By Darkness Hid (4 page)

“No, sir. But he’s a farmer. He wouldn’t own armor.”

“So armor is only for the rich?”

“I suppose so.”

Sir Gavin stood. “Go get your waster and meet me behind the barn.”

“Aye, sir.” Achan smiled at Gren and hurried away.

When he reached the barn, Sir Gavin was waiting with his own wooden sword. Only the moon lit the hay-strewn ground behind the barn. Achan could barely hear the music still playing at the Corner.

“I want to explain some things about parries,” Sir Gavin said. “For a new swordsman, defense is your primary goal. Tell me, where do most knights strike first?”

Achan thought back to the tournaments he’d seen over the years. “The legs, sir?”

“Aye. A crippled man is a small threat. So that is where you need to be guarding first. Always parry with the flat of the blade, otherwise you chip or dull your cutting edge. Now, a cut most often comes at you from an angle. Why do you think that is?”

Achan shrugged.

Sir Gavin moved his waster in slow motion as he spoke, demonstrating his words. “If you come straight down, you risk chopping your blade into the dirt or your knee if you miss. If you strike level sideways, you risk throwing your weapon or throwing yourself off balance.”

Achan could just see himself pitching his sword at his attacker as if skipping a stone.

Sir Gavin brought the waster to his center, with the hilt pointing out from his abdomen as if he were holding a yoke plow. “All parries can be made from the middle guard position. You aren’t trying to strike with a parry. You’re trying to ease their strike against you. Meet their blow by stepping up to it, or cushion the blow by stepping back.”

Sir Gavin spent the next hour showing Achan the different ways to parry attacks. Achan took dozens of strikes to his forearms and shins from Sir Gavin’s wooden blade. He was having the most trouble with the leg strikes.

Sir Gavin swung his sword at Achan’s shins again. Achan dropped his waster to low guard and moved it over to block his left leg. The swords clacked together, but Sir Gavin’s pushed Achan’s back enough to touch his leg.

“Better, but a steel blade would’ve nicked you good. Make sure you move your blade out far enough so you won’t be cut if it’s knocked back.” Sir Gavin took a long breath and blew it out in a cloud around his face. “You’ve done enough for today, lad. You’ll be plenty sore tomorrow. Ease into the routine. The first week will be the hardest.”

It was. Over the next few days, Achan never sat still. If he wasn’t running an errand for Poril or crawling under the tables in the great hall collecting scraps to offer Cetheria, he was sneaking away to go through his sword exercises. Poril snapped at his absences with threats of the belt, so Achan did his best to be two places at once.

With the added activity, his appetite grew. Poril’s portions didn’t change, so Achan started joining Sir Gavin for meals. He ate his fill like never before, always saving something nice and whole for Cetheria.

While they ate, Sir Gavin would talk about noble etiquette and table manners. Once Achan began eating with more grace, Sir Gavin moved on to speak of the other cities in Er’Rets and the nobles who lived there. He began with Sitna, where Achan lived. Sir Gavin said it was a tiny manor built for the sole purpose of raising the prince. He said that in most strongholds, the kitchens had at least three cooks who fed over two hundred people three meals a day.

Achan soaked it all up and spilled it out to Gren each night at the Corner.

By the second week, his arms ached less, his blisters had faded to calluses, and he felt more confident about his role as a squire. Although Sir Gavin would still not accept his service. Squires were required to bring their master meals, clean their armor, and care for their horses. Sir Gavin would have none of it.

*          *          *

Achan woke one morning to find a new orange tunic neatly folded on the floor by his pallet. He blinked his sleepy eyes until it dawned on him.

Today was his coming-of-age day. Or at least the day Poril celebrated it. He was sixteen now. A man.

He slipped the new tunic on. The linen was coarse and loose-weaved as ever, but at least it was new and clean.

The kitchens were deserted when Achan passed through the sweltering room. Poril must have set the tunic out the night before.

Achan met Sir Gavin in the wheat field for his daily practice.

“Is that a new tunic?” Sir Gavin asked.

“Aye,” Achan said. “Ever-thoughtful Poril gives me a new one every year when my age changes.”

Sir Gavin stroked his mustache. “What is your day of birth?”

Achan shrugged and moved his waster from middle guard to low guard and back. “No one knows for certain, so Poril always celebrates it on the first of spring. This is my sixteenth.”

“Well, I should like to give you something as well. A day of birth is one thing, but you are a man now. And I feel you deserve a man’s weapon. As soon as you finish your squire training, I shall give you a real sword.”

Achan’s lips parted. “Sir? Truly?”

“Aye. Truly.”

Achan stared at the old knight, dumbstruck at the mere idea of owning his own blade. “Wait. Am I really that close to becoming a knight? I thought—”

“You’re close enough to be publicly declared my
squire.
And, in case you didn’t notice, most squires have a real sword.”

Achan had noticed, but he also knew his situation was far from normal. He still couldn’t fathom why Sir Gavin needed him as a squire. He wasn’t doing squire’s work, after all. He’d done nothing but learn from the knight since he’d been recruited. Not that he was complaining.

All day long, Achan walked tall. He hoped to see Gren—she always remembered Achan’s day of birth in some way—but he didn’t see her. When Poril went to bed that night, Achan snuck out to the Corner.

A piper was playing a merry tune from his wagon, and several couples were dancing and laughing. A dozen more stood around talking. Mox and a larger boy were wrestling. A grin came to Achan’s face when he saw Mox was losing.

“Achan!”

Achan spotted Noam sitting on a stump behind the dancers. Achan wound his way through the crowd until he reached his friend.

“Look at you, all crisp and stain-free in your new tunic,” Noam said, grinning.

“Aye, Poril never forgets my day of birth. And he hasn’t beaten me since Sir Gavin came along. Perhaps the gods have noticed my offerings of late.”

“Well, they’re giving you new boots too, if you can get your feet in them.” Noam held out a pair of brown leather boots. “My feet grow so fast I barely had time to wear these.”

“Really?”

Noam nodded. “There’s a hole here.” Noam showed where the heel was separating from the sole. “But I figured Gren could fix it for you, if you ask her nicely.”

Achan grinned and accepted the boots. His first pair of boots. They would make such a difference on cold mornings.

“You’re really training to be Sir Gavin’s squire?” Noam asked.

“Gren told you?”

“That, and I have eyes. You batting around that waster everywhere you go.”

“He said he would give me a real sword soon.”

“Will Lord Nathak give you up then?”

Achan frowned. He’d never heard of Lord Nathak giving up a servant. Could Sir Gavin convince him? “I don’t—”

“Achan!” Small hands slid around his waist as Gren hugged his side.

Her action shocked him. She had never shown any affection in such a public place. He liked how she felt, tucked under his arm. She smelled faintly of fulling water and cinnamon, a strange combination that was very much Gren.

“Hello,” he said. “I looked for you earlier today, but…”

She sighed. “More fancy fabrics for the prince. He could order every person in Sitna a new outfit and not make a dent in his stores.”

“But that would be a kind thing to do, and so not in line with his character,” Noam whispered.

“Well, he isn’t the only one who can get fabric. I can weave.” She took Achan’s hand and tugged him between the curtain wall and the nearest cottage.

“Bye, then,” Noam called.

Gren led Achan as she wove around the cottages until she came to her own. She stopped behind the frame that was stretching a new batch of wool. She lifted something off a hook on the back side of the frame.

“What are you doing?” Achan asked.

She shook out some fabric and held it up against his chest. It was so dark behind the frame, Achan could hardly see.

“What is it?”

She slapped his chest. “It’s a shirt, silly, and a fine one. Brown, to match your skin. Happy coming-of-age day, Achan.”

He looked down into her dark eyes and trembled. He had never felt so close to anyone. Her simple act of giving him something unique… and not another orange tunic or even hand-me-down boots. She treated him like an equal, though he was a stray and she the daughter of a craftsman. A brown shirt to run away in and not be suspected of being a stray.

He gripped her shoulders. “You’ll come with me?”

Her eyes glistened in the distant moonlight. Her breath grew ragged, and she looked down at her hands, which were still holding the shirt against his chest.

He moved his hands up her shoulders and took the sides of her face in his palms. “Gren?”

She lifted her gaze to his. Tears streaked down to her chin. He wiped them away with his thumbs. “I’ll talk to your father soon. Sir Gavin promised me a real sword. Any day now he’ll publicly declare me a squire. Then surely your father will at least—”

“Grendolyn? Are you out there?”

Gren stiffened at the sound of her mother’s voice. “I have to go. Happy coming-of-age day, Achan.” She bounced up to kiss his cheek and darted out from behind the frame, leaving Achan alone.

*          *          *

A vast allown tree grew outside Sitna Manor. The trunk was as thick as two grown men, and its long upper branches splayed out against the blue sky. It loomed over the curve of the SiderosRiver at the edge of a field beside the stronghold.

In the summer, the tree made a shady haven that was Achan’s favorite place to sit and watch the setting sun. Today, the tree looked lonely with its bare branches reaching up to the heavens as if pleading for Dendron to bring warmth sooner. No tree around compared to its glory. Achan felt drawn to it.

His stomach full from a second lunch with Sir Gavin, Achan set off toward the allown tree to meet Gren. It was less cold today than it had been. Spring had arrived. He trudged across the field, swinging his wooden sword to beat the tall, dead grass out of his path. The sword already felt light and familiar in his grip.

Gren leaned against the thick trunk. The barren branches bounced in the chill wind and cast dancing spider web shadows over her. The vast, brown SiderosRiver flowed past three paces from Gren’s feet. Her chestnut hair blew to the other side of her head, baring her chapped and rosy cheeks. Why couldn’t the weaver make his daughter something warmer for the winter cold? Her coarse linen cloak was too drafty and Gren too flighty to remember the hood.

If Achan had owned a cloak, he would’ve offered it.

He hid the sword behind him and approached, his trousers swishing in the grass. Gren turned, her eyes rimmed in red. She’d been crying. Achan wanted to say something to comfort her but didn’t know what. Instead of words, he pulled the wooden sword from behind his back.

Her brown eyes widened and her lips parted in a slow smile. “Oh, Achan! You’re really going to become a Kingsguard knight.”

He knelt between the bumpy roots beside her and gasped a laugh. “I never thought my station could change. The gods have blessed me greatly, Gren.”

She rose to her knees. “Well, show me how it’s used…on that leaning poplar.” Gren pointed at a frail tree right at the edge of the river. The wind had already bested the poor sapling. Its roots poked out from the soil on one side, and the flimsy trunk leaned over so far the barren branches swam lazily in the swift, brown current.

Achan shrugged, happy to please Gren. He trudged toward the cockeyed sapling and pressed the tip of the wooden sword against the flaky trunk. “Halt, you foul excuse for a tree! In the name of Dendron, god of nature, surrender! Or I shall cut you into tinder for my fire.”

Gren’s merry giggle floated on the wind.

Though Achan felt incredibly silly, he warmed to her smile, so he played along. He sucked in a sharp breath. “You dare speak that way in the presence of this fine lady? I shall run you through!” He whacked the blade against the tree again and again, more like chopping wood than Sir Gavin’s swordplay. The pitiful sapling hunched lower, the trunk sinking into the yellow grass, the upper branches into the river.

The ground beneath Achan’s feet shifted. A deep cracking sent him scuttling back from the river bank. The tree, dragging a clump of roots and soil, ripped from the turf and sagged into the river. The current swelled briefly, sending a surge of icy water up the bank and over Achan’s ankles. He gasped as the freezing liquid seeped into his shoes and sent a violent shiver through his body. He turned to Gren, his mouth gaping, and uttered a small cry.

She giggled and jumped to her feet, clapping. “You’ve done it, my good knight. Look! Mine enemy retreats.”

Achan turned back to the river to see the sapling floating downstream. One branch remained above water, flapping in the wind like a sad flag. He laughed and turned to Gren. She stood beaming, her hair blowing about her face.

He marched toward her, knelt, and offered her his wooden sword on the palms of his hands. “For you, my lady.”

She hugged the waster to her heart, but her smile faded. Her eyes focused just over Achan’s head and went wide with fright. “Riga, no!”

Achan reached for his sword, but someone pulled him away by the back of his tunic. The weary threads cracked under the pressure. He realized that it wasn’t Riga pulling him—because his assailant dragged him past the potbellied peasant. Riga glared down over chubby cheeks. With his thick, sneering lips and squinty eyes, he looked to be suffering severe indigestion.

Achan’s captor yanked him to his feet and twisted him around.