The Knight

“Your guilty slave grovels.” The blonde bowed her head. “She would do anything to please you, Lord, and if you have no notions of your own, she can offer any number of exciting suggestions.”

“Aren’t you cold?”

“I am, Lord, and so are you. We can heat ourselves pleasantly by following one of my most exciting suggestions. First I will kneel—so! You—” As quickly as I could, I said, “Have you been following me all day?” The blonde shook her head, keeping her eyes down as she had the whole time. “Up here, Lord? Of course not. But I have watched you from Aelfrice. Will not you go there with me? It is not raining there.”

Something too deep-voiced for a wolf howled in the distance. I stopped to listen before I said, “I spent quite a bit of time in Aelfrice with Garsecg. I don’t remember seeing anybody I knew in this world then.”

“Because you did not know how to look, Lord. Put your head right down here.”

I shook it instead.

“You will not? Seriously, if you come to Aelfrice with me I will teach you to view Mythgarthr. It is not difficult. You can learn in a day or two.”

“And afterwards I’ll come back and find out I’ve been gone three years.”

“Not that long. Or I think not, Lord. It is unlikely. Lord, if you will not sport with me, may I change?”

I did not answer because she had begun to change while she talked, looking up at me for the first time so that I saw the blonde had Aelf-eyes of yellow fire.

Smoke poured from them, wrapping her in a robe of twilight and snow. When it returned to her, she was Baki again.

I said, “Are you really my slave?”

Still kneeling, she bowed to the rain-soaked fern. “I stand ready to serve my lord night and day, though night is preferable. He need only ask.”

“Who’s your lord?”

The white teeth flashed in that face of glowing copper. “You are. Who should be my lord but that most noble knight, Sir Able of the High Heart?”

“A knight,” I said, “but not noble.”

“I think otherwise, Lord.”

“The armorer seemed to know about you Fire Aelf, and he said you were iron workers. Is that true?”

“Metal workers, Lord. Iron and other metals. Would you like to see a sample of my own work? What of a silver chain with but one end? Whenever you needed money, you could cut off a piece and sell it.”

I shook my head. “Why did Setr choose metal workers?”

“You must ask him, Lord.”

“I will, next time I see him. Why did your people persecute Bold Berthold?”

“Persecute is a terrible word, Lord. We may have teased him. Was he worse for our attention?”

“The years, the Angrborn, and you all hurt him. Why did you do it?” A gust of rain hit us; the howl I had heard before came with it, deep but as lonely as the cry of a wounded bird.

Baki wiped cold water from the burning oval of her face. “Do you still care about this Berthold, Lord? Whom I have never set eyes upon, by the way. Or may we talk of something interesting?”

“I’ll always care for him.”

“Very well. It was not I. I was a Khimaira for Setr for a long, long time. It must have been centuries here. If Aelf teased him, I apologize on their behalf.” I was tired, and I knew by then that I would not find Disiri; but I was stubborn too. “I wish I knew why they did it.”

“Which you will not learn from me, Lord, for I cannot know it. I might speculate, if you wish me to.” Baki looked sulky.

“Go ahead,” I told her.

“We like to tease you upper people. You think you are vastly superior and we do not matter at all. So we tease you, and if you prefer to say torment, go ahead. Usually we do no harm, and sometimes we help, especially when we think our help is going to surprise somebody we have been teasing. We Fire Aelf like to help smiths and such mostly, people like your armorer. We like them because they do the same kind of work we do in Aelfrice.”

“Are you saying Disiri enjoys tormenting others? I won’t believe it.” Baki stared at the ferns around her feet.

“Well, does she? Let’s hear it!”

“Not she, perhaps, Lord. But the rest of us do. Mostly we choose people who are alone, because it bothers you more. You are not sure it is really happening.

Was this Berthold all alone?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “In a hut in the forest.”

“Well naturally then. That’s exactly the kind we like to play with.”

“I have met Fire Aelf, Water Aelf, and brown Bodachan.” I sighed, remembering Disiri. “Also the Moss Aelf, who have been very kind to me.” Baki stood, and suddenly she was so near that our cheeks touched. “I would be very kind to you too, if you would let me.” Her long warm fingers toyed with the cord of my cloak.

I smiled—bitterly, I’m afraid. “Now it’s my turn, isn’t it? I’m alone among trees, just like Bold Berthold.”

“You think I am going to pinch you and run? Try me, Lord. That is all I ask.” I shook my head.

“There is a great deal we can do without lying down on this wet ground, you know. But look at how soft this fern is. It is wet, but we are wet already. Let us make our own fire.”

I pointed. “I want you to go to the farmhouse I came from. Watch there.