The Knight

I wished her good morning. “Get your mother, please, and both of you sit down.”

Her father’s hand was flirting with the hilt of a big knife. I saw it and shook him hard. “If you pull that, I’ll kill you.”

He scowled, and I was tempted to knock him down again; I shoved him down on a bench in front of the fire instead. I made Ve sit with him, and got Ulfa and her mother on a couple of stools.

“Now then.” I sat on the table. “Ulfa, I took your brother with me the last time I was here. Maybe your father told you.”

She nodded, looking scared.

“I don’t have him anymore. Disiri took him. I doubt that she’s going to hurt him, but I have no idea how long she’ll keep him. She didn’t say what she wanted with him. You may see him again today You may never see him again, and I have no way of telling which way it might go. If I see her, I’ll ask about him. That’s all I can do.”

I waited for one of them to talk, stroking Gylf’s head but keeping my eyes on them. After a minute or two, I said, “I’m sure all of you have questions. Probably I can’t answer them. But I’ll listen, and answer if I can. Ulfa?”

Her chin went up. “How long was he with you?”

“Less than a day. We were in Aelfrice for part of it, and it’s not easy to tell how long things take there, but a little less than a day should be about right.”

“Did you hurt him?”

“I twisted his arms enough to make him squeal once when he wouldn’t obey, but I did no permanent damage. Neither did anybody else while we were together.” I took a long look at Ulfa’s mother and decided she was not the kind to speak to a scary stranger.

Her husband said, “He’s in Aelfrice?”

“I don’t know where he is. That’s where he was the last time I saw him. He may have come back here—to this world or planet or whatever you call it. I don’t know.” As you can see, I was thinking then that Mythgarthr was probably not just some other country. For one thing, nobody called the country Mythgarthr—the country was Celidon. Another thing was that I was pretty sure that other countries on Earth did not have Aelf. I felt like I would have heard about them.

But there was a lot against that idea, too. One was that the moon in Myth garthr looked exactly like ours, and if the stars were different, I could not tell it. The Big Dipper was still there, and the North Star, and some other things I was really sure of.

About then, Ulfa said, “You let Disiri take him.” It was not a question.

“I wouldn’t have stopped her if I could,” I told Ulfa, “and I couldn’t if I’d wanted to. Yeah, I let her take him.”

“Will you try to get him back? He’s my brother.”

“If I can, sure. Now I’ve got questions of my own for all of you. Is Seaxneat here? By here, I mean here in this village or near it, right now.”

Ulfa’s father shook his head. “Out lookin’ for his wife.”

“He found her. That’s why I’m here.”

Ulfa said, “What happened?” very softly. I think she guessed.

“I’ll tell you in a minute. First I want to tell you about Ossar. I want to tell you—that’s Ulfa and Ve—particularly. Ossar’s in Aelfrice too, and I put him there, or I pretty much did. I left him with the Bodachan, the little brown Aelf. My brother” (that was what I said) “used to help them sometimes, and they used to help him. He said they were nice and pretty harmless unless you got them mad. Anyway, they wanted Ossar and said they’d take care of him, and I had no milk to give him and no food he’d keep down. So I gave him to them.”

Nobody said anything.

“Time goes slower in Aelfrice, so he might show up again in twenty years, still a little kid. It could happen. If it does, I want you to remember that he’s Disira’s son just the same, and look after him.” I made all four of them promise they would.

Then I said, “Seaxneat killed Ossar’s mother, and I’m going to kill Seaxneat for it if I can. But maybe I can’t, and maybe he’ll be here when Ossar comes back. Tell him Ossar’s been nursed by the Aelf, and they’re likely to get even for anything Seaxneat does to him. That may help. I hope so.”

Ulfa’s mother spoke. I think it was the only time she did. “By the queen who took my son?” she wanted to know. “By Disiri?”

I shook my head. “One of the Bodachan, I never learned her name. Ve, your dad sent you to get the outlaws the night I took Toug. It can’t have taken you very long, since they were after us the same night. Where did you go?”

“You mean my father? I—I’m not supposed to say. Sir Able.”

Ulfa’s father rasped, “Tell him!”

I said, “I can get it out of your father if I have to, Ve, but I might have to hurt him. It’ll save a whole lot of trouble for you both if you tell me now.”

Ve gulped. “He’s not here, Sir Able.”

“Is he off looking for Seaxneat’s wife too?”

“I d-don’t know, Sir Able.”

“But you know where he told you to go to find the outlaws. You’d better tell me.”

Gylf growled, and Ulfa’s father got Ve’s arm. “Your father’s away,” he told Ve, “and I’m here in his place. I say to tell him. It’s on my head, not yours.”

“To the c-cave. The big cave.”

I nodded. “I see. Do they stay there often?”

“S-some do, Sir Able. One of the Free Companies.”

“Where is it?”

“Th-that way.” Ve pointed. “You t-take the path to the little pond and go ’round it through the b-beeches, only turn at the big stump—” Ulfa’s father said, “I’ll show you.”

It took me by surprise.

“You’d make the boy do it, and maybe get him kilt. With me there’ll be two men, if they’re there.”

Gylf growled again, louder this time.

“Dog thinks I might turn on you,” Ulfa’s father said. “Maybe he will, but I won’t.”

I thought about that. “You sent Ve for the outlaws when I was here before.”

He shook his head. “Vali did. Not me. I wanted to kill you myself.” He paused to stare at the floor, then looked up to meet my eyes. “If I’d of believed you was a real knight, it’d of been different. Only I didn’t and thought me and my boy could do for you, and with Vali we could do it sure. Only he wanted to fetch Jer’s Free Company and sent his boy, and I didn’t stop him.”

“You don’t like them?”

Ulfa’s father shook his head.

Ulfa started to speak, but I raised a hand to silence her. “What’s your name?”

“Toug. Same as my boy.”

“That’s right, I remember now. What is it, Ulfa?”

She said, “They make a lot of trouble, and take anything they want. Sometimes they trade with us, and sometimes they give us things, but it’s mostly Seaxneat, the trading and the giving, too.”

Old man Toug added, “Vali’d like to be him.”

“I see.” I was still studying him, and wishing I could see under that black beard. “How many outlaws will there be in the cave, assuming they’re still there?”

He shrugged. “Five, could be. Could be ten.”

I asked Ve how many there had been when he went to fetch them.

“S-seven, Sir Able.”

“Will you run to warn them as soon as we leave? You look fast, and you know the way. You may get there before we do.”

“No, S-Sir Able. Not unless you say t-to.”

“I can’t risk it. Ulfa, you and your mother will have to hold him here. Two hours should be enough. Will you do it?”

Ulfa’s mother nodded. Ulfa herself said, “I’ll do it for your sake, Sir Able, as well as my father’s.”

He stood up. “We can be there in a hour or not much over. You broke my bill.”

I nodded.

“I still got my spear, though, and my knife. All right if I take ’em?”

I said yes, and he went into one of the back rooms and returned with the spear his son, Toug, had dropped when he ran from the fight.

Ulfa said, “Tell us what happened to Disira.”

“Don’t matter,” old man Toug muttered. “Dead now.”

“Well, Pa, I’d like to know, and Sir Able said he’d tell us.”

I nodded. “Your brother and I went to Aelfrice, as I said earlier. Disiri took him, and I returned alone. I wanted to find Disiri again, and called her name. Disira answered, thinking I had been sent to search for her. She and Ossar had been hiding in the woods, probably for the second time and maybe more than that. She was hungry and worn out, scared, and lost. I should have taken her back here, but I didn’t. For one thing, Bold Berthold’s was closer and I thought I could get her something to eat there. For another, the outlaws had been after Toug and me. It seemed to me that there was more risk of their finding me here than at Bold Berthold’s hut.”