PLAGERISM ALERT
I have decided that I enjoyed this fanfiction story about some medieval game so greatly that I will post it.
----quick background info----
=Caeric= He is a legend of a Paladin (noble dude) who is finds a holy sword saves the day, yadda yadda..you get the point.
Crossroads
Fifth Place Awarded to Rogan R. Hamby
Sir Gervais turned from cleaning his sword to see his charge struggling to carry a water pail into the garden. He watched as the scowling young man plopped the water pail and himself onto a stone bench.
Feeling playful in spite of the very serious young man, Gervais kept a straight face and waited for the coming comment. Experience dictated that it would not take long. It didn't.
"Don't you have someone to do that for you?" He glared accusingly at Gervais.
"I do but he's busy. Besides, knights should know how to tend their weapons."
"And how does growing roses fit into that?"
Ah, the truth. At least some of it. "You are carrying water buckets because yesterday you were laid flat by an overhead swing that you could have deflected had you the proper strength. Also, the whites look a little dry. Besides, you should learn about growing things. As a Knight of the Sash, killing isn't enough. Learning to nurture is important too."
"And growing a beard isn't nurturing enough, eh?" His eyes flashed and a tad too much insolence crept into his voice.
Gervais looked tired, "I don't suppose you will listen to me anymore now than then will you, Thrice Squired? You may not grow a beard because it would look stupid. While you will always find opportunities to look stupid it is in your best interest to keep them few in number."
"Everyone else has one!"
"No, everyone else, who is a squire, is trying to have one with patchy success. I have no intention of having my squire look like a fool. When you are a man, you will be able to grow one."
"I'm already older than the others and held behind. Its not fair."
"Perhaps but your age is less important than ability. When you can beat any squire in this barony you will no longer be one yourself."
"Why? Its not like you're the best knight, why do I have to be the best squire?"
"True. I am not the best knight but nor am I the worst and even the worst can beat the best squire. So, as soon as you are as good as the worst knight you can be one. It is the way of things that I will keep you from being a fool even if you insist on being one. However, I already appear the fool for having taken in a twice squired and making him thrice squired. I recommend that you don't actually make me a fool."
"Or what?"
Sir Gervais shook his head, "Or it is unlikely you will find another knight to take you. You treat this as a series of combat lessons and that has done you service. You have learned to handle lance and arrow well but you have other lessons to learn. Two knights thought you couldn't learn more than sword fighting. I think you can."
"I READ my lessons." He got up and began to pace, throwing his arms about. "I have memorized the lines of kings and can sing the stanzas of the Song of Elven Bane. What more should I know!?"
Gervais grimaced and fought his own sudden irritability. "You should know that we are not knights because we fight but we fight because we are knights. You should know that this sash represents not our strength but our weakness."
"And we do not bend to weakness, the faith of obligation is stronger than ..."
Interrupting the squire, "You can paraphrase the canticles well but..." Changing thought in midstream he thought of another direction. Gervais knew how much the squire enjoyed tales of Caeric. He would get a tale, of sorts. A pregnant pause and uncomfortable cough preceded Gervais picking up his speech. "Let me tell a tale. This is not widely told but many of the sash know it. It is about a knight seeking a sword and the crossroads he comes to..."
A knight, called Ce was on a quest for a sword, sent by his liege. His journey had been dark and into lands he did not know. Today he was riding on a dirt stamped road, watching the country side for signs of a town where he could provision. He was tired and growing weary of a quest with no apparent end. It was an early Fall when he encountered a group of merchants on the road. Their mood was somber and moving in the wrong direction to sell goods at market. Ce quickly checked the shine of his armor and straightness of moustache to ensure they were in good repair before riding upon them.
"Hail good strangers. I take you for merchants and hope you could provide a stranger in unfamiliar lands with direction."
A short man with a brown beard turned on his horse and held his hand up in the common gesture of good will. "And hails to you sir. I know your branding so I will assume you are a knight of that sigil's order and not some carrion bandit with pleasing speech."
"If I may ask, where are you headed?"
"There are only three places this road leads. One is behind us and it is the city of trade but our trading was poor. The fields have been good this year but that leaves our pockets light when we are not first to market."
"You said three. I know the road this way heads to the port of Jeudi, where I am headed and you must be selling your wares but what is this third?"
"If you travel to Jeudi I wish you a good journey. Up ahead there is a crossroads and the left fork will bear your journey and the right ours. We travel to a town called Peranslet, our home."
Ce was introduced to the other travelers. They included Barrock, a gigantic man who had traveled a fair bit and knew Ce's city well enough to miss its taverns. Next was Morisha, a young witch and excellent haggler. She gave the knight a smiling glance but remained quiet. The talkative fellow revealed himself to be Tig and, a master thespian permanently impersonating a potato farmer for lack of a paying audience or, self admittedly, talent.
They agreed to go as far as the crossroads together. From there Ce would be only a few days comfortable ride from the port and they half a day from their homes. They shared pleasant and polite chat as the horses strode towards the crossroads. By the time they reached the crossroads one of the farmers was swinging his nearly empty money pouch around jovially as a cacophonous instrument. They were all cheered to be near home. The crossroads was larger than Ce had expected, ringed by apple trees with a wooden platform built in a small clearing.
As the horses slowed Barrock was the first to notice the noise of horse hooves on frosted ground. It was rapidly chilling. Finding a place among the trees, the merchants began gathering firewood while Ce set up wind breaks and shelters. In a voice that reminded Ce of a woman at home Morisha said, "I do not like this. Normally we sleep on the edge of the road. There are spirits here."
Ce smiled at the nervousness of witches, "We will manage m'lady. Do not worry." In the future he would learn to worry when witches did.
As they settled in to bear out the night Ce reached up for an apple and snapped the vine. He looked over to Tig, "Aren't you going to tell me not to eat this? After all this is a magic grove."
Tig fed another packet of wood to the fire, "You're jesting but you don't know half of it. They say all crossroads are magical, places of opportunity and power. But I think the apples are just apples. Though you're right, we're told not to eat them." At the end his somber face, half illuminated by fire broke out into a grin. "Let's get settled boys. Early rise and its beds and hearths for us in the morrow. "
As they settled in, Ce took first watch with Tigs. He brought out his knife and dug deeply into the fruit, struggling against it. Finally he pushed down, hard and split the apple through the core only to find it frozen through. The fruit around the icy center leaked a crimson color and as he tasted it he knew the coppery flavor of blood.
A wind suddenly struck and most of the horses bolted. The fruit fell from his hand as a force grabbed Ce from above and lifted him. His neck felt the texture of coarse rope though his hands grappled widely at nothing. He felt his stomach lurch and reached for the sword at his side and just as quickly fell to earth. He stood bruised, brandishing his sword, seeing most of his friends hanging as he had just been. At least one man was already dead, his eyes bulged from their sockets.
He looked for Morisha and saw her lying among the roots of a tree. Her neck was snapped and rope burns marked her neck. Ce felt as if he were staring at a scene taking place under water. Screams a foot away seemed to come from a great distance. He pulled righteousness around him and he swung at the ethereal tendril that held Barrock. He struck nothing. In desperation Ce tried to push Barrock up but it failed to lessen the force with which he swung from the noose. He died on the noose, followed by a third and fourth.
Nobody died quickly but it began and ended one at a time. Their bodies released their lives and their fluids were unnaturally pungent in the cold air. Ce ached and he collapsed. Ce prepared to die as he watched others die. It wasn't failure that disturbed him. It was being helpless. Ce cried, not a noble tear but a heart shredding sob. And it was with his head to the ground, back bent, sick and vomiting that he heard coins fall. He searched for his coin bag. It had been torn off when pulling his sword free. He glanced at the men on the ground and found that none had coin bags. He went to those still alive and threw their coins to the ground and as he did each fell, bruised and choking but alive.
It ended as suddenly as it began, with a little warmth creeping back into the air. It had lasted only a few minutes but seemed to take hours. With few horses and many hurting they walked like madmen, woodenly but quick. They felt no pain and nearly collapsed at the first house they approached. The gathered in the morning without saying anything to the townsfolk about what happened. Few had been able to sleep but with the light of day they returned to the grove and brought back the bodies. Somewhere along the way they remembered their pain.
Tig seemed the worst off at first but he improved the most quickly. For the first week he woke screaming about a face in the dark. That faded with the freshness of memory. Ce stayed for a few days to help lay the dead to rest. During this time a story surfaced. While they had been gone to market a hanging had been done at the crossroads. It was a poor boy who loved the mayor's daughter. He was guilty of some minor crime. Folks had expected his lover to pay off the jailer with silver. It would not be the first, or even fifth, time in memory. He waited for her, but she never came. In the end she didn't even bring the coppers to the hangman to end his life quickly. It took him over twenty minutes to die at the crossroads with most of the town watching. He was buried behind the apple trees. The townsfolk later went looking for the grave to remove it but could find no trace of it and after a week gave up.
On the fourth day a farmer found and brought Ce his horse. Ce provisioned and on the fifth prepared to leave. As he bridled his horse Tig grasped Ce by the shoulder and softened to see his comrade go. "Thank you."
A thin smile parted. "You're normally more loquacious than that. For what?"
"Saving us."
Ce cast his eyes down, "Don't delude yourself. You were there. I did nothing."
"You found strength in your weakness. You had the clarity to tear the coins away."
"Did I? Or was I lucky? Or did the spirit want us to know? I don't know that my insight meant anything."
"It did. You may not know it yet but you'll pull strength from it."
"Are you trying to be a wise man?" Despite himself Ce grinned.
Tig returned it, "No, just a friend. Besides, I remembered something I heard once. You always make a choice at a crossroads, even if you know where you want to go."
They waved goodbye. Years later Ce had reason to travel there again and went to find Tig. He discovered that a gypsy troupe had been through last year. When Tig saw a dancing monkey owned by the gypsies he ran screaming. He was found drowned in a pond. For years he had screamed of the face he saw that night, the inhuman length of it and the scars around his neck never fully healed. It was finally over for him. There is more history to that place and many legends but they can wait for a campfire to be told.
"So," Sir Gervais says, "that is the story."
The squire cleared his eyes and said somberly, "That was Caeric wasn't it? He was in the dreaded lands, searching for the lich queen." His eyes looked expectant and a little confused.
Gervais laughed, heartily. "Gods, no! That was my own great grandfather, Cembar Gervais, who was sent on a quest to recover a sword for part of a dowry."
Color flushed the squire's face, "You lied to me."
"I lied to no one. I let you think what you were inclined too."
"You disguised his name and chose your words too specifically to do anything but lead me to that. Why?"
"Now you're just pouting. I told you a very true, at least as told to me, story. But, tell me this: how did you think when you heard about the weeping and thought it was Caeric?"
For several minutes the squire was unusually thoughtful, knowing from that voice that Gervais wanted a real answer. "I... I don't know. I thought that he wasn't such a hero. That he was ..."
"Weak? A man? Yes. He was. No, don't be shocked. I know the stories and they don't exist. Caeric buried his weakness deep and pulled strength from it. He filled his life with honor and faith. All of the Sash seek to do the same. You can master a sword but you must also master yourself. Caeric was a hero but he was also a man and had weaknesses whether any mortal knew them or not. Do not idolize. Emulate."
"Are you saying I can be him?"
"Realistically? No. Nor was I. But I am a better man than my father was. He said that he was proud of me when he died. I hope that you will be better than me. My final victory, I hope, will be passing on what I have learned."
"The other knights... they let their squires go unshaven because they did? But you don't want me to be you."
"You learn. We live in an age of strife. We must battle to protect but we make choices. If I pass on what I have become to my squires and they to theirs maybe Caerics will one day fill the streets. Maybe there will be an age of heros. Regardless you get to choose your road."
For a long time they were silent before the squire got up to water the roses.
Arrrrg!