Knight Esquire ya-2

  Knight Esquire

  ( Young ancient - 2 )

  P. S. Power

  P. S. Power

  Knight Esquire

  Chapter one

  Rolph didn't send him off to Kolb, Tor's new Knight, the instant they landed or anything. No Tor had to primp and practice first. Apparently that was important. An actual rule or something like it. Some royal thing that a kid from the backwoods wouldn’t know.

  Like he’d go and visit without washing first?

  The Prince had him bathe and dress in his nicest clothes, which were just school browns that didn't have any visible stains at the moment, then go to present the man with the official document the King had sent. It was in a sealed envelope, with the royal seal pressed into the wax on the back, so he didn't know what it said.

  That kind of ate at him.

  After all, it could be anything, and it directly related to him, didn’t it?

  Hopefully it was something along the lines of, “Don't let him get too killed”, if he was lucky, and the King didn’t secretly have it out for him. On the good side, from what everyone had told him, being a Squire shouldn't be that big a deal outside of a time of war. Mainly training to fight, which he had to do for school under Kolb anyway, and some ceremonial stuff, which primarily had to do with carrying and caring for weapons and gear. The modern weapons and armor were all just tiny amulets and small metal bits, so Tor thought he could manage if he worked at it. Maybe add lifting tiny little weights to his daily regime to build up?

  There was a speech he was supposed to give when he walked up to Kolb, so Rolph made him practice it several times before he left the room. Not that Tor would screw it up, but just so it would sound proper and everything. Hit the correct royal accent, instead of sounding like a merchant like he normally did when he spoke Noram standard.

  Even though school didn't start again for a full day, Tor found the instructor working with some of the combat students, all giants of course, in the bright summer sun already. Special lessons for the advanced kids, probably. They were all good at least. Way better than he was, from what he could tell. Though it could be hard to tell, since they all just looked like anyone in front of them should die. It was intimidating, even from a distance. Tor waited for a lull in the efforts to approach. It was polite, plus, really, he didn't want to be killed by mistake, if one of them tripped or something.

  Freaking giants. Always looming over properly sized people like him the way they did. Well, he was a little short, only five-four, which wasn’t tiny once you got out of the major cities, but wasn’t tall even for his home village of Two Bends.

  Three vast students tried to eviscerate Kolb with swords all at once, the man struggling to hold his own the whole time. The combat students were good, about ten times better than Tor, at least, and while none of them could equal the head instructor alone, they worked together well, pressing the man into exhaustion, and then, finally, moving in for the “kill”.

  Laughing Kolb surrendered and held his right hand up.

  “Take a break and make sure to drink some water. This heat's bad enough without sunstroke.” He spied Tor and looked down at the splint on his leg, then at the paper in his hand, a nice cream colored envelope.

  “Tor! You haven't crippled yourself for life have you? Come to resign?”

  Tor shrugged with one shoulder.

  “Nothing like that. I get the splint off in about a month. It got broken when I dove head first into a middens. Anyway…” Tor took a deep breath.

  Kolb walked away, over to the water barrel.

  “Walk with me then, or hobble as the case may be. Now, tell me why you were doing a damned fool thing like that? Head first into a middens? Some kind of a dare? A drunken bet? Not going to be a habit is it?”

  The large man drank dipperfuls of water, one after the other. Since sweat was glistening on his skin, even in the dry heat, Tor guessed it was warranted. He was just glad that those three monsters weren't going to be coming after him like that any time soon. They stood drinking their own water, carefully not looking at Tor. That was fair. The combat students, even the lower level ones kind of thought of him as a joke, and everything considered, he probably was in their world. Too small to even be an interesting training partner, not a good enough fighter to challenge even the second year students most of the time, and right now no fun to even chase around trying to hit with a practice sword. “Hobble away!” wasn't a very good battle cry at all.

  Unless he could incapacitate them with laughter?

  Tor ignored them back for the moment, he'd come for a reason after all. Still, he couldn't just ignore the question asked either, not politely, so he tried to give a thumbnail sketch of the situation.

  “Um, no, not a dare or anything. There were some kids that fell into an abandoned cesspit that had opened up. Dried and collapsed under its own weight. Everyone else was too big to reach them, so, you know, I climbed down and got them. It collapsed on us, so we had to be pulled out by the rope tied around my ankle, which given everything, broke. Anyway…” He took another deep breath, ready to go into the formal speech he'd practiced.

  Kolb stopped drinking and stared at him.

  “Did you… save the children?” The large man looked worried suddenly, and all the combat students stopped looking away and stepped closer to him, leaving him feeling a little surrounded.

  “Um, yeah, they're fine, I got a shield on the boy, and when I saw the little girl I got her mine before the whole thing fell in on her. Then we got her out. I, um, used direct effect to uncover her. It was… kind of a combat rage thing…” Everyone stared at him for a few seconds, but no one questioned him on it. They were all royals, so they knew not to. It just wasn't polite. He was pretty obviously a commoner, only, of course, he wasn't. His claim to royalty was at least nearly as good as anyone there. So he had that to worry about too. If Tor got too mad, he could go all crazy and try to kill people. Kolb had to know. Even if he was just a regular student, not his Squire, since it might come up. Only so far, when it had happened, he didn't go all crazy. He just tried to save people. Even if he was mad. A little desperately he brushed at his black hair, trying to change the topic.

  “Oh! I guess this could be important, if you toss someone an activated shield, it will surround them just fine. Well, if it connects with them at least. The little girl, she's four or so, she grabbed it, bless her. That saved her life. Anyway…”

  One of the giants took off the practice helm, showing short cropped and sweat matted blond or really light brown hair underneath. To Tor’s surprise it was a girl, one that looked only a few years older than himself. Obviously a royal given that she must have been nearly six-eight. She didn't have the fine featured look that Trice, his fiancee, or the Queen had, so the size made her looks a little mannish. Not that Tor was going to tell her that. He wanted to live.

  Besides, she probably thought he looked a bit feminine, being so small and delicate, so who was he to talk?

  She spoke; looking worried herself, which was strange. They weren’t friends or anything, he barely recognized her to tell the truth.

  “But… If you didn't have a shield, didn't all the… waste fall in on you?”

  “Yeah. Not fun, I kind of built one around me, but it could only do so much, and the rope was already inside it. Sorry everyone, not trying to be rude here, but really, I have to…”

  Kolb instructed him to run through a series of exercises, not letting him finish speaking, which he had everyone else watch carefully.

  “Karen, give me your combat readiness analysis of Tor here, please.” Kolb called out bends and twists for Tor to try, and the girl made her assessments while everyone else looked on. They were pretty accurate, Tor noticed. He reall
y was still tight on his whole left side and his muscle tone had suffered a bit in the last month. His endurance too probably, without his regular running, or really any other exercise.

  “Well… I wouldn't want to send him back to the front lines, but he should be able to practice sword and knife work, energy weapons and shield and… Can you fly?” She asked, her voice sounding honestly interested.

  That one he knew for sure at least.

  “Yeah. That doesn't hurt at all. Even on long trips. I flew in this morning from Two Bends, um, my home village, which is about five hundred miles from here, give or take. No discomfort or anything. Kind of relaxing really, because it takes all the stress off my legs for a while. I recommend it if you ever get injured like this.”

  “Oh! Heh…” The girl looked down a bit bashfully. “I was just asking if you knew how. I take it that's a yes then? So, flying work too?”

  Kolb nodded.

  “Right, so for the next month I'd like you to work with Tor on that, all of it. Karen's in charge of you for that time. These other two, Petra and Forne, will be your training partners if we can't find anyone closer to your size that can do it without killing you.”

  “Alright. Sounds good, um, Kolb?” The man had started to walk away, back to the open exercise area. He turned and looked at Tor as if he hadn't realized that he'd been still trying to speak.

  Tor waived the envelope in the air his voice going slightly exasperated.

  “Sir Martin Kolbrin, I bring orders from King Richard of Noram. Would you receive them now?” That was all Tor had to actually say, it wasn't some huge or complex thing, but he had to work to hold the envelope out and not just cross his arms and tap his toes like an impatient farm wife waiting for the fresh loaves in the bakery. He managed it, mainly because he knew that being impatient didn't make the bread bake any faster and wouldn't make Kolb move either.

  At least his eyes widened in slight shock, which was a little rewarding.

  “Oh? Well why didn't you say so?” His voice was playful, indicating that he got that Tor had been cut off about a million times in the conversation at least, which probably meant they'd done it to him on purpose for some reason. To keep him from quitting? Like he had that option? A large hand took the delicate envelope and the seal, the King's own falcon on it in red wax impressed the man enough that he stood straighter.

  Cracking the seal slowly he pulled the paper out gently, looking at everyone else warily. The combat students all held their breaths a little while the big man read. That was understandable, as it could be orders for anything, and the King probably didn't send party invitations like this.

  “Oh-ho!” He called out suddenly, then kept reading, nodding after a bit. After about two minutes he placed the paper back in the envelope and set it down on the practice weapons table, holding it in place with a large lance or cutter. Tor could tell what it was if he picked it up, of course, even if he didn't recognize the sigil immediately. Anyone could learn to feel magical fields if they paid attention after all. Most people never bothered, just like they didn't bother to learn how to make their own. Then again, the same could be said about playing music, and Tor couldn't do that at all himself. He couldn't even sing, mostly.

  To his surprise, instead of setting Tor instantly to work, or yelling at him to get out of the practice area, a huge hand slapped him on the back hard enough to stagger him a little.

  “Tor here managed to get himself named a Knight Esquire! Skipped a whole rank, and only his age decided the matter. The King doesn’t want him to get a big head, even though he has his three marks of valor already. All since the last break too. Someone’s been busy.”

  Kolb looked proud of him and for some reason so did the other students, even though he wasn't really one of them. They all took turns pounding him on the back, Petra taking pains to do it for the longest time he noticed, her dark skin shining with sweat. Karen, his new trainer for the next month, actually hugged him. It was a warrior’s hug, which nearly broke things in his chest, and was followed by a pounding on the back that seemed happy, but may have been a subtle assassination attempt. The girl picked him up into a second hug and turned to Kolb gleefully holding him off the ground the whole time.

  “So, Squire… that pretty much means slave, right? And Knight Esquire, that means we can both boss him around and expect him to do it without complaint?”

  Kolb grinned. “Pretty much.”

  “And I get him for the whole next month?”

  “Yep.”

  The girl, a woman really, set him down and started doing a little dance that looked entirely too happy to Tor. Everyone laughed, so Tor wondered if it was all a joke or if, just possibly, Rolph and Count Thomson just didn't know what being a Squire actually entailed. He knew that neither one of them had ever held the position. He softly reminded them that he still had to get his school work done and had some projects to work on, and that on occasion, if possible, he would like to have at least a little sleep. If possible. Please. It must have looked pitiful, because they all laughed harder.

  Kolb clapped him on the back.

  “Don't worry Tor; we're just having you on. Congratulations by the way. Report here to Karen tomorrow afternoon, your normal time. She'll assign you tasks and what not as she sees fit. I know I don't have to give more instruction to you than that, so I won't.” Kolb smiled and for what was very nearly the first time Tor could remember it didn't leave him feeling like death was the natural next likely outcome after seeing such a thing.

  With that he got sent back to his room, feeling well enough about the situation. At least Karen seemed nice so far. Sure, she'd probably beat him black and blue in the days to come, but that was only to be expected. She probably wouldn't be able to help it, not if she was going to make him work on sword fighting against her friends, which seemed to be the plan. Oh well. As long as they didn't cripple him permanently, he'd deal. Actually, he realized, he'd deal with it even if they did. It wasn't like he had a choice.

  Rolph went with him to dinner, where they found, of all things, Dorgal Sorvee, Tor's favorite bully, his friend Marco, and the same guy with the creepy all black eyes that Tor had set Wensa on nearly two months before all sitting in the dining room. Across the room from them sat Wensa, her face blank and her eyes taking in Tor closely when he walked in.

  They went to the food receiving window with their trays. The food was a simple roast foul, with potatoes and carrots on the side. Rolph tried to avoid the carrots, but Tor took some. After all, it was free food, right? There were no sweets served at the school, not even honey for bread in the morning, but Tor didn't mind overly. The food at the palace had been so rich that some good plain food seemed like a nice change.

  Dorgal and Marco stared directly at Wensa, as if trying to intimidate her. Because, yeah, that would work. Cutting off her hands wouldn't intimidate the woman. Literally, he'd heard. She'd just accept the loss and move on, if the stories were correct. Royal Guards were trained to be like that from childhood and this one was tasked with the protection of the Heir. That probably meant she was even harder than the others, didn't it? Wensa stared at him and so did the other man, the older one with the all black eyes, who sat at the table next to Dorgal.

  Tor pointed all this out to Rolph, who raised his shoulders slightly, a subtle movement that Tor almost missed. “Keep your eyes open then, and be ready to move if you have to. You have a shield?” He said this casually, taking a small bite of the chicken, using a knife and fork, like they did at the palace. Tor picked his up country fashion and took a bite, nodding a little himself.

  Nothing happened after that, until the meal had almost ended, then Captain Wensa got up, still staring at Tor and made her way over. She actually ignored Rolph, except to tell him that she expected him in class early the next day for extra assignments. Before she left, her look going cold, she leaned over to Tor and whispered softly from about six inches away from his ear.

  “I see you still haven't learned to protect
yourself against poisons yet? You may want to rectify that. Soon.” Then the woman, lean and hard as he remembered her, steal gray hair pulled into a bun that looked uncomfortable to him, walked out without looking back.

  Looking down at his mainly clean plate Tor blanched. Right. He'd kind of forgotten how much she hated him. Poison in the food then? Nice of her to warn him, but what could he do for that? He'd try to think of how to avoid it, but there were just too many different poisons to learn them all. He'd be better off trying to build a field that could recognize food, and tell him if anything thing else was there.

  Which made sense.

  How many different things did he eat on average? A hundred different things a week? If he broke it down into ingredients it was probably four times that. Compared to the ten thousand or more things that could kill him in food, it seemed easy to manage. He could make a limited feedback field; it was just a complicated version of the temperature control field. Those were rare, but easy enough now that he had the basic concept down. It would take a lot of work to build the whole thing right, but…

  Yeah, that part would do what he wanted.

  What he needed though was some way to signal him that there was something in the food that didn't belong. He knew what he'd want for that, a very bright light, something that couldn't be missed at all. The only problem there was that he didn't know how to make one. They existed, but he'd never gotten to hold one even. They were expensive, and the ones in the palace he'd seen where all placed out of reach high up on walls or the ceiling. That had been a stylistic thing, Tor figured, since they couldn't have possibly known that he'd be coming when the light features were built, years or possibly decades before.

  He didn't sleep well that night, and had to skip breakfast the next day, just in case Wensa came after him. Rolph laughed and said that Wensa had just been yanking his chain, but Tor shook his head and refused to go anyway. Better hungry than dead, right?