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(Page 2 of 3) Bhabyl (Chapter 4) by M Bae
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He knelt before me with one knee.
"Besides, Osric never made me a squire. I'm his page."
Damn, I thought. My lie had been glaringly bad. The boy had seemed to me a little too old to be a page.
"I was never to become his squire; he made that more than clear to me over the years. ‘A peasant-born cannot be a knight,' was his motto. So you see, there's no way he called me a squire when I couldn't ever become one."
There was a flash on anger in his voice, which vanished before I could act on it.
"He was a nicer master than most other knights, though. Really lived by the Codes and all that..."
I kept silent. How the hell was I supposed to know that kind of detail? I was mad at myself for not having made a more subtle lie. But I had been tired...
"What will you do with me now?" I asked after a time.
Theo stared at me hard, with a face like iron. I saw then the boy was... capable with more than I had hoped.
"I should cut your throat, for whatever you did to Ser Osric. I owe him that much."
He rose and rounded me, and suddenly a dagger was flashing in his hand. I protested the idea, trying to sound calm, my head spinning like crazy.
"I did not kill him—he was dead when I found him."
"Liar!" the tip of the blade was right under my Adam's apple. "You either killed him or left him for dead!"
The coldness of the metal on my throat was an incision in itself. A drop of icy sweat trickled down from my armpits...
"No! Boy, I'm telling the truth— I found him dead and gave him a burial!"
"You mean you threw him in a ditch, do you?"
The pressure behind the blade increased with the rhetorical question, and a drop of blood trickled down it. An image of a ditch filled with naked corpses flashed before me, and I was struck by a sudden torrent of rage. I bellowed at him despite the blade, my whole body shaking.
"No! Go see for yourself! I buried him with stones and leaves—I left an epitaph on a tree!"
After what must have been an eternity, the blade was gone and Theo rose with a sigh.
"Here lies Sir Drangonslayer," he whispered, and I nodded. He had been there. I thanked God for the boy's morning hike.
The boy loosened the rope that tied my feet to the horse, but knotted it instead around the belt binding my wrist. Then he slashed the rope around my ankles, just enough so that I'd break it loose myself. When I did, though, he had backed away, too far for an upward kick in the jaw. Clever and careful. He was, I had to admit, one shrewd kid. What the hell kind of education did Osric give him anyway? I got to my feet, and Theo mounted and set the horse in motion. I'd get him back for this, I swore to myself.
Moments later we were out of the forest. We went downhill toward a river. The boy increased in pace and I kept up as best as I could, with bitter curses and all.
At the riverbank Theo halted and took a break. He ate some bread and cheese, after which he relieved himself in the reeds. The sun was declining toward the western sky, coloring the clouds as it fell. The last meal I had was a piece of dried meat from a dead man's pouch, so I was ravenously hungry now.
"Supper would be nice," I said, and Theo tossed me a piece of bread.
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