VI
Thalo was in the woods one day—he would have been a proper young man by then—when he spotted someone sitting a short way off in a holly bush, a short, slender man clad only in a small skirt around his waist. When Thalo went to him, he saw the man was an elf. That was Knale. He was wounded all up his arms and across his torso, and Thalo wondered how many of the wounds were from the holly bush.
‘Who are you?’ asked Thalo.
‘I am me,’ said Knale, ‘as you are you.’
‘You are an elf.’
‘You can call me that, if that is what you wish to call me.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean what I say, and I say what I mean.’
‘Are you hurt?’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened?’
‘A wounding.’
‘Who wounded you? Why?’
‘Who? Someone. Why?’ Knale glared at Thalo. ‘A grudge.’
‘Who is this grudge with?’
‘Me. Hence my hurts. Are you stupid?’
‘Not to my knowledge, no.’
‘And yet you ask such stupid questions.’
‘I want to know where things stand. I have heard enough stories about elves to know something is amiss here. They say your sort are cunning and sly, often crafty folk, who are prone to tempting people with hollow words. Is it true?’
Knale put a sultry look in his eye. ‘It is not for me to prove what elves are and what they are not.’
‘Is it true of you?’
‘It is not for me to prove what I am and what I am not.’
For a moment, Thalo looked upon Knale in silence. He was terribly pretty, and he wore a face among the most beautiful he had seen, beautiful enough to overlook Knale’s poor manners, and all good sense.
‘Would you,’ said Thalo, heat-stricken, ‘let me at your wounds?’
‘Perhaps I might. What would you expect to get out of that?’
‘Many things, or few. Your wellness, if nothing else.’
‘Does my wellness mean much to you, a stranger?’
‘Apparently so. How about it?’
‘Very well,’ said Knale, rising from the holly bush. ‘Do what you will.’
Thalo took Knale home and sat him on his bench. He cleaned his wounds and dressed them where they needed dressing, and he brewed him a herbal drink, one Asfoa used to make when he had hurt himself at play. Throughout this, Knale sat silently, watching with an unwavering smile.
When all was done, Thalo sat beside him and said Knale’s wounds were more plentiful than they were severe. ‘The only treatment left is some sound advice: do not sit naked in a holly bush.’
‘That is sound advice indeed,’ said Knale, ‘not that I will keep it. I will repay you for what you have done to me.’
‘What repayment would you give?’
Knale’s eyes widened, almost glowing with a golden light. ‘You deserve a great many things, and I wish to give you every one. But let us start with this: wisdom! I will give you some advice of my own, if you will hear it. I can tell you things that are important to know. That, after all, is the best reward a fellow can give.’
Thalo could think of many better rewards, but he was not eager to appear ungrateful.
‘So be it,’ he said. ‘What would you tell me?’
‘I will tell you what omens to recognise in battle. Something tells me that will be useful to you. In the days to come, if not now.’
‘Maybe so. What is your first omen?’
Knale grinned and spoke this verse:
‘If river runs betwixt two foes,
the worthy waryer holds his blows
and does not look to cross the stream.
He knows restraint. Do not be keen.’
‘Sensible enough. Tell me more.’
Knale nodded and spoke these verses:
‘If mighty sun is high and bright,
the worthy waryer willn’t keep sight
of sky-bound light before him hot.
Be sure to have a shaded spot.
‘And if the fight should grace a hill,
the worthy waryer surely will
be stood above his foe so bold.
The longer sword he ought to hold.’
‘Your advice seems lacking. My mother has taught me twice as much in half as many words. Tell me something I do not already know.’
‘Very well,’ said Knale, scowling. ‘I did not expect there to be any good wisdom at all in that wood-cut skull of yours.’
‘But your omens seem to bear little wisdom, either.’
‘Oh? You want some proper portents, wise man?’
‘That would be good, yes.’
Knale grimaced as he spoke this verse:
‘If cunning crow should coldly caw,
or howl is loosed from wolfish jaw,
the worthy waryer hears it first.
Fight full and hale, and without thirst.’
‘Useless. Tell me something important.’
‘Fine. I will tell you something more important than you realise, though you will not heed it.’
Knale spoke a final verse, his eyes full of malice:
‘If wounded one does long to know
who dealt to them their killing blow,
the worthy waryer willn’t be heard.
Be well aware of wicked words.’
Thalo deemed Knale’s wisdom to all be very obvious, or otherwise very unhelpful. Yet as he sat before him, lost in his gorgeous, gleaming eyes, he could not shift his gaze from him. He was so enchantingly beautiful, so exquisitely proportioned, that Thalo was held captive by his every feature—golden eyes, flaxen hair, the burnished lustre of his skin. There could surely be no fairer face.
So they sat, staring wordlessly at one another, until Thalo became aware of himself. He thanked Knale for sharing his wisdom. ‘What will you do with yourself now?’
‘What do you think I should do with myself?’
‘I think you are well and fit and should best be on your way home.’
‘But do you want that?’ said Knale, leaning forwards. ‘To cruelly cast me out into the cold?’ He took Thalo’s hands in his own, and what handsome hands! ‘To deny me your warmth and comfort both?’
After swallowing his first failed answer, Thalo said, ‘It is quite warm out. And we have nowhere to put you up, anyhow. If you need a bed for the night, you should be able to find one in town.’
Knale shook his head, eyes narrow, and said ‘Bah!’ before standing up and leaving the room.
Thalo followed him outside, but when he stepped into the light of the day, Knale was nowhere to be seen.
‘The wind blows,’ he said, and he went back inside.
Thalo told Asfoa about this meeting later that day, but she did not believe him. She said elves would not stalk among such laypeople, and even if they did, he certainly would not have lived to speak of it.
‘Deadly things,’ she said. ‘No, you must have been duped. He was certainly some under-grown softling trying to rub you and rob you.’
Thalo accepted his mother’s reasoning and gave the matter no further thought, peculiar though it was.
Asfoa was quite right, however, for Knale was a deadly thing indeed. Upon leaving the house, he had not disappeared. Instead, he retreated into the woods, and from the shadows he watched over the house, that he might gather a better understanding of who Thalo was and how he might be ruled. After observing Thalo and Asfoa for a short while, and the love that existed between them, Knale skulked one night into their little house, and into Asfoa’s sleep-deaf ear, he whispered a mortal curse.
‘Die. Die. Die,’ he said, but magically.
Then he giggled, and then stifled his giggles so as not to rouse her before making away once more.