The Wayward Knights

by Roland Green

  Pirvan coughed. "I believe you are confusing the wedding with the wedding night. Not even the forest barbarians wed unclad, although on the islands north of Ansalon it might be warm enough to do so."

  This time it was Young Eskaia's turn to flush. "I also remind you," he continued, "that if it takes place with Lady Eskaia's, only your kin will be present at the wedding. Would you rather not have your husband's kin standing beside him?"

  "Sir Darin has already sworn to stand in place of Redthorn and Threehands for the giving of the necessary oaths," Eskaia said. "Both approved him at the time of our betrothal oaths. And you must remember that those oaths also give Hawkbrother and me the right to wed at any time and place we choose, according to the customs of my people. We need thereafter only reaffirm our wedding vows before witnesses of the Gryphons, at a time not later than the presenting of our first-born son to Hawkbrother's father or eldest surviving male kin."

  It occurred to Pirvan, not for the first time, that the Free Riders were, in the matter of oaths, legalists who could contend with any Istaran law counselors or even one of the high knights. Moreover, wedding a Free Rider seemed to have corrupted the good sense and moderation of his daughter.

  "Well, it seems we shall have to wait on Lady Eskaia to discuss this matter further," Pirvan said. "I would not wish to ask of her more than she is prepared to give, even out of old friendship."

  "You will waste your breath and her time, Father," Young Eskaia said, but with a lilt in her voice that took the sting from her words. "However, it is not your wedding, so perhaps you will have idle moments."

  She bowed so elaborately that it was almost a parody, the more so in that she was wearing tunic and trousers in the Free Rider style, but of silk and lace in the Istaran fashion. When she turned and strode out, the hard soles of her formal boots clicked on the stone floor.

  Pirvan started to follow his daughter, but found that the floor had suddenly sprouted an obstacle. Namely, and to wit, his wife. She seemed suddenly as immovable as a granite block, and the idea of laying hands on her to move her out of his path was something else unthinkable.

  "I think we had best let the young folk do as they wish, and as our old friend is prepared to let them do," Haimya said. "I do remember what it was like when you came out of your training." She hugged herself, and then, surprisingly, him.

  "So, if we do not want them to take their betrothal rights before we sail," she continued, "for fear that their love will never be…"

  "Consummated?" Pirvan put in, and was glad to see Haimya now blushing. She seemed a trifle more content with having a daughter old enough to think of wedding and bedding, but only a trifle.

  "Yes," Haimya said, after a moment. "Also, consider that the wedding of Lady Eskaia and Gildas Aurhinius will be the talk of Ansalon for months to come. And they will say that Lady Eskaia allowed her namesake to stand up beside her and wed a desert barbarian, in the same chamber, on the same carpet, with the same blessings, while breathing the same perfumes…"

  Pirvan held up both hands, to stop Haimya's torrent of persuasive words. "I begin to understand," he said. "Yes, it will do well to mark Hawkbrother's acceptance, and that can do him no harm among the knights.

  "Nor can accepting him do the knights any harm," he added. "I will not mind hearing less often that Hawkbrother's knighthood is a mere whim of Sir Pirvan the Wayward."

  Sir Niebar stood in the middle of one wall of the chamber where the wedding—weddings, he corrected himself—would take place. Two knights stood on either side of him, and beside each pair of knights were two men-at-arms.

  The nine men all wore their finest robes and most decorated (whether most useful or not) swords. The other six men-at-arms scattered about the chamber wore nothing to let anyone know that they served the Orders and Keeps. Their weapons were concealed, and their eyes continually roamed the room.

  Niebar had come to Vuinlod with twenty knights and two hundred men-at-arms. When they heard of the change in the wedding plans, to the last man they begged the right to be guards on that day. Had he granted all those wishes, Sir Niebar knew, there would hardly have been room for the other wedding guests—although to be sure, they would have been very safe from hostile steel.

  As it was, the fifteen were all who represented the knights But they were not the only ones standing between the wedding party and any would-be assassins. Most of the men in the chamber wore steel, and not a few were of the host of Vuinlod that Gildas Aurhinius would be leading to Suivinari.

  Even Gildas Aurhinius himself, although older and stouter than Niebar, moved like a man who would hardly be helpless in a fight. That hypothetical assassin would have a very short life, and probably not even the consolation of succeeding before that life ended.

  But now the drums began muttering softly, the lyres and harps rippled like spring water, and the brides and grooms entered, each with his or her oath-witness. Torvik Jemarsson was standing up for his mother and Gildas Aurhinius, while Sir Darin loomed behind Hawkbrother and Young Eskaia, Lady Eskaia's youngest daughter followed, bearing both rings on a silver tray. Pirvan and Haimya, in the traditional array of the champions of the brides, brought up the rear.

  As the wedding party stepped onto the square of carpet marked off by braided rushes and scented seaweed (all that the season allowed), a male singer in the gallery above began:

  "Let there be man and maid, ho!"

  A woman's voice replied:

  "Let there be maid and man, ho!"

  Niebar recognized the woman singing as Rynthala. Well, singing that well-wishing song was an honor, and Niebar had known women to assassinate at least one another's reputations over singing it at a friend's wedding.

  How many times had he heard it, Niebar wondered. Twenty times at least, usually for knights, but never for him. Of course, if Gildas Aurhinius could wed at his age, there was hope for even the Niebar the Talls of the world.

  But hope meant little without the time to seek a worthy bride—unless one sought you, as had been the case with Eskaia and Aurhinius. Niebar did not expect such luck for himself. The luck he hoped for now was that the Grand Master would allow this to be his last quest on the secret affairs of the knights. Then he could find his modest chamber in some keep, and leave the work in the hands of a man who would do it better than he ever had.

  That man also probably did not much like the thought of the burden, of course. But if Pirvan the Wayward had not wanted the work, he should not have done it so well.

  Nuitari and Solinari splashed light across the floor of the chamber. Faint phosphorescence from the sea added another tint to the light.

  It was just enough for Hawkbrother to see his wife's hair spread out across the pillow. She had grown it for the wedding until she swore that it would be long enough to twine through his fingers, although she had not promised she would leave it that way. It would need to fit under a helmet before they had been wed a month, she said, and he feared she was right.

  But tonight…

  "Am I welcome in your bed, my wife?" Hawkbrother said. His throat felt full of hot gravel, so that he was sure the words came out a croak.

  Eskaia seemed to understand even his croaking.

  "You are welcome in my bed, my husband," she said.

  He turned his back to remove his robe, but by the time he turned back, Eskaia had thrown aside the blankets—as she had already thrown aside her own robe.

  "You are welcome everywhere you wish to go, in truth," she said, with what sounded suspiciously like laughter in her voice.

  Hawkbrother stood and looked, and felt a gentle warmth flowing through him, unlike anything he had ever felt before, But then, he had never been wed before, so why should he not feel that he was entering a whole new world and time?

  Gildas Aurhinius and Lady Eskaia swore that on their wedding night they would do what they had never done before.

  Nor were they foresworn. Weary, filled with good food and better wine, and content with what they had done fo
r themselves and for the younger couple, they fell chastely to sleep in each other's arms.

  Torvik Jemarsson walked along the beach, listening to the thunder roll of the surf and watching the breakers fling rocks the size of his fist into the air like feathers. When one of them nearly parted his hair, he turned his course inland.

  From the cliffs above the beach, he had a view well out to sea. In the phosphorescence offshore, he thought he saw dark shapes rising and falling. They had to be whales, to be seen from this distance, and whales were kin to porpoises, and porpoises who spoke with the Dargonesti might carry messages to the Dimernesti. Were the whales here as scouts, to watch over the ships gathering in Vuinlod and bring word of when they sailed?

  Torvik told himself that a long day and a surprisingly fine night for this time of year were filling him with fancies. He would go back to the town and find decent wine and perhaps a warm hearted woman.

  Farther south, a messenger rode through the darkness. When he saw that he was approaching the hills around Vuinlod, he reined in, watered and wiped down his horse, and considered what to do next. The message he bore would reach Sir Pirvan if he simply rode into town and shouted it in the streets. So would it reach a howling mob of people, all eager to help or perhaps hinder him.

  But how to go straight to Pirvan without anyone asking why he sought the knight? No one in Vuinlod knew him.

  But Lady Eskaia was used to receiving messages, and would know where Pirvan was. She might even be able to summon Pirvan's men-at-arms, and once among those friends the messenger knew his secret would be safe.

  Men had called him Wilthur the Brown because they could not come up with a better (or worse) name for a man who had worn the White, Red, and Black Robe, each at various times.

  He had also commanded the magic of each, and forgotten none of it. What he had not commanded was himself, at least enough to avoid being corrupted by so much knowledge.

  In the end he had fled beyond the knowledge of men, and now called Suivinari Island his home.

  From atop the dormant volcano men called the Smoker, he watched the world beyond through the most potent scrying glass ever made. He still had to use the eyes of his body, but that might be about to change, if the expedition coming to his island left enough bodies of other men behind.

  He would say nothing and think only a little about that particular ambition, however. His robe now was Black, so the Dragon Queen should not (in theory) object to what he was doing. But a human mage who could transcend the limits of the body as far as Wilthur hoped to was no friend to anyone. Not even to gods. Gods whom he might soon be able to bring into or expel from the world at will. And of all gods, Takhisis was the least likely to endure such a challenge.

  Meanwhile, dawn was breaking over Vuinlod. The scrying, glass could not at such a distance show him single figures, but he could count the ships in the harbor.

  Good. No more than the day before, although not all those who would be sailing against Suivinari would be coming to Vuinlod by ship. He considered taking a day or two to examine spells that might let him see farther into the town Perhaps even, with luck, penetrate the walls of dwellings and stables, to count men and horses.

  Yes. The close watch on Vuinlod could wait that long. Even longer, perhaps, for other towns and cities also demanded his attention, if he was to have some notion of what came against him.

  Wilthur touched the scrying glass and it went dark. He breathed on a wad of cloth of gold hanging over the arm of his chair. It leaped into the air and set busily to polishing the glass, and afterward its wooden frame.

  It sometimes amused Wilthur to think that the cloth now doing menial work held the spirit of a slain minotaur, who would have killed at once any human who asked his living self to labor so.

  Pirvan and Haimya walked up into the hills above the town before they felt ready to talk of the night's news.

  "Will our Eskaia know?" Haimya said. She pulled up a few withered brown grass stems and tried to braid them, but they were too brittle.

  "Lady Eskaia wrote that the new couple were probably going to sleep late," Pirvan answered. "Even then, she promised not to tell them today."

  Pirvan stood up. He had slept little and walked long and hard, but he was too restless to sit for long. Tirabot Manor in danger? His first thought had been that Sir Niebar would call him a fool, and while he was ashamed of the thought, it had not altogether gone away.

  The older knight would not say, "I told you so," but everyone in the room would be able to hear his thoughts. Even now, Pirvan shaped the words slowly and reluctantly.

  "The first person we ought to tell is Sir Niebar," he said.

  Haimya's reply was an eloquent look. Pirvan struggled on. "The men he has with him," he said, "knights and others alike, are his to send where he will. He can send—oh, two knights and ten men-at-arms—without weakening his strength for the voyage to Suivinari."

  "That will put our son under the authority of a total stranger," Haimya said. "I thought we had decided his arguments against that had weight."

  "They did," Pirvan said. "They do. But not leaving him with only the manor guards and staff to face a feud with a great house also has weight. More, to my mind."

  "Private feuds are illegal," she said flatly.

  "If that law still ran, why is everyone within a day's ride of Tirabot strengthening his defenses?"

  "I was not putting more faith in the laws of Istar than they can bear, Pirvan. I was reminding you that we are also bound by the law not to fight House Dirivan over a small matter.

  "But this may not be a small matter," she said. "It may not even be one in which the kingpriest is wrong. We do not know what the offense to the flock's owner was."

  That sober reminder made Pirvan pause. It was difficult to believe that no one ever suffered at the hands of the kingpriest, but fraud, theft, misappropriating funds, illegally pasturing cattle… one could not ask that enemies of the kingpriest go free over any of these. Not and observe the Oath and the Measure, as Pirvan was bound to do as a Knight of Solamnia. Or even listen to the voice of common sense, as he had tried to do even as a village boy some days' ride from Istar and a week from the nearest keep.

  He sat down on the rock and put his head in his hands. The surest protection for Tirabot Manor and Gerik would be his own return. It would be a humiliation for his son, but a lesser one than ending up under the protection of total strangers, even if they were his father's comrades-in-arms.

  It would also set chaos loose among the Vuinlod squadron of the expedition to Suivinari. Chaos there would weaken the ranks of the wise and honorable sailing to the island, and leave it under the command of those eager for reckonings with the "lesser breeds." A war with the minotaurs might be the least of the results of that.

  No. He must go to Sir Niebar, swear that he will sail with the fleet, but ask that some form of protection be devised for Tirabot and its people.

  Also he must pray that House Dirivan saw reason. They were as proud as the Silvanesti and as quick to take offense, but Pirvan himself had earned honors from those arrogant forest-dwellers. Perhaps House Dirivan could also be brought to see reason. Or at least not to see a cause for blood-feud in every petty slight.

  "Well and good," Pirvan said, rising. "We go down and straight to Sir Niebar. Then, whatever his answer, we go to our Eskaia. She will not forgive our hiding the matter for long, and Hawkbrother hardly less. I do not want my next duel of honor to be with my new son-by-marriage!"

  Chapter 5

  When they were in residence, Pirvan and Haimya held formal manor councils once a month. Also once a month, they sat in some state to hear grievances and complaints from the manor's people. Istaran law, the oaths sworn when they look the manor, and common sense all demanded it.

  Gerik was glad that his parents had held both councils for the month before departing for Vuinlod. With some luck, the manor's people would not feel the need for any more for a while. With even more luck, Gerik's parents
would be home before the time appointed for the next council.

  He knew that last hope asked a great deal of the weather, the Istarans, and the gods, to say nothing of the enemies he seemed to have made by taking in Ellysta. Everything would have to move like a well-ordered banquet for Gerik's parents to be back in less than two months.

  In truth, he was of two minds about wanting them back. He had begun to realize that if he was not to enter the ranks of the Knights of Solamnia, he needed to find some other way to prove himself a worthy son of his father. His own honor demanded this, for all that his father had not demanded it, by so much as a single word or even a momentary look upon his weathered face.

  Ordering the affairs of Tirabot Manor so that its quarrel with House Dirivan did not end in a bloody clash of arms would be proof of both courage and wisdom. These were two gifts that anyone would expect in the son of a Knight of the Rose.

  However, if matters went so awry that House Dirivan continued to secretly wage private war against the manor, then Gerik badly wanted his parents back home and himself loyally obeying their orders. Attacking the son of a Knight of the Rose might seem to some folks unlike attacking the knight himself. By the time they learned the error of their ways, much harm might have been done.

  So Gerik held council almost daily, with the chief of the masons, the steward, and the chief of the guards. Five days after he judged his message should have reached Vuinlod, he was seated in his chamber across a low table from Bertsa Wylum, commanding the guards. Her dark eyes flicked him like a riding whip as he poured more ale for both of them.

  "You think I drink too much?" he asked, trying to keep challenge out of his voice.

  "No," she said. "Just remember, though, that our enemies might try magic against our water. They did when your parents defended Belkuthas, and here we have no dwarves to save us."