It is too late to pay respects this night, Sir Robert thought, or so he told me. Whoever it is can wait until morning, for the list will go nowhere overnight.
But then he thought of Sir Bayard Brightblade, somewhere on the road to Castle di Caela. Who knew? He might be outside the gates, awaiting Solamnic courtesy—a warm room, a cup of wine, a polite and ceremonious entering of his name in tomorrow’s lists.
Buoyed by his imaginings, Sir Robert rose from his bed, his joints no doubt creaking and cracking. I can see him now—see him, and hear it all as though it is happening before me. Sir Robert puts on his armor over his nightshirt, his helmet over his nightcap, and there before the looking glass in the bedroom—the mirror that is one of the last relics of a wife who died beautiful and far too young—the old man adjusts the breastplate and the shimmering visor, trying for a balance between comfort and dignity.
Not bad for a man of fifty, he is thinking. The hair a little yellow-gray, no doubt, and the poundage straining a bit at the laces of the armor. But all in all, not a far cry from the days in active duty, and certainly good enough to receive the likes of these young combatants.
Who, except for Sir Bayard Brightblade and perhaps a couple of others, are only pale copies of the Knights who manned the Orders in my youth.
Down the stairs he starts, coughing a little at the hour and the cold. Somewhere in the recesses of the castle, three mechanical cuckoos whir and call out. Sir Robert fumbles with a candle, which flickers briefly and fades, leaving him in the dark. He swears a mild oath and reaches above him, seeking to light the wick from the glowing remnants of a torch on the wall.
It is then that he hears the voice, rising from the foot of the stairs. Even though he has never met the man, he knows this is not Bayard Brightblade as he had hoped; that it is the Hooded Knight who has pitched camp far to the west, who has waited for darkness before coining to the castle to pay respects and to sign for the lists.
“I assume you are Sir Robert di Caela?” the Knight asks out of the darkness. And di Caela thinks of a dozen things to say—of angry, brave words, of sharp retorts that would let this trespasser know that around this castle we conduct business in the daylight hours—but when he hears the cold, wasted words from the Knight at the bottom of the stairs, it is all he can do to answer with a feeble yes.
Sir Robert finds himself backing into the bedroom. Those legs that served him well in a hundred tournaments, that stood stalwart in the pass at Chaktamir where my father became a hero, are moving now before he has even noticed. He stops himself, wonders why he has to summon so much courage to do so. At the bottom of the stairs there is movement.
“I have come, Sir Robert, to pay respects,” the voice says icily. “Yours is a splendid castle, splendid and well-kept. Its restorations are scarcely noticeable, which shows the handiwork of a master craftsman.”
“Thank you,” begins Sir Robert, recovering from the ill ease, the unnameable fear of the moment past.
“Thank you, Sir Knight, though a knowledge of restoration and of castle decorations is, I fear, beyond me. I am a rough man who drops crystal by accident, the kind of man who wipes his chin on the tablecloth when he should be polished, refined, a fitting heir for his old family forebears.”
“If that is your greatest failing as a Knight, Sir Robert,” soothes the dark voice, “you may hand over your holdings to your heirs, knowing . . . you have served in all ways well. It is my guess that the state of your holdings—your finances, your lands, the welfare of your servants and your tenants—is as healthy as the look of your castle.”
“Well, well,” di Caela blusters, leaning heavily against the door frame, no longer certain that he dislikes this visitor altogether—indeed, seeing within the young fellow a certain . . . discernment, a wisdom beyond his years, to know how hard an estate could be in the upkeep, how it could sap a man of energy and of needful sleep. Indeed, were it not that he expects Bayard Brightblade to arrive at any moment . . .
“I assume you have come to put your name in the lists, young fellow,” Sir Robert begins heartily, and the man steps into light on the stairwell.
He is dressed in black, as though in mourning for someone dear to him, Sir Robert notes. And the hood over his face is not nearly as menacing as old Ramiro made it out to be.
No doubt it is some kind of sorrow he is trying to live down, trying to live past.
“You must be the one they call the Hooded Knight,” Sir Robert states—no question in his voice because he is unaccustomed to questions. Questions, indeed, are weakness.
“Gabriel Androctus,” comes the voice from the folds of the black cloth, calmly and smoothly. “It will sound better in the lists. Less . . . theatrical.”
“Step forward, lad!” Sir Robert exclaims, this time even more heartily. “Come into my quarters while I find a quill.”
But Sir Gabriel stands on the lowest step and does not budge.
“Are you deaf, young fellow? Step forward!”
“Ah, but it’s late, Sir Robert. Later no doubt than . . . either of us knows,” soothes Sir Gabriel. “Now that I have paid respects, have entered the lists, I beg your dismissal, so that I might return to my encampment. The night is short, and I should be rested for tomorrow’s contest.”
“Indeed, indeed,” Sir Robert calls over his shoulder, halfway back to his desk where the quill sits in the inkwell, where the rolled parchment list of tomorrow’s contestants lies tied with a velvet ribbon. He unrolls the list and hears the sound of a door closing distantly below him. He sets the pen to the page, pulls it back with an oath.
“I forgot to ask Sir Gabriel where he comes from, damn it!”
But the halls below are silent. Outside a horse whickers in the stable, and the night gives way to the call of owls and the slow whirring of crickets.
As the tournament lists are displayed the next morning, Sir Gabriel’s name is listed without place or lineage at the bottom of the scroll. Of course, Sir Robert wishes he had gathered that information, had completed the lists in proper ceremony.
But the name is there, joining those of the rest of the Knights assembled. What more could a man ask, who prepares to give his daughter to the most resourceful, the most gifted of Solamnic manhood?
He could ask for Bayard Brightblade to be there.
Sir Robert stands at the window of the low tower and looks west across the pennants flapping from the tents in the encampment. There is Ramiro’s great bear, the fish in its jaws, and beyond it Sir Prospers silver mountain of ice. Beyond that still is the strange, flat black banner of Gabriel Androctus. Beyond that, the mountains, with no rising dust on the paths leading east and downward. Bayard is not coming. Not yet.
Sir Robert exhales heatedly. His squire begins the burdensome process of helping the old man into the ceremonial bronze armor and the chore over at last, hands him the shield bearing the standard of the House di Caela—red flower of light on a white cloud on a blue field.
Sir Robert descends the tower stairway. It is time to begin the three days’ ceremony of giving away his daughter. Of giving away his last name, for in the generations that follow, this place will no longer be known as Castle di Caela—of that much, he is certain.
Castle Inverno, perhaps?
Or Castle Androctus?
Pausing on the landing in the long and winding stairway, he looks once more out the western window. Nothing at the foot of the mountains.
Well then, thinks Sir Robert di Caela resignedly, let the tournament begin.