pounds. Nevertheless, it seemed as if I gripped something alive.
Ginny freed me of my left coat sleeve and unslung the fake beneath. She
laid it in the case, taking great care about its position, hung the real
one from my shoulder, and dressed me again. She lowered the lid. I heard
its lock, too long unoiled, grate back to closure. We retraced our
thievish steps.
The street still stretched empty. I realized I was shivering a bit, the
smell of my sweat sharp in my nostrils. “This was almost too easy,”
Ginny said.
“Y-you mean the enemy knows and–helped us along?”
“No, I mean if we went back to the hotel right away, the porter would
wonder why.” She laughed and tucked her arm under mine. “Guess we’ll
have to take that walk after all.”
Unreasonable gladness jumped in me. Fears and tension fled. “By God, I
get my wish!”
A staircase led onto the city wall. Most of the medieval circuit
remains. The top has been paved for easy footing. We wandered hand in
hand between the battlements. Beneath us slept the town. Opposite
gleamed the river, and outlying homes gave way to broad countryside.
Steeples, portals, the strong delicate towers of the Minster reached for
the stars that glimmered overhead. Now, when traffic was hushed, we
breathed stillness and ghostly fragrances from gardens. Often we
stopped. The east had gone pale before we turned back.
The porter smiled as we came in. “I hope you enjoyed yourselves,” he
said, wearily amiable.
Suddenly noticing how rumpled my best girl’s hair had gotten, I felt
sheepish. She, though, returned his grin. “Oh, my, yes,” she purred.
“You’ll be having your breakfast late? Perhaps lunch?”
“No, likelier at the usual time,” Ginny replied. “We aren’t sleepy yet.”
He tried not to grin wider. Reality, the weight beneath my coat, jabbed
into me. Yes, we had something in mind that we just weren’t able to put
off. No, it wasn’t what he thought. Damn! And yet, and yet–
In our suite, the door latched and the DO NOT DISTURB on its knob, I
slipped my coat off, removed my burden, and shakily set it on a table.
Ginny joined me. For a time that we didn’t reckon, we looked. Day waxed
beyond the shades. My nerves once more strung close to the snapping
point, I caught sounds of people coming astir.
“All right, let’s,” she said very softly. She unshipped her wand and
made other precautionary preparations. Standing back, alert, she nodded
to me. “Draw it, Steve.”
And see what happens.
I took the scabbard in my left hand and lifted the weapon. My right went
around the haft. It could barely squeeze between guard and pommel. The
idea was to provide a tight, secure fit, and men averaged smaller in the
past than now. Slowly, I pulled.
The iron sheened darkly. A line in Beowulf came back to me, “the brown
blade.” But this one had a bluish overtone with a damascene ripple.
Dwarf-forged to cut through steel and stone, monsters and magics–what
alloy, what heating and quenching, hammering and grinding, runecraft and
songcraft had gone into it? I swung it through an arc. In spite of my
awkward grip, a beautiful balance made it move like my own arm. A
feeling of savage life flowed into my marrow.
A sound like throat-clearing rasped across our silence. “Ahem!” The
scabbard dropped from me and thudded on the carpet.
“Har d’je do, m’lady, m’lord,” said a raspy, vigorous baritone. “Gad,
how good to be free again! Deuced bore, lying there, unable to do a
bloody thing–if you’ll pardon the language, m’lady–nothing but listen,
ever since I Awoke. Fifty years? A hundred? Felt like a thousand, I can
tell you. Outrage. Calls for a letter to the Times. Yes, and questions
in Parliament, egad. Heads will roll for this, or there’s no discipline
and justice left in England, by Jove!”
Repartee failed me. The blade wobbled in my clutch. “Uh, I, uh,
p-pleased to meet you,” I stammered. How did you shake hands with a
sword? That edge could take my fingers right off.
Ginny recovered faster. She’s more used to dealing with the eldritch.