Then all the days of preparation had fled, everything was packed or returned to the storerooms, and the horses themselves seemed to look impatient every time Pirvan passed through the courtyard. He did this several times on the last day, in his mind saying farewell to a place that had become home in a way he had never expected it would in the days when his new rank still sat on him like an ill-fitting helmet.
He and Haimya had gone journeying on the affairs of the knights many times, and a few times on their own affairs. More often than not, they had faced perils greater than Pirvan suspected this quest would offer.
Yet the farewell to the manor had become a ritual, and he suspected that his spirit would say it on his last departure, when they carried his mortal shell out to the burying ground beyond the stream.
There was also another farewell to be said, and there was no ritual to this, because it was to Gerik and Eskaia. No ritual, because with each farewell they knew more about what their parents faced than they had before.
What they faced, and what might take them from the world without so much as leaving a body.
There were times when the words of farewell nearly choked Pirvan. He wanted to say other words, words that would not choke him. Words such as:
“Ogres carry off Sir Gehbian and everything that is his. We are staying home.” The affair of Sir Gehbian of Juhrwood had left Pirvan with headaches and Haimya with a limp for some months, and without exceedingly shrewd healing spells neither would have come home at all.
He dreamed of saying such words, but in the dreams the children did not leap about, shout for joy, and hug their parents. Instead they turned gloomy and sullen, muttering of “honor” and “you are not what you were” and other phrases that held no filial respect but rather a deal of painful truth.
“We bred them true,” Haimya said one night, after Pirvan revealed the dreams to her. “True from the bone out, and no denying it.”
“Who denies it?” Pirvan said, reluctant to be consoled. “But remember. Now we must say farewell when we march. In a while we will not be saying farewell, because they will ride with us. Then comes the worst part, when we must sit by the fire and watch them mount up and ride out.”
“Both of them?”
“Any man who bids Eskaia sit by the fireside and embroider, she will stab with her longest, sharpest needle. And have you thought of how to reconcile Gerik to a life he would call less than honorable?”
“Hardly. It seems he has learned some good from those lordlings, as well as the rest.”
“I suppose his mother had nothing to do with it?”
“Less than his father, I-”
Pirvan silenced her with a kiss, and that particular argument died aborning.
* * * * *
“Papa,” Eskaia said. “May I ask you a question?”
“Is it one I must answer?”
“I think so, because it is one that both Gerik and I need answered.”
“Why isn’t Gerik here, to ask it himself?”
“He-I think he is afraid.”
“Afraid?” Pirvan frowned, then said with mock seriousness, “It is unworthy of the blood of a knight-”
“It’s the blood of a knight we’re worrying about,” Eskaia exclaimed. “Both of us. What will happen to us if you and Mama do not come back?”
Pirvan looked at the sky. No god appeared to offer guidance, advice, or even a rude gesture indicating that the problem was entirely his to solve.
For this last, Pirvan was grateful. He was in no mood to be told what he already knew.
He also knew that it was not a question of who would be the children’s wards, who would pay for their education, how Eskaia would come by a dowry and Gerik his apprenticeship in the knights, and so on. They knew all this, and would be insulted if he repeated any of it.
“Eskaia, I am not sure what you want to know that we have not already told you.”
The girl looked at her father with a pitying expression that Pirvan knew too well. It implied if he were not her father, she might call him too witless to be at large on the streets.
“Uhh-it’s hard to say it right.”
“Try. I’ll listen to anything from you and your brother. So will Mama.” Once, at least.
“Papa, if you and Mama die, who will train us so that we can avenge you?”
The words came out in a rush. Pirvan was conscious of standing mouth agape while his wits tried to assure themselves that his ears had not played them false.
He bought some time by hugging Eskaia, but his tongue ran away and he had to explain what he meant by “breeding true.”
“Does this mean we will be able to fight as well as you?” she asked.
“Even as well as your mother, who is better than I am,” Pirvan said. “Remember, when I was a thief, I went armed only to defend myself. I was no fighter.”
“Yes, it was very honorable of you to try not to hurt anybody while you were stealing,” Eskaia said calmly. “But if someone kills you and Mama, our honor means killing them.”
“Indeed,” Pirvan said. He could not escape the feeling that while his back was turned his daughter had changed into something he did not recognize. Love, yes. But recognize-that was another story, one he suspected that all fathers could tell.
He considered explaining how the children of Knights of Solamnia were bound to other notions of honor than blood vengeance-or at least ought to consider themselves so bound. From what Pirvan had heard in the way of complaints from his comrades, even those children who bred truest in the end sometimes made their fathers’ hair stand on end.
Instead, he chose a more practical form of reassurance. “You will have all the training you can use, from all who have the care of you,” Pirvan said firmly. “But worry about avenging us when we are dead and our killers are not. I hope you do not think that your mother and I will ever be easy prey?”
“Never!” Eskaia said. She stamped her foot. If she had been asked to spit on a temple floor, she could hardly have been more indignant.
“Then we are done with that, but not with the farewells. If your brother could bring himself to come down-he need not wash-”
Eskaia was off like a stone flung from a siege engine.
* * * * *
Now all the farewells and even the scurrying about to retrieve vital items forgotten at the last moment were some days in the past. The journey from Tiradot to Istar lay over well-settled country, with good roads even in the hills and enough honest folk about at all times to discourage the other kind.
Not that Pirvan and his little company had much to fear from the common run of bandits and outlaws. They were too obviously armed and ready, promising no loot and many hard knocks, as well as an appointment with the executioner for any who survived the folly of the attack.
Indeed, at times those in Pirvan’s company found themselves, in all but name, the guards of not-so-small caravans. Carters, pack trains, pilgrims, and the odd wayfarer who had no reason to be on the road but for the itch in his feet all seemed ready to stay within hailing distance of a Knight of Solamnia and his household.
It was during the long, ambling days on the road in such company that Pirvan learned a good deal more of the affairs of Istar, as the common man saw them. For the Knights of Solamnia, everything appeared in the light of a history stretching back the best part of a thousand years. For the common man, the world began when he was born and ended when he died, and the farthest he could think forward was his children and backward his parents.
At times, Pirvan wondered if that “common man’s” view of the world was something Sir Marod had sought to find in him. No doubt Sir Marod had feared to be insulting by saying so aloud, but Pirvan found the idea no insult, indeed rather the reverse.
He would have taken up the matter with Sir Marod at some time, by choice over good brandy. Sir Marod would keep all the secrets he was required to keep and ten more besides, if he was allowed to do so. Pirvan had sworn some years ago to nibble away at Sir Marod’s excess of secrets, like a mouse at a cheese.