The Knight

“Found a water rat’s hole,” he said. “Duck and dig, come up to breathe, and the brands, burnin’ and hissin’. Lost count of the duckin’s and the burns, but didn’t drown. Got my head up into the water rat’s house and breathed in there. Waited ’til the Angrborn thought we was all dead and went away.”

I nodded, feeling like I had seen it.

“Tried to climb out, but my shadow slipped. Fell back into the pond. Still there.” The bearded man shook his head. “Dreams? Not dreams. In that pond still, and the brands whizzing at me. Tryin’ to climb out. Slippery, and ... And fire in my face.”

“If I slept here tonight,” I suggested, “I could wake you if you had a bad dream.”

“Schildstarr,” the bearded man muttered. “Tall as a tree, Schildstarr is. Skin like snow. Eyes like a owl. Seen him pick up Baldig and rip his arms off. Could show you where. You really going to Griffinsford, Able?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll go tomorrow, if you’ll tell me the way.”

“Go too,” the bearded man promised. “Haven’t been this year. Used to go all the time. Used to live there.”

“That’ll be great,” I said. “I’ll have somebody to talk to, somebody who knows the way. My brother will have been mad at me, I’m pretty sure, but he’ll be over that by now.”

“No, no,” the bearded man mumbled. “No, no. Bold Berthold’s never worried about you, Brother. You’re no bandit.”

That was how I started living with Bold Berthold. He was sort of crazy and sometimes he fell down. But he was as brave as any man I have ever known, and there was not one mean bone in his body. I tried to take care of him and help him, and he tried to take care of me and teach me. I owed him a lot for years, Ben, but in the end I was able to pay him back and that might have been the best thing I ever did.

Sometimes I wonder if that was not why Parka told me I was Able. All this was on the northern reaches of Celidon. I ought to say that somewhere.

Chapter 3. Spiny Orange

Bold Berthold was ill the next day and begged me not to leave him, so I went hunting instead. I was not much of a hunter then, but more by luck than skill I put two arrows into a stag. Both shafts broke when the stag fell, but I salvaged the iron heads. That night while we had a feast of roast venison, I brought up the Aelf, asking Bold Berthold whether he had heard of Aelfrice, and whether he knew anything about the people who lived there.

He nodded. “Aye.”

“I mean the real Aelfrice.”

He said nothing.

“In Irringsmouth, a woman told a story about a girl who was supposed to get married to an Aelfking and she cheated him out of her bed. But it was just a story. Nobody thought it was real.”

“Come here, betimes,” Bold Berthold muttered.

“Do they? Real Aelf?”

“Aye. ‘Bout as high as the fire there. Like charcoal most are, like soot, and dirty as soot, too. All sooty ‘cept teeth and tongue. Eyes yellow fire.”

“They’re real?”

He nodded. “Seven worlds there be, Able. Didn’t I never teach you?” I waited.

“Mythgarthr, this is. Some just say Land, but that’s wrong. The land you walk on and the rivers you swim in. The Sea ... Only the sea’s in between, seems like. The air you breathe. All Mythgarthr, in the middle. So three above and three under. Skai’s next up, or you can say Sky. Both the same. Skai’s where the high-Bying birds go sometimes. Not little sparrows and robins, or any of that sort. Hawks and eagles and the wild geese. I even seen big herons up there.”

I recalled the flying castle, and I said, “Where the clouds are.”

Bold Berthold nodded. “You’ve got it. Still want to go to Griffinsford? Feeling better with this good meat in me. Might be better yet in the morning, and I haven’t gone over to look at the old place this year.”

“Yes, I do. But what about Aelfrice?”

“I’ll show you the pond where they threw fire at me, and the old graves.”

“I have questions about Skai, too,” I told him. “I have more questions than I can count.”

“More than I got answers, most likely.”

Outside, a wolf howled.

“I want to know about the Angrborn and the Osterlings. Some people I stayed with told me the Osterlings tore down Bluestone Castle.”

Bold Berthold nodded. “Likely enough.”

“Where do the Angrborn come from?”

“Ice lands.” He pointed north. “Come with the frost, and go with the snow.”

“Do they come just to steal?”

Staring into the fire, he nodded again. “Slaves, too. They didn’t take us ’cause we’d fought. Going to kill us instead. Run instead of fight, and they take you. Take the women and children. Took Gerda.”

“About Skai—”

“Sleep now,” Bold Berthold told me. “Goin’ to travel, stripling. Got to get up with the sun.”

“Just one more question? Please? After that I’ll go to sleep, I promise.”

He nodded.

“You must look up into the sky a lot. You said you’d seen eagles up there, and even herons.”

“Sometimes.”

“Have you ever seen a castle there, Bold Berthold?”

Slowly, he shook his head.

“Because I did. I was lying in the grass and looking up at the clouds—” He caught me by the shoulders, just the way you do sometimes, and looked into my eyes. “You saw it?”