"Very well, then. You may go." He went back around his desk, picked up a new parchment, and began to read it as if I were no longer in the room. But I could see enough of the self-satisfied smirk on his face to know that he was enjoying every moment of my discomfiture.

I walked up to Sir Umbrage. The view regretfully did not get any better as I drew closer. "All right, Sir Umbrage," I said. "Where do we start?"

He appeared to consider the question for a time, and then said in what actually sounded like a vaguely sage tone of voice, "The beginning is usually the best place."

"Yes, sir."

He waddled a bit as he headed for the door. I followed him slightly behind and to the right, as was proper for a squire. But just as we were leaving the room, he stopped, turned, and stared at me as if seeing me for the first time.

"And you are again . . . ?" he asked.

"Your squire, sir knight," I said formally, doing everything I could to ignore what I thought to be snickering coming from the general direction of Justus's table.

"I thought you were killed by the Blue Knight. Chopped to pieces."

"I heard that too, sir knight."

He nodded, apparently satisfied with the response, and moved on.

I had no option except to try and deal with the situation the best I could . . . and hope that Sir Umbrage of the Flaming Nether Regions dropped dead before I did.

Chapter 10.

Considering what my existence had been until that point, it is impressive to state that what followed was easily the worst period of my life.

Riches, potential camaraderie, and an existence of ease and wealth surrounded me but at the same time was denied me. As I had suspected from the start, Sir Umbrage provided me no help or guidance at all in terms of even the most minimal skills required to be a knight. Herewith, a typical day in my service to Umbrage.

As per his strict instructions, I would awaken him in the morning. Then I would awaken him again. And again. Each time he would a.s.sure me that he was awake, and then I would return an hour later to suggest yet again that this time it might be an excellent idea if he actually managed to haul himself out of bed. By the time he truly joined the land of the living, it was usually noon or slightly thereafter. In the meantime, I spent the morning polishing and honing his weapons, which he never used, and tending to his horse, which he never rode.

What a magnificent beast he had for a horse. The horse's name was t.i.tan, and an apt name it bore, for it was ma.s.sive. Apparently the horse had been a gift to Umbrage from no less than the king himself.

After the noon hour, Umbrage would partake of his midafternoon meal. It was the only time he truly seemed alive, for the man could certainly put away food. Considering his frame, I could not quite figure out where he stashed it. But eat well he did, and with impressive alacrity. Barely was beef or fowl or mead put in front of him, and the next thing I knew, it was gone from the plate while Umbrage would sit there with a contented look upon his face. Whereupon, happily fed, Umbrage would then doze in his chair for another hour or two, digesting the meal like a languid snake.

In the late afternoon, Umbrage would be at his most active. During that time he would wander about in the great square, chat pleasantly with merchants, smile at pa.s.sersby. It turned out that Umbrage was quite popular with the non-knight crowd, for he actually took the time to converse with them. Most knights, you see, had neither the time nor patience to converse with commoners. Umbrage did. The thing was, his conversations tended to go off on tangents, or perhaps even start over again since he forgot that he had begun them in the first place. The lower cla.s.ses chose to find the disconcerting behavior charming.

The other knights, however, held a contrary view.

I quickly learned that Umbrage was widely considered a joke among the n.o.bles. Oh, they never said as much to his face, although they probably could have since he would have forgotten it a short time later. Instead they were content to speak of him behind his back. Once several knights were grouped together, making cutting remarks about Umbrage that I could not help but overhear as my "lord" and I approached. Umbrage, on the other hand, appeared oblivious. In fact, when he heard the laughter, he joined in merrily without even knowing what they were laughing about. This, of course, made them laugh all the more.

Umbrage was maintained at the castle out of the king's sense of grat.i.tude. In the king's youth, you see, he once found himself at the hands of a rather merciless group of marauders. Umbrage was a freelance at that time, and stumbled upon the sight of a beardless youth defending himself as best he could against a pack of brutes and thieves. Umbrage stepped in and smote them, rather handily to hear the king's description of the encounter. Young Runcible learned his savior's name and swore that, should he ever become a mighty king, Umbrage would always have a place in his service. Umbrage thought nothing of the vow at the time, but years later Runcible did indeed fight his way to the throne of Isteria, and he made good on his promise.By that time, many years had pa.s.sed, and they had not been especially kind to Umbrage. That did not matter to the king, however. Whenever he looked at the elderly knight, he saw him only through the eyes of his own youth, viewing him as a still-vital warrior and canny gladiator who was deserving of all honors and respect that could possibly be laid at his feet.

All of that was well and good in the abstract. But the knights did not see Umbrage as anything other than a walking, talking joke.

I should not have cared, and would not have, save that it had direct impact upon me. Since I was the squire of such a knight, naturally I held the exalted rank of Idiot-By-a.s.sociation. Therefore I was viewed with the according contempt. In retrospect, I suppose I cannot really blame them. Had I been in their position, I likely would have regarded me in the exact same way. My own infirmities did not help my status, of course, and my ties with the most ludicrous knight in the realm didn't improve matters.

As for the other squires, naturally they followed the lead of their lords and masters. They saw that whenever Umbrage was spoken of, it was with disdain, so of course they imitated that att.i.tude when it came to dealing with me. The ringleader of them all, and not coincidentally the squire for the ever-belligerent Sir Coreolis, was a squire who called himself Mace Morningstar. I doubt very much that that was his real name, but rather a nom de guerre that he had adopted for reasons pa.s.sing understanding. Perhaps he felt that it gave him something to live up to.

Mace was everything I would have wanted to be, had I actually wanted to be anything. Mace walked with a permanent swagger, and when he spoke, it never seemed as if he was speaking just to one person. Instead he had a tendency to declaim to whomever happened to be in earshot. Furthermore, his voice ascended and descended to peaks and valleys in such a way that it seemed as if the fellow were constantly singing. What he was singing, more often than not, was his own praises.

Mace was tall, sandy-haired, and powerfully built, and insufferably convinced that he could do just about anything. The most annoying thing was that he was apparently correct. The squires, as a whole, were a fairly tough bunch, but Mace was the toughest of them all, their acknowledged leader. He set the tone to which the others responded.

Unlike the toughs of my youth, however, Mace and the others felt no need to beat the c.r.a.p out of me. They made great pretensions over the proper way that "gentlemen" were supposed to act. Whereas as a child I had received bruises and cuts, as a squire I sustained only cutting remarks. I have to admit, I almost preferred the former type, for the latter took much longer to heal. Indeed, sometimes they never did.

"How fares the brave squire of Sir Umbrage?" Mace would ask with derision. "Get much fighting in? Much training? Slay any dragons today, Apropos? Off on any quests, are you? Look, Apropos! A damsel needs saving! Get to, quickly!" This would, of course, be quickly followed by laughter and looks of disdain.

I hate to admit it, but it got to me.

It should not have. Really, I did not care overmuch for the ways of knights. For the most part, I held them in contempt, remember. I knew their dark underbelly, I knew the evil of which they were truly capable. My own presence in the world was a constant reminder.

But I would watch them during their training periods. Observe their combat skills growing under the careful tutelage of their mentors. They would practice with jousting machines, or with each other. I was never invited to partic.i.p.ate in such activities, because we always had to have the knights to which we'd been a.s.signed overseeing us, and since Sir Umbrage was never awake for more than a few minutes at a time, that made my partic.i.p.ation somewhat problematic.

Day pa.s.sed into month, slipping over into year, and with each day my resentment grew. I believe it surprised the other squires that I continued to remain in their presence. One would have thought that they would admire my dedication. Far from it. They simply a.s.sumed that I was too stupid to know when to leave, so they treated me with even greater scorn than ever.

There were two fairly hideous occurrences during that time. First: Meander the Vagabond King left the area. That was inevitable, of course. It was his nature. Truth to tell, King Runcible played it precisely right. Left to his own devices, facing no challenge or overt threat from the regional monarch, Meander's attention wandered much as he himself tended to. So off he went with his Journeymen to seek new climes, new challenges, new regions to engage his interest. And with him marched away the unknown murderer of my mother. A great, dangling loose end had just been affixed to my life, and there wasn't a d.a.m.ned thing I could do about it. After all, I was busy training to be a knight so that I could learn the skills necessary to engage such an enemy, except that the skills were not being given me.

The second hideous occurrence was when a regional warlord named Shank decided to flex his muscles and muster an army as a means of testing Runcible's defenses and resolve. Runcible gathered his knights, and announced to them that such a challenge could not go unmet and that he was immediately going to a.s.semble a small army by means of the Draft. The Draft was Runcible's customary way of choosing who would fight in a war. All the names of the knights were written on small pieces of parchment, and placed in a large circle drawn on the floor in one of the draftiest sections of the castle. It never took very long for a good, stiff breeze to come through, at which point the names would swirl about in a small whirlpool of wind, and a number of them would invariably be blown outside of the circle. These names, selected by the Draft, would be the knights chosen for the army. Odclay the jester would gather the names up, gallivanting and j.a.ping as he did so, and then the king with great ceremony read each of the names accompanied by much cheering.

That particular day, for that particular mission, Sir Umbrage's name was called. There were the requisite huzzahs, yes, but also an undercurrent of snickering and amus.e.m.e.nt. It was clearly felt that Umbrage would be less than useless in the endeavor. I also noticed an a.s.sortment of sympathetic looks in my direction, accompanied by shaking of heads and sad clucking noises. All of which Mace neatly managed to summarize by sidling up to me, patting me on the back, and saying "Nice knowing you" in that d.a.m.nable singsong voice.

Thank G.o.d I was drinking heavily by that time. I had Odclay to thank for that.

The jester had come upon me one evening, sitting in the stables, where I'd been shoveling t.i.tan's manure, looking and smelling about as pleased over the situation as one might a.s.sume me to be. Having had enough of that joyful activity, I had plopped myself down in a far corner and was just staring off into s.p.a.ce, probably looking rather forlorn. Odclay rang his little bells in my face. I glared up at him and said, "Get those things away from me or I will shove them so far up your a.s.s that you'll jingle when you think."

He laughed. It was not, however, a condescending laugh. It sounded almost commiserating.

"You," he said after a moment, "need a drink." He had not spoken with his customary jester gibe. Instead he almost sounded as if he were talking man-to-man.

I looked at him askance. "Indeed. And what of it?"

"Can you keep a secret?" He hunkered closer to me and looked most conspiratorial.

I thought of my origins, of the things that I had wanted to blurt out to the knights but had kept securely tucked away within my breast. "More than you can possibly believe."

"Come, then."

He rose, shoving his bell stick into his belt to secure it so that it wouldn't continue to jingle and betray his whereabouts. He paused at the door to the stable, saw that I was just sitting and watching him, and waved with impatience. With a mental shrug, I stood and followed him out, pausing only long enough to shove my hands into the trough outside in order to cleanse them.

He led me across the courtyard to one of the far walls of the castle and stood there a moment, his hands resting against the structure. Then he pulled, and I realized that he was yanking on some sort of grip in the stony face that I had not seen before, even though I had pa.s.sed that wall a thousand times during my stay. Without a sound, the section of the wall slid aside on oiled hinges, and he gestured for me to follow. Since he was a jester, he couldn't help but tiptoe in a mincing manner into the darkness. For my own amus.e.m.e.nt, I imitated his walk as I followed him.

We crept down, down a winding stairway that was so dry and dusty that I could barely breathe. Moments later, however, we emerged into an area that I had never ventured into before. We were deep in the castle's wine cellars. I couldn't believe it. Barrels, kegs stretching as far as I could see, and no one was guarding it because, really, who would dare drink from the king's private stock? Well, the jester would dare, of course. Jesters dare all. As for me, I was the t.i.tleless, landless squire of a joke-of-a-knight. I had naught to lose.

Odclay and I drank in silence. He didn't seem much for conversation, and really, he was a jester. What was there to discuss? Jokes? Mindless cavorting? We simply sat in quiet contemplation of our own progressive inebriation.

Still . . . as he drank, somehow Odclay seemed . . . sad somehow. One wouldn't expect such from a jester, but this misshapen little man nevertheless came across as something of an object of pity. I wasn't sure why I pitied him . . . but I did.

I would like to tell you that Odclay became my drinking buddy, but I would be lying. I didn't see him again in the cellars after that. Indeed, he didn't even appear to acknowledge that we'd spent any time together at all. The next time I spotted him, doing his usual gallivanting for the king, he barely glanced my way. And when he did, it was with no hint of recognition. There was no secret look between us, no wink, no indication that we shared some mysterious and confidential bond. It might as well have not happened at all.

But it had happened, and I did not forget that secret entrance. I snuck down to the wine cellars every so often, drowning my ennui and boredom in the king's impressive wine stock. No one noticed. Keep in mind, I had worked and lived in a tavern for my formative years. I knew what was what in terms of the best wines and such, even if I had never seen most of them firsthand before. I knew that if certain bottles disappeared, it would cause a hue and cry that would run the length and breadth of Isteria, and none would rest until the culprit had been found. But no one was keeping track of the contents of ale and mead casks, and it was with those that I concentrated the majority of my imbibing. Once or twice I was almost caught out as unexpected footsteps warned me that the wine steward or some other servant was approaching through the more normal means of entrance. But the wine cellar was vast and I never had any trouble secreting myself away until the danger of detection had gone.

The day of the departure to fight the dreaded Warlord Shank came upon us apace. I should have been panicked or terrified. I should have been considering packing up everything I owned and vanishing into the nothingness from which I had come. But I was surprisingly calm as the morning sun shone down upon me when our departure date dawned. I can only attribute that composure to the extreme boredom that had enshrouded me during the year or two (time had blurred) that I had spent in useless residence at the castle. One day had become so much like another, with my lack of knightly education and the daily sneers of the other squires, that anything-even personal risk-seemed preferable.

Besides, I knew that I had a secret fall-back plan. In the event of true, mind-boggling danger . . . I would simply fall back. Retreat. Run like h.e.l.l should the need arise. What did I have to lose? No one was going to pay attention to the actions of a mere squire. Besides, if matters looked that disastrous, anyone who saw me flee would likely wind up spitted and gutted by an enemy blade anyway, and would only be able to speak against me if he happened to find a means back from the great beyond. In the absolute worstcase scenario, any survivors who claimed that I had run . . . why, I would simply say that Sir Umbrage had ordered me to try and maneuver around behind enemy lines, an action that I-as obedient squire-had to oblige. Heaven knew that Umbrage wouldn't be around to gainsay me. After all, if pitched battle broke out, one did not need to be an oracle to know that Umbrage would be among the first to fall.

Little did I suspect that he would be, in fact, the very first to fall.

We were to a.s.semble in the main courtyard at ten in the morning to prepare for the great move-out. Naturally this meant rousting Sir Umbrage earlier than his customary noon. I went to his chambers and woke him, and then woke him again, then again and again, repeatedly, every ten minutes from dawn until about nine. Finally he sat up, blinking away the last vestiges of sleep, and he looked up at me with slightly glazed eyes and said, "And you are . . . ?"

"Apropos," I said.

"Indeed," grunted Umbrage. "I'd consider you d.a.m.ned irrelevant, actually, insofar as a good night's sleep is concerned. Why wake you me at this unG.o.dly hour?"

It was the most coherent I'd ever heard the old soldier. It almost gave me cause for hope. "War calls, sir. Duty. Battle in the king's name against a foul enemy."

"Oh." He considered that a moment. "Well . . . nothing for it then," he sighed. He swung his veined legs from under the covers and hobbled off to immerse his wrinkled body in a morning bath. When one is engaging an enemy with the intent of slaughtering him, one does not need to offend with bodily odors as well.

I watched out a high window as the knights a.s.sembled. Everyone's armor was polished to an impressive sheen. I even spotted Mace Morningstar secretly admiring his reflection in Sir Coreolis's back. There was laughter and raucous merriment, and they exuded such confidence that I almost wanted to be one of their number. Almost. Then sense and reality rea.s.serted their grip upon me. I never wanted to lose sight of the fact that they were, at heart, the enemy. To destroy my enemy, I had no intention whatsoever of becoming him as well.

"Squire," came Sir Umbrage's voice. I turned and saw that the old man had bathed and was now wearing the appropriate undergarments. "My armor, if you please."

I went to the cabinets where the armor was stored. I had taken the precaution of polishing it the night before. It did not shine as much as the armor tended to by obsessive squires who lovingly treated it every day, but 'twas enough. 'Twould serve. Umbrage looked it over and then nodded with brisk approval. "You'll help me on with this, then?" he asked.

There was something about him . . . a sense of lost n.o.bility, of inherent tragedy. Somehow I instinctively knew that he was not one of those number who had a.s.saulted my mother that stormy night long ago. I knew that such an action would be beneath Umbrage. He, of all the knights in the castle, was so "old school" in his manner that he would probably have been repulsed by the deeds done that awful evening. For the first time in our a.s.sociation, I found myself not only warming up to the old man, but to the very concept of knighthood itself.

"It'd be an honor, sir," I said, and I meant it.

"Good. You're a much brighter lad than that fool who woke me this morning out of a sound sleep."

"Thank you, sir," I said, and meant it somewhat less.

I armored him. The suit was still loose on him, apparently held over from a time when he was more muscular and filled it out better. But there was nothing to be done for it at that point. We headed out to join the others in the main courtyard.

If the other knights held Umbrage in contempt, as I knew they did, they did not let that sentiment show. Instead, as Umbrage slowly made his way through the a.s.semblage, he received only nods of acknowledgment and kind words about how healthy he looked. He was silent throughout, nodding and accepting the comments without reply. I, in the meantime, brought t.i.tan from the stable. The horse looked tall and proud, and I suspected that of the three of us-Umbrage, the horse, and myself-it was the beast who was the most likely to acquit himself honorably in combat. As the king prepared to address us from the upper balcony, from where he made all such speeches, I helped Sir Umbrage climb aboard t.i.tan. I had my own equipment, meager as it was, with me as well. I gripped my trusty staff with my right hand. My sword was slung over my back. Since my right leg was still quite weak, I had no desire to impede my already questionable ambulatory skills by weighing down my stride. I saw little likeihood that I would have need of the blade anyway; I had no real formal training with it, and besides, I had no intention of dueling with some monstrous soldier. My main use for it would be cutting through underbrush. I noticed the sidelong glances from other squires, the barely contained snickering, but chose to ignore it.

"My brave knights!" the strident voice of King Runcible rang out. Queen Bea stood obediently and proudly next to him. We all turned to attend to the king's words. "Freedom from tyrants and from conquest is never simply granted us. Freedom must be fought for, constantly. And you have been chosen to fight on behalf of Isteria against the dictator of the Outer Lawless regions. The dreaded Warlord Shank himself has sought to expand his influence, but you . . . you, my fine and gallant knights, will-"

He was interrupted by the loudest snoring I had ever heard. Sir Umbrage's head was slumped forward, his torso rising and falling peacefully, his eyes closed, his lips fluttering with the buzzing of his snore.

I wanted to sink into the ground. I wanted to pull out my sword and I couldn't decide whether I would throw myself upon it, or use it to decapitate the old fool, or go on a murderous rampage and simply annihilate everyone who bore witness to this travesty, including every d.a.m.ned knight, the king, and his lady. Or perhaps some cheerful blend of the a.s.sorted options would do.

No one said anything, but laughter rippled through the a.s.semblage. The king, to his credit, did not choose to acknowledge the interruption, but instead pressed on. "You, my gallant knights, will show the enemy what you are made of. You will-"

The snoring grew louder. I couldn't believe it. It sounded like a stampede. His head snapped around and for a moment I thought he was going to rouse himself, but then it slumped to one side and the noise escalated. The king couldn't be heard over it, that's how loud it was. Unable to stand it anymore, I walked quickly over to him, trying not to allow my cheeks to turn bright red as I felt every eye upon me. "Sir!" I hissed. "Sir Umbrage! Awaken! You're embarra.s.sing us!" Nothing. He didn't stir. I did the only thing I could: I reached over, grabbed his leg, and shook it.

He reacted instantly. He snapped up, his eyes wide, shouted, "Back, villain, you shall not have me that easily!," and lunged to grab his sword, which was mounted just to the right of the saddle. The sudden movement completely overbalanced him and before I could do anything to prevent it, Sir Umbrage slipped out of the saddle. He tumbled to the ground with a h.e.l.lacious clattering.

The roar of laughter from the other knights was promptly extinguished when they saw the scowl darkening Runcible's face. Umbrage, for his part, lay on the ground looking rather stunned. My impulse was to crawl into a hole somewhere and die. Resisting it, I ran around t.i.tan and went to Umbrage's side. But when I tried to haul him to his feet, Umbrage let out a most alarming yell and clutched at his right arm. It projected at an odd angle and I could tell immediately that he had dislocated it.

There was dead silence as all waited for the king to speak.

"Bad luck, Sir Umbrage," he said after a time. " 'Twas not meant for you to join your comrades on this excursion. Report to your chambers and a healer will attend to you anon. Fortunately, you are as revered for your mental prowess as well as your physical. Good knights . . . I say ye, Sir Umbrage!"

"Sir Umbrage!" shouted the knights in unison. And perhaps the king was unable or unwilling to discern the clear contempt that the knights clearly possessed for the pathetic individual to whom I had been attached, but it was more than clear to me.

As I helped Sir Umbrage to leave the courtyard, the puzzled knight looked at me with bewilderment and said, "And you are, again?"

"Apropos, sir."

"Yes. Yes, you certainly are," he agreed, and smiled in that vacant manner to which I had become all too accustomed. As we walked, the king continued his parting speech to the troops . . . a speech that no longer had any relevance to us. Our moment had pa.s.sed, and no one was interested in giving us the slightest bit of attention anymore. Actually, that was not strictly true. There was one. As we pa.s.sed Mace Morningstar, standing next to the great white horse that Sir Coreolis was perched upon, Mace never took his gaze from us. He said nothing. He didn't have to. His smirk said it all.

And so the forces of King Runcible set off to quell the uprising of the dreaded Warlord Shank. At one time, it would have been an endeavor that I would gladly have pa.s.sed upon. Indeed, I would have sought whatever means I could find to get out of it. But if I had done so, it would have been on my terms. Instead, it was upon the terms of Sir Umbrage. Sir Umbrage, who was peacefully back in his bed and snoring, sleeping through the ministrations of the mediweaver who set the arm, guiding it back into place.

The battle against the dreaded Warlord Shank took weeks, and we received frequent updates as to its progress. Naturally the updates were filled with tales of derring-do and great exploits by the n.o.ble legions of King Runcible. Every so often we got word of a knight having fallen, and lo there would be a great uproar and crying and beating of b.r.e.a.s.t.s, but invariably when one of ours went down, he took ten, twenty, or thirty of Warlord Shank's men down with him. I suspected a good deal of inflating of the battle figures. As for me . . .

. . . well, until that time, I had been taking myself down to the wine cellar and getting drunk every so often. But I decided that it was time to cut back. And I did: I cut back on the "every so" part, preferring to get blind, stinking drunk as often as possible. Every evening, when I finished with my nonexistent duties in the service of Sir Umbrage-who was well on the mend and actually remembering my name two out of every five attempts-back down I would go to the wine cellar. I still displayed reasonable caution. No one ever spotted me. But truthfully, even if they had, what would the consequence have been? What was the worst they could do to me? Throw me out? I served no useful purpose. Disgrace me? I was already disgraced, a.s.sociated with a useless knight and living out a useless existence.

By the time word came back that the battle was over, that the dreaded Warlord Shank had been beaten back into his stronghold deep within the Outer Lawless regions, there to lick his wounds and hopefully threaten us no more, I knew that I had had enough. The castle of King Runcible was no place for me. If I felt like having people laugh at me, I could simply limp down the street and there would always be wonderful examples of humanity, ranging from small children to drunken sots, who would be happy to make sport of me with no encouragement. My stay was serving no purpose. I was learning nothing in the ways of war except from what I had been able to observe. I was gaining no rank, t.i.tle, or riches that might serve me down the line. My mother's murderer was who-knew-where. Certainly he was beyond my ability to reach him, and since I was garnering no skills or allies where I was, I had no hope of hunting him down or being able to accomplish anything against him once I had. Besides which, I kept coming around to the simple truth that nothing I did to the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, providing I did find him, was going to matter one bit to the ashen remains of my mother. The only thing being satisfied was my ego, and that poor tattered object had been so completely beaten down and defiled, so permanently in a state of starvation, that there was no point in even trying to feed it.

I knew it was time to go. But something kept me from doing so, and that something was a deep-seated desire to leave the d.a.m.ned place at least moderately better off than when I'd come in. I had turned down quite a fair bit of change for the questionable privilege of remaining among such great samples of humanity as the king and his knights. I needed something something to show for it. For I remained, as always, a great believer in the theory of pa.s.s-along aggravation. And if I suffered and knew grief during my tenure at the castle, then by G.o.d, someone else was going to experience the same by my hand. to show for it. For I remained, as always, a great believer in the theory of pa.s.s-along aggravation. And if I suffered and knew grief during my tenure at the castle, then by G.o.d, someone else was going to experience the same by my hand.

"They come! They come!" one of the lookouts in the great outer wall shouted, with lungs so powerful that his voice carried all the way to the castle. He was quite correct. Like a great, twisting serpent, the line of returning knights stretched back and across the hilltops. They were still several miles off, but people were already lining up, forming a welcoming throng whose cheers could be heard throughout the countryside.

I was among that throng, but unsurprisingly, I cheered not. But neither did I glower. I simply watched with as detached an expression as I could. More than an hour after they were sighted, the procession finally arrived at the front gate. Truly, they were impressive looking. There were fewer of them than had left, of course, but the strongest, bravest, and most truly obnoxious of the knights remained, and they were more than happy to drink in the crowd's adoration. At first my hopes swelled, because I didn't see Mace Morningstar, and could only hope that the square-jawed lout's head was serving as a table ornament somewhere in Warlord Shank's main foyer. But no, my hopes were too quick, and just as quickly dashed when I saw Morningstar marching alongside the annoyingly alive Sir Coreolis. More than that, Mace was generating a certain degree of advance wagging of tongues, as word spread of the mighty squire who had wielded a sword to defend his fallen master and had laid waste to half a platoon. I later found out that Morningstar had in fact laid waste to a mere three men, two of whom were reliably reported as being blind drunk, but these things tended to grow upon the retelling. In any event, there was much discussion of the likelihood that Morningstar was headed toward knighthood far sooner than anyone could have expected. I would have been boiling with jealousy had I (a) any interest in being a knight myself and (b) any expectation that I would be around to see such a thing come to pa.s.s.

I still had no idea what I was going to do to even the score, but as so often happens in such situations, I found myself thrust into a predicament-of my own making, admittedly-that resulted in my stumbling most unexpectedly into a satisfying means of retribution.

One evening, shortly after the much heralded and applauded return of those annoyingly brave knights, I was making my way across the courtyard toward the castle. I had finished up with my late-evening grooming of t.i.tan. Tending to the horse had developed into the one pleasure that I enjoyed in the whole d.a.m.ned place. I got to the secret entrance to the wine cellar and was preparing to press against the stones that would trip the hidden door when I was halted in my tracks by the irritating baritone of Mace Morningstar, hailing me. I froze in place, fortunately enough. A few seconds later and he would have observed me disappearing through the pa.s.sageway, and I would have been undone.

Morningstar was not alone, as several of his cronies were at his heel. I had observed that when they were walking singly or in smaller groups, their individual strides were normal. But when they kept company with Mace, they automatically and unconsciously adopted his swagger. So when a group of them would approach me, I often had to check to make certain that the ground was not quaking beneath me, or that there was not a good, stiff wind which was threatening to blow all of us over.

"You smell of horse manure, good squire," Mace said with his customary false cheerfulness as he drew near. "Why lean you against the castle wall? Are you holding it up for us?" This drew the requisite chuckle from his a.s.sociates.

"Simply providing reinforcement," I replied. "I had heard that your ego had swelled to such proportions since your return, Morningstar, that it overtaxed the support structure while you were within. But since you're out here, I can relieve myself from my post." With that, I stepped away casually from the wall, giving no hint as to my true intention.

My rejoinder drew a brief t.i.tter of amus.e.m.e.nt from the others which was quickly silenced with a glance from Mace. Then he looked back to me and smiled that square-jawed smile of his. "I imagine you have been preparing good Umbrage's horse for the tourney two days hence."

"Tourney." I was blank on what he was referring to for a moment, but then I recalled. A tournament had been scheduled to welcome the return of the victorious troops. A joust which was to be a celebration of the mighty men-at-arms. All knights were to compete in a contest that was really little more than an organized exercise in mock head splitting. The average joust is fairly on par with the average bar brawl, without the purity of spirit. Nevertheless, Umbrage was expected to partic.i.p.ate.

Umbrage had been involved with such contests before. His record on that score was not particularly impressive. To be specific, my lord and master had consistently been unhorsed in his first pa.s.ses in all jousts going back for the last fifteen, twenty years or so. He was not what one would remotely consider a serious threat to triumph upon the lists.

"Yes, of course . . . the tourney," I continued. "Naturally, yes, we are preparing for that."

"I could see that, yes," said Mace. "When he fell off his horse just before we rode against the warlord, we knew that was his way of preparing himself for the joust." This remark drew rather louder guffaws from the squires accompanying him.