by Jocelyn Fox
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” replied Kieran, “though that’d be a sight to see, eh?” He chuckled as he pulled a stool up to the table and arranged Knight Lochlan’s daggers on a strip of cloth in preparation.
“Arian somehow got dirt on the inside of his armor. I’m not quite sure how that happens,” Finn remarked.
“Perhaps he took his armor off in some glade in the forest to better entertain some lovely lady,” suggested Kieran as he picked up the first dagger.
“Some lovely lady like Lady Elaine?” returned Finn, pulling up a stool next to the other squire and picking up Knight Arian’s breastplate.
Kieran groaned. “Finn, please. Not all of us are models of self-control like you. I swear, you have ice water instead of blood running through your veins.”
“You and I both knew that celibacy was a condition of being a squire before we even knew what celibacy really meant,” replied Finn.
“If only I’d known,” said Kieran dramatically. “Instead I dream of Lady Elaine every night with no hope of…” He trailed off.
“No hope of winning her hand?” Finn finished with a grin.
“Let’s say that. You make it sound so gallant.” Kieran leaned even harder into sharpening his master’s dagger.
“She’s half mortal, isn’t she?” Finn carefully wiped down Knight Arian’s breastplate with a special cloth, paying close attention to the engraved details along the neckline.
“A quarter, I think. It’s probably what makes her so alluring,” sighed Kieran.
“Well, fight well at the Solstice and perhaps you’ll be free to woo her after,” said Finn.
“I know it’s probably pointless to ask, but you have your eye on anyone?” Kieran raised his eyebrows.
Finn chuckled and shook his head. “Perhaps I’m waiting for one of the women from the North to visit Court.”
“Ah, so that’s it!” Kieran grinned. “Our ladies are too demure for you.”
Finn shrugged. “Perhaps. But in any case, I would rather spend my time studying and improving my skills.”
“All work and no play makes Finn a dull boy,” said Kieran in a mock-scolding voice. He finished sharpening another dagger and tested it on an edge of the cloth.
“Yes, well, I’m prepared to be a ‘dull boy’ until I’m a Knight,” said Finn decisively. “Besides, you know you wouldn’t give up your training just to…woo…Lady Elaine.”
“Of course, I know that,” said Kieran. “But that’s not the point.”
Finn merely gave Kieran a nonplussed look before returning to his task. Kieran sighed. He loved his fellow squire like a brother, but sometimes he wanted to shake him. They were both well favored, but Finn possessed a certain indefinable quality that drew ladies to him like moths to the proverbial flame…and he didn’t even notice. “The gods are so cruel,” Kieran muttered to himself, shaking his head. He caught Finn’s quick grin out of the corner of his eye as the other squire bent his head to inspect the portion of armor he’d just polished. Kieran rolled his eyes and refocused on sharpening Knight Lochlan’s daggers; he needed to finish these tasks before the evening meal so that they could study afterward.
The squires’ test at the Solstice wasn’t only a tournament of swordsmanship, archery and skill on horseback. That was only the part visible to the Queen and the rest of the Court. In the days before the Solstice, the squires chosen to compete in the Queen’s Games – the squires most likely to be chosen to be Knights – were run through a gauntlet of tests by the Knights and Guards. The group of squires was usually small, no more than two dozen, while there were a hundred Knights and almost two hundred Guards in the Queen’s service. There was no way to hide weakness in the gauntlet. It was an unwritten code that the squires who survived the gauntlet would progress to the Games – the tournament in front of the Queen. To fail the gauntlet was to forego the chance to become a Knight that year. It was also an unwritten code that the squires never spoke of the gauntlet, even if they failed; thus, the younger squires were left to imagine what brutal tasks their masters concocted. The Knights and Guards took their duty to train the squires seriously, and they made it part of that duty to ensure that every Knight and every Guard met their collective standards of toughness and skill. This would be Kieran and Finnead’s first run at the challenge; they’d only served their masters for a dozen years, but they both equaled or bettered the skill of the more senior squires.
“What are we studying tonight?” asked Kieran. Finn oversaw their course of study, while Kieran managed their physical training. They made a good team.
Finn glanced at the books stacked neatly on the floor by the wardrobe. “Rune tracking and perhaps metallurgy.”
“What good is metallurgy to a Knight?” grumbled Kieran.
“Perhaps you could turn a rose into gold to impress Lady Elaine,” said Finn with a cheeky grin.
“It’s not impressive if it’s a parlor trick that any Knight can manage,” pointed out Kieran. “Honestly, Finn. You’re lucky that the ladies already have their eye on you...you won’t have to work hard to have your fill once we’re released from this ridiculous celibacy vow.”
“It’s not ridiculous. It’s to keep us focused.”
“Don’t go parroting Arian,” groaned Kieran.
“I’m not parroting Arian. It makes sense. How much time would you spend studying if you could go court the ladies?”
“Enough to make it,” said Kieran with a slight air of defensiveness.
Finn shrugged. “Better that it’s not a distraction.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t be better suited to becoming a monk?”
“We don’t have monks. That’s only in Doendhtalam,” replied Finn.
“I know that, you dunce,” said Kieran affectionately. “It was a joke.”
“I don’t think mortal monks would accept me,” continued Finn as though he hadn’t heard his roommate.
“For midnight’s sake, Finn, it was a joke!” repeated Kieran, almost yelling now.
Finn paused and pressed his lips together, then looked up at Kieran with barely concealed mirth. Kieran rolled his eyes as they both burst out laughing.
“You’re an idiot,” said Finn, chuckling. “Of course, I knew it was a joke.”
“Well, I’m your idiot, for the moment at least,” replied Kieran. He finished sharpening the last of the daggers and picked up one of the muddy greaves. “You’re entirely too good at hiding your emotions, Finnead. Seriously.”
“Give me one of those, I’m done with Arian’s breastplate,” Finn said, seeming to ignore the last comment.
Kieran handed over one of the greaves without further comment, and they settled into a companionable silence, finishing their work just as the quarter hour tolled on the bells in the Queen’s Tower. Without a word spoken, they arranged their masters’ gear on the table and went to wardrobe to dress to serve at table for the evening meal.
That night, Finn did pay a bit more attention to his surroundings. He had served his master so often during meals that he could almost read Arian’s mind: one glass of wine for the first two courses, and then half a glass for the main dish and water thereafter. The Knights sat at the great table in the largest hall of Darkhill, where the favored of Queen Mab’s Court took their meals. Arian wasn’t a Knight particularly concerned with the politics of the Court, so he was content with his place in the midsection of the table, one dais lower than the Queen’s table. Kieran stood behind Lochlan a few places to Finn’s left, farther down the middle dais. The squires attended their masters at every evening meal – not to debase them by having them refill the Knight’s cups, but to introduce them to Court life, to let them listen to chivalrous conversation and observe the proper courtesies required of a Knight. A few of the older pages stood at intervals up and down the table, ready to spring into action and take an empty wine pitcher from a squire. Finn smiled slightly when he saw Ramel stationed at the upper portion of the middle dais. The copper-haired page watched his par
t of the table, but he also watched the page assigned to the lower part of the upper dais – the Queen’s table. The favor of the Queen shifted daily, and she showed her pleasure with a member of her Court by inviting them to dine closer to her. The rise in favor of one would result in a fall for another, so the lower part of the upper dais harbored many a Knight, lady, Scholar or poet nursing wounded pride. Wounded pride usually resulted in more wine consumed by the scorned courtiers, often faster than the unlucky pages could keep up with refilling the pitchers. Refilling a pitcher was a tricky skill: the pages could only use the side passageways down to the wine cellar, and they couldn’t appear at table with a mussed or stained uniform. It took a fast runner to make it to the cellars in about three minutes, and running back with a full pitcher of wine was obviously out of the question. They also could not be caught running by a squire or Knight, and gods help them if a Knight caught them passing off a pitcher that was their responsibility to another page who wasn’t assigned to serve at table. On feast nights, when all the Knights were at table with their squires, Finn knew full well that the pages stationed runners just out of view beyond the discreet doors hidden by the flowing banners on the walls. He’d been a page once not so long ago, after all. So, the pages had to work out how to keep the feast tables supplied with wine while avoiding dismissal by a Knight for a mussed uniform. It was an exercise in resourcefulness and teamwork; every few years when the current crop of pages was particularly young, a squire made a show of catching one of the runners and berating them soundly. Then the pages learned to set watches and employ the coded calls that their scouting masters taught them.
Finn stepped forward and refilled Arian’s cup discreetly, without spilling a drop of wine or interrupting his master’s dining. Arian acknowledged him with a little nod – more than some Knights offered their squires. Finn had rarely given Arian any cause to chastise him, and the Knight rewarded him by setting him ever more complex tasks to accomplish. Finn didn’t complain. He knew that each task was another step toward the gauntlet and, gods willing, the test before the Queen at the Solstice.
Finn watched Ramel out of the corner of his eye; the page seemed able to grasp the discipline required of him at his post, at least. The diners in his section of the table had barely touched the pitchers of wine, while the unfortunate page who had been assigned the lower Queen’s table had just returned from his fourth run to the cellars. The last run had taken the page too long – the squire of one of the Knights in his section took the full pitcher from him with a frown of reproach. Finn looked closely and could see the sheen of sweat on the page’s brow. Soon the unfortunate boy would be panting and sweating through his neatly pressed uniform, and he would probably be dismissed despite his best efforts. It was just luck of the draw sometimes.
True to Finn’s guess, one of the squires held an empty wine pitcher behind his back, waiting for the page to take it. He saw the boy steel himself and accept the empty pitcher, a glint of frustration and maybe panic in his eyes; the unfortunate page disappeared behind the banner that concealed the door to the cellars for his section. Finn frowned. He saw a twitch of movement from Ramel, and though the page’s hands were empty, he scanned his portion of the table, found all the wine pitchers still full, and discreetly vanished. Finn raised his eyebrows. If one of the squires in his section or, gods forbid, a Knight, noticed that Ramel was gone, there would be hell to pay later…for all the pages.
But then the unfortunate pageboy from the upper dais appeared, standing where Ramel had been posted just a moment before. Finn made the connection and smiled slightly: Ramel had taken the empty pitcher from the upper dais on the headlong dash to the cellar. He’d no doubt return in good time since it was his first run of the night. Finn gracefully refilled the cup of the lady dining beside Knight Arian; she rewarded him with a smile and a look of appraisal, which he pretended not to notice. He stepped back to his post three strides behind Arian and slightly to the left, so he could view his master’s plate and cup.
Finn permitted himself a subtle glance at the Queen’s dais. Mab sat at the head of the long table, midsummer stars spangling the canopy above her throne. To the Queen’s right sat her sister, the Princess Andraste, and to her left sat a beautiful young man that Finn supposed was the Queen’s current favorite poet. There had been fewer mortals at Court in recent years, though no one quite knew why; rumors of strange happenings in the North had been accentuated by the absence of the Northerners from the Solstice festivities for the past few years. The Great Gate had been used less often, and the White City shone less brightly than it had in years past. But Mab still had her favorites; she loved to hear the poetry and songs of the human world, preferably from the poet or composer himself. She delighted even more in ballads and arias inspired by her otherworldly beauty. Finn counted a dozen mortals sitting among the Knights and ladies of the Queen’s table, all with slightly dreamy expressions on their faces.
The Queen wore a resplendent gown of deep scarlet, the square neckline embellished with gems that the master of her wardrobe had enchanted to glow with the hues of sunset. Sitting beneath her canopy of midnight stars, the Unseelie Queen looked as though she reclined among a radiant sunset, the night sky already stretching above her. The Princess Andraste, in contrast, wore a simpler gown of shimmering gray, her dark hair bound up in a net of silver studded with moon-gems. Finn caught himself studying the graceful lines of her white throat and slender hands as she lifted her goblet and took a sip of wine.
Though the squires spent every waking moment training, studying and completing tasks for their masters, Court gossip still reached them through conversations at the table and overheard comments in the halls. It was said that Princess Andraste did not enjoy the sumptuous trappings of Court and had even prevailed on her sister the Queen to allow her to be taught swordsmanship. Old Knight Turlough had been assigned to be her blade master; though he didn’t take his squire Ronan with him, Knight Turlough had given his squire the truthful explanation as to why he needed to procure a lighter wooden training blade, suitable for someone of a pageboy’s strength rather than a squire. If it had been any other highborn lady, the rumors would have sparked a scandal; as it was, the Princess stood to bring weapons training back into fashion for the young women of the Unseelie Court.
One of the Queen’s Three – Finn thought it was the Vaelanmavar, though it was too far away for him to be sure – stood in a squire’s post behind the Queen; and her other two Named Knights sat by the Princess and the mortal poet. Another mortal, so young she was barely more than a child, appeared with a harp and bowed deeply to Queen Mab. The Queen beckoned the radiant girl closer, speaking to the musician and the poet. The two mortals’ heads bent toward the Queen, their rapt expressions apparent even at a distance, and then the three laughed. Finn thought he saw Princess Andraste look away in annoyance; he turned his attention back to his master, running his eyes over Arian’s plate and cup. The Knight waved Finn away when he took half a step forward, ready to refill his cup. Finn stepped back and rested his linked hands against the small of his back, his service for the meal nearly complete.
Ramel appeared smoothly from behind the banner at the lower dais just as the squire glanced behind him for the first time. The light gleamed on his red hair as he passed not one but two full wine pitchers to the squire. The squire looked at the page suspiciously, but Ramel kept his face courteously blank; the squire took the full wine pitchers and handed Ramel another empty one. Ramel bowed, the picture of deference, and disappeared again. Kieran glanced at Finn and raised his eyebrows slightly. They passed the rest of the meal watching the page complete an impressive five runs to the cellar without any cause for dismissal. The page with whom Ramel had switched stations had to complete two more runs, and the last one was a close call. He certainly wouldn’t have survived the rest of the service at the lower dais.
The beautiful mortal girl played the harp with extraordinary talent, and the poet’s song provided a pleasant accompanim
ent. Finn let himself enjoy the strains of music that drifted down to the middle dais, though he did think that he glimpsed blood on the harpist’s fingers as she plucked the strings for nearly two hours without pause. The enchantment of the Court overtook mortals and they wished only to please the Queen, or whichever of the Queen’s courtiers had taken a fancy to them. Finn didn’t much like the idea of mortal playthings, but Kieran had assured him that the mortals were there of their own free will. Kieran’s cousin and older brother had both been privileged to take mortal lovers, and Kieran had told Finn that the women had always seemed luminously happy. Finn thought that perhaps the appearance of happiness was akin to a drunkard’s appearance of mirth, but he didn’t voice his opinion aloud.
After the plates of the last course had been cleared away, Queen Mab gestured gracefully to her Three and as one the Court rose to their feet. The Vaelanbrigh offered her his arm, and she spoke to the Vaelanmavar before adjourning from the dais. The Vaelanmavar quickly informed the courtiers who had the honor of accompanying the Queen in the royal gardens for her evening entertainment.
“Your armor is ready to be worn, sir,” said Finn to Knight Arian as he assisted the lady beside his master with her chair, as etiquette dictated.
“I expected no less,” replied the Knight as he offered his arm to the lady and she placed her hand delicately on his forearm. Knight Arian paused. “You will be fighting at the Solstice, Finnead. I expect you to be prepared.”
“Of course, sir,” replied Finn, his heart jumping. He and Kieran had begun their studies right after the last Queen’s Games, with the hope that their masters would add their names to the list of squires running the gauntlet. This was the first time Arian had mentioned it. By speaking of it in such a public place, with a lady on his arm, the Knight had, for all intents and purposes, broadcast his squire’s participation to the entire Court. Finn suppressed the smile threatening to break his mask of composure.
