• U evolia abba
    Erol legne co e in
    Hashahnona Raphael

    “Gunther,” called the knight. The page looked up from grooming the man’s, Leonard’s, horse. He gave Zephyr a last pat before turning.

    Leonard looked at him. The man was one of the tall knights one could see riding down the Royal Highway often. His black hair was greasy and slicked back from his face, his beard curling. He wore the finest of red tunics, the blackest of breeches and boots, and a golden ring bearing his king’s sign was upon his finger.
    Gunther was small for his age, thirteen. His brown hair hung in his face, partially obscuring his cobalt eyes.

    While Leonard’s clothing was of the finest quality, the page’s was little more than rags hanging from his pitifully thin frame. His tunic was of fading black material, appearing gray. His jerkin was a simple peasant’s one, brown outside and in. His pants of a dirty cream color hung low on his protruding hips, torn at the ankles. His shoes were small, barely reaching above his ankle, and of worn brown leather.

    “Where were you last night?” Gunther averted his eyes from his master’s. He shuffled his feet awkwardly.

    “At the inn, Sir Leonard.”

    “Why were you there?” The man paced around the boy, drawing his sword. One of his many contacts at the inn had told him of the boy’s arrival there. The page had stayed in the comfort of a warm bed with food in his belly that night. He had explicitly told the boy the other night that he was to deliver the message to Sir Olaf and return to their camp. The fool had never returned.

    “I… I was d-delivering your message.” Gunther bowed his head. “I waited for him, but he never came. It was so cold…and I…”

    “You disobeyed me,” finished the man. Gunther closed his eyes. He soon felt the flat of the sword against his back. After twenty lashes and cries, Leonard stopped. “Go. Take Zephyr and deliver the message.”

    The boy nodded, saddling the white horse and riding through branch and thorn to the nearby village where Olaf was staying. The forest was clogged with the last autumn's leaf-mold. The sodden ground, on its way to becoming a bog, held many pools of water that had helped ware jagged ridges from the rock hidden beneath the covering of mush. The oaks, pines, and a few beeches were dotted around the glades along with the strange okoka trees. Although it sounded as if it were a nut producing tree, the okoka bore fruit and were the home of the other curiosity that ranged through the kingdom: a lizard with skunk like stripes that passersby usually gave a wide berth.

    Moving out of the wood, the page came to a well traveled dirt track. Ahead lay the village, Ania, which was more of a jumble of peasant shacks made small and of oak surrounding the surprisingly large square where the inn was located. Gunther stopped as he came to the inn, handed the parchment over to Sir Olaf’s page, who gazed up at him pityingly and nodded before returning inside, and rode back toward camp.