A Squire's Endeavour
by Christine Collinson
In the early light of the anteroom, the page stoops to buckle Ralph’s spurs with nimble fingers. Ralph’s bloodshot eyes sting after the night in the chapel; his limbs sag from sleepless vigil. Kneeling before the altar awaiting dawn, he’d borne the burdens of armour and expectation.
He recalls lying face down in muck, near dead as a kitchen rat. As a page of twelve summers, Ralph was thrown from his skittish horse, heard hoofbeats unravelling into the distance. “Damned colt!” Pain stabbed his ribcage like a needle, but Sigbert and his men rode ahead. Chest jarring at every step, Ralph doubted he’d see the castle again.
“We were not expecting your return, laggard,” Sigbert said later, observing him slumped against a cart.
Ralph’s cleansed skin twitches in new-spun wool. The sword which rested on the moonlit altar is now in another’s hands. “Stand tall, sir,” the page advises as he adjusts the belt.
“This wretched tunic‘ll scratch my very skin off,” Ralph mutters, lifting his spine as the blade dazzles across milk-white cloth.
A cloak, dyed like battle-wounds, is draped around his shoulders. His pain long abated, he’d turned squire by the time he’d healed. Had dared not reveal it. Continued to shovel shit and buff harnesses with blistered hands. “I can do the work of two darned pages!” he’d quipped as Sigbert’s assessing eyes pierced his back.
Ralph’s brothers, knighted before him, linger in his mind. The youngest, Oswain, already slain. It was Oswain who’d taken Ralph aside before he left. “Don’t let father down or he’ll not call you his own after. There’ll be no place here if you prove unworthy.” Oswain ruffled his brother’s hair and walked away. “You’ll be sent off to the church!” he called, over his shoulder.
Ralph’s palms are slick; his cloak whispers across stone. His unease at riding out had wedged like a mouse in a hawk’s claws. Knuckling down to duties over the years, the twinges gradually receded. Practicing longbow or dismembering a kill flared it, learning his Latin, not so. “A squire must show equal skill in all tests,” Sigbert had warned.
The waiting men meet his gaze. He swallows sudden, nervous bile. It’s in their power to refuse him, even at the last. “I’m ready, my liege.”
The altar is now speckled with window-glass colours. Lowering on stiff knees, he senses a sword aloft. His liege lord taps upon Ralph’s neck. “Be thou a knight.” The meaning dwells, begins to entwine.
Ralph squares his shoulders, departs into hazy courtyard light. “I’m eager to see the measure of my new steed, men!” A wry grin flashes across his weather-worn face.
The squire is replaced, as the page before; woven into him like tapestry figures. They will fade but remain, just as Oswain’s legacy. Ralph steps forward with his banner, weighing it in his arms. Be thou a knight, for one day of combat or a thousand more, until the threads are severed.
About the author
Christine Collinson is a Best Microfiction nominee and has been listed several times for her flash fiction. She has had over thirty historical fiction pieces published online and in print. Find her on Twitter @collinson26.
About the illustration
The illustration is "Knighting of Sir Galahad" stained glass window at St. Mary & St. George Anglican Church, Jasper, Alberta, Canada, 1992. Photo by Julio César Martin Trejo, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.