Gene Wolfe - The Knight

He nodded and licked my knee. Big as it was and rough as it was, his tongue was warm and friendly.

“When we’re through eating, we’ll go to Glennidam. I want to find Seaxneat and kill him, if I can. Besides, Toug may be back home by now. I hope so. We’ll see about that. If you stay with me, you’re my dog ’til the Valfather comes for you. If you don’t you’re not, but I wish you luck just the same.”

I touched the meat, and licked my fingers, then waved it around on its stick to cool it. “Are you as hungry as I am?”

He nodded, and I noticed he was drooling quite a bit.

“You know, I’ve been wondering what killed that wolf. That was dumb of me, with the answer lying right next to me. It was you. You don’t have to nod, Gylf. I know it was.”

He nodded anyway.

“Then you left the lamb for me, instead of eating it yourself. Maybe the brown girl had something to do with it, but it was nice of you anyhow.” I tore the lower part of the lamb’s leg from the upper and gave it to him.

He held it down with his forepaws, the way dogs do, and tore it with teeth that would have surprised me in a lion’s mouth. Seeing them, I wondered why the wolf had not dropped the lamb and run. “Well, how is it?” I asked him.

And he grunted, “Good!”

Glennidam looked just about the same. There was a kid in the street who tried to beat—when he saw Gylf and me, but Gylf headed him off and I caught him. “Is your name Ve?”

He looked scared and shook his head. He was quite a bit younger than I used to be, if you know what I mean.

“You know him, though.”

He nodded, although I could see he did not want to.

“Don’t gape at me. You’ve seen strangers before.”

“Not nobody big as you.”

“My name’s Sir Able,” I told him, “and you and me will get along much better of you use it. Say, yes, Sir Able.”

“Yes, Sir Able.”

“Thanks. I want you to find Ve for me. Tell him I’ll be at Toug’s house, and I’ve got to talk to him.”

Gylf sniffed the kid’s face, and he shook like Jell-O.

“Tell him I’m no enemy. I’m not going to hurt him, and neither is my dog here.” I let him go. “Now go find him and tell him what I told you.”

“I, um—uh ...” the kid said, then he managed to add something more that might have been, “Sir Able.”

“Out with it, if it’s important. If it isn’t, find Ve and tell him.”

The kid touched his chest with a grimy finger and bobbed his head.

“You are Ve.”

“Y-y-y ...”

I made him come with me, saying I wanted to talk to him and Ulfa together.

The house was right down the street. I rapped the door with my bow and grabbed the lather by the front of his dirty shirt when he answered it, shook him as I pushed him in, and ducked under the lintel. “Where’s your daughter?”

She must have heard me, because she looked in from one of the little rooms in back.

I wished her good morning. “Get your mother, please, and both of you sit down.”

Her father’s hand was flirting with the hilt of a big knife. I saw it and shook him hard. “If you pull that, I’ll kill you.”

He scowled, and I was tempted to knock him down again; I shoved him down on a bench in front of the fire instead. I made Ve sit with him, and got Ulfa and her mother on a couple of stools.

“Now then.” I sat on the table. “Ulfa, I took your brother with me the last time I was here. Maybe your father told you.”

She nodded, looking scared.

“I don’t have him anymore. Disiri took him. I doubt that she’s going to hurt him, but I have no idea how long she’ll keep him. She didn’t say what she wanted with him. You may see him again today You may never see him again, and I have no way of telling which way it might go. If I see her, I’ll ask about him. That’s all I can do.”

I waited for one of them to talk, stroking Gylf’s head but keeping my eyes on them. After a minute or two, I said, “I’m sure all of you have questions. Probably I can’t answer them. But I’ll listen, and answer if I can. Ulfa?”

Her chin went up. “How long was he with you?”

“Less than a day. We were in Aelfrice for part of it, and it’s not easy to tell how long things take there, but a little less than a day should be about right.”

“Did you hurt him?”

“I twisted his arms enough to make him squeal once when he wouldn’t obey, but I did no permanent damage. Neither did anybody else while we were together.” I took a long look at Ulfa’s mother and decided she was not the kind to speak to a scary stranger.

Her husband said, “He’s in Aelfrice?”

“I don’t know where he is. That’s where he was the last time I saw him. He may have come back here—to this world or planet or whatever you call it. I don’t know.” As you can see, I was thinking then that Mythgarthr was probably not just some other country. For one thing, nobody called the country Mythgarthr—the country was Celidon. Another thing was that I was pretty sure that other countries on Earth did not have Aelf. I felt like I would have heard about them.

But there was a lot against that idea, too. One was that the moon in Myth garthr looked exactly like ours, and if the stars were different, I could not tell it. The Big Dipper was still there, and the North Star, and some other things I was really sure of.

About then, Ulfa said, “You let Disiri take him.” It was not a question.

“I wouldn’t have stopped her if I could,” I told Ulfa, “and I couldn’t if I’d wanted to. Yeah, I let her take him.”

“Will you try to get him back? He’s my brother.”

“If I can, sure. Now I’ve got questions of my own for all of you. Is Seaxneat here? By here, I mean here in this village or near it, right now.”

Ulfa’s father shook his head. “Out lookin’ for his wife.”

“He found her. That’s why I’m here.”

Ulfa said, “What happened?” very softly. I think she guessed.

“I’ll tell you in a minute. First I want to tell you about Ossar. I want to tell you—that’s Ulfa and Ve—particularly. Ossar’s in Aelfrice too, and I put him there, or I pretty much did. I left him with the Bodachan, the little brown Aelf. My brother” (that was what I said) “used to help them sometimes, and they used to help him. He said they were nice and pretty harmless unless you got them mad. Anyway, they wanted Ossar and said they’d take care of him, and I had no milk to give him and no food he’d keep down. So I gave him to them.”

Nobody said anything.

“Time goes slower in Aelfrice, so he might show up again in twenty years, still a little kid. It could happen. If it does, I want you to remember that he’s Disira’s son just the same, and look after him.” I made all four of them promise they would.

Then I said, “Seaxneat killed Ossar’s mother, and I’m going to kill Seaxneat for it if I can. But maybe I can’t, and maybe he’ll be here when Ossar comes back. Tell him Ossar’s been nursed by the Aelf, and they’re likely to get even for anything Seaxneat does to him. That may help. I hope so.”

Ulfa’s mother spoke. I think it was the only time she did. “By the queen who took my son?” she wanted to know. “By Disiri?”

I shook my head. “One of the Bodachan, I never learned her name. Ve, your dad sent you to get the outlaws the night I took Toug. It can’t have taken you very long, since they were after us the same night. Where did you go?”

“You mean my father? I—I’m not supposed to say. Sir Able.”

Ulfa’s father rasped, “Tell him!”

I said, “I can get it out of your father if I have to, Ve, but I might have to hurt him. It’ll save a whole lot of trouble for you both if you tell me now.”