'You, of course, might enjoy being free of your… softer entanglements. At least until you know which favor to wear on your helmet.'
Bayard winked solemnly. I grimaced, knowing he spoke of the business with Marigold.
'That is the sum of it. What we are short of around here is adventure, which is why, two days from now, bright and early in that wonderfully quiet time before sunrise, our adventure will begin. We shall leave Castle di Caela-a handful of knights, accompanied only by horses and squires-on our way to the Vingaard Mountains, where we shall see to the safety of your brother Brithelm.
'It will be like old times, Galen,' he exclaimed almost jubilantly as I thought of the winds and the distant fires and the road that was steep and rocky and untamed. Somewhere out there, at the end of a journey that was only now beginning to unfold, my brother and my courage awaited me.
'I shall have my squire by that morning hour, Bayard Brightblade,' I promised, in a voice so ceremonial and dramatic that I could barely find myself in it.
I extended my hand, and Bayard nodded.
'And I, Sir Galen, will have chosen our companions, if there be any.'
We parted company after a traditional Solamnic handclasp, each descending the battlements to his separate disaster.
'Never wed with a drunkard,' my grandmother said, 'if you wish to reform her. For instead of reform, there will be two drunkards.'
She also told me that when I decided to get married, I should look to the ugliest one of my prospective in- laws, for that would be how my bride would look twenty years hence.
It was advice born of bitterness and the marshes of Coastlund, of a world in which dire straits became more dire the longer you waited for them to improve.
Grandmama would have smiled to recognize the world of recruitments that Bayard and I faced once we descended the battlements.
No doubt Bayard believed that the mission at hand was an easy venture. Despite my bodings, we would find Brithelm and bring him back home. What he wanted, then, was good company along the way-good conversation, and no doubt someone up for a little hunting and hard riding.
Bayard politely asked Sir Brandon Rus to join us. That would have been good, for the most part. The young Knight, brilliantly promising, unmatched by any his age in skills or in resources or in downright physical courage, would have assured our safety against anything short of an army of ogres. Out in the hinterlands, there might be a chance to get him talking on something besides protocols and history, and maybe find out what it was that ate at the lad-why in the early morning hours at Castle di Caela the servants had heard him pacing the floor, as if despite all of the things in the world that did not frighten Sir Brandon Rus, something in his dreams or memory did.
Unfortunately, the young man begged off. He'd a quest of his own, he said, far to the east of here, past Neraka and Kernen. It was whispered that his journey would lead him to the Blood Sea of Istar, but Bayard, who had asked politely for Sir Brandon's company, was now polite enough not to ask his alternative destination.
It was disappointing to Bayard, but it came with the knightly territory. The world was filled with quests at that time-with quests and with the prospects of adventure. What Solamnic Knight, with the option of an eastward journey into dangerous country, would choose instead a sensible little search-and-rescue party in the foothills?
Ramiro of the Maw, evidently.
For the big Knight belched, wiped the crumbs from his beard, and volunteered at once, setting his blunt sword at the feet of Bayard Brightblade, promising allegiance and insight and a strong right arm for the duration of the journey ahead. Bayard coughed and stammered and tried politely to deflect Ramiro's attentions elsewhere, but he was too late and too courteous. By the time Bayard came up with reasons, Ramiro was packed and ready for the road ahead of us.
Ramiro's hearty enjoyment of food and wine and women had made him good company in Sir Robert's time- the delight of holidays and festivals and tournaments. In recent years, though, the wine and the food had taken their toll, and heartiness had turned to clumsiness and stupor. Ramiro had almost drowned in a barrel of sweet port last spring, and had not Gileandos, sneaking to the cellars for a nip himself, uncovered the barrel and the thrashing feet of the big knight, we would have spent our spring in funeral.
It was not, however, the first of the food-related mishaps. A year earlier, Ramiro had nearly choked to death when he swallowed a whole chicken at a banquet honoring the anniversary of Bayard Brightblade and Enid di Caela. I remember
Those were the highlights, of course, of Ramiro's seasonal visits. But each time he came, the farmers complained all the more as their livestock dwindled, and the di Caela women, forewarned of his hefty arrival, packed up and moved to guarded guest quarters on the upper floors of the Cat Tower.
This time had been no different. Two nights before my ceremonies, Bayard had found the big Knight tangled in an enormous harness, suspended from the top of that same Cat Tower. Lowered by his laboring squire, Oliver, Ramiro had snagged himself in an ill-starred attempt to peek in on Dannelle di Caela at her bath. Bayard had been beside himself, but he fumed politely as Sir Robert explained away the conduct as 'the energies of youth.'
'There is a white-haired conspiracy about us,' Bayard had whispered to me playfully, but one could tell that again he had begun to count the days until Ramiro's departure.
It was no wonder he was speechless when Ramiro decided to depart with us.
I, on the other hand, fared not much better.
Had efficient little Raphael been old enough, or even as big as he was efficient, my choice of squire would have been an easy one. Instead, he helped by introducing the candidates as I sat in my quarters granting audience to a dozen or so likely prospects culled from the Solamnic countryside.
You would be surprised how many unpromising younger sons of Knights will crawl from the woodwork when squire-hood is in the offing. I tried to be attentive, to be polite, but my options were almost unbearable.
I remember some of them well-occasionally the names, and even more occasionally the face that went with them. And yet they all blend together ultimately into one big teen-aged fool hell-bent on squirehood…
