The Knight

“Not really. Only ...”

“Only what?”

“Only I’m like that girl in the movie. I can’t get it out of my head. I’m not going back, not even if I find the ruby slippers, because Disiri’s here and not there. But I wish I could just forget about it. Sometimes I think Bold Berthold was my real brother, you know? He wasn’t, but I think he was. I love him like he was, but I know he wasn’t.”

“Which you would like to forget.”

“Right. He used to be a big strong man with a big black beard. He’s told me about it, and he thinks I remember it. Then the giants came. The Angrborn. They hurt him really, really bad, and I don’t think he’ll ever get over it. I used to think that when people got sick, someday they’d be well. I may just be a kid, but I know better now.”

“You miss the man you never knew.”

“Yeah, sure. He was strong and smart and brave. We used to sit in his little hut at night—this is before Disiri—and he’d talk about things that had happened before he got hurt, and I could see what he had been like. I kept thinking it would be wonderful to be like that, only I never could be, not really.”

Baki sat up. She still looked pretty shaky. “You could never be what you are now?”

I tried to smile. It was not easy, but I tried and I guess I did it. “Oh, I’m plenty strong. Garsecg showed me all about the sea, so probably I’m stronger now than Bold Berthold ever was. But I’m not brave, and I’m not smart. Inside I’m still a kid. Outside I’m a man, I guess, or anyhow I look like one. But I was scared to death when we fought the Osterlings.”

Nobody said anything then, so I asked Garsecg if I had told him about that.

“No, but your dog did. You fought like a hero, and received the wound that the sea has healed.”

“But I was scared. I was scared to death. Our sailors were fighting them through the rope net we’d put up, and I shot through it until all my arrows were gone.”

“Slaying many.”

I nodded.

“Then that was the best thing you could do. My Sea Aelf do not use the bow, which is of no value under water; but your Disiri’s Moss Aelf are expert with it, and I have seen what slaughter one fine archer can make among his foes.”

“They cut through the net.” I was remembering a lot more than I was listening. “They were made of good tough ropes thicker than my thumb, but they cut them and our men were running. There wasn’t anything else I could do.”

Garsecg smiled. “It required no courage, I am sure.”

“That’s right. I had to. I had Sword Breaker, and I yelled and jumped off the castle and one stabbed me and I fell down.”

“Thus your ship was taken, and is now in the hands of the dreaded Osterlings.” Garsecg shook his head like he felt sorry for me. “I failed to notice any when I went aboard, but it was due to my inattention, I feel sure.”

“No, we chased them back onto their own boat. They cut the ropes and left some hooks behind, and—and went away.”

Uri rolled her head to look at me. “Why, Lord?”

“I guess they were afraid we’d take it and kill the rest of them. We might have, too, if they hadn’t cut the ropes.”

Garsecg said, “Then you have omitted something from your account. I suspected it all along. You spoke of your fear, Sir Able of the High Heart.”

“Yeah.”

“And of leaping from the sterncastle, sword in hand.”

I explained about its not being a sword.

“Sword Breaker in hand, in that case. After that you spoke of being stabbed. Through your armor, as I understand it from your dog. You fell, I suppose to the deck.”

I said yes.

“Yet your being stabbed and falling to the deck cannot have taken place immediately after your leap. What did?”

I said I had hurt some people, hitting them with Sword Breaker and so on.

“Some Osterlings.”

“This isn’t what I wanted to talk about,” I told him, “this isn’t it at all. I want to say how brave Bold Berthold used to be, and how strong. Only when I knew him he wasn’t like that anymore. He was bent over, and sometimes he didn’t think quite right. His beard had white in it, and he didn’t want to go back to Griffins-ford to stay. Not ever. He just wanted to live in the forest where they couldn’t find him. But they did. They found him, and now he’s gone.” I had to wipe my eyes with my fingers then, and after a while I said, “I’m sorry.”

“For mourning the loss of your brother? The strongest may weep at such a time.”

“This is what I wanted to say. I think what Disiri did was to make me grow up the way I would have if I hadn’t been in Aelfrice.”

Garsecg did not seem to want to say anything about that.

“It seems like ten years. I mean thinking about how I was before that night when she made me grow, and the way I am now. About ten years.”

“Or less.”

“Only Bold Berthold, he’s maybe thirty, forty years older—”

Uri said, “I feel better now, Lord. I think I can stay up if you’ll help me.”

I did, and she sort of snuggled.

Baki said, “You just wanted his arms around you.”

Uri grinned at her. “They’re very nice arms.”

Kind of under my breath, I told Garsecg, “Sometimes I dream about the Osterlings.”