The Knight

I did not recognize it until it was close. A lot of paint had flaked off the forecastle, and some of the gold was missing from the wooden woman with the basket in front. But it was the Western Trader just the same. I could not believe it, even when I climbed up the side.

The lookout yelled something (I do not know what) and slid down the forestay dropping off it in front of me. He sort of goggled at me, then he got down on his knees. “Sir Able! I didn’t know ’twas you, sir. I didn’t know what ’twas, sir. I’m sorry, sir. I never meant no offense, sir. By wind an’ water, I never done.”

“Nor gave any,” I told him. “No sweat. If—wait a minute! You’re Pouk!”

“Aye, sir.”

“You’ve changed. It’s the beard. How long have I been gone, Pouk?”

“Three year, sir. We—I thought you wasn’t never comin’ back, sir. Cap’n didn’t, neither. Nobody done.”

“The captain? I thought I killed him.”

“Cap’n Kerl, sir, what was Mate. I—I signed papers, sir, ’cause they wouldn’t feed me less’n I done it. An’—an’ I been here ever since, sir. Topman o’ the main now, sir, an’ I’ve had worse berths.”

I shook his hand and told him I was proud of him.

“Only I won’t be no more, sir, if you’ll have Cap’n strike me off articles, sir. Your man again, Sir Able, same as before, if there’s no feelin’s about me doin’ somethin’ else while you was gone.” Pouk paused and gulped. “Or even if there is, sir, if you’ll have me just th’ same.”

I did not know what to think of him, and I said, “You’ve got a good job here. You just said so.”

“Aye, sir.”

“I can’t pay you or feed you. Look at me. I don’t even have a pair of pants.”

“I’ll lend you ’un o’ mine, sir. Only they’ll be too small, maybe.”

“Thanks. But you’re right, I’d be sure to split them. Probably I couldn’t even get them on. We’ll have to talk to the captain. Captain Kerl?”

“Aye, sir.” Pouk nodded.

“I know that you can’t take yourself off duty, and you shouldn’t even be talking to me. But before I go looking for Kerl I want to know why you’d quit your job to work for me, when you know I haven’t got any money.”

“Selfishness is all ’tis, sir.” Pouk would not look me in the face.

“What do you mean, selfishness?”

“Crew’s got to stick together, sir. You’re s’posed to stick to your shipmates, see? But—but it’s my big chance, sir. Likely th’ only ’un I’ll ever get. I’m goin’.” He turned away so I could not see his face.

I patted his shoulder and went to look for Kerl. There was a little runway of deck alongside the forecastle, and as I walked along that I wondered what the rest of the crew would make of me.

As soon as I rounded the corner, I found out. I had not taken two more steps before I was surrounded by cheering men. “Below there!” a new mate shouted from the sterncastle deck. “What’s that gabble? Stations, all of you! Stations!”

A sailor I did not remember yelled, “It’s Sir Able, sir! He’s back!”

Somebody else yelled, “Give a cheer, men!” They did it, and all the noise brought Kerl out of his cabin. He started asking questions, then he saw me in the middle of a bunch of sailors, and he just gaped.

It was not real easy to push through all of them without hurting anybody, but I did it. I got to him and told him we needed to talk, and the two of us went into the cabin.

“By Ran’s ropes!” he said. “By Skai, wind, and rain!” Then he hugged me. I have been really, really surprised a lot in the time I have been in Mythgarthr and Aelfrice, but I do not know if I have ever been any more surprised than I was when Kerl hugged me, unless it was by that one knight with the skull for a crest I fought up in the Mountains of the Mice. I do not believe there has ever been a human man that could squeeze me hard enough to break my ribs, not even Hela’s brother Heimir, and Heimir was not strictly human. A lot of people would say he was not human at all, and as soon as it got to be hot summer he would sweat like a horse even sitting under a tree.

Only Kerl came pretty close. I could hear them creak.

“I’ve been in Aelfrice,” I told him when he finally let me go. “I don’t know for how long. I mean, I don’t know how many of their days.”

“Sit down! Sit down!” Kerl got out a bottle and pulled the cork, and found glasses for us.

I was thinking about the island that had come up out of the tear in the sea, the one where I had seen Disiri, and how I had watched the trees grow on it. So I said, “Maybe it was years there, too. I don’t know if they have years, really. They talk about them, but maybe it’s just because we do.”

“Drink up!” Kerl shoved a glass at me. “This calls for a celebration.”

I shook my head, because I was still thinking about Garsecg and that had reminded me of Uri and Baki and the whole thing with the Isle of Glas. I sipped the wine, though, and it was really good wine, the best I had ever tasted up to then, and I told Kerl so.

“Gave somebody that needed ’em a couple casks of water.” He gri

“I’m lucky you feel like that.” I drank some more. “Can you take me to Forcetti? Will you?”

“Aye! We’re way down south here, and headin’ back. We can stop off there.” Kerl’s grin faded. “I’m goin’ to have to make some stops on the way though, sir. That all right?”

I said okay. I had been going to Forcetti because Duke Marder would probably need another knight, and sitting there naked in that cabin it hit me that if he had needed somebody to take Ravd’s place he probably had him already, and I was going to need a lot of stuff when I got there. Like clothes. So I asked Kerl if they had anything on the ship that I could wear.

That brought the grin back. “We kept yours for you,” he told me. He opened a chest and held up Sword Breaker, still in her scabbard, and the scabbard still on my old sword belt. “I don’t guess you’ve forgotten this?”

That made me smile. “I remember it pretty well.”

“Clothes, too.” Kerl lifted out a double armful. “Saved ’em all for you. Put cedar shavin’s on ’em to keep the moths off, and they ought to be good as new.” He put them on the bed for me to look at.

I thanked him, and told him how much I meant it (and I really did) and said I would sleep on deck and do whatever work I could to pay for my food.

“You’ll sleep right here, sir.” Kerl sounded like he meant that, too. “This here’s your cabin just like these here are your boots, sir. Your cabin ’til you get off at Forcetti, sir, and I’m proud to give it to you.”

“I can’t pay—wait just a minute. I left money here when I went away with the Aelf. If you kept it for me too—”

Kerl could not meet my eyes. “I spent it, Sir Able. I had to. We was stove off Needam, and laid up seven weeks for repairs, sir. I’ll pay it all back, I swear. Only I can’t pay you back but a little right now.”

He opened his strongbox for me and showed me what he had, and there was so little in there, just copper and brass and four pieces of silver, that I almost let him keep all of it. Only I knew I was going to have to have something, and I took half.

A couple of days after that we came in sight of the Mountain of Fire. I was curious about it because of what Garsecg had said, and I asked Kerl and some people in the little port nearby, where we sold some cloth Kerl had not been able to sell farther south. It had belonged to the Osterlings, and they had pushed people into the opening at the top because it bypassed Aelfrice and went straight to Muspel where the dragons are. If it had just been their own people, we probably would not have cared, but they raided, and ate people they captured the way they do, and pushed in the ones they would have liked to eat most so the dragons would help them.