I had placed a stool in front of the wall, but still only the tips of my fingers could touch the shelve I was reaching for. "Kith? Can you give me a hand, please?" I called to the other room. A burly man with a beard and broad shoulders walked into the kitchen. He grinned. "You look nothing like your mother, do you know that?" he said, while he grabbed a book from the high shelve and handed it to me. "She was as tall as I was, maybe even a little taller. You are at least a feet shorter than me." The thought of my mother made me shiver. I heard many stories about her. People where terrified of her, they often claimed she was a witch and that I am her witchy child. I was glad I looked nothing like her. "At least I am as tall as a normal woman. Besides, I'm young, I might still get a little taller," I said defensively. Kith shook his head. "You are not that young anymore." I let him watch me while I stepped of the stool. Lately, he had been looking at me like this a lot. He admired me. I liked it and it made me blush. "You know so much about my mother, and yet you do not know her name."
We sat down at the kitchen table. Kith let his arms rest on his lap, and looked down when he said: "Her name does not matter; you are what matters to me." Kith never dared to look me in my eyes when we talked about it. Our relationship that was not a relationship. He was a knight. He had sworn not to have a wife and not to father a child. And I knew he hated it. One time he told me about the night he saved my life. I do not remember anything about it of course, I was just a baby. But when my mother the witch ran through the crowd, screaming puzzling words before she got killed, Kith was the one that insisted on keeping me alive. He told me he fell in love with me with just one look in my eyes.
"Eleanor," Kith said, and he earnestly looked at me, "I do not know how to explain this to you. I am not here just to help you reach you book or to tell you stories about your mother." His words alarmed me. "Nor am I her to tell you how important you are to me." "Is there something wrong?" I asked. My eyes were big because I feared the words that might follow. Kith nodded, and after a pause he continued speaking. "Yes. A raven came. I have to leave Gulltown." "Why?" I cried out, "and when?" my hands were shaking. "There are people who are more in the need of protection by knights than you are. I leave Gulltown tomorrow morning, but I have to leave this house tonight." "That is not true. I am not wanted here. Without you, who knows what people out there will do to me? I need you!" "It is my duty as a knight to follow orders. Like I said, you are not that young anymore. We both knew a day would come where you would have to protect yourself. Today is that day," Kith raised from his seat. Irritated as he was by my words, he walked towards the entry door.
"Wait," I said. I didn't want this to be my last memory of the knight that had been so good to me for so many years. "If it was not for your vow, would you have married me?" I dared to ask. "Eleanor," Kith answered, while looking down to the floor again, "if it was not for my vow, I would have married you years ago and we would have had many children by now." An then Kith disappeared after a last kiss on the tip of my nose.