Believe Me Dammit!

The queen had mysteriously fallen ill and passed about a year back. The speculation is that the king himself had poisoned her. Their last days together left the castle halls full of shouting arguments between the two, so it's a strong possibility

Back to the problem at hand, the party thankfully wasn't planned for another few weeks, but it'd be crucial for the castle to look the best it can. Their head servant told them that if they didn't have everything done to perfection within the weeks they had, they'd be answering to the king himself. Nobody wanted to answer to the king.

The king wasn't known to be the kindest soul there was. He may even be considered one of the most brutal kings to date. And hey, there's the possibility he killed his own wife, so nobody wants to test him.

This is why Tommy found himself running to and from the supply closets around the castle. He had no idea why, but most of the gardening supplies were strewn throughout them all.

Seriously, why weren't they allowed to put it all in the shed? Or even all in one closet would work, but noooo. The king wants to make everything as difficult as possible.

Tommy was wasting so much time digging through them all as well. To think it'll be his job to put it all away correctly at the end of the day too.

"What are you doing." The deep voice from a few days ago asked.

Tommy yelped and nearly dropped the shovels he was holding. How did they sneak up on him with their clunky armor? He knew it made an awful clattering as the guards walked.

Tommy looked up, up, up at the figure (They're tall as hell!). Sure enough, it was the same person from that morning a few days ago. Tommy looked back down again.

"I'll tell you I'm not in the business of harming children." The person monotonously said. If they had some different pitches in their speech, maybe Tommy would've believed them more.

"I'm not a child." Tommy decided he might as well test whether the guy was truthful or not. Back chatting like this usually left him without his dinner.

"No? You look 14 tops." The guy still held no emotion on his face.

"I'm actually 15. You're shit at guessing." Tommy mumbled at him. He shuffled anxiously from foot to foot. He needed to return soon or his superior would have his head on a spike.

"Right,  I can tell you're so anxious to get away from me. Get going and don't get in trouble." The person walked away and just like that, Tommy was alone again.

He thought that that was a strange encounter. Most people either didn't acknowledge his existence, or punished first and asked questions later. Nobody ever wants to just talk.

Now that Tommy thought about it, he never did answer the question as to why he's rifling through a closet. That was one strange knight for sure.

—

That same night Tommy was unfortunately given the task of bringing food to the knight's barracks. He and several other servants made their way down the hall in a neat, single file line.

It was normally the inside servant's job to bring things to and from the different places in the castle, but every now and then they'll be short handed. That tends to happen when they fire people faster than  they can hire them.

Tommy had unfortunately been too close to the kitchens and got called on to help. It wasn't his fault he needed to pass the kitchens on the way to some of those darned closets. He had to scramble to put all the tools away before the others got mad at him.

Back to the present, the servants who were holding plates all started breaking off to different rooms. He himself was about to go to one when he saw a man motioning for him to go to them. It was the strange knight from earlier.