Gene Wolfe - The Wizard

“Cloud is a better mount than yours.”

The Knight of the Leopards shrugged, and turned in his saddle to address his squire. “What do you say, Valt? Would you prefer to give a lance to one of the lackeys and have him pass it to that cripple?”

Valt, a fair-haired youngster with a good, open face, smiled. “I’m not so proud as all that, Sir Leort.” Touching his heels to his mount, he came forward until he could pass a lance to Uns, who thanked him and gave it to me with a bow.

“Now then.” The Knight of the Leopards donned his helm; it was of spotted gilt and the crest was a rampant leopard.

I retreated a good fifty paces, with Uns clinging to my stirrup, and shaded my eyes against the glare from the snow. “He looks wonderful, doesn’t he?”

“Nosar, not good as ya does, sar.”

“He looks far better than I, Uns. See the pennants! He has a herald, his squire, two pages, men-at-arms, and a whole troop of manservants.”

“Seven a’

‘urn, sar. Da sarvents.” I smiled.

“You counted them.”

“Yes, sar. But, sar...” Uns cleared his throat and spat. “‘Tisn’t him, sar. None ‘tis.”

The herald brought his clarion to his lips. I put on my helm, and couched the spotted lance Uns had passed to me.

The clarion sounded, ringing notes of blood and dust echoing and reechoing. There was no need to clap spur to Cloud; she charged as an arrow flies. For an instant that was brief indeed, the Knight of the Leopards was before me, broad shoulders, and lofty helm with yellow and black plumes streaming, bent low above his charger’s neck.

The point of my lance missed purchase on that helm, and the point of the Knight of the Leopards struck the dragon on my shield and I was dashed from the saddle. It was the first time I had been unseated since Llwch did it.

For half a minute, perhaps, I lost consciousness. When it returned, the Knight of the Leopards was standing over me, offering a hand to help me rise. “Thank you,” I said, and turning spat blood that unexpectedly but pleasantly recalled Master Thope. “I’m Sir Able.”

“You may keep your spurs,” the Knight of the Leopards told me. “And certainly you may keep your crippled servant and the old people. I don’t want them.”

Querulously, Berthold was asking, “Didn’t he win? Didn’t Sir Able knock him down?”

“But the rest I must have,” the Knight of the Leopards finished. “Give everything to my squire.”

I knelt. “I beg a boon.”

The Knight of the Leopards turned back to face me. “What is it?”

“My spurs, which you said that I might keep, are solid gold. You may have them, with all else I have, and welcome.”

“But...?”

“I beg leave to keep my mount and my sword. I beg it for my own sake, because I love them both. But I beg it for yours as well.”

The Knight of the Leopards appeared to hesitate. He removed his helm and handed it to Valt. “No,” he said. “I leave you your spurs. To that I’ve pledged myself. And your servants. But I will have everything else, and certainly I will have that horse.”

As he spoke, Gylf came to stand beside my shield.

“You won’t have Cloud,” I said, “even if I gave her to you, you couldn’t have her. You couldn’t ride her if you sat her saddle. Nor could you get into it or even catch her to mount.”

“Hand the reins to me,” the Knight of the Leopards said. “I require this mare of you.”

“I wouldn’t treat you so. As for this sword, if I were to give it to you, you’d throw it away. Or it would throw you away. That wouldn’t be pleasant.”

“I am a lawful knight. I had supposed you were one as well.”

“I am.”

He shook his head. “It appears otherwise.”

“If I may tell you about something that happened to me first,” I said, “I’ll give you Cloud as you ask. Otherwise you’ll have to catch her yourself. Will you listen?”

“Relate the incident.”

“It will be short unless you pepper me with questions. Once the king I served sent me to the court of another king, a king who commanded many brave knights like yourself.”

“Continue,” the Knight of the Leopards said.

“I mocked their courage. I challenged them to choose a champion, saying he might strike off my head if he presented himself to me in a year’s time and let me strike off his.”

“You are a brave man if you indeed spoke thus.”

“It took no courage. A knight came forth. I knelt, bent my head, and told him, ‘Strike!’”

A slight smile played about the lips of the Knight of the Leopards. “But he did not.”

“You’re wrong. He had a good sword with good edge. One blow clove this neck of mine and sent my head bouncing across the rush-strewn floor. I got to my feet, retrieved it, and tucked it beneath my arm.”

“You expect me to believe this?”

“I told him about a ruined castle in which he was to meet me in a year’s time. He came, and he found me there. Do you understand this story?”

“Hand over your horse and your sword,” said the Knight of the Leopards, “with all else that is yours.”

I nodded, unbuckled my sword belt, and gave it to him, with Eterne still in her scabbard.

“Is that gold I see in your hauberk?”

“Yes,” I said, “every fifth ring is gold. It’s the mail worn by Sir Skoll. There’s no magic in it, yet the wearer is blessed.” I pulled it off and dropped it at the feet of the Knight of the Leopards.

Gerda, who had been watching and reporting our actions to Blind Berthold, came forward. “For your mother’s sake, you take that an’ forget the sword an’ go your way.”

“My lady mother would not have such a woman as you for her scullery maid,” the Knight of the Leopards told her.

“Take it back!” Heimir, nearly naked and bearing a very large club, stepped from the opening in the cliff in which I had ordered him to hide himself. Hela followed. The men-at-arms, who had been lounging in their saddles, readied their lances and rode forward, then halted, possibly because I had raised a hand to stop them, possibly only because they had caught sight of Gylf.

“Take it back!” Heimir repeated, and aimed a blow at the Knight of the Leopards that would have felled a bull.

“Heimir!” Gerda shouted. “Heimir, stop!”

There was an impressive hiss of steel as the Knight of the Leopards drew his sword. He tried to parry Heimir’s next blow with it, however, which proved to be a mistake.

I caught Heimir’s arm. “That will do. That’s enough.”

“Make him take it back!”

Hela said, “Heimir speaks for me, Sir Able. But if your foe will not,” she smiled, “we may feast right royally here, my brother and I on them, and our mother and new father, with you and Uns, upon their beasts. Wilt join us in taking these birds,” she nodded at the men-at-arms, “‘fore they fly?”

I shook my head. “Sir knight—what’s your name?”

“He’s Sir Leort, a right noble knight!” Valt announced.

“Sir Leort,” I said, “you must look Heimir here in the face and swear on your honor that your mother would welcome such a woman as Gerda into her service. If you do not, I cannot speak for the result.”

Instead, the Knight of the Leopards dropped his broken sword, and so quickly and skillfully that anyone might have supposed he had done it a thousand times, drew Eterne.

Phantom knights thronged him. Their swords menaced his face, and their empty eyes spoke threats more daunting than any sword. Into their unnatural silence came the drumming of spectral hooves. Cries no living man had heard were borne on the cold wind. I laid a hand upon his shoulder. “Sheath your sword. Sheath it now.”

He knelt instead, and held out the sword Eterne, her blade flat across his hands. I took it, and the phantom knights drew back. The jeweled scabbard and the sword belt lay in the snow. I brushed them to dislodge the snow that clung to them, and as Eterne shot into her scabbard every phantom vanished.