The three men slipped out of the trailer and into the diffused light of a muggy day. Their bodies felt weightless without their weapons. They slipped beyond the cover of trees and into the town. When they found themselves in a residential area filled with half-timber homes, they paused to catch their breaths.

“I’m fond of you, Casey,” Colm prefaced, “but you’re an idiot.”

“What?”

“That girl is probably the one who had us captured in the first place.”

“You think so?” Now Casey understood why the old knight couldn’t smile about being set free.

“She probably told her father she saw us gawking at her and that you looked just like the Casey Byrne of legend, with a broken ear. Maybe she saw our usefulness as unicorn liberators then. Now all of our steeds are trapped in that caravan together, on their way to the dragon for dinner.”

Casey’s hands ached to have his father’s walking stick back. It’d been in his family for several decades, and it wasn’t his own to lose. He looked over the foreign town with a hungry stomach and a vengeful heart, and he understood a portion of Colm’s severity.

Colm looked into the town with wise eyes and said, “We need swords and—”

“Food!” Casey interrupted.

Colm looked back at him and nodded in agreement. Together, the three men set forth. As they walked down the dusty streets, picked bare by goats and other livestock, the people of the town went inside and closed their doors. The wooden doors and windows shut with oaken thuds.

Casey entered a market space filled with colorful awnings and tents. Venders and customers negotiated prices for wares, and a musician performed on a woodwind instrument. Compelled forward by his hunger, Casey pushed through the crowd and approached a merchant in a meat-splattered apron selling meats in fish sauce.

“What can I interest you in—” the merchant said before the sight of Casey compelled him to fall silent. He looked at the side of Casey’s head, where the goat had marked his ear. “Maybe you’d be happier shopping somewhere else.” He swatted Casey away with his hand. “Get going now; I don’t have anything to sell you.”

“We just came here to buy food, that’s all!” Casey insisted. “My knight friends and I are hungry.”

“Some knights! Can’t even complete the outfit with swords. Be on your way now, Casey, I’m not looking for trouble today.”

“Maybe I can help,” Colm said as he stepped forward. “I have papers from the king himself—”

“No, no,” the merchant denied with a shake of his head. “Even a pauper can forge papers.” At the end of his patience, he yelled, “Be gone!”

The three men stepped away from the vendor's tent and returned to the crowd of shoppers.

“That was awful,” Casey said. “Maybe someone else will be more sympathetic.”

Colm shook his head and said, “On the contrary, allow the knights to try on their own. Your ear is tipping people off.”

Colm and Ryan separated from Casey and tried on their own. Moments later, they returned with empty hands and shame on their faces. It became clear that this town knew them too well. As their names and reputations preceded them, they understood the need to leave the public eye.

“We’re going to have to keep a lower profile if we expect to survive until evening,” Colm said. “The people who live here have a preconceived notion of the kind of man you are, and they’ve seen us with you.”

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Feeling as though he’d committed a crime, Casey left the marketplace. He looked left and right for any men-at-arms who might try to capture him or give him trouble. Traveling with two knights granted him some protection, but not much now that they were disarmed.

Hunger sharpened Casey’s wit for the moment. He hadn’t reached the stage of hunger that created weakness yet. He had a sharpened, angry clarity of mind that made his situation painfully clear. Potted peonies and daffodils in window boxes revealed the care this community put into its own upkeeping. He stood outside of that care, a scoundrel and a scapegrace, a persona non grata. He couldn’t even buy food here.

“I don’t deserve this,” Casey said out loud as they left the marketplace. “I’m just hungry, that’s all.”

“No, I don’t believe you deserve this either,” Colm said. “You aren’t responsible for the sins their imaginations have you committing. Now that they’ve put us in this situation, we’ll have to steal to survive.”

“I’ve never done that before, but my stomach says I must.” Casey shrugged.

“Then we’ll divide up. We won’t be spotted as easily that way. We’ll meet in the evening at the statue of the lioness on that hill.” Colm pointed in the distance, where a statue of a lioness and her cubs stood above a fountain. “And Casey?”

“Yes?”

“Get a hat to cover your ear.”

***

Casey, wearing a new hat, stood underneath the lioness at evening time and waited for his peers to arrive. He reflected on the treasures he’d stolen thus far: three eggs, two lumps of some kind of regional novelty bread, and a grapefruit that seemed most appealing of all. He’d eaten the eggs already, uncooked, just broke them open and sucked them dry. Now he gnawed on the bread as strangers walked past. They cast him cruel glares. Overcast skies refused him any sunlight. As he chewed, he contemplated the novelty of being a criminal. He’d been laughed at back home, but never loathed or seen as dishonest. His name plunged into a negative realm of worth because of the words spoken about him here. He lived as the thief they believed him to be. The food kept him from starving, but he resented it. He wished he’d had a chance to pay for it, but the people feared doing business with him.

“Tell me you’re ready to leave this awful place,” Casey said to Colm when he arrived.

“We are,” Colm answered.

Ryan carried an extra sword, complete with a sheath and belt. He handed it to Casey and explained, “Thankfully, arms dealers aren’t so discriminating about their clientele.”

Casey looked down and noticed that both Colm and Ryan possessed new swords in their sheaths. Their outfits looked complete now. He extended his hands to accept the sword Ryan brought to him. Ryan withheld it for just a moment.

“When you take this sword, you’re becoming our squire, and you’re tasked with showing absolute valor in the face of danger. You’re too old to be a page boy. If you survive to meet Rey Polilla, then we’ll knight you before we face him.”

“I understand,” Casey said. “This sword’s not an empty gesture.” Casey took the sword and belted it on his body. The weight of it reinforced the gravity of the moment.

Colm motioned for Casey to follow him and spoke, “No matter what anyone has said to you, you are good enough to carry that sword. We’re heading into danger now. We’re going to Morgan’s Bridge, where the caravan awaits. There’s a unicorn that cries for freedom and two stolen steeds we deserve to reclaim.”

The weight of the new sword pressed down on Casey’s thigh, and he felt capable of being more than a thief. He forgot the squirrely way he stole food. He hoped to become something grander, a kind of man who would never have to steal again.

The road opened up wider as they departed. The creamy, white flowers of rowan trees fluttered in a subtle wind beside the stone street. Seldom laborers crossed paths with the two knights and their squire, fatigued from their day of work. Children played in the street in the final rays of sunlight. After turning a corner of half-timber buildings with thatched roofs, the view of Morgan’s Bridge became clear. The sun disappeared, casting the sky in twilight. The stone bridge stretched over a sparkling river that hissed and churned with force. Before the bridge, the caravan of the Guarantors formed a half-circle to protect against the winds. The Guarantors fed their horses and mules in torchlight, shared wild stories, and guffawed.

A tree with violet blossoms stood on the riverbank, just as Aisling had described. Underneath it, an unmarked wagon stood to itself. It must have belonged to her.

Casey, Colm, and Ryan stood on the hillside and watched until each of the men extinguished their torches and went to sleep. Under the dark of night, with a thousand stars overhead, the companions descended on the caravan.

“If they’re all sleeping soundly enough, we may not need weapons at all,” Casey said.

“Oh, a weapon is a funny thing,” Ryan said as they maneuvered through the dark. “You never need one, really, but the day you need one and don’t have it is the day you die.”