The Knight of Chivalry

Chapter 1

Before the other’s left he had served as a squire for a month and had learnt some skills during that time but after the others left and now that it was his full time thing the training had become even more intense. For most of the last month he had been learning all the rolls that a squire was meant to do from looking after the horses and the armour of the lord or knight that they served to being taught how to fight and ride. Today and for the rest of the week until the lord said otherwise he had been preparing the meals for the lord as he said that is something he would have to do while the lord was travelling without servants who usually did this job but in most cases the squire would just have to fetch the meal from a cook. So once Simon had left the room he headed down to the kitchens to get the lords breakfast ready, he was the only squire tasked with doing this, the other squires who served the knights in lord Reiner’s service as they had apparently already done this as they had been serving as squires a lot longer than he had but he didn’t mind back in the civilised world he had made all his meals when not visiting his mom. The cooks were already their getting the fires hot, he had been here yesterday and been introduced to them and they all had liked him and were friendly enough helping him find his was around the kitchen and getting the supplies he need to make the lords breakfast. The lord liked to have bread, cheese and bacon in the morning all washed down with a quart of cider rather than ale as he said there was no point in dulling his senses so early in the morning and it was easy for Simon to gather this up, the bread was freshly baked and all he had to do was fry the bacon and put a lump of cheese on the plate and pour the cider in the tankard and that didn’t take long. He prided himself on being able to fry the bacon over an open fire and get it crispy like the lord liked and the cooks were very impressed by this saying that when the others had done this they had mostly burnt the bacon the first couple days or undercooked it and even by the end of the week it wasn’t as good as his was this first day and he smiled at their comments and then took this up to the lords chamber who was at his desk already dressed and put it in front of him. He sniffed at the food and then took out his eating knife cut a piece off the bacon and ate it, he grunted in appreciation but that was it and Simon had to just stand there while he ate the breakfast hungry because he had not had anything yet.

            The lord didn’t take long to eat his breakfast and he finished the cider in one last long drought and he nodded to Simon who then took it away and back down to the kitchen where he cleaned the pots himself before getting some food himself. He then returned to the lord’s chamber, the lord was still behind his desk reading through some letters. The lord was a fairly tall man who was quite muscular even for his age, he had quite a handsome face but there were clear signs of wrinkles on it, his hair was dark brown and was think a top his head and he had a nice beard and moustache though it was now becoming straggly and untamed and he might be trimming it again soon to make it smart again, as her looked up from the papers he was reading his brown eyes looked deeply into Simons and he could tell the lord was thinking deeply about something and then his gaze lowered back to the paper. He was richly dressed in the finest cloth, this time a deep red and he often wore these clothes for a week before changing them although his wife often complained about this habit saying he was rich enough to change his clothes more often but he never paid attention to this, he was set in his ways. Simon just stood there waiting for the lord to give him instruction as always, some days the lord would do it right away others he might be standing there for hours, Simon felt today might be one of those days, the lord said this was to teach him patience or sometimes he was just too busy doing his task as a lord to tell Simon what to do. It was only an hour he had to wait for the lord to talk.

            “Simon being a lord is sometimes very stressful, maybe you’ll find out one day or at least in part when you become a night with his own land and have serfs dependent on you, and you have to be good to them or you won’t last long, you have to maintain the kings peace and pay taxes and build new buildings, I pray for the harvest to as if it’s a bad harvest year people starve and die and I don’t get paid as much but it’s not all about the money people’s lives matter” he said.

            “Yes lord they do matter, they make the land profitable and you need them as much as they need you” Simon replied.

            “Exactly I’m glad you understand it’s an important lesson to learn, one my son doesn’t seem able to understand but I still have hope for him, now onto you, you are doing well as a squire, you have more to learn of course but you learn a lot more quickly than others and seem to be copying well, as you know you’ll be sorting my meals out for me this week, I know that’s boring but it’s important for you to learn such skills so you can serve me properly to counter this you’ll be combat training with Sir Francis, I know you can fight but he’s going to make you better and stronger, armour weighs you down in battle, so you’ll be with him for a while” the lord said.

 

            “Yes Sire I shall take myself of to see him then” Simon said and he bowed his head to the lord and walked out. He liked how the lord talked to him, not often down but as an equal and he was really intelligent and kind, at first after the deal Simon was determined to hate him but that was not possible with the way he was being treated. He was quite happy here now and he had made a few friends around and he liked learning all these new things that he needed to. He walked through the castle and into the courtyard where he saw as he knew he would Sir Francis with some of the other squire’s combat training and he walked over to them.