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<nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: The Knight at the Stables (Version 1)" data-color="red"> The stable yard smelled of hay and hot iron, and I had scarcely swung down from the saddle before a shadow fell across Thunder's flank. "You ride hard for a boy with no spurs." He was broad as a door, this man, with a beard the color of old rust and a scar that ran from his left ear to the corner of his mouth, pulling his smile crooked. His surcoat had once been white. Now it was the color of every road between here and the sea. "Frederick, my lord. Of Ashmere. I've come to—" "I know why you've come." He took Thunder's bridle from my hands without asking, and the stallion, who had bitten three grooms and one blacksmith, went meek as a lamb beneath his palm. "Sir Roland. I'll be the one shouting at you come morning, so mark the voice now and save yourself the surprise." I bowed, too low. He snorted. "None of that. Squires bow to lords. To me you'll say 'yes, Sir Roland' and 'at once, Sir Roland,' and if you're clever, very little else." He ran a hand down Thunder's foreleg, frowning. "He's favoring the near side. You didn't notice." "I—no, sir." "Then that's your first lesson, and it cost you nothing but pride, which is the cheapest coin you own." He straightened, and for the first time I saw his eyes properly: pale, tired, and watching me the way a man watches weather on the horizon. "Rub him down. Water him slow. Then come to the hall and eat, because tomorrow you won't have the time." He was halfway across the yard when he stopped. "Ashmere," he said, not turning. "That's east. Near the Cinderfells." "Yes, sir." "Then you'll have seen the sky over the mountains this past month." I had. Everyone in Ashmere had. We had simply agreed, in the way villages do, not to speak of it. "Yes, sir," I said. Sir Roland nodded once, slowly, and went inside without another word. </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: The Knight at the Stables (Version 2)" data-color="green"> I found the stables by following the noise—the stamp and snort of forty horses settling for the night—and I had just begun loosening Thunder's girth when someone laughed at me. "Left to right, lad. Always left to right, else you'll drop the saddle on your own foot and spend a fortnight limping about the yard while the other boys invent names for you." He was sitting on an upturned barrel with a whetstone in one hand and a sword across his knees, and he had clearly been sitting there watching me for some time. Younger than I expected a knight to be, though the grey at his temples argued otherwise. Long face. Amused mouth. Two fingers missing from his left hand. "Sir Roland," he said, and gestured with the whetstone toward my chest. "You're the Ashmere boy. Frederick." "You knew I was coming?" "I knew someone was coming. Your father wrote a letter." He returned to the blade, and the stone sang. "It was a very long letter. He listed your virtues in some detail." Heat crawled up my neck. "He is... enthusiastic, sir." "He is a liar," Sir Roland said pleasantly. "All fathers are, in letters. Mine claimed I could read Old Valyan. I could not read Old Valyan. I spent four years pretending, which is how I learned to lie myself, so perhaps it was a kindness." He tested the edge against his thumb and seemed dissatisfied. "Do you know what a squire actually does here, Frederick of Ashmere?" "Serves his knight. Learns the sword. Tends the armor and the horses and—" "Carries things," he said. "Mostly you carry things. Occasionally you carry things uphill. Once, memorably, I carried a dead man's leg across a frozen river because his widow wanted something to bury." He looked up. "Still want the post?" I thought about it longer than a braver boy would have. "Yes, sir." "Good." He stood, and he was taller than the barrel had suggested. "Left to right, Frederick. Then find me in the armory. There's something in the east tower I'd rather you heard from me than from the kitchen girls." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: The Knight at the Stables (Version 3)" data-color="blue"> The gates swallowed me and spat me out into a courtyard of torchlight and confusion, and it was pure luck that a groom pointed me toward the stables rather than the middens. The man waiting there was not waiting for me. That much was plain. He stood in the wide doorway with his back to the lamps, staring out past the walls at the darkening east, and he did not turn when Thunder's hooves rang on the cobbles. He wore no mail, only a plain wool tunic, and his hands hung open and empty at his sides. Something about the stillness of him made me stop three paces off and say nothing at all. A long moment passed. Somewhere in the stalls, a mare kicked her boards. "Do you smell that?" he said. I sniffed. Hay. Dung. Woodsmoke from the kitchens. "Sir?" "No." He turned then, and I saw a weathered face, a soldier's face, and eyes that had been looking at something a great deal farther away than the wall. "No, you wouldn't. It's been eleven years. There's not a soul under this roof who remembers but me and the old cook, and she says it's my imagination." He rubbed his jaw. "Roland. Sir Roland Vance, Master-at-Arms, and you'll be the squire they promised me at midsummer and delivered in autumn." "Frederick, sir. There was flooding on the Kingsroad, and my mother—" "Doesn't matter. You're here." He came forward and took my hand in both of his, which no knight had ever done to me, and which unsettled me more than a blow would have. His palms were rough as bark. "Listen to me now, because I'll only say it once while I'm still soft enough to say it kindly. Whatever you came here hoping to become—tourneys, ribbons, a lady's favor on your arm—put it down. Set it in the straw and leave it. You'll want your hands free." "Sir, I don't understand." "I know." He let go and clapped my shoulder, and just like that the strangeness went out of him and he was only a tired man in a wool tunic. "Get your horse fed. There's stew in the hall and a pallet in the west barracks, third from the window, and don't let Wilkin tell you otherwise—he'll have you sleeping under the stairs." He started toward the keep, then paused. "And Frederick. If you wake in the night and the horses are screaming, don't go outside. Come and find me." He left me standing in the doorway, holding my reins, looking east at nothing. </nc-section>