Until Robert di Caela spoke.
“Brightblade, you say? Ah, there was a time I feared that name had died out—in your youth it would have been, when the peasantry seized Vingaard Keep. Yes, the name figures mightily in our past history. Perhaps it might have figured mightily in our present . . . had you come in time.”
“The tournament . . .” Bayard began, questioningly.
“Is over,” Sir Robert stated flatly. “And my daughter is betrothed.”
Bayard’s face reddened.
“Betrothed . . .” Sir Robert continued, with a hint of coldness and of trepidation in his voice, “to Gabriel Androctus, Solamnic Knight of the Sword.”
I could not tell if that coldness and trepidation had been saved for Sir Bayard, or whether they now belonged exclusively to this Androctus fellow. But I could tell that Sir Robert di Caela, despite his courtesy, was not reveling in the choice of son-in-law.
“No, Sir Bayard Brightblade of Vingaard,” Sir Robert continued, this time even more coldly, “there were stories afoot that you would be here—indeed, that you might even have been favored to win in the lists. My old companion Sir Ramiro of the Maw was prepared to wager a substantial amount of money on your lance.”
“I know Ramiro well,” Bayard replied modestly. “He has a penchant for the long odds.”
“Made even longer when the party in question fails to show!” Sir Robert snapped. Then he governed himself, smiled, gestured toward one of the doors to the keep. “The young man chosen by lance, though a bit rough around the edges, seems of impeccable breeding and singularly gifted with the lance.”
Sir Robert looked pointedly at Bayard, who dwindled on each step across the courtyard. When we reached the door to the keep, Bayard seized the chance to leave Sir Robert and Castle di Caela gracefully.
“It is far from me to belittle hospitality, especially that of such a noble and gracious house,” he began, gaining his confidence and balance as he spoke, “but my horses are tired. So also must be my squire.”
That he added almost as an afterthought.
“With these duties in mind, I must beg leave of you until tomorrow. With your permission, I shall travel outside the walls and set up my pavilion among the other Knights.”
The first problem with all this courteous withdrawal was that we had no pavilion to set up—not even a tent to pitch. But Bayard wasn’t thinking of lodging; instead, he was all fired up to get beyond these walls, where, I could tell, we would shiver about a campfire until the early hours of the morning, when we would leave quietly, in the company of some of the other departing Knights. In only a moment’s conversation with Robert di Caela, it had become evident that the great doubt in Bayard’s thoughts had come to blossom: that the handwritten prophecy in the margin of the Book of Vinos Solamnus was at best a fanciful scrawling, at worst a cruel joke. Bayard was beaten. Instead of embarrassing himself and the name of Brightblade any further, he intended to beat a quick retreat to the swamp in Coastlund, bearing the news of our comrade’s death and fulfilling his promise to Agion by undergoing centaur trial.
“I respect the decision of my liege lord and protector, Sir Robert, but if it please Your Grace, I should like to stay in the Castle di Caela this evening.”
Bayard and Sir Robert gaped at me.
We stood at the big mahogany doorway to the keep—as tall as two men and five times as heavy—and it was as though that door had fallen suddenly onto the four of us.
“Certainly, young man, you are welcome to the hospitality of this castle . . .” Sir Robert began. I could sense the big “however” approaching in that sentence, so I leaped in quickly.
“Then I shall accept your kind offer, sire.” I turned to walk to the horses and retrieve my belongings from atop the pack mare, knowing that both Knights were far too much the gentlemen to make a decision in my absence as to where I would stay.
That’s the best thing about good old-fashioned Solamnic courtesy: you can rely on the people you’re taking advantage of to be basically more decent than you. Walking back toward the horses at the main gate in the curtain wall, I could relax, could take my first chance to look around me, knowing that no plots were hatching while Galen was away.
Castle di Caela was less a castle than a city within walls, or at least it seemed so to my eyes at the time. Thatched huts and lean-tos lined the inside of the gate wall. They seemed to be either homes or places of business for peasants and farmers who were there to peddle wares, to argue among themselves, to offer me chickens.
Once inside the castle gates, our horses had seemed more at ease, their only anxiousness that of hunger. While one of the farmers had turned to curse another, I dipped several radishes out of the basket at the front of his stall and offered them to the pack mare. She ate serenely, snorting briefly at the first spicy taste of the plant but then chewing loudly and delightedly, her big brown eyes half-closed in bliss. I watched the pack mare chew, carefully drawing my bag of belongings out of the clutter piled atop her saddle. It was times like this that you wanted to be a horse or mule, free of memories of the past and worries about the future and most of all the politics of the present. Let my only concern be where the next radish was coming from, and I’d carry a hundred pounds of armor gladly.
I looked over my shoulder, careful to put my hands behind my back in case the pack mare were to confuse my fingers with further radishes.
At the keep door Sir Robert and Bayard continued to talk—calmly for all I could tell, although I could see, even from this distance, that Bayard was still red from his squire’s disobedience. Be that as it might, I figured I was his squire no longer.
Which did not mean I had left his service.
For there is nothing that turns a boy’s thoughts inward more completely than a long ride in silent company. Especially when he knows the thoughts of his companion, and knows that they are not friendly ones. Had all the rolling lands of Solamnia lay between the foot of the Vingaard Mountains and the gates of Castle di Caela, it would not have been enough traveling, enough time, to outrun the thoughts of that narrow pass, of the gloating head of the ogre.
Of our fallen friend and his humble cairn of stones.
What I had cost Agion I didn’t see how I could return.
But I owed Bayard some serious penance. I intended to get to work on that, and far better to work from somewhere in this castle, where his hopes for power and matrimony lay shaken, than out of some solemn campsite. Far better to tunnel than to sulk.
After all, they did call me Weasel.
If all else failed, I could burrow into Robert di Caela’s affections. In the days to come I would flatter the old man, cast admiration on his every word and action. I would even marvel at his gestures. Enid I would treat as my dear older sister, regardless of how stern and blocky she might be, and I would learn at Sir Robert’s hand the management of the estate while this newfound sister was off in the barrens of wherever becoming disenchanted with Gabriel Androctus. I would fill Sir Robert’s empty nest, and by the time a question of inheritance arose (which would be years, judging from the strength and apparent health of the di Caelas), I might well have flattered and groveled enough before him that I might be heard in the halls where wills are drawn up. I liked the size and shape and luxury of Castle di Caela. I hoped devoutly to stay awhile. But first things first. In all this many-windowed splendor there had to be a prospect for Bayard. As Bayard went to the gate and out into the countryside surrounding the castle, where he would spend the night on the ground surrounded by horses while I pitched camp in fresh bedding surrounded by silk, by a fireplace I prayed, he glared at me with such a look of disbelief and defeat and betrayal that for a moment I was angry, outraged that despite the Scorpion and his thefts and lies and misdeeds, Bayard thought I was the real weasel in the henhouse.