"Does your lord have use of fighting men?" Nils asked.
"If they are good."
"How does he test them?"
"They fight. With an experienced man-at-arms or a knight."
"Would he have use of two more?"
"I'm already of a mind to hang you from a tree as a warning to others who might have a taste for venison," the knight answered. "It is the custom here." He studied them further. "But with one as big as you it does seem a waste. It's possible you might fight well enough to serve his lordship. Certainly you're big enough, and bigger. If you can't, you can always serve as a thrall-or for public execution." He turned to one of his men. "Tie them," he ordered.
The man dismounted agilely with a long leather rope, and Nils and Kuusta submitted, wrists behind backs and loops around their necks. The horses trotted back down the lane then, in the direction they had been going, Nils and Kuusta running awkwardly behind, not daring to stumble. They were muddy with their own sweat and the dust kicked up by the horses, Kuusta cursing quietly but luridly in Finnish.
What kind of man is this Swede, Kuusta wondered? In town he seemed a great fighter, but here he had submitted as docilely as a thrall. Yet they were alive instead of stuck full of arrows like two porcupines. And the ropes around their necks had not been thrown over an oak limb.
They were put in a cell together in the barracks, but shortly a man-at-arms came and led them into the courtyard. A grizzled veteran stood there, with several other knights and squires, among them the knight who had brought them in.
The old knight glowered at the two prisoners. "So you claim to be fighting men," he said.
"I am a freeman of Suomi," said Kuusta. "I've served as a mercenary, and like all Suomalainet I am hightly skilled with the bow. In our country we live by the bow."
The veteran grunted. "Make him a mark," he ordered.
A squire picked up a horse dung and threw it thirty meters.
"Give him a bow."
Kuusta bent the unfamiliar bow, testing its flex and strength. "Can I use my own?" he asked. The old knight said nothing, so he fitted an arrow, drew back and let go. It struck centimeters short.
The old knight himself picked up a horse dung then and threw it high. Quickly Kuusta had to nock and draw, letting the arrow go when the target had already passed the height of the throw and was starting downward. The arrow broke it apart as it fell. Kuusta concealed his surprise.
The veteran tried not to look impressed. "Now you," he said to Nils, and signalled a man-at-arms who handed Nils his sword and shield. "And you, Jens Holgersen."
The knight who was game warden stepped out smiling, his sword drawn. He was not in the least awed by the size and musculature of the youth he faced-a half-naked barbarian of some tribe he'd never heard of. Besides, he had handled the opponent's sword and knew it was too heavy to be used properly, even by such a big ox. On top of that, the barbarian was barely past squiredom, unblooded and with no armor except his steel cap. Hopefully old Oskar Tunghand would stop it before the boy lay dead. Such size and strength could be trained if he didn't prove too clumsy, and besides, he'd taken a liking to the barbarian's open and honest disposition. He'd make a good Dane.
They faced each other. The boy showed no fear; his face was calm and his stance easy.
"Fight until I say to stop," the old knight ordered.
Their swords met with a crash, and Jens Holgersen began to hew. The youth parried, using sword as much as shield, and the knight was impressed at the ease with which he handled the heavy blade. He increased his efforts and the barbarian backed away, defending himself easily, measuring the strength and skill of the knight. Sword struck on sword and shield.
The man is not too bad, Nils decided, and with that he attacked. The great sword began to fly, smashing the other's sword back, the shocks jarring bone and sinew so that the knight could scarcely recover before the next blow struck. His shield was cloven nearly to the center with the blow that knocked him from his feet, and he lay in the dust, thunderstruck, the point of the heavy sword touching lightly at the latch of his throat.
"Must I kill him?" Nils asked casually, looking across at the old marshal. "He was merciful and spared our lives when he might have hanged us from a tree."
Oskar Tunghand stood erect, his brows knotted in consternation, his right hand on the hilt of his sword, not threateningly but in shock. "No, don't kill him. He"-the words almost choked the old knight-"is one of our best swordsmen."
Nils stepped back, put a foot on the encumbering shield and freed his sword. His wrist relaxed then, the point of his sword in the dust, and Jens Holgersen climbed slowly to his feet, his eyes on the mild young face above him. He saw no exultation there, or even satisfaction. The eyes, squinting against the sun, were simply thoughtful. And to the astonishment of the watchers, when Holgersen stood again, the young warrior knelt, picked up the knight's fallen sword, handed it to him by the hilt and slid his own back into the scabbard.
"Peder! Take them back to the barracks," Oskar Tunghand said hoarsely. "See them fed and properly equipped." He turned to Jens Holgersen. "Come."
Nils and Kuusta had walked several steps with their guide when the old knight's rough voice called, "Hey you, big one!" Nils stopped. "Your name."
"Nils Jarnhann."
The veteran gazed at him for a moment. "Jarnhann." His lips tightened slightly and he turned to walk on with Jens Holgersen.
After Nils and Kuusta had washed and eaten, an artificer attempted vainly to fit Nils from his existing supply of mail shirts. "I don't want one anyway," Nils told him. "I'd feel ill at ease in it. Among my people it's the custom for men to go shirtless in warm weather. Would it offend your customs if I go as I am?"
"It is the custom for knights to wear mail while on duty, and Oskar Tunghand has ordered that you be equipped as a knight. And it's the custom of all but peasants to cover their bodies. It is strange that you don't know these things. But as none of these fit you, I'll have to make one that will. Meanwhile, you'd better wear a shirt of some kind or men will think you're uncouth and lowly."
Peder paa Kverno, the man-at-arms in whose charge they were, found a woolen shirt that Nils could wear. Then Nils found a sharpening steel and began to replace the edge on his sword.
The job was hardly well started when a page came to take him to an audience. They crossed the dusty courtyard and climbed a flight of stone stairs to enter the great hold, one pikeman preceding them and another following. The corridor was wide, with a tall door at the far end and lesser doors along both sides. The tall door was of thick oak, banded and bossed with iron and guarded by two pikemen. For all its weight it swung easily when the page pushed on it, and they entered a high, dim room richly hung with dark tapestries. Polished wood glowed in the light that came through narrow windows high in the walls and from oil lamps burning pungently in braziers.
A tall man with a great forked beard sat richly robed upon a throne. To one side stood Oskar Tunghand, with Jens Holgersen behind him in clean hose and jerkin. At his other side stood a white-bearded man, slight but erect in a blue velvet robe, his eyes intent on the newcomer. Behind the throne, on either side, stood a pikeman.
Nils walked down the carpeted aisle and was stopped five paces from the throne by a pike shaft.
The man on the throne spoke. "Has no one taught you to bow?"
"Bow?"
"Like this, dolt," said Tunghand, and he bowed toward the throne. Nils followed his example.