I expected some- ceremony? Of course I had watched too many movies. For my sake, and hers, it was an introduction to start. An agreement, made by a young boy and girl, not marriage but the weight was like that for both of us. Neither needed say much more than basically 'okay', however.
What must that girls worries have been? Probably the same as mine. 'What's she like? What am I getting into?' We met in a courtyard, one of many around the castles boundaries, they all had plenty of garden fixtures within but the solid exterior with patrols on top wouldn't let you forget it wasn't a place of only beauty.
Kostya had introuduced me, her nurse maid did the same with her. "This boy Alyseus, he may be your Charge one day, if you so decide princess." I almost scoffed aloud, mouth wide as he offered me like chopped liver. "You should, princess Hailey, a fitting Charge your age would be romantic." Hopefully she didn't mean that like it sounded.
Both of us were blushing, red-faced, worried-speechless. "Yes." She'd said, simply. And she may as well have run after that, both of us might have, but the other two talked for awhile. Her nurse told me about her, while I tried to think of anything else, and Kostya told her what little he knew about me. I'd bowed when I met her, and knelt after she said yes.
When I had knelt before her it was my agreement, and just as I thought to myself how this wasn't so bad, she smiled a mischievous smile. 'Uh-oh. Instant karma, regret everything, poor judgement.' "He's. So. Pret-ty!" She said, annunciation of each syllable spoken as she skipped. I pulled at Kostyas cloak immediately.
"I've got to go. This was a mistake. Final decision, I'm walking back home." He brushed my hand away. "-like a girl! He'll be so pretty with makeup on, I'll bet that he'd be even prettier than I am!" She declared this proudly, to her chagrin, and my deep dismay. "Nonsense, nobody is more pretty than the princess!" Kostya countered.
His tone was playful, and yet, the princess flashed him a look of scorn for a moment. It seemed she didn't like being patronized. 'Oh, you heard her, did you? It's good you set such a great example, Kostya, thanks for making my escape easy.' I have to settle the smirk, until its gone. 'Action.'
"-he's not, princess, dearest. Boys won't wear makeup and dresses. It's unbecoming. Remember how we talked about that word? This would be in the more extreme case of it, I'm afraid." "Awh." Hailey pouted, then looked at me as if to confirm. "Sure I will. I'm not scared of makeup, but I can't dress or undress around you, princess.
"Makeup is already a bit like dressing, a little, but not enough to break rules." Epic. Fail. Her face took on all manner of imaginative, gracious, and active qualities. Not the types of faces you expected from someone who had just abhorred being patronized. My god, it was because he was an adult, wasn't it? All I'd done was show my belly.
"Can't wait for us to play later!" She had taken off saying a bit oddly not much later, and happily and dreamily looking back at me, plotting the immolation of my image. "Add your noun, princess, no need to try and speak to him like a commoner. He'll have no problem understanding you, that one." 'That was why she sounded a bit odd, then.'
Maid and princess' conversation drifted off as they did, Kostya nudging me to follow him, and then he gave me a pat on the back that seemed like a congratulations. 'Yeah. I suckered myself into that one. Well played, Kostya, the chessboard is set and you made your first move a banger.
'I played into your hand once, next time, we see how you deal with the carrot-and-stick approach personally.' "She won't make you wear makeup. The princess has been looking for companionship among those her age for a couple of years. All her peers are too independent to be friendly with her. I worried you'd be the same."
'More carrot, already, Kostya? So you were that type, to layer the stick with carrots?' "You- you didn't want to wear dresses and makeup right?" "No. What? Why would you ask me that, Kostya?" Defensive hands. "You looked like you were sad." Angry finger. "That was because- you tricked me! You know what you did!"
Head scratch. "What?" He snickered as I elaborated, claiming he would have to try doing what I thought he had to other kids who wished to displease her on purpose, only to learn a lesson like I did. He wouldn't, though, neither of us had to say it might end up hurting her feelings and ruin the fun more than the reality already did.
She'd find other companions in time, Kostya had added after, and I wasn't sure about that if she went around calling boys pretty. Still, I nodded, and agreed internally someone would surely be as crazy. "You said I need to become a Page. Will the other Pages and Squires be the ones giving me trouble?"
"No. No, you Alyseus, will be getting your trouble from royals and imperials who aren't nearly in the successive line. The empress takes her husband from among kings. Mostly Akyrian, though not always. You might get the short and bloody civil-war if yours chooses to get herself a foreign-king. Those are the better ones."
He gave me an 'oops' look, then shrugged, and went back to his point. I guess he didn't want to elaborate about war, but, I wondered why there would be war at all when you could do something to your city that made directly lying impossible. His previous topic was more important to me.
"It's rare enough to find one like you, and never nearly so young, what with the nature of those like yours being overly dynamic. Since there isn't often one who matches ages with the empress-heiress, more commonly those others mentioned will take the place of manservant."
"Manservant? I'm- I thought I was going to be a bodyguard and lifelong ally, not a servant and a sidekick." "Why would she have you become a pickpockets apprentice?" He asked me, fascinated. 'Oops. Mistranslation.' "Is that what that means? I thought it was like saying someone shadows another."
'Well, evidently, it still did here in a way.' "I see why you thought so. Follower would work. I'm using alternatives now because you don't say your sign or station without good reason. You're going to learn everything your able to with the royals, and imperials, but you'll need to be Page trained to a Knight. A Paladin would be more ideal."
"What's their difference?" "Rank. Ability. And devotion to the chivalric-codex. A Paladin can't commit a crime. A Knight shouldn't, but they can. Knights are adopted by chivalry, whereas a Paladin adopts chivalry like the parent instead of the child." "Oh, I'll grow up and raise chivalry as a child, born of my blood!" "Let's see if your fit for a page, first.
"Don't get ahead of yourself." I was ahead of myself in only thoughts. The pavilion that centered the different training grounds took us a mile out to get to, through a strip of oak trees servicing as fire break between forrest and fields, and a tall watchtower was affixed to the center of this one and everywhere else woods bordered the capital.
The large and cool pavilion was enough for maybe a thousand crammed together, with some adults and a few teens inside it, Knight-officers and a few men and women who weren't such as priests and priestesses, but also others you couldn't identify by just their appearances. Even the Knights, most were wearing relatively normal clothing.
Only a single Knight was wearing any armor. That wasn't much, not a platesuit or any such armor meant to cover oneself widely, just a cuirass over his torso and sabatons over his feet. A thick brown doublet sat as padding under the spottily burnished cuirass, with the fine and thick leather strap over it leading down to a weathered satchel at his side.
I'd never had thought this man was a Paladin, no he struck as a Knight with less ability and means, what with how Aeric Aimes wore poorly burnished armor and flimsy leather as well as looked more carefree than I felt. You didn't get any sense that he was a person with more stresses than the others, but less, as well.
Except Aeric wasn't just a Paladin, he was a king, at that the reigning king of one of the nearby cities about the capital. He inquired about my relatives, based on my surname Smith, which I only realized some minutes later was to establish any formal connections to me and those who had already provided service to Akyria.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
I knew of none, there were a few I was related to, some not so distant and living relatives in service as scouts mostly. Somewhere farther back, from times when records had been condensed, symbols denoting greater potentials born to a bloodline had been applied to usage in establishing connections with signs and stations. Of those, my line had plenty, but little of them stood out in that regard.
That was what Aeric was looking for in my case, when Kostya made to tell Aeric whose 'Manservant' I might be, and to him my lines lack of anything abnormal to common ones was the verification he was looking. I'd also gotten to learn of a few exemplars to have gone from what were peasants, to nobles, by being raised a Knight who were ancestors to me. Nobody of note to the world, none with a widely known tale, but plenty for them as individuals.
Next I was shown to a single courtyard, one of a few extending out and away from the imperial castle. This one was alone in that it did still connect with the castle, but went on still towards the castle-interior and palace, yet that wasn't the route I was obviously meant to take. It had its own path connected to the same road, but it was smaller and unguarded.
My philosopher guardian had me introduce myself to each master, the teachers I would have to decide where to spend my time amongst on my own, which each made clear along with Kostya how that independence was not to be exploited and meant to keep me honed towards developing what I would know I'd need to learn. All I could think was, 'Hnh?', until I realized what they were hinting at.
It was obvious. 'Yeah. Nobody needs to study geography and math when you can learn magic. Point taken, guys, man are people here next-level with the wisdom.' "I understand. I'll make sure to balance my time, ask for help only when I can't figure something out, and I'll memorize the basics right away." The speech I started rehearsing had evolved to that by the last.
Openly admitting I would only seek magic as hinted by the Master-Mage had gotten me a shaking of the head from the man himself, although the Master-Sorceress indicated she thought that would be easiest for a commoner who couldn't read. A poor choice of insult as I'd known how to read since birth, the basics had been developed with reading more, and so I could recreate that and write decently.
Legibly to me more than others, but still better than I knew I'd written before, clearer though I still wrote with most of the same momentum. The Master-Philosopher was the principal figure, the last I was to meet, but too clearly the first I had met. Kostya was behaving pretty-cheekily as we walked to his office. When he pulled out his key, it was clear to us both the charade of his ended. "Headmaster Kostya?"
"No, neither, I'm Headattendant Mueller to you here. Sit down if you want. The headmistress' duties are different, Queen Aimes has charge of the school and its responsibilities off-grounds, that leaves her better able to focus on the schools works as a whole. It also means I have mine on what happens here, and naught else."
He smiled, a heartier smile than I'd seen on him yet, and I wondered if it wasn't the combination of me being excited and faces we had made the day we were leaving Eindlon. "Sit. You have a willing sponsor, so that if you make squire, an elder will train, tutor, and temper you. That matter settled, you'll have my own help and the resources of this institution open to you, as any apprentice.
"The initiate stage of 'Magics', let's say for now until you understand better, are all present within you already. So, you're an apprentice, and my own at that. You'll have yourself a place to sleep with the other pages, and with them you will live. You will come from the pavilion noons, here, and return there each evening before sundown. Other matters need not concern you.
"There is the one matter of not making your potential future role known, but, otherwise you'll have the entire days of monday off the same as all pages and apprentices. Most visit with their family your age, the initiates are usually kept here until they are novices, and so you would have been cooped up here otherwise with them."
"What's the difference between them? Initiate, novice, apprentice?" "The first is like a seed. The next, like a sprout, and the last is like a sapling. The seed might germinate on its own, or wither because it didn't fall where it could develop. The sprout has started already, but its competition include the saplings and sprouts.
"The saplings, they are the growth that gets the nurturings and attentions, because the position they fell into the forrest in from the trees above left them most-suited to grow." He trailed off in tone at the end, tone stirred by the feeling his own words and thougts had on him. "Apprentices can't harm theirselves with 'Magics', that is the primary reason novices are kept close."
If it did not keep me more busy than I imagined possible, then I wouldn't have come to view my walks between one place and another as my only peace, because lifes harsh realities came squeezing in from all around like the world itself was trying to shake me off it. The feeling never stopped, and, it was called 'Maturity'. Torture fit better.
Sleeping in a large tent let in all manner of creepers and crawlers. Just a few weeks in, an omega wolf aged or sickened out of its pack had latched onto a boys leg and began snatching him towards the woodline. By the boys sounds, the wolfs own, and my closer proximity to the tent opening than the boys I had learned a worse fear early.
The fleas, flies, spiders, mosquitoes, gnats, chiggers, snakes, rats, they were all irritating but we were exposed to worse. If the tent was not as open, it would have gotten hot inside, and as well nobody would want the breaths, stinks, and smells to overwhelm you all the time with the heat instead of worrying about less frequent annoyances.
We had thought that boys foot torn slap off by all the blood, it looked like some fierce battle had occured that the sounds and sights were not alligned with the reality of. A Knight had killed it quick and clean, one watching at the post of the pages tent interior, but there was somehow blood and fur everywhere. He had used a fine and sharp but not long sword.
Why did it look like he'd taken a hammer to the wolf? Or, had the wolf just kind of 'popped' to some not-so-lesser effect? I imagined how solid the wolf was, how hard a strike it might take to cut through, and how under the weight of a fierce and sharp slash it would have burst blood forth rather quickly.
The blood and fur all caught together in the severing path made by the blade, and all the bloody hair matted to the ground and some places on the cieling in clumps already luring flies by that morning was a lesson, a lesson that even killing an animal smaller than you required significant force. More force than a boy had imagined, until then.
The 'lil-chops' I had imagined wolves dying to, as they leapt up at me, with masterful and artistic cuts across their throat was not reality. No. Animals fur, even when it was thinner, was actually quite resistant to being slashed or cut unless you laid it down flat against something solid and sawed into it. Fur was just naturally cut and abrasion resistant.
You skinned them by first stabbing down, and into their flesh, before cutting up through the flesh that fur grew up through. Hadn't I felt the pain of ma cutting my hair enough to realize the simple truth of how much hair resisted being sliced? Even sliced clean, and by a sharp blade, with clever hands and technique, it had tugged at my head.
The weight of the blade, its heft where the weight married technique, that was what the blades sharp edge allowed to deliver through from that behind it. The process was not clean because of the fur, hence why fur and blood were strewn about as if vigorously by but one clean motion. I'd thought on that one awhile, because I couldn't sleep.
None of the other pages slept well either, every strong gust of wind wavering the tent set our eyes open to look about, and even when the boy came back we were not much calmer for awhile. A second knight was posted over us, one at each tent end, for the next weeks after us pages had been sleepless a few days.
After all, we were worked like mules, and the mules were worked harder than the horses anywhere you went. Even thoroughbreds were mules, if that thoroughbred was a page in training. You can't get the proper work out of a mule that's exhausted, they take more patient and consistent training. The 'stick-and-carrot' method has yet to yield up a good mule.
Too intelligent to be treated stupid, too independent to be treated dependent, and too friendly to be treated with any ill or trickery. Deceit will not let you outwit one, all that gets you with a mule is feelings of foolishness. If you have a well-trained mule, and stop to think at the effort involved, you should be able to wonder who the real 'jackass' was in the relationship.
It'll be a serious reflection, but the humor in it is in realizing what teaching a mule has taught you back; Grace. We were here to be the mules, the knights were here for their grace. Unlike how I was able to take increasing liberties of my own time at the academy, as page, it was only by the time I was twelve that 'training' changed.
Work had been work, our conditioning was more or less learning to work together while we built our fitness and were monitored weekly for passive health detriments, all with plenty of games mixed in that were often directed at producing useful services towards what kids were better at. The places we were made to crawl, clean, and pull lost articles or dead animals from were nightmare fuels.
If not for being let to rest extra long, even after bathing, the praises for 'volunteering' would have been just mockery.