[Meetings 04] - The Oath and the Measure

by Michael Williams - (ebook by Undead)

  * * * * *

  Sturm was alone in his chambers, the early evening upon him. He had spent a long morning in the central courtyard, Lord Gunthar instructing him roughly in the particulars of swordsmanship. Still panting from the exertion, his shoulder swollen and heated, Sturm removed the heavy vain-braces from his arms, wincing as the metal and padding rubbed over bruises due to the fall he had taken riding the Wings, but also those from more recent outrages, born of training in combat and his teacher Lord Gunthar's enthusiasm. It had been arms courteous, the wicker weapons padded and blunted to boot, but Gunthar was terribly strong, and the blows were telling, no matter the precautions.

  Sturm groaned and tossed the vambraces to the floor. Leaning back on his hard bed, he stared at the ceiling, his face flushed with exertion and embarrassment. Exertion, because Lord Gunthar had worked him over. Embarrassment, because the older man had done it easily, almost effortlessly, in a calm voice lacing the rout with instructions.

  "Raise your shield, Sturm!" Gunthar had railed. "You're shuffling and puffing like Lord Raphael!"

  Sturm had winced. Lord Raphael was a hundred and twenty-three years old and babbled in senile rapture about the Cataclysm he really did not remember.

  Slowly the two men circled each other, student and tutor. Gunthar's gray eyes never left the lad, fixed on the padded sword that bobbed in his right hand.

  "Your guard is low, lad," Gunthar urged. "Vertumnus'll have a sword in amidst you before you raise it!"

  Sturm had stumbled then, and Gunthar had pushed him back, seating him on the hard bailey ground. The Knight stood over him grimly and explained in a clipped, cold voice how Lord Wilderness would not wait politely for him to regain his footing.

  For the Green Man is not of the Order. He cannot be expected to fight with dignity and according to the Measure. There is no Measure in the outlands, which is why there is a Measure here. You will be the Measure at that meeting!

  Now Sturm closed his eyes, and the sudden knock on the door startled him. He must have been sleeping, he thought with dismay, and he struggled with the laces to his greaves as the door opened and Lord Boniface Crownguard of Foghaven stepped into the room, broadsword in hand, on his shoulder a large canvas bag, filled with something that rang and clattered as he closed the door behind him.

  For a brief and nightmarish moment, the lad thought that instruction was about to resume with another sound thrashing at the hands of Lord Boniface. For a moment, he even thought something darker, even worse, was about to waylay him in the shadowy guests' chambers. But Boniface was quiet, even mild, setting down his burden and seating himself at the corner of Sturm's cot, the sword across his knees.

  His boots were muddy, and vallenwood leaves clung to the soles.

  "I saw you with Gunthar. You tire too easily," Lord Boniface said gruffly.

  "And Gunthar tires not easily enough," Sturm answered with a weary smile, dismissing his bewilderment and fear. The older man chuckled.

  "Angriff Brightblade's boy you are, though," Lord Boniface concluded, and Sturm looked at him hopefully. "Somewhere down in the cellars of yourself. Yes. It's just a matter of letting the Brightblade out to air. You see, Angriff would have stayed at Gunthar in the courtyard until he won—'tis as simple as that. Till death or Cataclysm come, Angriff used to match me sword on sword, and though I was the better swordsman . . ."

  Boniface paused and cleared his throat.

  "Though I was the better swordsman," he continued, "your father would have won on sheer mettle and daring and backbone."

  Boniface paused again and looked curiously at the lad beside him. "There was also," he said thoughtfully, "an affinity with the sword itself, as though something in him could sense the thoughts and movements of metal. A good smith or armorer he might have made, had not the Order called him. But such things were subtle, almost unconscious, as though he received them as an inheritance of blood."

  "None of which I am heir to," Sturm declared weakly. "Neither affinities nor mettle nor daring nor backbone."

  "And yet you are off to face Lord Wilderness," Boniface replied softly, "after considerable training and study. By what road will you travel?"

  "They say the best way is always the most direct," Sturm replied. "I intend to ride straight toward the Vingaard Keep, then south down the river to the great ford. I shall cross the Vingaard there, then pick up its southern branch and follow along the banks straight into the Darkwoods themselves. Nothing more simple, no smoother road."

  Lord Boniface's firm hand rested heavily on his shoulder.

  "A brave plan, Sturm Brightblade, and worthy of your name," he pronounced. "I myself could have fashioned no better route."

  "Thank you, Lord Boniface," Sturm replied with a puzzled frown. "Indeed your confidence assures me."

  The older Knight smiled and moved closer to Sturm. "Did Angriff ever tell you," he asked, "the story of his feud with his own father?"

  Sturm shook his head and smiled slowly. Since he had arrived at the High Clerist's Tower, it seemed that each Knight he met had a tale to tell of Lord Angriff Brightblade. Happily, eagerly, the lad learned forward, prepared for yet another story.

  A slow smile creased the face of Lord Boniface, and he began the telling.

  * * * * *

  "Your grandfather, Lord Emelin Brightblade, was a good Knight and a good man, but he was known for neither patience or gentleness. Son of Bayard Brightblade and the Lady Enid di Caela, Lord Emelin was Brightblade tough and di Caela . . . haughty? Stubborn?"

  Sturm glowered. He remembered absolutely nothing of his grandfather Emelin, but he wasn't sure that he liked the critical words. Still, Boniface was accustomed to speaking his mind to Brightblades, it seemed.

  The older Knight continued, his eyes on the sword in his lap. "Well, it has never been the easiest of bloodlines. Angriff feared his father as much as he respected him, and in the difficult years of his teens, he steered away from old Emelin at formalities, preferring to meet him only at the hunt. For it was there that their spirits usually blended, as the poems and histories tell us it should be with fathers and sons."

  Boniface stretched back on the cot, linking his hands behind his head.

  "Usually," said Sturm.

  "I remember those hunts," Boniface continued. "The smell of woodsmoke on cold mornings like this, when we would ride after the boar. I remember best the winter of Lord Grim."

  "Lord Grim, sir?" Sturm asked. Despite his love for Solamnic history and lore, he remembered no Knight named Grim.

  Boniface snorted. "A boar. Grim was a great-tusked boar who eluded the best of us in that winter of three seventeen, when your father and I were seventeen ourselves and ready for anything except that pig. Lord Grim lost us in the mountains, in the foothills, in the level, snow-covered plains where you could track for days.

  "The Yuletide passed, and still we could not catch him. It was not until midwinter when we brought him to ground, not far from here, in the Wings of Habbakuk. I remember the day well. The hunt. The kill. But mostly what happened afterward."

  Sturm set down the greaves carefully, his gaze locked on his father's old friend. Boniface closed his eyes and was silent so long that Sturm was afraid the Knight had fallen asleep. But then Lord Boniface spoke, and Sturm followed him into the story. It became twenty-five years ago and far south of the Tower.

  "Lord Agion Pathwarden led us into the foothills. Your cousin. As burly a Pathwarden as ever arose from that now-vanished line. Named for a centaur friend of his eccentric father, Agion was. Your grandfather's best friend, and a great brawler, and many was the time that the two of them came to blows, scuffled cleanly, and parted friends. Like his namesake, Agion seemed half horse, a big man in the saddle, charging like the south wind over the slopes and inclines of the Wings.

  "We had caught the trail right after dawn, the thick-necked alan dogs, our best hunting beasts, caterwauling at the mere smell of Grim and racing through the rocks like water rushing uphill, fannin
g wide and converging, pouring through a narrow pass into a stand of scrubby aeterna where the boar was waiting. It was all the huntsmen could do to restrain the pack. They bayed and bellowed and swirled around that narrow copse of evergreen. Grim was in there, everybody knew, but each of us was . . . reluctant to go in and greet him first."

  Sturm nodded and shuddered, having survived his first boar hunt back in the fall.

  "Finally four of us dismounted and entered the copse on foot: Agion and Emelin and your father and I. Angriff and I were along as squires, more or less. We were supposed to hold the spears, stand our ground and be silent. But Angriff wasn't the sort. When Agion crashed through the brush and chased the boar from cover, your father was on it like a panther, quick and menacing, striking the beast once, twice, a third time with spears. Grim was old and thick of hide, and your father's casts were those of a youth—swift and accurate, but lacking the muscle to pierce through gristle and bone."

  "So it simply enraged the boar," Sturm observed, and Boniface nodded.

  "Grim charged at Agion, who turned, ran, and scrambled out of the way through a thick aeterna, the boar skidding and stirring gravel just a step behind him. Meanwhile, your grandfather circled about the creature and waited for the chance at the delivering cast.

  "That chance did not come, because Angriff was impatient. Through the brush he rousted old Grim, and time and again I lost him in the mist and the thicket. Finally I heard a shuffling, a cough, and I stumbled around a thick latticework of branches . . . and found myself face-to-face with old Grim himself."

  Boniface paused. He stood and began to pace the room as Sturm held his breath, listening.

  "He was as shaggy as the bison of Kiri-Jolith, dripping with dew and mud and half-hidden in mist and evergreen. He looked like something from the legends, out of the Age of Dreams and the bardic tales. I remember thinking, right before he charged, that if Nature were to take on flesh and form, it would be this beast before me, in its unruliness and terror and its strange hideous indifference."

  Again the Knight paused, his hands clenching, grasping the air as though he were trying to clutch something or push something away.

  "He . . . charged you, Lord Boniface?" Sturm asked finally. "The great boar charged you?"

  Boniface nodded. "Had my sword out in a flash. But I never used it."

  A strange shadow passed over the Knight's face. Sturm waited expectantly, sure that the man was remembering that moment, the horrible charge of the boar.

  "I never used it," Boniface repeated. "Angriff's spear passed neatly between Grim's shoulder blades, and the boar staggered and rose and staggered again. Believe me, I was well out of the way by the second stagger, but I saw it all unfold—your grandfather and Agion burst into the clearing, and Lord Emelin's sword flashed silver in the winter sunlight as the blade rose and came slashing home.

  "For a while, we all stood there above the boar. The alans were baying somewhere outside the circle of trees, so distant in our thoughts that it sounded like we were only remembering them.

  "Then Lord Agion spoke. A fitting end to our adversary,' he said. 'To Lord Grim, whose trophy shall grace the hall of Lord Emelin Brightblade, his slayer.'

  "Your grandfather smiled and nodded, but your father stood pale and too quiet, and at that moment, I knew that something between them was about to unravel, perhaps beyond repair. 'But, Lord Agion,' Angriff protested, stepping into the matter as brashly and foolishly as he stepped into each hunt, each tournament. 'I expect that the history will show that I cast the first and telling spear.'

  " 'Nonsense,' Lord Emelin protested. 'My sword struck the boar, and it died. There is no more to say in the matter.'

  "Indeed there was no more to say. But I could see Angriff start to say it, nonetheless. He began to answer back and defend his honor. But Lord Emelin would have none of it."

  Lord Boniface paused and regarded the lad before him. Sturm gaped at him, his fists doubled. Imagine the injustice of Lord Emelin! Sturm thought angrily. Why, 'tis against the Code and Measure entirely!

  "Not at all, Sturm Brightblade," Lord Boniface corrected, as though he was reading the younger man's thoughts. "The rules of the hunt are simple, as simple as Lord Emelin set them forth that morning in the Wings of Habbakuk. Angriff, though, was livid. There was something in this, he felt, that passed beyond rule and protocol, but rule and protocol said that the rest was silence. He withdrew his spear . . ."

  Boniface paused and shook his head, a little sadly.

  "And I sheathed my sword, and we mounted our horses. I watched my friend ride and fume," he maintained, "from the Virkhus Hills back to Castle Brightblade. As mute as a sheep before the shearer, he was, and he spoke not a word that afternoon and into the evening. For you see, defiance of one's father was more against the Code and Measure than anything Lord Emelin had done by the rules in the clearing.

  "Agion teased young Angriff all the way back to Castle Brightblade, calling him 'bush-beater' and 'lyam-hound' and 'alan,' as though the lad's part in the hunt were simply locating the beast. Angriff stewed further, and still he was silent. But I knew we had not seen the end of the matter.

  "It was at the banquet that night for Lord Emelin's triumph. All the principal families were there—the MarKenins, the Jeoffreys, the Celestes—and the talk was of hunt and ceremony.

  "When dinner had been served and the guests had settled into the lull of food and wine, Angriff approached his father's seat. Agion, at the left of Lord Emelin, snorted as the lad approached and said, far too audibly, 'here comes the boy to ask for the hound's share.' "

  Sturm gasped. At the hunt, when the beast was skinned and cleaned, the entrails, the hooves, and all indelicate parts were left for the hounds. Agion's words had not only been insulting, but they were also downright cruel.

  "Emelin turned to Agion and said something sharp but inaudible," Boniface said, "but Angriff seemed to pay the big lout no mind. He stood silently before his father until Lord Emelin looked up from the exchange with his cousin. Then Angriff began, his speech soft and mild and overprepared, but as urgent as any words spoken in Castle Bright-blade before or since.

  " 'My Lord Father knows,' he said, 'that sometimes the Measure and true justice are at odds. He knows also that, regardless of sword and stroke of grace, my spear dealt Lord Grim the mortal blow.'

  "It was stilted and awkward, but it made its point. A murmur spread through the room, and Lord Emelin stood up angrily.

  " 'Are you saying, Angriff,' he asked, 'that your father . . . that I have . . . stolen your kill?'

  " 'Stolen is not my word for it,' Angriff replied, his own anger bursting through the calm and politeness. 'I prefer seized!'

  "It was then that Lord Emelin reached over the table and slapped his son."

  "Slapped him?" Sturm asked, his voice rising in outrage.

  "Among his fellows at a formal banquet? Why . . . there is no . . . no . . ."

  "No answer to such indignity," Boniface replied calmly. "It would seem not. Yet Emelin had overstepped all bounds, had crossed the Measure's decree that 'though honor takes all shapes and forms, the father must honor the son as the son the father.' To strike his father back would be unthinkable, as would words harsh enough to answer the insult. Nor could he stand there and accept the blow and maintain his honor as a man.

  "Emelin blushed in the aftermath. He knew he had overstepped, but he couldn't take back the gesture. It would seem that Angriff had no recourse. But listen.

  "He stood in front of his father in a smoldering rage, the imprint of old Emelin's hand still pink and flushed on his smooth jaw. Then Angriff turned deliberately and crashed his fist straight into the bridge of Agion's nose.

  "It was like the sound of a large limb cracking in a high wind. Agion went over backward and heavily, crashing to the floor, where he lay unconscious, awakening after a good half-hour, babbling about stockings and rhubarb pie."

  "My father hit Agion!" Sturm exclaimed, shocked and delighted.
"But why? And . . . and . . ."

  "Listen," Boniface said with a smile. "For what your father said was this: 'Present this to my father the next time you wrangle. It will be as much my blow to him as his was to Lord Grim.'"

  Sturm shook his head admiringly. "How did he think of it, Lord Boniface? How did he think of it?"

  Boniface opened the bag at his feet and slowly, with some effort, drew forth the breastplate and shield. "It was his way to think of things, Sturm. He thought to leave these with me . . . to give you when the time arrived."

  Breathlessly Sturm reached out for the shield.

  "I am bound by Oath to give you these," Boniface announced cryptically. "But this sword is . . . my gift."

  He offered the broadsword lying in his lap. "Your father, it seems, took the Bright Blade with him or hid it somewhere beyond even the knowledge and eyes of his friends. But Angriff Brightblade's son deserves a sword the likes of which I am giving you."

  He extended the weapon hilt first. It glowed obscurely in the lamplight of Sturm's quarters.

  "Make it your own," Boniface announced mysteriously. "It is bright and double-edged."

  * * * * *

  Boniface left Sturm with the sword resting on his knees. For an hour, or perhaps two, the lad polished the weapon. He could see himself in the gleaming blade, the reflection of his face distorted and foxlike on the angular edges of the armor. When Lord Gunthar Uth Wistan stepped into the room, Sturm scarcely heard him.

  "You must be more alert in the Southern Darkwoods," the High Justice observed as the startled lad leapt to his feet, the sword falling from his lap and clattering against the stone floor of the chamber.

  "I was . . . I . . ."

  Lord Gunthar ignored the lad's stammer and seated himself with a rattle and clanking of mail. Carefully he set down the package he carried—a heavy, cumbersome thing wrapped in a blanket. Sturm marveled that the man was walking the halls of the Tower in full battle dress. One would think that the High Clerist's Tower were under siege.