by S E Zbasnik
She left her boots on, hidden out of sight.
Barely a sliver of moonlight lanced through the slats along the wall. Hayley pried open her eyes and tipped her head back into the lush pillow. All around her were the ambient sounds of a mass of people hard at sleep. The snoring was inconsistent, darting from one bed to another, sometimes forming a demonic harmony. Her greater concern had been the Knight-Captain who was prowling up and down the alleys long after every other squire scrambled to bed. It’d be her luck that Erin was somehow so highly trained she didn’t need more than an hour of sleep.
When the creak of the door caught Hayley’s ears, she watched the knight’s shiny heels clip out into the purple haze of the outside world. This was her chance. Scrabbling quickly down the ladder, Hayley drew her hands limply in front of her chest while she tried to tiptoe around the sleeping heads. Most were hidden under blankets and pillows tossed over the eyes, but a few twisted themselves into haphazard knots.
Poor Marco was too tall for the bed, his head dangling off the end while his feet were propped up against the wall.
Not really the time to care, Hayley. Slinking through the barracks, she twisted her body back and forth to match the creaking floorboards. No one was looking at her, doubtful any of them would be waking up. And even if they did, who would care? They all got what they wanted, losing a random squire none of them even noticed would be no skin off their nose.
If she was lucky, it wouldn’t be until Gavin came to collect her in the morning that anyone would notice Squire Hayley vanished into the ether. Her body froze at the thought, a shaft of golden light slicing down her eye. He could pick a new squire, a better one. Someone who was cut out for this shit, which would never ever be her.
The door rested but a hop, skip, and jump away, though Hayley resumed her tiptoe approach instead. She could all but lean over and reach for the handle, when a voice shattered the gentle susurruses of sleep.
“Hayseed, what are you doing?” the viper snarled, rising from her bed like a siren emerging from the misty moors before it bashed a few heads into rocks.
“It’s Hay…” She shook her head. There was no point in telling Larissa her name, no point in answering her. Just go out the door and don’t look back. Walk off into the moonlight and fade from their memories like the phantom you are.
Pinching into her nose, she turned to find the moonlight turned the redhead as white as snow. That prized hair of hers was braided and piled up on a shoulder that practically glowed against the dark of night. Eyeing up Larissa a moment, Hayley spat out, “Leaving.”
She expected that to be that. What did Larissa care about Hayley’s life? If anything, she should be ecstatic to not have the competition. Reaching for the door handle, Hayley tugged but an inch on the thing, her eyes darting to the hinges.
Larissa scoffed to herself, “I knew it.”
That froze Hayley to the core. Her head whipped to the viper in girl form. “Knew what?”
“That you couldn’t hack it. That you’d blanch at the first sign of a challenge, mewl into your milk, and flee out the door.”
Hayley spun away from the exit, the hairs along her neck raising, “You don’t know a damn thing about me!”
Blinking rapidly, Larissa extended a swanlike arm towards the door, “Weren’t you just about to leave?”
“That’s…it has nothing to do with… You’re wrong!”
“Wrong that you are incompetent, untrained, incapable of following the slightest command, and that Ser Gavin must have taken incredible pity upon you to even bother? Like pulling a drowning kitten out of a river. You know the thing will be worthless, its brains scrambled from the trauma, but some foolish beat of your malnourished heart convinces you to keep it around. For a bit of a laugh, I suppose.”
Hayley’s fists both locked tight, the grubby fingernails digging deep into her palm. Forgetting her plan, forgetting the exit, forgetting she should be quiet, Hayley stomped towards Larissa. For a beat, the cocksure girl’s eyes darted to the fists as if she really thought Hayley would slug her. God, that’d be perfect — send the ‘prettiest squire’ on to her knight with a massive black eye.
“You know nothing about me,” Hayley snarled right in Larissa’s face.
“Then why do you care? If I don’t cut to the quick, why are you…” she stopped to swallow a moment, “behaving like an uncouth barbarian? If I am wrong, if all you care about is leaving, then take the door. Begone. I’ll inform your knight of your loss whenever he appears.”
Why did she give a shit? Hayley swung her head back a second to find the door still closed, waiting for someone to pop it open and dash out into the night. It didn’t matter what a random squire thought of her, what any of the squires thought of her. Or the knights.
Larissa smirked, “Perhaps he’ll learn that taking pity on lesser creatures is a waste of his time.”
Hayley swung wide, not really aiming with any skill beyond wanting to unleash pain on the world. Barely reacting, Larissa’s forearm formed a shield, easily bouncing away Hayley’s attack. To show how little she cared, the girl gave a great yawn and patted a palm to her wide mouth. Goddamnit! She couldn’t even hit the viper, not with a sword or her firsts. Hayley was…she knew what she was, and there was little point in waiting for when everyone else found out.
Head to her chest in defeat, Hayley stomped towards the door. She threw it open, taking in a deep breath of the still midnight air. It sang differently when the sky shifted indigo and the mass of crickets all bounded against brick walls. Almost as if the stench of latrine holes and dying fish along the riverfront were all purged by the clearing fingers of the darkest night. The stink returned by daylight, along with the prowl of hundreds of people.
“It’s almost a pity that you’re running away now,” Larissa continued to taunt her, causing Hayley to glance back. “At least you’d have learned how to throw a punch if you’d remained.”
Snarling at the cruel words, all the crueler for being true, Hayley kept her eyes on the girl while taking a step to freedom. Which was when she walked right into a leather chest. Panicking, Hayley swung her head away and then up to find the chest belonged to…Knight-Captain Erin. Shit.
The Knight-Captain crossed her arms tight as Hayley scrabbled back deeper into the barracks. “Going somewhere, squire?” Erin asked, no doubt aware of the answer. She knew some things about Hayley’s past, at least why she wound up in that arena against her wishes. No one knew the full of it, no one cared enough to listen to it.
“I, uh,” Hayley could feel Larissa’s eyes burning through her back but the girl didn’t say a word. Didn’t pop up to give it away, to send Hayley to the stocks or the dungeon, or whatever they did to squires who deserted. “I needed to take a piss,” she spat out fast, her brain running through the options.
She winced, knowing how well that’d be taken, but the Knight-Captain only answered with an, “I see.” Then Erin stepped to the side, allowing Hayley exit. “Most use the bushes towards the back half of the house.”
“Right,” Hayley bobbed her head, the back of her neck burning as Larissa’s gaze heated to volcano levels. Trying to look as un-guilty as possible, Hayley darted towards the open door. She made it a few steps when the Knight-Captain grabbed onto her arm.
This was it. She was gonna get dragged back in kicking and screaming. “Incidentally,” Erin whispered, “saying ‘I need to take a piss’ is rather boorish. It is best to say ‘pass water,’ especially around the gentry.”
Turning her head to look up into the captain’s eyes, Hayley bobbed it a few times, “Uh, got it.” With that, Erin released her and turned to walk back into the barracks, closing the door behind her.
Hayley was free. No one moved about the compound, not even a guard dog or two. No one would notice for at least a handful of minutes if she ran away. That’d give her a head start, and no doubt she was much better at vanishing into the city than a bunch of metal-stomping knights. Get to the river, that was the ke
y.
After that it was…back into the cistern. Fight and steal back all the stuff she lost. Look forward to another week or more with little to no food. Burn on the city streets from the unflinching sun because shade required coin, and anyone trying to scam free shadows was gonna get hurled to the ground.
Her fist closed tight bundling the fingers so deep her knuckles tried to pop out of her thin skin. She didn’t know how to fight, not fancy, or properly. All she could do was survive, and given how damn close she nearly came to dangling from a rope over the past two days it was hard to say she was good at that.
Stay and learn how to take people down. How to defend herself. How to wipe that smug smile off Larissa’s face. How to put some manners in the girl who treated the world as if they were all horse turds caught in her shoe.
No. No, it’s stupid. All her life, there was only one thing she knew to be the everlasting truth: No one wanted her. No one picked her. No one kept her. Hayley’s only hope was to run before everyone realized how useless she was.
Barely glancing up at the stars, or back to the sleeping barracks to make certain no one spotted her, Hayley began to run.
CHAPTER FOUR
The sun wasn’t just up over the horizon but planning its way towards the apex when Gavin strolled into the barracks. It was to the Knight-Captain that he turned, but Larissa rushed out to meet him first. She couldn’t hide her damn excitement if she tried.
“Ser,” she gasped up at the stoic man.
He blinked slowly, his taciturn tongue locked in tight as he bobbed his head at the girl. “I’m looking for…” Gavin began before Larissa trod all over his metaphorical toes.
“Your squire? I have some rather unfortunate news about her, Ser,” Larissa continued to lay it on thick, her head bobbing deeper before she shot a look over at Erin. For her part, the Knight-Captain seemed to try to wash her hands of the whole situation, while Gavin glared from one to the other.
“What is it?”
“Well, Ser, it’s…”
A banging broke through their less than private conversation as Hayley dashed forward from deep in the barracks, a bucket in hand. Barely glancing over at either her Knight or Larissa, she hurled the watery contents out the open door. It landed with a wet plop, wobbling on the hard surface like a clear jellyfish before soaking into the compacted dirt.
“Sorry,” she swiped a hand along the top of her clean forehead as she placed the bucket down on the ground, “I was washing up.” Hayley wrung out her short hair, cropped at miss-mashed angles so that some sections fell to her shoulders while others barely grazed her jaw.
Gavin took a beat, looking at the three different women before focusing on Larissa. “This is unfortunate news?”
Her jaw distended so wide she could have crammed an entire goose in the gap. Larissa whipped her head back to Hayley who was smiling and softly whistling a jaunty tune. “But you…you were…Knight-Captain Erin?” Fully thrown off her perch, Larissa tried to drag Erin into this, but the woman was already walking away in order to deal with the other squires who were still waiting on their knights.
“I’m sorry it took me so long,” Hayley kept painting it on thicker than lead powder, her cheeks burning with smugness, “I had no idea when you’d arrive.”
“That’s…that’s all right. We should head out, our journey will take much of the day.” It was clear Gavin was lost and knew something was up, but he didn’t seem to be in the mood to call anyone out for it.
Nodding her head, Hayley fell into step behind the tall man. Before she left, she turned to Larissa and stuck her tongue out. The girl scoffed, but whatever comeback she had was lost as Hayley began her journey down the road to whatever may come next.
She hadn’t gotten very far last night, barely to the little bridge before a chill crept up her legs. Despite knowing the back alleys and under paths of the city, she felt hopelessly lost. Running had been all she knew, but for the first time she feared it wasn’t enough. They’d find her. Drag her back. Make her pay.
Wait. Play the part. Learn how to fight, then come back to the city and build her own little empire amongst the dregs. That was the real plan. It might take her a few months, but in the meantime, she could nick some coins here and there to build up her purse. It was a solid plan, and 100% worth slipping in through the back window to watch Larissa damn near lay an egg.
The walk towards wherever they were heading was quiet. Gavin kept his lead, his steps measured and calm, as they passed over the King’s road, under the bridge of death, and out of the city. Bloated corpses, crow-pecked with viscera dangling from broken bones greeted those who both tried to leave and enter Ostmount. Hayley scrunched her neck tight into her collar, terrified to gaze up into the eyeless faces of those who’d wronged the crown. If not for this unexpected miracle, would she have been tossed up there too?
People claimed the macabre wallpaper was a deterrent. Far as she knew, none of the people working rackets in the slums or scamming coin off of ignorants gave two farts in the wind for the dead trussed up to the columns. A hungry belly and frozen head beat out some macabre future any day. Maybe it’d stave off the rich people and keep them from doing whatever the gentry did, scheming against the crown and the like, but she doubted that one too. Nailing corpses of your enemies up was like wrapping an oak leaf around a wound and insisting it was a cure. You could convince yourself it worked if you believed hard enough, and there was no way to prove it didn’t.
“Where are we going?” Hayley muttered to herself. By hour three of their meandering walk to nowhere but lots of trees and cleared out fields, she was growing impatient. The good little soldier act wore off when the sun-crisped her nose.
Her dark skinned Knight, who took barely a glance at the sun, didn’t stop in his death march. But he did say, “To the estate of my patron, Lady Bernadine.”
“So,” Hayley scrabbled in her new shoes, wincing as one bumped against what had to be a blister. Judging by the pain it was gonna be a big one too, like the size of a river toad. “How does it all work? Like, I thought knights had lots of land, and ruled over them, and…”
“Some do,” he answered before falling quiet. Something in her tone caused her knight to pause and finally look back at the girl. Hayley was walking bowlegged, trying to keep her heel from meeting in the wrong way to engorge the blister more. His burning amber gaze softened and he gestured towards a downed log left lying beside the road. “Let’s sit a moment so you can collect your breath.”
“I’m fine,” Hayley insisted, bolting upright despite the pain in her shoe.
“It’s not weakness to take a break, Squire,” her knight sighed as he slid over to the log and sat. Hayley bounded around a minute, feeling an unexpected burst of energy. She didn’t like the idea of sitting, not for long, and not with… Knights were kinda like guards, but ones that answered to no one. At least she thought they answered to no one. Now there was a fancy Lady involved? Would she be expected to curtsy?
How the hell did one curtsy?
“There are a few more hours on our journey remaining,” he said, finally dragging Hayley to skitter over. She sat opposite Gavin, staring down a sloping grassy hill while he kept his eyes on the road. They hadn’t seen hide nor hair of either trader or bear since setting out. There’d been a few riders, but they thundered past so fast Hayley barely had time to leap clear to the side of them.
“Some knights,” Gavin began, “Most knights, in fact, come from wealth, status. They, upon receiving the sword, return to their manors and continue the line.”
“Knights having oodles of baby knights? Like nests of rabbits?”
He snickered, “More or less, though I’ve never found an order to be as fluffy or cuddly.”
“Bet they poop about the same,” Hayley muttered to herself before cringing.
If her knight took any offense he didn’t say it. “I, however, come from lesser stock and have to earn my keep, usually in the service of those who would provide fo
r me. Lady Bernadine is a fair woman, a Duchess by her own right. It has been an honor serving under her name and banner.”
That was what the other Knight-Captain had been quietly yelling at him about. He had to play kiss ass to some gilded Duchess or else he was out on his ass. Sounded like a shit life. “So you don’t have any fancy parents to fall back on?”
“No.” His head hung down a moment and Hayley turned from her perch to stare. Sweat beaded up on the back of his neck, amplifying the oaky color until it glittered like a brown gemstone. “Is now when you wish to know more of me? You seemed rather hesitant about asking any questions.”
Because she didn’t think she’d have to spend more than an hour with him. Now…Hayley wasn’t 100% certain she could easily make her way back to Ostmount alone. Not for a few weeks anyway. Her cheeks lit up as she realized he was staring intently at her, waiting for the answer question.
“How, um…?” She really didn’t have anything set in stone, just a lot of vague wonders. “How old are you?”
At that his lips spread wide, the teeth nearly blinding in this hot sun. “That is your most pressing question?”
“Well, you know how old I am. It only seems fair that…that, I don’t know.”
“Twenty-five this coming feast of Saint Stephen,” Gavin said as if he was imparting a grave secret to Hayley. “And I was a little older than you when I first began this journey.”
She stared harder at his cheeks, trying to dig up any of the lines that made her think old, but she couldn’t find it. Despite clearly wandering around in the overbearing sun for days on end, his skin was smooth as onyx. Hayley absently dipped into her cheek craters, feeling a wave of jealousy. When everyone kept crowing about how Gavin was the youngest knight ever, she assumed he was still in that nineteen range. But twenty-five was like settle down and shoot out kids old.
