the trees. Beware, beware! But beware of what?
No one seemed to know the answer to that.
CHAPTER 2
Gerard uth Mondar straightened his jerkin, already worn with military precision, and ran a hand through his short-cropped hair in an attempt to smooth it into place. The attempt was useless, he knew, for his hair would stand up in straw-yellow, unruly tufts despite his best efforts, which was why he kept it cut short. As for his face, well, there was nothing to be done about that either. The scars he had borne since childhood illness ravaged his face were still there. Along his jaw, his dark brown beard grew in patchy and splotchy. The only reason he kept the beard was to help hide the scars. Between hairline and beard reigned a nose that was permanently askew from a fight in his youth, while to each side of it sat the startlingly blue eyes that were Gerard's best feature.
Gerard had come to accept that his was an ugly face, and regrets or what-ifs were pointless. But he wished he could look a trifle more presentable on this particular occasion, as he confronted his father, Mondar uth Alfric.
He paced his sparsely furnished chamber in the palatial family residence on Southern Ergoth, where, a fortnight ago, he had come after resigning his commission in the Knights of Solamnia. Since then, his father had refused to see him, furious over Gerard's action, but now Gerard's father had requested his presence in the chamber where Mondar directed the sprawling shipbuilding and repair business that had made the family wealthy.
Gerard's boot heels clicked on the parquet floor, five paces across, five paces back, as exactingly measured as if he were still serving on guard duty somewhere. The footsteps echoed off the hard, unornamented plaster walls. He stopped, took a deep breath, and was about to leave his room when a servant appeared at the door. 'Yes?' Gerard said.
'Excuse me, sir. A messenger has arrived for you.'
Gerard frowned, wondering at this puzzling news. 'Show him in,' he said, determining to deal with this matter quickly, then get on with his own audience in his father's chambers.
The servant ushered an aging, one-armed man into the room. The stranger bore himself with the rigid, erect discipline of a career soldier. 'Sir Vercleese uth Rothgaard,' the servant announced, then bowed and disappeared.
'Sir Vercleese,' Gerard said without much warmth. 'A Knight of Solamnia, I presume.'
'Formerly,' the older man said. 'I am no longer of that honorable line.'
'You and me both,' Gerard muttered with a grunt.
He hadn't meant the remark for Vercleese's ears, but the man nonetheless responded, 'Yes, but I retired honorably after serving out my full debt to the Measure.'
Gerard scowled. Was the older man implying that he knew Gerard had left the knighthood by other means, and that he disapproved?
'You have a message for me?' Gerard asked coolly.
'Ah.' Vercleese reached into a pouch he carried and produced a sealed scroll. Gerard noted the seal, realizing that the message came from Palin in Solace. He tossed the scroll on the cot that served him for a bed.
Vercleese cocked an eyebrow, saying nothing.
'I'll read it in good time,' Gerard growled. 'Right now, I have another matter to attend to.' He rang for a servant and when one appeared said, 'Take Sir Vercleese to a spare room. See that he is given refreshment and a chance to rest from his journey. He'll be staying with us a few days.'
'Thank you for your offer of hospitality, but I'll be returning to Solace, where I am needed, by the end of the day,' Vercleese said stiffly.
Gerard nodded, rankled by the man's unspoken censure. 'As you wish.'
He waited until the old man was gone, merely glancing at the sealed scroll before gathering his resolve one last time. He strode down the ornate corridors, the walls hung with rich tapestries, deep rugs thickly strewn upon the floors. Mondar went to considerable lengths to ensure that visitors to the residence came away impressed by the family's wealth and social status.
At Mondar's door, Gerard paused, straightened the seam of his jerkin needlessly, and knocked. 'Come in,' Mondar's voice rumbled.
Gerard took a deep breath and entered. 'You wished to see me, sir?' Already he felt his jaw stick out defiantly, and he made an effort to adopt a more relaxed visage.
Behind his desk, Mondar uth Alfric looked up as if he had been deeply engrossed in whatever production report lay before him. He still sported the flowing mustache (full despite having turned almost white) that marked the pride of a Solamnic Knight. The man's frame, however, was no longer that of a youthful knight, for he had gone to fat after too many years of sitting behind a desk, running one of the most successful shipbuilding and repair businesses, first in Palanthas, and now in Southern Ergoth.
Mondar was already red-faced-not a good sign- but he made an effort to speak calmly. 'I summoned you to talk about your precipitous decision,' he said.
Gerard stiffened. He'd known this confrontation was coming, of course. It had been brewing since he arrived home a few days earlier, conspicuously shorn of the armor of a Solamnic Knight.
'I didn't feel it was precipitous,' he said. 'I had plenty of opportunity to reflect on it beforehand.'
His father's face turned redder, and he huffed through his mustache.
'You can't change my mind,' Gerard went on as evenly as he could manage. 'Besides, it's already done.'
Mondar uth Alfric's face went from red to purple. Veins stood out in his forehead. His mouth opened and closed, seeking words that wouldn't form, and for a moment there was silence in the room, the hub of Mondar's business empire, which dominated the eastern wing of the palatial residence and commanded an imperious view of the mountainside down to the port city of Daltigoth, with its shipyards and docks, and the sparkling bay beyond. Outside the huge windows, open to the summer breeze, a wren sang liltingly.
Not for the first time, Gerard considered the man before him and wondered if this was how he would look some day. But no, Mondar had once been a handsome man, and he still bore those traces; Gerard knew he was anything but handsome. Gerard had inherited the older man's medium height and earlier build, but little else. He would never look much like his father.
The older man's voice rose ominously. 'Do you have any idea how much coin I paid the knighthood to get you admitted, or how much more I shelled out to keep you in a safe billet during the war?'
'Yes, Father, I do.'
'And that means nothing to you?'
'It means that for eight years, I diligently followed the course you set out for me. And that during most of the war, I was kept away from serving any real function other than to brew tarbean tea for the generals and to guard a tomb in Solace no one was interested in desecrating. That was all your plan for me, Father, not mine. I never wanted to be a knight, not from the day before my knighting when I realized I was on the wrong path. I only followed the knighthood because you wanted me to.'
'And now you're throwing all that away? I won't allow it.'
'You're too late. As I said, it's already done.'
'Well, undo it.'
'That's impossible.'
'A suitable sum in the right hands, that would make amends.'
'You don't understand. I'm not going back. Whether you could buy my way back into the knighthood or not has nothing to do with the matter. I'm through with the knights.'
Mondar's face took on a shrewd, conniving look that Gerard recognized as the face of the successful businessman entering into negotiation. 'And what made you decide this so abruptly?'
Gerard sighed. He really should try to explain. He owed his father at least that much. 'The knights are full of false expectations… and compromises… even corruption.'
