The Knight

There was a boy with a trumpet pretty close to the place where we would hit. He blew on it, my horse trotted for a minute, then cantered, and Master Thope’s lance hit my shield hard and drove it back into me. I remember turning over in the air and hitting the ground really hard.

I also remember lying there hurting, and all the other knights yelling, “Try again!”

So I jumped up, even though I did not feel like jumping, and I found my lance and picked it up, and caught my horse, and got back in the saddle.

That was when Master Agr came to talk to me. Up until then, I had not known that he had come down to watch. Quiet, so the others would not hear, he said, “You don’t have to go again. You’re no knight.”

I had been spitting blood because I had hurt my lip, but I grinned at him anyway. (I am still proud of it.) I said, “I am a knight, just one who’s not real good with a lance. I want to.”

Master Thope did not have on a helm or helmet any more than I did, but he must have heard us. He made a motion like pushing up a visor and sort of smiled.

We did it again, and it went exactly like the first one. I had thought that I would at least hit his shield with my lance, but I did not. That really bothered me, and when I got up, I was yelling at myself inside. Only I tried not to let it show, and thanked Master Agr for helping me up.

“I would do the same for anyone.” He had one of those hard, cold faces, and it did not look any different when he said, “It’s good training, I know. But I’m sorry I got you into this.”

I said, “Well, I’ve got to learn.”

That was when one of the other knights called, “You’re no knight, boy!”

I looked at him for a minute. Then I said, “I am a knight, but you aren’t.” It sort of shut him up.

I had been watching Master Thope when he rode at me, so that third time I bent down in the saddle the way he did, and I concentrated on hitting his shield with my lance. Before I had been worrying about his lance hitting me. Now I put that clear out of my mind. I had to hit that shield. It was the only thing that counted.

I did, too. I hit it and my lance broke. And his lance hit my shield the way it had before, and knocked me right out of my saddle like I was a doll or something, and down I went. Hard. Only this time it was one of the knights who had been laughing that helped me up, and when I was on my feet again he hit me in the mouth.

Up until then I had not been able to feel the sea in me. It rose all at once, as fast as the fastest storm, breaking bones like spars and tossing men around like the timbers from wrecks. That first one I hit may have been the one whose jaw I broke. I do not know. I think I hit him more on the side of the neck, but wherever it was it knocked him kicking and the whole bunch jumped on me. Fights usually do not take as long as it takes to tell about them, but it seemed like they always had four or five new men.

Chapter 33. Drink! Drink!

I thought I was in the cable locker. Not that I had been put back in there, really, but that I had never left it. It was dark and I hurt bad, and I was not really thinking at all.

After a while it got through to me that I was in a bed instead of lying on rope, but for a while I thought the bed was in a hospital. The moonlight came through the window, and I saw it was a window shaped like the point of a sword, and it seemed like I was not in the cable locker or the hospital at all, but I did not know where I was, or care.

A long time after that I tried to get out of bed. I was going to look out and see whatever there was to see, I think. But I fell down.

―――

Then I was back in the bed, and it seemed like the room was full of sunshine. It was really a pretty dark room, like all of them were, but the sun was coming in right through the window and it seemed bright to me. There was a little table next to the bed and a goblet on it, and I remembered the one I found on the Isle of Glas. It had been poisoned once, and I was afraid to drink out of this one.

After a while I could smell the ale, but it was a long time yet before I sat up and drank it. It was not cold or even cool, but I liked it, and there was a trencher there, too (it means a wooden plate), with bread and meat and cheese. I could not even think about eating, but I drank the rest of the ale and lay back down and went to sleep.

When I woke up I felt like I had been sleeping a long time, but I did not know how long. It was pretty dark again. By-and-by a woman in an apron came in and talked. I could not understand her, or even pay attention. She got to taking bandages off me and putting new ones on, and she said, “I’ve got food for you too, sir, if you want it. Think you might eat a little now?”

I said there was some there already. Really I whispered it. I had not meant to whisper, but I did.

“That? Oh, that’s all dried up now, sir. I’ll give it to the dogs. I brought you some fresh, some nice hot broth.”