This was written for Gogogoats, who requested something Gunther-centric relating to Magnus/father figures for the JatD Discord Exchange!
"All quiet?"
Gunther straightened. Sir Ivon had arrived in surprising silence and was now leaning back against the wall where Gunther had been keeping watch.
Supposedly been keeping watch. He'd been counting stars. Of course there were too many to ever quantify, a spilt bag of freckles scattered wildly over the curved face of the night sky, but that was the reason it was a decent way to pass the time.
"All quiet," Gunther confirmed.
Sir Ivon grunted. He frequently grunted, but Gunther had known the man long enough to discern the approximate meaning of each one. This particular one meant Sir Ivon thought it was quite good that it was all quiet, though not remotely surprising.
After another moment, Ivon lowered himself to the stool beside Gunther's, making altogether too much of a production out of it for a man who was only in his mid-forties.
They sat together for a while longer in comfortable quiet. Ten years ago, Gunther wouldn't have thought he could find a silence so unladen. It had taken him years to learn that not every moment was one he had to be on-edge, to hear pacing footsteps from the floor above without holding his muscles tight for his door to be flung open so his father could drag him from bed and say something like 'the ship arrived, I need you down at the docks in five minutes' or 'this is too important for you to be sleeping in again,' which was quite a thing for a man to say to his son when he'd only sent him off to bed four hours before, or something else along the lines of you have to go here or do this or today during training I need you to find out from Sir Theodore whether the king means to grade the road this year, and be subtle about it for once in your life—
Sir Ivon was not a schemer. He was a great many things, but that remained one of Gunther's favorite features about him, even if it was something he wasn't.
"Here," Sir Ivon said.
Gunther glanced down. Ivon was holding out his waterskin.
"Sir?" Gunther asked.
Ivon jerked his chin at Gunther. "Go on, then. A knight ought to be able to keep himself warm on watch."
It wasn't particularly cold, a nice autumn night thick with falling leaves and many more still dilly-dallying through the process of falling; a gentle wind scented with fish and salt was washing in from the harbor, not unduly crisp but lovely and cool.
Gunther took the skin anyways. "Even though I am not yet knighted, sir?"
Ivon waved one broad hand. "Two days hence you will be. No point counting the hours."
Gunther disagreed, but felt something pleasantly surprised settle in his chest at Ivon's assessment as he raised the skin to his lips.
The waterskin did not, of course, contain water. He swallowed the burning sip and then locked the cough trying to escape between his ribs. Ivon had never offered to share his alcohol with Gunther before, or with anyone other than Theodore, though the old knight frequently declined anyways, and he knew without being told the taunting he'd face if he choked on it now.
He could feel Ivon eyeing him. He took another sip just to drive home how thoroughly he could be trusted with the stuff before passing the skin back. Ivon grinned and gave him a hearty slap on the back. "There's a lad. You'll do fine, mark my words."
Gunther had no idea if Ivon meant he'd do fine as a knight or as a drinker, but either way, the compliment was one he knew he'd tuck away to bring out and turn beneath the light in the days to come.
He'd do fine.
He'd do better than fine, but it was a start.
"Nervous for your vigil?" Ivon asked.
Gunther grimaced. Kneeling in the freezing chapel for a full night of prayer and contemplation and silence, without drink or rest or company?
Nervous, no. Dreading it, absolutely.
Because his vigil actually would have company, an unheard-of occurrence — Jane and Dragon, on an urgent errand for the king to deliver the engagement agreement for Prince Cuthbert's future bride, would not be returning in time for Jane to undertake her own vigil, which had been scheduled for tonight.
No, instead she would be butting in on his.
Enough of the Mother and Son and Lord Himself to share between the two of you, Ivon had said blasphemously when he'd heard, laughing and elbowing Gunther in the ribs, and Gunther, who'd never been particularly religious, had wondered if now was the time to renew his dedication if it meant he'd have the chapel to himself for the one night it mattered, since that seemed the only argument he could make in protest of sharing the sacred moment.
In the end, he hadn't gone through with it. Jane would see right through him, and it was not a flattering position to paint himself in the week before his knighting.
Really it was more the principal of the thing. The one evening for him and him alone — and also Jane was there.
Maybe that was fitting, though. Matched the rest of his squirehood.
"No, not at all," Gunther said, after a too-long pause.
Ivon, having taken several heavy swallows, handed him back the skin, and from the half-smile tilting through his moustache, Gunther was sure he'd not hidden his thoughts well at all.
"Non-traditional, I can give you that," Ivon said.
Gunther gave an agreeing grunt back and took another swig from the skin. This one went down a bit smoother.
"At least you will not be sharing the quarters with her, aye?"
Good God. Gunther took a large gulp at the thought, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
A few months ago, Jane had decided that some measure of knighthood was inherently tied to the shared living quarters, and that she might be ill-regarded amongst her brethren for having the entire upper half of a tower to herself. To a certain extent, Gunther understood where she was coming from. Only last year a mission they'd gone on had gotten incredibly complex when taking Jane's sleeping situation into account. As a young woman not yet married, and not yet knighted — which everyone agreed was when she'd become a lost cause and all propriety would go to hell, though no one had the guts to say so out loud — she had to be worked around. This meant sleeping not alone in a tent, because no lady should be unaccompanied, but not with any men in there either, and Dragon didn't fit in a tent and did he count as a man anyways, because if he did she'd slept over in his cave hundreds of times and all propriety was lost anyways—
Jane had said the solution was simply to have her move to the knights' quarters as soon as possible so that everyone could get used to the idea.
No one was interested in getting used to the idea. She'd been overthrown at every turn and on all sides, including by Gunther, who couldn't bear the thought of sleeping in the same room as Jane — of turning over in bed to find her sleeping face almost within reach of his fingers, of seeing her yawn and cuddle up in her blankets each night, of watching her fold her clothes or put her boots on every morning — and if even the most innocent domesticity of it was beyond him, he couldn't imagine what would happen when they needed to change clothes or bathe.
The many many arguments had ended with the king decreeing Jane would stay in her tower to the happiness of all, including Jane, even if she wouldn't admit it, because of course she'd rather have a room to herself — literally who wouldn't.
"At least there is that," Gunther agreed.
Sir Ivon gave him a look that was a little too knowing, and Gunther instantly found a very interesting leaf twirling to the ground to make eye contact with instead.
Their silence continued. They passed the skin back and forth a few more times before Ivon put it away and stood to stretch with an excessively loud groan. Not a man who did things by half-measures, Ivon.
"Well," he said, putting his hands on his hips and looking at the sky, then looking down at Gunther. "A fine evening for your last watch as a squire."
Gunther nodded. "Indeed, sir. Thanks for your company, I appreciate it."
Sir Ivon made a blustery noise through his moustache. He'd always taken well to flattery. Gunther didn't bother quite so much with it any longer — less of a reason now that he wasn't constantly asking for additional favors for his father — but it wasn't as if the skills went away.
Besides, it wasn't flattery if he meant it.
"See you tomorrow, lad. Best be preparing yourself."
Gunther nodded again.
Ivon paused before leaving. Unexpectedly reached to ruffle Gunther's hair, which was a long sleek past his shoulders. "Say goodbye to that as well."
The preparation for the vigil involved a haircut. Gunther had spent more time mourning his hair than readying himself in any other way, truth be told. "Yes, sir."
Ivon paused again, and Gunther, still sitting on his stool, looked up at him, this man who'd spent nearly every day training him for the last ten years, and felt strangely as if he were twelve again, as if he'd blinked and found himself here, twenty-two and done with something he'd only just started.
Ivon cleared his throat. "Make me proud, aye?"
The words clenched tight into Gunther's heart, painful and sweet, too sudden to do more than reel in the quiet. It was a few moments before he could swallow the feeling back and straighten on his stool to give Ivon a firm nod. "Aye, sir," he said.
Ivon went a bit watery around the eyes. He clapped Gunther on the back again and said a gruff farewell, making a quick exit back up towards the castle.
Gunther was Sir Ivon's first squire. He'd never thought of it that way, because it had always made more sense to him the other way around, set from the context of him as a pupil. Now it was all Gunther could think of.
He hadn't expected any of this. He'd been sure arriving at his knighting after all these years would be a relief, a finally, an about damn time. Instead it was something too big to wrangle and too entwined to peel apart, something nearly beyond him. How could ten years be so much and so little at the same time? To have gotten him so far only for him to be sitting in the exact same place on this stool beside the same old stone walls?
His father liked to say that every minute not spent in pursuit was a waste. There was always more to reach for, to go towards, reasons to cut each moment down to its utility and each person down to their base usefulness.
Gunther had agreed with him, once. Or he'd always thought he did, but when it came down to it, he was a poor study. He'd never really been able to see that grand scale of success stacked upon success, to learn the art of orchestrating a map of silver and gold from a few small threading paths. He'd just been able to stumble along, cunning never going where it ought, swift-thinking wasted on wondering where those paths found their start, on how much bad was too much to justify the impressive structure at the end. He'd always been terrible at seeing the natural next steps, because so often those steps had seemed to lead right off cliffs. He was self-preserving to his core. He'd rather not take a step forward if it was one he couldn't again take back.
Perhaps it wasn't a surprise then, that he hadn't been able to put those gleaming metal roads together to see their final destination. The mountains had seemed too big to be gotten through, the ravines too deep to be woven across.
He hadn't seen any of it clearly until it sat right before him, cleverness not doing him any good until they'd already been standing there on the docks, his father's ship afloat out in the dark harbor, the skiff waiting for the two of them, for Gunther to row and his father to sit. All Gunther's acuity hadn't been enough to see even this far. He'd thought it was a normal day still when he'd awoken.
"Father," he'd said slowly. Perhaps the mountain ahead was simply one his father hadn't seen with the shine turned towards his eyes. "If we do this, people are going to die."
His father hadn't even stopped walking. "Accidents are a fact of life, boy," he'd tossed back to where Gunther had been hurrying along behind him, though his son had already paused a few planks back. "People die every day — should it not serve some greater purpose?"
It was shocking, somehow, to hear it laid out so blatantly. Gunther had made a life's work of understanding where his father meant to go, but it failed him all between one blink and the next. One can spend their whole life positive they know someone completely, that the face turned towards the world isn't their true one, that deep within them lives something secret and good and infrangible, no matter how small, if only there is patience enough to uncover it.
All along, Gunther had been sure there was something of the sort in his father.
To learn there wasn't was a shock as sudden as Gunther's first accidental plunge into the ocean. He'd stood, and watched his father's back head towards the skiff, heard the voice floating back to him, a simple 'Come along, boy.' The dock beneath his feet had gone as unsteady as the entire world, the warble of the heavy flooding tides crushing against sand and shore and the keels of all the wealth Kippernium could ever hope to muster.
And then Gunther had turned around. His steps had been impossibly careful on the wet wood of the pier — no more accidental plunges for him. He'd had as much shock as he could take in this lifetime.
And then he'd walked and he'd walked, no shining road beneath him but a road all the same, past the thatch-roof houses and the sweet orange glow of the tavern windows rich with laughter and song and the empty market stalls hung with their colorful fabric sheaves, until he reached his own house, or what had been his house, though that was another shock for another day — he wasn't leaving, after all, not really. He was strategically relocating and reassessing his position.
There he'd packed a small bag with anything he could ever need in it, or at least anything he could ever need that wasn't already at the castle — which turned out to be almost nothing.
Maybe he'd already relocated a long time ago.
And then one last thing. The only thing that wasn't his. The small leather cord from his father's room — his parents' room, he still thought of it as, though it'd been only his father's since he was nearly too young to remember — the cord strung with the small wooden pendant that had once belonged to his mother.
The thing was worthless. If his father ever asked for it back, it would be akin to a defeat. There was no other reason other than love to value what amounted to clumsily-carved rubbish.
Gunther had tucked it into his bag and kept on walking, through the castle gate and up the stairs to the knights' quarters and then directly into Sir Theodore's room, where he'd asked, simply, if he might make use of an empty hammock just for the night.
Strategic.
Clearly the strategy worked, because he had never again returned to his father's house.
Gunther leaned his head back against the cool stone. Watched the leaves and the stars dotted like Jane's freckles and took the soft brine and fish breeze into his lungs, and knew he belonged here because it was a smell only a Kippernian could love, and love it he did.
Gunther's father wasn't going to come to the knighting ceremony. Not because that years-ago plan had resulted in exile or something even worse — it had hinged on the unpredictable tragedy of appearing to be an accident, which Gunther had ruined simply by knowing it wouldn't be — no, it was because Magnus wasn't even currently on this side of the sea, so of course he wasn't going to come. Gunther was glad of that surety. Perhaps because there was no greater guarantee of absence than a three hundred mile distance, or perhaps because he still might've believed his father would attend if he were coming from only a mile down the road. That he'd be searching the crowd for him, hoping. Still somehow hoping.
It didn't matter. He wasn't going to be there.
Other people were. People who'd never once valued or maybe even seen that great potential map of the world. Sir Theodore, who'd been astute enough to make a deal with Magnus years past that he pay for the last portion of Gunther's training ahead of time in exchange for who-knew-what, leaving no opportunity for his father to cut his funding. Sir Ivon, who'd come out to share a drink with him on his last watch as a squire. The castle staff, who he ate every meal with—
Pepper, who, his first morning at the castle after that night, had saved him a seat at their breakfast table set with a giant bowl of porridge, and said, quieter and fiercer than he could have imagined, "Welcome home." Rake, smiling at him for the first time ever. Jester clapping him on his back with a wild grin. Smithy, stolidly and without comment helping him set up his little corner in the knights' quarters.
Jane. Jane who he had to share his vigil with.
Jane, who'd been late to breakfast that day, who had come tearing around the corner from the knights' quarters, seen him standing there, because he'd stood as soon as he saw her, he still had no idea why he'd stood, and had pulled him into a laughing hug so tight he felt like he'd burst and then asked him if he was going to finish his porridge.
All of them. As if, all along, this was all they'd been waiting for. For Gunther not to choose his father. For Gunther to choose not to choose his father ever again.
His throat was thick with it. He swallowed a few times, focusing on the stone against the crown of his head, beneath his feet, at his back. It wasn't his castle, but it was his.
Around him the leaves were still falling, gusting in chaotic spirals. Above him the real map of the world, the celestial one cast in silver and gold, listed along its slow, infinite circle, and after another few moments, he went back to counting, thinking of stars and freckles and things that were much harder to quantify, and infinitely more dear.
Notes: This turned out longer than expected; part two to follow soon! (also I did yoink the idea of freckle counting from the novel, thanks for the idea MB)
