by Liam Perrin
"He told me not to say." Thomas knew that wouldn't hold any water with his father, but now at least he could tell William he had tried to do his brotherly duty.
The cottage was dead silent. Mr. Farmer didn't move a muscle, but the temperature of the air around him went up a good five degrees.
"He-went-to-the-Baron-to-ask-him-to-open-the-store-houses-so-the-village-can-have-food," blurted Thomas. He cringed and shut his eyes tight.
Mr. Farmer said, "Pardon?"
Thomas opened his eyes and tried again, slower, "William said he was going to ask the Baron to open the storehouses so the village can stop starving to death."
Mr. Farmer raised his eyebrows, "Did he now?"
There was a thump behind them.
Grandma, who'd been snoring again, woke with a start. "Someone get the door!"
"There's no one at the door Grandma. Mum's just fainted."
§
Mr. Farmer had been proud at first. He'd revived Mrs. Farmer and reassured her William could handle himself. Mrs. Farmer would have none of it. She wanted Mr. Farmer to head straight up there and stop him. Mr. Farmer refused. "You've got to let them grow up sometime," he'd said.
"It's a horrible idea," said Mrs. Farmer, to which Mr. Farmer replied, "Nonsense, he'll be fine."
But time passed, and William didn't return.
When the sun set on the day after William's disappearance, Mr. Farmer stopped speaking. Mrs. Farmer pleaded with neighbors who expressed their condolences and politely declined to form a mob and storm the Baron's keep. While they all knew and loved William dearly, they preferred their heads attached to their necks, thank you very much. At dinner on the second day, there was a knock on the cottage door.
"Who's fainted now?" said a startled Grandma Farmer.
"No one's fainted," said Mrs. Farmer. "It's the door," she said, staring at it and wringing her hands.
Mr. Farmer set his jaw, strode resolutely to the door, and pulled it open.
It was a messenger from up the hill. He was dressed not unlike the guards that had accompanied the herald from Camelot, but the messenger's mail tunic was not nearly as polished, he lacked the steel cap, and the only color he wore was a kind of bib with the Baron's crest: a white crescent moon on a red field. His boots looked liked they'd been trying to fall apart for years, a process that had been forestalled by the addition of a buckle and strap at each potential breach.
"Mr. and Mrs. Farmer?" asked the messenger.
"Yes," they said.
"Parents and or Guardians of one, William Immanuel Farmer of," He paused, scanned the outside of the cottage and glanced up the lane. "...of this here cottage?" He was sweating.
"Yes," said Mrs. Farmer, and she choked back a sob.
"Your son has been imprisoned on the grounds of failure to comply. In the event of his execution, his effects shall be returned minus any charges due for services rendered relating to said internment. Good day."
As he turned to leave, Grandma Farmer shouted from inside the cottage, "Is that Wendsley Hunter I hear?"
Wendsley stopped. "Grandma Farmer?"
She appeared at the door and pushed a distraught Mrs. Farmer to the side. "Wendsley Cheston Hunter," she said and looked him up and down. "Look at you in the Baron's employ, all dressed up in his livery. I knew you'd turn out."
Wendsley blushed now and sweated even more. "Man's gotta put food on the table somehow, isn't that right?"
"Looks like the table isn't where you've been putting the food Wendsley." And then she poked him right in the belly just beneath where the mail tunic stopped.
Wendsley recoiled. This wasn't how an internment notice was supposed to go. "Now see here," he started.
"You see here," snapped Grandma brandishing her poking finger. "You take care of my boy William or I'll be talking to your nana next week at pots 'n kettles."
§
Alexander Shuttlecock's From Fidchell to 12 Man Morris, A Complete Reference of Pre-Modern Lawn and Table Games describes Pots and Kettles as an "odd activity involving, rather than symbolic markers, actual pots and real kettles. The problem with Pots and Kettles was that the participants usually played for keeps. Having lost their kitchen tools, the losers tended to die from the ingestion of undercooked meats while the winners were invariably accused of robbery and hung."
§
Wendsley recovered himself as best he could, nodded to Mr. and Mrs. Farmer, said "Good day" again and made off up the lane. He looked back twice. Each time Grandma Farmer poked in the air at him, and each time Wendsley picked up his pace until finally he was out of sight.
"When I was teaching that boy his letters I told his mum, 'This one could go either way.'" She shook her head and headed back to her chair. Mrs. Farmer huddled at the table sobbing. Elizabeth went and hugged her mum. Mr. Farmer stood in the open doorway, staring up the lane. He stood there for a long time.
"Winter's coming," he said, then stepped out, closed the door and headed to the wood pile to split some more logs.
Thomas stood in the middle of the cottage floor watching it all and feeling like he wasn't really there. He hoped it was all an awful dream. He hoped he'd wake up soon and life would be back to its normal, boring, uneventful self. It didn't happen. Instead, he went to bed later that evening and laid there feeling like the cottage had a big hole in it. Sometime before he was completely asleep, he realized that despite how frustrating it was to live in his brother's shadow, William had been his dream too.
§
"I really don't think this is a good idea, Mum."
"Nonsense, you'll be fine."
Thomas squinted through the window.
"What's Dad doing?"
"He's making a gift for you," said Mrs. Farmer as she stuffed hunks of stale bread into a satchel. She looked pale, and Thomas noticed her hands were shaking.
Mr. Farmer burst through the door holding up a squarish sort of flat thing made mostly of pine and held together with leather straps. He beamed at Thomas.
"What's that?"
"What's this? 'What's this?' he says. It's a shield, my boy. Wants to be a knight and doesn't even know the tools when he sees 'em."
Thomas took the shield from his father and turned it over. Sure enough, there was a strap on the inside for his arm so he could wear the thing. One of the pine branches was oozing sap.
"I tell you what, if we'd had gear like that at Bristlington there'd be a hundred men still alive to tell you you're looking at a fine piece of work. Fine piece of work, that is."
Mrs. Farmer handed Thomas the bag of bread and a tin of beans she'd packed. She tightened the straps on the pig leather jerkin they'd presented him with that morning, and Mr. Farmer showed him how to sling the shield over his shoulder for travel.
"I've got one more, hold on." Mr. Farmer went back outside. Shortly, they could hear grinding noises. It sounded as if something metal was being tortured.
Thomas looked at his mother. She smiled and wrung her hands. She still looked pale. Thomas stayed rooted to his spot, afraid of what Mr. Farmer was going to come through the door with next.
The grinding noises stopped abruptly and in came Mr. Farmer with the bottom half of a small kettle.
"Dad."
"Your helmet!"
"Dad," Thomas sighed. "It's a kettle."
Grandma Farmer hollered from her chair near the fire, "You aren't messing with my pots, are ya?"
"No ma'am!" Mr. Farmer hollered back, then put his finger to his lips and looked Thomas in the eye. He put the kettle on Thomas's head, closed one eye, then rotated the kettle a quarter-turn and said, "There."
He looked proud.
"Dad."
"Shhhh."
Mr. Farmer pushed Thomas out the door. Mrs. Farmer and Elizabeth followed.
"So," said Thomas, "suddenly this is a good idea? Me going to Camelot?"
"It was always a good idea," said Mr. Farmer. "It just hadn't found its feet yet."
Thomas pushed the kettle back u
p on his forehead where it had slipped down.
"What about a sword? Don't knights have swords?"
"Well you're not a knight, are ya? These things are for protection. You're not getting in any fights, and if you do get in one your job is to get out of it."
"Dad, there's going to be a lot of kids there going for knighthood and–"
"Exactly. A lot of dumb kids. You're going to appeal to Arthur for your brother. No more, no less. Got it?"
Thomas was not looking forward to this at all.
"Got it," he said.
Elizabeth threw herself at Thomas and hugged his leg fiercely.
"Don't worry, 'Lizbeth. I'll be back soon." Thomas had no idea if it was true, but felt like it was one of those things you're supposed to say.
She looked at him with teary eyes and said nothing.
Mrs. Farmer pulled her away, and Mr. Farmer walked Thomas a few paces away.
"Right then, keep yer chin up, don't take any guff and don't give none neither. You'll be fine."
Mr. Farmer said it like he was trying to convince himself. He patted Thomas awkwardly on his back.
Thomas spotted William's walking stick leaning against the cottage. He picked it up and started down the lane.
"You'll be fine!" yelled his mother.
"Depends on what you mean by 'fine' I guess," said Thomas to himself and followed the lane into the forest.
CHAPTER IV
A Misplaced Stone
In the forest between Camelot and Thomas's home in Fogbottom, there's a spot where the road crosses a stream via a tiny bridge. It's barely wide enough for a cart's wheels, and a man could cross it in three long steps. A horse could leap it easily. A stream burbles below it, tumbling smaller rocks on a long, slow journey from mountaintop to ocean. Larger rocks make their way too, but require more forceful persuasion provided by the occasional spring flood and summer thundershower. But Thomas came here in autumn, and autumn is normally a different story. By then most folk, including Mother Nature, have settled down and things will tend to stay put for a bit. In autumn, a person can get a handle on how things lie before the world goes and gets itself all shaken up again.
In the water, just past the bridge on the downstream side, there's a particularly stubborn stone. The small rocks, the ones that tumble easily and occasionally appear even to float, might take a generation or two to move along their course. The larger, most reluctant rocks measure their trip in miles per century. No one knows exactly how long this particular stone has been sitting there, but all of the rocks further downstream, big and small, can tell you stories about the time they passed that stone. Most of the stories are not terribly exciting; they are rocks after all, and I wouldn't recommend trying to interview them all for the one or two tales that are worth hearing. A person could go crazy talking to rocks like that.
In any case, our stone didn't come from the mountaintop like most of its neighbors. In fact, it came from the same place as the other stones that were placed to make the bridge, as is evident by its color, shape and texture – a rough, gray, cube-ish sort compared to the stream's smooth, brown, rounded lot. There's also a rather conspicuous gap on top of the bridge's downstream wall which could lead one to believe the stone was somehow knocked loose, perhaps in a struggle or by a bored miscreant, and that it fell and landed at or close to its current position. These are all plausible theories that are nevertheless incorrect. This stone was left here on purpose. Nature has managed to budge it twice in its lifetime.
Further downstream, there's a fishing village. There's not much to say about the village, it's the kind of village you barely notice and soon forget if you're the sort of person who travels in order to get somewhere specific. One morning, a child in the village woke up early and was standing on the beach staring rapt at a bright red sky when he noticed three shapes on the horizon. They were Viking ships, and they were headed his way. The child yelled a warning, then knelt on the very spot he'd been standing and began to pray. As the morning aged, the villagers prepared to flee, but the child could not be persuaded to move. Finally, his father came and picked him up to carry him away. By now, the ships were all in a line just beneath where our stream empties into the sea via a small waterfall. At the moment the child's knees left the sand, a great wall of water, rock and debris flooded over the fall, smashed the ships, and drowned the Viking raiders to the last man. Back at the bridge, the misplaced stone flipped over once, onto its side.
As you can imagine, the flood was quite disruptive in regards to the forest creatures that made their living along the stream. Many went missing that day, including the only son of a royal toad family. Years passed, then one day a wise and learned toad, who'd spent many hours talking to rocks, came to the King and Queen and told them of the once-rolled stone near the man-bridge. On the spot, the King ordered a construction crew to assemble at the stone and heave it over. The toads flipped the stone from its side to its bottom, its second and final budging, and out popped the Prince of Toads none the worse for wear. He explained he'd been surveying the area as a site for his future court, and that it had really been quite comfortable swaddled in mud down there under the stone though dreadfully boring. He then requested some breakfast, which was brought to him immediately. The wise, old toad revealed that the whole affair had saved the Prince's life by protecting him from the machinations of his evil half-brother who wanted the crown for himself, and had died just the week before by choking on a dragonfly. The Prince became a great king in his time, and ruled justly and mercifully from his court on the stone.
As it turns out, something special had happened on the day the bridge was completed: An event inspired the wife of the bridge-builder to prophesy about the misplaced stone. As the builder was dropping the last stone, our stone, into place on top of the downstream wall, a black knight came upon him. "If you're finished with your labor, good sir, take arms and fight me for the glory of your Lady," he said, pointing at the builder's wife. The builder swallowed, wiped his hands on his shirt and looked at his wife, who clasped her hands to her mouth and shook her head in fear. A short grinding sound issued followed by a splash. They all turned to see a gap in the downstream wall of the bridge and a stone resting, upside down in the water below. "Um, I'm not quite finished yet, good knight, sir. If you could wait a moment?"
"I'm afraid I have an appointment. I beg your forgiveness good builder. I must retract my offer. And my apologies to you dear lady for I cannot afford your man the opportunity to heap glory upon you today. Sometimes these things just don't work out. Timing is everything you know, we're all very busy these days." And off he rode.
The builder and his wife sighed relief, and the builder made to fetch the misplaced stone. The wife rushed to stop him and made a great to-do about it. She went on and on about the stone, how it had saved the builder's life, how it was clearly a stone of stones and obviously enchanted. She said no one could touch the stone until "an innocent and one who would be king" had moved it. And there the stone would lie.
So you see, by the time Thomas came to the spot in the forest between his home and Camelot, where the road crosses a stream via a tiny bridge sporting a conspicuous gap on top of its downstream wall, the misplaced stone had already been emptied of most of its magic. But most is not all, and as the black knight would say, timing is everything.
CHAPTER V
The Silver Wolf
Thomas plodded along. He'd been traveling all day, and as the sun was setting and a full moon rising, he was still of the opinion that – well he wasn't quite sure what to think. He'd dreamt his whole life of one day being a knight and slaying dragons and rescuing princesses, and now it seemed like he could reach out and make that dream real, if only. If only William hadn't gone up that road to the Baron's keep. If only his parents would look at him for once instead of William. If only someone would believe in him. Of course now that William was in trouble, "Off you go, Thomas!"
Things had gotten very complicated very quickly. His kett
le slipped down on his forehead and it set him fuming all over again. His shield was heavy and awkward and already starting to fall apart. In frustration, he took a swing at a sapling with William's walking stick and nearly tripped trying to keep the shield and helmet in place. He looked like someone pretending to be a knight, which was bad. He figured pretending to be something he actually wanted to be was just asking for it.
Thomas, son of a landless farmer, without a drop of royal blood in him, did not look forward to appearing at Arthur's court, dressed in pig skin and a few pieces of make-believe, the family fortune such as it was, and asking–
"You're not a knight," His father's voice echoed in his head. "You're going to appeal to Arthur for your brother. No more, no less. Got it?"
If only William hadn't gone up that road, Thomas thought, and he found himself right back in a big stewing pot of what-ifs.
Lost in aggravation, he found himself at a small stream. He slipped down beside the bridge that crossed it and used his makeshift helmet as a makeshift drinking vessel. As he drank, a stone in the stream caught his eye. It looked like it didn't belong: It was more like the stones that made up the bridge, and there was a conspicuous gap on the bridge's wall. Thomas picked up the stone and carried it to the bridge, slotting it into the gap where it fit perfectly.
Something came flying out of the woods onto the bridge and hammered into Thomas who had turned after dropping the stone in place just in time to be standing directly in the thing's path. There was fur, and a yelp, and a great tumble that carried both Thomas and the thing off the other end of the bridge and left them both sprawled in the road. Thomas laid still on his back for a moment, stunned, then rolled and propped himself up on one knee. He found himself eye-to-eye with a magnificent silver wolf.
The wolf was panting hard, and its left front leg was bleeding steadily from an odd, sawtooth-shaped wound. Despite its thick coat, Thomas could tell the beast was well muscled, wound tight and ready to spring. In the moonlight, its fur almost glowed, but the eyes were what caught Thomas's attention. There was more than beastly instinct behind those pale gray discs. He could read them as if they were a man's. Thomas shifted, slowly, trying to appear non-threatening but positioned to defend himself. He had no intention of harming such a proud animal if it could be avoided, and he wasn't sure how the match would turn out if it were forced.