I was taken in to be a squire by the time I was thirteen. It's a typical "rescued by a beloved and trusted knight", and I felt as I myself was in some sort of new telling of the Arthurian Legends. Alain was the father I did not ever recall in my life. Kind, gentle, stern, and always disciplined. True, I never and still do not know the circumstances that drove me into his hearth, and to become his charge. I cannot even recall when it really happened, I know I was adopted by the age of four, and everything before, and partially after is clouded over. I am told my mother died in childbirth, or of the plague. It always depended on the person telling the story which version I would receive. My father...well I suppose he just did not want me enough to make the effort to keep me. So, I was taken in by Alain, his own wife had died in childbirth, and he was childless. I felt at times like a fill in that he always had tried to force into a peg that his own family left. Perhaps that was the root of all the problems. Perhaps I had finally found something that vaguely resembled love, the kind of love I had never experienced in my life. She did not count in the end I suppose, or filled in the love I was missing. But that is only pushing off blame to another person, again. It was always my fault in the end, truth be told. I digress.
That is not to say Sir Alain was not the best of a mentor figure I could have received. He taught me the art of combat, versed me in Latin, taught me to read, write, and to wage war on both the battlefield and in the mind. Chivalry was perhaps the one idea that doomed me more than anything. Perhaps I had taken the ideals too seriously, the code too literally. I like to think I did not understand the idea of romancing from afar. I had never been one for subterfuge or deceit, and I never spoke around the issue. The more I consider it, the more I believe that quite simply, I had just forgotten the most important lesson of all, after one look into those deep expanses, I hardly remembered to breathe. True, by all laws, expectations, and codes established, I should not, in any circumstance, have been given the right and guarantee to become a knight someday. Somehow though, Alain appealed to the king, our king, my king, and convinced him of this brave, headstrong, and somewhat foolish young girl who would in his own words "create the very knight of yore" that my lord was in dire need of. For you see, I came of age in an era that was hard-pressed for "knights of yore" or for any knights at the point we had reached as a country.
True, the kingdoms had been united for a time, but quite some time before I was born, we had broken again. The main issue was the newly self-proclaimed High King (a title not held since the Pendragon line) Bercilak. He had in his legions the northern portion of our fair island, and the truce long held between the Saxons and our old kingdom had long since disappeared. It seemed as if we were to be plunged into a civil war, and a war with the Saxons. Needless to say, our island would not survive another sundering of our lands and peoples again. Not without divine help (from this new God or from our old Pagan rites) and a bevy of knights. This situation, not real luck or providence convinced the king to accept me at the age of thirteen as a squire. It just so happened, that for the last nine years of my existence given to me, Alain had been a just, fair, and gentle guardian to my growth. My luck did not long hold.
His name was Lord Calogrenant. If there were ever a man who enjoyed beatings, lashings, and brutal brawls, it was Lord Calogrenant. I can still lift the mail I wear at this moment and count out the number of scars on my stomach and chest alone. He hated knights. He hated Southerners (I hailed from Tintagel, a miserable spit of land now long abandoned). And most highly above all, he hated women. In me, he found what he truly despised, and I added insult to injury that I had been given this chance to become a knight. I still remember arriving there, kneeling at his door, and promptly being beaten for many minutes with a sheathed claymore which weighed more than I did at the time. I did all house chores, all stable duties, and tended to his weapons, estate, and personal affairs single-handedly. If any one detail was out of place to him, it was the claymore, Oak staff, or other objects he could find. Two years passed.
I emerged from his useless tutelage none the more skilled in archery, riding, sword play, or combat, but with a collection of scars that made even grizzled Pelleas grimace when shown. I was called to court the day after passing fifteen years of age. I will never forget that moment, arriving fresh from the saddle, with dirty, rusted, and disgraceful chain mail, I fell to my knees and gave loud and reverent thanks to my new liege for his grace and wisdom to send me to Lord Calogrenant. He merely threw back his head and laughed what I imagine God must laugh like. Loud, long, and proud did he laugh, not caring to let anyone in on what he found so joyously funny. Finally, wiping tears from his eyes, he rose, and I with him, only to be swept into a crushing embrace like I had never known in my life. He spoke the first loving words I had ever heard in my life;
"God bless you child, you survived Lord Calogrenant. You are in dire need of some wine."
When I say my life resembled that of an Arthurian tale, I told no lie, and made no jest. I went from living in a constant hell of pain and agony to being treated like a respected liege. I slept in stables before then, and now I had my own chambers, my own bed, with a real pillow, and actual blankets. I was still teased about the first time I was shown my new quarters. I fell onto the floor and sobbed a solid hour onto the flagstone, crying how beautiful and glorious these chambers were and that surely "God has struck me down and I have arrived in heaven." If only. The very next day, I was given squireship to a new lord. His name was Marrok. He taught me the craft of battle, and all of my skill that I wield a claymore, a mace, a flay, an axe, or any weaponry you can name, I owe to that glorious knight. He taught me the idea of courtly love (which he practiced with many of the ladies of the court) and how to be true to what you believe. He taught me how to not fear death, and in me, he revived the long dead concept of WYRD.
In WYRD I found a new meaning to my life, and a release to all my worldly fears. In this idea, it was told that WYRD governed all forms of life. It was what we may call...fate, or God's will. Though when compared to the other two, WYRD was what defined my youth. I did everything in my life proudly proclaiming that WYRD was governing my every movement. If that is truly the case, then I curse WYRD and what it had brought me. My tutelage with the godly Marrok was cut at the age of seventeen. He was accused of being a werewolf, of witchcraft, and making sacred pacts with Satan. He was executed. Thusly, I could never reconcile myself with God or with this new Christianity that was taking root. It took away one of my favorite father figures, and I miss him, even to this day. He had imparted on me all he could, and after the execution, and brief moral scuffle that ensued over whether I myself had partaken in his supposed black rites, I was dubbed a knight.
At seventeen years of age, I became, to my knowledge, the only knight who was a girl, and the rare knight under the age of twenty. I was resented by most for this sudden upshot in rankings, but I paid no attention to it. I had not yet experienced my first battle (we will hear that tale) and I was still young, fresh, and more than excited to dirty my new blade. My opportunity came that summer before my next birthday, and brought me one step closer to the abyss that I fell into. It proved my first encounter with women.
--Still no real consistency here, don't get mad at me about it.