The Black Knight of Ashfern

Chapter 17

"Why is it you only act this way when Nan is not here to see you do so? You are aware that the servants tell her of your actions regardless?" Sir William asked, seeming to ignore the poker that was still held against him.

"Course I am." Jamie snapped. He wasn't an fool; he knew what the servants told Nan, because she told him, and while he tried to please her and not cause trouble as she asked, they were constantly making it almost impossible for him not to. Nan trusted him to see to her things. When they lived in their small house, she bid him to look after the cleaning, then the cooking as he grew older, and finally her plants. Now, all he had were her plants to mind, but he was continuously being chased by the servants, and the bundles he had gathered for Nan's remedies were soon naught but broken stems and crumbled leaves.

"Then why do you persist?" Sir William barked.

"Persist?" Jamie echoed.

"To continue on. Maintain a course of action." Sir William explained in one swift breath.

"Because I ain't finished, and they started it!" Jamie protested, thrusting the poker at the door. "Tryin' to get me all clean and cut up like one of them highborn dandies. I ain't got no time to be sittin' about like some neat lump made up all pretty and useless. I got important work to do. And they keep gettin' in me way. "

"You're a child. What possible work could you have to do?" Sir William remarked, the skepticism in his voice unmistakable.

"I gotta get Nan's plants!" Jamie declared, making a face as though what he did for Nan was obvious.

"I hardly think picking flowers for Nan is such important work that you must take off screaming through my house." Sir William replied, leveling an annoyed eye on the boy.

"Did I say flowers?" Jamie spat, glaring at Sir William with a cold look that spoke of years well beyond his age. "No, I didn't." He added bluntly. "I said plants. Its plants she be needin'. Chamomile, Foxglove, Lavender, Yarrow, that's what she be needin'. That's what I go get, but then your lot come after me and me bundles get a smushed to bits." Jamie bit, stomping his foot, reconfirming his age and temperament to what it was and not what it had seemed to be only moments ago.

"Can you write?" Sir William asked all of a sudden.

"A little," Jamie admitted with a baffled shrug, the fire poker he'd been waving about drooping with his confusion.

"Good." Sir William nodded, pulling fresh paper from a drawer and laying it on his desk. "Come." He waved, but Jamie only continued to stare at him with confusion and now mistrust. "I'm not going to bite you, lad. I want you to write a list of what Nan needs." Sir William explained. "Here, take my seat, write your list, and I'll sit over there." Sir William nodded to the chair Jamie was currently standing across from.

"And what'll ye be doin' there? Starin' at me like some crow ready to pick me bones clean?" Jamie asked, his tone accusing.

"Good Lord, child, you're as mistrusting as your mother." Sir William breathed, rolling his eyes at the remark.

"She's not me, Ma!" Jamie shouted fury filling his voice as a deep red filled his cheeks. "Me Ma was a heartless bitch, who didn't care for no one but herself! Nan ain't like that!" he cried, anger flooding his features, even as tears slid down his rosy cheeks.

"Very well." Sir William nodded, uncertain what to do with the angry tearful child standing before him, still holding the fire poker tightly in his little hand. "My apologies. I'll not make that mistake again."

"Ye damn right!" he shouted at William and then dropped the poker when he looked to the door and saw who had walked through it, staring at Jamie with the most bemused expression. Instantly, Jamie's face turned from anger to terror as he saw Nan standing at the door, looking over his tearful face with worry, but before she could say or do anything, he ran past her, out the door, down the hall, and out of sight.