Gene Wolfe: The Knight

“Well, this’s the only Irringsmouth around here,” Scaur said. A passerby who heard us said, “Griffinsford is on the Griffin,” and walked away before I could ask him anything.

“That’s a stream that flows into our river,” Scaur told me. “Go south ’til you come to the river, and take the River Road and you’ll find it.”

So I set out with a few bites of salt fish wrapped in a clean cloth, south along the little street behind the wattle house where Scaur and Sha lived, south some more on the big street it led to, and east on the highroad by the river. It went through a gap without a gate in the wrecked city wall, and out into the countryside, through woods of young trees where patches of snow were hanging on in the shadows and square pools of rainwater waited for somebody to come back.

After that, the road wound among hills, where two boys older than I was said they were going to rob me. One had a staff and the other one an arrow ready—at the nock is how we say it here. The nock is the cut for the string. I said they could have anything I had except my bow. As I ought to have expected, they tried to take it. I held on, and got hit with the staff. After that I fought, taking my bow away from them and beating them with it. Maybe I should have been afraid, but I was not. I was angry with them for thinking they could hit me without being hit back. The one with the staff dropped it and ran; and I beat the other until he fell down, then sat on his chest and told him I was going to cut his throat.

He begged for mercy, and when I let him up he ran too, leaving his bow and quiver behind. The bow looked nice, but when I bent it over my knee it snapped. I saved the string, and slung the quiver on my back. That night I scraped away at my own bow until it needed nothing but a bath in flax oil, and put his string on it.

After that I walked with an arrow at the nock myself. I saw rabbits and squirrels, and even deer, more than once; I shot, but all I did was lose a couple of arrows until the last day. That morning, so hungry I was weak, I shot a grouse and went looking for a fire. I had a long search and almost gave up on finding any that day and ate it raw; but as evening came, I saw wisps of smoke above the treetops, white as specters against the sky. When the first stars were out, I found a hut half buried in wild violets. It was of sticks covered with hides; and its door was the skin of a deer. Since I could not knock on that, I coughed; and when coughing brought nobody, I knocked on the sticks of the frame.

“Who’s there!” rang out in a way that sounded like the man who said it was ready to fight.

“A fat grouse,” I said. A fight was the last thing I wanted.

The hide was drawn back, and a stooped and shaking man with a long beard looked out. His hand trembled; so did his head; but there was no tremor in his voice when he boomed, “Who are you!”

“Just a traveler who’ll share his bird for your fire,” I said.

“Nothing here to steal,” the bearded man said, and held up a cudgel.

“I haven’t come to rob you, only to roast my grouse. I shot and plucked it this morning, but I had no fire to cook it and I’m starved.”

“Come in then.” He stepped out of the doorway. “You can cook it if you’ll save a piece for me.”

“I’ll give you more than that,” I told him; and I was as good as my word: I gave him both wings and both thighs. He asked no more questions but looked at me so closely, staring and turning away, that I told him my name and age, explained that I was a stranger in his state, and asked him how to get to Griffinsford.

“Ah, the curse of it! That was my village, stripling, and sometimes I go there still to see it. But nobody lives in Griffinsford these days.”

I felt that could not be true. “My brother and me do.”

The bearded man shook his trembling head. “Nobody at all. Nobody’s left.”

I knew then that the name of our town had not been Griffinsford. Perhaps it is Griffin—or Griffinsburg or something like that. But I cannot remember.

“They looked up to me,” the bearded man muttered. “Some wanted to run, but I said no. Stay and fight, I said. If there’s too many giants, we’ll run, but we got to try their mettle first.”

I had noticed the word giants, and wondered what might come next.

“Schildstarr was their leader. I had my father’s tall house in those days. Not like this. A big house with a half-loft under the high roof and little rooms behind the big one. A big stone fireplace, too, and a table big enough to feed my friends.”

I nodded, thinking of houses I had seen in Irringsmouth.

“Schildstarr wasn’t my friend, but he could’ve got into my house. Inside, he’d have had to stand like I do now.”

“You fought them?”

“Aye. For my house? My fields and Gerda? Aye! I fought, though half run when they saw them comin’ down the road. Killed one with my spear and two with my ax. They fall like trees, stripling.” For a moment his eyes blazed.

“A stone ...” He fingered the side of his head, and looked much older. “Don’t know who struck me, or what it was. A stone? Don’t know. Put your hand here, stripling. Feel under my hair.”

His hair was thick, dark gray hair that was just about black. I felt and jerked my hand away.

“Tormented after. Water and fire. Know it? It’s what they like best. Took us to a pond and built fires all ’round it. Drove us into the water like cattle. Threw brands at us ’til we drowned. All but me. What’s your name, stripling?”

I told him again.

“Able? Able. That was my brother’s name. Years and years ago, that was.”

I knew it was not my real name, but Parka had said to use it. I asked his name.

“Found a water rat’s hole,” he said. “Duck and dig, come up to breathe, and the brands, burnin’ and hissin’. Lost count of the duckin’s and the burns, but didn’t drown. Got my head up into the water rat’s house and breathed in there. Waited ’til the Angrborn thought we was all dead and went away.”

I nodded, feeling like I had seen it.

“Tried to climb out, but my shadow slipped. Fell back into the pond. Still there.” The bearded man shook his head. “Dreams? Not dreams. In that pond still, and the brands whizzing at me. Tryin’ to climb out. Slippery, and ... And fire in my face.”

“If I slept here tonight,” I suggested, “I could wake you if you had a bad dream.”

“Schildstarr,” the bearded man muttered. “Tall as a tree, Schildstarr is. Skin like snow. Eyes like a owl. Seen him pick up Baldig and rip his arms off. Could show you where. You really going to Griffinsford, Able?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll go tomorrow, if you’ll tell me the way.”

“Go too,” the bearded man promised. “Haven’t been this year. Used to go all the time. Used to live there.”

“That’ll be great,” I said. “I’ll have somebody to talk to, somebody who knows the way. My brother will have been mad at me, I’m pretty sure, but he’ll be over that by now.”

“No, no,” the bearded man mumbled. “No, no. Bold Berthold’s never worried about you, Brother. You’re no bandit.”

That was how I started living with Bold Berthold. He was sort of crazy and sometimes he fell down. But he was as brave as any man I have ever known, and there was not one mean bone in his body. I tried to take care of him and help him, and he tried to take care of me and teach me. I owed him a lot for years, Ben, but in the end I was able to pay him back and that might have been the best thing I ever did.

Sometimes I wonder if that was not why Parka told me I was Able. All this was on the northern reaches of Celidon. I ought to say that somewhere.