It was still too soon to talk of Alfric. Longwalker rose from the fire and moved slowly and graciously toward the edge of the light, leaving me with my thoughts for a moment.
"Longwalker?" I said at last, having gathered myself together again. "What have you heard from my brother-the one Firebrand has taken?"
"Only what you have told me now, Solamnic," he replied, moving back into the light.
He looked down on me almost gently, and I stood, helping Shardos to his feet. The three of us walked toward the edge of the camp. Between two tall rocks far to our west, a faint fire was glowing, and from that region I heard the sound of Ramiro's laughter, carrying over miles and no doubt fueled by a flask of Thorbardin Eagle.
"I believe you now, Solamnic," Longwalker said quietly. "You will care for the stones and for my people wisely."
"But why? Why should you believe in me? I wish your people and their history well, but it is my brother and only my brother I am after. And I shall do anything to win his freedom."
"That in itself is something," the Plainsman said bluntly. "I believe that the gods always send my people something. You seem to be the one tree on the plain."
'That is not encouraging, Longwalker."
Then you have more of encouragement to learn," Longwalker said mysteriously, leading me to the horses.
It was a lonely trip back to our campsite. Lily plodded, worn down, no doubt, by her fear of the Plainsmen's clothing. I led Shardos's horse, puffing and snorting, through the rising rocks, the old man snoring in the saddle.
I labored under my own burden. The stones weighed heavily in my speculation, for at heart I have always hated responsibilities that offer me no chance to order about those around me. And the whole murky business of this Firebrand and his crown and visions made me doubly uneasy.
Waiting may be doing, but to me, that night, it seemed too much like doing nothing.
There in the darkness, as the path we were on began to ascend more steeply toward the faint light of our campfire, I thought about planting the stones on Shardos.
But the old man's moon of a face smiled in serene sleep behind me, and I knew that my thoughts were idle-that I was not going to take the coward's way out. But damned if I knew what way I would take instead.
Chapter XIII
"What about the others?" a small child asked, crouched over several little piles of stones and sticks he moved along with the Namer's story. "What of those who stayed at the castle and those in the Namer's caves?"
The Namer nodded and smiled. Slowly he twined the two strands of metal together over the fire, bending them gracefully in his gloved hands.
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.