Affairs Of A Knight

Chasing Ghosts - 9

The principle of self-defence, even involving weapons and bloodshed has never been condemned

    — Martin Luther King Jr.

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.

        —Mao Zedong

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Affairs of A Knight- 9

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It had become their personal routine. She always came to find him before dawn cracked, sometimes he was already wide awake, waiting, sometimes she woke him up with a bucket of freezing water.

He wondered if she was human at all if she ever had a wink of sleep.

But that morning, it was not the female knight that came to get him.

"Up boy!" The impossibly large man barked, "Kit up. We are going out"

"Eh? Excuse me?"

"Hasten up! Otherwise, you shall walk to Warwick" the knight finished before leaning his empty doorway trembling.

Time with this so-called mother had paid off. She was unimaginably fast and some of that quickness has rubbed off on him.

No—she had shoved it down his throat, if he wasn't fast enough, her blade would cut flesh, so amongst the other things she taught him, he had learned speed.

He was out before the knight could reach the end of the Knight's hallway. He jogged beside him till they came out of the building.

Aline staggered.

For the three and a half months he had been here, he had not witnessed a single mission. He had hoped to, but the King had not been forthcoming, however, from the way the knights were dressed, armed to the teeth; this was surely not a hunting party.

"O! Boy, move it! Get your arse up a horse!" Sir Benedict barked.

Aline jerked from his reverie and scrambled towards a stable boy who brought him a mare.

He looked at the small horse incredulously.

"What is this?"

"It is your ride" the knight who he had been searching for said behind him.

He turned to look at her in irritation.

"I can't ride this. Besides, I am no longer a newborn" he nearly snarled in frustration.

"Oh, but you are. Besides, this is your first official mission, plus you are yet to be transferred from the crib. Get on the horse now son, or risk walking to Warwickshire." 

Then, on a horse fit for royalty, she galloped away. Digging his fingers into his palm, he climbed the embarrassment of a horse and joined the regiment.

¶∆

He always found himself gravitating towards her. Perhaps it was because she was certainly the only person who was aware of the dangerous secret he carried, or because she was the only one who had given him a fraction of her time, or perhaps because she was awfully beautiful, even though she tried to hide it, he always found himself drawn to her.

She was cruel to him, by God, Aline had never met a woman who was more willing to have him dead, and she was wicked with her words.

She said all the wrong things, her words were aimed to maim, knowing it would sting painfully, yet she still said it. And she was painfully right.

Aline was yet to decide what he thought of the female knight that always managed to kick his arse every morning without breaking a sweat. He didn't know where to put her.