Chapter 1267: A knight of princes and kings(5)
Chapter 1267: A knight of princes and kings(5)
He woke to the choking blackness of the pre-dawn hours.
The previous night, he had already saddled his horse and meticulously readied every scrap of leather and iron needed for the trail. Everything was perfectly arranged for a ghost’s departure. No one to bid him goodbye, nor one he could give farewell too.
It felt wrong. But somehow he knew it was right.
Vilon waved his hands through the dark air of the small guest room, searching blindly until his knuckles brushed against the stiff leather of his riding boots, right at the base of the frame where he had left them.
He pulled them on. That was all. Nothing else.
He was ready.
He stood at the threshold of the cottage door, looking back into the quiet, sleeping house. He was looking back at a life that could have easily been his, but never truly was. A life of loving brothers and sisters, a fiercely caring mother, and a warm, steady roof over his head.
Who are you trying to convince? he thought bitterly. It would never have been his home.
Vilon pushed the rising tide of resentment down into his gut. That was not his destiny. His would be a life tethered to the endless gravel of the road, jousting in local tournaments that were becoming rarer and rarer by the year, and hacking through bloody vanguards until either camp sickness, winter hunger, or a stray piece of steel finally got him. He would grow old, and then older still, a ghost in armor. It was a lonely life, undoubtedly, but it was his life nonetheless.
He peered into the dark interior one last time, watching the dim embers of the hearth cast a faint glow on a peace that would never belong to him. It pained him deeply to desert his friend, his only true friend, without so much as a parting word. But the lady of the house had insisted with her tearful eyes, for she knew that if Owen woke to find Vilon leaving, the boy would have eagerly jumped over the fence to squire for him, ready to sleep in the freezing ditches and scrape horse manure just to be at his side. There would have been nothing the family could do to stop him.
And just like that, there went his last genuine chance at a friend. His last chance at not being entirely alone in the world.
Vilon slung his heavy shield over his arm and pulled the wooden door shut behind him, the latch clicking into place with a definitive, hollow sound.
Outside, neither biting wind nor freezing winter sleet rushed to greet his cheeks; it was a perfectly still, quiet night to vanish. He strode toward the ancient oak tree where he had bound the new destrier, the magnificent beast gifted to him after the campaign.
Chestnut snorted loudly in the dark, perhaps angry at the early rising, tossing its heavy mane and throwing the knight a thoroughly nasty, uncooperative gaze. At least he had the animal.
"Sorry," Vilon muttered, reaching out to stroke the beast’s muscular neck. "You were probably used to sweet southern apples, the finest grain mash, and a warm, gilded stable in the capital. This is a hard, ugly life we’re embarking on. But at least we have one another, no?"
The young stallion snorted again, jerking its head away as if insulted by the comparison. Of course it did. Had the proud beast been given an ounce of choice, it would have undoubtedly chosen to remain with its previous noble owner. Who in their right mind would ever willingly choose a life like Vilon’s? Except, of course, a sweet, foolish oaf like Owen.
’Go on then, get yourself a bastard or two,’ a cynical voice seemed to whisper from the shadows of his mind. ’You have the war-loot now. You have the coin. Pay a tavern whore. Become a man and a father. A child of your own flesh won’t walk away from you.’
Vilon reached into his pouch and offered the horse a crisp apple, which the stallion was more than happy to snatch and crunch between its teeth.He had a sweet tooth...and a nasty demeanour
He could easily do that, he supposed. He could find a woman and father a handful of hungry children. But did he truly want that? Did he honestly possess the cruelty required to force a child into the exact same bleak, rootless existence he had suffered?
The answer became instantly clear the moment he set his heavy boot into the iron stirrup and hoisted his massive frame into the saddle. It was a spectacularly fine horse. And it wasn’t truly his. It was a borrowed grandeur, a debt of honor that would last his entire lifetime.
No, he would not force another Vilon from his groin. He would father no bastards to inherit his ghosts.
So, off to the road he went. The mighty stallion from the royal stables of Yarzat set a swift, powerful pace, its iron shoes kicking up pale plumes of dust that drifted away in the starlight. It was an incredible animal, far too fine for the likes of a landless-bred knight. Vilon stared down at the rippling muscles of the horse’s shoulders, still wondering why that young, high-born lordling had gifted such a creature to him on the field.
It was wasted on him.Such a fine beast....
If he sold it he could probably live for years off of it. But could he ride silver then?Nah, he could not.
Did he see something of worth in me? Vilon questioned the dark valley. Something I am blind to? If there is glory hidden in my bones, then I am as dumb as shit and as blind as that old hag.
Seventeen years he had been forced to live with himself. Seventeen years, and he had yet to see a single thing of true worth when he looked in the waters,
New Chestnut snorted beneath him once more, a sharp, heavy burst of air vibrating through the leather reins.
Why so down? the beast seemed to ask, tossing its head as if to shake the gloomy silence from the road.
Could horses truly intend and speak in their own silent way? Vilon believed they could. They were remarkably intelligent animals, smart, clever, and profoundly willful. Old Chestnut, his father’s horse, had been the absolute proof of that. The old stallion had been like a stern but patient grandfather, always looking down at Vilon with a gaze that seemed more amused than anything by his childish antics. Vilon could recall the beast from the time he was nothing but a boy; perhaps the old horse truly had looked at him like a clumsy pup.
A tall pup.
He reached forward, patting the new stallion’s muscular neck before leaning over to scratch the soft spot right behind its ear. The horse’s ear wiggled instantly under his touch, dancing like a silk ribbon caught in a brisk wind.
"I ought to be happy," Vilon muttered into the quiet dawn, the sound of his own voice grounding him. "I was blessed by the Warrior of Wrath and the gentle Weaver. I was spared on a field where many better men were not and given ample reward."
His ringmail clinked in a steady, metallic rhythm with each beat of the horse’s trot. To the east, the sun finally threatened to breach the horizon, splashing the first bright brushes of yellow and vibrant orange across a canvas of sky that had been dark for entirely too long.
He had so much more now than he had ever possessed in his seventeen years. He had a suit of fine armor, a sturdy shield strapped to his back, a sack overflowing with travel rations, solid coin resting in his leather pouch, and above all, a new horse. A fine horse. Too fine for the likes of him.
There were dozens of desperate men along the roads who would gladly kill him in a heartbeat if they thought they could strip the steel from his back and claim the stallion for themselves.
A temple priest would have undoubtedly admonished him for his melancholy, scolding him for wanting too much from the five gods. But was a single friend truly too much for a man to want? Actually, who was to say this was the end of the tale? Perhaps his wanderings would bring him back to the valleys of Yarzat once more in the future. If the road ever led him back, he would certainly make the journey to visit Owen.
The big oaf was his first real friend, after all. Perhaps by then, Vilon would be firmly employed by some wealthy lord,impressed by his skill, eating roasted mutton every night inside high, grey stone walls. Then, he could ask for a brief leave of absence, ride back down to this peaceful valley, and offer to take Owen on as his squire for good.
A dream.
Vilon let out a long, heavy sigh that misted in the morning air. That was all it was, just a beautiful, fragile dream.
He was the fallen leaf drifting on the wind, not the mighty oak tree rooted deep in the earth. When the autumn of his life arrived, he would likely perish just like the rest of them. For all his armor and his notched sword, he was a summer boy too, and his time on this earth was destined to be short.
As the sun finally broke over the hills, flooding the road ahead with golden light, Vilon tightened his grip on the reins. All he could hope for now was a sweet summer. A long, beautiful, sweet summer. For by the laws of the gods, that was his due.
Cursed to be himself.