And yet on the next evening, after wounds had been stitched and bruises salved, the boards of the tables bent low with fowl and venison. The wine swirled and spilled, the servants busied themselves with pouring and porting and setting salt, bread, and water by each place, and the music began at sunset, a thin and graceful trumpet signaling that the Lord of Nidus requested the pleasure of his soldiers at the meal.
In preparation and prologue, the Minding began like the dozen or so that had taken place at Nidus since the Nerakan Wars had resumed. And yet, almost before the sound of the trumpet died, all who were summoned- from the family of the lord to his noble hostage, to the veteran cavalrymen who returned with him yesterday, all the way down to the youngest of the servants-knew that this night would be different, would be like no other.
As usual, Daeghrefn was the last to arrive at the Minding. Flanked by two cavalrymen, he made for the long table, for his customary seat in the high-backed chair adorned with the arms of Nidus: Raven Displayed on a Field Gules, the stormcrow of ancient lineage, sign of the house, perpetually and unchangingly honored.
And yet something had changed in the climate of the hall. The dozen chairs by the lord's seat, by the gift throne, were empty tonight-empty of petitioners, courtiers, sycophants. The knights and retainers who usually sat at the master's table had moved elsewhere, to the opposite end of the chamber. To the table by the fire, the far hearth which now blossomed with laughter and the first of the songs, for the men in the great hall had gathered around Lord Verminaard.
Daeghrefn scowled from his distant vantage. He struck the boards once, twice, but only Juventus and Onnozel, two of the younger troopers, untested in battle, even looked in his direction.
Gracefully, confidently, Verminaard held forth in the midst of the men. Raising a black mace, a weapon that seemed to catch the firelight and set it astir and spinning, Verminaard began the festivities, as the hero should-or in the absence of a single hero, the lord of the castle- with the formal, warlike speech of the mountain mead-hall.
"Say to me, soldiers, soul-mated in battle, stones and mountain, sea and river, before whom the fire has broke, is breaking, will break in the final hours of fire. Say to me, soldiers, the afternoon's story of what came to pass in the country of ogres, to honor the Nine in the Regions of Night, a dirge for the Lady dwelling in darkness, a song for Takhisis, a song for the queen…"
Daeghrefn leaned back in astonishment. Where had Verminaard learned the songs of the mead hall? This kind of foolishness had never gained ear in Castle Nidus-too sloppy and eastern, it was, smacking of Nerakan dives and the dockside bars of Sanction. This was a solemn hall, after a solemn battle. Men had been slain. Men had not returned. And this… this cursed usurper…
Daeghrefn had heard enough. With a shout, he rose and stalked to the center of the hall, hiding the limp from the wound suffered at the ogre's hand. The long scoring lacerations had been stitched neatly by the girl Judyth, the very one whose rescue had prompted all the disastrous, harebrained journeys of the last several days. Stiff and aching, Daeghrefn stood before the entire garrison, folded his arms, and glared balefully at the young man who would commandeer his place at table, who would turn the solemn occasion into a pulpit for vulgar legend and drunken boast.
All eyes turned to the lord of the castle, and for a moment the hall fell hush. A pigeon flapped in the eaves, and a solitary dog padded across the flagstone floor on its way to the safer darkness.
Old Graaf stood first to tell the first story, as was his place by age and honor.
Daeghrefn smiled. A loyal retainer. A man who knew his benefit and safety in the ranks of Nidus.
Slowly, with a strong voice unshaken by time and wounds in the service of his lord, Graaf turned to the young man standing at the head of the new table.
"Master Verminaard," he began, humbly but assuredly, "I haven't the high lord's poetry, nor the song of the olden times, when men such as my grandsire spoke in verses themselves, a song to the gift throne."
Daeghrefn glanced angrily at Verminaard, who met his gaze directly. The first of the speakers had broken protocol, had addressed this supplanter rather than the rightful Lord of Nidus.
The pale eyes of the young man met the dark eyes of the older. Daeghrefn felt a chill pass down his back, and he shivered involuntarily. He might as well be staring at his old friend-his old enemy-Laca Dragonbane.
Graaf continued, his voice acquiring resonance and strength. "And indeed there is no song of the harp this evening, gold string and sound of heaven, to gladden even the harshest voice with song. No song of the harp, for Robert the seneschal did not return from Neraka Forest."
Daeghrefn winced. Robert had always been the harper at the Minding-a surprising talent, for the rough old soldier had played like a bard.
"But here is the way your servant remembers," Graaf announced, his voice gaining power and confidence as he stepped away from the table. "To the best of his saying, these things he remembers.
"We had searched for Verminaard, Son of the Storm-crow," the grizzled sergeant began, raising his cup in the ceremonial stance of the scop, the teller, the rememberer. "We had searched for Aglaca, Son of the West. We had searched for them south of the forest where the victims of banditry hang dried and blackened like unpicked grapes, where wild cats roam in the bleeding woodland, where the trees scream of murder and conspiracies."
He took a deep breath and handed the cup to Tangaard. The burly young cavalryman drank fully, with a defiant glare at Lord Daeghrefn, then stood, raised the cup, and continued the story.
"It was then that the fire from the south overtook us," Tangaard began. "It caught us like beasts at the edge of the forest, at the forest's edge where Fittela fell. Then came the ogres, mark-steppers, man-eaters, falling on Thunar, finest of swordsmen, then upon Ullr, wielder of hammers, dear to Majere and fierce Kiri-Jolith."
Tangaard could no longer speak. The men kept respectful silence. It was well known that Tangaard and Ullr were the oldest and best of friends.
Mutely, glaring with rage at Daeghrefn, the young man handed the cup to Mozer.
Where Mozer had found the courage to join in the Minding, none could say. He was the softest of the men who had traveled with Daeghrefn-an aristocrat's son from Sanction, and he had gibbered and wept in the midst of the burning forest. Yet something had happened to him on the fire-struck plains. His eyes were deeper now, strangely fathomless, and he drank from the cup wearily and reverently, as a pilgrim might at the altar of some ancient shrine.
"Asa the Bright One, Longbow of Lemish, fell to the fire in a cauldron of cedar…"
Aglaca, standing in a shadowy corner of the hall, dropped his head. He had almost forgotten Asa's love of the bow-the big, gap-toothed westerner, ready with laughter and arrows.
"Asa the Bright One," Mozer continued, "and after him Reginn, Son of the Smith and the Hammer of Reorx. None can remember a stronger hand, the foe of rock, the destroyer of ramparts. Fallen to fire, to the leveling blazes, and abandoned deep in Neraka's forest."
Furtively, without looking at the Lord of Nidus, Mozer extended the cup toward Aglaca, beckoning him toward the hearth and the table.
Aglaca shook his head, waving away the invitation. He could not speak of what he had seen.
Aglaca had looked away, or tried to look away, on the fire-torn fields south of Nidus when Verminaard offered to cover their retreat. He had known well what would happen, but the men in his charge were stunned and weakened, and if the dazed ogres had come to themselves before he and Judyth could get the men into the castle…
So he had left Verminaard to cover their retreat. He was not proud of it.
His back to the battlefield, Aglaca had heard the sound of the mace as it whirled and roared, had heard it descend on the stunned, defenseless ogres, the wet, breaking sound of metal against powerless bone, Verrninaard's exultant cries as again and again he brought down the black, shimmering weapon.