The Knight

“The captain? I thought I killed him.”

“Cap’n Kerl, sir, what was Mate. I—I signed papers, sir, ’cause they wouldn’t feed me less’n I done it. An’—an’ I been here ever since, sir. Topman o’ the main now, sir, an’ I’ve had worse berths.”

I shook his hand and told him I was proud of him.

“Only I won’t be no more, sir, if you’ll have Cap’n strike me off articles, sir. Your man again, Sir Able, same as before, if there’s no feelin’s about me doin’ somethin’ else while you was gone.” Pouk paused and gulped. “Or even if there is, sir, if you’ll have me just th’ same.”

I did not know what to think of him, and I said, “You’ve got a good job here. You just said so.”

“Aye, sir.”

“I can’t pay you or feed you. Look at me. I don’t even have a pair of pants.”

“I’ll lend you ’un o’ mine, sir. Only they’ll be too small, maybe.”

“Thanks. But you’re right, I’d be sure to split them. Probably I couldn’t even get them on. We’ll have to talk to the captain. Captain Kerl?”

“Aye, sir.” Pouk nodded.

“I know that you can’t take yourself off duty, and you shouldn’t even be talking to me. But before I go looking for Kerl I want to know why you’d quit your job to work for me, when you know I haven’t got any money.”

“Selfishness is all ’tis, sir.” Pouk would not look me in the face.

“What do you mean, selfishness?”

“Crew’s got to stick together, sir. You’re s’posed to stick to your shipmates, see? But—but it’s my big chance, sir. Likely th’ only ’un I’ll ever get. I’m goin’.” He turned away so I could not see his face.

I patted his shoulder and went to look for Kerl. There was a little runway of deck alongside the forecastle, and as I walked along that I wondered what the rest of the crew would make of me.

As soon as I rounded the corner, I found out. I had not taken two more steps before I was surrounded by cheering men. “Below there!” a new mate shouted from the sterncastle deck. “What’s that gabble? Stations, all of you! Stations!”

A sailor I did not remember yelled, “It’s Sir Able, sir! He’s back!”

Somebody else yelled, “Give a cheer, men!” They did it, and all the noise brought Kerl out of his cabin. He started asking questions, then he saw me in the middle of a bunch of sailors, and he just gaped.

It was not real easy to push through all of them without hurting anybody, but I did it. I got to him and told him we needed to talk, and the two of us went into the cabin.

“By Ran’s ropes!” he said. “By Skai, wind, and rain!” Then he hugged me. I have been really, really surprised a lot in the time I have been in Mythgarthr and Aelfrice, but I do not know if I have ever been any more surprised than I was when Kerl hugged me, unless it was by that one knight with the skull for a crest I fought up in the Mountains of the Mice. I do not believe there has ever been a human man that could squeeze me hard enough to break my ribs, not even Hela’s brother Heimir, and Heimir was not strictly human. A lot of people would say he was not human at all, and as soon as it got to be hot summer he would sweat like a horse even sitting under a tree.

Only Kerl came pretty close. I could hear them creak.

“I’ve been in Aelfrice,” I told him when he finally let me go. “I don’t know for how long. I mean, I don’t know how many of their days.”

“Sit down! Sit down!” Kerl got out a bottle and pulled the cork, and found glasses for us.

I was thinking about the island that had come up out of the tear in the sea, the one where I had seen Disiri, and how I had watched the trees grow on it. So I said, “Maybe it was years there, too. I don’t know if they have years, really. They talk about them, but maybe it’s just because we do.”

“Drink up!” Kerl shoved a glass at me. “This calls for a celebration.”

I shook my head, because I was still thinking about Garsecg and that had reminded me of Uri and Baki and the whole thing with the Isle of Glas. I sipped the wine, though, and it was really good wine, the best I had ever tasted up to then, and I told Kerl so.

“Gave somebody that needed ’em a couple casks of water.” He grinned. “He gave me five bottles of this. Hard not to have three or four glasses with my dinner every night, but I don’t let myself do it. This is different. It’s a special occasion, and I wouldn’t want to die and leave one of those bottles wet.”

“I’m lucky you feel like that.” I drank some more. “Can you take me to Forcetti? Will you?”

“Aye! We’re way down south here, and headin’ back. We can stop off there.” Kerl’s grin faded. “I’m goin’ to have to make some stops on the way though, sir. That all right?”

I said okay. I had been going to Forcetti because Duke Marder would probably need another knight, and sitting there naked in that cabin it hit me that if he had needed somebody to take Ravd’s place he probably had him already, and I was going to need a lot of stuff when I got there. Like clothes. So I asked Kerl if they had anything on the ship that I could wear.