Upon waking that first morning, Turgeon was informed by the lurking castle steward that he would be presented to the king immediately.

  “You must remember to kneel when you are brought into His Majesty’s presence,” the steward was informing him as they walked towards the throne room, “and never turn your back on the king. His Majesty has a habit of becoming most cross when his subjects turn their back on him.”

  Turgeon followed the steward through the castle. The sparse chamber they had installed him in was apparently as far as possible from the throne room while still being considered in the Keep proper. They followed a winding path past the kitchens, around and through various audience chambers ranging from informal halls that resembled an ale room to sitting chambers full of furnishings so luxurious Turgeon didn’t even have the words to name them much less describe the materials they were made from. They passed through entire rooms the purpose of which Turgeon could not determine.

  Eventually they arrived at the throne room, the large doors thrown wide and flanked by two men that towered over the entry hall both in height and bulk. The King’s Own Guard.

  These soldiers were no ordinary guardsmen. Every man admitted to the King’s Own Guard had to meet extreme physical standards, and after admission they were all trained personally by the King’s Own Swordmaster. The result was a masterpiece of intimidation, especially for a ten year old boy.

  Through the open doors of the throne room Turgeon could hear a man’s voice joyfully proclaiming, “After ten years we have finally ended the threat posed to this kingdom by the noxious sons of Gaedric. Those rebels are dead and now we may have Peace in the land at long last!”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” Turgeon recognized the voice as belonging to the Swordmaster. “But if I may, there is one more matter to attend to today. In the chaos surrounding yesterday’s events a boy was abandoned by his family.”

  A cold trickle of sweat slid down his back between his shoulder blades. He looked furtively around but there was no escaping this fate as the steward gently pushed him forward into the throne room.

  Blinding light was the first thing Turgeon noticed upon entering the Keep’s focal chamber. The room’s walls were covered with rich tapestries woven with gilt thread that reflected light from the many oil burning lanterns lining the walls and filling out ornate chandeliers hung from the high rafters. He almost physically shuddered at the thought of keeping all of those lanterns filled and lit for the King’s audiences.

  The beautiful girl seated to the King’s left was the second thing he noticed. Her golden locks shone in the lamplight, reflecting the light in a way he had never seen hair do before, almost as if it was something else entirely. Perhaps woven gold spun to resemble hair much like the threads in the tapestries. Turgeon blushed as he realized the princess had noticed his attention and she giggled as her handmaiden, a girl of similar age but with darker features to match her raven black tresses, whispered something in her ear. No doubt a joke at his expense.

  The steward’s boots clicked on the bare stone floor and the echos grew louder as they approached the dais. Turgeon’s obvious awe caused the courtiers milling about in throngs to snicker and sneer at him, but he was as unaware as he was awestruck to find himself in such a place.

  It would be some time before Turgeon paid any attention to the King himself, but at the steward’s rather firm prompt in the form of a strong hand pushing down on his shoulder he obediently took a knee at the foot of the dais in deference to the throne.

  Finally managing to sneak a look at the King while at the same time studiously avoiding raising his head and making visible eye contact, Turgeon was struck by how tired the man seemed. His thinning grey hair swept around an ovoid and squishy face, with unattractive jowls and thin lips framing haphazard teeth and sweeping almost unbroken by his slight chin into a wrinkled neck. Dark circles ringing his eyes matched his rich but austere garb.

  “Ah but look, the poor boy is like a pig brought to the fair,” the King joked and all the courtiers laughed. This time Turgeon was certain beyond a doubt that the laughter was in fact at his expense.

  “Of course, Your Majesty, what else would you expect from a stray picked up in the streets?” The Swordmaster returned. “I see in him a spark though, and should like to train him as my apprentice.”

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  At the sound of his voice, Turgeon’s stare, perhaps now more of a glare, was drawn to the presence of the Swordmaster. The man who had killed his brother. He felt his blood begin to boil and began to rise from his place on the floor but the steward held him firmly in place with the hand that had remained on his shoulder.

  His reaction went unnoticed as this proclamation drew gasps and other varied expressions of surprise from throughout the room, not the least from Turgeon himself. He wasn’t sure he had even heard properly, but the look of shock on the King’s face reassured him that The Swordmaster had in fact just requested permission to apprentice him.

  “Why this boy?”

  “As to that, I am not certain myself, Your Majesty. Perhaps it is desperation? We both know my days as your Swordmaster are numbered and I must begin preparing to one day pass off the mantle. One boy to apprentice should be the same as any other. If he does not work out as an apprentice we can hand him off to the guard or the kitchen staff and try again with another.”

  The King nodded at that, but continued questioning. “Can he even read? Write? What good to me or my heirs is a Swordmaster who does not understand tactics and strategy? I know you can well teach the mechanics of the art, but we must also ensure his mind is fostered if he is to replace you as my Swordmaster.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” the steward presumptuously broke in, “The Royal Librarian is most capable of providing the boy with erudition on those subjects and more.”

  The King nodded slowly, considering the proposition. “Very well. Let it be so.”

  With a wave of the King’s hand his audience was complete. Turgeon hadn’t even spoken a word, and the steward was already hustling him out of the throne room, backwards of course, his boots clacking and echoing in a mirror of the sound of their approach.

  From the throne room the steward led a dazed Turgeon through another blur of well furnished rooms and finally into a small nook off of the main kitchen. It was cozy, with a curtain separating a warm space barely large enough to contain the small table and wrap-around bench from the rest of the kitchen.

  “Wait here, boy. I’ll get you something to eat. You’d been asleep for almost a day when I woke you so you must be starving.”

  The thought hadn’t previously occurred to him, but with the combination of the steward mentioning food and the smells of cooking assailing him from the kitchen, Turgeon found that he was quite famished. He sat on the bench and picked at the table with a crude tin fork someone had left behind while he waited for the steward to return, listening to his stomach rumble.

  What a turn of events his life had experienced in the past day. Before, he had lived a quiet life with his older brother at the edge of the city. Together they had managed to tend to a small patch of land where they grew vegetables for sale in the market and raised pigs. Two days ago he had been slinging slop and shoveling shit, and now he was awaiting a meal to be served to him by the king’s steward in the castle kitchens and had been apprenticed to the best swordsman in the land, the King’s Own Swordmaster.

  And his brother was dead. The only family he had ever known, killed by the very Swordmaster who was to now be his master. A man he hated with every bone in his young body.

  In short order the steward returned and set a hearty meal before him. A heel of crusty bread, a roast of some sort of meat in juices with potatoes and turnips, some sort of mealy grain made into a mush and a tankard of watered ale. His eyes must have been wide because the steward chuckled as he enjoined him to dig in, “Eat up, boy. You’ll be needing the nourishment, I’m sure the Swordmaster will begin your training immediately. Are you able to find your way back to your room from here?”

  Thinking for a moment back to the journey from his room to the throne room – only an hour or so ago now, though it felt like a year – Turgeon considered the question and concluded that yes, he likely could. To his recollection the room wasn’t far from the kitchen, to the left down the main hall of the servant’s quarters.

  Turgeon nodded to the steward, who smiled in response and turned to go, pausing as he went to glance back at him, “Welcome to the castle, boy,” he said with an odd quiver in his voice, “take care to watch yourself.”

  With that, the steward departed and he was left alone with his thoughts and his meal.

  He was jolted from his rumination and meal when the girl who had slid into the nook across the table from him kicked him in the shin. Hard.

  “OW!” he shouted, almost involuntarily.

  The girl snickered and sighed. It was the one from the throne room, the dark haired handmaiden of the princess.

  “I saw you in the throne room,” she said to him and made a face in mockery of someone fawning in devotion, “and so did the princess. She thinks you are ridiculous and that you stink, pig boy.”

  Then she stuck out her tongue, knocked over his mug causing it to spill into his lap and dashed from the kitchen nook.

  As the tears began to roll down his face he started to understand just how hard life in the castle was going to be for him, and he longed for his simple, dirty, pig farm on the edge of the city.

  He stumbled out of the kitchen nook, pushing past a scullery maid as he dashed out the door and into the servant’s hallway. He found his way back to the room he had woken in and collapsed on the straw mat, curling up and crying himself to sleep.