I bowed, not really knowing whether I should or not. “It’s an honor to me just to talk to you, My Lord.”

“My father was a prince, the younger brother of His Majesty’s father. It is no small distinction.”

“I know that,” I said.

“I myself am a mere baron, but my older brother is a duke. If he and his son were to perish, I would be duke in my turn, Sir Able.” I did not know what to say, so I just nodded.

“A mere baron. And yet I have my cousin’s confidence. Thus I am sent to the King of the Angrborn bearing rich gifts, in the hope that my protestations will terminate his incursions. I do not tell you all this to boast, Sir Able. I have no need to boast, or even to impress you. I tell you so that you will understand that I know whereof I speak.”

I nodded again. “I don’t doubt it, My Lord.”

“I could name to you every knight of noble birth—and not the names merely, but the family connections and deeds of valor as well. Not of some. Not of most. Of all.”

“I understand, My Lord.”

“I am equally familiar with every young man of noble lineage who would be a knight. There is no nobly born knight in all Celidon named Able. Nor is there any nobly born youth of that name, whether aspirant to knighthood or not.”

I should have caught on before that, but I had not. Now I finally got it. I said, “I’m not of noble birth, My Lord. I guess that beggar said I was? But he probably doesn’t know anything about me.”

“Crol thought you noble. Did you sense it?”

I shook my head. “I told him I wasn’t.”

“He did. It was apparent in his behavior. Your lofty stature, your physique, and your face—your face most of all—might support a claim to nobility.”

“Well, I won’t make one.” I felt like I did sometimes in school then, and it was hard not to fidget.

“I was tempted to invite you to sit when Crol brought you in. I am tempted still.”

That got me a nice smile from the daughter that meant she would not have minded.

Beel coughed. “I will not, however, Sir Able. I ought to inform that as a matter of policy I almost never sit with my inferiors.”

“It’s your table,” I said.

“So it is. Sitting encourages familiarity, and I am forced to punish men whom I myself have corrupted.” Beel shook his head. “I have done that once or twice. I did not find it pleasant.”

I said, “I bet they didn’t, either.”

“True. But—”

The daughter interrupted us. “May I pet your cat?” As soon as she said that, Mani came out from under the table and jumped into her lap.

“I asked the man I questioned whether the noble knight of whom the beggar had spoken thought himself invincible.” I would have expected Beel to be angry then, but he was smiling while he waited for my answer.

“It seems like a funny question,” I said. “I doubt if there’s any such knight, anywhere.”

Here I have to stop to say that Beel’s pavilion was divided into halves by a curtain—more scarlet silk, but not as heavy as the outside stuff. I have to say it because Baki peeked around it and grinned at me.

“I agree,” Beel was saying. “But my question only seems odd. I asked it because of something one of the sons of my kinsman Lord Obr had told me the day before.”

I can be pretty stupid sometimes, but I got that one. “Squire Svon?”

“Yes. I think you know him.”

“He’s my squire, My Lord.”

Beel shook his head. “Not if he has deserted you. He said that he had not, but it seemed to me otherwise.”

“He didn’t.” I suppose that should have been hard to say, but it was not; I knew it was the truth and I wanted to get it out.

“I am delighted to hear it. You are going to the Northern Mountains to take your stand in a pass. For how long, Sir Able?”

“’Til there’s ice in the sea, My Lord. Ice in the Bay of Forcetti.”

“Midwinter, in other words.” Beel sighed. “I would not have been astonished if you had told me Svon deserted you.”

I shook my head. “He didn’t.”

Beel sighed again and turned to his daughter. “He is a connection of your grandmother’s, a younger son of Lord Obr’s. Obr is your great-aunt’s nephew.” She nodded.

“Young Svon told me certain things. It is unpleasant to question the veracity of those nobly born, but his—he ...”

I waved it away. “I get it.”

“So does Idnn, I’m sure,” Beel said, and turned back to her. “He was squire to a certain Sir Ravd, a knight of high repute. He is said to have deserted him on the field of battle. I am not saying he did so—I doubt that he did. But his character is such that the lie could be believed. You understand?”

The daughter (that was Idnn) said, “You must have known him better than my father, Sir Able. Do you believe it?”

I said, “No, My Lady. I don’t believe things like that unless I see proof, and nobody seems to have any.”

Beel’s thin smile was back. “I asked him what he was doing among these unpeopled hills, as anyone would. He told me a great deal, not all of which I credited. For one thing, he told me he had been made squire to a peasant now called a knight.”

He waited for me, but I stayed quiet.

“You are, of course, of gentle birth, Sir Able?”

“I’m not. I won’t go into my family—you wouldn’t believe me if I did. But basically, Svon’s right.”

Beel’s eyes got just a little bit wider.

“I want to say this, though. Please listen. I really am a knight, and I haven’t told you a single lie. I didn’t lie to your herald either. Or to the sergeant that brought me to him.”

Gylf pushed against my leg then to show that he was on my side.

“This puts things in a new light.” Beel clapped, and the mousy-looking servingman scampered in right away.

“We’ve kept Sir Able standing much too long, Swert. Fetch another chair.”

The servingman nodded and ran off to get one.

Beel said, “I want to make certain there is no mistake. Your father was a peasant.”

“My father sold hammers and nails. Things like that. He died while I was young, so I have to say I never really knew him. But I know what my brother said, and what other people have said. If we were back home, I could show you where his store was.”

“Good. Good! And how did you learn the secret arts? May I ask that? Who taught you?”

I said, “Nobody, My Lord. I don’t know anything about magic.”

Idnn giggled.

“I understand. One takes certain oaths, Idnn. Oaths one dares not break.” Beel smiled at me. “I am an adept myself, Sir Able. I will question you no more, if you do not question me. I might say, however, that young Svon himself had noticed certain—irregularities is too strong a word, perhaps. Certain phenomena, while in your company.”

The servingman came back with a folding chair, very pretty, with silver fittings. He opened it up and set it at the table where I would be across from Idnn. Beel nodded and I sat down, taking it easy because I was not sure the chair would hold me. Gylf lay down next to me.

“I spent much of my boyhood in a peasant’s house,” Beel told me. “It was my nurse’s, outside my father’s castle of Coldcliff. When my older brothers were at their lessons in the nursery, my nurse would take me home so that I might play with her own children. We had great games, and ran through the wood. And fished, and swam. Doubtless it was much the same for you.”

I nodded, remembering. “Yeah, I did all that, and I lay on my back in the grass, sometimes, to watch the clouds. I don’t think I’ve done that since I came here.”

Beel turned to Idnn. “It’s good for you to hear all this, though you may not think so now.”

She said, “I’m sure it is, Father.”

“You see our peasants plowing and sowing, and their women spinning and so forth, hard work that lasts from the rising of the sun until its setting in many cases. But you need to understand that they have their own prides and their own pleasures. Speak kindly to them, protect them, and deal fairly with them, and they will never turn against you.”