I gave the jester the same look I would have done if he’d asked me to kiss a poisonous snake.
“Calm down, Harold. I really can help you. It’s fairly simple. Little Bee’s clever, she’s been trained. And what’s more, she’s a war horse, or a war mare, or a steedess. . . . Well, you know what I mean. . . . Here! Give her a treat.”
Kli-Kli took out a huge red apple from somewhere and handed it to me.
Little Bee happily crunched the treat and her amicable expression became even more kindly. I found it hard to believe that she was a war mare. . . . Damn it! Now I was doing it, too!
“Come on, I’ll show you your room,” said Kli-Kli, tugging at my sleeve. “Your things are there, by the way. A dwarf brought them, together with the ring.”
So Honchel had already brought the things I hadn’t been able to collect on the evening when I bought them from him. I meekly followed the king’s jester, realizing that he wouldn’t leave me alone today and I’d have to put up with him until tomorrow morning, when I would happily wave good-bye to the little green goblin.
“By the way, we need to go to the armorer and pick out a decent sword and some chain mail for you.” Kli-Kli was simply bursting with the desire to do something.
“Now that’s one gift I don’t need,” I said, shaking my head.
“So what’s wrong this time?”
“I need a sword like a drowned man needs a noose. I don’t know how to use it anyway. These are all I need, my dear jester,” I said, slapping my hand against the short blade at my hip and sticking my crossbow under the nose of the king’s fool.
“Well, you know best,” he said, too lazy to argue with me. “Then we’ll choose you some armor.”
“I’m not Alistan Markauz, Kli-Kli! I don’t intend to carry the work of an entire mineful of gnomes around with me.”
“Don’t get nervous. We’ll find you some light, safe armor.” The goblin was not about to give up this time.
“I don’t need it. It’s awkward moving about in chain mail.”
“Harold!” The jester pointed one finger at me and pronounced his verdict. “You’re a boring, tedious fellow.”
19
A NIGHT IN THE PALACE
Groaning in disappointment and cursing the entire world, I turned over onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. Cowardly sleep had fled from me like a healthy man fleeing from a leper. At first I thought I’d been woken by another one of the goblin’s tricks. But I couldn’t see the little jester anywhere around. I hoped very much that he was sleeping like a log somewhere as far away from me as possible, after exhausting himself during the day. After all, it must have taken a serious effort for him to give Harold a lesson in how to control a horse and then go on to wear me down with all his whining about the chain mail I hadn’t chosen, so that eventually I had to give way and go with him to select an iron shirt from the king’s armory. The delighted jester had taken himself off to his bed with a smile of triumph.
But if Kli-Kli wasn’t to blame, then what was it that had woken me up? There it was again! That was it, definitely. Those shouts. They had woken me up. And that clash of weapons.
It sounded as if there was a full-scale battle taking place in the corridors of the palace. But then who was fighting whom, and what about?
I tried to think on my feet as I searched for my trousers in the darkness and at the same time groped for the crossbow and the bag with my bolts that I had left on a chair. Outside, bugles sounded to rouse the guard. First one, then another, and after a short while the alarm signal was ringing throughout the palace grounds.
I grabbed my crossbow and dashed to the window. There was no question of lighting a candle. It would have taken too long to find one. I would have to load the crossbow by the light of the stars. Yes, I can load it in complete darkness, but it would have been annoying to confuse an ordinary bolt with one of the magical ones, then roast myself as well as my target when I fired.