Michael Williams - Galen Beknighted

"So much for what I believed," he spat angrily. "You couldn't even watch through the night."

He raised his hand again, and before he could strike me, I had slipped off the bed and onto the floor. I crouched and glared at him, fists doubled. Bayard's eyes widened in surprise, and I heard a shuffling sound as the page dove under the shield he was polishing.

Now the silence downstairs erupted into a swift Palanthan dance, then faded into disarray as the musicians realized they knew different versions of the song. From the far end of my hallway, a mechanical bird trilled an off-key melody and then lay silent.

At that sound, and at long last, Bayard smiled.

"It seems as though Enid has forgotten one," he said, softly but audibly.

"Forgotten, Bayard?"

"The bird at the end of the hall."

"Survivor of the Great Dismantling of Two Twenty Eight," I proclaimed, and we both laughed.

"Most of them gone the way of dwarf spirits and dog runs," Bayard added, "since the Lady Enid took over the care of the castle from her father."

He looked down at me and frowned.

"If not sleep, then just what was it, Weasel?"

"Galen," I corrected, picking up the greaves. Slowly the boy approached me, holding the shield in front of him like… well, like a shield. 'Sir Galen,' it's about to be, and I'd like to go by 'Galen' henceforth, unless you're taking the advice of your elders and burying me in the provinces."

'Then 'Galen' it will be. Damn it, Galen, help the boy!" Bayard snapped, after the page spent a useless moment fumbling with strings on my person.

It was my answer, such as it was.

I sighed deeply as the boy attached the breastplate more snugly, then took the old, outsized greaves from my hands.

Bayard paced to the door and looked down the hall impa tiently. "Assemble yourself!" he snapped. "It wasn't a week ago that you were my squire…"

"And a good one I was, sir," I lied, casting a sidelong glance at the poor boy, who was beginning to sweat and tremble, his fingers fumbling at the laces.

"Well, buckle some buckle, or tie something yourself."

"Armor was always my weakness, sir," I stalled, picking up the ceremonial helmet as though it belonged to someone else, tugging the greave laces from the page's hands in the process. The boy whimpered and fell onto his stomach.

"I recall others," Bayard declared, "along with some you probably do not remember. Be consoled that at least the years have taken away no genuine talent in much of anything squirely. Raphael!"

Bayard tossed a key to the page.

"Get to my quarters and bring me a sword-any sword except the Nerakan disemboweler I took as a trophy from the pass at Chaktamir."

"Which would be a little fanciful," I observed sourly, and Bayard turned back to me.

"As I said, Raphael," he continued, his eyes on me, "virtually any sword will do, as long as the blade and the handle are… recognizably different."

The horns and drums resumed in the Great Hall below us. They struck up a dance tune from Coastlund, usually played by the peasants when a cow calved. The musicians were straining, kept so long that they had nearly run out of music. As Raphael went out the door, Bayard turned to me, setting himself to the task of assembling a version of a Knight for the evening.

"It is time to make you a Knight," he declared, "dozing or not. Before the Great Hall descends to dog races or sword-play."

We glanced toward my belongings, scattered over and under the table.

"Not exactly a knightly inventory," I pronounced.

"Oh, I don't know," Bayard said politely, even kindly. "A dagger. A pair of stained, heavy gloves. Half a dozen glain opals and a tarnished dog whistle. Each has been good company to you, in its way, if I recall."

I nodded.

"Castle di Caela seems smaller, Bayard."

"Smaller? Suck in that stomach so I can tighten this breastplate. Maybe that's because you don't fit through the doorways like you used to, Galen. Soft living is demanding payment from your waistline, boy. If you're showing weight at nineteen, when you're my age you'll be-"

"Another Ramiro of the Maw, sprawled over two chairs in the dining room, drooling on the kinswomen?"

"Don't be so desolate, boy. Or so disrespectful. And do suck in that stomach."

"You don't understand, Bayard. Ever since the curse on Castle di Caela was lifted… well, things are better, I'll grant you that. But now this is just another old building on the plains-stone and mortar, wood and hair and iron, and maybe a legend or two to give it some color for visitors."

"What would you have, Galen? Ghosts in the dungeon? Spectral family members dangling from ropes?" asked Bayard, bending over to pick up one of my boots.

I remembered the face of the Plainsman chieftain and shuddered.

"By the way," Bayard continued impatiently, "it's high time you decided on a squire, boy. By tomorrow at the latest.

"Nonetheless, I do understand. I know what you mean," he conceded. "It's as though a sense of order has settled about things, putting them all in a proper place and banishing intruders and disrupters."

"Banishing the dwarf spirits, too," I offered distractedly.

Bayard nodded. "And the dog runs."

He stepped away from me for a moment, and walked toward the closet. "I just can't believe it, Galen," he said, the irritation from a moment before returning. With a sudden, flickering movement, he tossed one of my boots to me. It struck the floor by my bed with a firm slap, raising dust.

"I just can't believe it. That with your knighthood ahead of you, and the one thing holding you to the Code and Measure your simple desire to go through with this… how you could risk it all for an hour's sleep!"

"Risk it?"

"Well," Bayard said, reaching for the other boot. "According to the Measure, the Night of Reflections must be spent 'in watching and in long thought, from sunset again unto sunset, for even the light of day is dark when the memory ranges.'"

"But it was watching, Bayard!" I protested. "Watching and the longest thoughts of all. As I was trying to tell you, Bayard, it was not sleep. It was… it was a vision!"

Bayard looked at me skeptically. Slowly the faintest hint of a smile spread across his face, widening and widening until he could contain his amusement no longer. My protector began to laugh, and the further I explained, the deeper and more uncontrolled his amusement became. He leaned against the closet, struggling for breath and balance, shaking his head in wonderment as I concluded my account of the Plainsmen, of Brithelm, and of the strange visitation.

"So… so they wanted you to follow them into the brooch?" he gasped.

Sullenly I nodded.

"Oh, this smacks of the old days!" he exclaimed. "One dodge after another, to avoid duty and danger and chores and-"

"Very well, then!" I exclaimed angrily, taking an aggressive step toward Bayard before my better judgment reminded me he was stronger, quicker, and wiser in the ways of combat. "Call it sleep and be done with it! Done with me, for that matter!"

"And what am I supposed to think?" Bayard answered, his laughter fading. He took up the laces on my greaves once more.

From the bed, the black eyes of the brooch stared up at me.

"That I must be losing my mind, sir?" I asked mournfully.

In the brief silence that followed, I gathered the whistle and the brooch into my hand and clicked them together for noise-any noise.

My old companion smiled once again, though this time his eyes were troubled. He tugged at the laces of the breastplate. The air rushed out of me, and I reeled for a moment, my hand on the bedpost.

I turned and faced the window. Outside, the banners cracked and fluttered on the parapets, catching the last red shower of sunlight as the day went down behind the mountains. I suddenly felt silly. No matter what I said, my past was the translator. It sounded as though I would stop at nothing to avoid knighthood. Even hallucinations.