Private Preparing Providence

[Dal]

Competence had an authority all it's own.

An authenticity before title mantle worn, this essence of humility shown, grown as trust day by day in display of knowing.

Not all Squires were progressing from within their salad days, sharpening wits and senses to the ways of the fighting world. Some did place themselves within the training ways gladly, without ambition beyond to save a falling sickness and a disarming of soldiering tools in frame and thought. To ensure the integrity of the way ahead, some chose to remain at position and post of Squire.

At least, such was Dal's logic. Ambition within the Order did not have the lucre as it might for as it was for him.

Competence instilled in others had a value all it's own.

Dal, the shock of muscle, folded arms and curt word. Dal, the builder of obstacle courses and dietician to frames needing to shod the weight of armour, arms and blows. He walked sure, vast sacks of foodstuffs slung across shoulder and bound within fist. Weight training and diet plan creating, he strode as one in place of beast of burden. Accepting of the weight, foot placed sure on way to kitchen space.

Hardly sociable, yet serving his fellow Squires without need for thanks, accolades. Much expectant of drills, of information retained, of basics understood as vital as balance. Reliable to correct a posture, encourage in gruff stoic placement of faith in the process. The betterment of those fresh to duty was his own. Further advancement he sought not. He knew his rightful place here. It was his regular shoulders that shifted the heavy sacks of foods that would build a warrior right.

It was he who stood experienced in support to prevent mishap from ignorance. His soldiering days and mercenary career, his work ethic had kept him alive, in coin and in work. And now, his work was to tend those who would become knights.

And Dal knew knights beyond this Order that was kept him in room and board and meaning and routines, kept his mind busy with tasks. Numerous his own invention, undertaking and instating rightful logistics of making warriors refuse the stumbling sickness. It was his crude drawings that became frames that were used to heft weight and build fighting stock on bones. It was he who built them sure.

He hefted the sacks, shifting the weight. Ran the nutrition by the numbers across his thoughts again. Did not doubt, but iterated on the menu that would dish out gains.

A thought on what those he had encountered in battle had been fed. Thought about porridges and gruel, of those who threw dice and gambled. Thought about pheasant, and the rich sauces of those who guffawed and played cards. Made a grimace and shrugged his foodsacks as he went through Monastery grounds.

From the malnourished and distracted to the pampered and indulgent, they knew the fall sickness from Dal's firm stand and tread. Their lapses from provisions and abundance of arrogances had been met with his diligence. His faith in competence in carved muscle and vast carving longsword designed to cleave cavalry and deny a ground that was Dal's hallmark.

Ample myriad knights from wide range of orders had he humbled and made earnings from. More than enough knights who had believed the title they carried might win their day, the merit of their gear had soothed their confidence to be brazen in approach. Well groomed steeds well owned by them as extensions of their strutting, kaleidoscopic in family majesty in their parison. Elevated pay and luxuries assuring all would work out. Until they encountered the orkin shock that was Dal, broad and long of blade, defiant to their titles, surnames, standing with tusk and murder in the stance. And stumble they did, ill prepared by lack of harshness, much to Dal's progress in his profession. Spilling blue bloods was practically a luxury all it's own with how well it paid to stand against a lance alone. He had welcomed it to fill his coffers, knowing their weakness was assumption.

Dal did not tell such stories to his fellows. To do so amongst a knightly order would be gross he felt. At least, he did not tell such stories directly now. Before his new found life as Squire, he had smiled grim at the memory in his countenance. Kept his grim conclusions as solace and bolstering for grim times. Now?

He felt a deep duty to prepare these youths for what was out there. Paid well, dab hands at battle. Make these fellow squires invulnerable to their own misfortunes. Resilient to the wear and tear on soul and fighting spirit. To preserve their journey to come when faced against the resemblance of his former self. What might avail their spirits and souls to guard them against what he knew others harnessed, as he had, and did.

He shrugged his cargo sure to himself.

This food won't fatten graves.

He did keep mortal threat in tardy attendance to the basics regular in the minds of his fellow comrades in the squires. Checking and caring as to footwear, so that limbs did not betray the march before the clash. Ensuring nutrition, training regimens instilled, enabled, encourage, the pressure to become. Refreshing waterskins of those who did not know better yet, sharing the importance of the ways of preservation of weapons against tarnishing, against the stick of cold in scabbard.

All these small things, factor by factor, could prevent inadequacies that would not be given allowance by his younger self. He would not let this Order tolerate lapses, he was resolved to afford them all self made fortune against another of his ilk. Who made coin, and name and room and board by cut and fall and championing without surname, without title.

Lack of understanding of the expectations within the mud, amongst the shouts, blaring orders and hold fast with banners against the professionals who knew their craft and life as one and the same.

He knew his younger self would emerge against Squire, and Knight, in all forms and functions. And Dal knew. They must be ready. The journey was long. But his former figure? Inevitable. The outcome of that encounter was not. Secured by each preparation.

I shall not make training and orientation palliative.

Now, the orkin Squire known simply as Dal, placed huge heft of knapsacks of vegetables and meats in place against mess hall cafeteria. The cargo of three or single mule, carried without complaint on broad shoulders sculpted for task. The process was the point, the muscle must be routinely tested to remain in good service. The foodstuffs placed just so, gathered and checked for spoilage. The hessian sacks placed without need of thanks, well before shifts of cooks had begun. Ready to nourish those he had expected to run with him, scale wall with him, to strive with the Order with all that could be given.

Let this diet serve expectations.

Here and there, without being asked, he had applied what savings he had to solve issues he deemed worthy of his applications. Applied his time to build obstacle courses, to research the needs of his fellow Squires in quiet attentions. The body was easy enough to make demands of, but if the fighting spirit was not paid mind, given faith and space to become itself, well.

They will gain the stomach for it. Else.

Nevermind else. It won't. Not while I am, and be this.

Providence had a value all it's own.

That thought returning.

This food won't fatten graves.

And with that thought, he undid a string binding full sack of potatoes as if snatching that thought away from himself. Reached in for one, took up stub knife in kitchen alone. Began to peel, and turn, and wash, and peel, and place.

Each potato he took up he thought on a different squire. He thought on what surrounded each name's quality and need. What was to be done further for them. With them.

The prepared spuds began to stack on counter, the peels another. Dal's face hiding much in the quietude of the task as the basin washed, the knife peeled, and his hands did prepare the goods he hauled without being asked by anyone but himself.

The morning birds began to sing their stories.

@Verity

 

[Osytha]

One of the best parts of getting fresh recruits, in Osytha’s opinion, is watching the system shock set in once they hit the demands of monastic life. It’s just so satisfying to shout a dorm full of prospects awake at the arsecrack of dawn, then watch the ensuing scramble; little bodies falling out their cots and bumping into each other, both feet shoved down one pant leg, shirts on backwards, bedsheets still trailing behind them as they scurry out the door… the best was probably when one bairn got both their legs through their coatsleeves before realising something was a little off about their ‘trousers’.¹

So it’s a bit of a disappointment to barge in and find Esota already awake and mostly ready, just lacing up the last little bit of her simple doublet. Ahead of even the squires who share this room with her; Pask sits on the edge of his cot while blinking groggily at the knight, Mildred startles upright in hers at the intrusion, and Berengar stuffs his head under the pillow in a futile attempt to stave off wakefulness.

Osytha deflates a little as she looks her young protégé up and down. “… Tha’rt fit, then,” she remarks, and if she sounds a little disappointed, there’s some begrudging approval in there as well. “Good. Long day ahead of us — startin’ now. Come along, Sotie.”

With one last inscrutable look toward the other three, she turns on her heel and strides toward the dorm’s exit. Esota jogs up behind her, fingers tying off the last loose little knot, then falls in step alongside the knight.

“I’m not joining them?” she asks, glancing back toward her room-mates, while her gait easily keeps up with Osytha’s. To the Sworn’s further chagrin, Esota is nearly a decade her junior, but still has an inch or two over her. And it shows. “I thought I’d be with the other squires.”

“Ha! Tha’rt ne any squire yet, my gel.” Osytha says this with some delight, a certain schadenfreude in potentia there in her tone. Whatever lies in store for Esota Laverock, her mentor seems to be looking forward to it. “Tha hast a fair deal of catchin’ up to do afore tha canst join that lot. Tha’rt but a prospect for now — ’tis sort of like a page, Ah s’pose.”

They emerge into the leaden gloom of pre-sunrise; grey, cool, and a blessed reprieve from the run of sweltering spring days which had plagued them recently. One of the lunar cycles’ many arcane effects, according to some — abnormal ocean tides having stagnated the flow of its currents and allowed warm waters to idle off the coast of North Ilica. At least it seems that maftin little spell is winding down, now, whatever the cause.

Osytha stops for a second to close her eyes and just take a bit of that fresh, chill, world’s breath for herself. Hears the robins and song-thrushes start to raise their voices in dawn chorus… feels, as the melodies wash over them, an urge of her own rising up. She tilts her head back slightly, and with lips trilling to and fro, a skylark suddenly joins in the symphony from right beside Esota. Sharp, warbling notes running out helter-skelter from the woman’s mouth.

When Osytha looks out again a few seconds later, she turns her head to give her companion a chuffed little grin. Then, without a single word on the matter, the knight starts to walk them — not north-west toward the training grounds, but south, for the Great Hall and its mess.

“Lucky for thee,” she continues on, “Ah kens jus’ who to ’elp shape thissen. Goin’ to stop by, see what ’e can do for thee. Might get to meet another body or twa while we’re at et.” She glances sidelong toward the girl. “Et’s a demandin’ enow life at t’best of times, an’ tha mun’st thoil twice as much to catch up. ’Ope tha’rt prepared for this.”

None of that seems to daunt Esota, or be news to her. She just keeps looking ahead in that grim, determined way of hers. “I won’t let you down,” she tells Osytha.

Who turns her gaze back ahead. She lets a moment or two of silence hang in the air, before: “Et’s alreight if’n tha dost.”

That hint of drill sergeant has disappeared, and Osytha’s voice is softer now. “Knighthood means summat a bit diff’rent to ivverybody,” she tells Esota. “We en’t allus goin’ to see ee-to-ee. Tha canst disappoint me, so long as tha dost’nt disappoint thissen.”

She suspects Esota is giving her some kind of look. However, before the girl can respond to that, they arrive at their destination. The servant’s entrance to the Great Hall opens up before them, leading right into the scullery and kitchens… wherein Osytha has divined that a certain stalwart orkin continues the ceaseless toil of his duties.

It’s even gloomier inside, and just as cold. Not for long, though; the monastery will all be rousing shortly, or those on nightwatch shall come seeking their post-shift meal — not quite breakfast, and not quite supper. The cooks will be due to meet all their demands soon enough, but here even before any of them is a familiar, broad figure already set to task. A mound of wan, wet-shimmering shapes beside him grows a little more as they watch.

“Mornin’, our Dal,” Osytha greets him, stepping toward the massive hearth. She starts on raking out the evening’s ash and building up a fresh fire for the new day. “Ah’d like for thee to meet Esota Laverock. She’s jus’ joined t’order, an’ Ah was wonderin’ if’n tha coud’st aid in whippin’ t’lass into shape. ’Er an’ me both, truth be told.”

As Osytha starts laying out fresh eldrin, she glances back over her shoulder toward the prospect. “Don’t jus’ stand there, gel. Them taters en’t goin’ to peel theysen — give t’man a hand, aye?”

Esota blinks. “Right.”

She spies some more paring knives beside other, more intimidating kitchen blades, grabs one, and joins Dal in peeling the spuds. Her hands flow with the quick, smooth movements of ingrained muscle-memory; girl’s no stranger to such domesticity, it would seem.

“Hi,” she says to Dal — almost like an afterthought. Seems more preoccupied with levelling her irate stare toward the poor vegetables. Eye-studded ribbons fly away beneath her impatient fingers. “What’s best for killing soldiers? I want to learn that.”

Away to the side, Osytha makes a startled little noise over some charcloth.

---

¹ It even earned them their nickname, on their very first day as a prospect no less. Two years on, now, and young ‘Handstand’ is still going strong.

 

[Dal]

Dal gave slow nod of affirmation at the greeting. His knife finished a potato and the thought affixed to it. His paw of a hand placed it with the others as the ash was collected and fresh fire prepared. Properly, Dal noted, taking assurance at his company. His hand remained upon the potato as the request was made, as if he were sheltering it. Still setting it right.

His response as Esota moved to help, his eyes upon the knight who asked the best question he might hear. A simple word, and affirmation in the tone, the low toned acceptance of the duty. Both as greeting, and agreeance to the task ahead. A soldier's utterance.

"Syr."

It was all that was needed.

He let the potato be free of his hand. Let his ears hear the footstep of the fresh inductee, made inference about weight of the tread, perhaps the gait. His hand brushed peels into a composting bowl as a knife is retrieved. Took his place at the station, shoulders moving slow, his footsteps moving slow as he gave glance. Affording her room at the station.

The quickness of the knife and that look. Something was trying to be worked out, Dal thought.

He clasped a new spud and set to whittling away as the question was placed.

Dal gave a low short note, a simple 'hm' as he registered, mulled over it for a heart beat as his knife picked up speed. He answered as if she had instead asked for where the knives were.

"Attitude. And commitment."

Quick slick knife throw of ribbon peel.

"That's the short answer. The simple truth."

The question was asked, and answered with the honesty of one who had asked that question of himself innumerable times. At the start, and in the days of pay. This one who whittled beside him clearly knew what she wanted to know. No point frustrating Dal thought. No point barring a door which would be opened, one way or the other.

"Longer answer you'll have to wait for, once given chance. Chance to cultivate an attitude. You being here, means you've started the commitment. You'll learn this culture quick. The bigger truth, we'll see how it stands."

Some extra knife strokes, short ribbons flying free of foodstuff in controlled shucks. His own movements not nearly as quick as Esota's. His own movements balancing finesse and power. Such had been the way he had gotten over the dullness when he had first joined sellswords and turned the drudgery into betterment.

"Either of you know what the word soldier means? Literally, I mean," Dal asked, eyes going between them as he was mindful of each cut. The mindfulness making him slow. But serving his ends double.

@Osytha

 

[Osytha]

Esota gives the burly man a blank look. “What it means…?” she repeats, as the knife in her hand slows to a halt. She glances down at the stilled blade, and frowns. “Is it anything like ‘bloody murdering bastards’?”

Meanwhile, Osytha strikes some sparks to her charcloth. “‘Soldier’,” she muses, faintly. “Guessin’ ‘-er’ is an agentive suffix there, so, if ‘sold—’ or ‘soldi—’ is t’root… any chance et comes from ‘solidus’, t’owd Arshakan coinage?” A sullen, orange glow rouses at the end of that little black roll, and she breathes a bit more brightness into that light before pressing it to the woolly base of tinder nestled in the hearth. “So, ‘ane who’s paid to fight’?”

A real flame erupts as those shavings catch; a marigold flare which splashes over the knight’s face. She watches closely over the fire as it tries to find its legs, ready to catch it should it flail and flounder. Osytha snuffs out the charcloth’s smouldering end and stuffs it back into its tin, along with the flint and steel, and sets the tinderbox aside.

“Pay’s important to a soldier,” she remarks, carefully adding another sliver of ashwood to her vaguely conical construction; looks like it’ll fit without smothering the flame that’s going now. “Lots of reasons a body might serve; conscription, sense of duty, ’cos they wants an excuse to kill… some even reckon et’ll be a grand owd adventure, daft buggers. But whatever t’cause, pay’s ’ow you keep ’em servin’ you. An’ there’s almost nowt they won’t do to mek sure they get theirs. Et’s a rare army that’s been disciplined well enow to act otherwise.”

That part, she’s sure Esota has already learnt the hard way. Osytha still doesn’t know exactly where the girl came from, nor what happened to her, but too many folk in the migrant convoy from which she’d come to them share her story in some form or another. And what’s scary is how often the tale repeats itself through the ages.

Round up a bunch of perfectly ‘ordinary’ people, shove a weapon in their hands, put them through the constant hell of war — not just the dack-cacking terror of combat, but all the mean, miserable drudgery of a soldier’s life outside of it — and it does something to a soul. You treat their lives as something cheap, you so casually subject them to such cruelties, maybe it becomes easy for them to see other people the same way. Then you give them an excuse: tell them anyone on the other side of this line is the enemy, and suddenly there’s no reason for them to hold back any longer. Even when the ‘enemy’ is just a poor commune of serfs their family might have traded with on market day in town. It’s not theft and murder at that point. It’s ‘spoils of war’.

There’s no straddling that line, either; you’re either on one side or the other. Should one actually resist and refuse to lower themselves to that level? Soldiers don’t like when someone splits from the pack like that. Makes it harder for them to trust you, which is tricky when they know you’ll probably have their life in your hands at some point. So, you’re expected to conform. And if you don’t, well… it’s not called ‘fog of war’ for nothing. Accidents can happen any time, any place. Once the rest of the squad closes ranks after the fact, good luck proving it was anything else.

Long story short: don’t get between a soldier and their payday.

Looks like the fire will be alright for now. Osytha stands up and grabs a knife and washbowl of her own, joining the others in their campaign against Dal’s hefty army of spuds. She’s no stranger to the work, either. Long before she’d begun riding out as a Knight, most of what she’d wielded a blade against as a prospect and squire had been foes such as these.

“Was that et?” she asks of Dal, plucking a grimy little lump from the sack. “Or’m Ah off t’mark there?”

 

[Dal]

"Bullseye," Dal said, waving potato peeler in one two affirmation of the mark being struck. His eyes did not go from the potato.

A few more shucks, a placement down of this one. A return to words, giving credit.

"Haven't heard the full version in a quite some while," Dal said, unusually glad, gave a huff of light marvelling. Talking shop with those who knew like his first proper sword instructor had. The salt and pepper face who had been patient and supplied wisdoms to keep him keen, to keep keenness in his cuts, and his path pointed correct.

Dal spoke on more freely on serious matters, knowing his company was receptive to the understanding of it. Keeping that sword instructor's spirit alive in the telling of his lessons.

"Paid to fight, aye, that's it. Lots of different salaries and arrangements, but purses land square at boots that march and stand fast. There's always work, there's always job openings. Getting paid once and gambling, and losing, is as common as spuds peeling. But while all soldiers get paid to fight, some make sure that pay keeps them fighting correct again and again, day after day, season after battle season. And those who pay them, the smart ones, want them as good or better than when they were hired."

He knew his instructor would have said it better. Left some room for his company to think on it for a moment, not wishing to overwhelm.

He pushed on after brief pause, knowing his version of this guidance was a pale emulation, but knowing that he would have to do in place of past betters gone.

"So, while everyone is getting paid," Dal said, and placed the final potato he would peel aside and made to clean his hands, "You never know who's spending what and how much to keep alive at it. Training, maintenance, lessons. Careers live and die in the making ready. Such lets talent travel, lets chance look the other way for skill of sharps to cut clean."

That final part he surprised himself at how close to verbatim he had delivered it. Memory had served better than he deemed himself to expect. He nodded to himself at the utterance.

Looked to his company, each in turn, hinting by his own leaving of the station it was time to move away from spuds.

"You want to face soldiers? Match the best of their bids and wagers on Fighting Arts until you know your salt and stock. Then spend it ten fold on time to know it sure. Else, it's just gambling on their use of time and purse against your meagre own," Dal said, and moved away from station, spud and this place's usefulness.

"Come on, we best not outshine the chefs at this root vegetable ritual. They like having a job. And there is much to do today for us to keep ours rightly."

Dal gave what time was needed to clean up and set things right. This place was soon to be crowded by the diligent, and so Dal held a door open for them to leave, one arm out, his height and reach allowing himself to be an archway unto itself.

"Syr Osytha, when's the last time you sparred with wasters?" Dal said, with a ready explanation to new company that he meant a wooden training sword, and not some horrible self depreciative term for squires.

@Osytha

 

[Osytha]

How long since they had set out to rendezvous with Silja and the survivors she’d helped rally together? They’d wanted to move as soon as the thaw set in; squeeze out every second they could to stay ahead both of the next winter and those covetous barons’ forces. Most of the refugees were serfs, after all, and serfs do not have the right to abandon working their liege-lord’s lands.

“A month?” Osytha hazards, slipping beneath the tree-trunk arm propping open that door for them. “Though Ah’d hardly call et sparrin’.”

Wasters are good to give prospects and junior squires; cheap, relatively safe, and easily made from an abundant resource. Nobody bats an eye when one inevitable cracks apart. But it’s not exactly sparring when it’s against the order’s sprouts; more like free-form drills, in Osytha’s mind. To her, true sparring happens against one’s peers — when no one has to hold back, and the flow of learning goes both ways. Amongst knights and senior squires that could also mean with feders or, preferably, blunts. Substitutes which are yet an important step closer to the real deal than those blocky wooden wasters.

Though, she hates those excessively flared schilts on federschwerter. Things are a dangerous crutch, in her opinion, and a good way to teach squires how to lose their fingers once they start using the genuine article.

There’s a rosy colour in the east as they head north toward the training grounds, now. A few more voices joining in on the dawn chorus rising from the monastery grounds and its surrounds. Guffy stops and noses the icy breeze a moment, before scampering back along of their heels.

“Else, it's just gambling on their use of time and purse against your meagre own.” Yes… they’re lucky here, at Astenvale Monastery. The Knights of Anathaeum are hardly wealthy, but at least they already have the capital required to train up the next generation and see to their members’ needs. Means they can do it the way they see fit. Means Knights have the luxury of living by their codes and oaths. Eight above, how all that philosophy, all those tenets, had seemed so dull and pointless when she was young.

Now that she’s been out there, however, and seen what might have become of her without those things…

She glances back at Esota, and wonders. The girl just looks kind of, irately impatient, as usual. Like every second spent not directly working on the thing she wants is the universe personally wasting her time with useless filler. She catches Osytha watching her, and raises an enquiring eyebrow in the knight’s direction.

‘Sparring’, eh?

“Tha reckoned’st Ah was a fair shot wi’ t’bow, aye?” Osytha spiers of her. A conversation they’d had naught but a few days past, in that little strip of birch across the road. Gathering up fuel to handle the consequences of that good aim of hers.

Those hazel eyes narrow slightly. “Yes…?”

“Well, Ah’m even better wi’ a sword. Just’… summat to keep in mind. Might ’elp thee unnerstand what tha’lt be up against.”

Sounds like today’s lessons will include some bouts against Dal. And if that’s the case, Sotie is going to watch Osytha get thrashed. If the lass has developed any inflated notions about Osytha’s martial prowess after the events of the migrant caravan’s journey, hopefully, their orkin instructor is about to deal them both a healthy dose of reality.

The noise of Astenvale’s training grounds rise up to greet them as they draw close to its halls, its armoury, its yard and range, there by the Lookout. The three (well, four, if you count the tiny syr trotting perkily at their side) of them aren’t the only early birds around these parts. Osytha hears bodies thump about in their morning warm-ups, the dull thwack of arrows striking targets, a voice barking out the commands to transition through guards.

Osytha looks to Dal as they reach the threshold. “What’re we starting with, schirmaister?”