A dim remembrance stirred in him. He stood puzzling for a while. Was this... wait. The Danish coat of arms. No, that had nine hearts. The memory sank down again.
But what in the world? He scratched his head. Had somebody been organizing a pageant, or what? He drew the sword: a great broad-bladed affair, cross-hilted, double-edged, and knife sharp. His engineer’s eye recognized low-carbon steel. Nobody reproduced medieval equipment that accurately, even for a movie, let alone a parade. Yet he remembered museum exhibits. Man in the Middle Ages was a good deal smaller than his present-day descendants. This sword fitted his hand as if designed for that one grasp, and he was big in the twentieth century.
Papillon snorted and reared. Holger whirled around and saw the bear.
It was a large brown one, which had perhaps ambled around to investigate the noise. It blinked at them, Holger wished wildly for his gun, then the bear was gone again into the brush.
Holger leaned against Papillon till he got his wind back. “Now a small stand of wildwood is possible,” he heard himself saying earnestly. “There may be a few hawks left. But there are no, positively no bears in Denmark.”
Unless one had escaped from a zoo... He was going hog wild. What he must do was learn the facts, and cope with them.
Was he crazy, or delirious, or dreaming? Not likely. His mind was working too well by this time. He sensed sunlight and the fine dust motes which danced therein, leaves that formed long archways down the forest, the sharp mingled smells of horse and mold and his own sweat, everything utterly detailed and utterly prosaic. Anyway, he decided, as his naturally calm temperament got back into gear, he could do nothing but carry on, even in a dream. What he needed was information and food.
On second thought he reversed the order of importance.
The stallion seemed friendly enough. He had no right to take the beast, nor a suit of clothes, but his case was doubtless more urgent than that of whoever had so carelessly left this property here. Methodically he dressed himself; the unfamiliar stuff needed some figuring out but everything, to the very shoes, fitted disturbingly well. He repacked the extra garments and the armor and lashed them back in place. The stallion whickered softly as he swung himself up in the stirrups, and walked over to the lance.
“I never thought horses were that smart,” he said aloud. “Okay, I can take a hint.” He fitted the butt of the weapon into a rest he found depending from the saddle, took the reins in his left hand, and clucked. Papillon started sunward.
Not till he had been riding for some time did Holger notice how well he did so. His experience had hitherto been confined to some rather unhappy incidents at rental stables, and he recalled now having always said that a horse was a large ungainly object good only for taking up space that might otherwise be occupied by another horse. Odd, the instant affection he’d felt for this black monster. Still more odd, the easy way his body adjusted to the saddle, as if he’d been a cowboy all his life. When he thought about it, he grew awkward again, and Papillon snorted with what he could have taken oath was derision. So he pushed the fact out of his mind and concentrated on picking a way through the trees. Though they were following a narrow trail—made by deer?—it was a clumsy business riding through the woods, especially when toting a lance.
The sun went low until only a few red slivers showed behind black trunks and branches. Damn it, there just couldn’t be a wild stretch this big anywhere in Denmark. Had he been carried unconscious into Norway? Lapland? Russia, for Pete’s sake? Or had the bullet left him amnesiac, for weeks maybe? No, that wouldn’t do. His injury was fresh.
He sighed. Worry couldn’t stand against thoughts of food. Let’s see, about three broiled cod and a mug of Carlsberg Hof... no, let’s be American and have a T-bone, smothered in French-fried onions—
Papillon rested. He almost tossed Holger overboard. Through the brush and the rising darkness a lion came.
Holger yelled. The lion stopped, twitched its tail, rumbled in the maned throat. Papillon skittered and pawed the ground. Holger grew aware that he had dropped the lance shaft into a horizontal rest and was pointing it forward.
Somewhere sounded what could only be a wolf-howl. The lion stood firm. Holger didn’t feel like disputing rights of way. He guided Papillon around, though the horse seemed ready to fight. Once past the lion, he wanted to gallop; but a bough would be sure to sweep him off if he tried it in this murk. He was sweating.
Night came. They stumbled on. So did Holger’s mind. Bears and wolves and lions sounded like no place on earth, except maybe some remote district of India. But they didn’t have European trees in India, did they? He tried to remember his Kipling. Nothing came to him except vague recollections that east was east and west was west. Then a twig swatted him in the face and he turned to cursing.
“Looks as if we’ll spend the night outdoors,” he said. “Whoa.”
Papillon continued, another shadow in a darkness that muttered. Holger heard owls, a remote screech that might be from a wildcat, more wolves. And what was that? An evil tittering, low in the brush—“Who’s there? Who is that?”
Small feet pattered away. The laughter went with them. Holger shivered. It was as well to keep in motion, he decided.
The night had grown chilly.
Stars burst into his sky. He needed a moment to understand that they had emerged in a clearing. A light glimmered ahead. A house? He urged Papillon into a jarring trot.
When they reached the place, Holger saw a cottage of the most primitive sort, wattle and clay walls, a sod roof. Firelight was red on smoke rising from a hole in the top, and gleamed out the tiny shuttered windows and around the sagging door. He drew rein and wet his lips. His heart thumped as if the lion were back.
However...
He decided he was wisest to remain mounted, and struck the door with his lance butt. It creaked open. A bent figure stood black against the interior. An old woman’s voice, high and cracked, came to him: “Who are ye? Who would stop with Mother Gerd?”
“I seem to be lost,” Holger told her. “Can you spare me a bed?”
“Ah. Ah, yes. A fine young knight, I see, yes, yes. Old these eyes may be, but Mother Gerd knows well what knocks at her door o’ nights, indeed, indeed. Come, fair sir, dismount ye and partake of what little a poor old woman can offer, for certes, ye’ve naught to fear from me, nor I from ye, not at my age; though mind ye, there was a time—But that was before ye were born, and now I am but a poor lonely old grandame, all too glad for news of the great doings beyond this humble cot. Come, come, be not afeared. Come in, I pray ye. Shelter is all too rare, here by the edge of the world.”
Holger squinted past her, into the shack. He couldn’t see anyone else. Doubtless he could safely stop here.
He was on the ground before he realized she had spoken in a language he did not know—and he had answered her in he same tongue.
2
HE SAT AT THE RICKETY TABLE of undressed wood. His eyes stung with the smoke that gathered below the rafters. One door led into a stable where his horse was now tied, otherwise the building consisted only of this dirt-floored room. The sole dim light came from a fire on a hearthstone. Looking about, Holger saw a few chairs, a straw tick, some tools and utensils, a black cat seated on an incongruously big and ornate wooden chest. Its yellow gaze never winked or left him. The woman, Mother Gerd, was stirring an iron pot above the fire. She herself was stooped and withered, her dress like a tattered sack; gray hair straggled around a hook-nosed sunken face which forever showed snaggle teeth in a meaningless grin. But her eyes were a hard bright black.