I said. “Our father raised my brother, and my brother raised me.”

Svon laughed again.

I was confused already, memories of home mingling with stories Bold Berthold had told me of the family here that had been his and was supposed to be mine. It was all in the past, and although America is very far from here in the present, the past is only memories, and records nobody reads, and records nobody can read. This place and that place are mixed together like the books in the school library, so many things on the wrong shelf that nobody knows what is right for it anymore.

Ravd said, “You and your brother don’t live in Glennidam, from what you said. You’d know the name of Seaxneat’s wife, and the name of her new child, too, since there are only about fifty people in the village. What village do you live in?”

“We don’t live in any of them,” I explained. “We live by ourselves, and keep to ourselves, mostly.”

“Outlaws,” Svon whispered.

“They may be.” Ravd’s shoulders rose and fell by the thickness of a blade of grass. “Would you guide me to your house if I asked you, Able?”

“It’s Bold Berthold’s, not mine, sir.” I was glaring at Svon.

“To your brother’s then. Would you take us there?”

“Gladly. But it’s no grand place, just a hut. It’s not much bigger than your tent.” I thought Svon was going to say something; he did not, so I said, “I ought to become a bandit, like Svon says. Then we’d have a nice house with thick walls and doors, and enough to eat.”

“There are outlaws in this forest, Able,” Ravd told me. “They call themselves the Free Companies. Do they have those things?”

“I suppose they do, sir.”

“Have you seen them for yourself?”

I shook my head.

“When we met, Svon feared you would lead us into an ambush. Do you think the Free Companies might ambush us in sober fact? With three to fight?”

“Two to fight,” I told him. “Svon would run.”

“I would not!”

“You’ll run from me before the owl hoots.” I spat into the fire. “From two lame cats and a girl you’d run like a rabbit.”

His hand went to his hilt. I knew I had to stop him before he drew. I jumped the fire and knocked him down. He let go of the hilt when he fell, and I drew his sword and threw it into the bushes. We fought on the ground the way you and I did sometimes, he trying to get at his dagger while I tried to stop him. We got too close to the fire and he broke loose. I thought he was going to draw it and stab me, but he jumped up and ran instead.

I tried to clean myself off a little and told Ravd, “You can have your scield back if you want it.”

“May.” He had never stirred. “May governs permissions, gifts, and things of that sort. You speak too well, Able, to make such an elementary mistake.”

I nodded. I had not figured him out, and I was not sure I ever would.

“Sit down, and keep my scield. When Svon returns, I’ll have him give you another for tomorrow.”

“I thought you’d be mad at me.”

Ravd shook his head. “Svon must become a knight soon. His family expects it and so does he. So do His Grace and I, for that matter. Thus, he will. Before he receives the accolade, he has a great deal to learn. I have been teaching him, to the best of my ability.”

“And me,” I told him. “About can and may and other things, too.”

“Thank you.”

For a while after that, we sat with our thoughts. Before long I said, “Could I become a knight?”

That was the only time I saw Ravd look surprised, and it was no more than his eyes opening a little wider. “We can’t take you with us, if that’s what you mean.”

I shook my head. “I have to stay and take care of Bold Berthold. But sometime? If I stay here?”

“You’re very nearly a knight now, I believe. What makes a knight, Able? I’d like your ideas on the matter.”

He reminded me of Ms. Sparreo, and I grinned. “And set them right.”

Ravd smiled back. “If they need to be set right, yes. So tell me, how is a knight different from any other man?”

“Mail like yours.”

Ravd shook his head.

“A big horse like Blackmane, then.”

“No.”

“Money?”

“No, indeed. I mentioned the accolade when we were talking about my squire. Did you understand me?” I shook my head.