The Knight. Part 3

Ravd shook his head.

"A big horse like Blackmane, then."

"No."

"Money?"

"No, indeed. I mentioned the accolade when we were talking about my squire. Did you understand me?" I shook my head.

"The accolade is the ceremony by which one authorized to perform it confers knighthood. Let me ask again. What makes a man a knight, Able? What makes him different enough that we have to give him a name differing from that of an ordinary fighting man?"

"The accolade, sir."

"The accolade makes him a knight before the law, but it is a mere legality, formal recognition of something that has already occurred. The accolade says that we find this man to be a knight."

I thought about that, and about Ravd, who was a knight himself. "Strength and wisdom. Not either one by itself, but the two together."

"You're closer now. Perhaps you are close enough. It is honor, Able. A knight is a man who lives honorably and dies honorably, because he cares more for his honor than for his life. If his honor requires him to fight, he fights. He doesn't count his foes or measure their strength, because those things don't matter. They don't affect his decision."

The trees and the wind were so still then that I felt like the whole world was listening to him.

"In the same way, he acts honorably toward others, even when they do not act honorably toward him. His word is good, no matter to whom he gives it." I was still trying to get my mind around it. "I know a man who stood his ground and fought the Angrborn, with just a spear and an ax. He didn't have a s.h.i.+eld, or armor, a horse, or anything like that. The men with him wanted to run, and some did. He didn't. Was he a knight? This wasn't me."

"What was he fighting for, Able?" It was almost a whisper.

"For Gerda and his house. For the crops he had in his fields, and his cattle." 42."Then he is not a knight, though he is someone I would like very much to count among my followers."

I asked if he had many, because he had come into that forest alone, except for Svon.

"More than I wish, but not many who are as brave as this man you know. I'd thank every Overcyn in Skai for a hundred more, if they were like that."

"He's a good man." I was picturing Bold Berthold to myself, and thinking about all that we would be able to buy with two scields.

"I believe you. Lie down now, and get some rest. We'll need you well rested tomorrow."

"I want to ask a favor first." I felt like a little kid again, and that made it h ard to talk. "I don't mean anything bad by it."

Ravd smiled. "I'm sure you don't."

"I mean I'm not going to try to steal it, or hurt you with it either, or anybody. But could I look at your sword? Please? Just for a minute?" He drew it. "I'm surprised you didn't ask when we had sunlight, when you could have seen it better. Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to wait?"

"Now. Please. I'd like to see it now. I promise I'll never ask again." He handed it to me hilt first; and it seemed like a warm, living thing. Its long straight blade was chased with gold and double-edged; its hilt of bronze and black horsehide was topped with a gold lion's head. I studied it and gripped the sword to flourish it, and found with a sort of shock that I had stood up without meaning to.

After a minute or two of waving it around, I positioned the blade so that the firelight fell on the flat, just ahead of the guard. "There's writing here. What does it say?"

"Lut. You can't read, can you?"

I knew I could. I said, "Well, I can't read this."

"Lut is the man who made it." Ravd held out his hand, and I returned his sword. He wiped the blade with a cloth. "My sword is Battlemaid. Lut is a fa mous bladesmith of Forcetti, the town of my liege Duke Marder. Your own duke, Duke Indign, is dead. Did you know?"

"I thought he must be."

"We're attempting to a.s.similate his lands, and finding them a bit too much 43.to chew, I'm afraid." Ravd's smile was touched with irony.

"Was that Duke Marder on the scield you gave me?"

Ravd shook his head. "That's our king, King Arnthor."

"What was that on his s.h.i.+eld?"

"A nykr. Lie down and go to sleep, Able. You can save the rest of your questions for tomorrow."

"Is it real?"

"Sleep!" When Ravd sounded like that, you did not argue. I lay down, turned my back to the fire, and fell asleep as soon as I shut my eyes.

CHAPTER 5.

TERRIBLE EYES.

S omething that sounded like a scuffle woke me up. I heard Svon's voice and Ravd's; and I decided that if I did not want to start another fight, the best thing might be for me to lie there and listen.

"I stumbled." That was Svon.

Ravd said, "No one pushed you?"

"I said I stumbled!"

"I know you did. I wish to discover whether you will verify it. It appeared to me that you had been pushed from behind. Was I wrong?"

"Yes!"

"I see. You have your sword again."

"I found it in the bushes. Do you think I'd come back here without it?"

"I don't see why not." Ravd sounded as though the question interested him.

"If you mean you might need it to deal with our guide, it wasn't of great use to you an hour ago."

45."We might be attacked."

"By the outlaws? Yes, I suppose we might."

"Are you going to sleep in your armor?"

"Certainly. It's one of the things a knight must learn to do." Ravd sighed.

"Many years before either of us was born, a wise man said that there were only three things a knight had to learn. I believe I told you a week ago, though it may have been more. Can you tell me what-they are now?"

"To ride." Svon sounded as if it were being dragged out of him. "To use the sword."

"Very good. And?"

"To speak the truth."

"Indeed," Ravd murmured. "Indeed. Shall we begin again? Or would you prefer to omit that part?"

If Svon said anything, I could not hear it.

"I've been sitting here awake since you ran away, you see. Talking to our guide at first, and talking to myself after he went to sleep. Thinking, in other words. One of the things I thought about was the way he threw your sword. I saw it. Perhaps vou did as well."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Then you need not. But I will have to talk about it more, because you won't. When a man throws a heavy object such as a sword or spear for distance, he uses his whole body--his legs and torso, as well as his arm. Able did not do that. He simply flung your sword away as a man might discard an apple core. I think--"

"Who cares what you think!"

"Why, I do." Ravd's voice was as smooth as polished steel, and sounded a good deal more dangerous. "And you must, Svon. Sir Sabel beat me twice, once with his hands and once with the flat of his sword. I was Sir Sabel's squire for ten years and two. No doubt I've told you."

Maybe Svon nodded. I could not see.

"With the flat of his sword because I attacked him. He would have been entirely justified in killing me, but he was a good and a merciful knight--a better knight than I will ever be. With his hands for something I had said to him, or something I had failed to say. I never did find out exactly what it was. He was 46.drunk at the time--but then we all get drunk now and then, don't we?"

"You don't."

"Because he was, I found it less humiliating than I would have otherwise. Perhaps I said that I cared nothing for his thoughts. That seems likely enough.

"Able flung your sword as a man flings dung, or any such object. I believe I said that. He merely cast it from him, in other words, making no effort toward great distance or force. If you were to cast a hurlbatte so, I would chastise you. With my tongue, I mean."

Svon spoke then, but I could not hear what he said.

"It may be so. My point is that your sword cannot have been thrown far. Three or four strides, I would think. Five at most. Yet I didn't hear you searching for it in the dark, and I expected to. I was listening for it."

"I stepped on it," Svon said. "I didn't have to look for it at all."

"One resolves not to lie, but one always resolves to begin one's new truthfulness at a later time. Not now." Ravd sounded tired.

"I'm not lying!"

"Of course you are. You stepped upon your sword, four strides southeast of where I sit. You uttered no grunt of astonishment, no exclamation. You bent in silence and picked it up. You would have had to grope for the hilt, I believe, since you would not wish to lay hands on a sharp blade in the dark. You then returned it to its scabbard, a scabbard of wood covered with leather, without a sound. After that, you returned to our camp from the west, tripping over something with such violence that you almost fell into the fire." Svon moaned like one in pain, but spoke no word.

"You must have been running to trip as hard as that and come near to falling. Were you? Running through a strange forest in the dark?"

"Something caught me."

"Ah. Now we're come to it. At least, I hope so. What was it?"

"I don't know." Svon drew breath. "I ran away. Was your churl chasing me?"

"No," Ravd said.

"Well, I thought he was, and I ran right into somebody. Only I don't think it was really a person. A--a ghost or something."

"Interesting."

"There were several." Svon seemed to have taken heart. "I can't say how 47.many. Four or five."

"Go on." I could not tell whether Ravd believed him.

"They gave me back my sword and brought me here, and they pushed me at our fire, hard, just like you said."

"Saying nothing to you?"

"No."

"Did you thank them for returning your sword?"

"No."

"Perhaps they gave you a charm or a letter? Something of that kind?"

"No."

"Did they take our horses?"

"I don't think so."

"Go now and see to them, please, Svon. See that they're well tied, and haven't been ridden."

"I don't--Sir Ravd . . ."

"Go!"

Svon cried, and right then I wanted to sit up and say something--anything that might make him feel better. I was going to say that I would go, but that would just have made him feel worse.

When he stopped crying, Ravd said, "They frightened you very badly, whoever they were. You're more afraid of them than you are of me or our guide. Are they listening to us?"

"I don't know. I think so."

"And you're afraid that if you confide in me they'll punish you for it?"