Squire Hayseed

by S E Zbasnik

  Somewhere in there was Gavin, probably at the front come to think of it. And if he fell, if he… Not the thoughts to be having, Hayley. He’ll come back. He managed all those other times without her around. Why would now be any different?

  Nodding her chin, Hayley began to ease back as the line of knights vanished into the distance and darkness. Even with her eyes betraying her, she couldn’t escape the sounds of oncoming battle. A loud bash of something striking wood hard reverberated clear down the hillside. Mixed in were a few cries of pain, but even more feral screams of war. When the front door of the castle shattered, the noise cracking apart the night air, Hayley turned towards the lost squires while her knight raced to his duty.

  There were a handful of first-years wandering around near the food, though most were trying to roll up linen for bandages. Larissa sat away from them all, her lips nearly chalk white from how hard she concentrated on nothing.

  “Has it started?” Abed asked, head lifting high. He seemed to be asking directly at Hayley who blanched.

  “Uh,” she didn’t understand how he couldn’t hear the cries in the night, “yeah. Just broke through.”

  “Of course.” The boy shrunk deeper into himself, his wary eyes darting to the others piled beside. On top of the too-young squires, the rest of the non-combatants remained behind. Cooks, healers, a smith with a beard and no mustache. It put Hayley in mind of a poor bear suffering from mange, but he seemed to think it was striking. All of them were doing their best to watch the chaos unfold while also pretend it wasn’t happening.

  They could do nothing to help, so they had to wait until daybreak or the fight was called and they were called to mop up the spilled blood. Hayley shivered at the thought of livers and lungs ground apart by shoes and embedded into the sole.

  “Are you cold?” a voice rumbled from high above her. She craned her head up and shook it hard.

  “Nah, I’m…” Hayley froze as she realized she was rubbing her arms. “I’m fine.” Marco seemed to accept it, though she wondered how exactly he’d have helped her stop being cold if she was. Giving her his coat of mail would make her look pretty stupid and not solve the problem.

  “Um,” Hayley danced closer to the people all huddled tight to their work, “do you want any help?”

  “We have this well in hand,” Larissa snarled, her fingers quickly sliding two pins into place around a roll of linen. “All you can do is muck it up, anyway.”

  “Ya know,” Hayley slid in tighter to the girl who kept herself walled away from the others. With a dramatic plop, she landed on the bench with one leg under the table, the other free should she need to run. “I don’t get how all of your knights got captured and you squires didn’t.”

  Tools clattered from fingers, the farther boys darting their heads about while Larissa shrunk deeper into her neckline. Hayley smiled wider. “Ah, I see. You were being…naughty.”

  Larissa shuddered. “Every word from your mouth smells of sewage by summer’s day.”

  That didn’t put Hayley off who rolled her shoulders and tipped her head. “Come on. Out with it. Little Miss Perfect here wasn’t being so proper after all. You were, what? Sneaking out? You can tell me; we’re all squires here.”

  Slamming her hand on the table, Larissa whipped her face right into Hayley’s. The two glared murder at each other, with Larissa drawing her hooked thumb across her neck. Hayley laughed the toothless threat off. If this didn’t go well, Larissa had nowhere to go and no way to hurt Hayley again.

  “I take it that’s a yes,” Hayley continued to gloat, enjoying her rare perch upon the top rock.

  Larissa’s venomous eyes darted to the other boys, no doubt the ones she was having some fun with, but they wouldn’t look over at her. They all hung their pink-tinged faces low, unwilling to speak. “You find this humorous,” she snarled.

  “No, I find it hilarious.” Hayley barely held back her giggles. “Bet you had everyone fooled, ‘specially Frederick. Bet he thought you were always in bed before sundown reciting your prayers or some shit. And the minute his back is turned, when he needs you, you’re off…” she tried to wave at the boys, but her brain ran out of ideas, “doing things.”

  “You know nothing, Hayseed,” Larissa hissed.

  “I know you messed up.”

  Larissa’s fingernails scraped over the table, causing Hayley’s face to pucker, before the girl shouted, “You know nothing! Nothing of what it is to-to…begone already! Why won’t you climb back into your rat infested hole and die? Why am I cursed to suffer you?” She finished by burying her face in her palms.

  “You? You think you’re cursed?” Hayley laughed hard at that preposterous thought.

  Slowly, Larissa tugged down her fingers and stared long at Hayley. “You steal away the strongest knight in the batch. Not by showing any skill or talents, just by existing. You needle and whine before your betters, still ceasing to prove you’ve learned anything in how to tend for those put in your care. You treat this opportunity as if it is a punishment. And now, when everything I have worked hard for, everything I have wanted in life, is hanging upon a thread you belittle and mock me!”

  Her voice shrieked a shrill cry at the end, throwing Hayley back in surprise. Tears lifted up in Larissa’s hissing greens, some of them streaking down her pale cheeks as she focused fully upon the bandages. A pit opened in Hayley’s stomach and she shifted in place. Her head dug deeper into her shoulders as she felt… That couldn’t be shame.

  Larissa deserved it. Deserved it for every snide remark, every toss of her perfect hair, every god damn time she had to raise herself higher than Hayley just to shore up her self-esteem. How was Hayley the bad person for doing it right back to her? She was being just as awful! More or less.

  Twisting away, Hayley stumbled to her wobbly legs and stomped off. She wanted to sulk alone, but the shadow trailed her. Marco didn’t say anything, but he remained close as if he took his knight’s orders seriously. Of course, he did. All of the squires were ‘Yes, Ser. No, Ser.’ If you tell me to jump, I’m already sky high before you get the p out. She was…

  “Are you worried?” Marco’s voice rumbled from above her.

  Hayley flinched. She trailed his vision up to the castle walls. What had once been dark grays and blacks was now punctured by bursts of orange and red. Fires raged in various sections of the parapets while the clang of metal and cries pierced the night. She hadn’t been thinking of those trapped in battle at all, just herself. Because she’s a terrible person. Everyone knew it. Everyone with sense, anyway.

  “They know what they’re doing,” Hayley said instead as if she had to reassure Marco.

  He bobbed his head, but blinked and towered even higher into the clouds. How did he not get light headed being so tall up there? Hayley’s neck sometimes throbbed just by her trying to look him in the eye.

  “I’m worried,” he whispered.

  “The commander was going to send reinforcements on a boat, least that’s they said would happen. They have it all under control.” Her words were bedrock, but her eyes kept darting over to the lost squires picking at medicinal herbs. Some were chewing the bitter healing roots to make a paste, the camp low on mortal and pestles. That could be her if Gavin fell tonight.

  No. If he did fall, they wouldn’t even have time to find Hayley after burying the dead. She’d be gone because there was nothing in this life keeping her here without him.

  A huge forehead and pointy red hair flashed through her mind and Hayley frowned deeper. She hated Finn. Hated that he knew shit she shouldn’t have told him. Hated that he caused her to put on four shirts before they left and she still felt dirty. Hated that he…he made her cry. Boys who make people cry were terrible.

  You made Larissa cry.

  Shut up, that’s different. Cause she’s…she deserved to—.

  Hayley cupped her hands tighter to her shoulders, trying to wick away the shame in her soul. Larissa had a lot of things coming, no doubt about that, but rig
ht now with so many knights putting their lives on the line, Hayley should have shut her stupid mouth. When Gavin yanked Frederick from the dungeons and they all had a celebratory drink, then Hayley could pile all the shit on Larissa for it. Her only problem was timing.

  “You, um…” Marco mumbled something, his meaty hands bashing into each other. They were so huge it looked like one could palm her head. “There was something that I…I mean, talking to you isn’t…uh.”

  “Isn’t what?” Hayley turned to him, her eyes skipping over the dusty road below their feet before she craned her neck back.

  Even by the barely-there starlight, Marco’s entire face was beet red. He looked like he ate all of Ania’s pepper jelly, sweat beading upon his normal sized forehead. “You’re, and I’m not. I tried to write, but…”

  “Is this about the letters?”

  “Yes!” Marco shouted before he folded inward. “No. Sort of. Things put in the letters. Not in the letters. I’m better with…”

  She waited, trying to not bash her toe into the ground too loudly as he composed himself, when Hayley’s wandering eyes took in a plume of dust rising from the road. Oh god, what now? Glancing her hand over Marco’s forearm, she said, “Hold that thought.”

  “Uh, okay…” he whispered, swinging to follow as Hayley began to run towards the road.

  “What are you…?” The others turned from the girl who lifted a torch through the night sky to the silhouette she was following. “That’s a rider!”

  Pounding up the road, the dust trailed someone perched upon horseback — both of them galloping as fast as possible towards the camp. Was it an attack? Did the southern lands try to invade them from the rear?

  Hayley whipped her eyes towards the other squires, who were all standing in formation before the camp as if they’d have to defend it with their bare hands. At least she had fire. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it’d do in a pinch. Squaring her shoulders, her eyes trying to pierce the darkness beyond the red flames, she watched as the rider and dust cloud drew closer.

  Her body rocked with the tempo of hooves, leg muscles seizing up in time. Beside her, two of the squires drew their swords, the metal striking against their scabbards as they glimmered in the firelight. They were ready.

  “Hold!” a man’s voice called from the horse. The squires didn’t shift, just narrowed their eyes and waited. If it was a trick of the enemy that was exactly what they’d say.

  Just before plowing through them, the rider yanked back on his horse’s reins. Saliva and snot shot from the horse’s great snout, a blob landing on Hayley’s forehead. She tried to not shiver at the thought of it drying to her flesh, but her body was locked in such a state of readiness nothing more than a single tremor got through.

  “Who goes there?” Abed asked.

  “Look at his banner!” Larissa shouted, her finger pointing towards the saddle blanket, “He’s a messenger of the Commander!”

  The squire’s weapons dropped, their ready muscles melting as the superior yanked free a missive from his bundle. “Take me to the Council,” he ordered.

  “Why?”

  Sneering at the children impeding him, the messenger tried to bully past when he glanced up from the city of tents to the castle above. In a dead voice, he said, “The Commander has ordered them to not attack. They are to stand down immediately.”

  “What?” Hayley shot towards him, wanting to rip the message out of his hands and read it herself. The man held it tightly over their heads. “What are you talking about? He was sending reinforcements, in a boat.”

  “No,” the messenger slowly shook his head, “no one is coming.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “What do you mean no one’s coming?”

  “Exactly as I said…”

  “How can no one be coming?”

  “There are no…”

  “Someone has to be coming!”

  Shit. All the air inside of Hayley’s lungs froze like ice shards, each breath scraping against her insides. Attack the tower by sundown. That was what it said. She was certain of it. Dead certain.

  Her eyes trailed up to the castle walls, fires casting unholy shadows upon the stones.

  Mostly certain.

  “We have to get them out of there,” one of the older squires said. He looked to be a boy around Finn’s age, using that to take command. “Use a horn to call a retreat!”

  “Oh right,” the second rolled his eyes at the first, “because they’d just leave one lying around. They’re all with the Captains! No one would trust us with it. Probably think we’d blow it for shits and giggles.”

  “You would, Reg.”

  More infighting broke out, the single adult in the situation doing his damndest to remain out of it. Once he said his peace he seemed to think his job was finished. Hayley snarled at the thought, then honed her eyes right on the castle walls. The knights were fighting with everything inside of them on the assumption a vapor would have their backs. Some stupid, broken promise they took as fact could get him killed — get them all killed.

  They had to do something.

  She caught a bit of red out of the corner of her eye and turned to find Larissa stepped beside her. The girl was staring wide-eyed up at the about-to-fail rescue attempt too. If this got most of the knights killed, there was no chance hers was walking free. No chance any of them were getting out of it. For a moment, her sight drifted to Hayley and they shared a breath — an acknowledgment that this couldn’t stand. Then Larissa ruined it by smirking and mouthing it was ‘Hayseed’s fault.’

  “What if we run up behind them, shout that the reinforcements aren’t happening?” Hayley asked. She looked to the lead squire who was scratching at his handful of chin hairs, before turning to the messenger.

  “It’d be to your deaths,” the man said. “No coverage, archers would pick you off before you drew near enough to be heard.”

  “They closed the doors behind them,” the second squire piped up, causing everyone to turn to him.

  “What in the dear lord’s toes for?” the messenger gasped.

  “To…something. I dunno. I was just standing there, not listening to their battle plans on purpose. That was what they were gonna do. There’s no way to even get in if you did survive to the door. They’re trapped.”

  Hayley’s gut plummeted deeper into her shoes. Trapped? Picked off slowly one by one because…because of her. Because she thought she could read, because she didn’t… Slamming her eyes tight, she saw the scrap of parchment again. Pinched between her fingers it told them to go after the tower. Why would she make that up? Why would her eyes lie about it? Why would she get it wrong?

  “What if they capture them all?” Hayley turned to the messenger, “Like the other knights? They might not all be killed.”

  “True. Some could be ransomed off,” the man admitted, “but many would rather die than face such a possibility.”

  Hayley pinched her lips tight together. Who would choose death over imprisonment? Her mind flashed back to the body of the man trying to run from slavery. God, was that what they did to the imprisoned knights? Is that what they’d do to Gavin?

  “We have to do something!” she shouted, shaking the grumbling away from the others. They’d been shuffling about, whispering useless words and making no clear plan to do anything.

  “Unless you can fly, squire,” the messenger taunted her, “there’s no way you can get over those walls.”

  Fly, no. But what about…?

  Hayley took off running, making it nearly towards the shoreline edge before she turned around and shouted at them to get over to her. Passing the burning torch to her other hand, she pointed at the well line she noticed earlier. “We can climb up that right into their courtyard.”

  All the other squires and the lone adult fell silent, staring over the choppy waters and slippery rocks to the barely visible rope. It stretched clean down into the lake below, almost as if it knew it’d be needed.

  “If you
can climb that, if you can even reach that,” the messenger scolded, “you will emerge into the middle of a battle not knowing your location, your enemy’s location, or have time to form a defense.”

  Hayley sneered and whipped back to the mealy-man. “We have to bloody try!”

  “Squire, that is suicide.”

  “So?” she shouted, all her fourteen years of defying the odds wrapped in that single syllable.

  “If you do this, you do it alone,” the messenger decided for everyone. Oh, look upon the great hero of the hour, riding hard across the dark land to say ‘Wait, no, not my problem. Make the kid do it.’

  Snuffing the torch out into the ground, Hayley’s form vanished into smoke and shadows. “Fine!” she snarled and before anyone tried to stop her, she scrabbled towards the edge of the cliffs and began to climb down.

  “Wait, wait!” a voice called above. She wasn’t about to stop, knowing in her heart that if she paused for a moment she wouldn’t find the nerve to go again. “I’m coming to help.”

  Like watching a tree fall over a hill, Marco slid down to lock his feet upon her same edge. Hayley glared over at him, barely able to see beyond the glint of moonlight from the water. “What are you doing?”

  “Coming with,” he explained.

  “Why?”

  Even as they spoke, Hayley kept on climb-walking towards the rope. She was right, the flat edges of the cliff were great for this. Still, in the dark and slippery waters, there was no reason to push her luck.

  Marco remained tight on her heels, “Because I…I…you—”

  “Right, your knight told you to watch me.” She rolled her eyes, quickly coming to the realization. Following the bend along the cliff, Hayley’s ears filled with the crash of waves rising and falling against the rocks below. They were almost soothing, like a heartbeat, but would most certainly drown her if she fell. Probably be cold too.

  Water spray clung to the back of her knees and calves, causing her skin to break out in goosebumps. She clacked her teeth as a distraction while digging her fingers tighter to the slick, grey rock. “You know,” Hayley said, unable to stop talking now, “your knight was joking when he said that. You didn’t have to come.”