The Knight

King Arnthor had taken the Mountain of Fire, fortified it, and left a garrison there. Some of the men-at-arms were in the town when we were, drinking and trying to pick up girls. They were the first men-at-arms I had seen, and I was anxious to see knights. There were donkeys for rent at the stable, but I had very little money and Pouk had none, so we decided to walk.

Chapter 29. My Bet

If I had known what was in store for us, I would never have gone. And if I had gone anyway , there is no way I would have let Pouk come with me. As it was, we had a nice time of it, setting out early in the morning before the sun was hot, and holding walking races for forfeits. It got warmer and we slowed down a lot, basically walking from shade to shade if you know what I mean. We were lucky, because there was a lot of shade, but we were unlucky, too, because there were a lot of bugs. The bugs were not so lucky themselves, though. We must have swatted about a hundred, and I got to wishing I could put them all together in one big bug and shoot arrows at it.

I was trying to figure out some way to do that when a farmer came along with a cart full of fruit he was taking to the Mountain of Fire. He gave us a ride, and let us eat mangos as we rode along. We promised to help him unload when he got to the mountain, but when he found out I was a knight he would not let me. When we got there, Pouk had to unload for both of us.

While he was doing that, I was talking to some of the men-at-arms there about the walls and towers and so on, and who was there. Lord Thunrolf was in charge of everything. We were already inside the first wall, a kind of little one but long, that walled off the whole side where the mountain could be climbed. I told them I was a knight, which I was, and said I wanted to go on up the road and see the big walls and towers up higher, and maybe even climb on up to the place where the smoke was coming out. Kerl had said the smoke came from Muspel, and I thought that was pretty tough to believe and it was probably just a story somebody had told him, so I wanted to see for myself.

They said I could not go up unless Lord Thunrolf said it was all right. I said fine, where is he? Of course he was up quite a ways in the castle they called the Round Tower, so I got to see a lot while they were taking me up to him. It was beautiful and scary, both at once. You looked up and up, and what you mostly saw was towers and more towers, and walls one on top of the other, and big spaces of bare rock. There were flags on the tallest towers, the king’s flag, and Lord Thunrolf’s, and the ba

With only one road going up to the top, it was pretty clear the Osterlings could not take back the Mountain unless they took all the fortifications along that road, one after another, or starved out the garrison. I never even tried to find out how much food and water they had up there, but Thunrolf told me there were big cisterns cut into the rock, and since it rained a lot they were generally full. But storming the walls and towers looked about as bad to me as storming the Tower of Glas. Back then I did not know that the Osterlings were going to take it away from us, or that we were going to take it back. If you had told me I was going to be the one that gave the order to give it up and retreat south, I would have said you were crazy.

Building more walls and more towers was the main thing Thunrolf and his men did there when Pouk and I were there the first time. They built up all the walls more and built new ones. The men-at-arms had to work on them some, and they had hired local people too. The knights bossed the job, and Thunrolf bossed the knights. Knights are not supposed to work with their hands, just fight and train to fight. I thought I knew about that from certain things I had picked up on in Irringsmouth, but I never really knew how strong it was until we got to Forcetti.

Anyway, they were taking every place where the road was narrow and the mountainside was really rough, and building walls with gates for the road, and towers so archers could shoot down on everybody. They had started at the bottom, and they were working their way up.

We got to the big tower and climbed four or five flights of stairs to get to the floor where Thunrolf was. Then we had to wait and wait. We had eaten a couple of mangos each on the cart, but that seemed like it had been years ago. We were both hungry, and really thirsty.

Every so often somebody would come and talk to one or the other of us, asking who we were and what we wanted. I was tired and did not pay a whole lot of attention when they were talking to Pouk, and maybe that was a mistake. Finally I told him to go off and find us some food and something to drink, and after that I waited by myself. It got later and later, and I wondered whether Thunrolf or somebody would let us stay overnight and give us a place to sleep.

I was about to try leaving to see if anybody would stop me when a serving-man came out and told me to come in. I had seen him before, he had been in and out of that room where Thunrolf was half a dozen times. But this time he had a kind of smirk when he looked at me. I did not like it, but I could not do anything about it, so I followed him inside.

Thunrolf was sitting at a table with a bottle of wine and some glasses on it. I had told the servingman my name, and he told Thunrolf. Thunrolf told me to sit down and motioned to the servingman to pour me some wine, which I thought was nice of him. He was a tall man with long legs. Most men his age have beards or mustaches, but he did not, and looking at him I decided he probably drank too much and did not eat enough.

“So, you’re a knight.”

I said yes.

“Here on a ship bound for Forcetti. You’ve come a long way out of your way.”

I tried to make a joke out of that. “I generally try to go straight to the place I’d like to get to, but I don’t seem to be good at it.”

He frowned. “Has no one taught you to say My Lord when you speak to a baron?”

“I’m sorry, My Lord. I guess I haven’t been around barons very much.” He waved his hand like it did not matter and drank some wine, which gave me the chance to drink a lot of mine. My mouth felt like the inside of an old shoe, and the wine was cool and tasted great.

“You wish to go to the summit of my mountain and look over the countryside.”

I said, “Yes, My Lord. If it doesn’t put you to a lot of trouble.”

“It might be arranged, Sir ... ?”

The servingman had told him, but I said, “Sir Able of the High Heart.”

“So now you want to carry your heart high, and the rest of you, too.” Thunrolf laughed at his own joke. His laugh did not make me like him better, but pretty soon he said, “Have you supped?”

“No, My Lord.”

“You’re hungry? You and the man with you?”

“We sure are.”

“I see. You might sup with us, Sir Able, but if you do, two points must be settled before supper. The first is the rank of your companion. You told Master Egorn that he was a friend.”