The Wizard (7 page)

loud that it seemed a storm spoke. "What's that holding it?" "He's the cat's servant, may't please Your Majesty. The hotlanders thought it oughta have somebody to look after it, somebody it knows. That sounded right to me." "Fetch my table!" A lean Angrborn standing beside the dais thumped the floor with a golden staff, a dull noise that made Toug think of Death knocking at a door. "The king's table!" Four blind men carried each leg. They were guided by a woman who steered them by voice and touch. Briefly her eyes met Toug'sat once, she looked away. "Now then," the king said when Toug had been lifted onto the table. "You must tell me about this magical cat, little fellow. Can he talk?" "Yes, Your Majesty," Toug said, and felt Mani's claws sink into his shoulder. "Then make him talk to me." Mani shook his head, his whiskers brushing Toug's cheek. "I can't, Your Majesty," Toug said. "No one can make a cat do anything." The king laughed, his belly an earthquake, and the other Angrborn joined in his laughter. "If he likes you," Toug explained, "he may talk to you. But I'm sure he'll never talk with so many people present. That isn't his way." The king leaned toward him, his round, sweating face like a millstone. "Is he your cat?" "He's Lady Idnn's cat, Your Majesty. She wanted to bring him herself, but her father wouldn't let her." Toug took a deep breath. "He didn't think she was dressed well enough for court, Your Majesty. I'm not either. I know that. But with me, we hoped it wouldn't matter as much." King Gilling was silent a moment, and then he said, "A nice tunic. So you wouldn't be ashamed to appear before me." Toug nodded. "Thank you, Your Majesty." The king turned to the Angrborn with the gold staff. "A nice tunic, Thiazi. One of the slave women can run him up one. A gold chain, if you've got one small enough. Whatever else seems good to you." Thiazi bowed. "Your Majesty's wish is my only will." Toug ventured to say, "Lord Beel has beautiful presents for you, Your Majesty. He's waiting outside the wall. All you have to do is let him in, and he'll give them to you." "Waiting with this Lady Idnn?" "Yes, Your Majesty. And Sir Svonthat's my masterand a lot of other people." "I wish to speak to this Lady Idnn. If her husband won't let her see me, her husband must be dealt with, Cat." "My name's Toug, sir, and his name's Mani." Toug spoke softly in the hope of giving no offense. "And Lord Beel's not her husband, he's her father. Lady Beel's dead, I think. And I'm sure he'll let you see her. See Lady Idnn, I mean, when she's dressed up and everything." "That is well." The king smiled. "We need to ask her where she got this cat, don't we, Thiazi?" Thiazi bowed. "Indeed, Your Majesty." "Oh, I can tell you that," Toug said. "She got him from Sir Able. He used to be Sir Able's cat, and Sir Able gave him to her."

CHAPTER SEVEN HELA AND HEIMIR

"Sumpin' worryin' ya, sar?" Uns was struggling to turn poles and a tarred canvas from Bymir's barn into the semblance of a pavilion, assisted by Blind Berthold. "A thousand things," I told him. Gerda looked up from her cooking. "We're in your way, ain't we, sir?" I shook my head. "No. Not at all." "If you'd want to ride ahead tomorrow, sir, and tell us where to meet up with you . . . ?" I shook my head again. "Org ain't hit, sar? Ya worried how Sir Svon might be takin' care a' him. So'm I, sar. Org ain't bad like they say. On'y he ain't good, neither,'n do take handlin'." "No," I said. "Can I give you and Berthold some help?" Uns looked shocked. "Us got hit, sar, 'less ya think us ain't doin' right." "You're doing better than I would, I know." I seated myself on the ground and stared into the flames. Gylf lay down beside me. " 'Tis the boy." Gerda's tone was that of one who knows. "Young Toug. I'm worried 'bout him too, sir." "You don't have to listen to this," I said. "You have work to do, all of you. I realize that. I have work to do, too, and I've been trying to do it. Thinking, not worrying. We thought very little in Skai, or at least I didn't think much. The Valfather, the Lady, and Thunor were very wise, and that was enough for us. We served them whenever we could, and ate and drank and jousted and sang when we couldn't. Now there's nobody to think except me, and one of the things I've got to think hard about is whether the Valfather foresaw it." I picked up a stick, snapped it, and tossed it on the fire. "I'm sure he must have. The real question is whether it affected the restraints he laid on me when he let me come. And if it didI think that it must havehow." "Too much thinkin' leads to drinkin'," Gerda warned me. "Too much worry, you mean. Too much circular thinking in which the mind turns around and around, shaking the bars again and again. Yes, it does, but I try not to think like that. I try to think as the sea flows. I miss it, by the way, though I doubt the rest of you do." Gylf laid a paw in my lap. "I'll tell you what I was thinking about in a moment, it's no secret. Let's dispose of Sir Svon and Toug first." Bold Berthold, having finished staking the poles of the makeshift pavilion, came to sit beside Gylf, feeling his way with a peeled stick. "You're concerned that the Angrborn may kill them, and so am I. But if I'd stayed, Toug would have remained my captive and Sir Svon would have remained my squire. Those outcomes were certain, not problematic. Once, long ago . . . Though it is not long ago to you. Once Sir Garvaon told me I was a hero, the sort of knight men sing about." Berthold said, "Aye." "That's the sort of knight Sir Svon longs to be, and Sir Svon's right, because it's the only sort who should be called a knight at all. I don't mean that songs must be sung about every brave knight. There'll always be many whose greatest deeds no one knows. Before I made him Sir Svon, Svon charged a score of bandits, sword in hand. He killed some, and the rest beat him senseless and left him for dead. No song will be made about the bruised and bleeding lad who woke and saw Sir Ravd's body torn by wolves, who routed the wolves with Ravd's broken lance and buried Ravd alone in the forest. Yet he deserves a song, and I'm giving him a chance to earn one. A chance to feel pride in himself, not just in his ancestors. "Toug's a peasant who wants to become a knight, and will become a knight if he's given room to grow. Uns, you know him better than Berthold or Gerda do. Am I wrong?" "Dunno, sar." Uns, who had been straightening a pole the ropes had pulled out of line, paused. "Dere's Pouk ta, ain't dere? Dat was wit you at da farm?" I nodded. "The Angrborn have him." "You was dead set on gettin' him free." "I was. I am. He was my servant, and a good one. I've sent him rescuers, and I feel they'll succeed." Gerda said, "That's not what was worryin' you, sir?" "No." I looked up from the fire. "First and always, I was thinking about Queen Disiri, as I always do. When the Valfather's mead had washed me clean of every other memory, I still recalled her name. She won't come to me. Therefore I must go to Aelfrice to seek her, as soon as I can." " 'N me wit ya," Uns declared. "Perhaps, but I doubt it. Time runs more slowly there. Have I told you?" Berthold said, "My brother did, sir. He'd been took, or thought he had, and when he come back I was old, though I had my eyes. Dizzied sometimes, like now. But him! He wasn't but a lad like when he was took, though he did talk high." "Why was he taken, Bold Berthold? Do you recall that?" "To talk for Aelfrice up here's what he said. 'Cept he never did." "I've wondered about that." "You know 'em, sir," Gerda ventured. "There was that one come to you when we was under the tree, me and Bert. I said you shouldn't trust her, but you said you had already." "Uri." "That was her, sir. You knew her." "Yes. I know her and Baki fairly well, I'd say. I used to think I knew Garsecg, too, and better than either of them. But I know better now, and know Garsecg's no Aelf." Gylf said, "Wow!," but they thought it a mere bark. "He's a demon," I explained, "a dragon in human form." "Ya goin' ta kill him, sar?" I shook my head. "No, Uns. Not unless I must. But we're drifting away from the riddle of Berthold's brother, and that riddle's one of the things I've been considering. Do you still want to hear about those?" Berthold said, "I do, sir, if my brother's in it." "Of course. Your brother couldn't recall anything that happened to him in Aelfrice." "No, sir." "Then we have three mysteries. First, why could he not remember? Second, why was he taught fair speech? And third, why has he not spoken?" Gerda asked, "Don't you know the answers, sir?" "Not all of them. The second we can all guess easily, I believe. He was taught to speak well so he could deliver the message he had been given effectively. Uns, you've a sound head. Can you enlighten us as to the other mysteries?" "Wy he coont remember, sar? Dint ya say dat first? Dey magicked him. Dey's handy wit spells, all dem Aelfs." I nodded. "I'm sure you're right. But why do it?" "Somebody give him a message," Berthold muttered. "Yes." "He never said who 'twas,'cause he didn't know." I nodded again. "I think you must be right. The sender wished to keep his identity secret, and his message as well." Gerda pushed one of the forked sticks that would support her cooking pot into the ground. "Then he hasn't said what they told him. He's forgot it." Berthold's groping hand found my arm. "Somebody here." I looked down at Gylf, who raised his head, sniffed, and seemed puzzled. "You heard him?" I asked Berthold. "Aye, sir. I do." "There's a breeze." I rose, my hand on Eterne. "He must be coming upwind. That's why Gylf hasn't caught his scent." I stalked away, downwind, with Gylf at my heels. Berthold and Uns were sleeping soundly when we returned, but Gerda had stayed awake and sat warming her hands. "It's good for somebody to keep watch," I said as I sat down, "but you can go to sleep now. I'm going to sit up, and Gylf wakes at the least sound." "You didn't find him?" I shook my head. "I kept listening, sir. I thought if you killed him he'd cry out, most like. My ears ain't what they was, and I worried you'd do it so quick there wouldn't be no noise." "I never saw him," I confessed. "Somebody out there, though, wasn't there?" I nodded. "One of them giants?" I shook my head. Gylf, who had seen him, had described him to me. "A boy like that Toug?" "No, a big man. As I said, I never saw him, but I heard him run away. A big man can move very quietly as long as he doesn't have to run, but when he runs there's not much he can do to silence the noise his feet make." "Your dog couldn't run him down?" "I'm sure he could have, but I wouldn't let him. Do you remember when he caught you in the hedgerow?" "Won't never forget it." "Uns wanted to know what was troubling me. I said there were a thousand things, I believe." I smiled. "That was a slight exaggeration, but one of them was the memory of Gylf's catching you. I saw your chain, and there was a moan in my mind. Almost a scream." "I'm used to it, sir." "We'll have it off as soon as we can find a blacksmith, I promise you, though that may be a long time. But the thing that has been troubling me tonight wasn't your chain but that moan." After a moment I added, "It wasn't me who moaned. I feel sure of that." "If it was in your head, sir . . ." "It had to be me? No. It didn't, and it wasn't. So who was it?" "I don't know, sir. I didn't hear it." "I was recalling it as well as I could and trying to decide whose voice it might have been. I had just about settled on my answer when it struck me that it could have been Berthold who Gylf found. Had you thought of that?" Gerda stirred the fire. "Berthold's past his prime, and blind, but still strong for a man his age. And no man I know is less liable to give way to fear. He'd have fought, and Gylf would have killed him. The man who ran from us was younger and much stronger." Gerda did not speak. "There are men who should be killed. There are many more who must be killed, because they will try to kill us. But I'm not sure the man who ran from usthis very large young man I did not seebelongs to either group." "You think he's mine, sir. You think it's my Heimir." "I don't think anything. It struck me it might be." "I don't know, sir. Really I don't." She wiped away a tear. "I feel like it is, like he's come back to me, or I've come to get him, sir, or however a body might say it. But I don't know, sir, it's all in my heart. I ain't seen him nor heard him nor nothing." "We'll let him come closer next time, if there is one." "That's good of you, sir. Sir?" "What is it?" "If it is . . . You wouldn't hurt him?" "Of course not. Would he hurt me?" Gerda hesitated. "He might, sir, if I wasn't with you. I can't say. He's hungered, most like." "So are we. There's not much game here." "Farther south, sir, south of the mountains" I shook my head. "I must take my stand at a mountain pass. We won't go south of the mountains for a long time." She smiled. "I know you won't let us starve, sir. Not even if he's with us." Someone big lay on a bed of fern in a low cave; for a fraction of a second, I felt his hunger and his loneliness. I looked up. Cloud was watching me, her head and dark eye scarcely visible. Hoping she could see it, I nodded. "You said you'd decided about the moan, sir. The moan when you first seen me. What was that?" "It was when I saw you were chained." Smoke drifted into my face; I fanned it away and moved a little to my left. "You probably think I imagined it." She shook her head. "Not if you say you didn't." "I didn't. I know the flavor of my thoughts, and that wasn't one of them. It wasn't you either, and it wasn't Gylf. I can't say how I know, but I do. There was someone else there, someone I couldn't see. I'd been shadowed by the Aelf, and I thought it most likely that it was Garsecg." I paused. "Garsecg is not an Aelf, but he had pretended to be. I'll tell you more about Garsecg some other time, perhaps." Gerda nodded. "Now you've changed your mind, sir?" "I have. You said you saw an old woman with me." Gerda's nod was timid. "I think that was Mani's mistress. You must have seen Mani. A large black cat." "A witch's cat, sir, if you ask me." "Yes, though he's Lady Idnn's cat now. The witch is dead but still earthbound. When Baki writhed in the hayloft, his old mistress's ghost told Mani to bring help to her." "You think she's haunting us, sir?" "I doubt it. I'd guess that she went to Utgard with Mani, though I don't know. Lie down. Try to sleep." "If that's all that was troubling you, sir. I was hoping there was more I could help with." I laughed. "I doubt it, Gerda. Some Aelf were going to sacrifice a beautiful woman in the griffin's grotto. Who was she and what became of her?" "Ler! I don't know, sir." "Very tall. Milk-white skin and black hair." My hands shaped the figure of an invisible woman. "If you don't know who she was or where she went-" "I swear I don't, sir." "I believe you. In that case, tell me this. Why would the Aelf offer one of our women to Grengarm?" "Why, I've no notion, sir. Do you?" "Maybe. Grengarm was a creature very like Garsecg, yet Grengarm seemed real here in Mythgarthr. Remember Toug? He was from Glennidam, a village where they worship the Aelf." "That not right, sir. Nobody ought to do that." "None of us should, at least. I don't think it would be terribly difficult to explain why the people of Glennidam do, though it's wrong just as you say. A better question, one I thought of much too late, is why the Aelf let them." Gerda's face showed plainly that she did not understand. "You mentioned Ler, mother. Suppose that Ler, with the Valfather and Lothur, were to appear before us, sacrifice to you, and offer you their prayers. What would you do?" "I" Gerda looked baffled. "Whywhy I'd say there was some mistake or maybe they were making a joke." "Exactly. But the Aelf, who should say the same, do not." I watched the moon rise above the empty landscape. At last Gerda said, "I guess they like it, sir." "Lie down," I told her. "Go to sleep." When the moon had risen high enough for me to make out the mountains, I got up and saw to the tethers of our mounts. Those of Berthold's horse, and Gerda's, were still tight, as was that of Uns' placid brown mule. Cloud's had never been tight, and I removed it. Already bedded down, Cloud nuzzled my face and brought to my mind the image of a wild boar, huge and savage, rooting on the other side of the little river. I nodded, slung my quiver behind my back and strung my bow. Parka's string sang softly beneath my fingers, the songs of men reaping and the songs women sing to children with heavy eyes, songs of war and songs roared in taverns, songs of worship sung at altars when blazing logs consumed whole oxen and Overcyns with horned helmets and hair like fine-spun gold appeared in the smokeall these and many more blending into a single anthem of humanity, to which certain birds piped an accompaniment. "Good pig!" Gylf licked his lips. "Want him?" I said I did. "Long way. I'll drive him." Before I had taken two strides, Gylf was out of sight. In the blind dark under the trees, I reflected on the few, poor remarks I had directed to Uns, Berthold, and Gerda, and their questions and comments. Then, for a hundred cautious steps or so I whispered Disiri's name. Gylf had located the boar; his snarls and the angry grunts of the boar rode the soft night wind. Jotunland, I thought. This's Jotunland. Empty and cold and a little too dry. Bold Berthold had spoken of digging deep wells, wells whose fearful construction required months, wells that failed even so in dry years, of carrying bucket after weary bucket into the fields, and of vicious fights between Angrborn over access to wandering brooks that never reached the sea. So