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Sir Roberts could not believe the pickle he now found himself in. Yes, he had agreed to face Sir Grundl in the Arena for the opportunity of becoming part of the King’s guard, the highest honor a knight like him could achieve, but there was a lot he hadn’t considered beforehand. It wasn’t until later that he learned that the Order of the Rose’s bylaws clearly state that the terms of any arena duel involved a three-part challenge involving risking your life in the face of overwhelming odds, going to extraordinary lengths to protect the kingdom, and observing with perfect discipline the nine hundred certitudes. Upon this realization, Sir Roberts exclaimed that he would just not show up to which his trusty sidekick Squire Phillips naturally responded that once a duel is sealed in blood, it can’t be undone. To which Roberts shot back, “Bullshit, go get me another glass of mead, Squire Phillips!”

Deep down Roberts knows his trusty squire was right, examining the gash on his hand where he’d sealed his intention to duel Sir Grundl in the arena. He couldn’t remember performing said blood oath, for he had consumed what some would charitably call a barrel-full of mead last night. There was a semi-finals college futbollen match last night and when word came via courier that Midgard had beaten those Southhall scum four to one, well, could anyone really blame him? The mead flowed freely last night. Everyone partook. As Squire Phillips returned with the latest requested glass of foamy mead, Sir Roberts knows he has only two options to get out of the predicament he now found himself in, and he didn’t like the idea of either. 

“So you gonna run to daddy to see if he can get out of it?”  

“Watch your tone, squire. I could have your head for that,” Sir Roberts grunts. 

“Oh please, I’m the fifth squire you’ve had in three months. You really think Master Garren will give you a sixth after you’ve already beheaded five? It’s not like it used to be, man. There’s a squire shortage across the kingdom. People are calling it ‘the great resignation.’ I’ve even heard reports of squires banding together to demand better working conditions,” Phillips says, sipping on his own pint of mead.

“Well, don’t get any ideas,” Sir Roberts shoots back, making sure to emphasize his point with a tense finger shove square in Squire Phillips’ chest, “Back in the day, we use to play futbollen with the heads of squires and not think much of it.”

“Yeah, okay.” 

Sir Roberts deigns not to countenance the Squire with further discussion, though, he could be sure Phillips was thoroughly enjoying the thought of his master making a fool out of himself in the Arena. Instead, Sir Roberts’ gaze drifts to two particularly lovely college ladies, a blonde and a brunette, idling at the other end of the bar. He sidles over to them, chest puffed up as much he could, a dashing smile plastered on his face. 

“Ladies, can I buy you two a drink?”

The two women look at him for a moment as if they’d seen him before in a pamphlet or painting somewhere. 

“Oh my god, are you Sir Roberts?” says the blonde lady.

“Why yes, of course, you might remember—“

“Aren’t you the knight who got so drunk they found you sleeping in a horse’s barn covered in manure?” the brunette asks.

“Well, what? That was…that’s tabloid trash and gossip. That never happened…” Sir Roberts responds flabbergasted. 

“And didn’t you almost flunk out of Knight college when they caught you cheating off a Squire’s exam?” the blonde says, snickering at Sir Roberts’ face now flush as a strawberry. 

“Look, I will not stand here and have two college wenches tell me…”

“Dude, it’s the twelfth century. The term now is ‘lady of the tavern.’ Try and keep up. And even if we were ladies of the tavern, we certainly wouldn’t get with someone like you,” the brunette says. As if perfectly timed, the bartender returns with two canteens of mead that Sir Roberts had intended to be for the two ladies. 

“Oh and thanks for the free drinks!” The women say in unison, clinking mugs as they saunter away giggling.

Sir Roberts stands there, shocked at his terrible luck. Someone like him would have been the talk of this small college countryside town, and now, he was a laughingstock. He couldn’t understand how his luck had turned so much. 

“Cheer up, mate,” Squire Phillips says, putting a hand on Sir Roberts’ shoulder. 

“That exchange wasn’t as bad as it seemed, right?”

“Oh, it was worse than you could ever imagine. Like one of those cart accidents where you know you should look away, but all you can do is stare,” Squire Phillips says. 

Sir Roberts grimaced, hobbling back to his end of the bar. He wasn’t the young spry knight he used to be. At the ripe old age of twenty-seven, he just couldn’t cut it anymore. Everything felt foreign now, and in the twilight years of his life, he couldn’t be sure he had accomplished much of anything of import. Sure, he had been at the head of a number of battles and had won them pretty handily, but he couldn’t be sure if those wins were solely due to just his innate sense of leadership and deadly skill with every weapon put in front of him or the fact that in every battle, the enemy was usually outnumbered fifteen to one and mostly consisted of peasants, women, and children. 

He had much to think about, and there was only one man Sir Roberts could trust with all that weighed on his soul, Archmagi Bilterburg. Sir Roberts knew Bilterburg’s cottage was only a short ride away. The Archmagi was as wise as he was old, and he was really old, like almost two hundred years old. He used to work at the college when he was younger but got fired for speaking his mind a little too much, something about calling a student a “fat pig who would never amount to anything.” This incident mattered not to Sir Roberts for he could barely remember the exact particularities of the situation or really muster enough effort to care. He was after sage wisdom, and he knew this was the best place to find it. Sir Roberts collected his things, waking Squire Phillips who at this point was slumped over the bar passed out. 

“Where we off?” Squire Phillips mumbles as Sir Roberts drags him out of the bar. 

“To seek some much-needed council,” Sir Roberts announces, as he slumps Squire Phillips over the back of his horse. 

“Great, wake me up when we…”

“Hipayah!” Sir Roberts says, racing off down the road on his loyal horse, Rosebud, with his trusty squire in tow.

“Back in ’92 I used to teach up at the college, and as per the by-laws ratified earlier that year, I was offered a tenured position that would be implemented in three separate stages by a committee of my colleagues, but of course, that rascal Hoover and his tricks. He really was just a simple illusionist in his best moments. Spent his whole life with little to show for it…”

Archmaji Bilterburg droned on and on, utterly unperturbed by Squire Phillips, asleep in the chair next to him, and Sir Roberts, staring off into the distance.  Sir Roberts had underestimated just how advanced in years the Archmaji was at this point. He had assumed that once one passes a hundred that everything after kind of feels the same. It had taken all night to get to the Archmaji’s humble abode. The sun was peaking out over the horizon just as the pair had arrived at the front door. To Sir Roberts’ surprise, the Archmaji was already up meditating, as perky and fitful as ever. Apparently, that’s what two centuries of dabbling in magic does to a person. 

Sir Roberts had come here for sage advice from a man considered to be one of the most learned scholars in all of Merendell. What he had got up until this part was a tour through the Archmaji’s garden, a detailed explanation of all the different herbs and spices the old man could derive from said garden, and at the current moment, a long grievance-filled rant about history just generally as well as the Archmaji’s personal career hiccups when it came to occasionally berating students about their looks and behavior. The only upside so far had been the Archmaji’s delicious tea. Sir Roberts couldn’t decide if the old man had cast a spell on the tea or what, but something about it touched his soul in a way that the Archmaji’s oral history of the college certainly did not. 

“Three decades ago, I was there during the change-over of Headmaster Derrindel to Headmaster Gregory, and boy, did the trustees have a field day when it came to figuring out whether having authored over a dozen separate published papers on the intricacies of mana flow when it came to the correct hand technique in incantations made someone qualified to lead a school…”

Sir Roberts pours himself another cup of tea, considering whether or not to go to his parents and see if they could get him out of his current predicament. This option was less than ideal. His family could be a bit parsimonious when it came to empathy. He could already see the look on his father’s face, a liminal scowl that barely registered any notice of his eldest son. He knew it well growing up. Never once had his father given him his full attention. He was always attending to something, whether it was who was to be executed that day or the menu for the latest feast. His two younger brothers weren’t much better, scrawny little brats, the both of them, who had it too easy, as far as Sir Roberts was concerned. The only halfway decent member of the family was his dear mother, a savvy yet reasonable sort who knew how to effectively manage a houseful of men who don’t like each other. 

“Meanwhile, at the time Sir Frederick challenged Sir Hanson to a duel in the arena, and that’s when everything really got out of hand. I was actually hired on as a trainer for Sir Frederick. I was pretty good too. That was in the early days of the Order—”

“The Arena?” Squire Phillips mumbles, opening his eyes to the level of a squint, his buzz having faded ever so slightly. The Archmaji eyes dart back and forth from the hungover squire to Sir Roberts. 

“Uhh, yeah as I was saying—“

“You should train him,” Squire Phillips says.

The Archmaji tries to reclaim his train of thought and Sir Roberts continues staring out the window, having not fully registered the implication of the squire’s suggestion. 

“That was indeed a nasty fight. Handler Tellerand had the rather brilliant idea to source a chimera up from the Hanomania. If there’s one thing those mountainous thugs know, it’s three-headed monsters. Poor Frederick never had a chan—”

“By Requiat’s fat fingers, Squire Phillips you are not useless after all,” Sir Roberts says suddenly, the realization finally hitting him, “What say you, great Archmaji? Would you consider training me?” Sir Roberts’ says, his gaze boring a hole in the Archmaji’s forehead if it could. 

“Umm, well it’s been a long time since I did something like that…”

“Sir, I know I’m not a typical candidate for the arena, but I know under your tutelage I can beat Sir Grundl and join the King’s guard,” Sir Robert says, choosing every word carefully, “Besides, you could finally prove those bastards wrong who say you're just a washed-up, cooky old man one hundred years past his prime.”

Bilterburg takes Sir Roberts in for an awkwardly long moment, his eyes darting back and forth but his face and body remaining uncannily still. Sir Roberts holds his gaze. Finally, the Archmaji says, “You know what, young Roberts? I have just had a wild thought. What if I trained you in preparation for your bout in the arena? I’m an extraordinarily busy man, but I might just be able to squeeze in amongst my research.”

“That sounds divine, sir,” Sir Roberts mumbles, giving Squire Phillips a shake to wake him back up, “So when do we start?”

“Tomorrow. 4 am sharp. Don’t be late. You’ll have to sleep outside too. I used to have a guest bedroom, but I’ve since converted it into a haberdashery,” the Archmaji says, pouring himself another cup of tea. 

Hey everyone,

So this piece is something I worked on a while ago but then got distracted with other things. It is most certainly going to be part of a larger story. So consider this a teaser I suppose. I hope you like it!

Cheers,

Robert