by S E Zbasnik
With eyes screwed up tight, Hayley walked as if her knees couldn’t bend towards Gavin’s bedroom door. Just before she raised her fist, she heard a gasp inside. It was androgynous but sounded as if born in pleasure instead of pain. She winced deep, thinking of Finn, then shook it all away. There was business.
Her knuckles banged thrice upon the door and she shouted out, “Ser.”
It took a moment, the ruckus of blankets and a creaking mattress silencing itself. “What is it, Squire?” Gavin’s voice finally came out.
“There is a message for you,” Hayley tried to sound as professional as possible, which she managed by pretending she was Larissa with a stick shoved up her ass.
“Place it on the table by my chair. I shall read it later.”
“No,” Hayley shook her head, then winced, “Ser. The messenger says he can only deliver it to you.”
Silence reigned in the house, Hayley holding her breath for fear she was about to be cursed out. She did interrupt a…very private matter. He’d probably be in the right to be as mad as Finn. Madder really. When the door opened before her, Hayley stumbled back fast, her eyes full of Gavin’s chest. He had a shirt on, and trousers, though the latter weren’t properly knotted and the shirt was bunched at the back.
“Where is he?” Gavin asked.
Hayley scampered towards the front door and waved the messenger inside. Just as she guided Devon to her knight, she looked out for but a brief second into the courtyard. Grey eyes that screamed of betrayal watched from across the way, Finn’s hand massaging the gut she kicked. God, she was dead.
Trying to not fall to the floor in crumbling fear, Hayley turned to watch Devon present the scroll into Gavin’s fingers. The knight wasted no time in slitting off the seal, his eyes hunting through it. Rather than wait for the messenger to bugger on out, Gavin read, “This is from the Knight-Commander himself.”
His breath that’d been harried after whatever went on in his bedroom suddenly snapped deathly cold. “The southern border has been breached,” Gavin said. “Ser Frederick was taken along with the other knights stationed there.”
Shit.
Her knight’s amber eyes burned right into Hayley’s as he said, “We ride to try and free them.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Parapets pierced the clouds, sunlight reverberating from the great roofs clear down to the choppy waves below. Hayley clung tighter to the reins in both her hands as she stared ever skyward at the castle the enemy stole back from them. Perched on the edge of a cliff, nearly all sides ended in someone falling to a rocky and murky death. There was one way up, a road that was the end of whatever one they started on.
It wasn’t to the castle Gavin guided her but the camp below. He’d been grim on the trip, over a week’s ride with barely little stopping. In truth, Hayley was glad. Glad to not have to talk, glad to not have to think, and glad to not have to spend any time around Finn. Her fear shriveled into anger, Hayley already plotting what she’d do if he tried to turn her in.
This far away, there was no chance Finn could do anything to hurt her. Not even hunters would draw close to so many knights on edge.
Night and day didn’t even begin to offer a comparison between this camp and the one she first visited. While the prior one was full of drunken boasts, half-naked soldiers rushing at each other, and a stable of passionate men and women to kiss the aches away, here was only despair. None spoke a word of it, but their eyes were drowned in it.
Hands silently slicked whetstones down swords, sparks scattering into the wet grass below. Legs pumped bellows, trying to raise just a modicum of warmth on this chilly lakeside. And the heads all did their best to not look up at the castle. But they couldn’t turn away either, the edge of their eyes forever darting too and fro as if they feared turning away would cause it all to vanish.
Through that, Gavin clicked Gringolet while Hayley clung to the back of Copper and prayed she could finally get off the horse. They’d had to travel fast and she couldn’t offer up any excuses to avoid it. Even gritting her teeth through the never-ending ride, she practically sprang out of the saddle once they stopped before a familiar face.
“Erin,” Gavin gasped, dashing forward to the woman. They clasped hands and shook, eyes meeting in a shared fear, when Ser Calvin stumbled up from behind a tent. “And Calvin, it is good to see you.”
Cal snorted, “Right mess they pulled us all into.”
“Is it true?” Gavin focused on Erin, the only voice of reason left.
Her weary head dipped down and she nodded. “Aye, best as we can figure they came under cover of darkness. Swept through the castle and…those who were not killed outright were imprisoned.”
Cal jabbed his elbow towards Gavin, “All that work you put in, and not even a year later the buggers stole it back.”
Eyes closing silently, Gavin’s plump lips worked through a prayer. While it had to chafe that others couldn’t keep his work secure, Hayley knew that what drove them to take fourteen-hour rides across country was the fate of the knights in chains. “What of Frederick?” he asked Erin, who gently shrugged.
“We’re not certain,” she said. “Though…” her head pivoted as she stared up the winding hillside road towards the castle gates, “his body is not on display.”
Display? Hayley tried to ease around the giant adults to see. It was little more than a speck in the distance. Tacked to the stones something like a worn out old flag danced off the walls.
No, wait. That was livery, tattered and torn while it dangled from the bodies they…the monsters inside nailed up to posts just outside their ill-gotten castle. Bastards!
Her blood ran hot fast, but when she looked towards her knight expecting the same he was busy with his head bent in prayer. “Do we know how many were lost?”
“Not a god damn clue,” Calvin spat out. “We shouldn’t have lost any.”
“Knight-Lieutenant…” Erin began, but the man stomped his foot.
“Don’t go getting all cute there, Cap. You know as well as I do it was suicide to yank so many of us off it. Our Commander’s gone screwy in the head, anyone in the field can see.” Cal snorted, then glanced from Erin to Gavin, “Course you two ain’t in the field, are ya.”
Erin leaned tight into Calvin’s face, her glare capable of combusting entire silos, but the man seemed unaffected, “Do you dare, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, I dare. I dare wonder why the fat hog is…”
“Enough!” Gavin got between them, raw anger snapping off him. He’d been pulled from his cozy house, pulled away from the mystery woman, and spent the past week worrying himself deeper into his shoulders. Hayley was surprised it took him this long to break.
“We fight with the army we have,” he said at Erin who snarled. “And we follow the Commander we have.” From that, Calvin rolled his eyes wide but crossed his muscled arms tight. “This is not the time, not while our brothers and sisters are in danger.”
“Aye,” Erin tipped her head in acceptance, “he’s right. Still…” She twisted her head to gaze up at the castle, black smoke gushing from the chimneys. What was going on in there? “I pray our leaders find a solution quickly.”
Calvin snorted, “First time I’ve ever agreed with you, Cap.”
The black smoke curled high into the air, plumes warping with the lake breeze until small sections mingled with the clouds. Where the pair crossed, white pits formed in the inky sky. Hayley blinked and a skull arose from within the black smoke. The specter hung over them, death’s skeletal hand stretching over them all.
Gavin patted a hand to Hayley’s shoulder, shattering the illusion. When she blinked, the skull and fingers of the grim reaper were gone. All she saw was a castle with the surf pounding up its side. “We should pitch our tent, Squire. There will be much to prepare for soon.”
It didn’t take them long to find a spot. In fact, it almost seemed as if someone left space for Gavin to set up. He helped to tug the poles down and slot into place, but
the Knight-Captain pulled him away for a meeting, leaving Hayley all alone to figure it out. The first two stakes went in okay. With the third, she must have hit a tree root or a rock. Damn stake’s end bent in half. Cursing under her breath and trying to imagine it was Finn’s neck, she pulled the iron nail until it was straight.
Shit. Why did she care? Not about the tent, that was a given. Finn. She said she didn’t want to do it, and he got all…how he always was. Acts as if he knows what’s best for everyone, just cause he has a few years on her. Just cause he’s been a stableboy since he was ten, just cause he…he’s a he! Last thing she needed, last thing she even wanted to think about was that falling ill with child — or however Gavin put it.
Last thing she wanted was…to hit Finn like she did. He got on her nerves, but she liked him sometimes too. When he would listen to her, talk with her. Be god damn nice for a few minutes and shake off that bastard persona.
Gah! Hayley slammed the hammer down hard on the nail, nearly embedding the entire thing into the ground. Why did this shit have to be so complicated?!
“Ha…hi!” a trembling voice called from behind. “Hayley?”
She wiped at her forehead and glanced over her shoulder, then up and up more. His face was silhouetted by the sun, but she knew that shaking voice anywhere. “Hi, Marco,” Hayley said while running the last line for the tent down to the nail and tying it off.
The boy stood near her, his hands clasped together in front of himself as if he feared to touch anything. After twanging the rope to make certain it was tight enough, she finally dusted off her hands and turned to him. “How’s your foot doing?”
“Good! I mean, the…the medicine worked a treat. Cleared it right up the way the…the l-l-lady said it would.” He danced back and forth on his massive legs as if the last thing he wanted to talk about was some weird fungus he found on his big toenail. His fault for mentioning it in the last letter.
“How are you? Aside from…well,” he gasped and extended his hand wide, “this mess. It’s a disaster.”
Hayley wrenched her hand into the nape of her neck. “No kidding. Everyone looks like they’re about to rip each other’s faces off.”
At that thought, Marco’s eyes shot open wide and he whipped his meaty head from one side to the other, staring in fear at the knights who were shuffling about in contemplation. Quite a few were praying openly, which Hayley just realized she never saw at the last would-be battle site.
In twisting his head, Marco finally stepped out of the shadow of the sun and closer. Hayley smiled wide as she drew a finger over her upper lip. “Did you grow a mustache?”
“This?” he slapped his entire hand over his mouth, hiding away not only the smidgeon of hair but his thin lips as well. “I-I guess? I hadn’t n-n-noticed it. Do you, um, like it?” The bushes he had for eyebrows raised expectantly and Hayley nodded.
“Sure, it makes you look grown. More grown than your height already manages.”
The squire, whose form looked as if it could walk through a brick wall, smiled so purely Hayley thought of a teeny kitten curled up in the palm of her hand. It threw her back to find a tenderness in him, physically anyway. His letters were surprisingly detailed, the subject matter amounting to everything he did that day. It was as if he’d bundle up his itinerary and mail it off to Hayley to read. Marco, like Larissa, really wanted to be a knight and gave it his all. But every once in a while one of his questions put to her in written form was of the more “Do you think clouds taste like clotted cream?” variety. It was kinda sweet to think of, cute even.
Shaking her head, Hayley tried to blot that thought away fast. Her brain was a chewed up mess because of Finn. Marco was a fellow squire, a peer — the only peer willing to give her the time of day. She did as Gavin commanded and wrote letters to the other squires in her “class.” None of them responded. Though she was glad Larissa didn’t send anything back. If she had, it’d probably have been a live badger wrapped inside a box.
“You!” Marco suddenly shouted, a finger jabbed straight at Hayley. She spun back to make certain there wasn’t another of her wandering about, then faced him in confusion. “You just arrived. Must be hungry. There’s a…a table for-for the lost squires. Food there.” To emphasize his point, Marco rubbed his stomach vigorously as if Hayley had no idea what food was.
She gave another twang to the standing tent, pleased it didn’t fall down. Her knight was off somewhere, so… Shrugging, she said, “Sure. Eating would be good.”
Marco gasped like a surprised squirrel and scattered off to lead Hayley towards the “lost squires.” The kitchen area of their encampment was established close to a small pond, giving them easy fresh water to boil up a pile of chicken bones. Hayley’s nose demanded she rush over to the bubbling stock and shove her entire head in, but her brain kept her in place.
A handful of tables were scattered around the area and a canvas tarp turned roof provided some sections with shade. Perched under one scrap were a few squires, though not any Hayley recognized. Their heads were all bowed towards the tin plates holding blackened bread as if in contemplation, but their fingers kept flicking a pine cone across the table. Boredom oozed through the small clearing, only those working near the fire and the pots seeming to find a break in the monotonous waiting.
“I’ll…I can get food,” Marco called, his long gait rushing him towards a stand of mugs by the cask. Hayley’s stomach rolled at the thought of her taking in knight rotgut without anything else in there, but the boy turned towards a mass of boiled vegetables. After so long in the pot they were all the same lumpy grey color, as appetizing as scraps dug from the garbage, but post a week’s travel on the road and having to scrounge, scraps sounded tempting.
Hayley moved to step closer and fish up her own plate, but Marco’s wide frame claimed the entire space. He seemed to be on a mission from the Lady herself how he worked quickly to snatch up all he could. “Can I ask you something?” Hayley began.
He froze in an instant, his wide jaw bouncing off his shoulder as he turned to look at her. “Sure. If you want.”
“Do you know what’s really going on here? Last time we all stood around getting burnt by the sun and camped before the castle gates while doing nothing and having nothing happen. Now we’re a good half mile away and glaring at the walls.” Covered in the bodies of dead knights. She shuddered, her brain picturing the pecked apart bones lashed upright. Despite being unable to see anything, Hayley’s brain was really good at adding lots of dripping viscera to the image and ropes sunken so tight the bones overlapped them.
“Your knight did not say?” Marco suddenly turned diplomatic as he passed the plate to Hayley.
Even though he didn’t serve himself yet, her vengeful hunger took control. Swiping a hand over the boiled parsnip, Hayley jammed the vegetable into her mouth and bit down. It tasted like bitter water sucked up from a pallid stream, but it was food.
“He told me ‘bout the kidnapping,” Hayley jabbered with parsnip juices dribbling down her chin, “but not the why. Let me guess, there’s some dark lord forming in the south and only an alliance of nations will stop him from destroying the world.”
Marco chuckled. “You’ve read that book too?”
Had she? Hayley tried to think over the various sentences and paragraphs Gavin put in front of her. Most of them were about God, or being good, sometimes how God thought you should be good. Lots and lots about how stealing was wrong, ‘cause her knight was as subtle as a broken lance to the face. Maybe he snuck that dark lord one in there too.
“I don’t like those tales much,” Marco muttered as if talking to himself. He gnawed on a beet, red juice spraying like arterial blood over the plate. Way to be morbid there, Hayley.
“What do you like?” Hayley asked, trying to distract herself from thoughts of blood, and viscera, and disemboweling.
Marco’s eyes shot open wide, his jaw freezing in the middle of a chew. “I-I-I,” he chattered with the last bolus of beet cram
med in his mouth. Swallowing it down before the big fool choked, he said, “I like the animal ones.”
“Like fluffy bunnies, and lowing cattle, and sheep frolicking around in fields?” Hayley asked, trying to not laugh at him. It was…funny. To think of the gentle giant reading the stories meant for ten-year-old girls.
Ten-year-old girls who weren’t sold off to a slave merchant, anyway.
Her dour turn distracted Hayley from first noticing a great blush rising up Marco’s cheeks. His usually yellow complexion looked like it was on fire, the huge boy shuffling back and forth as if he sat on a tent pole. “It’s…I…”
“Cute?” Hayley shrugged, causing Marco to whip his head up and give her a mile long stare. “Baby animals are cute, I mean. Except geese. God turn his fiery gaze upon geese.” Her sudden hatred of geese brought a smile to Marco’s face, easing whatever weird tension warped between them. She wanted to smile, to take a load off at one of the tables with the other squires.
Too bad the saints in the sky had other plans.
“That’s not what turning God’s gaze means. Do you know nothing of the word?” That grating I-Know-Everything voice scratched over Hayley’s psyche like a rabid alley cat. She didn’t look for it, knowing there’d be a flash of red and them boom…there was her personal demon come to torment her.
“Let me guess, Larissa, you’re also a nun in your spare time.”
The girl snorted loudly, her hands wrapped around a…a paddle? Hayley fully spun in surprise at, yes, a laundry paddle in her arms. Knowing Larissa, she was probably whacking all the other girls and boys who didn’t measure up to her standards.
“One does not need more than a passing knowledge of scripture to spot the fallacy in your curse. Though, I can’t blame you. Not as if a holy church would want hayseeds blowing in through their doors.”