The Tale of Sir Ramics

Siv

The clatter of hoofbeats on cobblestone alerts the knight just in time to avoid a rider galloping into the palace courtyard as the knight is leaving.  The horse rears as its rider pulls it to a halt too quickly, slipping from its back before it's settled again and leaving the startled stableboy to handle the beast as the rider dashes inside without a word.

The knight's shoulders drop, the tension leaving, and the knight departs the courtyard.  The streets have cleared—the reckless rider's doing, perhaps.  It's of no concern to the knight.  A crow calls out from above and the knight glances up, but pays it no further heed on the journey back to the city gates.

"Make way!  Make way for the queen's guard!"

For the second time, the knight leaps aside, and this time it's several mounted guards who thunder past, out the gates and away along the royal road.  With a tilt of the head, the knight approaches one of the gate guards, gesturing after the receding riders, shrugging a question with the other hand.

"Er, on the queen's business, I'm sure."

"Surprised she didn't send you," another guard puts in.  His eyes hold a wry humor, and a scar puckers his cheek, tugging his mouth into a constant, sloped smile.  "Rare enough to have a knight about these days.  Though I suppose you must have more important business."

"It probably had to do with the rider who came through earlier," the first guard says with a shrug.  "They came from Vecchi, at a guess; I'm pretty sure I saw a blue ribbon."

The knight nods in thanks, and walks away down the road.  When the city gates are smaller than a palm on the horizon, the crow at last lands on the knight's shoulder, silent but for the scraping of talons on steel.  It glances back to the city.  Talons scrape on steel.  It looks at the knight.  Talons scrape on steel.  It lets out a half-voiced croak of anxiety.  Still, it shuffles back and forth, and at last the knight turns, as though to head back to the city, and the crow lets out a full-throated caw, leaping from the knight's shoulder to flutter and flap and get in the way and generally make a ruckus until the knight turns away again and the crow settles back to nervousness on the knight's shoulder.

The knight watches the crow, confused, but any turn back to the city brings further agitation, and so the knight continues on.  Without need to eat or rest, the knight overtakes the guards in the night, and the walls of Vecchi are visible by morning.  They're not as tall, nor as ornamented, as the walls around the royal city, but they are draped with a blue banner on either side of the gates, each bearing a white stag rampant.

The atmosphere within the walls is odd.  The knight can't determine the source at first.  People move about, this way and that, seeing to their own business, looking at the knight with curiosity and...fear.  There's an uneasy air over everything, something amiss.  The knight slips away down an alley to avoid the stares.  A gentle caw from above draws the knight's attention.  The crow flutters from rooftop to windowsill, caws again, and flies to the next building, looking back to the knight.  The knight hurries to follow, armored footsteps clanking on stone, down backstreets and alleyways, until, just around a corner, a full-grown tree blocks the way, roots cracking through stone, branches pushing at the buildings.

The knight looks at the crow.

"Prrruk," the crow says from the tree, and hops to another branch.

The knight looks at the tree, weight shifted back, misgivings written in every postural line—but steps forward all the same, squeezing between tree trunk and building, a creaking scraaape accompanying the maneuver, until the knight stands on the other side.

The place is a grove.

Moss covers the ground, grasses poking up between tumbled cobblestones, wildflowers dotting the former street, all of it rimmed in old trees, their branches arcing up and over to dapple the light, and caught in the middle is a single, narrow building.  The crow flies to a windowsill on the upper story.  "Prruuk."