The Knight Behind the Pillar Read Free

man’s forehead dissipated slightly as I had guessed right. 
                  I was young for being a squire in some people’s eyes.  Just sixteen summers and found often that many of the strangers assumed I was just a servant or still a page.  My actual birthday date I had long forgotten and had to guess by the time of the falling leaves each year that I had at some point I had gained another year.  Not that those events in my life would matter to anyone here.  Given my clothes I could have been mistaken for a sheep herder instead of the squire I had become, but my appearance did not matter to anyone either. 
                  Instead in the present I tried to hurry the man along who seem distracted in his manner. 
                  “I am very late my lord and mus...” I attempted to insist, but the knight had heard enough and waved his dark notably very hairy covered hand to vanish any further explanation away or words I had to offer. 
                  I took immediate dislike to him and obediently waited without eye contact.    
                  “You have not been sent by them?” He said and with the obvious disappointment there was a sigh.
                  I was unsure if it was a question or he had already guessed the answer and was just stating fact, but risked an answer.  “No my lord, I have not been send by them?” I ventured and lingered on saying the word ‘them’ as a question in the hope the man would perhaps enlighten me as to who they were. 
                  He ignored me again.  “They are taking too long.” He muttered instead, party to himself and partly to the world without me in it. 
                  He paced a moment with hesitation and the occasional grunt as if on the edge of deciding something before looking back to the open door.  If I could have tapped my foot I would have, but thought better of it.  My mind drifted back along the stonework to the unopened door behind me that I failed to knock upon.  Time was not something I had much to give without risk of more consequences than I was already expecting. 
                  At last he made a decision.  “Well I for one have had enough of child minding.” He said gruffly, “You stay here and attend the lad, do not leave him unless he sends you to find me and keep the room locked, got it?”
                  Before I knew what was happening or could protest I was being shoved into the room through the open door.  Words of protest did run around my head, I had taken ages to get here and now was in the wrong room.  However, all words I had failed to materialise out loud.  In truth this was perhaps due to another voice telling me wait because this meant I was perhaps being saved from my ill fate in the other room.  On the other hand what was behind this door! 
    The noble lord insisted he would not be long and stated again I was to keep the door locked as the door slammed shut with a loud thud and I was left staring at the back of it. 
                  “And if I wanted to find you?  Who are you and where will you be?” I complained very sarcastically to the closed door as well as pulling a face, but I spoke with a quiet tone just in case it reopened. 
                  Rolling my eyes, I then remembered where I was and that someone might be in this room.  I turned reluctantly to face what awaited me.  What was behind me was a bed chamber, one of the few guest rooms available for some of the more important visitors to Caerleon.  The fashionable damp stone walls that characterised the rest of the tower were hidden as much as possible with decorated oak panelling and roughly woven tapestries.  If there were any illustration once portrayed they were lost to age, in spite of it being so unlikely that sunlight ever entered the chambers to fade them.  This room had windows up high, but