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, the di Caela.
And the dog races were declared over. Memories are blurred as to how Fernando managed to ride twenty-five miles south toward his holdings near the Garnet Mountains that very night. What is more, he was wrapped in yards of linen and was terribly bruised about his head and shoulders. The bruises somehow matched exactly the carving on the missing leg of the table at the first turn of the dog track.
Sir Elazar, though still at the castle, was also badly bruised, having been found by Raphael the next morning, a victim of collapsing furniture.
The dwarves were gone by noon on the next day, Elazar was packing, and the dogs were kenneled once again, their night of celebrity passed into di Caela history. And so, deprived of sport and diversion, the master of the castle again lay splinted and confined to the infirmary.
It was enough to drive Bayard Brightblade to the di Caela family papers.
For two years, he had promised his wife that, "given the time and the leisure," he would gather together the volumes from the library-the ledgers and histories, the journals and logs and lists and registers in which the di Caelas of old kept all kinds of records. Enid hoped that the whereabouts of the missing well cap would come up after desperate page-turning, and the danger of flood could be averted. But she also delighted in her husband's newfound interest in the daily business of the estate and the balance of credit and debit.
Within an hour, the poor man was overwhelmed. Numbers hurtled by him like hostile arrows, and he soon decided that the single most happy advantage of wandering knighthood is its freedom from budgetry and arithmetic.
"Mathematics is for gnomes, anyway," he muttered, setting aside the account books and moving to the wills. Wills, of course, make for better reading, having been principal weapons in di Caela family combat for centuries.
It was here that Bayard Brightblade read of family feuds and disputes that had passed down through the generations, as each di Caela, on his or her deathbed, seems to have reserved a posthumous slap for one or more descendants. Most clerical older sons inherited the father's favorite prostitute, while fastidious nieces inherited their uncle's privy.
Some bequests were not as jolly: Evana di Caela received only a side of beef from her mother, which, the old woman said, "should serve as a reminder of what happens to heavy, bovine creatures"; Laurantio di Caela received from his uncle a single dagger with the murky instructions to "do what needs to be done."
The Lady Mariel passed down to Enid herself, who was an infant at the time, fifty cats. Bayard thought of how the mad old woman met her fate and laughed wickedly.
"Wonder how she proposed to feed them all?" he asked in all mischief. Then his eye stopped on an older scrap of parchment-centuries old, perhaps, and no larger than the palm of Bayard's hand. And yet it was written in a polished script that was strikingly, unsettlingly familiar.
"Now where…?" he thought, then recognized the writing of Benedict di Caela.
You again, old enemy, Bayard thought, for it was the Scorpion's writing, reaching out to him beyond four centuries and the villain's several deaths.
Having nothing to inherit, I have little to pass to my descendants. My father and that brace of vultures who call themselves my brothers have seen to that.
"We saw to it also, you brigand!" Bayard hissed, surprised at the anger he still felt toward the dead illusionist. Bayard snorted and lifted the parchment to the light.
So I resolve to bequeath chaos and disaster and a curse on generations. Castle di Caela will be mine eventually, for I shall return to it until it falls into my hands.
"Or the curse is lifted," Bayard pronounced triumphantly, then frowned at the document's conclusion.
And if you who read this have lifted my curse, congratulate yourself no further. If you have been triumphant, prepare to have Castle di Caela snatched from your hands by the rending of the earth. Eventually it will come, as foretold and unstoppable as the rains of autumn or the awakenings of spring. For I have seen to that. Beneath your feet and your thoughts, your histories and even your imaginings, I have set a device in motion. From the wakening of time, from the Vingaard Mountains to the Plains of Solamnia, even unto the foundations of this murderous house, there were forces that awaited my guidance, and you will know of them soon enough. Though you may uncover my devices, you will never strike the mark nor hit the target. And though I may be dead when you read this, be assured that in some dark and comfortless comer of the skies, my laughter mocks you and those who follow you with the fond and foolish hopes that my powers are spent.