A Squire’s Trial

A Squire’s Trial by Alexander Slavros and Charles Chapel An IronMarch publication 2015 Version 1.2 Original pencil drawing for cover by Jose Antonio Garcia Moreno To the reader of this book we pose the question: “Would you truly consider him mad, one who’d want to revive chivalry?” Chivalry – a community of those who "show up everywhere a conflict erupts, in order to spread the terror that their weapons evoke in defense of honor and justice." (Pope Urban II) 5 "Ahoy, there!" I turned around at the strange greeting, and saw a man briskly walk toward me off the highway road and down the path to the storage house. It wasn't rare that we got visitors all the way out here; customers from the city would often come by to check in on their goods, or deal with the boss when his job demanded he stay here. But they all arrived by personal vehicles, whereas this stranger that approached me was traveling by foot. Moreover, he wasn't approaching from the direction of the city – exactly how long has he been walking? As he grew closer, I realized that he may have traveled quite the distance. He was clad in black, military-looking clothes, dust and dirt from the road covering his boots and pants up to his knees, a severely scraped and scratched knee-guard on the right leg. A sizable back-pack, a jacket with rolled up sleeves, a loosely tied scarf on his neck, and everything had pockets full of something. The more he approached, the more the little details began to spring up – like some custom patches over his clothes, marks on his knuckles and some scars. What was the most 6 striking element of this peculiar traveler, however, was his face. Sharp features, blond hair combed back with a scruffy beard; certainly not a native to our country, as this was not a common appearance here. He had the face of someone weathered or hardened by experience, and yet his eyes... the man was most likely well into his 40s, but in his eyes was the mirth of youth. Overall, he gave an impression of someone with stories to tell. "Could you please tell me if that's the capitol there?" he asked me, pointing towards the city on the horizon. Rather curious how he didn't know this, nevertheless I told him that it was. "Ah, grand! You don't suppose you could share some water with me? My camelback is almost empty." "Camelback?" I inquired, never having heard of such a thing. He explained to me that his backpack had a reservoir for water, and a tube through which he could drink it straight out of the backpack. I've certainly seen tourists and backpackers before, but none like this man, and certainly not with such equipment, though he insisted it wasn't so uncommon. I pointed him to our well – and this time around I got to surprise him, as it wasn't often that he was offered water from a well; he was used to everyone only ever having bottled water. As he was filling up his camelback, I asked if he wanted a ride to the city; my shift was already over, and I needed to run some errands in the capitol myself. He declined, saying "I walked this far on foot, I may as well finish on foot." This, again, piqued my curiosity, and I had to prod further: "Exactly where from have you been walking to the capitol?" His reply brought more questions than answers as he tried to describe, in some uncertain terms, what I barely managed to piece together as being the port city that was some 350 or more kilometers away! Surely he doesn't mean that he walked the entire 7 way, that would take days! But to my amazement, he insisted that he had, indeed, walked the whole way here, which baffled me completely – who in this day and age would bother walking so far, and moreover, allow himself to lose so much time? Maybe if I knew why he was traveling to the capitol, I