It always happened like this: he was minding his own business, completing a task or working at his lessons or even just sitting under a tree, enjoying the sunshine, and then suddenly there they would be. They seemed to have a knack for knowing when he was alone, or when he was around adults who either wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t care. He never saw them when the lord was around - they wouldn’t dare - or any of the ladies or gentlemen who’d taken a liking to the skinny, dark-haired young squire-apprentice from Jorash City. But the moment he was alone, they materialized as if by magic.
They, of course, were the eldest of the manor’s boys: a group of four young toughs who would be men before too long. Their leader was a boy who thought it good sport to toss kittens into the fighting dogs’ pen: the lord’s bastard son, Jervan. Jervan was keenly aware that, as one of many bastards, and not the eldest by far, his position in his father’s graces was very precarious. So when the lord brought a new squire-apprentice back from a trip to the duke’s court, Jervan had moved immediately to make that new addition to the household properly submissive to himself.
For two years, the smaller boy endured the taunts and the sneers of Jervan and his mates, he suffered their attacks, and he bore their blows. He did so because, when he took his leave of her, his mother had held him close and whispered her best advice into his ear. “There will be those,” she had said to him, “who will seek to abuse you simply because they can. If you can help it, try not to sink to their level. Keep your own hands clean as best as you can.” But a boy can only be expected to endure so much ill-treatment before he simply cannot bear any more.
“Oh, look, it’s the weed-boy,” was how it started on the warm day when Eltan the Squire-Apprentice reached the end of his tether. They had started calling him that one day when the weaponsmaster had noticed that Eltan needed new practice armor and had commented that the boy was growing like a weed.
“Perhaps we should pluck the weed,” Jervan said to his companion Rell, a brute of a boy who ought to have been assigned a man’s tasks several seasons before.
Rell laughed his ugly laugh. “I’ll pluck it out by the roots,” he said, strolling toward Eltan, who was quickly and quietly packing up his belt pouch.
“I say,” chimed in a third voice: the silky, urbane tone of Rojis, another bastard with a temper. “What has the weed-boy got there?”
“Some kind of box,” said the fourth, the wiry and dark Sera - the only girl Eltan knew who would have anything to do with Jervan or his friends.
Eltan slipped the box into his pouch quickly, not looking at the other boys as he tied a hasty knot in the pouch’s strings and gripped it tightly in his hand.
“I’ll have that box,” Jervan said flatly. “Give it here, weed-boy.”
“No,” Eltan said, his voice quiet but firm, and his leg muscles tensing.
The four bullies stopped, glancing at one another as though surprised that their prey had the temerity to refuse. “What did it say?” Sera exclaimed. “I think it refused a direct order.”
“Not surprising,” Rojis drawled. “It hasn’t got the sense to defer to its betters. And I’m not certain, but do I smell offal?”
“Yes, you do smell awful,” Eltan snapped, provoked at last by nothing more than the available pun. “Maybe you should take a bath.”
There was a moment of stunned silence, and then Jervan pointed at him. “Get him! I want that box!”
Eltan sprang from his seat and fled, and they pursued him. He dodged around buildings, scrambled over fences and even detoured through one of the barns as he attempted to shake them off, but he couldn’t quite manage it. They were larger and heavier than he was, which slowed most of them down, but Sera was quick, and harder to lose.
He finally evaded his tormentors by ducking into a field of young corn; slight as he was, the stalks closed over his head and around his frame and he vanished into them with little more than a shiver of leaves to mark his passage. They rounded the corner of the field just a few seconds too late. Their quarry had escaped; the path was empty. Loudly disappointed in the abrupt end to their game, they wandered away from the cornfield, moving toward the salle as their noon appointment with the weaponsmaster approached.
From between the thickening stalks of corn, Eltan watched them go, heaving a soft sigh when it became obvious that they really had given up the chase. For now, he thought bitterly, knowing perfectly well that when he arrived at the salle for his own training, they would be there, and the torment would begin again. He groaned softly, pushing the cornstalks aside so that he could see the sky. The first sun was very nearly overhead, and the second wasn’t far behind it. He would be expected in the salle with the others. Likely there would be a beating in it for him if he didn’t turn up.
He stood very still in the corn for a long moment, tying his pouch around his waist and considering. Then he turned his back on the buildings and made his way through the field. On the other side, he clambered over a low stacked-stone wall into one of the hayfields. It was up to his armpits - the second harvest of hay this year - and moving through it felt a bit like wading through very deep water as he made his way even farther from where he should be. His eyes remained fixed on his ultimate goal: the dark bulk of the forest.
He took an angled track through hay that billowed in the sweet summer breeze, and it wasn’t long before the shadows of those great trees were casting over him, their cool shade a balm after the burning heat of noon. He felt the trees open to him, welcoming him into their gentle silence, and he sighed softly, relaxing for the first time since the older boys had caught sight of him.
Resentment for the bullying burned in his belly as he made his way deeper into the woods, ignoring the regular hunting trails in favor of a deer track he happened to stumble upon. Though he loved exploring the forest, and had done so often, he didn’t think he’d seen that particular track before, and he had never been the type of boy to pass up a chance to seek out something new. He placed his feet carefully as he moved, quiet to avoid disturbing the wildlife and quiet to avoid detection as well. A boy never knew when one of the men would take it into his head to form up a hunting party, and he really didn’t want to be caught.
The overhead canopy blocked out the sunlight, making the forest floor cool and shady. It was no great strain on a healthy young lad to travel a well-worn deer track for quite a long time - long enough that he almost certainly faced a beating for shirking when he returned. He didn’t care. If it wasn’t shirking, it would be something else; the lord, who usually protected him from such mistreatment, had been gone for several days. The boy bitterly wondered if he might not be best served by simply remaining in the forest until the lord returned. Snorting softly at himself, he rounded a rock outcropping that had forced the track to turn - and he stopped still at its edge, gasping in awe.
That was no outcropping, he realized belatedly, a flash of childhood memory overtaking him. That was a stacked-stone wall, covered in the moss of centuries. He rounded the fallen edge of the wall, clambering over a bit of the remaining debris, and stared around with glee. “I didn’t know there were ruins out here!” he exclaimed, heedless of the birds who took wing at the sound of his voice. “This is wonderful!”
And indeed it was. The stone wall he had mistaken for an outcropping stood eight feet high, encircling an overgrown but still beautiful courtyard. The pavers were cracked and shifted with the centuries, mossy in some places and sprouting grass in others, but their design was still visible; the faded variegation of the colored stones radiated out from a five-tiered marble fountain which held court in the precise middle of the area. Off to one side, two stone benches still stood beside the remains of a third, which had toppled; across the flagstones on the opposite end of the oval-shaped area were the remains of two wrought-iron chairs which faced one another across the skeleton of a small wrought-iron table. In the grass beneath them, the boy discovered a set of chessmen, carved of green and white stone. Gleefully, he collected these, digging his belt pouch from under his tunic to pour them in.
As he did so, he felt the weight of the small box that was already in his pouch, and he remembered, quite suddenly, the reason why the older boys had been chasing him earlier. He fished it out and set it aside, then lined up the chessmen on the stones to be sure he had them all. Once he was certain that he did, he transferred them into the pouch and tucked it away again. Then he picked up his parcel, holding it carefully as he walked over to perch on the side of the dry fountain. He took a deep breath and opened the box. The first thing he encountered was a letter from his mother. His fingers traced the familiar shapes of her handwriting as he read it.
My dear son,
I hope that this letter finds you well and happy on the twelfth anniversary of your birth. Know that I miss you greatly and think of you always, and I yearn for the day when I shall see you again. Lord Andrus writes me often to tell me of your progress, and expresses his pleasure with your hard work and eager mind; I do wish, though, that I might hear directly from you a bit more often.
He grinned slightly. He could write every day and it wouldn’t be often enough for his mother.
I have enclosed your birthing-day gift; I confess that I found myself flummoxed when attempting to decide what you should have. I know little of the habits and preferences of adolescent boys, and with you so far away, I am sadly unaware of what you might lack or desire. After consulting with my Lord, I thought it best to let you choose for yourself.
He blinked, looking back into the box, and his eyes grew wide at the sight of the fat little leather purse which was waiting for him. Knowing his mother - and the generosity of her master, who had only ever been kind to both of them - it probably held more coin than he would be able to spend in a year. Dodging into that cornfield had been the best idea he’d had recently; the loss of that money would have been quite a blow. He returned to the letter.
My Eltan, I do miss you greatly, the letter continued. Lord Andrus has promised that you will come to see me soon, but he is distracted by the Sandrian incursions on the eastern border, and my Lord will not permit me to travel while the situation is so precarious, even to the relative safety of the west, where you are. So I shall not see you again until conditions permit; I may only hope and pray that it is soon.
Your little brothers send their regards; Tybost wished me to send you the tadpoles he found in the stream, but I convinced him that this would not be a good idea.
I hope that you think of me occasionally, and remember me fondly.
All my love,
Mama.
By the end of the letter, the boy was sniffling; he missed his mother terribly on the best of days, and today was far from the best of days. A sudden wave of homesickness washed over him. That protected courtyard reminded him strongly of the walled gardens in the Hall of Women where he had been born. Sitting there in the middle of it, with the afternoon suns warming his head and shoulders, he clutched the letter against his chest and cried softly.
A sudden sound interrupted his grief - a ringing like the chime of a bell. He raised his head and looked around. A sudden, extra-brilliant shaft of late-afternoon sunlight fell from the sky, perfectly illuminating the massive figure that strode toward him. Each footstep rang against the cracked flagstones, and the chimes echoing around the little courtyard did not fade until more had rung out. By the time the figure was eye-to-eye with the boy, his head was ringing with the sound of bells.
It was a magnificent unicorn stallion. He stood still for a moment, bathed in the light, and then his caramel-colored head dipped, his golden eyes taking the boy in carefully. There was a long moment of silence as the ringing faded. “No offense,” the unicorn finally said, his voice a deep baritone, “but I really thought you’d be taller.” It - he - blinked at the boy. “What’s your name, child?”
“El -” The boy’s voice cracked, and he swallowed. “Eltan, sir.”
The unicorn shook his pale mane, his nicker sounding suspiciously like a laugh. “No need to ‘sir’ me, boy. My name is Teriántan. I’m called Teri.”
Out of habit, Eltan gave a half-bow, nearly braining himself on the unicorn’s golden horn. Teri took a quick half-step back, a sound of alarm escaping him. “Careful, now!” he exclaimed, shaking his mane at the boy. “This thing isn’t for show, you know.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Eltan stared at the unicorn for a moment longer before suddenly blinking, his eyes narrowing just a fraction. “Wait a moment. What do you mean, you thought I’d be taller?”
“Aha!” Teri nickered in amusement again. “So your brain is working again already. Next time, I need the light to be higher, so you’ll be dazzled longer.” He gave the boy a sidelong look that could only be interpreted as a horsey sort of grin. “And I meant, of course, that our meeting here was no accident. I came here for you.”
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