“H-how did you ever manage to . . .”
“Beat you to the castle? Seems like everyone beat you and Bayard to the castle, don’t it?”
He placed his hands on his hips and laughed. Laughed until he was red-faced and the veins stood out in his neck, and I began to wonder if my brother did not have a few cats in his bell tower, as they say. I used the opportunity to slip out from under him and crawl under a table in the far corner of the room.
“Brithelm,” he declared, his laughter subsiding and his breath recovered. “Brithelm it was what pulled me out of the mire. And I explained to him that I needed to get to Castle di Caela. Told him about the tournament, I did, and that we’d have to rush to get there.
“So he’s off in a flash back to the moat house, and he returns in a few hours with two of Father’s best horses and a week’s provisions and we’re off for Castle di Caela. I didn’t think I’d have much of a chance in that tournament, but I thought I might get a chance to skin you in the bargain, or at least take your place as Bayard’s squire, seeing as nobody wants a squire who bogs down his own brother.
“Anyway, Brithelm not only knows to get the horses and provisions, but he knows this pass through the Vingaard Mountains way south of the Westgate. A pass he says is going to cut three days off our trip at least.
“You can imagine our surprise, Galen, when we seen you and Bayard and that horse-man . . .”
“Agion.”
“Whoever . . . run up against that ogre in the high reach of the pass. I watched it from a distance. Brithelm couldn’t see that far—part of his bumping into things is just bad eyesight, did you know? So I tell him Bayard was winning, and he believes me. Otherwise he’d of wanted to hike down and pitch in.
“So when I seen you folks had settled for the night, Brithelm and I passed by and made our way over the mountains.”
“Then it was your voice I heard that night at the campsite!”
“Seems to me it’s better to leave your brother on a mountain pass with two able companions than waist-deep and alone in the mire,” Alfric philosophized. “Think about that if you get too pious.”
I shrank back behind the table.
“You may have a chance for that squirehood now, Alfric. Because of some things that happened in the swamp and in the mountains, Bayard has no further use of me. Odds are he’ll be looking for a squire at once. You can find him at his encampment tonight.”
“It comes around, does it not, brother?” Alfric gloated, seating himself on the bed. “For I am no longer studying Bayard Brightblade. He was late. He is no longer the champion.”
“Meaning?”
“Gabriel Androctus is,” Alfric pronounced exultantly. “He won this tournament and the hand of the Lady Enid. He is about to become the most important Knight in this part of Solamnia.
“He that may be needing a new squire, and if he is, I plan to be that squire.”
Outside the door of my chambers, the halls of Castle di Caela trilled with mechanical cuckoos. I awoke from my nap. Alfric was still gone, no doubt preparing for the Feast of the Wedding Eve, the big dinner that precedes the nuptial ceremonies.
No doubt he was overdressing. No doubt trying for an audience with Gabriel Androctus—a chance to grovel and bootlick his way into squirehood.
Brithelm was somewhere in Castle di Caela, too, though no one was quite sure where. He had arrived shortly after the fateful meeting of Gabriel Androctus and Sir Prosper of Zeriak, and almost immediately wandered off—no doubt looking for some quiet spot in the castle where he could meditate. Which was all very well. I needed some time to regroup.
A good healthy sleep was unlikely in these chambers, what with the chirping and song and questioning calls of the little metal birds outside my door. Had it been only one bird and a less wealthy house, I could have marked the time until dinner by its calls, for cuckoos were just becoming fashionable then as a sort of mechanical timepiece.
Fashionable, but not reliable. As most of the birds were of gnomish make, most did not call out at the regular intervals the craftsmen promised. Instead, they would not call at all, call once and continuously until they wore out, or call at irregular times with the sound of metal scraping across metal so that the listener wished either time would stand still or he had never purchased the damn thing in the first place. The di Caelas, of course, were too old and wealthy a family to bother with keeping track of time. They lived in a mansion where past stood beside present, and nobody ever stated a preference for one or the other. What was more, they were so rich that if they had to be at any particular place at any particular time, the main event was held up until they got there. The birds were for decoration only, and for the pleasing sounds some di Caela thought they made, evidently.
Such sounds were not pleasing to this guest, however. The songs of the cuckoos disrupted my thoughts, which were disrupted to begin with by the questions I knew would sooner or later arise. Why had I abandoned Sir Bayard Brightblade, who less than a fortnight back had generously consented to take me on as his squire, despite profound misgivings on my father’s part?
Why was Sir Bayard late to the tournament in the first place, and what had I to do with any delays he might have encountered?
The longer I considered my situation, the more a return to Bayard seemed in order. I drew out the dice, cast the Calantina.
Sign of the Hart. Which had nothing to do with anything, as far as I could tell. Well, I was losing faith in the Calantina, anyway. I tried it again, hoping for a sign more to my understanding, more to my liking.
Sign of the Rat. Again. I remembered the last time I cast that, which was at the moat house. Well, so be it. I was leaving once more. Once again the Weasel was a Rat.
I stood, picked up my cloak from the bed, and walked to the entrance of the chamber. I set my ear to the door and listened. Outside, the hallway was fairly quiet, the cuckoos on this floor having apparently wound down or broken or made their noises for a while, gears grinding toward a time anywhere from ten minutes to three days from now, when like clockwork in a clock gone completely mad, they would sing once more. I opened the door slowly and stepped into the hallway. On tiptoe I passed the still sentinels of metal birds and headed down the hall toward the stairway, still clutching my cloak in my hands. The bird-lined hallway ended in an arch, which opened into a landing above the large room where Sir Robert had first mentioned his daughter’s impending marriage. I stood at the arch, looking down the stairway. It was on this landing that the Lady Enid had stood, had adjusted the birds. I bade the lady a silent farewell, hoping that someday in the great hall of the moat house, when the news came to Alfric that his younger brother had met an untimely death in a far-flung land, that the di Caelas—both the lovely Enid and her elegant father—would shed a sympathetic tear, perhaps wish they could have known this youngest Pathwarden, the irrepressible Galen, the mischievous but good-hearted Weasel.
I sniffled, having almost brought myself to tears with the pity of the scene I had imagined. I started down the stairs.
It was then that the bird to my right began to screech—loudly, painfully, as though someone were tearing it apart. Surprised, I spun about and tossed my cloak over the wailing mechanical thing, which continued to dance beneath the gray folds, its cry muffled but certainly not silenced. I looked behind me down the corridor toward my quarters, then once again down the stairs in front of me.
At the foot of which stood Enid, small hand on the banister, brown eyes regarding me with curiosity and amusement.
“Don’t pick at the devices, boy,” she said calmly. “You’ll make them sound worse.
“Though in the case of that one you just cloaked,” she continued, ascending the stairs, “it is very hard to imagine you doing anything that would damage the sound any more.”