The Knight

The stones rumbled again when I was about halfway up. Then it got quiet. Somebody gave a wild yell. That must have been quite a way off, but it seemed closer because of the way it bounced from rock to rock. The moon rose. For some crazy reason I looked at it; and when I did the flying castle passed in front of it, black against the white face of the moon and looking like a toy. Back then I was not even sure it was the Valfather’s (which it is), but seeing it like that helped a lot. I know you will say there is no sense to it, but it did. I was the sea, and I was looking up at the moon and that six-faced castle and reaching for it with big foaming waves like white hands. And bang! I was at the top with my fingers all torn up and the blood ru

Then a hairy hand about as big as the blade of a spade did it. Two hands picked me up, but my left arm was free and I stuck my dagger into that big man’s neck before he could throw me over the cliff. When he fell it was like a tree falling, and we both ended up too close to the edge, with him bleeding and thrashing around and trying to get up. I got up first and hit him in the head with Sword Breaker, and heard the bone break under the blow. He fell back down after that, and he never moved again.

Down below someone was shouting, “Finefield! Finefield!” I guess I recognized Garvaon’s voice, because I knew it was him and figured it must be the name of his manor. I did not have one, so I yelled, “Disiri! Disiri!” so Garvaon would know I was up there helping.

After that Disiri! was always what I yelled whenever I fought. I may not remember to write that down every time I talk about fighting, but that was the way it was. When I got to Skai (let me say this before I forget) I did it there too. Finally Alvit asked what it meant and I could not remember. After that I tried and tried. It hurt, way down deep.

Naturally when I was ru

Somebody else threw a spear. It did not go through my hauberk but knocked me down. We both grabbed for it, and he lifted it up and lifted me too because I was holding on to the shaft. I kicked him in the face and he dropped it. I jumped up and hit him pretty much like I was playing football and knocked him over the edge, and just about went over myself. When I got my balance I looked down, and he was still bouncing off rocks. He bounced out of the moonlight, and right after that I heard him hit bottom.

I had dropped Sword Breaker and my dagger. The dagger’s blade was polished bright and shone in the moonlight, but I had to grope around for Sword Breaker.

I straightened up, and there was a great big man, more than tall enough for the NBA, coming at me with a club. I crouched—I guess I was going to rush him as soon as the club came up—but something black and a lot bigger than he was grabbed him. All of a sudden he was not a big man at all, only another little man that had walked around awhile and was going to die now. He screamed when the jaws closed on him. (I could hear his bones breaking—it always sounds terrible.) Gylf shook him like a rat and dropped him.

“You better clear out of here, Lord.” It was Uri and she was right at my elbow with a long, slender blade; I had never seen her come, or heard her either, but there she was.

On my left Baki whispered, “You will be killed, Lord, if this goes on much longer.”

“You can see in the dark better than I can,” I said, “are there any more around here?”

“Hundreds, Lord, the way you’re going.” I told them to follow me.

When the fight was over, the dead horses and mules had to be unloaded and their loads put on the ones we had left. Then we had to put the dead people on top of the loads. We got going again around midnight, and we traveled until it was light, with Garvaon out in front and Gylf and me out in front of Garvaon maybe a hundred or a hundred and fifty paces. The sun came up right about when we came out of the gorge and onto a mountain meadow that had thick green grass and even wildflowers. It slanted like the deck of a ship with the wind hard abeam, but it looked really good to us by then anyway. We stopped and unloaded the animals and put up the pavilions. Most of us went to sleep then, but Garvaon and a dozen men-at-arms stood guard, and Gylf and I went back to where the battle had been. Mani went with us, riding on my saddlebags.

We stayed in that meadow all day and all night. The next morning Beel sent for me. The table was up, just like before, and there were two folding chairs. “Sit down,” he told me. “Breakfast should be here in a moment or two.” I said thank you.

“You climbed the cliffs to fight the Mountain Men. So I’ve been told, and once I caught a glimpse of you up there myself. Or so I believe.”

I nodded. “I’m gratified, My Lord.”

“Great stones fell among us.” Beel sounded like he was talking to himself. “And bodies, too. The corpses of our foes. While the mules were being reloaded I amused myself, and Sir Garvaon as well, by examining them by lantern light. Perhaps you did the same, Sir Able?”

“No, My Lord. I had to go back for my horse.” I would have passed on breakfast just then if I could have gotten up and gone out of that pavilion.

“I see. Normally I breakfast each day with my daughter, Sir Able. She is not here today. You will have observed it, I feel sure.”

I nodded. “I hope she’s not sick.”

“She is well and uninjured. Thanks to you, in large part, I believe.”

“I’d like to believe that too.”

Beel made a steeple of his fingers and sat looking at me until the food came. “Help yourself, Sir Able. You need not wait on me.”

I said I would rather wait, and he took a smoked fish, and some bread and cheese. “I like to breakfast with my daughter.”

I nodded like before. “She must be good company, My Lord.”

“It gives me an hour or so in which to speak with her. I am busy, often, all day.”

I said, “I’m sure you are, My Lord.”

“There are many of my rank, and of higher rank than I, who do little work, Sir Able. Little if any. They lounge about at court, and lounge equally on their estates. Their stewards manage their estates on their behalf, just as mine does for me. Should the king try to persuade them to fill some office, which as a sensible man he seldom does, they beg off on one excuse or another. I have endeavored to be a man of a different stamp. I will not trouble you with all the offices I have held under our present Majesty and his royal father. They have been varied, and some have been onerous. I was First Lord of the Exchequer for near to seven years, for example.”

“I know it must have been a hard job,” I said.

Beel shook his head. “You may think you do, Sir Able, but you really have no idea. It was a nightmare that seemed it would never end. And now this.” I nodded, trying to look sympathetic.

“Breakfast gives me one hour a day in my daughter’s company. I have tried to be mother and father to her, Sir Able. I will not say I have succeeded. But I have tried.”

Beel sat up, straightening his shoulders. He had not eaten a bite. “I sent her off this morning to breakfast with her maids. She was surprised and pleased.”