sparrows.
Boniface had come around a stand of larick and found his friend bent on the path, gloved hand lightly touching the petals of a green and silver rose. It was as if Angriff was …
absent
for a moment, that the flower held something he was desperately trying to remember or recover.
Boniface stood there, with his friend lost in thoughts of rare gentleness, with the sunlight of May slanting through the leaves of the Calvian oak so that all of them—Knight, trail, and silver flower—were cast in a curious green. Hardly the place for ill musings, it was.
But Boniface had thought, although idly and no more than tactically, that here would be a fitting place for ambush, if evil intent were to meet with a secluded spot in a garden and a great swordsman for once unwary.
He shuddered and dismissed such a dark musing.
Boniface smiled to recall it now. He had indeed been young that day in the garden.
Nonetheless, his thoughts had moved elsewhere, to the rose that Lord Angriff cupped in his hand and to other, tamer thoughts beyond that. But Angriff suddenly drew sword and rose quickly. He looked down a bend in the garden pathway, under an aeterna bush, then whirled about and made for the delicate wrought iron gazebo in the terraced center of the garden. He acted unsettled, distracted. He leaned against the scrolled gateway of the little building, as if he had been overtaken by some strange and sudden malady.
It was then that Boniface called the servants, thinking he would need help in carrying Angriff to the infirmary.
The servants arrived, flushed and breathless, but by that time Angriff was composed, thoroughly alert. He brushed aside Boniface’s bracing hand and ordered the men to search the garden. They came back soon, assuring the Knights that the premises were secure.
Then Angriff had turned to him wearily.
“I am sorry for this immoderate display, Bonano,” he said, using the childhood name Boniface hated but enduredfrom his capable friend. “But when I stooped to admire this silver rose, there suddenly came upon me a change in the … energies of the garden. It is what you learn in Neraka, in the face of bandit swordsmen, when your heart and sword hand must learn to sense the intention and impulse of your enemy.
“I felt it just now, here in the garden,” he said. “And I saw no one except you. Not even a squirrel or dog.”
Angriff grinned and brushed back his dark hair wearily. “I must be more tired than I had imagined,” he confessed, and it was hours before Boniface could set aside his own astonishment long enough to tell him that the “change in energy” was his own.
Even more than insubordination, more than irreverence at tournament and in the councils of the mighty, it had been that moment, remembered and magnified over the passage of years, that sealed Angriff’s future for Boniface. It was why the Brightblades had to vanish forever.
And why, by simple logic, the boy had to vanish, too.
Chapter 7
Castle di Caela
———
Sturm sat in the half-dark, rubbing his bruised shoulder.
He was living the bad fable told to frighten children, to steer them away from ruins and ill-kept cellars. Sturm had ventured inside, and someone—Vertumnus, he figured, for lack of a better explanation—had closed the door solidly behind him. He heard the footsteps walking away. And then, of course, the door had refused to open, whether by force or wit.
Sturm looked around. A faint light from a single high clerestory window kept the great di Caela anteroom from sinking into total darkness. And yet the hall was oppressively gloomy, paneled in mahogany or some other dark wood, its polish and glow surrendered to six years of neglect.
For Castle di Caela had fallen to the peasants in the very year that Castle Brightblade fell and Lord Angriff vanished. Agion Pathwarden was a blustery but capable steward who had kept the holdings well, but when he met betrayal and death on the Wings of Habbakuk, he left
Boniface had come around a stand of larick and found his friend bent on the path, gloved hand lightly touching the petals of a green and silver rose. It was as if Angriff was …
absent
for a moment, that the flower held something he was desperately trying to remember or recover.
Boniface stood there, with his friend lost in thoughts of rare gentleness, with the sunlight of May slanting through the leaves of the Calvian oak so that all of them—Knight, trail, and silver flower—were cast in a curious green. Hardly the place for ill musings, it was.
But Boniface had thought, although idly and no more than tactically, that here would be a fitting place for ambush, if evil intent were to meet with a secluded spot in a garden and a great swordsman for once unwary.
He shuddered and dismissed such a dark musing.
Boniface smiled to recall it now. He had indeed been young that day in the garden.
Nonetheless, his thoughts had moved elsewhere, to the rose that Lord Angriff cupped in his hand and to other, tamer thoughts beyond that. But Angriff suddenly drew sword and rose quickly. He looked down a bend in the garden pathway, under an aeterna bush, then whirled about and made for the delicate wrought iron gazebo in the terraced center of the garden. He acted unsettled, distracted. He leaned against the scrolled gateway of the little building, as if he had been overtaken by some strange and sudden malady.
It was then that Boniface called the servants, thinking he would need help in carrying Angriff to the infirmary.
The servants arrived, flushed and breathless, but by that time Angriff was composed, thoroughly alert. He brushed aside Boniface’s bracing hand and ordered the men to search the garden. They came back soon, assuring the Knights that the premises were secure.
Then Angriff had turned to him wearily.
“I am sorry for this immoderate display, Bonano,” he said, using the childhood name Boniface hated but enduredfrom his capable friend. “But when I stooped to admire this silver rose, there suddenly came upon me a change in the … energies of the garden. It is what you learn in Neraka, in the face of bandit swordsmen, when your heart and sword hand must learn to sense the intention and impulse of your enemy.
“I felt it just now, here in the garden,” he said. “And I saw no one except you. Not even a squirrel or dog.”
Angriff grinned and brushed back his dark hair wearily. “I must be more tired than I had imagined,” he confessed, and it was hours before Boniface could set aside his own astonishment long enough to tell him that the “change in energy” was his own.
Even more than insubordination, more than irreverence at tournament and in the councils of the mighty, it had been that moment, remembered and magnified over the passage of years, that sealed Angriff’s future for Boniface. It was why the Brightblades had to vanish forever.
And why, by simple logic, the boy had to vanish, too.
Chapter 7
Castle di Caela
———
Sturm sat in the half-dark, rubbing his bruised shoulder.
He was living the bad fable told to frighten children, to steer them away from ruins and ill-kept cellars. Sturm had ventured inside, and someone—Vertumnus, he figured, for lack of a better explanation—had closed the door solidly behind him. He heard the footsteps walking away. And then, of course, the door had refused to open, whether by force or wit.
Sturm looked around. A faint light from a single high clerestory window kept the great di Caela anteroom from sinking into total darkness. And yet the hall was oppressively gloomy, paneled in mahogany or some other dark wood, its polish and glow surrendered to six years of neglect.
For Castle di Caela had fallen to the peasants in the very year that Castle Brightblade fell and Lord Angriff vanished. Agion Pathwarden was a blustery but capable steward who had kept the holdings well, but when he met betrayal and death on the Wings of Habbakuk, he left
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