LIZARD BOYS ON HIS DANCE CARD. WE FIND
THEM AROUND THE BODIES, ALL STATUED AND
PRETTY LIKE A DAMN ROCK GARDEN.
The footmen laughed, but most of the knights sat uneasily
atop their uneasy horses, who pawed and snorted as though
they had crossed into a country of leopards. Sturm and Lord
Alfred smiled. But Sturm had traveled with outlandish folk
– he had, after all, served with dwarves.
But what even Sturm and Lord Alfred knew, what most
of them knew, and Breca especially, was that the
dragonsoldier was not finished with Breca, that this attack
was as fierce and as lethal as any with a bow or with those
terrible curved swords I still see in sleep until the welcome
darkness of morning comes again. For the heart of the battle
was at stake before the arrows flew, before the swords
clashed, at least in the eyes of the knights, who thought in
terms of spirit and morale, of a high game which begins not
when the first piece is taken nor even the first pawn moved,
but when the players sit before the chessboard.
Breca, on the other hand, was past strategy and morale,
safe for now in another world I came to witness in the
weeks that followed, in the tower and in the waiting. He
was a swordsman, any thrust the same as any other, to be
deflected or parried if he were still to call himself a
swordsman. The snow settled on his helmet until I feared
that soon it would cover him, cover him entirely in the face
of his enemies, and then cover all of us – on foot, on
horseback, on mule-back – until what remained was a pitiful
series of drifts in the country of the enemy.
And the dragonsoldier called once more out of the
vallenwoods. YOU AREN’T DRESSED WELL FOR SUCH
BRAVERY, FOOTMAN. EVEN FROM HERE I CAN SEE
THE DENTS IN THE ARMOR. I CAN TELL WHERE
YOUR BREASTPLATE IS CRUMPLED AND USELESS,
WHERE MY SWORD WOULD DO THE MOST DAMAGE.
YOUR FEET ARE PROBABLY WRAPPED IN RAGS.
THOUGH THE SNOW IS TOO HEAVY TO TELL FOR
CERTAIN. YET I SUPPOSE THAT SUCH IS THE FINERY
THAT KNIGHTS ISSUE THEIR FOOTMEN.
And they retreated into the thick boles and branches of the
woods, so that they probably did not hear Breca’s retort,
which we heard nonetheless, which the footmen heard,
which rode in my ears with its flat and furious blessing as
we approached the gates of the tower:
YOU THINK WE DRESS UP TO KILL HOGS?
Inside the tower gates, dismounting, the breathing and
steam from the horses misting the air, but not as densely as
the snow had misted the air outside, I remember most of all
my sense of relief. Of course we were to learn of the
frailties later, that in its endurance without change and
restoration the tower had become indefensible, but at the
time the walls seemed tall and strong, the fortress
unbreachable. I would imagine, Bayard, that you have heard
the stories, and that in the hearing you have imagined walls
of your own, more vividly than the ones I could describe,
down to the stone upon stone, to the mortar and to the
tightly arranged masonry that permits no mortar, and
perhaps your walls are as accurate, as real as the ones I saw,
because I knew no more of fortresses and their construction
than I did the songs of birds.
Now we fight from defense, I thought. Now we fight at
advantage. But more than that, we fight from warmth, on
the leeward side of the walls. That warmth, that comfort,
was most important then, and the chambers to which Heros
and I were escorted, as damp and drafty as an old attic, were
a palace, were more than enough. I am spoiled now in the
hospital, for there is a fire here and curtains, curtains that
for all I can tell may be sackcloth, a plain burlap, but
nonetheless do what curtains were intended to do in that
time before we saw fit to embroider and adorn them.
If Heros had known what I was thinking, he would have