Here is the story as the Lady Enid told it to me, as I gathered from what others said, what servants said, from what Sir Bayard let fall in moments unguarded. It is the tale of what took place in our absence.
At first, Bayard was his old self, handling in his customary and courteous manner the wave of hysteria that passed through Castle di Caela when Dannelle was discovered missing.
All of this ruling in justice and wisdom is well and good, but Bayard was quickly restless, having dispatched all the daily duties he could notice, foresee, or even imagine by the end of the first day after our departure. That is not to say there wasn't much left to do around Castle di Caela. It is just that Bayard, by temperament an adventuring Knight, had neither the patience nor the skills to attend the details of castle maintenance and government.
It is then that the real story begins.
Only three nights passed, it seems, until Bayard was climbing the Cat Tower. The whisper went from servant to servant as the Knight lay in the infirmary, attended by Enid, who was beyond herself with managing a restless husband and an even more restless estate. The three surgeons stood constantly and irritatingly over the injured Knight, rubbing his leg with their textral stones. The stones steamed and emitted sweet odors, but they lost their early fascination for Bayard and were now part of the boring daily landscape.
On the other hand, Bayard found young Brandon Rus the only bright spot in the bleak hours. It was Brandon who talked to him about hawking and horses, who knew more about those cherished subjects than half a dozen Knights twice his age. However, Brandon knew such things because he was at them constantly, and so he spent most of his day in the castle forest beyond the east wall, restlessly riding and hunting.
Sometimes in the morning, when the wind lifted, Bayard could hear his horn echoing over the grounds of the estate. It was then that he turned uncomfortably, filled with a most un-Solamnic jealousy, and shouted at the surgeons.
Still, Sir Brandon was always welcome. Bayard looked forward to his conversation as a cherished relief from the mournful Sirs Elazar and Fernando, the gloomy Solamnics whose talk was only about violation of rules and missing opals. Nonetheless, when the surgeons left at night, when the hard-pressed Enid napped in her brief rest from entertabling and attending to her husband, Bayard was left alone with his discomfort, with his loneliness and his boredom, with the distant metallic sounds of the one cuckoo clock Enid had not dismantled in her campaign to redecorate the palace old Sir Robert had defaced years ago by absentmindedness and bad taste. Bayard longed for even Elazar's company then, in those bird-haunted and lonely hours, though he knew he would regret it in a matter of minutes.
So the hours passed until the third day, when Sir Bayard Brightblade decided to do something picturesque with his surroundings. He began with an archery range set up through the infirmary window.
After Enid had opened the shutters and moved away from the half-light of noon, drenched by the continuing downpour, and after the three surgeons left dripping with sweat and rain, having carried Bayard, bed and all, to a towering view of the courtyard, an equally soaked servant gloomily set up two targets in the center of the bailey. Then Brandon Rus, perhaps the only dry person in that wing of the castle, pulled up a chair at Bayard's bedside and brought forth a crossbow.
'You have to allow for the height and the distance and the rain, Sir Bayard,' he explained politely as he and Raphael nocked the arrow and drew the string, tilting the bow ever so slightly. Calmly he loosed the shaft, and it flew out into the downpour.
Raphael's shout rose above the steady rushing sound of the rain. Sir Brandon's arrow struck the bull's- eye.
Brandon smiled faintly and handed the bow to Bayard.
Sullenly he handed the crossbow back to Brandon.
''Tis an impossible device to load from a sickbed, sir,' the young man explained as they reloaded for the embarrassed Knight.
''Tis also my damned leg that's ailing, lad, not my arms!' Bayard snapped. After which there was an uncomfortable silence, a stillness in both men. Then Brandon handed the bow back to the recumbent Bayard.
Who missed and missed and missed, the first arrow sailing long, passing over the targets and into an awning of the paddock. The canvas, already sagging with rainwater, burst open and spewed water onto an unfortunate groom currying a mare beneath it. The mare galloped off, leaving the boy behind her, soaked and still clutching a comb.
The second arrow fell closer to its mark, but not close enough, the arrow shivering in the very spot where only a second before a sentry was standing sullenly.
The third arrow hit the top of the windowsill and darted back into the sickroom, ricocheting between Raphael's legs and pinning Bayard's blanket to the wall.
Bayard looked at Sir Brandon, who scooted his chair away from the bedside. Archery, it seemed, was over for the day.
It was time, instead, to bring on the dwarves and the dogs.
For on the third day of Sir Bayard's living in, a party of rive dwarves, making the long trek from Thorbardin north into Palanthas with five barrels of Thorbardin Eagle to barter, trade, or sell at impossible prices, was waylaid by the heavy rains and forced to seek shelter at the first roof, which happened to be that of Castle di Caela. According to Solamnic custom, Enid saw to the quarters of the five from Thorbardin. According to custom, she was also supposed to be responsible for their entertainment.
A duty that Bayard took eagerly out of her hands.
The rooms in the infirmary underwent a bizarre transformation. Doors were opened, in some cases removed. Tables were stacked and ordered, as were the linen cabinets. The result of all these arrangements was a wide, circular path that passed through four of the sickrooms, having its beginning and ending directly in front of Bayard's bed, which was moved, again by the gasping and perspiring surgeons, back to its original site.
A wide, circular path. Makeshift, but good enough for a dog track when money and dwarf spirits circulate.
And circulate they did, the second night of the dwarves' stay, as the races began. Bayard bought one of the barrels of Thorbardin Eagle at a price Sir Robert denounced as 'banditry'-at least until his third drink, when the 'bandit' became a sober-faced bloodhound who sat down at the final turn of the dog track, allowing a beagle and a pug to pass him, and forfeiting the large amount of money Sir Robert had placed on his promised speed and endurance.
Sir Robert asked Brandon for his bow, preparing to shoot the animal in a fit of gambler's rage. Brandon and Bayard exchanged glances; by now they were the only two sober folk in the room, and their sobriety told them that it would be a real game of chance to determine where Robert di Caela's arrow would lodge, and that the stakes in such a game would be terribly high.
Robert was escorted to bed by Sir Brandon, who gave up escorting after a few steps and hoisted the old man to his shoulders when the two of them reached the stairwell leading to the fourth floor and Sir Robert's quarters.
This left Bayard downstairs, alone in his sobriety, but not without company. Sir Andrew was there, as was Gileandos. Elazar was snoring under the three-legged table that completed the first turn of the dog track, while Fernando, dressed in the ornamental armor worn by old Simon di Caela before he decided he was an iguana, tried in vain to order around anyone-dwarf, guard, page, or dog.
Enid entered the room as the second race began and was faced with this sorry sight. Fernando turned to her. In a booming voice, he proclaimed that she should return to where she belonged.
The whole room dropped into silence and every eye, drunk or sober, snapped around to Fernando. Enid turned icily, haughtily toward the litigious old fool, who had just crossed a boundary that nobody-Knight, dwarf, servant, or dog-could cross without dire peril. For Enid Pathwarden was Pathwarden only through marriage and love for her husband. By blood and by a thousand years of heritage, she was all di Caela.
She was, indeed,
