Gene Wolfe - The Wizard

“So did I.” For a moment Wistan appeared to contemplate a change of subject. “Do you trust him?”

“No. Never. I’d sooner trust Seaxneat.”

Wistan stopped. “Who’s that?”

“A man I used to know. A thief.”

I see.

“A coward, too. I didn’t think so then, because he talked so brave. Now I know he was trying to make himself believe it, but I believed him. I was a lot younger.”

“I understand,” Wistan said, and offered Toug a hand up.

Toug shook his head. “It wasn’t really very long ago. It just seems like a long time. So much has happened.”

They climbed for a minute or more; then Wistan said, “She’s not bad-looking, is she?”

“Queen Idnn?”

“No, the redheaded girl.” Wistan grinned.

“Oh. Baki.”

“So many girls have dark hair. There’s nothing wrong with that, but red hair or yellow hair makes a nice change.”

Toug said nothing.

“There’s all the freckles, of course. A lot of people don’t like them, but I say what’s wrong with freckles? She kept her eyes down, did you notice? Maybe not with you, but when I was in there, and our masters and the giants.”

“No,” Toug admitted. “Not with me.”

“When they won’t look you in the eye, it’s because they don’t want you to know what they’re thinking.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“So you know what they’re thinking about. Only I wanted to say I’m not going to pick your flowers.” Wistan mounted the next couple of steps.

“Don’t try to pick that one,” Toug told him.

“I won’t. We’re friends, right? We’d better be, since we’re the only squires here.”

This time Toug accepted the hand Wistan offered.

“But there’s things I wanted to ask. Like, the voices. After everybody left? The two giants and our masters and me. So that left you and the slave girl.”

Toug devoted his attention to the next step.

“I couldn’t hear what you said, but I could hear voices—three people. One was you and one was the girl. There was somebody else with a thin, rough voice, too.”

“What do you think the king will say?” Toug paused to catch his breath. “About Schildstarr and eighteen more?”

Wistan shrugged. “Another thing. I don’t think this will bother you.”

“I’m not bothered,” Toug declared.

“There was something in the corner. Did you see it?”

“The king’s cat.”

“Is it the king’s? I didn’t know. It’s a good thing you told me, I’ll have to leave it alone. No, I meant something else, something in the shadow there.”

“There are lots of things that live in shadows.”

“You saw it, too. Was that the voice I heard?”

“Yes,” Toug said, “what you saw in the corner.”

Again, Wistan was silent for a time. Toug climbed as fast as he could, hoping to outdistance him.

“You were Sir Able’s page. That’s what I heard. Then when Sir Able made Sir Svon a knight, he made you Sir Svon’s squire. Sir Able isn’t like most people.”

Toug agreed.

“There’s something of that about you, too.”

The rush of pride Toug felt was almost overwhelming.

“I’m your senior. If you won’t acknowledge that, we can have it out right now.”

“You were a squire before I was,” Toug agreed.

Wistan nodded. “As senior squire I order you to tell me who the third voice belonged to.”

“I already have,” Toug said.

“The thing in the corner. Sometimes it looked like a woman. What was it?”

“A ghost, I think.”

“What’s its name?”

“I don’t know.”

“We gently born fight with swords.” Wistan’s voice was cold. “And we give others a chance to draw. Draw yours.”

“I don’t want to fight,” Toug declared, “and I surely don’t want to kill you.”

“Coward!” Wistan’s hand was on the hilt.

Toug took a step backward that put his back against cold stone. “I yield.”

“I’d fight you,” Wistan was furious, “and I’d beat you.”

“I know it,” Toug said. “I yield.”

“You fought the Angrborn.”

Toug nodded. “So did you. I know that, too.”

“But you won’t fight me?”

“No.” Toug shook his head. “We may both have to fight the giants again soon. Can I keep my weapons? I swear I’ll never employ them treacherously.”

Wistan’s grin was triumphant. “Hand them over.”

Toug nodded and unbuckled his sword belt.

Wistan held out a hand. His grin widened.

“She’s not a sword,” Toug told him. “She’s a mace. Sword Breaker’s her name.” He paused, caressing the hilt. “I’ll give her to you, but I’ve got to tell you something. When Sir Able and I were boys, another boy and I tried to rob him. He beat us and took our weapons.”

“You’re lying! Sir Able’s much older than you.”

Toug nodded. “He is now, and when we met again he didn’t remember me. Or if he did, he didn’t say anything.”

Wistan did not nod.

“Sword Breaker used to be his,” Toug added as he handed her over. “He gave her to me. I told him I didn’t deserve her, but I didn’t say why. Maybe that’s why I’m losing her like this.”

Wistan was examining Sword Breaker.

“I hope you’ll take care of her. She really was his.”

“There’s a cistern in the cellar,” Wistan told Toug, “and they say it’s so deep it’s never been full. I’m going to drop this in there, the first chance I get.”

Toug watched Wistan climb until he was out of sight.

Toug was refused admission to the king’s bedchamber; but he argued so persistently with the giant on guard that Svon overheard him and let him in.

It was such a sight as he had never imagined, a room bigger than the biggest barn in Glennidam and rich as a casket of gems: the huge gilt bed, its surface higher than Toug’s head, on which the king lay pale as his own sheets, propped by silk pillows the size of mattresses; the gold-embroidered bed hangings of crimson velvet (more cloth and richer cloth than Toug had ever seen) drawn back by massy chains of gold; Schildstarr (rough as a wolf, filthy as a cur, and thrice as big as anyone had a right to be) leaning over that bed as attentively as the best nurse; Thiazi, reserved and alert, his face tight with secrets; the resolute knights and the swarming slaves straining to see and hear.

A slave drew Toug aside. “He sez th’ queen was wit’ him inside the stuns’ls, only she warn’t, ’cause these gals,” the hand gripping Toug’s arm tightened, “what kin see, they’d o’ seen her, wouldn’t they, mate?”

Toug managed to nod. “You’d have heard, too, wouldn’t you? If the queen came in they’d say good morning, I’m sure, or something like that, so you men would know to kneel.”

“Aye. That’s so.” Pouk’s whisper declined until Toug could scarcely hear him, though Pouk’s lips were at Toug’s ear. “Under th’ big bed, mate.”

Toug nodded and edged nearer the vast bedstead, waiting for a moment when no slave woman was looking at him.

“You’re a good friend,” the king was saying; and his voice was the sound of that sad and weary wind which stirs the dead leaves blanketing the dead, warning of cold rain. “We’ll remember,” the wind moaned. “Remember. Remember...”

“Your Majesty must not tire yourself.” That was Thiazi, like Schildstarr, bending above the bed.

“The question is who’s to command, Your Majesty.” The stern voice was Garvaon’s. “We obey His Lordship. We’re his men, and our men obey us. We obey My Lord Thiazi now because His Lordship has ordered us to. But if Schildstarr and the Angrborn he says he can bring us will obey only you...”