Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCRC7KK3Q9SXG2GGFKNGKRZ

<nc-section data-title="Chapter 1: The Arrival — Version 1" data-color="red"> The gates groaned open before I could announce myself, and the smell of hay and horse-sweat rose to meet me as Thunder's hooves found cobblestone. A man waited beneath the stable eaves, arms folded, mail shirt thrown over a tunic gone grey with washing. He was not tall, but he stood the way old oaks stand — as though the ground had agreed to hold him there and nowhere else. "You'll be the Wynhold boy," he said. "Frederick, sir." I slid from the saddle and nearly buckled; three days of riding had turned my legs to green wood. He caught my elbow without seeming to move, steadied me, and let go before the shame could settle. "Roland. Sir, if the steward's listening, which he always is." His eyes went past me to Thunder, and something in his weathered face softened. "That's a better horse than you deserve." "He was my father's." "Then he's a better horse than your father deserved either, and I told him so twice." Sir Roland took the reins from my hand, running a palm down the stallion's neck. "Rub him down yourself before you eat. A knight who lets another man tend his horse is a knight who'll one day find himself afoot and wondering why." I opened my mouth to say I was no knight, only a squire, but he had already turned toward the stalls, and I understood — from that first hour — that Sir Roland's lessons arrived whether you were ready to receive them or not. </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 1: The Arrival — Version 2" data-color="green"> I had rehearsed my greeting for eleven miles. *I am Frederick of Wynhold, come to serve at the pleasure of Lord Alder and to learn the arts of arms.* I had polished each word until it gleamed like the buckle at my belt. I got as far as "I am Frederick—" before a voice cut across the yard. "You're late, you're filthy, and your girth strap's about to fail. Which of those would you like to discuss first?" He came out of the stable shadow with a bucket in one hand and a rag over his shoulder, a big weathered man who moved with the careful economy of someone who had learned exactly how much a body has to give in a day. There was a scar that ran from his jaw into his beard, white as a chalk line. I looked down. The girth strap had frayed to three threads. "The strap," I admitted. "Good answer." He set the bucket down and knelt beside Thunder without asking my leave, working the leather between his fingers. "Sir Roland Grey. I train the boys here, though I use the word *train* generously and the word *boys* accurately." He glanced up at me, one eye squinting against the last of the sun. "Did nobody teach you to check your tack at every stop?" "My father's stablemaster did it, sir." "Ah." He stood, wiping his hands. "Well. Your father's stablemaster isn't coming with us to the northern passes, and neither is your father. Welcome to Alderhold, Frederick. Supper's in the hall, but you'll have missed the bread." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 1: The Arrival — Version 3" data-color="blue"> Thunder knew before I did. His ears swiveled and his head came up, and I followed his gaze to the stable door, where a man stood watching us with the stillness of a heron over water. He watched us the whole length of the yard. He did not wave, did not call out, did not do any of the things I had imagined a knight might do to welcome a squire into his household. He simply watched, and I felt every mile of road dust on me, every loose stitch in my cloak, every one of my sixteen years. Only when I had dismounted did he speak, and his voice was quieter than I expected of a man built like a barn door. "You rode him too hard at the end." Heat climbed my throat. "I wanted to reach the gates before dark." "I know. I could see wanting all over you from the ridge." He came forward then, and his hand went to Thunder's chest, feeling for the heartbeat beneath. Whatever he found there seemed to satisfy him. "Walk him. Twenty circuits of the yard, slow, until his breathing evens. Then water — a little, not much — then the brush." "Yes, sir." I hesitated. "Are you Sir Roland?" "I am." At last something like a smile disturbed the grey thicket of his beard. "And you're the boy who's going to walk his horse twenty circuits of my yard while his supper goes cold, and then tell his grandchildren it was the first thing he ever learned here." He turned back toward the stable. "It won't be. But it's the first thing you'll remember." </nc-section>