The Knight

After that, the road wound among hills, where two boys older than I was said they were going to rob me. One had a staff and the other one an arrow ready—at the nock is how we say it here. The nock is the cut for the string. I said they could have anything I had except my bow. As I ought to have expected, they tried to take it. I held on, and got hit with the staff. After that I fought, taking my bow away from them and beating them with it. Maybe I should have been afraid, but I was not. I was angry with them for thinking they could hit me without being hit back. The one with the staff dropped it and ran; and I beat the other until he fell down, then sat on his chest and told him I was going to cut his throat.

He begged for mercy, and when I let him up he ran too, leaving his bow and quiver behind. The bow looked nice, but when I bent it over my knee it snapped. I saved the string, and slung the quiver on my back. That night I scraped away at my own bow until it needed nothing but a bath in flax oil, and put his string on it.

After that I walked with an arrow at the nock myself. I saw rabbits and squirrels, and even deer, more than once; I shot, but all I did was lose a couple of arrows until the last day. That morning, so hungry I was weak, I shot a grouse and went looking for a fire. I had a long search and almost gave up on finding any that day and ate it raw; but as evening came, I saw wisps of smoke above the treetops, white as specters against the sky. When the first stars were out, I found a hut half buried in wild violets. It was of sticks covered with hides; and its door was the skin of a deer. Since I could not knock on that, I coughed; and when coughing brought nobody, I knocked on the sticks of the frame.

“Who’s there!” rang out in a way that sounded like the man who said it was ready to fight.

“A fat grouse,” I said. A fight was the last thing I wanted.

The hide was drawn back, and a stooped and shaking man with a long beard looked out. His hand trembled; so did his head; but there was no tremor in his voice when he boomed, “Who are you!”

“Just a traveler who’ll share his bird for your fire,” I said.

“Nothing here to steal,” the bearded man said, and held up a cudgel.

“I haven’t come to rob you, only to roast my grouse. I shot and plucked it this morning, but I had no fire to cook it and I’m starved.”

“Come in then.” He stepped out of the doorway. “You can cook it if you’ll save a piece for me.”

“I’ll give you more than that,” I told him; and I was as good as my word: I gave him both wings and both thighs. He asked no more questions but looked at me so closely, staring and turning away, that I told him my name and age, explained that I was a stranger in his state, and asked him how to get to Griffinsford.

“Ah, the curse of it! That was my village, stripling, and sometimes I go there still to see it. But nobody lives in Griffinsford these days.”

I felt that could not be true. “My brother and me do.”

The bearded man shook his trembling head. “Nobody at all. Nobody’s left.”

I knew then that the name of our town had not been Griffinsford. Perhaps it is Griffin—or Griffinsburg or something like that. But I cannot remember.

“They looked up to me,” the bearded man muttered. “Some wanted to run, but I said no. Stay and fight, I said. If there’s too many giants, we’ll run, but we got to try their mettle first.”

I had noticed the word giants, and wondered what might come next.

“Schildstarr was their leader. I had my father’s tall house in those days. Not like this. A big house with a half-loft under the high roof and little rooms behind the big one. A big stone fireplace, too, and a table big enough to feed my friends.”

I nodded, thinking of houses I had seen in Irringsmouth.

“Schildstarr wasn’t my friend, but he could’ve got into my house. Inside, he’d have had to stand like I do now.”

“You fought them?”

“Aye. For my house? My fields and Gerda? Aye! I fought, though half run when they saw them comin’ down the road. Killed one with my spear and two with my ax. They fall like trees, stripling.” For a moment his eyes blazed.

“A stone ...” He fingered the side of his head, and looked much older. “Don’t know who struck me, or what it was. A stone? Don’t know. Put your hand here, stripling. Feel under my hair.”

His hair was thick, dark gray hair that was just about black. I felt and jerked my hand away.

“Tormented after. Water and fire. Know it? It’s what they like best. Took us to a pond and built fires all ’round it. Drove us into the water like cattle. Threw brands at us ’til we drowned. All but me. What’s your name, stripling?”

I told him again.

“Able? Able. That was my brother’s name. Years and years ago, that was.”

I knew it was not my real name, but Parka had said to use it. I asked his name.