Gene Wolfe - The Wizard

For the second shot, I rode as hard as before, and that, too, hit the gold. No voices rose this time, but a silence louder than any applause.

Of the third I was completely confident. My first and second shots had struck gold. I had the feel of the exercise now, and Cloud had it as well. A third gold seemed certain. That night I would eat at Arnthor’s table, deliver Disiri’s message, take leave of her (a years-long leave dotted with ten thousand kisses), and go to the Valfather to beg some occasion when I could return to her, knowing that if I were gone a century it would seem to her in Aelfrice only a day or two. I rode—and my bowstring broke.

I had given Vil the bowstring he had stolen from me, and had begged another from one of His Grace’s archers. Here I will spare the reproaches I heaped upon myself that day. I told myself a dozen times that I could easily have gotten a new string for the tourney, that I ought never to have been parted with Parka’s string, and much, much more. None of it did any good. No one scored three golds, but three got two and a black. They dined with the king and queen, and I did not.

The next day was devoted to footraces, climbing greased poles, and catching greased pigs. Half crazy for something to do, I watched most of it. Wistan and I were leaving when we were stopped by a page who bowed prettily and informed us that the Countess of Chaus wished to speak with me. I said I was the countess’s to command, and we followed him through passages and up and down stairs to a little private garden where a girl with hair like a bouquet of yellow roses waited in a snow-covered arbor. I knelt, and she invited me to sit across from her.

Although at a distance, I had seen the queen by then; and it seemed to me that this young noblewoman, with her high color and mixed air of boldness and timidity, resembled her closely. To tell you the truth, I thought she was probably a sister or a cousin.

“You are Sir Able of the High Heart?” She cooed; it should have been annoying, but it was charming. “I watched you yesterday. You’re a wonderful bowman.”

“A careless bowman, My Lady. I trusted my old string, and lost.”

“Not my admiration.” She smiled. “Will you wear my scarf for the rest of tournament?” She proffered it as she spoke, a white wisp of the finest silk.

“There’s a dragon on my helm,” I told her, “and they couch on treasures. Mine will couch on this.”

When I had taken leave and Wistan and I were making our way back, he whispered, “That’s the queen. Did you know?”

I stared.

“Countess of Chaus will be one of her titles. They do that when they don’t want to be too formal.”

Ready to kick myself again, I shook my head. “I would have begged her for an audience with the king if I’d known.”

“You couldn’t. That’s one of the things it means. You have to pretend she’s whoever she says she is. She would’ve been mad, and her knights might have killed you.”

“I didn’t know she had her own knights.”

“Well, she does. She has the titles and all that land.”

“How many?” I was still trying to digest the new fact.

“Ten or twenty, probably.”

When we had ridden across the moat I asked, “If she has her own knights, shouldn’t she give her favor to one?”

Wistan spoke with the weary wisdom of a courtier. “They want to give it to the one they think will win.”

In my room I consulted Gylf. First I told him what had passed between the queen and me. When he understood, I said, “One point has me guessing I should’ve told Wistan, but I doubt that he’d say anything helpful. Remember how the queen addressed me? She said of the High Heart. I’ve been calling myself Sir Able of Redhall here. I may have said of the High Heart once or twice, but I’m sure it wasn’t more than that.”

“Rolls?”

“Wistan signed. He would have written Redhall, I know.”

“Who wouldn’t?” Gylf asked.

“What do you mean?”

Gylf merely repeated his question, as he often did when he found me obtuse.

“It was Wistan who set my name down, so what does it matter who would’ve called me Sir Able of the High Heart?”

Gylf sighed, closed his eyes, and rested his massive head on his forepaws.

In bed, I thought about Gylf’s question. He was a dog of few words, but they were worth hearing. Gaynor had called me Able of the High Heart; so she had spoken to somebody who called me that. It was possible Morcaine would, although she had visited me at Redhall. The duchess, His Grace’s wife, could have mentioned me; but if she had known of me at all, it would have been while I was at Sheerwall, most people there had just called me Sir Able. Although I had no reason to think Her Grace was at Thortower, she might have come and gone while I was in the north.

In the morning it finally struck me that the queen need not have spoken directly with somebody who called me Sir Able of the High Heart, that she might merely have gotten her information from someone who had. I called for Pouk and Uns and learned that they had been quizzed by a well-dressed stranger while they watched the footraces.

“He says do ya work for him wat broke da string,” Uns explained, “‘n we says yessar, Sar Able a’ da High Heart.”

“I told him there ain’t a knight here ‘ud match you, sir,” Pouk added. “So he sez Able o’ th’ High Heart, huh? We sez Sir Able an’ off he goes.”

I told them I would fight with the halbert that day, and asked if they wanted to watch. Both swore that Muspel itself could not keep them away; so the three of us and Wistan set out in company, I with my green helm on my saddlebow and the queen’s white scarf floating from it.

I had expected that all of us would fight at the same time, for the first round at least. There being far fewer knights enrolled than churls for the quarterstaff each pair fought singly. Hours passed before the Nykr King of Arms called my name. Just as I had to wait, so must this letter while I write about the combats I saw.

Halberts, many say, are the best weapons for defending a castle. For this reason every castle has a good store, some rich, others plain and meant for peasants and servingmen. It was with these we fought, because use in tournament requires that the points of pikehead and spike be ground away and the blade dulled. A helm is worn, and mail; but no shields are used, since both hands are needed for the halbert.

Like the quarterstaff, the halbert is grasped at the center and midway to the grounding iron, although other grips are possible and are favored by a few experts. The haft is Wistan’s height or thereabout. The whole weapon, point to grounding iron, is the height of the wielder or a bit more. It is its own shield, and is a shield that does not blind the eyes. A strong man who knows how each blow can be parried cannot be struck if he is quick enough; but he must be strong indeed and parry so the edge does not hew his haft, although this is not likely when the edge has been dulled.

Most of the matches before mine were long, and the rope was not used. One might speak to one’s neighbor and receive a reply, at times, between the blows, though at others they came fast and furious. As a knight new to Thortower, I was matched against Branne of Broadflood, who had gained the victory the year before. He was a goodly knight, tall and thick-chested, but he thrust too deep. I knocked his point aside, and stepping in struck the face of his helm with the haft of my halbert, tripping him with my left leg. He fell, and I had the win before most of the audience had given us their full attention.

In the second round I was paired with one of the queen’s house knights, Lamwell of Chaus. He was smaller than I but very quick, and got in good blows before I laid him out.