Notice to previous readers: I've added a scene or two to the previous chapter. So it's a semi-update of sorts. There is new stuff to read!
After sitting back to watch how my story was received by the general public, I've decided that my Chapter One was too tame. So now I've tweaked my story to start "in media res," that is, in the middle of the story rather than chronologically. Thus, this story now starts a very tiny bit later in the plot and then flashes back to the beginning of the story and takes it from there. I hope you like it!
Chapter One: Freezing
Weep not for roads untraveled, weep not for paths left alone.
Cause beyond every bend is a long blinding end.
It's the worst kind of pain I've known.
- "Roads Untraveled"
- Linkin Park
The boy's eyes were fierce.
It was the look in those eyes that first drew Ector's attention to the boy. He was the smallest of the lot and no doubt the youngest. Although he was just as dirty as the rest, his flaxen hair, golden as ripe wheat, and his well-fed, healthy build made him stand out among the gaunt, half-starved looking children huddled together in a shivering mass at the center of the corral.
Ector, "the Flesh Lord", as he was often referred to in the underground network of semi-legal, semi-illegal trade that spanned the whole continent of the British Isles and beyond, leaned his fur covered forearms on the railing of the slave corral in interest. All the little boys in the corral were the newest acquisitions, carefully selected by his lieutenants for his company's trademark mercenary training. These boys were his gold; or would be, if they survived the training long enough to be sold to the highest bidder in Rome.
While trading in female-flesh and other miscellany was all well and good; it was truly his brilliant idea, all those years ago, of capturing young boys and moulding them into the perfect, obedient, mindless fighter that had earned Ector his reputation in the flesh trade, and his wealth. Of course, his associates had all thought him nuts when he told them about his idea and his few benefactors had refused him funding for it, but Ector had persisted. He had squeezed his resources to the last drop and worked hard at selling other slaves, all so he could feed, raise, and train his precious boys for years. And when they had grown. . . Oh! how they sold! They were worth a fortune each. Ector smiled at the memory of that first time he'd reaped the profits of his long, and difficult investment.
This boy, Ector assessed him from head to toe with an expert eye- a healthy body, a fighter's build, a fighter's spirit- he might just be worth a true fortune in gold. It would take delicate handling to tame the boy in just the right way without breaking his spirit. Years from now, that fighter's spirit, that same starved-lion look in those young eyes would make him a favourite in the gladiatorial pits of Rome.
Ector spun sharply on his heel and turned for his office tent, beckoning to his right hand man, Olek, with a curt hand gesture, not even bothering to look at the man. Olek followed him to the tent, three steps behind as usual.
The inside of the tent was warm, the coals in the tiny brazier at the center of the space glowing red with heat, the smell of damp leather permeating the primitive office Ector used for all his administrative work. Ector sat behind his rudely carved wooden desk, salvaged from a ruined inn somewhere nearby, on an equally rudely crafted seat piled cozily with ridiculously expensive winter-fur pelts, and fixed a sharp, falcon gaze on his first lieutenant.
"That golden-haired child. Where did you find him?"
Two weeks ago. ..
Arthur gripped the reins and bent his small body toward the mare's neck, the speed of their passing flinging the horse's thick mane into his face. The seven-year old boy thrilled at the feel of the ground and the horse's iron-shod hooves meeting, the staccato vibrations of the gallop running up from the mount's sleek muscles and into his own as though it was he and the mare who was sprinting across the frost covered road like a single creature.
His tears had long since dried from the wind and the exhilaration of his night ride, leaving a salty track down his cheeks. All his fiery resolve to run away from home and show everyone, especially his father, the King, that he was not useless, not careless (or lazy, or wild, or. . . or stupid) had cooled with his own dropping temperature and the sudden fall of the first snow of the year.
He guided his horse to a controlled canter and fought the urge to turn for home and the warmth of his chamber's fireplace. Someone would have found his painstakingly written letter by this time, recognized his seal, and brought it to his father when no sign of him could be found at this time of the night. He would be the laughingstock of the entire court if he returned now, so soon after declaring that he was leaving forever, and that he was giving up his right to the throne to whomever his father deemed suitable.
His father, his tutors, the noble boys fostered at court who were meant to be his entourage when they were grown, even the servants: they all considered him not good enough. His father showed his disappointment openly. His tutors frowned at him and shook their heads even as he struggled to decipher the letters on the parchment or force his hand to write legible script. The worst was when he had to read out loud in front of the other boys during group lessons. He always made a fool out of himself then and the boys would try to hold in their snickers because he was the prince, but his face would heat, and his stuttering reading would grow worse and worse at the humiliation. Then there were the whispers that followed him everywhere, always behind his back, drifting in the wind from huddled forms at the fringes of his vision, from hidden corners and behind pillars.
The prince is a bit of an idiot, I hear.
Can't read at all and he's had tutors since he could walk and talk.
All he can do well is swing a sword and ride a horse. He'd make a good knight no doubt. But run a kingdom? God, help us!
The training grounds were his only haven. Everyday he struggled through his letters, and his numbers. Learning history, politics and law was not as difficult as learning how to read and write. But listening to his tutors drone on about this or that made boredom and sleep a formidable enemy in the stifling lesson room. But when it was time for his martial training outdoors, Arthur felt like he was on top of the world.
It was tiring work, drilling with the sword, the shield, and various weaponry, but it was something he did better than all the other boys his age fostered at court, and even most of the older ones. 'He is a natural at combat', the weapons master would often say, voice filled with pride and wonder at his prodigious student. 'The prince seems to have been born in the saddle, sire', the riding master had reported to his father on another occasion, in a manner devoid of any superficial flattery.
Each of those times, Arthur would look towards his father, face glowing with the expectant praise, but Uther would merely nod at his son or at the master and say that it was 'as it should be for an heir to the throne' and then he would turn to Arthur and remind him that if he could only apply the same effort to his studies he would finally make an 'acceptable heir'. Then Uther would leave it at that and Arthur would try not to be disappointed himself. He was always 'heir' to his father, and never 'my son, Arthur'. On rare occasions, he would be 'Prince Arthur, my heir," but that was as close as Arthur could get to a claim of personal kinship with the King.
Sometimes, Arthur felt that the whispers were right. He would make a great knight, but a bad prince, especially a crown prince. The kingdom would be better off if he left so that his father could pick an heir better suited to the job than he was; and Arthur could go off to find his fortune like one of those knight-errants in the tales his caretaker used to read to him at night.
They were always men of the sword and skilled at all forms of combat. They rode off in search of adventure and found glory and a name for themselves defeating foes and saving the innocent. Arthur knew now that most of those tales were a bit far-fetched and all of them were likely exaggerated, but surely, the basic idea was still sound, wasn't it? He could certainly imagine himself doing it- and succeeding too!
The thought had brewed and brewed in him for a long time until last night, when everything came to a head. Uther had lost his temper at him and shouted at Arthur about how he was 'disappointed at Arthur', and how 'his mother had sacrificed her life in vain'. The last barb struck Arthur like- like nothing he could ever describe and Arthur had then lost his temper as well and shouted right back, embarrassingly shrill in his childish anger at the injustice of it all and the pressure being placed on his shoulders. And then Uther had gone dangerously quiet and told him to 'leave, be gone' from his sight.
Arthur had dashed off to his rooms at a dead run and the thought of leaving forever on an endless quest like one of those knight-errants suddenly seemed like the only option. It took him most of the evening to pen his short note to his father, telling him not to look for him and that he was off to be a warrior. Someone else can be prince of Camelot, he wrote. He had debated whether he ought to write a goodbye or some other platitude to his father, but decided that he was too angry, too hurt at the moment, and it would take too much effort to write any more. He signed his name at the bottom- that part was easy- and placed his royal seal on the wax he'd dripped on the parchment.
But an hour into his midnight ride and the winter chill had seeped through his furs and his leather riding coat. His hands and feet were stiff and numb from the cold and his ears hurt. The excitement of his little adventure was leaving him slowly. Fear crept in as Arthur became aware of how deserted the road was. How the darkness of the woods at the edge of the moonlit road could hide all sorts of beasts. Was that the predatory glitter of watching eyes he saw? The prince started to tremble, just a little bit, even as he kept riding further away from the safety of his father's castle, pride the only thing preventing him from turning around and bolting for home.
Suddenly something shot from the bushes and darted across their path. Arthur barely had the time to glimpse brown fur, a long tail, and a tiny body before the spooked mare was rearing up and breaking into a frightened gallop. Arthur responded like he was taught by the riding master. He leaned into the saddle and gripped the mare's sides with his thighs, lifting himself off the seat just a bit so he didn't bounce around like a sack of potatoes, as the riding master liked to say.
He knew he should probably soothe her back to a steady trot before she tired herself out even more than she already had (because Arthur had kicked her into a run the moment he left the gates of the city) or lost a shoe nail in all the frantic running she'd been doing and ended up lame, but Arthur was enjoying himself a little too much.
And then it happened. One second Arthur was leaning into the wind, flying through the path like, well, something fast, and the next, the mare was buckling into a crumpled heap and Arthur was truly flying- in the air. Then he hit the snow-covered ground with a thud and a yelp and his vision went dark.
When Arthur awoke, he didn't know that he was freezing, although he would later remember that he was, or at least he must have been. He was blanketed in newly fallen snow. All around him the ground and the trees glowed white in the darkness. The mare was gone. He was alone in the middle of the road. Vaguely he recognized that he was now facing in the direction of Camelot instead of away. If he walked straight along his line of sight, he thought, he just might reach the citadel by early afternoon or dusk, assuming that it was now around two candle-marks just after the midnight hour.
He was such a fool to think he could have made it on his own, riding around the land in search of adventure and glorious deeds like a knight-errant! The mortification of realizing his own folly and the promise of further embarrassment later, when he returned home, nearly made Arthur burst into tears again, but he scrunched his nose up and pursed his lips and willed the tears away. He could have at least waited until spring, he thought to himself, or summer to carry out his quest, if he really had to.
With the resolve to face the consequences of his actions, no matter how woefully stupid it was, Arthur tried to stand. His first attempt to get his arms and legs under him, to find purchase on the ground so he could push himself upright, alerted him that something was very, very wrong. He couldn't get his limbs to move. His attempt resulted only in a feeble sweep of his arms and legs on the snow. He felt boneless and floppy. As if he was still half-asleep in the warmth of his bed and his languid body refused to wake up to face the day. But he was cold not warm, and he wanted with all his will to get up and walk home but his body refused.
Arthur became truly frightened after his third attempt to stand resulted in his vision going hazy and his panicked breathing slowing into a false calm. And then everything was slowing down and he was sliding into a frigid half-sleep even as he wished with all his might for home and father and even Gaius.
This was the turning point in the wheel of fate where, in another life, in another world perhaps, Arthur would remain prone on the snow-covered road and a search patrol from Camelot would find him there soon after.
A frantic Uther, riding at the head of the company of knights, would take one look at the half-frozen form of his little boy lying on the ground, pale as death and utterly still, and feel such a terrible grief and remorse that he would be ready to promise his entire kingdom and his own life if only he could have his son back, alive and vibrant and golden, like a wild little lion cub who could not be tamed to follow the conventions of a highly cultured society.
A knight would check the prince for signs of life and find a weak pulse. Then Uther would rush to his son's side, drop to his knees, and scoop his son up into his arms, burying his face in that golden hair, and finally weep his gratitude and relief. It would be a moment the King would never forget. It would be the moment that would shatter Uther's iron-fisted resolve to raise a strong heir and hide all the softness of affection from his already tender-hearted little boy.
Thirteen years later, a peasant from Ealdor would arrive in Camelot and save the Prince's life from a vengeful sorceress' dagger and be rewarded with a 'position in the royal household' as Arthur's manservant. Then the rest, as they say, would have been history; a history that had already been spun to it's tragic ending for one exiled child of fate but had barely begun for another lying helpless in the snow.
But this is not that life, and this is not that world. A new element had entered into the story that would spin the thread of history in a different direction and ultimately weave a different tapestry. Uther would not find Arthur lying in the road that night, no matter how frantically he searched. Later, much, much later, he would go home in defeat and crippling despair, a father without a son; because in that second when Arthur was about to drop into a frozen sleep, something that felt like home and safe called out to him. It's very presence was warm and soothing. It seemed to know him, and in his dreamlike state of mind, Arthur reached out to it, he didn't know how for he knew couldn't move his body at all. But he reached out nonetheless and if his body moved in that time, he was not aware of it.
The presence met his after what seemed like both an eternity and no time at all. He felt it's touch like a friend enveloping him in an embrace that protected and warmed him all over. Arthur, Arthur, it seemed to say with a strange rhythm like the thump, thump of a heartbeat. It was then, to the sound of that thumping beat, that Arthur finally succumbed to sleep, with a sigh and a last snuggling squirm; sleeping the true sleep of little children safe in their beds.
Olek had found the boy in Camelot; asleep in the hollow of an enormous oak tree just as dawn had started to lighten the sky. He was curled around the largest egg he had ever seen. It was blue as indigo ink from merchants across the sea. Olek knew as soon as he saw it. It could only have been a dragon egg, sir.
The last dragon egg known to men.
Feb 03 edit: Updates will be this weekend, around Feb 7-9! The next chapter is mostly written out. I just need to finish it and polish it up before the weekend. Please leave some REVIEWS before you go. A word or sentence is sufficient if you are lazy and don't know what to say. Tell me you liked it if you did. Tell me you didn't if you didn't, though please explain a bit as to why. They are what feeds me.