Sir Aldric Violetheart's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Three days passed. The squires came at dawn, six of them, boots crunching the old field. Aldric waited by the weathered fence in his blue armor. His purple feathers hung ready. He expected respect. He got laughter. "Purple," said the tallest squire. He wore a royal house's badge on his sleeve, chipped and proud. "We bled for real colors. Not a jester's plumes." The others grinned. They did not draw their swords. They did not even bow. Aldric's order needed men who believed. These boys believed in nothing but the crest already on their arms. Gareth leaned on his axe at the gate. He said nothing. He wanted to see what his student would do. Aldric knew that silence. It was the same silence from the mud, years ago, when the old man made him solve his own problems. Aldric did not argue. He walked to the center of the ring. Something clung to the old fence post there, small and bright. A snail, its shell painted in a dozen colors, tiny wings folded on its back. Then another beside it. And more, dotting the rotted wood like scattered jewels. He had never seen the like. He cupped one in his glove. The wings opened. Every color he carried on his blade and horse and helmet shone in that one small shell. He held it up so the squires could see. "You think my colors are a joke," Aldric said. "Even the smallest thing in this field wears every color at once. And it flies where dull brown things only crawl." He set the snail on his purple feather. It clung there, wings bright against the plume. The tall squire snorted. "A bug. You'd win us with a bug?" "No," Aldric said. "With this." He drew the rainbow sword. The blade threw color across all six faces. He pointed it at the tall squire. "You mock the plumes. Then knock them off my helmet. Any of you. All of you at once. Beat me, and I'll wear a royal crest and never speak of an order again." The squires stopped grinning. A challenge they understood. The tall one drew first. The rest followed. Six blades against one. Aldric fought the way Gareth taught him. He gave ground, then took it back. He caught the tall squire's swing and turned it into the man beside him. He did not swing to kill. He swung to shame. One by one he knocked them into the mud, and the last one dropped his sword rather than fall again. Silence. The tall squire wiped mud from his mouth and looked up at the feathers, still whole, the small winged snail still clinging there. "Purple," he said. This time he knelt. The others knelt with him. Six squires in the dirt, sworn now to no royal house, but to a man in blue. Gareth pushed off the gate. "Six is a start," he called. "But my best still wears another man's crest. You've earned these. You haven't earned him."