It was well into the night when William woke up. There were flashes of lightening in the sky, although no clap of thunder followed. He had suddenly grown restless and was unable to force himself into a sleep.

 

The rest of the party were asleep at a local inn though, pillowing their heads will all their cares and problems. And he was proud of how far they all had come; they were the men that dared to reach for the distant skies to change their stars.

 

And change it, they did.

 

Which was why he didn’t understand the void in his heart, which was why he didn’t understand why he was in the stable saddling a horse and preparing it for a spin in the threatening weather.

 

“William?” said Wat, rubbing sleepy eyes with the back of his hand, he had followed him down. “What are you doing on a horse? Where are you going?”

 

“I believe I have unfinished business here, Wat,” said William. “There is someone I used to know from long ago, I want to see him again.”

 

Wat bobbed his head.

 

Sometimes, he could be such a reasonable fellow, William thought.

 

The rain started drizzling shortly after William set out of the stables. But that did not deter him from proceeding with his outing, nor did it cause him to hurry any more than he already was. He crossed over the Salpool bridge, the same bridge where he’d run about as a kid, sometimes, swimming in the river beneath.

 

Bar the evil mankind was known to inflict on each other, childhood was probably one of the best gifts nature had to give humanity. It was that one phase of life were we took everything with a pinch of salt and moved on after bitter spats rather than keep bitter malice.

 

It was the only time when mankind grew without giving thought to what they would eat on the morrow, or that noon, or the day after that noon.

 

He rode off the wide paved streets into the narrower roads between houses. William continued to ride, even when the rain increased its intensity and began to soak into his clothes. He halted. Off the bridge was where he remembered, but the houses were different, more, and newer. He leaned back and looked up from his horse, confused.

 

Fortunately, there was a kid crouched under the awning up ahead to dry. He urged his horse forward.

 

“Hello,” said William, pulling to a halt in front of the child. It was a girl of about the same as he was when he left Salpool.

 

The girl stared at the black phoenix on William’s green shirt and gasped in awe. “You – you are Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein…”

 

William followed her stare and sighed. “Yes…”

 

“You’re my favorite knight, Sir,” the kid said, animatedly. “When we joust, I always say I am you.”

 

“Do you win?” asked William, smiling.

 

“Of course, sir!” the girl replied, proudly. “I couldn’t say it if I didn’t. But what are you doing here on Salpool Bridge? There’s no parade today.”

 

“Can you keep a secret?” said William, leaning forward.

 

The girl bobbed her head, soberly.

 

“I was born on the Salpool Bridge,” said William, “Somewhere around here. I can’t remember, there are so many new houses about.”

 

“Truly, Sir Ulrich?” asked the girl, wide—eyed.

 

“Truly,” William replied.

 

“Why? I live only just there,” said the girl, pointing up ahead.

 

William nodded. “Tell me, how old are you?”

 

“Nine and one half,” the kid replied.

 

She is old, but is she old enough?

 

I wonder if you remember a man,” William continued, “though he might have died before you were born. Tall as a knight, he has the same white blond hair as I. His name was John Thatcher.”

 

“Of course, I remember him!” said the girl, gleefully.

 

“You do?” asked William. The pressure in his heart rising to a new stormy level.

 

“Well, yeah,” the girl replied, “he lives down this road still.”

 

If William had been standing on his legs when he heard the words, he’d have fallen to his knees from the force of it.

 

“Jo – John Thatcher?” William repeated, wondering if the kid had heard him right. “You are sure?”

 

“The fish monger’s wife looks after him,” said the girl, “Sometimes, we see him sitting by the window, but no one knows why.”

 

“What do you mean?” asked William, frowning.

 

The girl looked down. “He is blind sir.”

 

William felt a bitter twitch in his heart, he wanted to yell, to scream his lungs out. When was life ever fair?

 

“Take me to him,” he said to the girl when he finally found his voice.

 

The streets they navigated were usually planned after they were built. As a kid, William usually caught himself wondering what would happen if the houses suddenly grew wheels and began to move around.

 

They arrived at an old building with two floors. “Here,” the girl said, pointing at the second floor. “He lives up there.”

 

William fetched a gold florin from his pocket and gave it to the kid whose eyes nearly exploded in surprise.

 

The girl turned around and took to her heels, probably to go show her parents what fortune’s smile had brought her, or maybe she would never reach home with the money. Maybe she had the same plan as other kids.

 

The wooden stairs William climbed were so dark, he could not see his hands in front of him. The only way he knew to continue up was the small, yellow rays issuing from a lantern behind the door above.

 

William pushed the door and it opened with a faint creak. And he came face to face with the man that brought him to the world. The one man he’d always dreamt of meeting again someday.

 

“Is some there?” asked John Thatcher.

 

William grimaced. The voice was precisely the way he remembered it to be and it still sounded like home, despite how long it was since he last heard it, it still sounded like home.

 

“Who is there?”

 

William tried to talk but found his lips only quivered like the vibrating skin of a struck war drum. He gulped, and sniffed.

 

“If you are here for the net, I haven’t finished yet,” John Thatcher continued. The net was in his hands, unfinished it was no more than a length of twine. His eyes were like the night when William sailed out of Salpool, and the night when he returned to Salpool – white with the fogs of blindness.

 

“There’s no rain in the sky,” said William.

 

“Certainly, there is,” said John Thatcher, “Who are you?”

 

“A knight,” William replied, daring to take a step inside. “My name is… Ulrich.”

 

"Ulrich? I hear that name chanted in the streets," surprised John Thatcher replied.

 

“What can I do for you noble Knight?”

 

“I – I have word, Master Thatcher,” said William, “Word of your son.”

 

The rain intensified outside, William could see the lightening still flashing in the sky, although it seemed to have found its voice; each flash was accompanied by a low rumble, or deafening explosion. In a corner of John Thatcher’s house, his father’s house, William saw the roof was leaking, although someone had had the sense to put a bowl there.

 

“My William?” said John, rising. “Come in, sir.”

 

William stepped fully into the house, unsure how to feel about being invited into his own house like a guest.

 

“What word?” said John, “Does he live?”

 

William moved close to his father and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Oh yes, he lives. He’s very well. He wanted you to know... he changed his stars after all.”

 

John Thatcher covered his face with his hands and sobbed. Surely, he would remember how he and his son had hoped that one day, they might change the cursed stars they were born with.

 

“And has he found his way home at last? Did he follow his feet?” John Thatcher asked in between sobs.

 

“Yes,” answered William.

 

John reached up and felt William’s chest, slowly, he made his way up, feeling every bit of body until he was holding either side of William’s face.

 

“Oh, William,” said John, “Oh, my boy.”

 

There was no training that prepared William for what he felt, not even his experience as a target for Sir Hector sufficed as preparation for the tumult in his heart. He allowed himself be brought closer and melted in the loving embrace of his father.

 

“I missed you, William, I missed you every day of my life,” John cried.

 

They were like that for a length of time neither could very well define; whether it be eternity or a blink of the eye, they knew not. It is said that when we are with the right people, time becomes no more than a fiction; we know not whether fiction has happened, is happening or perhaps will happen. There is also this healthy chance that it might never happen at all in all the million and one possible futures available.

 

About an hour later, father and son were laughing over meat and wine, their faces radiant with joy unexpressed all the years gone. Like a woman after her travails, they suddenly forgot all those nights of wishing they were together, all those days of laboring to stop thinking about the other.

 

“I should like to meet these friends of yours,” said John Thatcher, holding a cup of wine in both hands. “And this Roland of yours too.”

 

“You will, father,” said William, chuckling. “You will.”

 

The flames of candles burning in a tray at a corner danced slowly and lazily. William sighed, wishing for the night to not be no more than some wishful dream.

 

“And what of women?” asked John. “Is there a certain one or many?”

 

“There is a certain one,” William said, grinning boyishly. He looked around for a distraction and found the spot in the ceiling where rain drops fell from.

 

“But this leak won’t do, father,” said William, “Not in the chamber of a thatcher.”

 

John snorted. “For a blind thatcher it is quite fitting.”

 

“Well then, you have a son with both eyes,” said William before climbing out the window on to the roof. He looked behind him in the rain and thought he saw a horse standing idly at the end of the street. But he simply shrugged and went on went his business of being a thatcher.