"You don't want to go home for the summer first? See your mother?" Raoul asked. "Once we're in the field, it'll be harder to leave."
"No, sir." The boy said. They were walking through the palace halls, on the way back to the rooms they now shared. Well, the rooms they would share when Buri was out of Corus, as she was that week.
Raoul shot him a sideways glance, but the boy—Corrin, he reminded himself. He had to start calling him Corrin now. Corrin didn't seem to have anything else to say. His face was entirely placid. There wasn't any emotion there, or even a trace of being upset. He wished he knew what Corrin was thinking. Did he not want to return home? Or did he simply not care?
"Well," Raoul said, when they reached the doors. "I've got some papers to go over. I'll see you tomorrow. We'll go down to the courts, see what you can do, eh?"
"Yes, sir," the boy said.
"Please," Raoul took the chance to lay his hand on Corrin's shoulder. He thought the boy flinched, and Raoul removed his hand. "Just call me Raoul. You might be my Squire, but I'm your Uncle. And I never cared much for formalities. I don't want to remind you again!"
A flicker of a smile crossed the boy's face. Well, that's something, Raoul thought. He unlocked his door. The boy was still standing there.
"Goodnight, Corrin," Raoul said.
"Goodnight."
While Raoul worked, he could hear the boy moving around. Likely he was rearranging his new quarters and finishing unpacking, since they had gone out soon after Corrin's things had been delivered by servants.
He didn't know what to think about the boy yet. At first his silences had seemed discourteous, but slowly Raoul had come to see that he was almost polite to a fault. He answered all the questions put before him, even if he answered them as briefly as possible. Nor did he seem dull. In fact, if anything, it seemed as though he wasn't fully there. It was as if he was only a shell of a person, with no opinion or personality—
Oh, shut it, Raoul told himself. One night, and you're already thinking bad of him! The boy couldn't help who his father was, and he didn't deserve to be judged for it. It was a lesson Raoul had applied countless times to others. He couldn't forget it now simply because he had a personal hatred against Corrin's father. And then, didn't the boy deserve his love, too? After all, he was Adeline's son.
Likely he was just shy; yes, that was it. Undoubtedly, he would come out of his shell soon enough.
Raoul had finished reading through his reports. He was tired, and full, and decided it would be an excellent time to go to sleep early. After all, he often worked long and difficult hours. He liked to take advantage of small lazy moments when he could.
He was lying in bed, still awake, when he heard the door to Corrin's room swing open and the boy pad out into the hallway.
He was not surprised that the boy had been getting into mischief. He was shocked, and more than a little disappointed, when he realized what it had been.
It was late morning, and Raoul had to pound hard on Corrin's door before he got so much as a groan from the boy.
"Have your training masters been letting you sleep in?" Raoul joked through the doorway. It didn't bother him that the boy was reluctant to get up, so long as he could move quickly when he needed to. After all, youngsters sometimes needed a little more sleep than he did, Raoul reminded himself.
"Time 's it?" the boy muttered.
"Halfway to noon. I'd rather be done practicing by the hottest part of the day, if it's all the same."
"Stormwing dung," he heard through the door. "One moment."
"Just come into my chambers when you're done."
He was surprised at how tired the boy continued to look as Raoul tossed him a piece of fruit and they headed down to the practice courts. They grabbed dull practice swords and, after a brief and quiet stretch, crossed into the guard position.
The boy moved slowly and groggily, but he blocked the first strike. He faltered on the second. This was not the same boy Raoul had watched spar a few weeks ago. He acted like a page who was still learning how to hold his weapon!
"What's wrong with you?" Raoul asked. "You can't seriously be that tired. Are you ill?"
"I'm fine," the boy said. He raised his sword again, pressed his eyes closed for a moment, and shook his head a little as if to clear it.
Raoul was angry, admittedly. He had no patience for this sort of thing. He was a gentle man, but he pushed himself, and he expected others to do the same. Especially on this boy's first day as his Squire. Mithros, this boy was supposed to be trying to impress him right now! He stopped holding back and swung at the boy, who didn't move near quickly enough to block the strike. It hit his side squarely and he stumbled to the side, bent over, and then rushed to the edge of the courts. Doubled back over, he threw up the fruit he had eaten minutes before.
"Honestly, boy," Raoul said. He paused a moment, furrowed his brow, and frowned. "Are you drunk?"
"No," Corrin said. "Might be hungover, though."
Goddess preserve him. The boy was, what, fourteen? It was hardly the night after a festival. Raoul opened his mouth to say something, and then stopped himself. He wanted to slap the boy, or spit on the ground, or something, but that certainly would not do. And it wasn't as if he hadn't had his own troubles with drinking, in the past.
"Well," Raoul said, as slowly as he could manage. "That's… well. Frankly speaking, that's unacceptable."
"Sorry," the boy said, all too quickly.
"No," Raoul said, trying not to yell. "You're really not, are you? Well, what if we'd been called into the field? What if you had to ride and fight like your life depended on it, or someone else's?"
The boy wouldn't meet his gaze.
"Look, I understand," Raoul tried again. "It's tempting, I know. I used to drink myself. But you're far too young to be getting hangovers. And so long as you're my Squire, you won't be. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"Don't call me that. Now go bathe, or something. You may eat dinner with the other Squires, but afterwards I expect you ready to practice with me."
The boy bowed and turned to walk away.
"And Corrin? If this happens again, don't expect me to be half so nice."
The evening went well. Corrin was far recovered, and they spent an hour sparring with breaks in between short sessions. There was still a lot the boy had to learn. He kept dropping his guard, for one, and although Raoul appreciated a good offense he sometimes rushed forwards when there was no opening. Still, he was pleased. For a squire, and a new squire at that, the boy was actually quite good. It was one thing to see him practicing against others his own age. But sparring with the boy himself, he could see just how impressive Corrin might one day be, if he didn't get in the way of himself.
"Good," Raoul said. "I'd like to see you with some other weapons tomorrow. We've got some errands to run if we're to outfit you properly… and you don't have a second horse, do you?"
They began to walk back to the rooms.
"No, just the one," Corrin said. Raoul had passed the pages jousting a year past and picked Corrin out of the small crowd. He thought he remembered the mount in question, a big gray still in his youth.
"Alright. Barring outside circumstances, we'll go into town tomorrow and see if we can't fix that."
"I'm not.. I mean…" The boy stuttered and crossed his arms in discomfort. It was perhaps the most blatant expression of emotion that Raoul had seen yet.
"What's wrong?"
"I don't think I can afford a second horse," the boy admitted. "I could write to my father, but..."
"Didn't anyone ever tell you, a knight master pays for his squire's equipment?" Raoul said, incredulous. "What, did you think I'd make you buy your own mount? Mithros, Corrin, give me some credit!"
The boy blushed. "I'm sorry, sir. Uncle. It's just, a horse isn't exactly a small purchase. I didn't think…"
"Maybe not, but a Knight can live or die by his horse," Raoul said.
"I didn't think you'd be wanting to… invest? Invest so much money in me, after this morning," the boy ventured softly.
"I won't pretend I wasn't disappointed, Corrin," Raoul said. "But that doesn't mean you don't get a second chance. Everybody makes mistakes."
"Some worse than others," the boy said.
"Aye, some worse than others. I used to have a drinking problem, did you know that? It wasn't pretty."
Silence fell on them for the space of a few footsteps.
"What made you stop?" the boy asked at last.
"Well, part of it was that I was hurting the people around me," Raoul said. "And part of it was that I had to make a choice. I could keep running myself into the ground, or I could pick myself up and be who I wanted to be."
"Oh," said the boy.
"Life's all about the choices we make," Raoul continued. "People like to pretend they don't have a choice, when they have to do something hard. The truth is, you always have a choice. It's just not always an easy one. But being a knight doesn't just mean looking after the people around you. It means looking after yourself, too, because otherwise you're useless to them and to yourself."
"I suppose I hadn't thought of it that way."
"You do want to be a knight, don't you?" Raoul asked. "I mean, was it your choice?"
"Yes. It's the only thing I've ever really wanted to do."
"Why's that?"
"I don't know. It just felt right." Silence again for a moment, and then the boy spoke back up. "No, that's not true. I guess I wanted to be strong, at first. Be able to take care of myself. But then… something about it… fighting is like dancing, you know? There's something elegant about it. You win or you don't. You always know how you're doing. And you can feel it when you get it right."
"Do you want to be a knight," Raoul said slowly, choosing his words carefully, "because you enjoy fighting?"
"No," the boy said, and sounded almost surprised. "I mean, I do. Like fighting. But that's a cursed-awful reason to become a knight. No, I'd like to do good things."
Well, thought Raoul, thank the gods for that. But of course the boy wouldn't have said anything different. It wasn't like he was some sort of villain. He'd been given the same sort of chivalry lessons the rest of them had. Even the bad apples didn't come right out and say so, but he liked to think that Corrin wasn't all rotten.
When the reached the doors, Raoul asked Corrin to join him. "Just for a moment, and then you can go," he promised. "But there are some things I think we should talk about."
Inside, he offered Corrin a seat and poured them both water from a jug on his sideboard. They sat on opposite sides of Raoul's desk. Raoul took a moment to compose his thoughts. He had been trying to figure out what to say all day. When he looked up, he could see that Corrin was holding his glass tightly with both hands. So the boy was nervous. Likely he had guessed it was about the morning.
Raoul sighed and leaned back. Well, this didn't have to be hard or formal. They were family, after all. And he didn't mean to lecture the boy, just make sure he knew where they stood.
"Look," Raoul started. "I wasn't lying about giving you a second chance, and after tonight, I'm going to put this morning behind us. Unless it becomes a problem later, It'll be like it never happened, alright?"
"Thank you," Corrin said.
"But that doesn't mean it's alright that it did happen, Corrin."
"No. I know."
"Then why… what did you think would happen? That you'd show up sick and I wouldn't notice?"
"I wasn't hoping to be sick, uncle."
"Nobody ever is. Have you been drunk before?"
The boy hesitated a moment, and then nodded.
"Alright. Do you drink often?"
"No."
"Then here's how it's going to be, Corrin. For the next for years, you're going to be my squire. I'll teach you what I know about fighting and the world, and I'll take care of your needs, equipment and such. But in return, you're going to have to make me a few promises." Raoul held up a hand so he could count off on his fingers. "No drugs. No drinking, except for a cup of wine at feasts and the like. Any girls you choose to, ah, be with, you'll make sure they want the same things as you do, and you'll be safe about it. That's for later, of course, I don't encourage you to start that sort of thing right now."
He cleared his throat. Talking about sex was always awkward, when it wasn't with people of his own age. He put up a fourth finger. "If I'm expecting things of you, you've got to expect things of yourself, too. Be on time. Take care of yourself. Work hard. That sort of thing. Always do your best. Is that clear?"
Corrin nodded, and then said, "Yes, Uncle. Of course. And I am sorry, about this morning. I had meant to get away with it."
Raoul raised an eyebrow, and Corrin cleared his throat.
"Sorry, that came out wrong. I mean, it's true, I didn't want to be caught. But what I meant was—I didn't mean to start out that way. And I wish I hadn't."
"I understand. I don't expect you to be perfect, Corrin. But I do expect you to try."
"I will. I promise."
"I think that's it, then," Raoul said, standing up. "And please, if you have questions, or needs, or the like, or if there's something I could do a better job of, let me know."
Corrin stood up and went to the door that adjoined their rooms. He was about to open it when he remembered to turn and bow.
"Uncle," he said quickly. "Thank you."
"Hm?"
"For taking me as a squire. And being understanding. I promise to do my best."
The boy fled through the door.
"Well," Raoul murmured with a smile. He sat down and took a sip of his water, and glanced at the seat Corrin had abandoned, the half-drank glass perched on the edge of his desk. "That went well."
