by S E Zbasnik
Gavin laughed at that. “Fair enough. Though you risked much, given your past, standing before the King himself and lying as you did.”
Shit. Hayley’s cheeks burned a brighter pink. She moved to slap her hands over the pitted flesh to try and hide away her reaction, but it was blatantly obvious. Still… “I, I told the truth, Ser.”
“Really?”
“Yup.”
“Because one, I made certain no one followed me that night out of fear of her safety. And two, Myra was dressed in trousers lest anyone recognize her.”
Hayley scrunched her cheeks up like she gnawed on a ginger root. “I’m guessing Friar Benedict…”
“Nowhere close to right,” Gavin laughed.
“I doubted someone like you’d go for him, but it was best I could think of in a pinch,” Hayley confessed, somewhat glad to have the truth out even if she was preparing for the censure. She lied. He knew she lied. And lying was a big no-no on his list.
Gavin opened his mouth, no doubt about to drop a harsh punishment on her, when Hayley babbled, “But, in a way, I didn’t lie. I told the truth. You were married, it was all legal, the trial was bunk. I just…didn’t tell my truth, only someone else’s.” Her voice raised high at the end, her statement slipping into a question no matter how hard she tried to sound imposing.
It was a terrible tactic, no chance he’d go for it. The man was honor straight to the core. She’d seen it on display for nearly a year. He’d been willing to pay for her crimes, to finance the rescue of his brothers and sisters that wasn’t his fault, to cut away his good friend on the word of a teenage girl, and to risk his own life to protect his wife.
“It is said that a knight must above all things be truthful, honorable, and chivalrous,” Gavin said softly, Hayley gritting her teeth for the damnation. A smile pulled up his cheeks. “But I’ve been learning from my time with you, that there are times when deceit is truth and courage comes in the form of retreat.”
“So, you’re not mad at me?”
Her knight laughed, his vision sweeping to the wife now free to spend every moment in his arms. “No,” Gavin shook off the tears burning in his eyes, “I cannot be. But what of you? It has been a trying year. What are your thoughts on all of this?”
She set out on this path because she didn’t want to die. It was the least noble start probably ever given to a squire. No dead parents, no burned village to avenge, just Hayley and her selfish want to live. The days were trying, the nights exhausting. Sometimes her heart wouldn’t stop beating in terror, her eyes crying in sorrow, or her tongue pinched tight in her teeth. To say it was hard was to think flying a minor matter of not hitting the ground.
But…
“I wanna be a knight,” fell from Hayley’s lips. She blinked in shock at the thought her heart slipped into her brain and mouth. “I do. I want to do whatever it takes to become a knight. To help people. To do like you do. Stand up and tell the bastards to piss off. To one day have Ania as my squire.”
“Ania…?” Gavin glanced towards the girl still fussing over Myra. She seemed to think it her job to make the newest member of Assburr as welcome as possible. “You are aware she is older than you?”
Hayley waved her hand through the air. “Details. What all…? What would I have to do?”
“To become a knight?” he scratched his chin in thought. “Those who receive the knighthood must perform a brave deed for his sovereign. One that is practically considered impossible. Though, given your tenacity, I doubt that will be an issue.” Hayley smiled wider at that. “The problem is your name.”
“Wha…?” What was wrong with Hayley?
“Knights require a family name, a crest. Without those, they are no better than mercenaries.”
Her face began to crumble, Hayley’s shoulders sinking in deeper as that foolish dream barely budded in her heart withered to blackness. “I don’t, I don’t remember what my parents were called. If they had one. I was too…I can’t remember.” Slaves didn’t get names; she was lucky to have a first one. The family one was obliterated to only being “Object of Whoever Bought Her.” No matter what she did, no matter how hard she worked, she couldn’t escape that damn past.
“What about Frey?” Gavin whispered, Hayley’s head whipping to him in confusion.
“Ser?”
He smiled wider. “I’ve often thought of you as a little sister. God knows you do bear a striking resemblance to Deshana. Paler, but the rest is spot on at times.”
“You mean it? I mean, you’re like a…” Hayley flinched. She wanted to say he was family, to pay the same compliment, but her family sold her. Family was poison as far as she cared. “You’re the only person to ever care,” she said instead and reached over to wrap him into a big hug. Laughing, Gavin happily returned it.
She cared. She used to hate caring. Ran from it every second, kept herself aloof from anyone that tried to touch her heart. Now… “Hayley Frey,” she repeated, her tongue tripping at the impossibility of her being wanted. Of being welcomed into his life.
“Free,” Gavin said as he stepped away from the hug. “It means free.”
Her tears wouldn’t stop welling up, Hayley trying to swipe them away with the back of her hand. “Sounds good, better than good. Really good. Perfect.”
“Enjoy it, because tomorrow begins the real work,” his smile didn’t dim even as the serious Gavin returned. “The grand tourney is only a year away now and if you expect to make a good showing…”
“I do. I really, really do.”
“Then you shall have to learn jousting.” He dropped a big rock on her certainty.
“Like, that thing you do with lances and breaking ‘em? On a horse?!”
His head bobbed slowly and Hayley dug her nails tight into her thighs. A horse. Riding on a horse. Trusting a horse enough that she wouldn’t get hurled off its saddle. When her fingertip brushed over the scar tissue, she paused. Instead of trailing the brand burned into her flesh she slipped down to caress the knight motto: We Are One.
Squire Hayseed. They thought it a joke, thought Gavin mad for taking her on. Even she didn’t believe it, was looking out the door every second glance. But she wasn’t going to give in, wasn’t gonna roll over and let the vultures take her. As her pinkie swirled over the snake knotted around the vulture’s throat, Hayley smiled.
Knight Hayseed. There wasn’t a thing on God’s green earth to stop her.
She’d train, even on horses. She’d learn and study, honing her reading skills beyond the few nursery books Gavin got down her throat. She’d grow taller than gutter trash, braver than a bilge rat, and prouder than a slave child ever would.
“Ser?” Hayley whispered. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Why did you chose me? Out of every other squire there, why me?” She wondered it every night before sleep with her head pillowed above the onions, but she never asked. She feared the asking would cause him to see the faults.
Gavin took a moment, staring down at the girl forever at his side. “Despite you being put in an unfamiliar situation, with all the odds stacked firmly against you, not once did you give up.”
A snort broke from Hayley’s nose and she stared out at the estate. Finn and Larissa ran past, the latter still haranguing the former. Ania too scampered on, though she signed a few gushing remarks about Myra before returning to her duties. Friends of a sort, people she counted on, believed in. There was the ring that Hayley bled in, bruised in. There was the gate she tried to run through, certain her life was over.
For the first time, the place felt small, as if there was an entire world out there for her to explore.
“Do you want to know the truth?” she said, her head swinging up to her knight. “I didn’t know I could give up.”
Gavin laughed, a comforting hand landing upon her shoulder. “That, Squire, is true for all great heroes.”
THE END
SE Zbasnik
S. E. Zbasnik has a
degree in genetics, which means there may or may not be a horde of monkeoctopi doing her bidding to take over the world. She recently won the Top Ten Handmaid's Challenge on Wattpad where hers was chosen by Margaret Atwood herself. Along with her husband and black lab, she spends a lot of time with her skeletons -- don't worry, they're only Halloween props.
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