The Song of the Smith and Stranger

Prologue: The Lone Knight

"Another!" pleaded the young boy, "just one more and I promise to go to sleep."

The mother sat back down on the edge of her son's bed with the sigh of a woman over worked. "Alright, just one and then it's off to sleep with you," the mother relented, smiling in the candlelight as her boy snuggled under his covers, pulling them up to his chin. "Which would you like?"

"What about the Lone Knight?" the boy suggested eagerly, eyes shining.

"You've heard that one a dozen times, what about a different one?"

The boy shook his head stubbornly, "the Lone Knight is my favorite one."

"And why's that sweetling?" the mother asked tiredly, tucking the sheets around the squirming child.

"Because it's true!"

"And the other's are not?" the mother questioned with a smile.

The boy frowned, "well, they might be. But the Lone Knight is real! You've seen him, haven't you, Mother?"

"Aye, I've seen him." The mother's voice was dreamy as she thought back. "He sat tall and proud in his worn saddle a top his grey steeler, carrying that heavy banner and wearing his bull helm."

"Where did he come from mother?"

"No one knows, my boy. Some say that he came from across the seas, others say from the north, while others argue he isn't a person at all, but the ghost of a man, lost and wandering."

"What is he looking for?"

"Some say honor, but I don't believe that." The mother smiled kindly down at her son whose eyes were as big as saucers as he listened. "I believe he's waiting for a lost princess."

"Who is she and why does he care?"

"Some people say that he was sworn to protect the lost princess and when she disappeared he continued his search for her, but that isn't the case. I know, because when he rode by me on that hilltop, all gallant and so fierce I nearly dropped my load, his blue eyes looked at me with a desperate question in the depths of them. 'Are you her?' they seemed to ask me. Those were not the eyes of a man sworn to duty, but the eyes of a man who has lost his love. Maybe his love is a princess, and maybe she left him because he was only just a knight but I like to believe that she was taken away from him. Stolen to be ransomed to the King in the North while he lived."

"Do you think they'll ever find each other?" The boy asked, he had turned his head and was gazing out the window of his bedroom, looking out upon the rolling hills of the farmlands, perhaps imagining the knight wandering the hills. The mother leaned forward and kissed her child upon the temple.

"I don't know, my love. War is cruel and it oft as not takes away the one we love."

"Like father?"

"Like father," the mother repeated, her voice quiet and thoughtful.

"I think he'll find her." The boy said looking at his mother.

"And why is that my summer child?" the mother said fondly.

"Because he loves her and love is the strongest force in the world, not even the gods can touch it."

"Aye, maybe. You must sleep now, my summer child, or soon the day will break upon us and you'll have not gotten any sleep at all." She stood up and blew out the candle by his bedside table.

"Do you think she's still alive?" the boy asked his voice small in the darkness of the room. The mother paused by the door.

"Who, my child?"

"The princess."

"Aye, I know she is."

"How can you know?"

"Because my summer child, if she were dead, he would have stopped searching long ago."