by Jeremy Craig
Of the ten tables only two were occupied by older squires who watched us enter, hunched over their trays of food and cartons of milk like lions eyeing a heard of zebra to pick out the weakest one to gnaw on for lunch. The place went quiet as they stared, mostly at me and Manx with an unhealthy mix of interest, disdain, and something darker.
I sighed. Here we go again.
We lined up, picked up our prison trays from the stack and started to work our way down the line. I picked out a chocolate milk, apple, something called a mince pie, goopy looking steamed vegetables that were far more appetizing than the creamed corn, and a stale dinner roll I’m pretty sure I could bludgeon an Orc to death with in a pinch.
Meal in hand and stomach growling (either in horror and protest of what I was about to dump into it or in hunger, I can’t be sure) I shuffled off after my classmates to our table.
Well, it would have been our table if they had left me any room at it, rather they had decided to space themselves out just enough to make sure I was left out in the cold. Natalie offered me a mockingly sympathetic, impish smirk before taking a bite of an egg salad sandwich.
Wonderful.
I eyed an empty table and feeling all the mess hall’s eyes on me as well as my neck warming plopped down my tray and took a seat. Manx took up his normal post, surprisingly managing to shimmy his immense, shaggy self under the bench to slump over at my feet to await me inevitably feeding him from my tray. Honestly, he would likely enjoy it better than I was so he was going to be in for quite a meal I mused.
It didn’t take long. A roll whizzed across the room like a baseball trailing what I think was blackberry preserves. I’d been expecting something like this, so it really didn’t catch me by surprise. I just moved my head over a fraction of an inch and let it sail past as I took an exploratory nibble at the mince pie. It wasn’t my thing then, and it’s still not.
Not even looking for the culprit who chucked the near deadly baked product at me I tossed the pie to Manx who gobbled it down in one gulp then licked up the crumbs from the floor. I plucked up the apple, shined its bright red skin with my shirt and was about to take a bite when I felt the looming presence. I do believe I smelled him before I felt him though.
“Oy, the grub not good enough for ya, little princeling brat?” Again, the whole cafeteria went silent, and again I sighed, carefully placing the juicy looking apple on the table. A hard, nail digging grip clamped onto my shoulder and yanked at me. “Hey, I’m talking to you, ya little shi-” hulking Porky McPimple face never finished the sentence.
As he pulled me about, I gripped my tray end in both hands and brought it about like a massive goop filled fly swatter. It connected with a resounding THWACK and a moment later a stunned, slovenly looking squire whose hefty gut was dangerously threatening the seams of his black shirt was blinking up at me in horror, mopping hot steamed veggie from his face, booted feet squeaking as he scuttled back on the tile floor.
The whole place started shouting at once as adults made a bee line for us and tables squealed and groaned as other squires angrily struggled out. I calmly tossed the tray back on the table, picked back up my apple, and took a very satisfying bite. I munched on it as I watched the older squire yelp, curse, and threaten to throttle me as he franticly tried to comb still steaming broccoli, carrots, and turnips out of his hair with his sausage like dirty fingers.
Sgt. Blake, having witnessed the whole thing seemingly found it hilarious when I advised the neon sash wearing cafeteria monitors where to stick their broom and dustpan when they demanded I clean up the mess.
He even sentenced the older squire who was glaring at me hatefully to punishment detail and sent him sulking off to the broom closet to fill a mop bucket. I knew I’d made an enemy out of the pudgy boy, but I really didn’t care. I’d had thoroughly enough of bullies.
Chapter Eleven
Wolves, wayward sons, and the trouble with Warlocks…
It had been a long day when Manx’s floppy ears perked and he stood, started to bark boomingly, and wag his curly tail from his spot by a pile of defunct training dummies. I, knowing full well what that outburst meant, looked about with no small amount of relief from my sparring mat, earning myself an ear ringing eye swimmingly thump on the ear from ever impish Natalie who giggled gleefully at the hit.
Throbbing ear or not I was happy to see Gramps trudged in, though he had caught the whole thing and was shaking his head. I could hear his long, sleep inducing lecture on “never taking one’s eyes off of one’s opponent” even as I remembered I was mad at him and fixed him with a look that stopped him dead in his tracks. He knew. He took a long breath, sighed, and then continued on.
“We will talk about it later,” he growled, his eyes sweeping the Wolves Den and its occupants with nostalgic trepidation then again fixing onto me with the intensity of blazing bonfires. “I have much to tell you, but we can’t discuss it here.”
“Aten—shun!” the instructor—I had learned his name was Markus—called out and immediately there was a clatter of gear hitting the mat and clenched fists thumping chests and heals clicking as the room’s squires stood rigidly and proudly at attention. “Lord Artur, welcome home,” Markus said in a grave tone thick with sarcastic bitterness. Though he still managed to give a stiff bow that all the squires copied, all just as disingenuously as their instructor.
I noted with no small amount of irritation that Natalie was staring at Gramps with awe. I also noticed that she was the only one doing so. I just glared at him all the harder, my knuckles turning red then pale white, the leather of my training stave creaking as I imagined giving the old man a good, well deserved whack in the knees with it.
“Squire Bright, give yer Lord his due,” Markus insisted gruffly as he stormed over to our mat waving his stick about threateningly, though his eyes told a whole different story. I ignored him and continued boring holes into Gramps who studiously insisted at looking anywhere but at me. I got a good hit on the back side from Markus’ stick for it, but didn’t budge in my angry vigil, just as he raised his stick to try again Gramps waved him off.
“If I’m not mistaken my grandson has just cause to be angry. As do many. I trust the good Sergeant at Arms had some stories to tell, eh boy?” I said nothing. I remember my sword hand was shaking at this point, and I was clenching my teeth so hard together that I tasted my own blood. “Thought so,” Gramps nodded to himself sadly.
Marcus cleared his throat. “Would ye’ care ta’ give the squires a wee display of yer’ legendary skill with the blade, me Lordship?”
Gramps glanced at the man, looked him over and frowned. “Against who, you?” he asked incredulously, his tone earning him a room full of even darker glares and a smirk from Instructor Markus.
“Aye, I be the best swordsman in Camelot, me Lord,” he boasted with a flourishing attempt at a courtly bow. “Trained all the knights me-self.”
“Did you now?” Gramps asked as he clasped his hands behind his back much like was Sgt. Blake’s custom and fixed the man with a cold, calculating look and raised brow.
The two squared off in the sand of the center circle as we all circled about, me looking forward to watching Gramps get a good thrashing. Gramps’ sword was held loosely at his side, his other hand tucked into his belt at his back as he stood, head cocked to the side studying his opponent who was holding a much larger gleaming blade in an overhead in a double handed grip.
“Well, are you just standing there posing for a painter to whip up a portrait for your lover or do you plan to show these young folks how real Darklings fight anytime soon?” Gramps asked sardonically, the stinging question widening Instructor Marcus’ eyes and drawing his smile out into a grim, angry line that Gramps seemed to find quite amusing.
Right then I knew this fight wasn’t going to go well for poor Instructor Marcus, and I felt a stab of sadness at this. The big, fit man charged and swung a chop that could have beheaded an ox in one stroke and still half cut down the tree behind it.
We all stood there confusedly gasping and murmuring, staring unbelievingly as Gramps’ sword tip came steadily and inexplicably to rest at his throat. Marcus’ huge sword sat in the sand at his feet.
“Seems swordsmanship standards have fallen since my time.” Gramps tisked as he lowered his sword to his side and cocked his eyebrow. “Care to try again?” Instructor Marcus’ smoldering black eyes said it all, as he stooped down and retrieved his sword, keeping his eyes carefully on Gramps the whole time.
The man was far less cocky now and seemed determined to avenge his embarrassing disarming that had left him looking like a fool before his students. After briefly circling one another the two exchanged a lightning fast, sparking, ringing combination of swordplay that played out more like a dance than a deadly serious battle.
It again ended with Marcus’ sword thumping to the ground at his booted feet amid a puff of sand, Gramps’ sword’s razor edge raising carefully into the soft flesh beneath his chin as he was forced from his crouch to a proper stand.
“Better, much better. In a few more years if you keep at it you may rise to the skill of a third year back when Sir Lancelot tutored the Wolves Den,” Gramps commended mockingly as he again calmly lowered his blade, looking for all the world like he had just enjoyed a nice short walk to his mailbox on a fine summer afternoon. There were murmurs of shock and Natalie visibly flinched at the display, several of the other squires looking from her to Gramps uncomfortably, shifting their feet.
Many even fixed me with harsh hateful looks as Instructor Marcus breathed hard and stared in disbelief, his fists clenched impotently at his side. With a snort of derision Gramps kicked the sword out of the circle and violently sheathed his own before the instructor’s blade noisily clattered onto the stone floor.
He afforded the Wolves Den and Marcus a withering look then stalked out of the circle. Parting squires who all but dove to get out of his way, my stomach dropped as he grabbed me by the arm and all but dragged me out the room, Manx barking and charging after us.
“I knew this would bloody happen,” he roared to no one in particular as I all but ran to keep my feet as he dragged me down the hall. “Fools filling your ears with half-truths and all the lies my wicked son spoon fed them all these blasted years.”
“So, you didn’t call off the rescue on my parents?” I unwisely snapped at him between gasping breaths. He swung about and fixed me with a thunderous look as he very obviously struggled to reign in his temper.
“I did, and for good reason,” he hissed.
“But-”
“But nothing. My son murdered his own mother, and I wasn’t going to give him the chance to do it to the lot of you,” he answered after looking carefully about the long, door and torch lined hall for listeners.
“My boy is evil, Ben, pure evil—I’m sorry that you’ve suffered what you have, but I’m unapologetically grateful that you’ve not shared the cruel fate of my beautiful Gwenevere. She died in my arms she did, choking and drowning in her own blood from the poison he’d had slipped in her favorite wine.” Tears were in his eyes that he wiped at with his flannel sleeve and took a shuddering breath. It all made me feel dirty, foolish, and sad. “Nothing here is what it seems, Ben. You would do well to remember that.”
“I’m sorr-”he stopped my apology cold with a wave. Manx gave me an almost scolding look from his watery eyes as if he was saying “how dare you” as he licked at Gramps’ hand, trying to cheer him up and earning himself a scratch about the ears.
Dinner at the Rovers Rest was an uncomfortable affair where Gramps absolutely refused to talk to anyone, stabbing his buttered potatoes and cut at his rare steak like he was mentally murdering someone, and downed more ale and cheap whisky than I’d ever seen him drink in one sitting as Aunt Milly and Fazool stared from me to him with wide eyes. Wisely, they didn’t say a word to him.
Gramps thumped a few harpers on the table and stormed off before the rest of us had finished our salad, nearly barreling over the bagboy, a serving girl, and a burly bearded customer as he shouldered his way to the rooms, Manx at his heels. We stared off after him, then Aunt Milly fixed me with a baleful look that would have sent an Ogre scurrying whimpering back to its cave with its lumpy tail between its legs.
“What happened?” she snapped as I suddenly found my greens and its bitter dressing extremely interesting as I toyed with them with my fork. “Benjamin Earl Bright, you look at me this instant and explain yourself,” she all but shrieked, her eyes flashing and buggy behind the huge lenses of her glasses. Her screeched demand startling a poor serving girl so bad as she passed our table that she dropped the tray of drinks she had balanced over her shoulder with a shattering clatter and yelp.
My heart pounding and face flushed scarlet with embarrassment and guilt, I stutteringly told them everything, leaving nothing out.
“Oh, dear…” Fazool moaned as I finished my tale. Aunt Milly looked like she wanted to agree but instead downed her entire glass of wine in one gulp, poured herself another, downed it, then poured another and stood—storming off wordlessly to the rooms, glass in hand, leaving the empty bottle and us at the table.
“I really messed up, didn’t I?” I asked the little Halfling Witch who gave me a sympathetic look over the rim of his own glass, raising a tiny shiny ringed hand to order another bottle.
“It’s not your fault. Not really,” Fazool puffed out his ruddy cheeks and sighed as the serving girl rushed over to show him a bottle, which he approved with a smile that had her blushing as she worked at the cork with a took from her apron. She paused as he stopped her from pouring a glass.
“Let it breathe, love.” He smiled sweetly. She nodded, batted her eyes at him, and left giggling like a schoolgirl. Fazool shook his head as he watched her go with an appreciative chuckle.
“Much like this surprisingly fine French wine, some things need time to breathe when you open them up,” Fazool explained. “And this whole thing has done a fine job of opening up your poor grandfather. Though ‘gutted’ may be a more apt term for what this return to Camelot’s done to him,” he added thoughtfully as he took a forkful of salad and popped it into his mouth.
“Memories, particularly bad ones, can hurt worse than a blade—especially when they were never dealt with properly to begin with. When Gwenevere died, all of Feydom mourned,” he began in a soft, hushed tone. “More beautiful than a virgin snow sparkling like a thousand, thousand diamonds in the morning sun and kinder than the kiss of a summer breeze on a hot August afternoon she was. And the way she was taken from the world…” He shook his head sadly and picked up the wine, sniffed at it, and then filled his glass all the way to the brim.
“Artur went mad with grief, vowing to kill whoever had done this wretched thing as he plunged into an investigation that had him leave Camelot with Lancelot—his most trusted knight and closer to him than a brother—to investigate a lead that had been tortured out of a particularly nasty brigand.” He sipped his wine, then after a second thought gulped it down before continuing.
“Three times assassins tried to murder them. The last time costing Lancelot his life. Now his oldest friend gone, Artur mercilessly hunted and turned over every foul rock he could find until he dug up answers—at times at the tip of his sword. In the end he didn’t like the truth he discovered.” He poured himself another helping and sat in silence for a long moment until I almost thought that was all the Halfling had to say. I was wrong. “By then his treacherous son had usurped the throne and turned the whole of Camelot against Artur. He couldn’t return—not then with the whole of Camelot demanding his head on a pike.”
“What did Sir Becket tell them?” I asked.
“Nothing good,” Fazool sniggered. “He invented a sordid tale that Artur himself had murdered fair Gwenevere, and then led her supposed scandalous lover, handsome, brave Marcus Leander Lancelot, the Swords Master of the Realm, who was honestly more adored than Artur himself, out of Camelot where Artur allegedly murdered him too, with a knif
e to his back. The treacherous swine told a sad story of Artur being a cruel, abusive man that drove his wife into his own best friends’ arms, where the two supposedly fell in love like some kind of sordid, twisted fairytale.”
“Was it true? The affair I mean?” I asked.
Fazool arched a brow at me and chuckled sadly as he shook his head. “Of course not,” He assured. “The two, though separated by many years were deeply in love and fiercely faithful to one another. Besides, poor darling Lancelot had no interest in women outside of his own arranged and loveless marriage. As he had far, far, far more interest in men, and many of them,” he explained matter of factly. “A bit of information the population of Camelot well knew and perplexingly conveniently forgot.”
“How did he convince them then?” I demanded.
Fazool frowned, looking for all the world like someone had stuffed a hot chili in his mouth as he stared at his glass as if he could divine the best way to answer in its shining surface. “He produced the beaker the poison had been in that had allegedly been found by a cleaning lady. Stuffed behind Artur’s wardrobe wrapped in one of the monogramed handkerchiefs Gwenevere had gifted Artur on his birthday. Becket even had a Wizard verify the residue in the beaker was the poison that killed his mother before the whole city…I bet you can’t guess which Wizard, can you?”
I shook my head blankly.
“Eric Von Clampett. He was the one the murdering git got to prove Artur’s guilt,” Fazool answered, the words sending a chill down my spine and earning the halfling a few dark looks from other customers who sat or stood near our booth.
Fazool glared back at each of them until they turned away and went about their business before continuing. “I’m fairly sure he’s the one he got the poison from in the first place, but sadly we could never prove it. As soon as he got the chance your grandfather hunted the foul man down like a dog… Artur was the only man that evil Wizard ever feared, and for good reason. But somehow, likely his own son was behind it, Artur was robbed of his revenge, the Wizard was condemned by Council orders to the catacombs instead of to the hell he so richly deserved.”