A/N – Well here we go – the long-awaited chapter one of 'Never Let Me Go'. Wow, I am so amazingly big-headed blushes and apologises. Sorry, getting carried away with my own brilliance again (I'm high on hot cross buns at the moment, hence the slightly hyperness – seriously though, the government should warn people how addictive toasted hot cross buns are!)
Back to sanity, and I want to thank Homeric for being so wonderful as to beta this chapter. I hope you guys like it, and please, please review – any suggestions etc would be so helpful, as I'm kinda floundering around in the dark right now, plot-wise.
I hope that you don't disapprove too much of the huge difference in Lucan's character, but, eventually, it will be sorted. Promise! I'm rambling on now, so I will say adieu, and be off to watch my brother perform in Shakespeare's 'The Merry Wives of Windsor'. Enjoy:
Chapter One: Squire
'God, grant me the serentiy to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference'
Reinhold Niebuhr
"Lucan!" a man shouted, walking hurriedly through a bustling yard, as he skirted the horses nervously. "Lucan!"
A man of about twenty-one years raised his head, a truculent scowl on his face. He was balancing a horse's hoof in one hand, and the other held a red-hot shoe, grasped in a pair of tongs.
"What is it?" he asked irritably, leaning back over the hoof as he pressed the shoe against it. He had unruly dark hair that fell over his eyes, concealing the customary scowl on his otherwise not unhandsome face.
"The King wants to see you," the messenger said, looking agitatedly at Lucan's patched and stained clothes.
Lucan's head came up quickly. "Why?" he asked curtly.
The messenger shrugged. "Why should I know?" he asked impatiently. "He's waiting for you on the wall."
Lucan put the horse's hoof down and gave the horse a friendly slap on the rump as he dropped the shoe in a bucket of water, where it immediately sent up a cloud of steam.
"Marek!" he shouted, and a man in his mid-thirties stuck his head up from behind another horse. "I've got to go and see the King," Lucan said, pulling his leather blacksmith's apron off.
"God save us," the older man said. "What have you done this time?" he yelled at Lucan's retreating form. He sighed and glanced at the messenger. "Typical, the King has been here for a day, and already he's heard about that boy."
"Trouble is he?" the messenger asked, looking warily at the horse who was observing him with bored eyes.
"Not 'alf," the old blacksmith said. "He came here when he was six or seven we reckon, just about when the Romans left. No parents, nothing."
"Who brought him?" the messenger asked curiously.
Marek shrugged as he put down the horse's hoof and winced as he straightened up. "No one seems to know. It's like he just grew out of the stonework."
"He was six you say?" the messenger asked. "Surely he must remember something before then?"
"Apparently not. It's like he's blotted out any memory of life before he came here. I used to hear him scream out in his sleep, so I reckon whatever happened to him before he came here can't have been good."
"He's your apprentice?" the messenger asked.
"Not really," the blacksmith said thoughtfully. "He's better with horses than any I've known, and he hangs around the stables all day, so I get him to help me. It keeps him out of trouble," he said with an apologetic shrug.
"He gets in a lot of trouble?"
"All the time. Fighting mostly."
"Girls?"
"Actually no," the blacksmith said, sounding faintly surprised. "You'd think that a boy like that would be the one that fathers lock their daughters up from, but the only contact he has with them is usually to escort them home after knocking out the man who's been trying to hurt 'em. Strange boy he is, but there's none better with the horses."
The messenger made a disapproving noise in his throat.
"Why does the King want him, then?" Marek asked, as he hammered at a shoe over the anvil.
"He's got some foolhardy notion about wanting to make the boy his groom."
"Bloody 'ell," the blacksmith said in shock. "Bloody 'ell."
Lucan ran up the stairs to the wall two at a time. At the top of the steps stood the King. He had his back to the keep, and was staring out at the fields that surrounded them, his hands clasped behind his back. He turned as Lucan reached the top of the stairs and surveyed Lucan in silence for a moment.
Lucan, determined not to be intimidated, stared back. Arthur was not yet an old man, and yet his face was careworn and tired.
"What've I done?" he finally asked in a rebellious voice.
Arthur chuckled, a deep, throaty sound. "Why is it that whenever I want to talk to someone they always assume that they're in trouble?" he asked, more to himself than for Lucan's benefit. "Why?" he asked suddenly. "Should you be in trouble?"
Lucan shrugged. "I haven't been in a fight for nearly a week, sir," he told Arthur, almost choking over the 'sir', but knowing well enough that he would be a fool to treat the man who could end his life with a single word with any less respect. "So I don't reckon so."
"You fight a lot?" Arthur asked, his voice suddenly serious.
Lucan shrugged. "I guess so sir," he said, staring out across the plains before them.
"You will stop," Arthur told him. "My squire will not go around with a black eye and bloody nose."
"Your squire?" Lucan asked, his head coming up immediately, and the scowl momentarily fading.
"Yes," Arthur told him. "You will be my squire from today until I see fit to dismiss you from the post." Inside, he was suddenly wondering if it was such a good idea to find the child that Dagonet had rescued all those years ago. He certainly wasn't expecting Lucan to be anything like the man before him.
"Father! Father!" came a girl's cry, and Lucan heard light footsteps come running up the rough stone stairs. He turned to see a young woman run up, holding her long skirts hitched up with one hand, her long, loose hair flying out behind her. She was, he knew, Arthur's only child, and the very image of her mother. Dark, almost raven hair framed a delicate face, and yet she had neither her mother's soft dark eyes, nor Arthur's light brown ones. Instead her eyes burned with a dark thunder.
"Sienna!" her father remonstrated her gently. "Can't you see I'm talking?"
"Oh, I'm sorry father," the girl said, blushing, and she looked up shyly at Lucan. She was about fifteen years old, and already showing signs of becoming a beautiful woman.
"This is my daughter, Sienna," said Arthur, introducing them. "And Sienna, this is Lucan, my new squire."
Lucan scowled irritably, for he was angry at having no choice in the matter, but he bowed his head to her nonetheless. Sienna swept her skirts out in a regal curtsey, her eyes mocking him slightly, before she turned back to her father.
"Mother wants to see you," she told him.
"I will be along in a minute," he told her, and, recognising a dismissal when she heard one, Sienna ran lightly back down the steps.
"The knights' squires will be in the royal stables," Arthur told Lucan. "Go to them, and they will tell you what needs doing. You are now personally responsible for the condition of my weapons, my armour, and my horse. I trust you will not forget it," a steely note that Lucan could not miss had come into the King's voice. "I do not expect you to get into trouble of any kind, Lucan. You belong to me now, mind, body and soul, and I will not hesitate to punish you if I feel it necessary."
Lucan's scowl deepened. He was used to getting such warnings, and rarely paid any heed to them.
"Go now," Arthur told him. "I will want my horse to be ready for me first thing tomorrow morning."
Lucan nodded, though his glower did nothing to diminish, and left, stalking angrily down the steps.
Arthur sighed as he watched Lucan storm across the courtyard below. What had he let himself in for?
Lucan made his way back to the smithy, where the blacksmith was still at work. He looked up when Lucan approached, and took in his surly eyes and lowered brows in a single glance. He had known Lucan for fifteen years, and had learnt to read his moods, for his own safety as much as anything else.
"Well?" he asked, standing up and looking at Lucan sternly.
"He's made me his squire," Lucan said, and had the pleasure of seeing the older man's jaw drop.
"God save us all," the blacksmith whispered.
"I came to say goodbye," Lucan said, nothing in his voice indicating any kind of affectionate emotion, but Marek knew that this was as close as Lucan got to kindness. "I know where my debts lie, and I know that I 'ent been nothing but trouble to you. So thank you."
"You've been a great help in the forge," the blacksmith said, amazed that he was on the receiving end of such warmth from Lucan.
Lucan shrugged, turning away so that Marek wouldn't see his face. "I'll probably see you around, but I wanted to say thank you."
The old blacksmith smiled and nodded. "Good luck boy," he said.
Lucan hesitated for a moment, and then turned and slouched off in his usual manner, leaving a bemused and strangely happy blacksmith behind him.
Lucan entered the royal stables with a scowl on his face. He was aware of the hostile gazes of the squires, but was not worried about them. He had lived most of his life as an outcast, and no longer cared for others' opinions of him.
"Yes?" one of the squires asked belligerently.
Lucan looked at the young man who spoke. He was sitting on a bench with a saddle on his lap and a cloth in his hand as he cleaned it. All the squires were sitting around working at various bits of saddlery or armoury, and had been chatting until Lucan entered, when an unfriendly silence fell.
"I'm Arthur's new squire," Lucan said, not liking to have to ask for help from anyone, but knowing well enough that he had to. "He said you'd show me the ropes."
The atmosphere in the tack room lightened immediately. The squire who had spoken first smiled friendlily, and stood up, putting the saddle carefully onto the bench. "Name's Drystan," he said with a grin that was, almost, infectious.
"Lucan."
"Good to meet you. Arthur hasn't had a squire for a long time. We had to take on the extra work. You'll lighten our load no end."
Lucan nodded slowly, unaccustomed to such friendliness. Drystan introduced Lucan to the other squires who were sitting around, and all grinned cheerfully at Lucan, making him far more uncomfortable than he had been with open hostility. "This is Arthur's armour," he said, showing Lucan the only Roman-style armour among the heap of helmets, breastplates and leg guards. "It's not really organised yet. We only got here yesterday, so everything's a bit of a mess. Nobody seems to know where anything is in this place. It took us half an hour to find the tack room!"
Lucan grinned at the young man's enthusiasm. He found himself warming to the boyish figure, who did not seem to mind Lucan's customary silence. Drystan was, Lucan guessed, about his own age, and had close-cropped hair and a sharp face with an open grin.
"Have you lived here long?" he asked Lucan as they rummaged through the armour.
"Fifteen years," Lucan said.
"Then you'll know where everything is then. Good thing Arthur found you! Do you know how to clean armour?"
Lucan, taken off guard by Drystan's sudden change of topic, nodded mutely.
"Good, what about how to put an edge on a blade?"
"No."
"No matter. I'll teach you. Arthur has two swords, a training one, and Excalibur," he held up the shining blade reverently. "He hasn't used it much since he became King, but it's worth more than all of our lives put together."
Lucan smiled grimly. It was always good to know where one stood in the order of things. He dragged his attention back to Drystan, who was chattering away quite happily about the swords.
"Thank the Gods Arthur's finally gotten around to getting a squire," Drystan said as he led Lucan through the fort, towards the stables. "It's been months since the old one left, and we've been getting the brunt of the work since then."
"Why did he leave?" Lucan asked, curiosity overcoming his natural animosity.
Drystan pulled a face. "The monster pinned him against a stable wall and broke a couple of his ribs before he escaped. He said it was the final straw."
"The...monster?" Lucan asked tentatively.
"Arthur's warhorse: a stallion called Finn, but all of us call him the monster. He's a right brute in the stable - only Arthur can get anywhere near him. I don't envy your job, honestly. But Arthur's a good man. He'll probably release you from service when you've been kicked about a bit. I say probably, of course, because he's not going to find another squire with the horse he's got. He should get a nice mild gelding or..."
Drystan rattled on happily, oblivious to Lucan's lack of response or interest. Lucan just let it roll over him. He wasn't used to so much conversation in his life: the last fifteen years had consisted of sharp orders, reprimands, or taunts. He rarely, if ever, heard praise directed at him, but what was even more unusual was being spoken to like a friend. Drystan seemed quite content to chatter away nineteen-to-the-dozen, unaware of Lucan's blank expression.
"We sleep over the stables," he was saying to Lucan. "There's an old hay-loft up there that we've taken over. It'll probably only be for a short time now, because I heard Bors saying that we're expected to stay here for some time, and with winter coming on they wouldn't be so cruel as to make us sleep outside." He paused in his narrative as a thought came to him. "Where do you sleep now?" he asked Lucan amicably.
"Outside," Lucan said shortly.
"Oh," Drystan said, momentarily stumped by the reply, but soon he was back to chattering away about nothing in particular as he led Lucan to the royal stables.
"Well, that's Finn," he said, pointing to a big, mean-looking grey. "Guinevere and Arthur's daughter's horses are on the left, and on the right are the other knight's horses, first is Balin, Bors' horse." He went over to pat the nose of the horse he cared for, while Lucan eyed Finn up. The horse looked relatively harmless as he chewed away contentedly at the hay in his manger, but Lucan could see a glint in the brute's eyes that warned him well enough of his real character without the need for Drystan's caution
Lucan moved towards the box, drawing back the bolts and letting himself in, ignoring the shout of warning from Drystan. Finn instantly whipped his head around, teeth bared and ears flat against his neck.
"Oh don't be so silly," Lucan said lightly, flicking the horse on the nose as he moved into the stable and bolted it behind him.
Finn looked surprised for a moment, and then darted his head forward to bite Lucan on the arm, but Lucan was faster: he grabbed Finn under his jaw, and brought the horse's face around so he was eye to eye.
"Now we're going to be with each other for some time, so we're going to get along. I don't want to be cruel, but I will be if you don't change your behaviour," he said in a serious tone.
Finn's ears, that were laid flat back, crept forwards as he listened to the human's voice. Lucan smiled. "We're going to get along just fine," he said, patting Finn on the withers and letting himself out of the stable.
Drystan was standing there, looking at Lucan in awe. "How did you do that? Finn should have kicked you right out of the stable!"
Lucan shrugged and looked away, when he saw Arthur cross the yard towards him. He bolted the stable-door behind him, and turned to face his new Lord and Master, his eyes wary.
"My Lord," he said in greeting, as Arthur approached, though his voice was far from submissive.
"I see you're getting on well with Finn," Arthur said in a cheerful tone. "That'll make life easier. You've heard the stories I suppose?" he asked, raising one eyebrow at Drystan who blushed guiltily. "Anyway, the knights are going to scout around the surrounding area tomorrow morning. I want Finn ready for just after dawn. Once it's been cleaned, you can bring my armour to my rooms this evening. We'll want to be quite heavily armed, so bring Excalibur as well."
"My Lord," Lucan said as all the answer that Arthur would get.
"You'll probably want to do the same for Bors," Arthur said to Drystan, and with a nod to both the squires he left, his mind a riot. What had he let himself into, getting that boy to be his squire? He had expected the quiet, submissive child he had known, not the rebellious man that had stood before him. Arthur sighed and shook his head slightly. What had he let himself in for?