By Darkness Hid

by Jill Williamson

  Achan shrugged, happy to please Gren. He trudged toward the cockeyed sapling and pressed the tip of the wooden sword against the flaky trunk. “Halt, you foul excuse for a tree! In the name of Dendron, god of nature, surrender! Or I shall cut you into tinder for my fire.”

  Gren’s merry giggle floated on the wind.

  Though Achan felt incredibly silly, he warmed to her smile, so he played along. He sucked in a sharp breath. “You dare speak that way in the presence of this fine lady? I shall run you through!” He whacked the blade against the tree again and again, more like chopping wood than Sir Gavin’s swordplay. The pitiful sapling hunched lower, the trunk sinking into the yellow grass, the upper branches into the river.

  The ground beneath Achan’s feet shifted. A deep cracking sent him scuttling back from the river bank. The tree, dragging a clump of roots and soil, ripped from the turf and sagged into the river. The current swelled briefly, sending a surge of icy water up the bank and over Achan’s ankles. He gasped as the freezing liquid seeped into his shoes and sent a violent shiver through his body. He turned to Gren, his mouth gaping, and uttered a small cry.

  She giggled and jumped to her feet, clapping. “You’ve done it, my good knight. Look! Mine enemy retreats.”

  Achan turned back to the river to see the sapling floating downstream. One branch remained above water, flapping in the wind like a sad flag. He laughed and turned to Gren. She stood beaming, her hair blowing about her face.

  He marched toward her, knelt, and offered her his wooden sword on the palms of his hands. “For you, my lady.”

  She hugged the waster to her heart, but her smile faded. Her eyes focused just over Achan’s head and went wide with fright. “Riga, no!”

  Achan reached for his sword, but someone pulled him away by the back of his tunic. The weary threads cracked under the pressure. He realized that it wasn’t Riga pulling him—because his assailant dragged him past the potbellied peasant. Riga glared down over chubby cheeks. With his thick, sneering lips and squinty eyes, he looked to be suffering severe indigestion.

  Achan’s captor yanked him to his feet and twisted him around.

  It was Harnu. The scar on his cheek had mottled and darkened in the cold air. His jaw clenched as if something in his mouth tasted bad.

  Achan smirked. These two should take more care over what they ate if it affected their appearance so.

  Harnu gripped both of Achan’s wrists with one strong hand, squeezed his shoulder with the other, and pushed him back until his body leaned dangerously over the edge of the riverbank. Achan tried to get a decent foothold, but his frozen toes ignored his commands.

  Riga spoke from the allown tree beside Gren. “Is this stray bothering you, my dear?” He draped a pudgy arm around Gren’s shoulders.

  Her expression steeled, but she didn’t move away.

  “Leave her be!” Achan yelled. “She’s done nothing to you.”

  “It’s her honor I seek to protect, dog!” Riga said. “No maiden should consort with a stray at all, much less…alone.”

  Achan fought against Harnu’s grip, pedaling his wet feet on the muddy bank, hoping to get some anchorage. “What Gren does is not your business.”

  “On the contrary. She is my business, or hasn’t she told you?” Riga leered at Gren. “But of course, my dear. Why would you waste your sweet breath sharing such intimacies with a stray?”

  Achan didn’t like Riga’s tone or the flush in Gren’s cheeks. “What are you on about?”

  Riga straightened and sucked in a deep breath that brought his stomach in and his chest out. “Gren and I are betrothed.”

  Achan’s gaze flickered to Gren. The fact that she wouldn’t meet his eyes told him that Riga spoke truth. “Gren?”

  Harnu squeezed Achan’s wrists tighter, preventing his wiggling hands from escaping. Achan’s mind clouded.

  Gren suddenly looked up. Tears streaked down her chin. “My father has made arrangements with Vaasa Hoff.”

  Achan’s face tingled as the blood drained away. Gods no. It couldn’t be true.

  Riga snatched the sword from Gren and held it up. “Pilfering a squire’s practice sword is a wicked thing to do, even for a stray. Whose is this?”

  Achan lifted his chin. “Mine.”

  Harnu leaned as close to Achan as possible without giving up his dominant position. “You’ll never be a knight, goat boy. Or a squire or a page. And you’ll never—”

  “Marry a pretty girl,” Riga said from Gren’s side.

  Harnu’s breath smelled like soured milk. “The closest you’ll ever get to the high table is to clean the scraps from the floor when everyone’s gone.” With that, Harnu shoved Achan backward.

  Gren’s scream silenced in Achan’s ears when his body plunged beneath the icy surface.

  Muted bubbling…a gulp of frigid water…a foot on something solid. Achan pushed off and kicked wildly toward the light. It had been Gren who had taught him to swim at age seven when none of the peasants would play with him.

  His head burst through the surface. He gasped and twisted around. Gren, Riga, and Harnu stood on the bank, shrinking from sight. The forceful current swept him along. No matter how hard he tried, his efforts to swim for the shore seemed useless.

  Like his life.

  Gren and Riga? Why? Didn’t Master Fenny know Riga was a selfish, lazy pig who couldn’t deserve Gren in a million—

  Achan saw a chance to escape the river. The poplar he had bested had gotten wedged into the entry channel of the moat that surrounded Sitna Manor. Achan reached for it and snagged the tip of a branch between his second and third fingers.

  The branch held, and his body paused in the swift current. Water parted around his buoyed form. Hand over hand he pulled himself toward the side channel. Stiff brown branches snapped and scratched his face and hands. Finally he safely entered the murky current of the moat.

  He let himself float along beneath the towering walls of the fortress. HeHHe shivered in the stinking water. The moat’s current was weak and didn’t flush the sewage from the manor’s privies and kitchen as well as it was designed to. The brownstone walls of the manor loomed above. Two guards on the wall laughed and pointed down. Word spread on the sentry walk. By the time Achan sailed around the northwest corner, at least ten guards had congregated at the gatehouse.

  Achan swam to the edge and hoisted himself up. Dirt from the bank muddied the front of his waterlogged tunic. His limbs shook with cold, and he stumbled under the portcullis, ignoring the jeers from above.

  A figure stepped in his path. Sir Gavin.

  Achan stood, soaked and stinking, trembling in the breeze. “I’ve l-lost my w-w-waster.” And, he realized, his shoes. He was thankful Gren was still repairing Noam’s hand-me-down boots. He would’ve hated to have lost those.

  “In the moat?”

  “R-Riga an ’ar-nu.”

  Sir Gavin nodded. “You’ll have to make another.”

  Great. Now he had to learn carpentry or woodsmithing or whatever craft it took to make a wooden sword. At that point he didn’t care. He had to get warm. He slouched past Sir Gavin toward the kitchens.

  He squished down the stone steps to the cellar. He stripped off his wet clothes and crawled onto his pallet under the ale casks to warm himself. The image of Gren’s tearful face was branded on his mind. Betrothed to Riga Hoff?

  Pig snout!

  * * *

  “What about your sword?” Achan asked Sir Gavin as he filed the edge of his new wooden blade. White oak shavings peppered his feet with each stroke. “I’ve only seen you with your waster. You have a real one, don’t you?”

  Achan loved the smell of fresh sawdust and always enjoyed coming to the woodshed. Sir Gavin sat on a fat stump that was used as a chopping block. Rows upon rows of firewood were stacked up against the curtain wall. Achan had always wanted to see if he could climb it and reach the walkway above.

  “Aye.” Sir Gavin whittled a small block of pine. Achan had no id
ea what he was making. “But it would look mighty strange for me to tote around two swords everywhere I went, wouldn’t it?”

  Achan nodded. As he filed, he weighed matters with Gren. Strays were rarely permitted to marry anyway, so his hopes of a future with Gren had never been founded on reality. And, like Gren had said, her father had been looking for a husband for her for years. But Riga Hoff? Sure, Achan had expected someone to snatch up Gren. But not Riga. Someone older. Someone with life experience. Someone less like a swine. Someone mature and wealthy who could give her better clothes, provide for her. Young men rarely took a—

  “If you’re not careful, lad, the blade will be uneven. An uneven sword is difficult to learn on.”

  Sir Gavin’s warning snapped Achan out of his lament. He quickly looked over his work and turned the wood to work a new spot. He clenched his teeth and returned to his thoughts. Never mind Gren—unless Achan could succeed as a knight and get out of Sitna, the best he could hope for was to end up like Poril. He shivered at the thought of a life serving Lord Nathak’s meals and having to watch Gren and Riga’s children chase the chickens around the outer bailey.

  It took three days to finish the new waster. It wasn’t as smooth as the last one, but Achan liked it better. It was his craftsmanship, after all. He set about his squire training with renewed vigor. The rest of the time he did his regular work for Poril, steering clear of Gren. He couldn’t bear to face her just yet. Tired of walking around barefoot, he’d begged Noam to go and fetch the boots from her.

  After one late-night practice, Achan asked, “Sir Gavin, can’t I try a blunted blade? I’d like to at least hold one.” The old knight had mentioned that blunts were used prior to real blades, and Achan was eager to get to the real thing.

  Sir Gavin sniffed in a deep breath. “Aye, then. Tomorrow morning you can try it, but I think you’ll see right away that you’re not ready.”

  The next day, Achan met Sir Gavin in the wheat field before dawn, eager to prove himself worthy of knighthood and impress Master Fenny. As quickly as possible. Maybe a long engagement was planned. Maybe there was still a chance.

  “Before we start,” Sir Gavin said, stabbing one of the steel blades into the grassy soil, “we need to go over the basics.”

  Achan hid an impatient sigh. He recited: “Stay focused. Breathe deep. Mind your footwork. Look your attacker in the eye.”

  Sir Gavin cocked his head to the side. “Look him in the eye, but not just to stare him down. You want to watch all of him at once, see if you can anticipate his next move. Right?”

  Achan nodded.

  Sir Gavin handed him the blunt hilt first, then drew his own blade from the ground. “Now we’ll see how you hold up against some real cuts. But I warn you, blunts are much more painful than wasters.”

  The fun was over. Sir Gavin knocked the blunt from Achan’s hands six times before Achan could grip it tightly enough to hold on to it through a strike. Every hit rattled the bones in his arms all the way to his teeth.

  He had trouble remembering everything at once. If he focused on following through with his arms so the strikes didn’t sting, he forgot about his breathing. If he focused on his breathing, he forgot his footwork and stumbled. If he focused on his footwork, he forgot his arms and took a bruising blow or dropped his blade. And when he did get hit, the strikes hurt deeper than with the waster. He never once managed to look Sir Gavin in the eyes.

  Sir Gavin paused for Achan to retrieve his blade from the ground yet again. “This is why we start with wasters. Tomorrow we go back to my way, but for today…” Sir Gavin grew ruthless. He nagged with each blunder and whacked Achan on the forehead with the flat of the sword.

  Thwack! “Ow!”

  “Pick it up! If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.”

  Thwack! “Ow!”

  “Never parry with the edge. Always use the flat.”

  Thwack! “Raise your sword. Middle guard. Else I can run you through.”

  Thwack! “Don’t attack from low guard. You’re not good enough yet.”

  Thwack! “Stop whining and keep your grip tight…but not too tight.”

  That night, Achan slept like he’d been drugged.

  He woke to tremendous aches. They were back to using the wooden wasters that morning, and Sir Gavin guided him through slow motion role-play lessons. This was a much easier way to learn.

  By the time Sir Gavin brought back the blunts, Achan could actually keep up. Still, he went to bed each night with fresh bruises on his hands, forearms, and shins.

  Little by little, with each passing day, Achan improved.

  3

  One morning, as Achan choked down his tonic under Poril’s careful eye, Sir Gavin entered the kitchens.

  The knight’s presence sent Achan’s heart racing. Had Sir Gavin convinced Lord Nathak to give him up already? Achan breathed deeply to calm his stomach.

  The three serving women who were gathering meals for Prince Gidon’s officials stopped what they were doing and stared at Sir Gavin.

  Poril hovered around him like a fly. “How can Poril service yeh, my good sir knight? Do yeh desire bread? Some porridge?” Poril waved one of the women over. She carried a tray that was being readied for Chora, Prince Gidon’s valet.

  Sir Gavin ignored Poril’s offerings and stared over the cook’s shoulder, his expression curious. “What does the lad drink?”

  Achan stumbled around the other two other serving women and headed toward the spice baskets in search of mentha leaves. He didn’t want to miss a moment between Sir Gavin and Poril, but he also didn’t want to lose his stomach on the kitchen floor.

  “’Tis a tonic to keep the ills away,” Poril said.

  Sir Gavin’s boots scuffed against the dirt floor as he moved to cut Achan off between two tables. Achan stepped back as the knight snatched the empty mug away and sniffed it. “If it’s sour enough to turn his stomach, perhaps the recipe is wrong or the ingredients stale.”

  “I assure yeh, my good sir knight, the recipe is precise. Poril does not make errors in measurements or ingredients.”

  The smell of hardboiled eggs and sausages set Achan’s stomach roiling. If only he could reach the mentha basket. “That’s how it always tastes, sir.”

  Sir Gavin held out his empty hand to Poril, still clutching the mug in his other. “A crust of bread?”

  Poril fluttered to the racks and handed the knight a chunk of flatbread. Sir Gavin ripped off a corner, wiped the inside of the mug, and popped it into his mouth.

  Achan watched, cringing slightly, but knowing it couldn’t taste as bad muted by bread. Nevertheless, Sir Gavin’s face flushed. He spat the doughy lump into the mug and rounded on Poril. “You’d poison this boy?”

  “Gods, no, my good sir knight! ’Tis not poison!”

  “Nor is it given to ‘keep the ills away.’” Sir Gavin spat again. “Why, then, do you give him this?”

  Poril’s eyes widened. His face flushed. “Because…Poril is sworn to…to keep him from…infecting the prince.”

  Sir Gavin turned to Achan. “Have you ever met the prince, lad?”

  Achan couldn’t speak. His tongue seemed to shrivel in his mouth. Poison? Who would want to poison him? Sir Gavin stared, waiting to be answered. Achan shook his head. He had seen the prince lots of times, but he had never been close enough to breathe on him.

  “And you never thought to question before you drink?”

  Achan didn’t know what to say. He’d sensed the tonic was wrong, but what could he do? He was a stray, branded by his owner. “I—”

  “’Tis not the boy’s place to question orders,” Poril snapped. “Lord Nathak demands the boy drink the tonic. Poril doesn’t question His Lordship, nor should you.”

  Achan struggled to comprehend what was going on. Did Poril’s answer mean Lord Nathak wanted to poison Achan? Why? He’d been drinking the tonic for years. It hadn’t affected his health—had it?

  Sir Gavin gripped Poril’s shoulder. “Never giv
e this to him again! Do you hear?”

  But Poril stood his ground. “Poril does beg yer pardon, my good sir knight, but Poril does his master’s bidding. If my good sir wishes the boy not take the tonic, then yeh must take the matter up with Lord Nathak hisself.”

  “I will.” Sir Gavin released Poril, tossed the remaining bread into the mug, and banged it down on the bread table. “And I’m taking the lad with me for today. Don’t expect him ’til morning.”

  Poril sputtered. “Well—what do yeh mean, my good sir knight?”

  “I mean, my good cook, I’m in need of an assistant today, and I’m taking yours. Let’s go, lad!”

  Achan took one step forward, then stopped to keep the tonic down.

  “Poril has much to prepare for tomorrow, he does. Prince Gidon’s coming-of-age celebration. Over two hundred are expected. Could my good knight not find another assistant?”

  “Could you not?”

  Achan looked from Poril to Sir Gavin and back to Poril, unsure of which master to obey.

  Finally Poril decided for him. “Yeh heard the good knight, boy. Be quick about it.”

  Achan started for the spice baskets to get mentha leaves, but Poril yelled, “Now! And Poril had better not hear any complaints from the good knight, or Poril will punish yeh good.”

  Achan scrambled around the table and out the door, his stomach churning. The morning air was cool but warmer than previous days. The sky was a bright, cloudless blue.

  Sir Gavin paused for Achan to catch up, then set off in the direction of the stables. “Does he punish you often?”

  Achan shrugged and fought the queasiness in his gut. “I don’t know. Once, sometimes twice a week.”

  Sir Gavin halted. He went red again. Veins pulsed in his forehead and neck. He took a long breath through his nose and blew it out in a whistle. Without a word, he resumed walking toward the stables.

  Achan scurried to keep up. The outer bailey was crowded after breakfast, but even more so with the coming-of-age celebration. Sir Gavin stopped behind a crowd.

  “Make way!” someone yelled.

  The people jerked back. Achan backpedaled to keep from falling down. The sharp movement roiled his still-queasy stomach. He should have insisted on grabbing mentha leaves before leaving the kitchens. He wheeled around and heaved his breakfast at the backside of the armory. The nearness of the chimney’s bricks heated the right side of his face.