Chapter 51: Volume 2 - CH 1.01

It was done.

The 5th Chivalric Order saw fit to expel me from its halls.

A wingless fledgling to be flung from the nest—only, not immediately so.

No, the Orders are each a military organisation, composing the arms of the vast royal army. Not even the process of purging one of its own could escape the burden of bureaucracy. And though I’d lost affiliation with the Order, let alone my meagre lot as a long-serving swain, I was yet a soldier of Londosius.

And where else would a soldier be sent but a battlefield?

In our lands, it is custom for a fallen knight to be driven off to the frontiers, where the fires of the frontline burn fiercest. A knight I was not, of course, but it betrays neither reason nor reverie to think that the same fate awaited me.

Life in a faraway fringeland…

But which, exactly?

Even now, the top brass were deliberating upon it. A whole ten days it would take, during which time, I was to be put under house arrest.

A rather toothless sentencing, to be frank. I had not a house, much less a room of my own to be arrested within. And so I spent my days dallying in the library.

Despite being warned to venture not a step outside the headquarters building itself, I routinely left its confines for my usual morning and evening training. Not even this sad situation could deter me from the daily rigour.

That was the pattern, really. Perhaps it was in the comfort of knowing that I’d be gone for good that the other officers were generous—or indifferent, more like—of my blatant rule-breaking. Luckily, not a soul thought to question my actions the entire time. Yes. Lucky indeed.

“…Lucky? I’m an exile, and wrongfully so, no less. What am I, if not shrivelled up and dried of all luck?”

Such words I would put to the wind as the uneventful days dragged on by. On the tenth of that span, I was told at last of my destination.

Balasthea Stronghold—in the border province of Ström the fort stood, and it was quite the distinguished one, at that. Infamous for the extreme rate of fatality amongst its soldiery, Balasthea guarded a hotly contested territory, one rightly labelled as being amongst the most murderous killing fields in the entire realm.

Balasthea itself was manned by the Fiefguard of Margrave Ström, who managed the fort via funds and support from Central. No vestige of the Orders were to be found on his land; all that I’ve grown accustomed to over the years would likely stand in stark contrast to the folkways of that frontier. The very thought of it was enough to fray my nerves.

And if I’m honest, the last ten days were a strain upon my heart. A shadow was cast upon it, darker again than I could ever have imagined—a dusk born from having to part from Emilie’s side.

I harbour no regrets in making that fateful decision. But pain does what it does, and wounds are wounds in the end.

I’ve known Emilie ever since my mind could know aught, from the day the light of awareness first dawned upon me. She was the one woman to whom I promised a life of love and happiness.

So many years…

…and now to ponder upon forgetting them all.

The heart is not so simple a thing, I’m afraid, to be able to sever asudden so dear a bond.

But the past forever dies, the present is forever here, and the future forever awaits. Unbending truths for the kin of Man, and so I must forge ahead.

My destination is decided. I can ill-afford to wallow in my woes much longer. Death is where my way wends; it would not do to meet him without my head held high.

♰

The official day of my exile.

Unspotted and infinitely cerulean the morrow-skies were, as if to rain blessings upon my departure. Were that truly so, then I suspect whoever wields the weather must be quite the dim-witted deity. After all, what good comes from exalting an exile as he sets out upon so perilous a path?

There I stood at the main portcullis, where five years past I passed through with Emilie as we started our new lives here at the 5th. Never did I think that I would leave it under such sullen circumstance.

The life of a man is truly uncertain, if nothing else.

Gracious were the fates indeed to have garnished my lot with such an assortment of surprises. I should thank them. Though the gesture might feign too brave a face, I feel.

“Word has been sent to Balasthea Stronghold,” spoke one of two leaders standing before me. “Hand them the papers when you arrive.”

“Keep that nose of yours on the grindstone this time, yea? And try not to get yourself kicked out again,” the other droned. In fact, I’d say the both of them seemed rather bothered, to be left with the unenviable chore of officiating my disposal. “Hah. Whom am I kidding? Wouldn’t put it past an ungraced to get the boot twice.”

With those words, the leaders then went about their business, hasteful in getting me out of their sight as soon as possible. Of course, no horse would be furnished to me. I was to travel to town by foot, and there make use of stagecoaches for the rest of the way.

Not that I was troubled much by it. My sword, a smattering of sustenance, and a trusty waterskin I’d been using for the longest while now—beyond these, I carried little.

The air thudded. Hoof-falls clopped close. I looked, finding a formation of mounted knights cantering in. They were all of them leaders, and foremost amongst them: Emilie. This was the first time I’d laid eyes on her in the ten days since the hearing.

“Madame!” greeted one of the prior leaders. “Come to send off the ungraced for good, I presume?”

“…I suppose I have,” she answered. There, from high up on her steed, did she look down upon me.

Our eyes met.

A heavy while, kept wordless throughout, till I turned my back.

“Be well.”

A simple goodbye from my lips, one unrequited from Emilie’s own. Her silence was sustained as I stepped through and out of the portcullis.

And thus was executed my exile from the 5th Chivalric Order.

♰

Reaching Ström was in and of itself a journey. But of course it had to be. The brand of “border province” was hardly for show. Given the kingdom’s sheer breadth, no less than seven days passed between my departure from the 5th’s grounds to my arrival at the frontier.

Through Londosius had I gone, faring by one stagecoach after the other. At times, it would stop at a stage station for a change of horses. Other times, I would transfer to another service entirely, and resume on my horse-drawn way. Countlessly did this occur, and by the seventh day of that long chain, I at last crossed into the hilly, evergreen stretches of Ström.

Disembarking from my final stop, I then spent another full day afoot, trekking alone through the treacherous spans till I found the fort looming before me.

Balasthea Stronghold.

The redoubted redoubt. A veritable edifice facing the Nafílim lands squarely on. Solid stonework composed its ramparts, while the fort proper was oaken in construction. A rather drab and dreary place compared to the grandeur of Order architecture. And intact it was not: Balasthea was riddled with scars, reminders of blistering, bygone battles.

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Beyond it were the Nafílim territories, an expanse strewn with woodlands that blanketed the base of a cragged mountain. The lay of this immediate land was such that no Nafílim host could venture an offensive without being funnelled through a single geographical point.

But the same could be said of Londosius’ own forces. And so what did such men build upon that imperative point but Balasthea itself?

Not too far from the fort spanned the fiefburgh of Arbel, the urban administrative centre of the Ström frontier. And in that burgh-city stood the residence of the margrave himself. To be sure, Arbel was well-defended in its own right, but if bereft of Balasthea’s shielding shadow, then it might as well be a sheep shuddering alone in a wolven wilderness.

No wonder, then, that the Nafílim were utterly fierce and focused in their offence, a seed of violence that sprouted Balasthea’s repute as a deathtrap battlefield some years past.

The margrave himself was not one to stay his hand in answering such aggression, as evidenced by occasional incursions of his own into the Nafílim lands. But the men composing the margrave’s military were of a sort different than those stationed in Balasthea.

Make no mistake, the soldiery of Ström was all the margrave’s own: the Fiefguard. Yet a distinction must be made between those stationed at Balasthea and those that the margrave directly commanded: the former were charged strictly with the defence of the fort, their very flesh made as shields to guard against its fall.

And that selfsame fort was to be my new place of employ.

“Hail!” I called to the guardsman at the gate. “I am Rolf Buckmann, a transfer from the 5th Order. The vice-commandant is wise to my arrival, I take it?”

“That he is,” he answered. “This way, ser.”

The gates groaned open. The guard then guided me through the fort grounds. We soon entered the keep, and after winding through its corridors, emerged in a room where waited but one man.

“Ebbe’s the name. Vice-Commandant o’ this here fort,” he introduced himself. A bony man of about thirty years of age, this “Ebbe” was given to maintaining a constant, sarcastic furrow upon his brows. “Quite the long way you’ve come, eh?”

“Rolf Buckmann,” came my own curt introduction. “A long way indeed.”

“Fortunate we are t’have you, good Commandant. Let us hope you’ve not come all this way for naught,” Ebbe returned, already bothered by my arrival.

“Acting Commandant,” I corrected.

That’s right. I was instead charged with a position of leadership, spared from the dread and drudgery of soldiering.

The men of the fort were each in the employ of the margrave; none, and nothing, had anything tangible to do with the Chivalric Orders themselves. Yet by the laws of Londosius, Balasthea and all other forts like it are subordinate to the knightly institution.

Intimate is the link between Central and the Orders, for better or worse. In contrast, the forces of a fort are fairly divorced from the kingdom’s grip, being composed of only common soldiers from the surrounding region.

But this land, by rights, belongs to the king himself, and the margrave is merely its steward. All under the latter’s purview, then, are subject to the will of Central, and by extension, the Orders themselves, cruces of the royal military that they are. This naturally includes the dictation of human resources and staffing—and the handling of my exile.

But that was not all that undergirded my charge here. Balasthea’s actual commandant was beset by a chronic ailment, and so was put out to pasture for the time being. It was there that Emilie herself saw an opportunity to make me acting commandant to this fort.

Her designs were undimmed: no doubt she thought I would die both immediately and unceremoniously were I made a regular grunt upon so lethal a battlefield.

The soldiers of this fort all hailed from the common citizenry. Thus was it entirely reasonable to assign an aristocrat from the Order to fill the commandant’s seat. That was a bill I snuggly fit: despite having never rose beyond swainhood, and having been denied inheritance of the Buckmann barony, I was yet a noble hailing from the Order.

Given how so many pieces of the puzzle fell into place, it was easy to see why Emilie was so impelled to place me in this post. Though if I’m honest, to be exiled straight into a position of power was itself enough of a seed for a strange tale.

It was my hope that Emilie had not stepped on too many toes to get this affair approved. Thankfully, this was to be the last. Never again would she have to imperil her position. Yet it was very likely that she’d accrued a hounding debt to Central in the process… all just for my sake.

It was clear as day, then, why Ebbe’s behaviour was so briared upon our meeting. A second-in-command such as him is certainly whom one would expect to take over the duties of an absent commandant. Yet here was I, an ennobled—and exiled—newcomer, suddenly snatching away the selfsame privilege.

The very sight of me must’ve stung him sore, I’m sure.

“And how fares the erstwhile commandant himself?” I asked.

“Oh, he fares. The afterlife’s busy rolling out the red carpet for the poor master, you’d be glad t’know,” Ebbe answered dismissively, before turning a pair of sneering eyes to me. “But here’s another Commandant right in this room, and he piques the whiskers o’ Ebbe, the curious cat—a question, sir!”

My eyes narrowed. “What tickles you?”

“Your expulsion. What else?” Ebbe smiled as he continued. “A comely kick it was what sent your arse all the way t’this neck o’ the woods. What tickled the knee, hmm?”

“An itch you should know well of.”

“The one upon the horse’s hind! Ahah!” The vice-commandant’s grating giggles filled the room. “Y’hide quite the hoof-mark on your haunches, don’t you, my aching Commandant! Not a cutpurse nor a turncoat you are! No no! A stablehand too ‘handy’ in his handling o’ a horse, I’d wager! And now the steed’s a runaway, whilst you’re the stun’d castaway! Hoh! No more slapstick a shtick there’s ever been!”

“Slapstick indeed.”

My flat humouring all but goaded a goatly grin from Ebbe’s bony face. If his unceasing chuckles were anything to go by, I’d say he was having a grand time at my expense.

“How now, good knight! Cheer up!” he squawked. “Or should I say, ‘good swain’?”

“Then you’ve said right.”

“Good swain! Such a short time with the Order it must’ve been!” Ebbe bellowed with arms wide, before tucking them in akimbo. “No more than half a year, was it?”

“Five.”

“Mm? What’s that? Five? Five years, y’say?”

“You’ve read my records. Why play this farce?”

“I’d misplaced my reading glasses, y’see!” he smiled, more toothy now than ever with delight. The man was certainly revealing himself to be quite the articulated puppet to his own emotions. “Come now, Commandant. Do tell. Five years, was it? As a swain? What kick’d off that career, eh?”

“You well-know why.”

“Be not so cold, Commandant! Come. Let us hear it. Straight from the horse’s mouth!” he squealed with restrained laughter. “I can’t scratch this itch myself, ey! Your secret, sir! Your secret! How does a man simmer the swain-stew for five long winters? Oh, do enlighten me! I beg o’ you!”

With the theatrics of a thespian, Ebbe shrunk and leaned in, hands clasped together imploringly. Yet his face remained ever ugly with its jeer.

“Play the japing jester all you want, Ebbe. I care little,” I shot back. “But even a jester has an office he ought to serve well, and I will have you serve yours—properly.”

From the vice-commandant’s throat came a roaring laugh, like a saw eating into a tree.

“‘Office’, y’said!? Ah hah! I’d say you’re quite the clown yourself, Commandant! A blind and bumbling bloke has but t’lift his finger t’be told he’s served his office better than you, my good man!”

With those words, the ghoul-like grunt’s guffaws echoed on and on.

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