The Knight

“We used practice lances made of wood not strong enough for real ones. You don’t want a practice lance to be strong. Somebody might get hurt or killed. A real war lance is as strong as it can be made. It has a sharp steel head, too. Ours were blunt. By hitting me hard with a stout dagger, one of the Osterlings was able to stab through my mail, remember? His stab opened a couple of rings, and that was enough.”

“Aye. We was a-feared you’d die, sir.”

“I just about did, and maybe I would have eventually if it hadn’t been for Garsecg. Now suppose instead of a dagger that mail was hit by a heavy war lance, with the weight of a knight and a galloping horse behind it.”

Pouk scratched his head. “Go through it like it was cheese, sir.”

“You’ve got it. What’s more, Sir Woddet and I aimed at each other’s shields. The shield’s what’s generally hit with a lance in a real battle.”

“An’ what good does that do? It’s just like what I was sayin’, sir.”

“Pretty often, none. But the shields used in battle are a lot lighter than our prac tice shields, and the lance-point will go through sometimes. Even if it doesn’t, the knight whose shield got hit may get knocked out of his saddle the same way I was. Remember what I said about a second line of knights behind the first? Now pretend you’re a knight who’s been knocked off his horse, pretty well stunned by the fall.”

We had reached the house. Pouk said, “If it’s all th’ same to you, sir, I’d just as soon not.” He dismounted, by that act alarming several ducks and a goose. “Maybe I ought to run in front, sir, an’ tell ’em who you are.”

A middle-aged farmwife had appeared in the doorway. I called, “We’re harmless travelers looking for water for our horses and ourselves. Let us have that, and we won’t ask for anything else.”

She did not answer, and I added, “If you’d rather leave us thirsty, say so and we’ll go.”

Pouk trotted toward her, leading his horse. “This here’s Sir Able, the bravest knight Duke Marder’s got.”

She nodded, and seemed to weigh me with her eyes. “You look brave enough. ‘N strong.”

“I’m thirsty, too. I’ve been jousting, and riding without a hat. May we have some water?”

She reached a decision. “We’ve cider, if you want it. It’ll be healthier. Maybe a couple hard-boiled eggs ‘n some bread ‘n sausage?”

I had not known I was hungry, but when she said that I found out quick. I said, “We can pay you, ma’am, and we’ll be glad to. We’re going into Forcetti to pay an innkeeper what we owe him, and we can pay you as well.”

“No charge. You come in.”

She ushered us into her kitchen, a big sunny room with a stone floor and onions hanging in braided strings from the rafters. “Sit down. We get you knights up ‘n down the road every day, almost, ‘n that’s good. The robbers don’t bother us, only the tax man. But most knights don’t stop here. Or speak, neither, when we wish them good morrow.”

“They’re not as thirsty as we are, maybe.”

“I’ll fetch the cider right away. Keg’s in the root cellar.” She bustled out. “Hard cider, it might be.” Pouk licked his lips.

I agreed, but I was thinking about the woman, and what she might want from us.

She came back with three basswood jacks, which she set on the table. “Fresh bread. Nearly fresh, anyhow. I baked yesterday.” She took a sausage from the pocket of her apron and laid it on a trencher, where it fell in thick slabs under the assault of a long knife. “Summer sausage. We smoke it three days, ‘n after that it keeps if it don’t get wet.”

I thanked her and ate some sausage, which was very good.

“Sir Able? That’s you? You seem like a down-to-earth person, for a knight.”

I interrupted my cider drinking to say I tried to be.

“You really the bravest knight the duke’s got?”

“Aye!” Pouk exclaimed.

“I doubt it,” I said, “but I don’t really know. To tell you the truth, I don’t believe there’s a knight in Sheerwall Castle that would hesitate to cross swords with me. But I wouldn’t hesitate to cross swords with them, either.”

“Scared of ghosts?”

I shrugged. “There’s no man I’m afraid of, and it doesn’t seem likely that a dead man would be worse than a live one.”

“Not a man.” She glanced at Pouk, who had drained his mug and was looking unwontedly sober. “Little more of that?”

He shook his head.

“If it’s a woman’s ghost,” I said, “she may be after some property or something she thinks is coming to her. I talked to an old lady down south who knew a lot about ghosts, and she told me that women’s ghosts generally mean the woman was murdered. More often than not, justice is all they want.”

“Not a woman.” The farmwife got up to fetch a loaf of bread.

“A child’s ghost? That’s sad.”

“I wish ’twas.” She sawed her bread with exaggerated care, I thought to keep her feelings under control.

“Are you talking about the Aelf? They’re not ghosts.”

“Guess you know how you knights got started?”

I admitted I did not, that I had never even wondered about it, and added that I would like to hear the story.