Tintauri's Squire - Part 4
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Tal did not dare to sleep. The cold proved an ally there, at least. Eventual morning brought stiff misery and aches in body and soul, but light, as well.
Can I do this? wondered Tal. I must, I must ... but can I really?
Sounds of movement had started to come from Sir Tintauri's room well before sunrise, but it was not until an hour after sunrise that the winterknight finally emerged. He still smelled like horse.
"Oh, still there," the knight said as if in congratulations, busy with the catch of his cloak. Tal began to uncurl and rise, every limb numb or throbbing. "Well done. Can you saddle a mount?"
"No, my lord."
"Hm. Most of them usually can, you know. Never mind, come and I'll show you how it's done - once."
Tal followed Sir Tintauri down the stairs, still trying to rub full life into both arms, and then cast a sharp look to the left as the third-floor door opened.
"Tintauri," Sir Madaire greeted as he stepped onto the landing, yawning, his hair as washed and neat as Sir Tintauri's wasn't. "Oh, and young Lightning. Off with Scadamain?"
"Be serious," replied the other. "Scadamain's at least two hours gone by now. The sun's up."
"Then I hope you're not going to any kind of settlement looking - and smelling - like that."
"The people I'm going to see aren't in any condition to criticise how I look or smell."
"Ah." Sir Madaire grimaced in disgust. "You enjoy that, Corpseraker. Bet your squire will too."
He headed on down the staircase, jogging down the steps with old practice, and was soon lost to sight.
"You're not coming with me," said Sir Tintauri as they started moving again. "But if I were you, I really wouldn't give him cause to find that out today."
The door opened behind them a second time, just before last sight of the third landing was lost. Tal caught only a glimpse of squire Keal's hopeless face, his eyes reddened with tears.
Once they arrived in the stables - almost as busy with stablehands on the inside as it was busy with workmen outside - Sir Tintauri went into a lengthy description of saddle and tack, preparing his own mount as he spoke. It was a magnificent beast, a great, gleaming roan, twice as neatly groomed as its master.
"Now," said the winterknight cheerfully towards the end, tugging out a bunched fold in the saddle-blanket, "I could go into a long spiel here about how Leth will crack your skull if you try to mount him yourself, but actually he probably won't. I will. We'll see about finding you something to ride once you've become a bit more useful - and assuming you last, too, of course - but until then, and even afterwards, you don't sit on my horse. Curiosity, cats, and so on."
"Yes, my lord."
"You may, however, sit in my horse's stall. That is in fact what I recommend you do today. Not very entertaining, I'm sure, but then not many people seem to like Madaire's ideas of entertainment."
"Yes, my lord."
"Rake it out while you're in there."
"Yes, my lord."
The stables reeked, but they were warm. Tal busied about with the rake as Sir Tintauri led his horse outside, stirring the hay in uncertain circles until a sarcastic stablehand demonstrated the proper meaning of 'rake it out'. Then, chore finished, Tal went and sat alone in the roan's empty stall.
Suddenly sleep sprang in unexpectedly, brought on by the warmth and the relative comfort of the hay as compared to a stone corridor. It was the loud clanging of a fallen bucket that finally woke Tal again in a startled spray of hay.
"Watch your hands!" a woman's voice snapped a little further down, short and breathless. "You spill anything on me and I'll remove them both for you!"
"I'm s-"
"Damn it!" Footsteps rushed towards the stall where Tal crouched. "Tintauri's horse is gone. When did he - you! The squire!"
The fierce, pale face of the female winterknight from dinner reared over the stall door. Her grey eyes blazed with urgency. "When did your master leave?"
"I'm not sure ..." Tal replied meekly. "I ... I was sleeping ..."
She thumped the stall door. "Then where did he go?"
"I'm n-not -"
"You'll be not breathing in a moment! Think, boy!"
"He didn't say! I'm sorry! He didn't say! He only said ..." Tal broke off, realising it wasn't the most decorous remark.
"You won't have time to regret being a fool if I open this door," the winterknight snapped.
"He said he was going somewhere where no-one would care how he looked or s-smelled!"
Tal expected more anger, but oddly enough the colourless woman leaned back from the door for a moment, looking relieved. "Breezes of heaven, someone's thinking."
"Sir Tintauri left early this morning, Lady Auridine," a stablehand offered in the background.
"Better! Even better!" She pulled away from the stall door, rattling it on loose hinges for a moment. "Since you're obviously so busy, squire, come to my room and let me know the moment he returns. It shouldn't be long if he left so early."
"Which -?" Tal began, but the winterknight was already striding away, her firm steps rasping off through the thinner stable hay.
Tal sat back down in the stall, stomach snarling with hunger. Where did squires go to eat during the day? Did they eat during the day? The idea of ringing a bell or calling a servant seemed like imagination now. It was all so hard, and only the second day ...
As Lady Auridine had said, there was not long to wait before Sir Tintauri's return. One of the stablehands came running up to the stall and rattled the door to get Tal's attention. "He's here! Go get Lady Auridine!"
"Which floor's her room?"
"The sixth! Quick!"
Tal ran out of the stables, spotting Sir Tintauri's roan riding up from the gatehouse, and hurried back towards the South Tower again, churning up the empty flights - second floor, third floor, fourth floor, fifth floor ...
And stopped there, breathless and bewildered. There was no sixth floor.
Was there a mistake? Had they meant the fifth floor? Tal hesitated a moment, then rushed to knock on the fifth floor door. There was no reply. Tal even screwed up enough courage to open the door and look around inside, but it was empty. Was it Lady Auridine's? Was she simply not there? Was it not her room? Had the stablehand played a trick on Tal as well?
Tal waited outside the door a little while, then finally gave up, turning to descend at almost the same speed, one hand on the wall. The sound of Tal's footsteps danced and echoed alone in the stairwell only as far as the fourth landing, when another door opened and closed somewhere lower down. This time, recognising the subtle difference in the clean soldier's gait that followed, Tal realised very well who it was.
"That you rushing around up there, Lightning?" Sir Madaire called up lazily from below. "Is Tintauri back? The bi- Auridine's looking for him."
"Yes, my lord, he's back," replied Tal readily. "I just let Lady Auridine know."
"Let her know?" The winterknight's voice quirked, puzzled. "What, just now?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Hm. I know you're fast, boy, but Heavenly Marhaya himself might be impressed if you just ran to the sixth floor of the keep and back."
The keep? "No, that was before this, my lord ... I just took something back to Sir Tintauri's room for him ..."
A little laugh echoed down below. "Funny you should knock, then."
Tal remained silent a moment - then broke into a run again, leaping down the steps two and three at a time. After his own brief pause for surprise, Sir Madaire started to laugh again, emerging on the third-floor landing just in time to shout "Boo!" as Tal hurtled past.
The winterknight didn't give chase, though. Tal kept running anyway, clattering back down the third and second flights in a virulent rush of panic ... then paused halfway down the first flight, throat seizing.
The ground floor was a skittering, seething mass of white spiders, their bulbous, milky bodies gleaming like pearls. Fist-sized pearls.
"Pretty impressive, eh?" Sir Madaire called down from above, descending at a leisurely pace now. "Bet you didn't know I could do that."
Tal descended another two steps, teeth set, and then retreated one step again as a pair of spiders crawled onto the lowermost, their thin stick-legs tap-tap-tapping and feeling the way.
"Fear not, dear boy! I'll protect you! Come stand behind me!"
The winterknight's laughter thrummed in the stairwell, agitating the seething swarm of spiders. Tal cried out as another half-dozen, another dozen came tap-tap-tapping their way onto the stair, retreating another step.
Sir Madaire continued to descend, pausing three or four steps behind Tal as the wave of spiders flooded higher. Tal held out as long as possible, clothes turning clammy with cold sweat, until the first spider lifted its two forelegs, touch-touch-touching, and crawled onto Tal's boot.
Tal lurched back with another cry, and then another as the winterknight's arms forestalled the fall.
"There we go," Sir Madaire murmured into Tal's ear. "Did I really need a horde of spiders? That's a bit sad, really. Stand up and be brave, now."
The knight stood Tal up himself, one hand still resting on one shoulder, and descended another step with his free hand outstretched. His young face knit in concentration as he looked down at the spiders, and low, sonorous words in a patternless-sounding language began to spill from his lips.
Tal took a long succession of deep breaths, trying to find the courage to face this.
Then, with a half-cry, half-scream, Tal leaped down the last steps and lunged across the seething floor for the door, shedding spiders like hideous snowflakes in flight.
Each step on the floor was like trampling eggs - milky, resinous remains splattered under and over both boots as they pounded down on spider and stone alike. Clinging spiders darted here and there in agitation, mostly over Tal's legs, scuttling and stinging until they were slapped or struck away.
Tal burst back out into the daylight still slapping and sobbing in panic, continuing long after the last spider was gone. The bites burned with a cold pain, like ice pressed to bare skin, and already Tal's lips felt thick and numb. Will I die? Am I dying? I can't do this!
It was an odd choice for conscious brain or hindbrain to make, but before Tal was quite aware of it, there was the stable again. Stablehands stared in alarm as the squire stumbled in, still flailing at imagined spider-whispers, face wet with tears.
"Sir Tintauri," Tal blurted out.
"He's gone to see Lady Auridine, obviously," one of the hands replied slowly, looking Tal over. "You should have passed him on the way back."
"Didn't ... find her."
"Make sure she doesn't find you, then," another sighed. "She'll be very put out if she thinks you didn't do as you were told."
"And what does she do?" shouted Tal. "Snakes?"
Half-uncomfortable, half-apprehensive silence piled in as Tal slid down the wall and curled into a ball, clutching handfuls of dirty brown hair, twitching for every hay-prickle that imitated a creeping spider-leg.
"I can't do this. I thought I could. I can't. I can't."
Tal did not dare to sleep. The cold proved an ally there, at least. Eventual morning brought stiff misery and aches in body and soul, but light, as well.
Can I do this? wondered Tal. I must, I must ... but can I really?
Sounds of movement had started to come from Sir Tintauri's room well before sunrise, but it was not until an hour after sunrise that the winterknight finally emerged. He still smelled like horse.
"Oh, still there," the knight said as if in congratulations, busy with the catch of his cloak. Tal began to uncurl and rise, every limb numb or throbbing. "Well done. Can you saddle a mount?"
"No, my lord."
"Hm. Most of them usually can, you know. Never mind, come and I'll show you how it's done - once."
Tal followed Sir Tintauri down the stairs, still trying to rub full life into both arms, and then cast a sharp look to the left as the third-floor door opened.
"Tintauri," Sir Madaire greeted as he stepped onto the landing, yawning, his hair as washed and neat as Sir Tintauri's wasn't. "Oh, and young Lightning. Off with Scadamain?"
"Be serious," replied the other. "Scadamain's at least two hours gone by now. The sun's up."
"Then I hope you're not going to any kind of settlement looking - and smelling - like that."
"The people I'm going to see aren't in any condition to criticise how I look or smell."
"Ah." Sir Madaire grimaced in disgust. "You enjoy that, Corpseraker. Bet your squire will too."
He headed on down the staircase, jogging down the steps with old practice, and was soon lost to sight.
"You're not coming with me," said Sir Tintauri as they started moving again. "But if I were you, I really wouldn't give him cause to find that out today."
The door opened behind them a second time, just before last sight of the third landing was lost. Tal caught only a glimpse of squire Keal's hopeless face, his eyes reddened with tears.
Once they arrived in the stables - almost as busy with stablehands on the inside as it was busy with workmen outside - Sir Tintauri went into a lengthy description of saddle and tack, preparing his own mount as he spoke. It was a magnificent beast, a great, gleaming roan, twice as neatly groomed as its master.
"Now," said the winterknight cheerfully towards the end, tugging out a bunched fold in the saddle-blanket, "I could go into a long spiel here about how Leth will crack your skull if you try to mount him yourself, but actually he probably won't. I will. We'll see about finding you something to ride once you've become a bit more useful - and assuming you last, too, of course - but until then, and even afterwards, you don't sit on my horse. Curiosity, cats, and so on."
"Yes, my lord."
"You may, however, sit in my horse's stall. That is in fact what I recommend you do today. Not very entertaining, I'm sure, but then not many people seem to like Madaire's ideas of entertainment."
"Yes, my lord."
"Rake it out while you're in there."
"Yes, my lord."
The stables reeked, but they were warm. Tal busied about with the rake as Sir Tintauri led his horse outside, stirring the hay in uncertain circles until a sarcastic stablehand demonstrated the proper meaning of 'rake it out'. Then, chore finished, Tal went and sat alone in the roan's empty stall.
Suddenly sleep sprang in unexpectedly, brought on by the warmth and the relative comfort of the hay as compared to a stone corridor. It was the loud clanging of a fallen bucket that finally woke Tal again in a startled spray of hay.
"Watch your hands!" a woman's voice snapped a little further down, short and breathless. "You spill anything on me and I'll remove them both for you!"
"I'm s-"
"Damn it!" Footsteps rushed towards the stall where Tal crouched. "Tintauri's horse is gone. When did he - you! The squire!"
The fierce, pale face of the female winterknight from dinner reared over the stall door. Her grey eyes blazed with urgency. "When did your master leave?"
"I'm not sure ..." Tal replied meekly. "I ... I was sleeping ..."
She thumped the stall door. "Then where did he go?"
"I'm n-not -"
"You'll be not breathing in a moment! Think, boy!"
"He didn't say! I'm sorry! He didn't say! He only said ..." Tal broke off, realising it wasn't the most decorous remark.
"You won't have time to regret being a fool if I open this door," the winterknight snapped.
"He said he was going somewhere where no-one would care how he looked or s-smelled!"
Tal expected more anger, but oddly enough the colourless woman leaned back from the door for a moment, looking relieved. "Breezes of heaven, someone's thinking."
"Sir Tintauri left early this morning, Lady Auridine," a stablehand offered in the background.
"Better! Even better!" She pulled away from the stall door, rattling it on loose hinges for a moment. "Since you're obviously so busy, squire, come to my room and let me know the moment he returns. It shouldn't be long if he left so early."
"Which -?" Tal began, but the winterknight was already striding away, her firm steps rasping off through the thinner stable hay.
Tal sat back down in the stall, stomach snarling with hunger. Where did squires go to eat during the day? Did they eat during the day? The idea of ringing a bell or calling a servant seemed like imagination now. It was all so hard, and only the second day ...
As Lady Auridine had said, there was not long to wait before Sir Tintauri's return. One of the stablehands came running up to the stall and rattled the door to get Tal's attention. "He's here! Go get Lady Auridine!"
"Which floor's her room?"
"The sixth! Quick!"
Tal ran out of the stables, spotting Sir Tintauri's roan riding up from the gatehouse, and hurried back towards the South Tower again, churning up the empty flights - second floor, third floor, fourth floor, fifth floor ...
And stopped there, breathless and bewildered. There was no sixth floor.
Was there a mistake? Had they meant the fifth floor? Tal hesitated a moment, then rushed to knock on the fifth floor door. There was no reply. Tal even screwed up enough courage to open the door and look around inside, but it was empty. Was it Lady Auridine's? Was she simply not there? Was it not her room? Had the stablehand played a trick on Tal as well?
Tal waited outside the door a little while, then finally gave up, turning to descend at almost the same speed, one hand on the wall. The sound of Tal's footsteps danced and echoed alone in the stairwell only as far as the fourth landing, when another door opened and closed somewhere lower down. This time, recognising the subtle difference in the clean soldier's gait that followed, Tal realised very well who it was.
"That you rushing around up there, Lightning?" Sir Madaire called up lazily from below. "Is Tintauri back? The bi- Auridine's looking for him."
"Yes, my lord, he's back," replied Tal readily. "I just let Lady Auridine know."
"Let her know?" The winterknight's voice quirked, puzzled. "What, just now?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Hm. I know you're fast, boy, but Heavenly Marhaya himself might be impressed if you just ran to the sixth floor of the keep and back."
The keep? "No, that was before this, my lord ... I just took something back to Sir Tintauri's room for him ..."
A little laugh echoed down below. "Funny you should knock, then."
Tal remained silent a moment - then broke into a run again, leaping down the steps two and three at a time. After his own brief pause for surprise, Sir Madaire started to laugh again, emerging on the third-floor landing just in time to shout "Boo!" as Tal hurtled past.
The winterknight didn't give chase, though. Tal kept running anyway, clattering back down the third and second flights in a virulent rush of panic ... then paused halfway down the first flight, throat seizing.
The ground floor was a skittering, seething mass of white spiders, their bulbous, milky bodies gleaming like pearls. Fist-sized pearls.
"Pretty impressive, eh?" Sir Madaire called down from above, descending at a leisurely pace now. "Bet you didn't know I could do that."
Tal descended another two steps, teeth set, and then retreated one step again as a pair of spiders crawled onto the lowermost, their thin stick-legs tap-tap-tapping and feeling the way.
"Fear not, dear boy! I'll protect you! Come stand behind me!"
The winterknight's laughter thrummed in the stairwell, agitating the seething swarm of spiders. Tal cried out as another half-dozen, another dozen came tap-tap-tapping their way onto the stair, retreating another step.
Sir Madaire continued to descend, pausing three or four steps behind Tal as the wave of spiders flooded higher. Tal held out as long as possible, clothes turning clammy with cold sweat, until the first spider lifted its two forelegs, touch-touch-touching, and crawled onto Tal's boot.
Tal lurched back with another cry, and then another as the winterknight's arms forestalled the fall.
"There we go," Sir Madaire murmured into Tal's ear. "Did I really need a horde of spiders? That's a bit sad, really. Stand up and be brave, now."
The knight stood Tal up himself, one hand still resting on one shoulder, and descended another step with his free hand outstretched. His young face knit in concentration as he looked down at the spiders, and low, sonorous words in a patternless-sounding language began to spill from his lips.
Tal took a long succession of deep breaths, trying to find the courage to face this.
Then, with a half-cry, half-scream, Tal leaped down the last steps and lunged across the seething floor for the door, shedding spiders like hideous snowflakes in flight.
Each step on the floor was like trampling eggs - milky, resinous remains splattered under and over both boots as they pounded down on spider and stone alike. Clinging spiders darted here and there in agitation, mostly over Tal's legs, scuttling and stinging until they were slapped or struck away.
Tal burst back out into the daylight still slapping and sobbing in panic, continuing long after the last spider was gone. The bites burned with a cold pain, like ice pressed to bare skin, and already Tal's lips felt thick and numb. Will I die? Am I dying? I can't do this!
It was an odd choice for conscious brain or hindbrain to make, but before Tal was quite aware of it, there was the stable again. Stablehands stared in alarm as the squire stumbled in, still flailing at imagined spider-whispers, face wet with tears.
"Sir Tintauri," Tal blurted out.
"He's gone to see Lady Auridine, obviously," one of the hands replied slowly, looking Tal over. "You should have passed him on the way back."
"Didn't ... find her."
"Make sure she doesn't find you, then," another sighed. "She'll be very put out if she thinks you didn't do as you were told."
"And what does she do?" shouted Tal. "Snakes?"
Half-uncomfortable, half-apprehensive silence piled in as Tal slid down the wall and curled into a ball, clutching handfuls of dirty brown hair, twitching for every hay-prickle that imitated a creeping spider-leg.
"I can't do this. I thought I could. I can't. I can't."