if I could, 'n be extra nice 'n maybe you'd let me stay. Only if you said I had to go, don't do it, hide 'til you forgot." "I won't make you go back," Toug declared. "Well, all of you is what she meant." When Toug had walked a score of paces, he asked, "What about her? Shouldn't we try to get her out, if we can?" "She said don't come back for her, she's dead anyway." Hopelessness crept into Etela's voice. "It's how she talks. Well, I mean when she does, 'cause sometimes she don't talk at all, not even to me. Only Vil will take care of her, he always does, 'n Gif and Alca will too." "Is Vil your father?" Etela shook her head. "My papa's dead. Only Vil likes Mama 'n me, 'n takes care when he can." "Logi's dead too," Toug remarked thoughtfully. "Uh-huh." "I was wondering what would happen to your mother and the other people he owned." "Well, I don't know." Toug considered the matter for a minute or two, then pointed. "Look! That's the bridge over the moat. See it?" "We'll be safe in there?" "Safer than we are out here. What else did your mother say? You said there was a lot." "Well, I forget. Be nice to you 'n make people like me, 'n go south where people like us come from, 'n tell 'bout the manticores 'n marigolds." "About what?" "The manticores 'n marigolds, only I don't know what they are. Mama used to talk 'bout them." "What did she say about them?" "I don't know. What are they?" "You've got to remember something." Toug insisted. "What did she say?" "On dresses, I guess, 'n a scarf. Mostly she'd just say the words. Manticores 'n marigolds, manticores 'n marigolds, like that. Don't you know what they are?" "Marigold's a kind of flower," Toug said slowly, "yellow and really pretty. I don't know what a manticore is." Unchallenged, they strode over the snow, across the bridge and through the gate. Etela halted for a moment to look up at Utgard, vast as a mountain and black against the chill stars of winter. "Well, I knew it was real, real big, only I didn't know it was as big as this." "It's easy to get lost in," Toug told her. "You've got to be careful 'til you know your way around." "Uh-huh." "My sister's got a room way up high. Maybe you could sleep with her. I'll ask." "With you," Etela declared firmly," 'cause Mama said." "We'll see. Maybe you could help me take care of Mani. I'm supposed to do that, too, but like when I'm gone. Like now. Somebody ought to be taking care of him and nobody is, unless the witch will do it." "A witch?" Toug nodded. "Her name's Huld, and she's a ghost besides being a witch. I don't know if ghosts take care of anybody, really." "There was a ghost where Mama used to live," Etela declared. "Only he was real scary 'n he took care of the house but not people. Mama said he didn't like anybody much 'n there were a whole lot he hated. I don't want to hear 'bout this witch 'cause I'll be scared tonight anyhow." As he led her to the sally port through which he had left Utgard, Toug reflected that he had been frightened, and often badly frightened, ever since Able had forced him to accompany him into the forest. Always afraid, save for one or two occasions on which he had been too tired to feel fear or anything else. "It doesn't make sense," he told Etela. "What doesn't?" "Being afraid all the time. Being afraid ought to be a special thing. You should be afraid just once in a while. Or maybe never. You used to sleep in that Angrborn's house, didn't you? With your mother?" "Uh-huh. Every night." "That would scare me. Weren't you afraid?" "Huh-uh, it was just regular. It was where we lived." "So I'm going to stop being scared, or try to. If somebody kills me, they kill me, and it will be all over. Only they're not going to make me scared all the time." In the pitch darkness of the entrance, Etela whispered, "Weren't you scared when you killed Master?" "Afterwards I was, but when it happened I was trying to do everything too fastget this sword, and not get rolled on." With the pommel of the dagger he had taken from Logi, Toug tapped the iron door, three knocks followed by two. Those two were followed by the grating of the bar, and a muffled grunt as the lone archer struggled with a weight that any of the Angrborn could have moved without difficulty. The door swung back and Arn said, "There you are, Squire. Sir Able wants to speak to you right away." Ulfa opened the king's door, and for a moment we stood staring. At last I said, "I know you, and you know me." She shook her head. "What's your name, sir? II'd like to hear you say it." "I'm called Sir Able of the High Heart." She curtsied. "Your servant is Ulfa. Your servant is the wife of your servant Pouk." "You made a shirt for me once." "And trousers, and followed after you when you and your dog, with Toug my father, wiped out a Free Company." I nodded. "I have to speak to you and Pouk when I have more time. Is he here?" "I'll get him, sir," she said, and slipped past me. The king's bedchamber seemed as vast as the Grotto of the Griffin, cavernous, its ceiling (painted with scenes of war and feasting) lost in the air overhead, its bureaus and chests, its tables and chairs like cottages. In its center, on a black-figured crimson carpet larger than many a meadow, the bed under which Toug had conferred with Baki and Mani seemed small until one saw the slaves waiting there, women whose heads were well below the surface of the bed, so that they had to mount ladders to serve the king, and walk upon the blankets that covered him, blankets over a sheet that might have served as the mainsail of the Western Trader. Beside that bed, Beel stood upon the tapestried seat of a gilt chain and spoke with Gilling, who sat nearly upright, propped with immense pillows. Beel looked around at me in surprise, and I halted and bowed. "My Lord." "He's here," Beel told Gilling. "I'd don't know how that's possible, but here he is." Feebly, Gilling raised a hand. "Sir Able. Approach." I did, climbing to a rung of the chair and from there to the seat upon which Beel stood. "How kind to us are our ancestors," Gilling muttered. "They favor us, their unworthy son. Schildstarr came, now you. The queendo you know our queen?" "I have that honor, Your Majesty. It was Queen Idnn who sent me to you." "She was here but a moment ago. A lovely girl." I supposed that Gilling had been dreaming. "A beautiful woman indeed, Your Majesty. You're to be envied." "She's consulted the stars." Gilling sighed. "She divines with stars and cards and by the flight of birds, for she is wise as well as beautiful. Sir Able will save us. Sir Able, she said, would come tonight. You are Sir Able?" "I am, Your Majesty." "There is no other?" "No other known to me, Your Majesty." "Nor to me," Beel said. "It was you who slew our Borderers?" "Had I known them for yours, Your Majesty" Gilling's huge, pale hand waved them away. "Forgiven. Pardoned. We're beset by rebels." "So I have heard, Your Majesty." "Thus we say . . ." Gilling fell silent. His eyes closed, and for a time that seemed terribly long there was no sound in that vast chamber save the whispers of the slaves, a soft soughing like willows in a summer breeze. "Beel. . ." "I am here, Your Majesty." "You said he was far away. So did Thiazi." "Yes, Your Majesty. I thought it true. I have no doubt Lord Thiazi thought it true as well." "This is Sir Able? He is really here?" "He is, Your Majesty. He's standing at my shoulder." "Come, Sir Able. Approach. Do you fear our touch?" "No, Your Majesty." I stepped from the chair to the bed, finding it firmer than I expected. Gilling's hand found me, and Gilling's eyes opened. "Helmet, mail, and sword. Have you a shield, Sir Able?" "Yes, Your Majesty, and my lance, bow, and quiver, too. I can fetch them if Your Majesty wants to see them." Beel said, "A forest-green shield, Your Majesty, with a black dragon on it." "They said you were far, Sir Able. Only this afternoon we were told you were remote." "I was, Your Majesty." "How came you so quickly, Sir Able?" "I have a good mount, Your Majesty." "My queen told me you would come. She is wiser than Beel, though Beel is a good friend. She's wiser even than Thiazi. She read it in the stars." "It's at her request I come," I said carefully. "Duke Marder is coming also, with two stout knights, Sir Woddet and Sir Leort, and a hundred men." "Will you serve us, Sir Able?" "I'll help you if I can, Your Majesty, for her sake and Lord Beel's." Beel himself touched my arm. "Your Majesty, there is someone else here with whom we should speak before we three take counsel further. If your strength does not permit it, Sir Able and I can question him and report to you." "We will let you talk," Gilling told him, "but we will hear him. Who is it?" "Sir Svon's squire, Your Majesty. Thinking Sir Able still far away, I sent him out to scout the town for us." "Toug?" I looked toward the door and saw him waiting there with a ragged girl, standing between Pouk and Ulfa. Beel said loudly, "Come, Squire, I must present you." Hesitantly, Toug advanced; the girl would have followed him, but Ulfa held her back. With a hand up from me, he climbed the chair to stand on its seat next to Beel. "Your Majesty, this young man is Squire Toug. He is the squire of Sir Svon. Sir Svon is the younger of the knights who accompanied me." In a whisper Beel added, "One knee!," and Toug knelt. "You left this castle to spy out my foes, young man?" Gilling's voice was almost kind. "To look for scaling ladders, Your Majesty, or battering rams. Anything like that. That was what Lord Beel said to do, and find out who had them." Beel nodded. "Those were my instructions, Your Majesty. What did you find, Toug?" "Neither of those, Your Lordship." At a slight gesture from Beel, Toug rose. "But they were making mattocks and shovels. Digging tools. They had a lot already, and from what I heard they were going to make a lot more." Gilling's sigh was very nearly a groan. "Common tools for slaves, for farm labor. You found nothing." I turned to Toug. "I'm not so sure. You said they had a lot already. What's a lot? A dozen? Twenty?" Toug considered. "I'd say sixty or seventy shovels and thirty or forty picks. They were making mattocks when I was there. That's a thing like a pick, only a wide blade." "We know what they are," Beel told him. "There were eight or ten of those, and they were making another one when I was there, andand, Your Majesty . . ." Gilling's eyes opened, looking overlarge in spite of his vast pallid forehead and enormous nose. "What?" "They weren't for slaves. They were way too big." "They're going to undermine us!" Beel exclaimed. Gilling's head rolled from side to side. "Their slaves would do that. They'll heap up earth and stones." His eyes closed again. "So we carried Aegri's isle." Greatly daring, Toug said, "We could go out and get them, Your Majesty. Nobody's guarding us." Gilling did not respond, and Toug turned to me. "Carry them back in here, or burn them." I shook my head. "My Lord, I must confer with you. I realize how late it is, but we must talk and I must go. If I had more time, I'd talk to people separatelyto Toug here, my servant Pouk, and Ulfa. To this Schildstarr, Lord Thiazi, and you. There isn't time. Let's get them together, if they'll come. Then I'll have to leave." Beel nodded. "I'll see to it." "Ulfa and Pouk are here already," Toug said. "So is Etela. Maybe you should see her too." "Is that the girl?" Toug nodded, and Beel said, "We're all here already, in that case, save for Schildstarr and Lord Thiazi. See whether they'll leave their beds for us, Squire."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN NIGHT
At the suggestion of the lean Angrborn called Thiazi, we met in a room in which the king sometimes entertained friends, a room rather larger than the banquet hall of the Valfather's castle. Richer too, and far colder, filled not with the trophies of the hunt and the shields of the brave, but with clumsy furniture that must have seemed massive even to the Angrborn, and a wealth of polished silver and pewter platters and cups, things lovely but overlarge, like the shelves that could scarcely hold them crowded and piled together. "We've got to wait for that Schildstarr," Ulfa murmured at my elbow; I had not known she was there until she spoke. "Unless you need me, I'm going to get something for the girl. Toug says she hasn't eaten since yesterday." I nodded. "Would you like me to get you something, too?" "No. But thanks. Please hurry back." Pouk appeared at my other elbow. "You was wantin' to talk to me, sir? Might be a good time." "The only time we'll get, I'm afraid. Our horsesthat black charger Master Agr gave me. Where are they?" "Horses is in the stable, sir. Them stablemen . . ." Pouk looked as though he wanted to spit. "I didn't recognize them. The stable was dark, and I was in a hurry. I should have spotted them just the same." "I go out when I can, sir, an' do what I can. Only I can't go often as I'd like an' can't do much. I fought them stablemen at first, but they got worse to show me an' you can't hardly fight a man what runs." I murmured agreement, reflecting that Pouk, whose bad eye and squint had always made him appear blind, was blind now in fact. "You can't have gotten out there since the king was stabbed, I suppose." Pouk chuckled. "Oh, I slips out just th' same, sir. Twic't, so far. I got a way." "Good." "Only t'other's gone, sir. Your traps, or most is." "I understand." I had come to a decision. "I want to get you out, you and Ulfa both. I'm going to take Ulfa with me tonight, if I" "Bless you, sir!" "If I can. I'm going to leave you here for the time being to look after my horses and get my things together, if you can. Find them, even if you can't move them. I'll be back with the duke and others before much longer, and next time I go you'll be with me." Ulfa returned with a thick slice of dark bread, a lump of smelly cheese, and a wooden pannikin of what was probably small beer. She gave them to the ragged girl. I leaned to my left to talk to Toug. "Is this another relative of Ulfa's?" "No, Sir Able. I found her when I was out scouting. It's complicated." Beel said, "We should hear it in any" An Angrborn entered as he spoke, a giant so big and ugly that for an instant I thought he might be one of the Giants of Winter and Old Night, followed by four more only slightly less hideous Angrborn. "Yourself alone," Thiazi told Schildstarr firmly. "Your followers will not be permitted to stay." He pulled out a chair and sat, and motioned for the four who had come with him to sit as well. Wearily, Beel said, "We cannot have this." "Then you'll nae ha' me." "You think we can't drive you out. You're wrong. We can, and if necessary we will." Schildstarr shook his head. "Fetch thy hotland lads and we'll go." His followers protested. "You're hot to fight shieldmates. I'm nae." He turned to Beel. "Count thy-selves." He did, raising a thick finger for each man and woman as he pointed to Beel, Toug, Ulfa, Etela, Pouk, and me. "Half dozen. Fer me an' mine, Thiazi an' me? I'll nae stand for't." "You have a point," Beel conceded. "It's our king in the bed, an' our land you tread." I said, "You're Schildstarr? I called this meeting, and I haven't a lot of time." I stood on the seat of my chair and offered him my hand. "You're nae hotlander," Schildstarr said when our hands parted. "Ne'er felt the like." "You counted me among them," I told him. "You'd go, you said, if Lord Beel brought force. I'm here, so he has all the force he needs. But if you go without fighting, I'll go with you. I have to leave soon anyway." "We stay." "I want Sir Garvaon here," Beel said, "and Sir Svon. Refuse, and you have seen the last of me. You may call two more of yours, if you must counter us man for man." Schildstarr shook his head, and Toug went to fetch them. "Toug's been in the town this night," I told Svon, when they arrived. "I thought it too dangerous when I heard of it, but he says the danger was less than might be imaginedthat King Gilling's foes weren't watching the castle. I can confirm that. I saw no one when I came here." I turned to Toug. "You suggested we seize or burn the tools you found. They weren't guarded?" "Only by the smith." "His name?" Beel asked sharply. "Did you learn it?" "Yes, Your Lordship." (I felt certain Toug was nearer exhausion than Beel.) "Logi, Your Lordship." "Do you know him, My Lord?" Beel's question to Thiazi was nearly as sharp as his question to Toug. "I have heard his name." Thiazi shrugged. "You would not expect him to be a ringleader?" "A smith?" Thiazi shook his head. "Hardly." "Might talk." Schildstarr rumbled. "If we had him here," Beel said, "I agree that means might be found to persuade him to speak. But he's not here, and I see no way to get him." "Might come," Schildstarr rumbled, "if I try him." "He's dead!" Toug burst out. "He chased uschased Etela and me, and I killed him." Schildstarr's laugh shook every ewer and cup. Svon was grinning. "How'd you manage that?" "He fell and dropped his dagger, and I stabbed him with it before he could get up," Toug said. "I need to talk to you about that when we're alone." "You," Beel told Toug, "are a remarkable young man." "Thank you, Your Lordship." Toug swallowed. "Except I'm not. Not really. I'm a really ordinary kind of young man, aren't I, Ulfa?" She smiled warmly. "Do you think we could go out and get those tools, Sir Able? Like I said?" "I doubt it. What were the numbers? Sixty spades?" "Yes, Sir Able. About that." "And there were picks." Toug nodded. "About half as many." "I see." I paused to study Toug's serious, boyish face. "Did you handle any of them?" "One of the mattocks." "Could you have carried it back to this castle?" Toug considered, then nodded again. "It was pretty heavy, but I think so. Not fast." "No, not fast. Any of these Angrborn could carry more, of course. Let us say an Angrborn could carry four tools." I paused to do the arithmetic, then turned to speak to Schildstarr. "You have more than these four, since Lord Beel suggested you bring two more into our meeting. How many?" "Mysel' and eighteen mair." I returned to Toug. "Let's say sixty spades, thirty picks, and ten mattocksone hundred in all. Schildstarr and his eighteen could carry seventy-six, leaving twenty-four to be carried by twenty-four of us." "We don't have enough men to defend this tower now!" Beel exclaimed. "Right you are. Even if you stripped this keep bare we wouldn't have enough. If there's serious resistanceas there almost certainly will benot nearly enough." Pouk spoke up. "Me an' my mates could carry. There's more'n a hundred in our crew here." I nodded. "Or we could use the horses from the stable. There are oxen there, too, so there are presumably carts as well. Schildstarr, you're shaking your head." " 'Tis a brave lad, but nae gud. 'Twould be fight begun an' ne'er won." He leveled a huge finger at Garvaon. "Could you hold off a hunnert a' us? In the open, noo." "We'd do our best." "An' die." Svon said, "If we went out, might not others rally to the king's side?" "To me an' mine, it might be. Nae wi' you wi' us." Toug said, "We don't really want those tools. Maybe we could burn them." "We could burn the handles," I told him, "if our force made it that far. The heads are iron, aren't they?" Toug nodded. "They'd survive the fire, and anyone could easily fit new handles." The girl on the other side of Toug tugged at his sleeve, and they whispered together. When he straightened up, he said, "Etela and me have another idea. Can I ask Schildstarr something?" "Ask awa'." "The place where they're making the shovels and the other tools belonged to Logi. That's what Etela says, and she did too. Her mother's a slave there. Only Logi's dead now, like I told you. Will they sell them? The slaves?" Schildstarr nodded. "Aye." Etela spoke up. "Well, it seems like the king's got lots of money." Toug nodded. "It does, and Logi can't make any more shovels and picks and things now, so his slaves would have to make them. But they couldn't if you bought them and brought them back here." Pushing out a lower lip as big and black as a burnt roast, Schildstarr raised his eyebrows. "You could buy all the slaves," Toug added. "Etela's mother, too." Beel said, "It might even be possible to buy the tools that have been completed." I stood. "I got you together to make sure you wouldn't do anything rash before Duke Marder arrivedthat you realized your limitations. I don't think I needed to worry, and I have to go." "We should all go." Thiazi yawned hugely. "Back to bed. We should sleep on this and talk again in the morning." "I need a word with Toug," I told him, "and another with his sister. May I have them?" Mani climbed Toug's chair. "I suppose, if Lord Beel concurs." Thiazi yawned again. "Toug is his, as long as he cares for the king's cat. Who's his sister?" Ulfa said, "I am, Your Lordship." "I see." Thiazi stood up. "Would you like to own your sister, young man?" Toug stared; and Beel, watching him with some amusement, whispered, "Yes, My Lord." "Yes. My Lord. Yes, I would." "I'm acting for His Majesty during His Majesty's unhappy indisposition." Thiazi picked up his gold rod, which he had laid on the table when he had taken his seat. "As His Majesty's surrogate, I feel you should be rewarded for your activities on His Majesty's behalf tonight. In recognition of them, I present you with this healthy female slave. I'll have my clerk draw up a paper in the morning." He asked Ulfa's name, and she curtsied and provided it. "This slave Ulfa. You don't really need a paper since Schildstarr and his friends can testify for you if a problem comes up. Which it won't. But we're trying to keep things neater than they have been in the past." "Say, thank you, My Lord," Beel whispered. "Say thank you very much." At the door of the sally port (separated by a wilderness of stone from the room in which we had met) I halted. "Sir Garvaon, Sir Svon, I apologize. To you particularly, Sir Svon. I must speak with Toug privately. Will you wait here? And you, Pouk, and your wife? I'll come back as quickly as I can. Maybe Sir Svon could hold Queen Idnn's cat." "I will," Ulfa said, and took him from Toug. The sentry opened the big iron door with a grunt, and Toug and I stepped out. "It was Org," Toug said as soon as the door closed. "I didn't say it up there because I know Sir Svon doesn't want people to know about him." "I see. Org actually killed the smith?" "No, I did. But Org saw he was chasing Etela and me and went for him. I said he fell down and dropped his dagger and I stabbed him, and that was all true. But it was because he was fighting Org." I set off for the stable, motioning for Toug to follow. "Maybe you're worried because Etela's sleeping in my bed for now. I know Ulfa is, but I'm not going to hurt her, and it's a real big bed." "I'd hardly thought of it," I admitted. "I was talking with Sir Svon and Sir Garvaon while you and your sister were putting her to bed." "Then I don't know what we've got to talk about, but there's one thing I ought to tell and I should whisper it." I stopped at the stable door. "Go ahead." "Pouk isn't really blind. I mean, only in one eye, and he was that way before." "I noticed that myself." I felt suddenly that I was as tired as any of them, and reminded myself that I could not afford itthat I had a long ride ahead. "You did?" Gylf trotted up before I could reply. "There you are." "At last. Is everything all right?" "I bit one." Gylf yawned. "He'll recover, I'm sure." I turned back to Toug and asked how he had hurt his cheek. He was telling me all about the fight in courtyard and the attempted assassination of King Gilling more or less as Idnn had, when iron-shod hooves on the wooden stable floor interrupted us. Cloud had trotted out to greet me, and for a second or two we hugged, I with my arms about her neck and she squeezing me between her neck and chin. Toug patted her flank. "She's such a beautiful horse. I'll bet you were worried about her." "I was, but she could have told me if anything had gone wrong. We don't exactly talk, but each of us knows what the other's saying. Have I told you about that?" "Kind of." "Come with me." I led the way into the stable, followed by Gylf and Cloud. Their footfalls mingled with the scrape of shovels. "This is the room where the stablemen sleep." I took a stick from the fire and swung it until it burned brightly. "We want light, and I think there must be candles or lanterns here somewhere, even though the stablemen don't use them." "Right here, Sir Able." Toug had opened a cabinet; a large lantern of pierced copper held a candle equally large. I lit it. "Thanks. I suppose they must use this when they have to light their masters' way, and we'll use it too." I tossed the stick back into the fire. "I think I know what you want to show me." "If I were a teacher, I'd have left that stall the way I found it," I told him. "I'm a knight, and can't treat a good horse like that. I got this so you can see that his stall's cleanit had better beand that he has water and food." We found the white stallion that had been mine, and Toug stared at him for a minute or more, holding the lantern high. "He's dirty." Toug might have been choking. "And thin." "Yes. Sir Able . . ." "I'm listening." "Weeverything was barricaded. They're plotting against the king. Nobody could go out. Lord Beel said so." I took the lantern from him and hung it on a nail. "Lord Beel isn't a knight." "I guess not." "Neither are you. I expected you to say that." "You said it, Sir Able. I know it's true, but I won't say it." Toug wiped his hands on his cloak. "There must be things to clean horses with around here somewhere. Sponges or rags or something. Water. I'll get some." I shook my head. "You're a squire, and there are men here who've neglected their duty. Tell them what you want done, and see that they do it." "You made them shovel this out, didn't you?" Toug stooped, and picked up a handful of clean straw. "What was it like before?" "You wouldn't have wanted to see it. I have to go now. Sir Garvaon and Sir Svon have been waiting too long already. So have your sister and her husband." Toug nodded. "I'll see about Laemphalt." "I want to say one more thing before I go. It's that you went out of this castle tonight." "Lord Beel told me to." "You risked your life and fought like a hero." "Org" "I know about Org. Any of us who kills an Angrborn is a hero. Most men would have stood aside and let Org do the fighting. You didn't. But neither did you spare a thought