The Knight

After that, I turned and went out, afraid that I would say or do something that would give my secret away. There was a covered porch at the back of the house, and I suppose I stood there for half a minute looking at the rain. That may have been why I missed her.

I do not know how long it took me to cross the fields and meadows and reach the woods on the other side. It was slow going and hard going, but I kept at it, head down, with the hood of my cloak pulled up as far as I could get it to give my face some protection. I started calling for her when I got close, and I was dumb enough to be happy that the wind had dropped and it seemed like she might hear me. The rain had slacked off by that time too, not stopped but not pouring the way it had been.

“If you simply want a woman,” said a soft voice at my ear, “I know one who would be honored.”

I jumped. It was a red Aelfmaiden taller than I am but as slender as a glowing poker.

“I am back, Lord,” she said, “and I am Baki. Possibly you have forgotten me.”

“To tell the truth, I’ve been wondering where you were,” I said. “You got Sword Breaker for me, and my bow, and put them under my bed.”

“After which you told me to go away and let you alone.”

I really did not want to talk to her, although I felt I had to. I said, “You wanted to get under the covers with me again. You and the other one.” She tittered.

“Has anybody told you you sound like a bat?”

“Only bats, Lord.”

“That was you, wasn’t it, in the armorer’s shop? I could hear you but I couldn’t see you.”

“Not I, Lord.” She smiled. She had big white teeth, and they looked sharp. “It must have been Uri. Or your precious Queen Disiri, perhaps.”

I sighed. “I ought to punish you for lying.”

“I? Whose blood glutted you? You have not the heart, Lord.”

“You’re right, I don’t.” I started calling for Disiri again, though I felt pretty sure I was not going to find her.

“I need not look like this, you know.” Smoke came out of her eyes. She shrank and faded, getting wider, white and gold. In about a minute, maybe less, there was a naked, shy-looking girl with golden hair and a big stick-out chest where Baki had been standing. Her eyes sucked up the smoke. “Do you like me better now, Lord?” Her head came as high as my chin.

I had thought only Disiri could do that, but I said, “I’m not exactly crazy about you either way.”

“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 ca

“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.

Watch all of them, but watch the younger brother most closely. Don’t let anybody see you, and be ready to tell me everything they did when I come back.”

“As you wish, Lord.”

I waited until she vanished among the shadows of the trees, wondering whether she would do what I had told her, and whether I would ever see her again. Once she was out of sight, I called Gylf.