The Knight

“Yes, Your Lordship. Pouk, Your Lordship. Sir Able told me, Your Lordship.”

“This Pouk has been captured and enslaved by the Angrborn.”

“Yes, Your Lordship.”

“Sir Able sought to rescue him, and sought my help in his attempt. I gave it, and thus I have been ruined, and the errand I undertook for His Majesty has ended in failure. Sir Able is to be reviled on that account, and I feel you’re the person to do it. Coming from you, the abuse should be doubly painful. You need not fear that Sir Able will strike or stab you. Sir Garvaon and I are here to protect you, though I feel sure nothing of the kind will be needed. Proceed.”

“To—to ..,.?” The servingman looked helplessly from Beel to me and back again.

“To revile him,” Beel explained patiently. “I have no doubt you command a hundredweight of filthy names. Employ them.”

“Father ...” Idnn’s eyes were full of tears.

“To—to Sir Able, Your Lordship?”

“Exactly.” Beel was adamant. “Begin, Swert.”

“Sir Able, you—you ...”

“Go on.”

The servingman gulped. “I’m sorry, Sir Able, for what’s happened, whatever it was. And—and ...”

Idnn drew herself up. “Proceed, Swert. You know what my father wants. Do it.”

“And if you’re to blame, Sir Able, you’re a very bad man. But ... But so am I. Whatever anyone calls you, they can call me that too.”

“There,” Beel said. “Your disgrace is complete, Sir Able. You have been abused by my valet. Now cease this juvenile posturing and listen to me.”

“I will, Your Lordship.”

“I am His Majesty’s ambassador to Jotunland. Had my embassy succeeded, the credit would have been mine and mine alone. It has failed, and the blame is mine. I accept it, and I am ready to stand before King Arnthor, to report that I have lost his gifts, and to welcome whatever punishment he may decree.”

I glanced at Idnn, but she did not speak. If she felt joy at the prospect of returning to Kingsdoom, nothing in her face showed it. Garvaon looked grim and unhappy.

At last I said, “You’re going back, Your Lordship?”

“Yes. I had thought of remaining here with Idnn until Sir Garvaon and Master Crol joined us with what remains of our party, but we must bury our dead. A good many of them, from what Sir Garvaon tells me. And no doubt there are other tasks too. We will return with you, and spend the night in whatever is left of our camp. I hope to inter our dead by sunset, and set out tomorrow morning. We’ll see.”

“Set out for the south?”

“Yes. I’ve told you so.”

From his place in Idnn’s lap, Mani raised an eyebrow.

I said, “You don’t expect me to come with you, I hope, Your Lordship?”

The mousy-looking servingman smiled. That smile was suppressed almost at once, but not before I had seen it.

“I really hadn’t thought about that,” Beel said, “but you’re not one of my retainers. You may do as you choose, though you would be very welcome if you chose to come with us. The horse I gave you is yours, of course. As is that helmet. What will you do?”

Uns arrived, panting and sweating. After glancing at him, I said, “I’ll try to find a mount for my servant there, My Lord.”

“We’ve none to spare now, Sir Able. So Sir Garvaon informs me. We will not have horses and mules enough, even, for our own needs.”

Garvaon nodded.

“I know that as well as he does,” I told Beel, “but the Angrborn will have plenty. I’ll get one of those for Uns, if I can.”

“You’re going after them alone?”

“Yes, My Lord.”

Uns, bowed already by his deformity bowed lower still. “Not ‘zacly aw ‘lone, Ya Lordship, sar. I’ll be holdin’ Sar Abie’s stirrup, sar.”

“Alone except for this—this hunchback?”

Mani sprang to my shoulder, an astonishing leap.

“I’ll have my cat too, I think, My Lord, and the charger you gave me. My dog’s still looking for Pouk, but he might come back. I hope so, and the Angrborn will find him harder to handle next time. The friends I described to you last night will be with me too, at least some of the time.”

Idnn rose and hugged me. She was crying, and did not say anything that I can remember.

Beel drew a deep breath. “If my daughter’s arms weren’t around you, Sir Able, my own would be. No doubt you prefer hers, but do you really believe we stand a chance?”

“We,’ My Lord?”

“I am a baron of the realm, entitled to a seat at the king’s high table. They may say in Thortower that I failed, but they shall not say that I was bested in courage by a cripple.”

“Then I do, My Lord. I listened to you. Will you listen to me, if I stop the juvenile posturing?”

Beel nodded.

“We talk about the Angrborn as if they were as big as a tower, or as tall as a ship’s mainmast. I was told once by a good friend that I’d be shocked anytime I saw one.”

I had decided to lie, and not to lie by halves, either. “All right, I was. But I was shocked at how small they were. They’re no bigger, compared to Sir Garvaon and me, than we would be to boys. We call them giants and Frost Giants, and we say they’re the Sons of Angr. But they’re just big, ugly men.”

“Brave words.”