Author's note: This is a bit of a slow one, by design. I fell in love with these characters as I was writing them, and I wanted to give them the chance to flirt in the way that only young lovers can. If you really want to jump straight to the sex, however, that starts towards the tail end of page 3.
###
Sir Bryan, Knight of the Realm, was at a loss.
Bryan had returned to Brelech Castle to take another squire under his tutelage, as was his sworn duty-- and, as one of the more senior knights, he would have one of the first choices of student. The Trial of the Squires-- as much pageantry as they were an evaluation-- proceeded as they always did. Tall, strong youths dueled and jousted, preened and answered. Impressive and perfect to the last.
Bryan, however, was apprehensive. He preferred to appraise the candidates on instinct, and he had felt immediately drawn to all of his previous squires. But this year, the most successful duelists or interviewees were all just so... identical. It was as though they were the same teenager magically copied over and over. Good squires all, and maybe someday good knights-- but Sir Bryan was looking for something that, even if he was asked about it, he could not truly describe.
The penultimate day of the Trial was the Grand Assembly. It was a highly formal affair. With all of the knights and dignitaries seated in shaded boxes overlooking the short-cropped green of the parade ground, the candidates would enter in hand-polished full armor and stand before the crowd. One of the knight commanders would bluster on about something, then a civil leader about something else, and finally a minister about yet another thing.
Bryan did not attach great importance to the Assembly in his evaluations.
For the people of Brelech Town, however, the Assembly represented the culmination of a week of festivities. The Trials were an annual cause of major celebration, and the townspeople packed the streets lining the route the squires took from their quarters to the parade ground. The very luckiest were even able to pack in around the parade ground itself. They lined up against the stone wall which separated the ground from the rest of Brelech, and which served as part of the structure of the raised stands the knights sat upon. It was there, against that wall, that Bryan first took notice of one boy in particular.
Two columns of candidates filed in at a perfect march. As a pair entered shoulder-to-shoulder, each individual would separate and march to the identical but opposite point on each end of the field-- never for a moment losing the rhythm of the march or the now-opposite position of their erstwhile partner. What were once two columns fanned out and filled the oblong parade ground. At this distance, with all of the candidates in matching armor and following each other precisely, it was next to impossible to tell any one person apart. As they flowed smoothly to fill the space, they looked more like drops of quicksilver than people. This was, Bryan thought, one of the things that made the Assembly a fruitless exercise. For a boy to stand out, they would need to do the unimaginable-- break the rigid uniformity of the ceremony.
As the entrance finished, Bryan saw a small flash of motion off to his left, in the rounded corner of the arena. The lowest stone walls around the ground were still five feet high, meaning any child who wanted to see the ceremony would need to be hoisted onto a parent's shoulders as they leaned over the barrier. One little girl had leaned too far and lost her grip on a doll of some kind, and it had fallen into the parade ground itself-- landing just a long stride from the nearest candidate, one of the last to enter. Bryan flinched reflexively as he saw the boy turn his head from its attentive forward position to glance, for just a moment, at the toy creature. He turned back forward, but then a second later turned again to look at the little girl who was by now in hysterics.
"Oh, by Llanfawr, kid, don't do it," said a knight to Bryan's left. Bryan could only clench his teeth in a sympathetic pain as the boy knelt down, collected the toy, and took a stride to the wall to repatriate it. The whole exchange must have lasted less than five seconds before he returned to his spot. To the instructors, though, standing back at attention would be like dumping water on a house after it had burned down.
"Well, I suppose that's one less to consider," grunted the same knight. Bryan watched the boy for any kind of emotion, any kind of thought-- did he know what he had just done to himself? At least at this distance, though, he was impossible to read.
"Do you recognize him?" Bryan asked. His mind churned over the dozens of faces, trying to place this one.
"Yeah, that's Gareth-- not that I blame you for not remembering, he hasn't exactly been high on my list. Sweet lad, though."
"Ah, yes," Bryan said with recognition. Gareth had fought hard at all of the events, but scored middling to poor in all of them. His frame was so small that he was battered off of his horse in the jousts, and so painfully shy that his interview was nothing short of a catastrophe.
The ceremony began and ended without further event. The candidates filed out in the same order they had entered, such that the first boy in was also the first to leave. Bryan watched as Gareth took his place in line. As soon as he was clear of the gate to the parade ground, however, Bryan saw a waiting instructor seize him by the arm and drag him off.
###
That night was a grand feast, held in one of the castle's vast courtyards. The next morning would mark the knights each formally selecting a candidate as squire, and they would begin their new lives. For some knights, however, the feast marked one last opportunity for evaluation. As Bryan made his way through the rows of long tables, he noticed the most attractive candidates had gathered large crowds around them. Candidates and knights talked and laughed conspiratorially, and for many of these boys it was less a question of
if
they would be chosen so much as which knight would have the privilege of selecting them. There was an air of joy about the whole affair.
Bryan glided past them silently, willing no one catch his eye or call for him. He scanned the crowd, mind slowly turning over the afternoon's events. How strange that, after days of watching candidates succeed, the moment he most remembered was a stupid mistake. An arrogant mistake.
Perhaps a brave one.
Just as Bryan was about to give up-- would they really have forbidden him to even attend the feast?-- he found Gareth at the far end of the courtyard, seated with one side leaning against the stone wall of the castle itself. He was alone. He did not acknowledge Bryan as he sat across from him, instead looking darkly at a spot miles underneath the table. His long, brown hair obscured his face.
"You are Gareth, yes?"
"Aye, sir, I am."
"My name is Sir Bryan."
"And you're here to tell me what a mistake I made."
"No," Bryan said simply, without anger. At this, Gareth looked up. The dark blue eyes, still red with the embers of tears, were confused. "I just wanted to hear-- from you-- why you did it."
"I..." Gareth began, and then stopped. As Bryan had hoped, the question had caught him off guard. He hadn't had time to think of a proper, rehearsed, squirely, damage-control sort of response. "I thought about what it would be like to be that little girl. To want help, for an order of helpers to be just feet away, and for them to refuse that help. What would she think of us, and of me? How could she think of us as protectors, if we couldn't even spare the smallest moment for her-- at no cost to ourselves? But I know that I was wrong, and for what it's worth I am sorry. I know this is the end of the Path for me."
For a time, the two sat in silence. Bryan eventually rose, walked around to Gareth's side, and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"I want you to have your bags ready to go after the ceremony tomorrow, Squire Gareth."
Gareth looked up in shock. Without another word, Bryan turned and walked away.
###
That had been six years ago now, and-- just as Bryan knew-- Gareth was growing into a great knight. His body had filled out, built of lean muscle, and-- coupled with his avid practice of his martial disciplines-- he had become a more than capable warrior. He studied voraciously, and his supple and capacious mind made him Bryan's trusted advisor and confidant. He had become sometimes quicker than the experienced knight himself, quickly understanding problems and proposing unique solutions.
And the character which had so distinguished him during his Trials had never diminished. He was kind to every person and animal they came across, and over the years they had often been late in returning to Brelech because the squire had come across some sorry creature who he could not bear to leave behind without helping on its way. It was the easiest apprenticeship Bryan had ever led. Letters of recognition and thanks to the squire flowed to Brelech from wherever the two had been assigned. For a boy no one would even bother to sit with, there were strangely many knights at Brelech who said that they had always believed in Gareth.
"I would have chosen him had you not swindled him away, Sir Bryan", said one.
"How brave it was to stop
the Assembly
and help someone!" said another.
"I can't wait to see what he's going to do as a knight."
Bryan simply bit his tongue and nodded along.
Gareth was now twenty, and in the last few years Bryan had noticed that his squire was garnering a lot of... attention. People from every town where they were stationed seemed to make a habit of stopping by in person, and he had noticed many wandering eyes when Gareth would enter a room.
Sitting atop their horses and preparing to leave the hamlet they had stayed in for the past three weeks, they were stopped by a group of girls from the village. Each blushing furiously, a quick wordless argument between them resulted in one of their number being pushed forward.
"For, ah, for you! Sir Gareth! Squire Gareth, I mean!" a freckled blonde girl stammered unevenly as she presented him a rose.
"This is very kind, thank you so much. I'll always remember you, and this village, for your hospitality", he said with grace. If he was aware of the discomfort of the girl or her companions, he didn't show it.
"And for you, Sir Bryan!" she said, presenting him a smaller flower, not yet fully opened and clearly selected with haste on their way out the door in a last-moment consideration. He smiled so as not to laugh, thanking her as well. As they resumed their ride out of town, Bryan heard the girls giggling behind them. Once they were well clear of the village's borders, Gareth sighed.
"Are you all right, Gareth?"
"Yes, I just... don't really know why they were laughing at me."
"Gareth, I truly do not believe they were." The squire made a noncommittal noise, not wishing to press the issue further. He was quiet on the ride back to Brelech, seemingly alone with his thoughts.
Their stay at the castle was to be brief, however-- even briefer than usual. No sooner had they dismounted than a knight commander summoned Bryan.
"A page from Lark's Hollow arrived this morning. Demons have been attacking traders in the woods, and their town guard isn't enough to fight them. I am sorry to do this to you, but I need you and your squire to mount and depart as soon as your horses are watered. Supplies are already attached to a train of horses."
"Aye, sir", Bryan said with a salute, the practiced move etched into his muscles from decades of use like the finger grooves worn into an old wooden ladle.
"Grace of the gods", the commander said, returning the salute. A recollection seemed to flicker behind his eyes and, after a moment's pause, he spoke again.
"Have you been quested to Lark's Hollow before? It sounds familiar."
"Aye, sir. Some years ago. Perhaps I'll have some time to catch up with old friends." The commander nodded at this, and Bryan turned to leave.
As he began his search for his squire, he sighed involuntarily.
