Galen Beknighted

Chapter VI

There is no telling when Bayard made his next decision, nor his state of mind when he made it.

I gathered that the surgeons broke the news to him shortly after we left. Owing to his broken leg, travel was out of the question, at least for the next several months. Horseback riding would be impossibly painful; the rocky foothills of the Vingaards were naturally hostile to any travelers aside from dwarves or mountain goats.

I figured that our adventure was postponed of necessity and because my able benefactor would not fully trust me out of his sight.

There had been times, back in my weaselly and misspent youth, when this knowledge would have brought with it waves of relief, a murmured prayer of thanks to the gods of dry castles, warm beds, and especially to whatever deity fancied broken legs. Those times had passed, evidently.

Restlessly I stirred the fire in my quarters, thinking of Brithelm in the mountains, of the visions and threats I had seen in the opals, of what Bayard's injury meant to our plans.

Of how in the world I would get to the Vingaards alone.

It was almost a relief when Raphael came to my quarters that evening, bearing orders from Sir Bayard Brightblade that Sir Galen Pathwarden-Brightblade was to attend him at once. But that relief vanished when I entered Sir Bayard's chambers.

Given the shocks and tumbles of the past two days, I was not surprised to find Ramiro and Brandon seated by Bayard's bedside. It was, however, alarming to see both of them looking so glum and downtrodden and inconvenienced, like two old alchemists testing an ineffective laxative. My first guess was that they had just been appointed Brithelm's rescuers.

The conversation stopped when I entered the room. The three Knights stared at me intently, Bayard strangely curious and proud, the others blank and unreadable. Raphael, striding ahead of me, busied himself at once with some obscure and no doubt needless task.

"Sir Galen Pathwarden-Brightblade of Castle di Caela, gentlemen," Bayard announced, and I could tell he had rested, had slept perhaps, and was now quite sober.

His companions kept silent.

"Good evening, Weasel," Ramiro rumbled at last. I chose to ignore him out of both courtesy and caution, nodding politely to all present and taking a seat at the foot of my protector's bed.

Outside, evening was passing into night. I heard a pair of doves settle into the trees near the window, rustling and thrumming as they prepared for the rising storm.

"Galen, I'm afraid my news is hard," Bayard announced, raising himself in bed and grimacing. Ramiro took the flask of Thorbardin Eagle from the bedside table and offered it, but Bayard waved it away, his eyes remote and terribly melancholy.

"The surgeons have consulted, Galen," he continued, "and debated the fine points, on which they all disagree. But they have come to a general truth: that my travel by horse is impossible during the next six months, inadvisable at best for six months after that."

"But six months will be too late, sir!" I protested, standing up and knocking the chair out from under me. By instinct, Ramiro's hand went to his sword. Brandon, however, regarded me calmly from his seat by the fire.

"Too late?" Bayard asked. "Why 'too late?"

The possibilities made me reel: Brithelm, ravaged by fire, injured in the earthquake, or lost in some underground darkness, at the cruel whim of a bunch of pallid Plainsmen. Whatever the situation, my brother was alone, at the knife's edge, and unschooled in survival.

"Who said anything about postponing the journey, Galen?" Bayard snapped, and my thoughts skittered and plunged.

What else could those words and this assemblage mean but that Bayard had decided to send out a party of Knights to the Vingaards, fully intending to leave me behind in Castle di Caela along with the disabled, the women, and the old men?

I would not have it.

"'Too late,'" I announced coldly, "because I have had a vision that tells me 'too late,' damn it! And I know you've changed your mind, Bayard, and no doubt you will be sending Ramiro and whoever else has volunteered since your accident-anyone as long as it isn't the shifty, irresponsible Weasel! You've no idea how mistaken and foolish that is, for the opals have told me-"

"I beg your pardon?" Ramiro interrupted. "The opals told you?"

Now there was no turning back. My task was the simple and dreadful one of telling my brothers in the knighthood what had come to pass in the depth of the opals. I told it briefly, without ornament (I really have changed), told it all to an immense silence, to four pairs of widening eyes.

"So that is why I must go to the Vingaards, Bayard," I concluded. "Despite your good intentions of raising this party in my absence, it's an insult to me and to your belief in me and…"

Ramiro glanced at Bayard skeptically. Bayard winced as pain coursed up his damaged leg. For a moment, my heart went out to him-a man in the prime of his considerable powers, now bedfast and idle. Then I thought of what he was doing-shipping off virtual strangers to the Vingaards on a search for my brother, when I was the only one who knew of the danger. It was plain he did not trust me-had never trusted me-not as a squire and certainly not as a Knight.

At that moment, I devoutly wished the same condition for his other leg.

"I am sorry, Ramiro, that you, too, discount my visions," I said.

"No more, I am afraid, than I discount other things about you, Weasel. Still, you did show passable mettle in the mountains at Chaktamir, back when the Scorpion's Nest was crashing all about us…"

"I thank you for that memory, sir," I said, and stared ironically at Bayard. In the silence that followed, it struck me how shrill and peevish I sounded, like a schoolmaster badgering a whispering student to "share your secret with the other scholars."

It was what they wanted, evidently. Each one of them, looking at Sir Galen, no doubt saw only the Weasel in ill-fitting armor.

"Hold your tongue, Galen," Bayard said softly. "You would do your brother Brithelm a service to befriend these men assembled here, especially Ramiro, rather than doing your best to stir up discord and foolishness. Indeed, you would do yourself a service.

"Galen, your responsibility is a hard one to shoulder- greater than my own, than that of the men you see before you, greater even than the formidable duties of Sir Ramiro of the Maw, who will act as your second and confidante in the coming days."

"My second!"

Ramiro and I both gaped wildly, as though another earthquake had come, opening the floor beneath us and dropping us halfway into the center of the planet.

Bayard nodded, a strange half-smile on his face.

"Your second, Sir Galen. For in my absence, you are appointed to lead this expedition."

Even as Bayard spoke those words, the rain began, driving in thick sheets through the open window, which Raphael rushed to close, leaving the room in darkness.

It was as though the world wept at my leadership. For hours it poured, and where the Cataclysm had come before in fire and explosion, eruption and ruin, it threatened to come now as flood, as a deluge that would drown us all, given time and enough water in the heavens.

Behind the closed shutters of the infirmary, at a candlelit conference of Solamnic Knights, I learned what everyone thought of an expedition with Galen Pathwarden at the helm.

Ramiro belabored my failings at length. Brandon continued in tandem with him for about an hour, and soon I found myself nodding agreement to even the worst things they had to say about me, for after a while listening to such talk, you tend to believe the talkers and forget the specifics.

That the talk is about you, for instance.

There in the presence of bickering Solamnics, I unraveled a string from my tunic and settled down for another philosophers' duel, made only a little more interesting by the fact that I was the central subject in it all. The rain beat in waves against the shutters, and you could even hear it spatter the stone walls of the infirmary, it came down so hard.

Bayard was in full voice now, I discovered when I listened now and then, and the talk was of honor and obligation and staying the course. Of how much I could learn from this as regards responsibility and command, even though the chances were that Brithelm was untouched by the strange disturbances to our west. As the rain came down, so rose my sense of hope, for it became dimly possible that Bayard was winning them over, that by the time he was finished with them, Ramiro would follow me into the gaping maw of the Cataclysm or neck deep into the Blood Sea, for the pure and simple reason that he had promised Bayard some days back that he would follow someone somewhere.

In the midst of my musings, I saw Ramiro stand, saw that the big fellow was speaking.

Something about preparations.

"… tomorrow. We shall take the Plains Road due west, then ford the Vingaard and ride due north, keeping the mountains to our left. That way, if I recall, we can make steady progress without tiring… anyone unduly."

He glanced tellingly at me.

"Of course," he added, "this all depends on how… our leader figures it. I mean, if he has some little path of his own that he is all that bent on following…"

I could see I was completely accepted by my subordinates.

"Of course not. Sir Ramiro," I replied smoothly, also standing. "Indeed, I consider you an expert in terrain and travel, and it is a foolish leader who discounts the advice of his experts, now, isn't it?"

I was shameless, I know.

"And what is more, Sir Ramiro, if a lad must lead his first expedition as a Knight, must pass into unknown lands at the head of a party who become, tragically, his heavy responsibility, then I thank the gods that it is my lot to be thrown in with the most daring, resourceful, and formidable Knight Solamnia has to offer, in this time or any other."

Bayard blushed, and Raphael after him. The air in the room felt so laden with oil that I feared the candles would ignite us all. And yet I continued, crafting in the most indecent recesses of my imagination a way to compare my two companions favorably with Huma, while at the same time not comparing either favorably to the other.

But Ramiro raised his hands and cut short my groveling.

"Never mind, lad, never mind. It seems to me, Bayard, that the boy's intentions are good, and that perhaps his judgment… promises a likely future."

Bayard looked at me in disbelief.

"Thank you, Sir Ramiro," I replied. 'Tour kind words are an honor second only to my knighthood."

My protector winced as if I had broken his other leg, as Ramiro basked in my flattery like a walrus in warm water.

"Very well, lad," he huffed. "Very well. Now… ah, see to it that you're prepared for the road by tomorrow morning.

"That is," he corrected himself quickly, "if it suits you, being our commander and all."

It suited me, and I told him so.

It is a task to prepare for a journey, to see to the armor and horses and provisions not only for yourself but for those in your party.

It is a double task-a monumental one-when your squire is no help whatsoever.

Not long after the quake hit the castle, Alfric crawled out from under the rubble, none the worse for wear, but no longer quite as ardent for squirehood. In one moment, it seemed, he had discovered that peril was on all sides of him, full likely to rise from the earth itself. It could meet any of us unannounced and unexpected on the road from the stable to our bedroom or from our bedroom to the privy.

"There is just no need to go looking for things," Alfric maintained with high drama as he walked into the outhouse, hands filled with planks and hammer and nails, and proceeded to board himself inside.

It was a delaying tactic at best. Father, of course, was not buying it. Surely Alfric knew that, once he signed on as my squire, the old man would throttle him before he let him sign off.

While Alfric's hours were spent in the outhouse with the old man hovering angrily outside, I was left to my own resources, which seemed a loss only when I went down to the livery, intent on attending to last-minute details, and discovered that, thanks to the inattention of my squire, I had to start from the beginning-to arm and equip and supply myself, not to mention saddling all the horses. Cleaning the greaves alone took far too much time, and as the hours progressed into morning, I thought about the other duties that should occur to a Knight at the time of his departure-when he set out into unknown danger…

Perhaps never to return…

His second a man who mistrusted not only his leadership but his good sense in general…

And his squire an incompetent elder brother who was spending the day and the night in cowardly dodges…

I sat roughly on the tannery floor, the greaves heavy in my lap. It had been a while since I was constrained to think about the odds against me, about the prospects of not returning from anywhere, and the prospect gave me ominous notions. I saw myself waylaid by bandits, turning on a spit over one of those mountain fires with a family of ogres gathered around me in expectation.

If that were the case, there would be others besides me. For not only was I responsible for my own skin in the days to come, but Bayard had put me in charge of the party-of Ramiro, his squire, and my own brother Alfric.

I stood up, oily and burdened, hoisting the armor over my shoulder and staggering across the wide courtyard toward the stable. Three horses were flawlessly saddled and appointed beneath a sheltered paddock, safely out of the rain-three big stallions belonging to Ramiro.

I knew I would be lucky not to be kicked to death by the children's pony.

All of a sudden, the largeness of what lay ahead of me grew larger still, until I was quite overwhelmed by it. I stood in the open bailey, in the pooling rainfall, my red hair plastered dark to my face and the water running in courses down my forehead into my nose and mouth. The stable ahead of me blurred for a moment, though I cannot say for sure whether it was rainfall or tears of pure terror that clouded my sight, for I was drenched by both of them.

"There is a saying about the sense to get out of the rain, Sir Galen," a sweet voice prodded from behind me, interrupting my reflection and self-pity. I jumped and turned swiftly, dropping the armor and nearly losing my footing in the water and mud.

Dannelle di Caela stood between horses in the canopied paddock, dressed in a light chain mail and holding a curry comb. It was neither attire nor pose that I generally found attractive, but the girl was flawless-brilliant green eyes and thick red hair, somehow untouched by these terrible southern downpours. Having caught my attention, she flashed the fetching smile that had kept her three years in my thoughts and had made her a factor in my most restless yearnings.

I felt myself grow warm about the ears.

"I am glad you are constantly about me quoting deathless philosophy, Lady Dannelle," I replied finally, stooping in the rain to pick up the greaves and carrying them beneath the canopy, into the warm, horse-smelling dark. "But I have adventures to saddle for."

Undaunted, the girl sidled next to me, glancing about her as though alert for spies or eavesdroppers. She smelled wonderful, as I discovered from this new distance. She bore a faint hint of lavender, which, when you've been in a tannery or the midst of a rain or simply around horses, can be a pleasant change from the general whiff in the air. The welcome fragrance disarmed me, and she saw that it did so and smiled, which disarmed me further.

"Saddle one more than you planned to," she whispered merrily, "because I'm coming with you."

"You are what?"

I tried to scramble to my feet, but I was surprised past scrambling.

"B-But, Danelle! Surely you know there would be conniptions through the upper ranks of the Order if they heard you'd even suggested such an arrangement, and worse still if they heard I had listened to your madness."

Her smile was steady and deadly serious.

"I can think of worse conniptions," she announced with bright menace.

At once, in a cascade of thoughts as rapid as floodwater, I rushed through my litany of wrongs, past the marked playing cards of my wealthy early days in the castle and on to the black-market selling of spices from the larder, even including the steady trade in rustled horses and hustled armor I had planned until fear, second thoughts, and Bayard's instructions had set in.

It was all accounted for. All, that is, except Marigold.

Who, when I had come to the castle a raw lad of seventeen, hungry for leisure and money and baked goods, had shared my interest in pastry with such zeal that croissants and pies had led to… other things. Many were the narrow hours of the morning when I scurried down the back corridors of the castle, seeking the darkest route from chamber to chamber, wrapped in a crumb-covered bedsheet.

It was a weak spot in my armor. For even when I signed on for a squirehood of chastity and service, I figured that it was too much to tackle both virtues right away. So the dalliance with Marigold continued until it became an embarrassment: The cakes she sent to my quarters with her maidservants took on naughtier and naughtier shapes until even the stable grooms would blush when they gossiped about it.

"Wait a half-mile from the castle, a little after dawn," I whispered. "On the Highland Road, out of sight of the battlements. Bring a good horse and a blanket and provisions for a week's ride."

Dannelle's eyes widened with each sentence. When I had finished she gaped at me, swallowed hard, and nodded.

"A half-mile from the castle," she whispered. "A little after dawn."

Then, like a vision, she slipped into the darkness of the paddock and, passing through the horses and the rain beyond them, found the entrance to the tower, closing the heavy door behind her.

Leaning against Lily, my old mare, who stood sleeping in her stall, I looked up through the downpour at Dannelle's high window.

Yes, it was best to take the girl along.

For if she broke the news about my evenings with Marigold, the mere aftershock of the telling might break a few more legs around the castle. Far better to cart her miles away, to avoid upheaval and her considerable talent with tales and rumors and revelations.

And she was pretty.

I chuckled to myself.

She would slow us down, of course, and no doubt cause further dissension in my ranks. I would have to watch Alfric around her, and Ramiro himself was not to be trusted.

And yet…

I remembered a time when this paddock had been a topiary, the window covered with vines. When I had looked up through shrubbery and night and watched the light in that window like a baying dog waiting for red Lunitari in the dark sky.

Could those moonstruck nights have really been years ago?

After a minute or so, a light flickered on in Dannelle's chamber. I smiled and propped my chin against Lily's cool, wet-smelling back. The old mare whickered, shifting her weight from flank to flank, dreaming no doubt of bittersweet memories.

"A long time ago, I thought she liked me." I whispered. "Is there still a chance, old girl?"