The Knight

“Fire Aelf!” One laughed. “Did he tell you how lovely we are? Or how lovely you are? Your skin has taken on all sorts of beautiful colors.”

“Those are bruises,” I said. “If there’s some way you can see them down there in the dark, isn’t there some way I can see you?”

They glowed then. It was like they were copper or maybe brass, with a fire inside. They were not hot enough to burn me, but they were plenty hot. Uri jumped out of bed and sort of posed. “Look at me! Am I not beautiful?”

“He prefers me,” Baki told her. Baki still had me wrapped up.

I guess I did, because I went to touch her face and she licked the tips of my fingers.

“I have sacrificed myself to you,” she explained when she was through licking, “to make you stronger, and my lord forever. Sit up and you’ll see.”

“I will too,” Uri told me. “Bite me. Anywhere!”

I sat up and found out Baki was right. I also found out I was sweating and the room was freezing. Or anyway it felt like it was freezing. It was still spring, and pretty early spring, too, and the nights were cold. So I asked them to bring some firewood and tinder, and when they said they would I said to bring my clothes, and Sword Breaker, and my bow and quiver too. After I told them what Sword Breaker was, they promised to look.

For just a minute it seemed like the room was full of bats. Then the door opened. I saw a little red light out there, and the door closed again pretty hard, and I got up out of bed and wrapped a blanket around me. I did not feel good, but I did not feel that bad, either, except that I sort of felt like I had gone crazy. I opened the door, and the red light that I had seen had come from what they call a cresset. I did not know the word then, but it means an iron basket you can burn whatever you have in for light. There was one next to my door, and I found out later that they were all over the castle. I was glad to see it, because it meant I could light my wood there if I got any. So I went looking and found a room that had a woodbox next to the fireplace. I picked up the whole thing and carried it back to my room, and by the time Uri and Baki got back I had a nice fire going.

Chapter 34 Being A Knight

When I woke up next morning, Uri and Baki had gone. That was generally the way it was any time that they were with me, so I might as well explain it now, and later I will not say much about it. They did not like our sun. Sunlight hurt them, and if they stood in it you could hardly see them. So they went back to Aelfrice, mostly, when it got light, unless it was a dark day with lots of clouds. If they had to stay, they stood in the shadows or tried to. I did not understand that then, and thought I might have dreamed them.

I was going to get out of bed to see if Sword Breaker and my bow were really under it, when there was a knock at the door. I said, “Come in!”

He was bigger than I am, really huge, and blond, with a thick mustache that was not a lot darker than his hair. I liked him right away, because I could see he wanted to be friends but he was not too sure how to go about it. (I am like that pretty often myself.) He said, “I didn’t wake you, I hope.”

I was not sure whether he had or not, because he might have knocked before, but I said no. Looking at how bright my room was and sort of smelling the air, I decided it was the middle of the morning.

“I’m Sir Woddet of East Hall.” He held out his hand.

I sat up and took it. “Sir Able.”

“I’m not supposed to be here.” He looked around and found a little stool. “All right if I sit?”

I said sure.

“No visitors by order of His Hungryhunks, but that’s because he’s afraid somebody will kill you.” Woddet shoved out his lower lip and pulled his mustache, something I saw a lot of afterward. “Someone might, too. Not me, someone else.”

About then I woke up enough to remember what Modguda had said. “You saved me.”

“I tried to. So did some others.”

“Your squire threw himself on top of me so they wouldn’t hit me. That’s what somebody said. I don’t remember it.”

“You were down by that time.” Woddet pulled at his mustache some more. “That’s the trouble with a fight like that. No gentle right. Not that they’d have accorded it to you, I’m afraid.”

I did not know what he was talking about, but I said, “I guess not.”

“I was fighting you, too. You got me right here.” He pointed. “Knocked the wind out. By the time I could stand straight again, they were going for you with swords. I shouted stop, and that’s when Yond threw himself on you.”

I said, “I owe you. I owe my life.”

“No, you don’t.” He shook his head. He was really big, and all that tow-colored hair made his head look about a size eleven. “Master Thope and Master Agr were trying to protect you, too. Some wretch put his blade into Thope’s back for striving to preserve the honor of His Grace’s household.”

“Yeah, I heard about that. I’m going to pay him a visit today.”

Woddet looked surprised. “Glad to hear you’re up to it. I never wanted to kill you. Just thrash you, and I tried. You are a man of your hands, Sir Able.”

“Only not of the lance.”

Woddet gri

“Not yet, but I will be. Why’d you want to thrash me?”

He looked at me, trying to size me up. “Are you of gentle blood?”

“Is that like noble? No.”

He shook his head. “Noble blood means an inherited title, and lands. Knighthood’s not inheritable. Gentle blood simply means your ancestors were never in trade or worked with their hands.”

I explained that our grandparents had been farmers, and our dad had run a store. “I’d really like to tell you I’m some king’s lost kid,” I said, “but there wouldn’t be a word of truth in it.”

He had trouble looking at me. “Well, you see, Able, when someone is of gentle blood—”

“Sir Able,” I told him.

“All right. But when someone is of gentle blood, as I am and the others, and someone else who isn’t claims it, or claims to be a knight when he is not, for instance ...”

“For instance what?”

“Well, we’re supposed to beat him. Not kill him, thrash him. Or if he says someone who is of gentle blood hasn’t got it, that’s the same thing.”

“Okay. There was somebody there that said I wasn’t a real knight, and I said I was but he wasn’t.”

Woddet nodded. “We couldn’t be certain you weren’t a knight yourself, though none of us believed you. But when you said Sir Hermad wasn’t, that loosed the string.”

“I see. I really am a knight. If you don’t believe me, we’ll fight.”

Woddet smiled. “With lances?”

“Here. Right now. You’ve got a sword. Are you too scared to use it?”

“Not I!” He drew his sword faster than he stood up, and he stood’up fast. It was just a blur of steel and the point was pricking my throat. He said, “You declare yourself a knight, however. I can’t kill an unarmed knight. Gentle right.”

“I told you about my folks. I haven’t got gentle blood.”

“But I do.” Woddet sheathed his sword almost as quickly as he had gotten it out. He was trying not to grin. “I’ll have to ask His Grace’s herald.”

I said I would rather we were friends.

“I’ve given you my hand.” He shrugged. “Still I wish you had ancestors, Sir Able. It would make everything much easier for both of us.”

“I’m an ancestor,” I told him.

I went to see Master Thope after that like I had said I would. I was nearly back to my room when I ran into Master Agr and a tall man with a white beard and a red velvet cloak. Master Agr was surprised to see me up and around, and said, “Here he is, Your Grace!”

I knew then that the other man was Marder, so I bowed. I would probably have guessed it from his clothes anyway. I had learned enough about clothes by then to know that they had cost a lot of money.