"Do you yield?" asked Umbrage. His voice was strong, his posture firm, and there was absolutely no question in any witnesses' minds that if the answer was anything other than an affirmative, Umbrage could and would kill him where he stood.

Of course, Coreolis said the only possible thing, given the circ.u.mstances. "Aye."

And oh, the roar that went up then, and oh the cheers, and oh the huzzahs, and never, but never, had there been any hero of the lists like Sir Umbrage. As for me, I still couldn't believe it. At a time like that, I should have been looking at Mace. I should have been smiling, seeming quite smug, perhaps rubbing my fingers together to indicate coins between them, drinking in his fury. But instead I couldn't take my eyes off Umbrage in his triumph.

And Umbrage looked at me.

And he did not seem the least bit happy.

Chapter 11.

I took a great deal of time with t.i.tan that evening, cleaning him and washing him down. The big fellow had seen more action in that one afternoon than he likely had in the past several years combined. In the distance I could hear the sound of revels, for there was great partying going on in the main banquet hall of the castle. I chose to absent myself from it. Somehow I was not in the mood. took a great deal of time with t.i.tan that evening, cleaning him and washing him down. The big fellow had seen more action in that one afternoon than he likely had in the past several years combined. In the distance I could hear the sound of revels, for there was great partying going on in the main banquet hall of the castle. I chose to absent myself from it. Somehow I was not in the mood.

After I settled t.i.tan down, I started across the main courtyard. It had been such a hive of industry that afternoon that it was almost frightening, the silence which lay upon it now. The only noise, aside from the celebrations in the castle, was the steady tap-tap of my staff. It was then that I heard more footsteps behind me. I suspected the ident.i.ty of those behind me before I even turned to verify it.

Sure enough, Mace Morningstar and a handful of his cronies were there. The moon was only just beginning to wane in its cycle, so there was plenty of light for me to see them. None of them looked happy. No, I amend that: They looked happy in the way that someone does when they are looking forward to making someone else unhappy. They carried no weapons except the customary daggers tucked in their belts. Chances were they didn't need any.

Remember, I was not completely without physical resources. I could handle myself quite well . . . under certain circ.u.mstances. Against a half-dozen knights-in-training, however, any one of whom could likely give me great difficulty . . . well, those were other circ.u.mstances again.

Nevertheless, there was nothing to be lost in trying to bluff the matter through. "Ah. Mace. Here to give me my winnings?"

His mouth was upturned in a grim smile, but the smile did not extend to his eyes. "We know what you did, Apropos."

"Oh? What would that be?"

I waited. No response was immediately forthcoming, verifying for me that they in fact had no clue what I had done. They were on a fishing expedition, hoping I might panic into blurting out some sort of admission. They did not know me very well.

"Morningstar . . . are you planning to renege on our wager?" I asked coolly.

"Not at all, Apropos, not at all. Here." He removed a purse from his belt and held it up. He jingled it lightly. "Would you care to count it?"

I bowed slightly. "Since we are all gentlemen, I am more than happy to take your word, along with your purse."

"Indeed." He lofted it through the air with a casual underhand toss, and I caught it easily. "There. I have given you the agreed upon funds."

"Yes. You have. No one could deny it." I bowed once more and turned to walk away.

"And now," continued Morningstar, sounding quite cheery about it, "we're going to take it back."

I turned back to them. "You're going to what?"

"Take it back. We made no promise that we would not, did we, gentlemen?" There were nods and grunts of confirmation.

"But that's . . . that's . . ."

"Dishonorable?"

"Yes!"

He took what was, for him, a short step, but it brought him much closer than I would have liked. "And what care does one such as you have for honor, except where it serves your ends?"

It was a valid question. The answer, of course, you already know. But I hardly saw the need to share my philosophies with Morningstar. Nor did I see it worth getting the snot kicked out of me just to hold on to some winnings. I could always get more winnings. Teeth, on the other hand, would be somewhat more difficult to replace.

"I've better things to do, Morningstar, than bandy words with you. If it means so much to you . . ." I tossed the money back. I admit it annoyed the h.e.l.l out of me. It seemed that all I ever did around the d.a.m.ned castle was give back money that was rightfully mine. I knew by that point that within the next day or so, I was going to take my leave of the place. My goal had been at least to depart in financially a superior position to what I'd been in before. Faced with the clear vexation of the other squires, however, my goals had reconfigured. Now I was aspiring simply to get out of there in one piece.

Even that drastically downscaled aspiration, however, seemed doomed to failure. Because Morningstar tossed the purse to the ground, making less and less effort to confine his anger. "This isn't about money, you peasant b.a.s.t.a.r.d. It's about respect."

"Oh. I thought it was about money. Thank you for clarifying that, Mace. Good evening to you, then."

I started to walk away then, but Morningstar was right behind me. He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck. I squeezed tight on the handle of my staff and the blade snapped out of the end, but as I whirled to bring it around, he knocked it effortlessly from my grasp. I had underestimated not only his anger, but his strength. The staff clattered to the ground.

"That trick played well against Sir Justus, but I've had the warning of it," said Mace. "You've had this coming for a long time, wh.o.r.e's son."

"I'd rather be the son of a wh.o.r.e than a spoiled arrogant cretin like you," I shot back. If I was going to be speaking with fewer teeth in the future, at least I wanted to make my last words with the full set memorable.

The others shouted encouragement, closing on us, and then there was a very very loud clearing of a throat from behind us. We looked around.

Sir Umbrage was standing there. Just standing there. His arms were folded. His sword hung from his hip. He said nothing. I hadn't even heard him approach, although naturally with all the shouting he would have been able to move with relative stealth. He was in formal attire, dressed mostly in gray with black trim.

"This is not your affair, good sir knight," said Morningstar. "I believe that you were as duped as the rest of us, and not a party to this b.a.s.t.a.r.d's trickery, whatever form it took."

He said nothing still. Just stood there.

"So good evening to you then, as we conclude our . . . discussions," Morningstar continued.

No reply. No movement. Still more silence. "Sir Umbrage, with all respect, it would be best . . ." Mace's newest statement got no more response than the previous ones had. Just more stony silence.

For a long time, no one said anything. There was something indefinable in the air. Even the crickets that had been chirping earlier ceased so as to hear better.

Finally, Morningstar-who had been holding me backward by the tunic-slowly righted me. He dusted his hands off, looked as if he was about to say something more to the knight, and then apparently thought better of it. He backed away, as did the others, pausing only to pick up the purse that he had thrown down. Then he extended a finger to me angrily and said, "This is not over, Apropos."

For the first time, Umbrage spoke. "Yes," he said in a tone that did not invite disagreement. "It is."

There was nothing for them to say in reply. Moments later they had retired toward the castle, there to join in the mirth and merriment that was in full bloom within the castle's walls.

I picked up my fallen staff, turned to Umbrage, and started to say, "Sir, I thank you for-" But I didn't even get that far before Umbrage's right fist landed squarely in my face. I felt a crack that I knew all too well; my nose was once again broken. I staggered, but managed to keep myself righted by clinging to my staff, even as the world spun around me. I closed my eyes and that was even worse, so I opened them again and fought to keep myself steady, staring rigidly at the ground and trying to keep myself upright. As soon as my vision began to straighten, I looked at Sir Umbrage once more. His arm came toward me once more and I flinched automatically, certain he was going to strike me a second time. But instead he was holding a cloth. "Here," he said. "Stop the blood flow."

I did so. The blood was indeed coming fairly profusely from my nose. I moaned softly as I pressed against it, for the break was fresh and the pain in applying pressure to it was fearsome. But I did so nonetheless until I got it under control.

"Why did you do that?" I asked tentatively.

"Because you deserved it." He sighed. "You've doomed and d.a.m.ned us both, boy. Well . . . there's no help for it now. Come with me, and I'll explain it to you." Without another word he turned and walked away, and naturally I had no choice but to follow.

Once inside his chambers, Umbrage secured the door so that we would not be disturbed. From far away, I could still hear the noises of merrymaking. I almost felt as if they existed in another world altogether, which I could only observe from a distance while forever wondering what it would be like to be a part of it.

He pulled a large decanter from a cabinet and unstoppered it. "Drink?" he asked.

"What is it?"

"It's of the grape. That's all you need to know."

In fact, it was. For a moment my natural caution flared, and I wondered if he was out to poison me. But then I realized the absurdity of the concern; if he'd wished me harm, he needed do nothing else aside from leaving me to the tender mercies of Mace and his ilk. For that matter, there were many other subtle ways I could be disposed of besides something that would bring so much direct questioning to he himself.

Pouring myself a flagon of the brew, I drank deeply of it, and it burned in a most satisfying manner as it went down my throat. I wiped the liquid away from the edges of my mouth, noting distantly that there was still some crimson from my blood on the back of my hands.

Umbrage likewise drank and sat down opposite me, staring at me in an odd manner that I couldn't quite decipher. "When I was a young knight . . . even a middle-aged knight . . . I was most formidable," he said abruptly. His voice had none of the quavering and uncertainty to it that I was accustomed to hearing. "King Runcible's . . . respect . . . for me is not without its basis in fact. And then, one day I decided to take an oracle. Never take an oracle, young Apropos. It will bring you nothing but misfortune. That was indeed advice given me by elder knights, but naturally I knew better since youth always does. My reason was that my beloved wife had died, you see, and I had no idea what a future without her could possibly be like. It was all a great, black wall to me. So I had to know. And the oracle said to me, 'You shall die in a great battle.' Well, as you might suspect, I was rather pleased to hear that. For a knight to die in battle is the most glorious end that any warrior can desire. At least, that is what they tell you when you are training to be a warrior. Besides which, if I died in battle, that would reunite me with my beloved. So . . . so much the better. Knowing that to be my fate, I launched myself into campaign after campaign. This was the period during which I gained my greatest fame. I was unstoppable, feared by all, truly awesome to behold in the heat of battle . . . at least, so I'm told," he added with a slight flash of modesty. "But as year pa.s.sed into year, several things happened. First, and most obviously . . . I did not die. 'Twas a combination of skill, bravado, and luck, basically. And second, the loss of my spouse lost its sting as the seasons turned, for time has a tendency to heal hurts, even the deepest ones. Here's an odd thing, Apropos: The older one gets, the more enamored one becomes of life. As I got older, I found myself with a growing desire to continue walking this mortal coil. Furthermore-and I know this is irrational to some degree-since I knew I was to die in combat, why . . . all I had to do was avoid combat, and I would be effectively immortal.

"I would happily have retired to the backwoods and lived quietly for who knew how long, but good King Runcible, well . . . he knew me of old. And he had his own attachments to me, as you well know. He thought he did me honor by bringing me here, making me one of his knights. I tried to refuse, but once our liege gets an idea in his head, he is loath to release it. Particularly when it's an idea that he is convinced is going to benefit the individual being helped. He didn't want to 'waste' me, you see. And I could not bring myself to admit that my taste for battle had turned to ashes on my tongue. 'Coward,' they would have called me. I could not tolerate that."

"But you could tolerate being called a senile old fool?"

"Of course," he said mildly. "Age comes to us all, Apropos. Besides . . . if I were to be thought senile and bereft of senses, I could smile inwardly, knowing that not to be the case. But to be called 'coward' . . . that would have stung far more deeply, for I would have known it to be partly true."

It was all so clear. "You faked your infirmities, then."

"Those of the mind, yes. My body, I admit, is not what it once was . . . although, by G.o.d," and he shook a fist defiantly, "I may be less than I was, but that still leaves me more than many of them."

"You fell off the horse on purpose."

He nodded.

"But you dislocated your shoulder as a consequence."

"No. That is an old injury, which I am capable of repeating when the need arises." He shrugged. "We all have our talents." Then his face darkened. "Now you . . . your talent seems to be primarily that of botching up the lives of others. I had no desire to reveal that I was still puissant. But suddenly I found myself at the top of the jousting lists. By the time I was riding against Sir Coreolis, I knew that something was amiss and had divined that you had to be behind it, you young fool. I was fully prepared by that point to fall against Coreolis. I would have, too, if his d.a.m.ned horse hadn't collapsed."

"You dissemble, milord," I said, leaning forward, taking another swig of the brew. "You could have fallen against any of your previous opponents. Admit it: You liked going up against your 'peers' and defeating them. Deep within you, some part cries out in fury against the way they regard you with such utter contempt. You enjoyed making up for some of the injustices they've done you."

"You are wrong," he said, but he wasn't entirely convincing, and I knew that at least on some level I was correct. He seemed distracted by a thought for a moment, but then he shook it off. "In any event, it did not matter once Coreolis was coming at me with sword in hand. At that point, I had no choice. I had to defeat the fool, and quickly. So I did . . . and in doing so, made clear to our dear king just how capable I truly am. My name was securely among the bottom ranks of knights to receive a.s.signments, and that more than suited me."

"I was told that your previous squires met with accidents. Did you . . . ?"

"Do them in?" He guffawed at that. "Of course not, and I think you already know that. The problem was that, even on routine missions, they would see my caution and try to pick up the slack. Youth believes itself immortal. There is a cure for such an att.i.tude, but unfortunately it is a cure from which one never recovers. Nonetheless, it served my purposes, for n.o.bles complained to the king about the high mortality rate of my squires. No n.o.ble wanted his son attached to me. And one can't send a knight places without a squire. A knight with no retainers? Unthinkable."

"And then I showed up," I muttered.

"Yes, you did. My a.s.sorted 'disasters,' even on the most routine of missions, had dropped me to the lowest point on the list of knights who were likely to be sent out on missions, aside from random selections such as the Draft. But thanks to you, good squire, we have now jumped to the top of the king's list, I daresay. We're very likely for it now, and you've none but yourself to blame."

"You should have told me. Told me earlier, I mean. If I'd known what you'd been about, I'd have . . ."

"You'd have what? a.s.sisted me in my subterfuge? Yes . . . yes, perhaps you would have, at that. Anyone capable of rigging an entire joust for his own ends certainly has a dim enough grasp of honor. I should have told you then, I suppose."

"But you've told me now. Why?"

"Why?" He laughed bitterly. "Because we're in the same boat now, me lad. I will do what I can to repair the damage you've done to my pleasant state of semi-retirement. Failing that, well . . . I shall have to attend to you."

I did not like the sound of that. "Attend to me, sir? What do you mean?"

He did not answer. "You may leave now."

"But-"

"I said . . . you may leave." And with that, he turned his back to me. Realizing that the interview was over, I headed for the door, but his voice pulled me up short. "Apropos," he said, "one who has no honor, and no use for it, might feel tempted to flee at a time like this. I am not saying you are without honor . . . but if you are . . . then I would not let that thought cross your mind. If I am in a difficult situation, then you who put me there are going to be right along with me. If you try to depart prematurely . . . I will find you. And things will not go pleasantly, I a.s.sure you."

I couldn't help but feel that, considering I was someone whom no one seemed to like, people were going to great lengths to make sure that I remained where I was.

The next day I understood what Sir Umbrage meant about repairing the damage. When Umbrage rose late, as he customarily did, he sauntered into the great hall where knights (many of them with hangovers) were eating a light lunch, and he called out, "A glorious day for a joust, isn't it, my lords! When do we start?" He appeared to have no recollection of what had transpired the day before. Not only was this, in and of itself, enough to utterly confuse his fellow knights, but furthermore it was in fact a terrible day for a joust considering that it was pouring rain, the field having been reduced to a ma.s.sive mudhole. When informed that he had in fact won the previous day's bouts, Umbrage expressed laughing incredulity and refused to take anyone seriously who pressed the point. Thus did he endeavor to reestablish the status quo, and I believe in some measure he was successful, although there may have been a few who were slightly suspicious.

As for me . . .

That evening, after I finished my ch.o.r.es, there was a large man-at-arms waiting for me. I'd never seen him before; he might very well have been a freelance. He had a barrel chest and sloped brow, but he seemed quite intelligent. "You are Apropos?" he demanded.

"No," I said quickly.

"That's what I was told you'd say. Come along, then." He turned and walked toward the training area where squires worked out every day. I followed him, curious as to what was happening.

He produced two practice swords, tossed one to me, then took a stance and said, "Now do what I do."

And there, in the still of the night, we practiced and I was trained in the ways of knightly combat. This happened every night for several months. My mysterious, unnamed tutor only showed up at night, was never around during the day, and never engaged in any conversation other than to tell me what I was doing wrong (never what I was doing right). I could only a.s.sume that he had been hired by Sir Umbrage, who felt that I was going to need all the training I could get.

I hoped he wasn't correct.

As it turned out, he was.

Chapter 12.

All of which, reader, brings us back-as promised-to the beginning. For those of you whose memories do not stretch back quite that far, I had just been responsible for the death of Sir Granitz and covered up that culpability rather adroitly, when the king had dropped a rather charming comment upon me before departure: "I have a fairly hazardous mission to be a.s.signed. I think you are just the man for it. Report in one hour."

The words hung over me as I hastily packed my belongings and prepared to get the h.e.l.l out of Runcible's castle.

The body of Sir Granitz was already being readied for its funeral, and I was preparing to put as much distance between it, and my then-current surroundings, as I possibly could.

The king's p.r.o.nouncement after Granitz's death was not anything I needed to hear. A hazardous mission? I thought not. Report in one hour? I could be half a league away, farther if I managed to get my hands on a fast horse. Just the man for it? If anything underscored for me that the king had absolutely no idea with whom he was dealing, it was that.

I didn't have all that much in the way of belongings, so I had my pack filled just before Sir Umbrage entered the room. When we were alone, he no longer maintained the blank and vacant stare that he reserved for the other knights. I got the full impact of a glare that was loaded with quiet anger. "I just spoke to the king," he said. "I informed him that I did not think you were ready for any sort of hazardous mission, in my humble opinion."

"You . . . you did?" I couldn't believe it, and felt a wave of relief seizing me. "Thank you, milord. I mean that, from the bottom of-"