The Knight

“Y-yes.” I fell to my knees, somehow feeling it might keep me from stammering. “I would, beautiful queen. Have pity and show yourself.” She stepped from behind a tree, no taller than Toug, slender as the naked sword she held, and green. He knelt too, I suppose because I had. “Is this your slave, Able? Tell him to get up.”

I made an urgent gesture and Toug rose.

“I let you pay me homage, as a very great favor. It extends no further than yourself.”

I said, “Thank you. Thanks very much. I understand.”

“Now you ought to stand, too. In the future, you are to send him away when you wish to adore me. It is not fitting that my consort kneels while his slave lounges.”

Toug retreated.

“Disiri, could we—” I was still on my knees.

“Take ourselves to some private place? I think not. Your slave might get into mischief.”

“Then may I kill him?”

Toug gasped, “Sir Able!”

Disiri laughed. “Look at him! He thinks you mean it!”

“I do,” I said.

“He wants to talk, see how his mouth moves.” Delighted, Disiri pointed with the slender blade she bore. “Speak, boy. I will not let him strangle you — at least, not yet.”

“My sister ...”

“What of her?”

Toug drew breath. “I got this sister, Queen Disiri. Her name’s Ulfa.” Disiri shot a glance at me. “I ought to have watched you more closely, dear messenger.”

“She loves him, loves Sir Able. Or that’s what I think.”

I adjusted the position of the too-short arrow I had brought to Parka’s string. “You can’t know that. Or if you do, you have to know I don’t love her.”

“I was listening under th’ window. My pa said to. I heard how she talked. How she sounded.” Toug paused to clear his throat. “I want to say if you kill me, Sir Able, you’ll be killin’ th’ brother of a girl that loves you. You want to do that?”

I spoke to Disiri. “I’ll kill him if you want me to.”

She looked at me curiously. “Would not it trouble you afterward?”

“Maybe. But if you want him dead, I’ll kill him for you and find out.”

“You mortals,” Disiri told Toug, “are often tender about such things. It is supposed to be a good example for us, and sometimes it is.”

Wide-eyed, Toug nodded.

Disiri turned to me, seeming to forget him. “When was it we were together last, Able? A year ago? Something like that?”

“

“Yesterday morning, Queen Disiri.”

“In so brief a time you have become a knight? And learned that I am a queen? Who told you that, and who gave you the colee?”

I did not want to say Ulfa had told me. “A knight with no sword,” I said instead, “and I just made myself a knight. I was hoping it would make me somebody you could love.”

She laughed. (Toug cringed.) “By the same measure, I am a goddess.”

“I’ve worshipped you since I carried you to the cave, Queen Disiri.”

“Your goddess,” she told Toug, “but I do not dare ascend to the third world just the same. Did you know that, little boy?”

He shook his head, and seeing my eyes on him said, “No, Queen Disiri. We don’t know nothin’ ‘bout things like that in Glennidam.”

“Your Overcyns would destroy me as a matter of course. Nor is the second much safer.” She turned back to me. “It is an awful place. Dragons like Setr roaring and fighting. Would you follow me there?”

I said—and meant—that I would follow her anywhere.

“I can climb to your world, too, as you’ve seen.”

I nodded. “Could I get to the third world the same way? I’ve been wondering.”

“I have no idea.” She paused, studying me. “You’re a knight, Able. You say so, and so does this boy. You also say you have no sword. A knight requires one.”

“If you say so, Queen Disiri.”

“I do.” She smiled. “And I do have an idea about that. A great knight, fit to be a queen’s consort, should bear no common sword, but a fabled brand imbued with all sorts of magical authority and mystical significance—Eterne, Sword of

Grengarm. Do not contradict me, I know I am right.”

“I wouldn’t think of it. Not ever.”

Her voice fell. “Such swords were forged in the Elder Time. The Overcyns visited Mythgarthr more often then and taught your smiths, that you might defend your world from the Angrborn. No doubt you know all that.” I shook my head.

“It is so. The first pair of tongs was cast down to fall at the feet of Weland, and with them, a mass of white-hot steel. Six brands Weland made, and six broke. The seventh, Eterne, he could not break. Nor can the strength of the

Angrborn bend that blade, nor the fire of Grengarm draw its temper. It is haunted, and commands the ghosts who bore it.” She stopped to look into my eyes. “I have done an ill thing, perhaps, by telling you.”

“I’ll get it,” I told her, “if you’ll let me go after it.”

Slowly, she nodded.

Just the thought of it had grabbed me the way nothing else ever has except

Disiri herself, and I said, “Then I’ll get it or die trying.”

“I know. You will try to wrest it from the dragon. Suppose I were to beg you not to.”

“Then I wouldn’t.”

“Is that true?” She bent over me.

“As true as I can make it.”

“Just so.” She sighed. “You would be a lesser man after that, and your love would mean little to me.”

I looked up, crazy with hope. “Does it mean a lot now?”