That morning, all but the boldest of them averted their eyes.
In the chilly, torchlit corridors, as the night turned and the bell of the third watch tolled deep and lonely, the squires began to stir, preparing their masters' armor and grumbling at the weather and the hour. It was a time that usually bristled with activity and horseplay and gossip, but on this morning, business stopped and conversation hushed as Sturm hastened by on his way to the stables. Silent, almost embarrassed, the Knights and squires averted their gazes. Even the servants, usually indifferent to Solamnic events, murmured as he passed and made signs of warding.
"Faring off a doomed man," Sturm muttered to himself as he stepped into the great central courtyard, into the dark and the flurried last snows of the season. Derek Crown-guard, long awake on mysterious business, stood a stone's throw from the stable door, shrouded in misted breath and blankets. A brace of Jeoffreys stood with him, his whey-faced partners in misdeed. Aristocrats all, and first families for generations back, the three of them had no morning duties, and Sturm could only guess what would lift them from warm beds and superior dreams.
As Sturm walked into the stable and reached for his saddle, which hung from its customary peg on the wall, he found it tied and tangled with dried vines, decorated bizarrely with branches of evergreen. He heard the laughter from outside and angrily tugged the saddle from the snarl of greenery. The vines snapped, he staggered with the saddle, and a chorus of young voices arose from the dark and the cold.
"Return this man to Huma's breast," they sang.