"Boniface fell the first time when he tripped over the steps of the dais. He slid to the foot of Lord Alfred's chair, scuffing his hands and knees, and the wicker sword flew from his grasp, skidding toward the servants' door, where Jack Derry stepped from the shadows and stopped the weapon with his foot, scooting it back toward Boniface in one quick movement.
"The Knight struggled to his feet, picked up the sword, and wheeled toward Vertumnus, who had hung back politely, awaiting his opponent's recovery. They locked swords once, twice, then Vertumnus attacked with a series of slashes and thrusts, knocked the weapon from Boniface's hand, and, before the Knight could duck or dodge or step aside, set the blunted tip of the sword at the hollow of his throat.
"Be thankful, Boniface," Vertumnus announced, "for though you are a traitor to your Order, you are no skilled murderer. Though your money and intelligence blocked the pass from Castle di Caela to Castle Brightblade, blocked it with four hundred bandits, you are no murderer. Agion Pathwarden should have seen the ambush coming… should have known enough to turn back. It was accident that brought him death that winter night in the midst of rebellion and siege."
"What?" Caramon exclaimed. "Why, Vertumnus-"
"Gave Boniface a way out!" Raistlin exclaimed. "Why, how odd! Don't you see, Brother? The Measure punishes treason by banishment, murder by death!"
Sturm smiled. "For such a… critic of the Order, you know its rules well, Raistlin. In one challenge, Vertumnus had secured the punishment of Lord Boniface and forgiven him as well."
"I don't follow," Caramon said.
"Nor I," rumbled Otik, behind him.
Raistlin rolled his eyes. " 'Tis simple, as I understand it. All Boniface had to do was own up to dealing with those bandits, as Sturm told us he had done, then say that he had no intention of harming a hair on Agion Pathwarden or any of his Knights. The treason charge would stay, but the capital charge of murder, the Order would… would set aside. But it eludes me, as well, why Vertumnus would free his old betrayer to a comfortable exile in a far region."
"Hear the rest of the story, then," Sturm said.
"Indeed, the Green Man's next words to Boniface were a warning: 'You can choose,' he said, raising his flute in the dark hall. 'Choose wisely!'
" 'But treason is worse,' said Boniface, 'though its penalty be only banishment. While the murderer hangs from the rope, treason is far worse. I shall not suffer that living charge. No,' he said, his voice rising, filling the room with his confession. 'I shall abide by the sword and fall where I have lived, in the arms of the Measure. Agion Pathwarden and his garrison are dead, and I killed them all and planned for the killing. Murderer I may be, but I say I have never betrayed the Order.'"
"The fool!" Raistlin exclaimed. "With his freedom before him… it was suicide by the rules!"
"Or it was something else," Sturm said. "For the life of me, I am not sure whether it was folly or the most noble end he could make.
"At any rate, Boniface stepped away from the dais calmly and explained to all present his guilt in the murder of Agion Pathwarden. Horrified at what had passed, Gunthar stared at Lord Wilderness, who stared back at him grimly. He said that Vertumnus's eyes were opaque and fathomless,' and he suspected that Vertumnus found his the same."
The longest pause of all signaled the end of the story. After a few minutes, Otik arose and returned to his business, and the three companions stared at one another across the table.
They remained quiet, almost reverently so, as Caramon slipped a cloak gently over his brother's shoulders. Together the three of them walked out into the Abanasinian night, and in the morning, the first passersby could tell easily where their paths had parted in the freshly troubled snow.
But there was more to the story that Gunthar did not tell to his old friend's son, more about which he chose to remain silent, suspecting that had he told even Sturm, it would have been the betrayal of a cherished secret.
For the Knights had led Boniface away ceremoniously, to the dying sound of the flute. When the year turned, the gibbet would rise in the courtyard of the Tower, and few outside the council hall would know the reason that Boniface Crownguard of Foghaven would be hanged on the first day of spring. Few would know, but the testimony of the Order was strong against him, and he walked up the steps defiantly, his full Solamnic armor bright and relentless.
But that was yet to be on the Yule night when Vertumnus lingered with the company, an hour after the guards escorted Boniface away. Dismissing dryad and centaur and druid and bear, Lord Wilderness played his flute a last time for the fellowship of the Order. It was a serenade brief and mournful, the Knights and squires and pages and servants all seated and rapt as Lord Wilderness soothed and sustained them with melody.
And there is a story arising from that night regarding what next came to pass. Vertumnus, it is said, launched off on a melody so ancient that new trees, trees unheard of since the Age of Dreams and known only in the songs of bards, sprouted from the floor of the hall, and the Knights knew them by name without asking, prompted by a strange and wild impulse in the music.
Suddenly Gunthar recognized the cadence and began to sing. " 'Out of the village,' " Gunthar sang, and instantly Lord Alfred beside him joined in, their voices a tuneless but powerful duet:
"Out of the thatched and clutching shires,
where his sword first tried
shires forever retreating, his greatness a marshfire,
him…"
One by one, the other Knights took part, and the song rose as it always did, but this time more music than chant, this time blessed and informed by a melody not of the Order, a tune beyond Oath and Measure.
Few of the Knights looked to Huma's chair, but three of the pages, their eyes reverently upon the hallowed spot, saw a ghostly helmet and breastplate, a shimmering of red and silver seated at the place of honor, as though the twin moons themselves had converged to issue forth history.
None of the older Knights saw the presence.
Nor did Vertumnus himself, whose thoughts even Gunthar did not know: thoughts that played over the Tower, its spires and battlements, through past and present and a future that would bring the boy back from Solace, swept up in forces he had chosen again-forces that would bring him to the battlements six years from now, when the Tower lay in siege and the War of the Lance raged about him.
You can choose, Sturm Brightblade, Vertumnus thought, lowering the flute for the last time in the great council hall, in the moment before he vanished into a world of leaves and light. The leaves and light and foliage vanished along with him, leaving the council hall shadowy and bare. To the last of this and anything, you can choose.
A single green rose, perfect and wild, graced the seat of Huma's chair.