"...fell off the bridge, they say. Into that gorge."
Arthur heard it first from the laundry maids.
He had not meant to listen. He had been crossing the back courtyard with two buckets of sand for the training yard, and the maids had been hanging sheets on the long lines by the wall. They were talking in low voices, the way people talk when they think a thing is too sad to say loudly.
"The poor Duke."
"The poor Duke? He threw the boy out."
"Still. A sonâs a son."
Arthur kept walking. He did not drop the buckets. He set them down in the training yard exactly where Sir Marrec had told him to, and he spread the sand over the wet patch by the gate, and then he went to the rack and took down a practice sword.
His hands were shaking. He did not want anyone to see it.
So he started on the first cut Sir Gareth had taught him.
The plain overhead cut. Feet apart. Knees bent. Weight low. The blade comes up, and then it comes down, and the hips must turn at the end, or the cut is only an arm and not a body. Sir Gareth had told him that a hundred times before he rode north. Arthur still could not do it properly.
He did it again.
And again.
It is just a rumour, he told himself. It was just maids. Maids talked about everything. Last month they had said the cook was going to marry the blacksmith, and the cook was sixty-one and had never spoken to the blacksmith in her life.
He did the cut again.
"Youâre dropping your left elbow."
Arthur turned.
Bram was leaning on the fence. He was sixteen, the oldest of the trainees, and taller than Arthur by a head. He was not cruel, exactly. He was only the kind of boy who said whatever came into his mouth, and then looked surprised when people minded.
"I know," Arthur said.
"Youâll want to fix that. Sir Gareth wonât be back to fix it for you." Bram picked at a splinter on the fence. "Did you hear? About the young lord?"
Arthur did not answer.
"My uncle drives a wagon on the northern road," Bram said. "He says everyone at the inns is talking about it. The young lordâs dead. They say he went off the end of that bridge when the mage brought the sky down on it. They didnât even find a body."
He said it without any malice. He seemed to think he was passing on news.
Arthur put the practice sword down very carefully on the rack.This story is hosted at nĐžvelping.com.
Then he walked to the fence and hit Bram in the face.
? ? ?
It was not a good fight.
Bram was bigger and heavier, and once he had got over his surprise, he was angry. He knocked Arthur down twice. The second time, Arthurâs lip split against the edge of the fence post, and he tasted blood.
But Arthur got up both times.
He had been getting up since he was eleven years old, in a stone cell with no light, when the only thing he could hold was a sword wrapped in rags. He did not know how to stay down. Nobody had ever taught him that.
The third time, he went low, the way he had seen the old knights do it, and drove his shoulder into Bramâs stomach. They went over together into the wet sand.
"Enough!"
Sir Marrec Dunn had a voice like a cart going over cobblestones. He came across the yard in three strides, took each boy by the back of the collar, and pulled them apart as if they were puppies.
"What is this?" he demanded.
Bram held his nose. "He hit me, sir. I only told him what my uncle said."
"And what did your uncle say?"
Bram looked at Arthur and seemed to understand, for the first time, what he had done.
"That the young lord was dead," he said, much more quietly.
Sir Marrecâs face changed.
He opened his mouth to say something. Then he closed it again, because he was looking past both of them, toward the archway that led into the main house.
The Duke was standing there.
Arthur had never seen the Duke come to the training yard. He watched it sometimes from the high window of the study. Everyone knew that. But he did not come down. In all the time Arthur had lived in this house, the Duke had never once walked into the yard.
Now he crossed it slowly, his boots leaving marks in the fresh sand. He stopped in front of the three of them.
Sir Marrec let go of the boysâ collars and bowed.
The Duke did not look at Sir Marrec. He looked at Bram.Read the latest chapters at novelping . com.
"Say it again," he said.
Bram went pale.
"Your Grace, I didnât-"
"You said my son was dead. Say it again, so I know I heard it correctly."
Bram could not say it again. He stood with blood on his lip and sand on his knees and did not make a sound.
The Duke waited until the silence had become very long.
"My son is missing," he said at last. "Missing is a word for a man who has not yet been found. Dead is a word for a man who has been buried." He said each word clearly, as if he was writing it down. "Until I stand over a grave, nobody in this house will choose the second word over the first. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Your Grace."
"Go and wash your face."
Bram fled.
The Duke turned to Arthur.
Arthur did not lower his eyes. He knew he should. He knew it was rude to stare at the Duke of the North. But he did not want to look away in case it seemed like he believed the maids.
The Duke studied his bloody lip, the sand on his clothes, and the cloth-wrapped sword that was still strapped to his back. Arthur never took it off.
"You were dropping your left elbow, fix that - donât let it become a habit" the Duke said.
Arthur blinked.
"Yes, Your Grace."
Then he turned and walked back into the house, and the yard was very quiet behind him.
? ? ?
Thank you for the magic castle, ~