For Bayard found me sprawled on the chamber floor beside a damaged table, surrounded by my belongings. The wind, not as fierce as it had been the night before but stormy and strong nonetheless, dove under the shuttered window and raised tapestry, blanket, and cape around me in billows, until it must have looked as though I had set sail once more on the currents of cowardice.
I swear that was not the story at all. After all, there is a long history of even the bravest men swooning and fainting and losing their balance when the visions come upon them.
I must have cut a striking figure-a young man of almost twenty years, facedown on a shattered dressing table, basin and towels and accessories littering the floor around me. Dressed only in a green tunic and a Solamnic breastplate, I am sure that I looked like some awkward creature such as a sow bug or a grub-some crusty thing whose business lay deep underground.
I had embarked on the Night of Reflections in all good faith. That very morning I had hastened to the di Caela treasury-the room from which old Sir Robert still mismanaged the funds of estate and holdings-and there, accompanied by two stern old geezers seated at the counting table, who must have seen the Cataclysm firsthand, I willingly gave over my earthly valuables.
'Gladly I give for the good of the Order,' I began, fighting
every impulse that my past could muster. 'For the good of the Order, gladly I give.'
I could imagine the Weasel-myself three short years ago-looking over my shoulder and gaping, his faculties lost at the prospect of surrendering all cash and all ornament.
But I was a new man, all genuine and Solamnic and noble. Three years of instruction under Bayard Brightblade had seen to that. For despite your better judgment, despite your firm convictions that your skin is there to be saved at all costs, the constant discipline of riding until you cannot sit at table, and swordsmanship until your forearms shiver when you pick up a ladle-not to mention reading nearly twenty ponderous volumes on the Solamnic Measure- tends to thin your discretion to the point that honor and duty sound good to you.
The thought occurred to me that I had passed beyond recall when I set my coins, my naming ring, and a dozen other items of value onto the table between the distinguished Sir Elazar and the equally distinguished Sir Fernando. The old knights looked at my offering skeptically. No doubt they were unaware that Bayard had been there before them, ordering me two years ago to give all but my essential belongings to the peasants in the surrounding holdings.
I was sure that Fernando, who kept almost all of his youthful bulk (though he kept it somewhat lower now), was prepared to turn me upside down and rattle me for whatever valuables I might have hidden on my person.
'This… this is
'All indeed, sir, except for one trophy of squirehood and my armor,' I answered. As it had for the last six months or so, the truth felt surpassingly good in my voice.
Evidently it was less comfortable in Fernando's ears.
''Tis just as Sir Robert warned us,' he said to Sir Elazar as the two old fellows launched into discussion, as unconcerned by my presence as if I were a footstool or a slight change in the outside weather. 'The Weasel here would hold back whole estates from the Order, given a place to hide them and a nodding treasurer.'
'I beg your pardon, sirs, but-'
'Nobody asked you to speak, lad,' Sir Elazar interrupted, calmly but sternly, sifting through my belongings with a gloved hand. 'And what, pray tell, is this 'squirehood trophy' of which you speak so… reluctantly?'
'I had not noticed my…
'If such is the case, Weas-Galen, why then do you choose to keep these stones?' Elazar probed, his blue eyes flickering as they scanned my face for lies.
I knew it well, that flicker and scan. At one time or another, I had seen it on every face from my father's to the lovely Dannelle's. On Bayard himself, many times I had seen the look of mistrust. It had come with the territory, and those who complained of my bad swordsmanship and my paltry skills with the lance tended to forget that every time I had taken up weapons in the last year, I had fought both my opponent in the lists and old Weasel-the boy I was three years ago, a mixture of deceit and cowardice, and just the fellow everyone expected to see at each stage of my squirehood.
The truth was, I had become tired of their expectations. 'I keep the stones,' I explained coolly, leaning against the back of a tall mahogany chair, 'only for the Night of Reflections. They remind me of my suspicious past, and yet they also serve to remind me of the first time I stood my ground and did not give in to graft. I shall donate them to the Order following my knighthood ceremony.
'If the two of you, in your experience and wisdom, have decided that I am withholding yet more treasure from the Solamnic coffers, you are free to inspect my person for it, from the inside of my mouth down to my nether parts.'
Of all the vows of knighthood, that of respecting one's elders has always been the hardest for me to swallow. And after my short-tempered words there in the di Caela treasury, Sir Elazar and Sir Fernando were finding the swallowing hard themselves. They both rose to their feet with the clank of metal and the rub of leather, beneath which, if you listened attentively, you could hear old knees popping. Glowering like raptors, they stared down on the squire in front of them.
I glowered back, and I wish I could say my honesty and spunk won over the two old fellows that summer morning. But that is a tale from the old romances, where the virtue of a lad shines through his humble surroundings. This, on the other hand, was Castle di Caela.
Fernando braced himself against the counting table and hissed at me, his eyes narrowed.
'We didn't want you in the Order to begin with.'
I nodded, but my critics were by no means through.
'No, we didn't want you,' Elazar agreed. 'You'd be astounded to know how many favors Sir Bayard has called in to win you your spurs.'
Actually, I was far from astounded.
That evening, left alone for the Night of Reflections, my sword and armor and knightly belongings arrayed in front of me, I mused that indeed Bayard must have called in every favor owed him, not to mention every loan or bet.
I picked up the heavy broadsword. The blade glittered as I turned it in my hand.
Bayard had certainly risked enough on my account. Risked it from the outset, when he took it upon himself to prove that the third son of a threadbare Coastlund family, more accustomed to mischief than to the Measure, could be molded into a presentable Knight. I must admit, the long-ago adventures that followed that decision seemed to prove Bayard right-the adventure in the Vingaard Mountains and up into the pass at Chaktamir, where we hunted down the Scorpion and lifted the curse from Castle di Caela.
The problem was that once adventuring was over and daily instruction begun, Bayard was dismayed to discover that most of my resources came out under sudden stress. It seemed that I had no talent for all those things a squire was supposed to do.
How often I remember that nightmare year of training…
So it had progressed, through a series of mishaps and head injuries, until, scarcely a month ago, Bayard had taken me aside, grasped me firmly by the shoulders, and expressed his confidence that at last I would attain the knighthood 1 had so devoutly come to pursue.
'I don't know what to do with you, Galen,' he said. 'The Order of the Sword is beyond you, as you prove every time you take up arms or sit a horse. And the Order of the Rose, with its dedication to wisdom and justice, well…'
I nodded, wise enough at least to understand what Bayard was too polite to say.
'But there is the Order of the Crown,' he pronounced, 'whose primary duties are those of loyalty and
