I’m only a werewolf. “We are honored, sir,” she said. “Excuse me, but
before we go further, how would you like to be positioned?” Obviously I
couldn’t keep hold of it indefinitely, and it might think that simply
laying it down was undignified.
Obviously, too, the spirit ‘chanted into it had an equivalent of vision
as well as of voice box–and who knew what more senses? I imagined cold
blue eyes under shaggy brows darting to and fro. “Over yonder,” it said.
“That thingummy in the corner, ha? Best place I see. Where are we, some
petty nobleman’s manor or what? Demmed sparse furnishings, I must say.
Any tapestries on any wall in here?”
“An inn, sir,” I explained as I parked the terrible Viking weapon in the
umbrella stand. “Things have changed a lot since you, uh, since you were
last active.”
“Last Awake, you mean, young fella. I dozed off, um-m, let me see…
last engagement I’m sure of was, um-m, Tenchebrai, yes, Tenchebrai.
Reign of Henry, y know. Not long after I’d come back from
Constantinople. Tenchebrai, yes, we gave that scoundrel Robert a proper
thrashing, we did, him and his Frogs. There we stood, a thin red line–
No, I’m mixing my epochs, damme. Hard to keep sorted out, when all I
could bloody well do after I Awoke was lie there and hear whatever
happened to be in bloody earshot. Unbelievably boring, most of it.
Clergy, demmed heretics, the lot of ’em, and la-de-da pilgrims. Now and
then a proper milit’ry man, true, or better yet two or three together,
who’d talk about something worthwhile like battles.”
“Henry,” Ginny whispered to me. “Must be Henry I. Early twelfth century,
I think.”
The sword had gone dormant with the waning of rheatic energy everywhere,
I realized. For generations before then, no doubt Christian owners had
kept its nature secret and persuaded it to talk to nobody but
themselves. Afterward that knowledge was suppressed and died out.
Nonetheless a tradition went on in the family, that here was a brand
more often victorious than not. So, antiquated though it was, it
continued in use for another hundred years. But by then it was just
another chunk of shaped metal, remarkable in some ways such as the keen,
enduring edge and the immunity to rust, otherwise obsolete. Finally it
was handed over to the Church, along with its last wielder…
“Ahem!” the sword interrupted itself. “Beg pardon. We’ve not been
properly introduced. Nor is anyone about who can do the honors, what?
Needs must. Soldierly straightforwardness. Allow me. Decent lineage,
never fear. Forged by the dwarf Fjalar in Norway, the Dofra Fell,
mountains, y’know. That was on commission from Egil Asmundsson, jarl in
Raumsdal. Independent kingdom then, y’know, though already rather under
the sway of Halfdan the Swart southwards. Not unlike a native state in
India during the British Raj. Good warrior, Egil. The first man he
killed with me–But later, later. He called me Brynjubítr. Meant ‘Byrnie
Biter’ in the language. I’ve since borne a hodgepodge of different
names, or none. No respect, those younger generations. You may call me
Fotherwick-Botts.”
“Huh?” I croaked.
“Adopted from Major-General Sir Steelman Fotherwick-Botts, O.B.E. After
his retirement he came down to the crypt rather often. I’d hear him
discuss the milit’ry relics, battles past, the arts of war, and other
good stuff with young officers he’d brought along or else with whomever
was there.” And who couldn’t escape, I thought. “Admirable chap. Solid.
If only I’d been with him at Bloemfontein–”
So that’s how this Being’s picked up what he knows of the modern
English language and style. No, Edwardian at best. And there’s a lot of
frustration here to work off.
“Allow us to introduce ourselves,” Ginny inserted into the monologue.
She even managed a sketchy account of what we needed.