Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCRCEKAADFTRG6F5ZCSR5HV

<nc-section data-title="Chapter 2, Version 1: The Knight at the Stable Door" data-color="red"> The stables smelled of hay and warm leather, and I had barely swung down from Thunder's back when a shadow fell across the straw. "So you're the one they sent me." He stood in the doorway with the last of the sunlight behind him, a big man in a surcoat that had once been white. His beard was iron-grey, cropped close, and there was a scar that ran from his left ear down into it, disappearing like a road into a wood. He held an apple in one hand. He offered it not to me, but to Thunder. "Sir Roland," he said, while my horse took the apple with soft, greedy lips. "I keep the watch here, and now, it seems, I keep you." He looked at me properly then, from my mud-splattered boots to the sword I had no right to wear yet. "You rode him hard on the last stretch. Show off for the walls, did you?" I felt my face go hot. "He wanted to run, sir." "He always wants to run. So does every fool who ever put a leg over him." Sir Roland ran a hand down Thunder's neck, checking the damp of his coat with the ease of a man who had done it ten thousand times. "A knight is not the one who wants things, boy. A knight is the one who decides. Walk him out. Cool him down. Rub him dry, and when you can put your palm flat on his chest and feel no heat, then you may come and eat." "And then my training begins?" He laughed — one short bark, like a hound in a hall. "Lad," he said, "your training began the moment you dismounted." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 2, Version 2: A Cold Welcome" data-color="green"> No trumpets sounded for me. No steward came with a torch. The gate closed at my back with a groan of old timber, and I led Thunder across the courtyard toward the stables, my boots ringing on the cobbles, feeling very much like a boy who had come a long way to be forgotten. Then I saw him, sitting on an upturned barrel beside the stable door, sharpening a blade with slow, patient strokes. He did not stand. He did not stop sharpening. "You're late," he said. "The road at Ellenmere was flooded, sir. I had to go around by the mill—" "The road at Ellenmere floods every spring. It has flooded every spring for thirty years." The stone went along the steel again. *Shhk. Shhk.* "A man who knows the country does not go around by the mill. He crosses at the ford above the weir, and he arrives before dark, and he sleeps in a bed instead of standing in my yard explaining himself." I said nothing. There was nothing to say that would not have been worse. At last he looked up, and I was surprised to find his eyes were not unkind — pale grey, tired, and watching me the way a farrier watches a horse he has been asked to buy. "Roland," he said. "Sir Roland, when others are listening. You'll have heard of me." "They say you held the bridge at Harrowmoor with eleven men." "Nine," he said. "The songs always add two. It sounds better with eleven; it *ended* with three." He rose, and he was taller than I expected, and stiffer, favouring his right hip. He nodded at Thunder. "Fine animal. Too fine for a squire. Someone loves you, or someone is trying to buy something from your father." "He was my brother's." Something moved behind the grey eyes, and settled. "Ah," said Sir Roland. "Then we will not speak of him tonight. Stable your horse, Frederick. The kitchen keeps bread back for latecomers, whatever the cook tells you. And be in the yard at first light — not after it. First light." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 2, Version 3: The Man Who Smelled of Smoke" data-color="blue"> I had imagined this moment a hundred times on the road, and in none of my imaginings did the great knight of the castle come out to meet me carrying two buckets of water and swearing at a goose. "Off! *Off*, you feathered devil—" The goose retreated with tremendous dignity, hissing. The man set down the buckets, straightened, pressed a fist into the small of his back, and noticed me. "Well," he said. "You've a horse and a good cloak and a look on your face like you've eaten something sour. You'll be Frederick." "I am, sir." "Roland." He wiped his palm on his tunic and held it out, and I took it, and it was like gripping the branch of an oak. Up close I saw that his knuckles were broken and rebuilt, that his eyebrows had been singed away at some point and never quite grown back, and that he smelled — faintly, strangely — of smoke. Not hearth-smoke. Something sharper. Something that made Thunder shy and toss his head, and I had to speak low to him before he would settle. Sir Roland watched the horse with an odd, still attention. "He smells it too," he said quietly. "Smells what, sir?" The knight picked up his buckets. Whatever had been in his face folded itself away, neat as a letter. "Old ash on an old man," he said. "Come. There's a stall at the end with fresh straw in it — I put it there myself this morning, so you may consider yourself honoured, and never expect it again. Bed him down, then find me in the armoury. There are things I would rather tell you tonight than have you learn from the gossip of the kitchens." He was six paces away before I found my voice. "Sir Roland — what things?" "Eat first," he said, without turning. "It's a poor tale on an empty stomach." </nc-section>