Squire Hayseed

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It wasn't a castle. There was no moat filled with roaming gangs of meat hungry monsters, nor parapets loaded down in arrow holes to plug whoever dared to approach. But it was big. Very big. At first Hayley thought it was a small mountain range in the distance — white peaks cresting through the sea of green.

When she spotted shingles circling the precipice of the mountain, she had to reassess her assumption.

The ground was a lot more stomped down here, not even a weed allowed to grow on the road, much less the saplings that popped up on the King's highway. White-grey stones hedged in the estate from the forest, vines of the richest greens dangling from up top. It wasn't a high climb, maybe eight feet all together. She could probably manage it when it was time.

Her Knight gripped onto the wrought iron bars hung across the gap in the wall and gave a tug. Whining like a pig stuck in a chute, the gate yanked open without any fanfare. Hayley stuck her head out further, trying to get a glimpse of whoever was inside. Shouldn't there be guards? At least a few dozen soldiers all stomping around doing what soldiers did. Drinking and harassing honest merchants as far as she remembered.

The land was quiet. Only the winds out of the southwest rippled through a trio of bushes left stacked beside the marble steps. It was towards them that Gavin jogged. He'd been steady but slow on their long, meandering walk towards this place, but with the safety of a roof in sight he took off. Hayley thought about following, but her tongue swelled in her mouth.

Gripping onto the unnaturally cold iron bars, Hayley's wary eyes drifted around the various smaller houses scattered around the area. One area in particular had that piquant smell of animal feces so probably the barn. Another bore smoke buffeting from a chimney wide enough to hide a bull inside. Probably a kitchen kept away from the main house to prevent fires. It was the rest that left Hayley baffled, scattered around the grounds like deserted islands peeking out of the waves almost out of sight.

"Squire," Gavin's peeved voice broke her concentration and she glanced up to see him attempt to call her again. Crap.

As Hayley dashed towards the front steps, he sighed, "When I say you follow, it is not a suggestion."

"I didn't think...I mean, I did think. I can think, I only," she blathered while trailing up the steps. Her head hung down, eyes skirting the mud stained stairs until the stone switched to wood. As the pair passed through the massive front door into whatever acted as the front room, Hayley sighed, "It's a really big place."

"Indeed," a pinched, female voice echoed against the tall rafters. Hayley whipped her head up to watch a woman with grey-white hair piled like snow on the back of her head descend down the stairs. Her hand kept a tight grip to a gilded cane, which clip-clopped down the wooden stairs. It dented deep into the side of the woman's brocade skirts, which disguised how rail thin her upper arms looked. Only a sliver of them prodded through a thin sheaf of linen for the sleeves, the rest of her body was smothered in fancy fabrics.

"Built by my great-great grandfather in the reign of King Philipe the fifth. Christened by the great Dane Strider himself before he was lost to the War of Spice," she continued to explain before coming to a stop on the step just above the pair. "Ser Gavin," the woman smiled, her pickled and plastered face folding back to reveal a hint of emotion below all the primping.

The Knight skittered forward, his head bowed low, when the woman's talons dug into his shoulder and tugged him towards her. Mummified lips glanced a quick, friendly kiss to Gavin's cheek. As he tipped away, a smear of red stain remained in its wake. "You have returned to us."

"Yes, my Lady," he bowed again, seeming out of sorts with this whole thing.

"And it was good hunting?" the woman's steel eyes turned from what had to be her all time favorite Knight towards the scraggly gutter trash Gavin dragged into her home.