William sat on a stack of hay, biting into the red, soft apple in his hand. His eyes roamed over his slumbering companions; Roland with his hands on his chest, Wat with snores loud enough to rival a bull frog in heat, Geoffrey slept on his side, curled up like a ball.

 

William couldn’t remember where he’d heard it from, but surely, he remembered someone once told him men could be judged from the way they slept. Roland was free and trusting, Wat was a child at heart, and Geoffrey curled up like that was a man used to being alone – used to the coldness of solitude.

 

He bit into the apple again, that was his breakfast, lunch and dinner, courtesy of Roger Lord of Mortimer. While it made no sense to do things for the sake of the rewards we might one day receive from them, William was a little bit disappointed Sir Colville didn’t invite him over for a treat that night.

 

Earlier that day on the jousting grounds, Sir Thomas Colville had met him in the middle of the list; he had a hand around his left ribs and was bent forwards on his horse. Sir Colville had told William he was injured and couldn’t continue. Now, the sensible thing to do would have been to withdraw from the match. But in a knight’s world, to withdraw was to accept defeat, not that defeat was bad in itself, but defeat from retreat – cowardice – was a bane to the men in armors and visors. And there was no room for cowardice in knighthood.

 

The knight had two choices, allow William lance him even though he was surely going to lose to his injury or ask William to let him go that he might finish the game and keep his honor. Sir Colville had taken the latter route, courtesy of William.

 

He had let the knight walk free; instead of striking him down, William had let the man prance on past him.

 

But now, he wondered if letting Sir Thomas go was a mistake on his part. If he had jousted against Sir Thomas, and judging from the knight’s sorry health, unhorsed him, the horse would have been his and then sold for so much money. And his companions would not have to starve to sleep while he chewed the only food they had left.

 

“What are you thinking about?”

 

William started out of his thoughts. “Roland! You scared me.”

 

“That’s because you were lost in your thoughts,” said Roland, hoisting himself up on one hand. The heat in other tents was oppressive, but thanks to the many holes in theirs, heat was none of their worries that night.

 

“You should be sleeping, William,” said Roland, “it’s probably past midnight already and you’re still awake.”

 

“Hard to sleep when hunger strangles you, eh, Roland. Isn’t that why you woke up yourself?”

 

“You don’t know who I am at all,” said Roland, “When I’m hungry, I sleep, not stay awake.”

 

“Then you starve now, don’t you?” asked William, staring into Roland’s eyes. “Starvation is the worst form of hunger, I expect it should feel different on the body.”

 

“We’ve eaten more than we’d do under Sir Hector’s,” Roland said, “What’s a night’s hunger to us? Our last fast was a three day streak followed by his death.”

 

“Sir Hector…” William murmured. He rubbed at his forehead as though to massage an ache out of it.

 

“He is dead now,” said Roland, “you should probably forgive him.”

 

“I’m here because of him,” said William, savagely.

 

“That is true,” said Roland, nodding.

 

“No! That’s not true, Roland, and you know it,” William snapped at his friend. For a brief moment, the hunger in his apple flavored belly was replaced by hot anger. He jumped from the stack he sat on and ran a hand through the rough tresses of his curly golden hair.

 

“Sir Hector promised my father he would train me to be a knight—”

 

“And that he did,” said Roland, following William to and from with his eyes.

 

“—if he was to have me registered as a knight, all the legal paperwork and whatnot. Then why didn't he bother training me as such, Roland, if my father knew all there was to training as a knight was standing on a spot while a drunk shattered you with his lance, he’d have done the job himself.”

 

“And yet, here you are,” said Roland with an air of triumph.

 

“I am here because he is dead,” William said, shuddering. “And you, and Wat, you’re sleeping now because he is dead. If he was not, you’d be washing the vomit off his clothes and darning them, Wat would be cleaning the horse this minute, and I would be nursing a fractured rib, and he? Where would he be?”

 

Roland sighed and looked away.

 

“Go on, Roland,” said William, setting his hands on his waist. “Answer the question without lies or deceit. Where would Sir Hector be right now if he was alive?”

 

“Now, that’s hard to say,” said Roland, sucking his teeth. “The man is dead.”

 

“Well this time in the last tournament, we were doing all our chores, while he went to the taverns to gamble and drink himself to hell.”

 

“He is dead, William,” Roland said in a calm but firm manner.

 

A grunt and William returned to his seat on the start. “Dying does not erase his sins. He lied to my father, maybe yours, and Wat’s as well. He sold them golden futures for their children and forgot that promise. It is better to die a young man than do all of that to anybody. He sold us dusts for dreams.”

 

“Maybe our fathers knew they were being sold lies,” said Roland, with a slight edge to his voice. “You’re the son of what? A Thatcher. Do you really suppose there’s no part of your father that doubts if the future holds any good for you? Cause mine did.”

 

“And that’s where you have it wrong, Roland,” said William, shaking his head. “It was my father who inspired me to thinking I could reach into the dark skies of my universe and change my faulty stars. If I didn’t believe that, we’d have been ruined the minute Sir Hector died in his own shite.”

 

There was nothing else to argue again, and even Roland realized this truth quickly. He let out a tired sigh and bobbed his head pensively.

 

William picked up a small dried stick from the floor and went on to break it into seven inch long pieces. “If Sir Hector had any plan, it was to train me for life; I’d never have been ready under him.”

 

“And his habits would forbid him from saving enough money for the paperwork,” said Roland, “a gambling man is a pot broken at the side, go on and add drinking to that man and you’ll have a basket rather than a pot.”

 

“Sir Hector was a basket,” said William. He allowed his eyes roll over to Geoffrey and found the man still curled up but twitching his toes. “Chaucer was towing that path.”

 

“Nobody should talk about me behind my back,” said Geoffrey, without rising.

 

“You’re awake and I know you can hear me,” said William.

 

“My back is still turned to you,” said Geoffrey, sitting up with his back against a stack. “Now, it’s not.”

 

“You promised you’d never gamble again, right,” said William.

 

“I’m a poor man, William,” said Geoffrey, “all I have are my words and I give it to you. Never ever will I cast lots or gamble again. You have my word.”

 

William bobbed his head. “God help you, Geoff. God help you.”

 

“You should go back to sleep,” Roland said to William, picking a soft spot for himself on the ground. “This night no man can work, but tomorrow, you will face Count Adhemar, one of the finest in the world, you’ll need your strength.”

 

William nodded absent-mindedly and took a spot for himself on the ground. He slept on his back, his head nested in his palms, eyes fixed on that hole through the roof of the tent – the tear seemed to have grown bigger.

 

And as he stared at the faraway stars, his mind yielded to his body, and the fatigue from getting lanced at won. The last thought that crossed his mind was victory in the list the next morning, and the admiration of the woman that now lived in his head.