The Knight

I had not even thought about that, or how to explain how I felt about it. After about a minute I said, “I want to be his knight, or one of them, anyway. I didn’t come to ask him for money.”

I could hear steel hitting steel outside, and Agr leaned out his window so he could see what was happening. When he turned around again he said, “No monthly stipend? Merely to cover your expenses?”

I shook my head. “I’ve got a servant, Master Agr. Pouk is his name.” When I had told Thunrolf about Pouk I called him my friend and got us in trouble. I was not going to do that again.

“I don’t pay Pouk and sometimes I can’t even feed him or get him a place to sleep. He looks out for himself then.” I thought about when I had been hurt so bad, and lying in the cable locker, how little bits of light came in through cracks and how the rats came smelling my blood. “Sometimes Pouk looks out for me too, when I can’t look out for myself,” I said. “If I were one of Duke Marder’s knights, I would be ashamed to treat him worse than Pouk treats me. If he wanted to give me something, I’d take it and say thank you. If he didn’t, I’d try to serve him better.”

That was the first time Agr looked at me like I was a real human being. He said, “That was well spoken, Sir Able. There’s a baron with the king who prattles of the Aelf in his cups. I think he’s as mad as a hare in spring, and I think you are too. But I cannot help wishing you were sane. With a little training you might make a first-rate man-at-arms. Can you use that bow?”

I said, “Yes, sir. I can.”

“There’s another master out there in the practice yard. His name is Master Thope. He’s master of arms, and if you address him as ‘sir,’ as you have been addressing me, he’ll break yours. Do you know what a master of arms is?”

I said, “No, sir. I don’t.”

“He trains our squires and men-at-arms in the use of weapons and the management of horses. I provide him with horses for that purpose. They are not good enough for a knight to ride in war, you understand; but an inferior horse can actually be better training for a rider than a good one, as well as making a young man appreciate a good one more. I want you to joust with Master Thope.”

He saw that I did not understand, because he added, “To ride against him with a practice lance. He’ll lend you a horse, a shield, and so forth. If you do well, we’ll see how well you can shoot that bow and what you know of swordcraft.”

After that, the man-at-arms who had brought me to Master Agr took me down to Master Thope. He was as big as I am, but going gray. I told him who I was and why I was there, and explained that I was supposed to joust with him. He squeezed my arms. He had pretty big hands, and they were strong.

“That’s muscle,” he muttered, “not fat. Can you use a lance, young ’un?”

“I can try,” I said.

“All anybody can do.”

He got me a practice shield. They are a lot heavier than the real ones because they are a lot stronger, too. “I’ll aim for that,” he told me while I was adjusting the strap, “and you aim for mine. Nothing tricky.”

I said, “Okay.”

My horse was a fat chestnut gelding that was sweating already. It knew all about jousting, and it did not want to do that anymore. I did not have any spurs, and I had the shield on one arm and my practice lance in my other hand, so it was not very easy to get it into position. That would not have been so bad, but one of the other knights that were watching called, “Prick him with your lance!” and I looked at the end of it before I remembered it was not sharp. They thought that was really funny, and I started getting mad.

The place where you joust is called the lists. It is not really a list of anything. Those are thin wooden things that make the fence for it. Each jouster rides with those lists to his left side, so that the two will meet shield-to-shield. It is like football. You are not supposed to want to hurt anybody. Jousting is about as dangerous as tackle, and the person you are jousting with will be on your side in a real battle.

Like I said, I had quite a bit of trouble with my horse, and once I got him into position he knew exactly what was up. He was scared and trying to be brave, just like me. I tried to say something that would make him feel better. None of it was his fault, but he was the one who had to run and carry me and the big jousting saddle, and he knew he could get hurt.

I was not feeling any too sure myself, and while I was talking to him I said, “I wish you’d paw the ground a little like Blackmane.” Talking to a horse like that, a horse that did not understand me or care what I said, made me think of Gylf and how much I missed him. He had never come back to the Western Trader, and nobody seemed to know where he was. I would have liked to go back to Aelfrice to look for him and Disiri, but I did not know how to get there.