The Knight

“Furthermore, the outlaws will avenge themselves upon you and your whole village, if they are left free to do so. Egil, who knocked you down, will do worse. This is your chance to avenge yourself, with words worth more than swords to Duke Marder and me. Do you know of anyone else here who is on good terms with the outlaws? Anyone at all?”

She shook her head.

“Only Seaxneat. What is his wife’s name?”

“Disira.”

“Really?” Ravd pursed his hps. “That’s perilously near a queen’s name some men conjure with. Do you know that name?”

“No. I don’t say it.”

“Does she? I will not use her name. The woman we are speaking of. Seaxneat’s wife. Has she alluded to that queen in your hearing?”

“No,” Brega repeated.

Ravd sighed. “Able, would you know Seaxneat if you saw him? Think before you speak.”

I said, “I’m sure I would, sir.”

“Describe him, please, Brega.”

The woman only stared.

“Is he tall?”

“Taller than I am.” She held her hands a foot apart to indicate the amount. “A dark beard?”

“Red.”

“One eye? Crooked nose? Club foot?” She shook her head to all of them. “What else can you tell us about him?”

“He’s fat,” she said thoughtfully, “and he walks like this.” She stood up and demonstrated, her toes turned in.

“I see. Able, does this square with your recollection? Fat. The red beard? The walk?”

It did.

“When we spoke earlier, you did not name Seaxneat’s wife. Was that because you didn’t know her name, or because you were too prudent to voice it?”

“Because I didn’t know it, sir. I’m not afraid to say Disira.”

“Then it would be wise for you not to say it too often. Do you know what she looks like?”

I nodded. “She’s small, with black hair, and her skin’s very white. I didn’t think her a specially pretty woman when Seaxneat was cheating Bold Berthold and me, but I’ve seen worse.”

“Brega? Does he know her?”

“I think he does.” The woman, who had been wiping her eyes, wiped them again.

“Very well. Pay attention, Able. If you will not listen to me about that woman’s name, listen to this at least. I want you to search the village for these people. When you find either, or both, bring them to me if you can. If you can’t, come back and tell me where they are. Brega will be gone by then, but I’ll be talking to others, as likely as not. Don’t hesitate to interrupt.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want Seaxneat, of course. But I want his wife almost as much. She probably knows less, but she may tell us more. Since she has a new child, it’s quite possible she’s still here. Now go.”

―――

At the outskirts of Glennidam, I halted to search its sprouting fields with my eyes. I had looked into every room of every one of the village’s houses, and into every barn and shed as well, all without seeing either Seaxneat or his wife. Ravd had said I was to interrupt him if I found them, but I did not think he would like being interrupted to hear that I had not.

And Ravd had been right, I told myself. A woman with a newborn would not willingly travel far. There was every chance that when she heard a knight had come to Glennidam she had fled no farther than the nearest trees, where she could sit in the shade to nurse her baby. If I left the village to look there ... Trying to settle the matter in my own mind, I called softly, “Disira? Disira?”

At once it seemed to me that I glimpsed her face among the crowding leaves where the forest began. On one level I felt sure it had been some green joke of sunlight and shadow; on another I knew that I had seen her.

Or at least that I had seen something.

I took a few steps, stopped a minute, still unsure, and hurried forward.

Chapter 7. Disiri

Help ...” It was not so much a cry as a moan like that of the wind, and like a moaning wind it seemed to fill the forest. I pushed through the brush that crowded the forest’s edge, trotted among close-set saplings, then sprinted among mature trees that grew larger and larger and more and more widely spaced as I advanced. “Please help me. Please ...”

I paused to catch my breath, cupped my hands around my mouth, and called, “I’m coming!” as loudly as I could. Even as I did it, I wondered how she had known there was anyone to hear her while I was still walking down the rows of sprouting grain. Possibly she had not. Possibly she had been calling like that, at intervals, for hours.

I trotted again, then ran. Up a steep ridge crowned with dreary hemlocks, and along the ridgeline until it dipped and swerved in oaks. Always it seemed to me that the woman who called could not be more than a hundred strides away.

The woman I felt perfectly certain had to be Seaxneat’s wife Disira. Soon I reached a little river that must surely have been the Griffin. I forded it by the simple expedient of wading in where I was. I had to hold my bow, my quiver, and the little bag I tied to my belt over my head before I was done; but I got through and scrambled up the long sloping bank of rounded stones on the other side.