The crowd mostly dispersed from there, moving on to other business, but Justice Heller and Sir Crolus carried Lanka from the field to a small house within the walls of the keep that served as a sickroom.
After they went inside, Lidia insisted on standing guard outside the door as they worked.
Inside the sickroom, Lanka was laid in a bed near an open window. This window had no panes but a pair of wooden shutters — sometimes the place needed fresh air, and other times it needed protection from a draft.
From her post, Lidia could see Justice Heller and Sir Crolus as they worked, catching their conversation as they evaluated Lanka's condition. Nothing she overheard sounded good.
Before long, Aerie met her there, leaving the others in the Company some way behind.
"What — what happened?" Aerie asked, glancing towards the door. "That's — that's one of the Baron's people, isn't it? Did you…?"
"Lanka's under a geas, and she chose to risk breaking it," Lidia said. "Aerie, could you lift that kind of spell?"
Aerie nervously bit her lower lip and shook her head. "I can't…I don't think it's possible. At least not for me. You'd need something really powerful — a wish spell, probably."
Lidia's heart sank.
"The Cowled Wizards would be the only ones I know who could do it," Aerie continued. She looked past Lidia towards the door again. "Is she at least getting help?"
"Justice Heller has been trying," Lidia replied. "Any spell heals her at the moment, but then the geas strikes, and she's back to where she started."
"That's…that's awful," Aerie said. "There's nothing that can be done?"
"They've already sent a message to the Baron. Hopefully, he'll be here soon." Lidia thought for a moment, then said, "Maybe a druid would know better how to help her. I didn't see Jaheira; did she make it?"
"No. She wanted to come, but she said she had an errand that couldn't wait."
Lidia maintained her watch for the better part of the afternoon. Now and again, one of Gorion's Company stopped by to check in on her, but there was little of note that happened for several hours.
At least until a closed carriage, painted blue with gold trim, rolled past the sentries on the keep's walls, leaving tracks in the moist ground and coming to a halt in the center of the courtyard.
Sir Anarg approached it at once. Behind Lidia, the door opened, and Justice Heller and Sir Crolus emerged from the house for the first time that day.
A footman opened the carriage door, and Baron Metrich stepped down, eyeing the ground for a dry spot before he placed his leather-booted foot in the grass. But, as soon as he laid eyes on Lidia, he pushed past the others.
"You!" he shouted in Lidia's direction. "You've cost me my servant, fool!"
"Baron, she did as she was ordered with admirable restraint," Sir Anarg said. He didn't quite obstruct the Baron's path, but he nonetheless placed himself in the man's way. "Perhaps Justice Heller could still arrange to have the matter resolved with steel now that you're here?"
A long pause followed. "No," the Baron finally said. "If the Order must fulfill their strange desire to shield this commoner, so be it. I've treated enough with those of lower station already."
Justice Heller spoke up. "Lanka will not live to the end of the tenday, as matters stand."
The Baron acknowledged him with a curt nod. "I will see to my servant, then. Sir Anarg, if you would accompany me?"
The two men went inside the sickroom. Lidia stayed outside the door, clearly visible from the open window and where Lanka lay on her sickbed. But they didn't seem to acknowledge or register that she was there.
For a while, the Baron and Sir Anarg were bent over Lanka, their voices in hushed whispers, until the Baron appeared to grow impatient and raised his voice: "If the Prelate is so gods-damned bent on this, then at least hear me out for both our sakes."
"Let me see the document first," Sir Anarg said.
Reluctantly, the Baron handed over the bill of sale.
Sir Anarg looked it over. "It seems to be in order. Are you certain that is all?"
Baron Metrich's composure slipped a little for the first time as uncertainty flitted across his face. "Yes, that is all."
"I have to wonder," Sir Anarg said. "If Lanka was bound by geas until she was manumitted, why is she still suffering the consequences of breaking it?"
"What is your evidence that she broke it, to begin with? For all I know, your lackey might have struck her down," the Baron said.
"We have two dozen credible witnesses who saw Lanka forfeit the match and leave the field under her own power, clear of our representative. As soon as she crossed the boundary, she suffered the consequences of her choice. I ask again: are you certain that is all you wish to tell me?"
The Baron hesitated for a moment, then held out the bill of sale and spoke a command word: "Sikaena."
The printed letters on the bill of sale quivered, then disappeared. For a moment, the page was blank, only showing the linen weave of the paper. Then, one by one, a tangle of scrawled letters and nearly indecipherable symbols appeared, outlined in fire and darkening as they cooled to black. They still seemed to crackle with arcane power long after the light faded.
Baron Metrich said, "When the Wizards placed her under a geas, the exact words she swore were to obey my orders until the conditions on this document were fulfilled. As you can see, the true bill is an agreement that only the Wizards can void. I warned her of this before she came here; her death is on her own head."
"The law does not see it that way," Sir Anarg said. "Apart from the nature of the contract itself, manipulating it with this kind of spell is illegal."
"I suggest you inform the Wizards of that, then," the Baron replied.
"The Cowled Wizards took your money to fund their role as magical enforcers, and that is where their responsibilities begin and end," Sir Anarg replied. "The best course for you is to convince them to lift the geas. Since you insisted on making a public spectacle of this, the Order will have no choice but to turn your fate over to the Council if your servant passes."
The Baron snapped, "Look to your property before you tell me what to do with mine."
He stormed out, the revealed bill of sale still in hand as he pushed past the door and left it swinging.
Towards the end of their conversation, Lidia had pressed herself against the wall near the entrance, out of sight and giving no sign that she'd overheard anything. The Baron didn't even glance her way as he half ran, half walked to the keep's donjon.
Sir Anarg wasn't far behind but acknowledged Lidia with a nod. He seemed deep in thought. An exchange of glances between them seemed to tell him that she knew everything.
"We have all had to do harsh deeds to survive, have we not?" Sir Anarg said. "Keep an eye on the druid. Perhaps I can still make the Baron see reason."
He followed the Baron out, shutting the door behind him and leaving the silent and empty house.
Lidia finally went inside to the sickroom, where Lanka still lay half-asleep.
The druid was several shades paler than she ought to be, her face covered with a cold sweat. Now and again, she winced as though some invisible weapon were piercing her.
Lidia pulled up a small stool and sat down next to the bed.
Lanka stirred.
"It's all right," Lidia said. "You can stay asleep. You need your strength until you're free from the geas."
Lanka's eyes fluttered open for a moment, then closed. She recoiled, then settled back into her bed.
She finally spoke, her voice faint: "No one can defy the Wizards, not even if all of Amn were as bold as lions."
"We'll convince them," Lidia said.
Lanka weakly shook her head, then lay still and silent for a moment, gathering strength.
She finally said, "You are not a druid. We know sometimes it's better to accept our time, to lay ourselves down in the falling tide."
"And Imnesvale?" Lidia replied.
"They 'll be all right," Lanka replied. "Someone had to stand for them."
She said no more, falling into a sleep from which she never awakened.