Chapter One

Gowner stood in the centre of his massive kitchen and sighed. He knew his foster-son was in there somewhere, it was just a matter of waiting patiently for the boy to reveal himself. The old man was angry, although not with the child, but Patrick assumed everyone was angry with him all the time. It was something Gowner had tried to fix, but to no avail. The fact that, outside of the kitchen staff and their families, everyone though the boy was... strange, was no help at all. 

“Pat? You goin’ to come out, lad? I ent angry with you, I promise.” His deep voice rumbled out like distant thunder, and from the top of a tall cupboard, a pair of deep jade eyes peered down at him. 

“You promise?” the small voice asked, before the shadowy face retreated back into the gloom.

“Aye lad, I promise. I know it ent your fault. Never usually is.” Gowner moved closer to the cupboard, wondering how the boy had got himself up there, although how Patrick did most things was beyond him. “You dint’ leave ole’ Cerin’s armour out on purpose, did you?” he asked the small, skinny boy hidden from view.

“No!” came the injured response of the eight-year-old. “No I dint’; Cernan said I had to do it,” -  Gowner knew Cerin’s squire and nephew had palmed his own chores off onto Patrick for a long time -  “an’ I wouldn’t have left it at all if those stupid big horse-boys hadn’t made me go an’ do their work too!” By now the boy’s head had emerged from the darkness, and the shock of bright copper hair shook as the child struggled to contain his wounded anger. 

“Pat, they’re Stable Hands, you know. They don’t like bein’ called ‘horse-boys’. An’ I’ve tol’ you a dozen times, you don’ have to do what they say!” Gowner shook his head, frustrated at his son’s inability to say “no” or defend himself against the other, rowdy members of the Hold. “You goin’ to come down at all, lad? Or shall I bring your dinner to you later?”

The head retreated again from view, and Gowner could head a shuffling noise from behind the cupboard - he still couldn’t work out how Patrick had gotten up there. Before long, a skinny figure emerged into the kitchen, and stood in front of the vast cook, trembling. Gowner’s heart ached for the boy.

Looking at his feet, fighting the tears that threatened to spill down his cheeks, Patrick mumbled an apology. “I dint’ m-mean to leave Sir Cerin’s armour out, honest I dint! I cleaned it real good for ages an’ ages after Cernan gave it to me, and then I had to go help the hors - Stable Hands,” he corrected himself. “I just forgot to put it away, an’ they wouldn’t have given me chance to any ways. But I’m sorry.” He looked up at his foster-father, and steeled himself. “I’ll go an’ apologise if you want me to.”

Gowner heard those final words and seethed inside. The boy was prepared to take the blame! And Cerin would accept it, because it was convenient, because he wouldn’t have to punish Cernan for it, and because he had opposed the boy’s presence within the Hold more than once. It would be an excuse to thrash him, and Gowner had already had to minister to the boy after one of Cerin’s thrashings before; there was no way he was going to let it happen again.

“No, you won’t. I ent daft, lad, an’ nor’r you. Why don’t you take yerself off to the Low armoury; I’m sure you can find something to do there. I’ll come an’ find you when it’s time for supper.”

The boy smiled - he enjoyed working in the cool calm of the Low armoury, and was generally left alone there - and dashed off, his delicate childhood equilibrium restored, if only for a while. Gowner grinned for a moment and moved toward the dimly-lit fire pits, empty of their usual spitted carcasses. He sank on an old oak bench, grateful to be off his feet for a few minutes. Picking up a poker, he stoked and stirred the embers for a while, creating warmth that, for some reason, wouldn’t quite penetrate. He lost himself in thought, knowing his staff wouldn’t be around for a little while longer.

The problem with Patrick, he thought, was that the lad just didn’t... fit. From the day he’d been found, a tiny three-year-old toddling through the woods a couple of leagues away, crying and wailing, the boy had been an oddity. He’d been brought to the kitchens, where it was always warm and clean, and plonked in front of Gowner, “just until we can decide what to do with him."

The little boy had looked up at the big cook through long shaggy locks of red hair, and immediately stopped crying. His jade eyes had stared the cook right in the face, and a small smile had spread across his lips. The old man had been nervous at first, but the boy was quiet and seemed content to sit watching him, so he carried on with his work, occasionally slipping the child a bit of something to chew on.

By the time the knights had come back from deciding the child’s fate, it was too late. Gowner wasn’t going to let the boy go. He had taken in the small, skinny frame; the unsettling but emotive eyes; the small web of scars across the bottom of the child’s shoeless feet; even the vibrant and strange hair (Gowner had heard of red hair before, but never believed it), and decided the boy was staying. The High knights that came had included Cerin, head of the High Order, all prepared to take this queer, unnatural child back into the woods and leave him there - not necessarily in the same, breathing condition they found him in. Gowner stood his ground; the boy was staying.

Even now, Gowner couldn’t say exactly why he’d fought so hard to keep the lad. His own son had died only two summers before, and his wife shortly after. The heartache was still raw and fresh, but it hadn’t seemed to matter then. All Gowner knew was that, in the short time the boy had been sat on his worktop, he’d silently found a way through the walls the old cook had built, and taken up residence in his heart. Maybe it was the child’s obvious need for care; maybe it was the sheer outrage Gowner had felt when he saw the deep scars, already long healed. Maybe it was just that the little boy had looked so lost and alone. It didn’t matter. The boy was staying.

In the end, Cerin had stormed off, furious that his word was not being taken as law - something he was completely unaccustomed to. The other knights had stayed for a while longer, trying to convince Gowner that the child might be dangerous, but Gowner sent them off in a temper. Once they had gone, the boy had shuffled himself closer to the cook, looking at the chef with an interest that seemed far older than his suspected three years. It still didn’t matter. Gowner was going to look after this one. 

By the end of the first night, Gowner wondered if he had gone insane. The boy had settled down into his makeshift bed easily enough, and had been quick to sleep. However, before long it was clear he was stuck in some sort of night-terror - and it was only getting worse. Pale webs of blue light - shimmering as if they burned - spread from the roots of his red hair across his small body, and Gowner was terrified. He cowered in the corner, afraid of what he had fought so hard to keep. But when the boy began to cry in his sleep, the old man moved closer. Pain was etched into the small face, and Gowner wondered how he was still locked in sleep. He reached out his fingers to gently touch the child’s face, and something threw him clear across the room. He hit the wall with such force it left a small dent. His fingers burned with an icy heat, and when he could see straight, Gowner observed the small row of blisters already formed on his fingers. It was as if he had stuck his hand onto one of the heavy cooking slabs. The boy had woken with a start, looking around in terror. He had seen the old man slumped on the floor, and began to sob; clearly this was something that had happened before. The blue lines slowly started to fade. 

Gowner remembered how he had slowly crawled his way over to the boy and - against every instinct - reached out to him. This time, there was no shock, no freezing heat; just a small body shaking and trembling with the force of his misery. He was just a terrified child. Gowner pulled the boy into his arms and rocked him gently. Soon, they were both soothed, and the child was drifting back to sleep, a faint smile tugging at his lips.

Gowner smiled at the memory. It was one of many similar ones from the past five years, although he had never again tried to touch Patrick whilst the nightmare was still raging. It was a secret they shared, a nightly occurrence that they both accepted now as part of their lives. Patrick never told the old man what he saw in the dreams, and Gowner, unsure if he even wanted to know, never asked. Neither of them addressed the blue light-lines.

What to do about the boy now though? That was what plagued Gowner’s mind as he sat staring at smouldering embers. Most boys his age were either working with their fathers, left to be apprentices somewhere, or got taken for squires. Patrick couldn’t work with Gowner in the kitchens; no child could cope with the heavy demands of the Hold, where several hundred knights and squires, and all the attendant servants needed feeding. And no one was likely to take the boy on as an apprentice; if the people who had seen him grow still refused to accept him, no one outside would do so. It was troubling. He needed a place, a trade. He wouldn’t be a child for much longer. Where could he go?

Squiring was an excellent opportunity - one that, if the lad worked hard, would lead to a knighting. But who would have Patrick? The boy was, in the eyes of others, too abnormal. None of the High would even acknowledge him, and too many of the Low had over-inflated opinions of themselves. In fact, there were only two knights that Gowner had much time or for. Innair had a squire already, but Locke... Maybe, thought Gowner, there was something he could do for the boy after all.

He hefted himself from his bench, and heard his knees creak. "Old," he muttered, wincing a little as he straightened. And old was how he felt. He'd lived a long life, and although it had been busy and active, he knew his age was catching up with him. Working long days and nights in the kitchen had left him with a barrel chest and strong arms, but he could feel them flagging now when he lifted swine onto spits or heaved casks into feast halls. How long, he wondered, would he be around to keep Patrick safe? 

The thought jarred him, and he realised what was really worrying him - if Patrick became a squire, how would he be able to keep his... affliction... a secret? He'd be expected to move into the squire's quarters, sharing a room with other youths. The minute someone saw Patrick's night-terrors and his shining skin, they'd drag him from his bed and the boy wouldn't survive the night. Eyre's teeth! 

He stood staring at the flames for a little longer, lost in thought, until the sounds of his kitchen staff entering the kitchens reached his ears. He smiled as his baker hailed him and waved back, before pushing his hand through his short hair. He knew his workers could manage everything for the evening feast and so, heavy footed, he set off to find Locke, knowing the Low knight would be sparring in the yard. As he followed the distant clanging of steel, he tried to work out how on earth he was going to explain this all to Locke. How could he ever make anyone understand that Patrick was harmless, just a little boy, who's nightly torment was nothing he could control or even comprehend? 

Gowner stood watching the knights work through their swordplay, waiting for a break to be called. As the gong rang out, he caught sight of Locke removing his helm and wiping the sweat from his brow with a fist. Hailing him, he moved to a shaded area of the training yard, and waited for the knight to join him, trying to swallow his apprehension. As Locke approached, he steeled himself; if this went poorly, Patrick's life could be at risk. He hoped he could trust the young knight.