A Knight’s Tale
Or “Why it is okay to cry over spilt milk in the Middle Ages”
Illustrations by Rachel Taunton
The weather was fair, the air was clear, and the humble squire Jonathan Percy scraped Cheerios and goat’s milk out of his grey iron helmet. He sat up high upon the Withershire Castle’s Eastern curtain wall, and as he ate, his gaze drifted leisurely to and fro separate scenes taking place nearby him.
Upon the wall with him was his mentor, Sir Billy Broadsword, who at that moment was engaged in the task of cleaning his fingernails with a dagger. Sir Broadsword’s feet dangled over the castle walls, and his naked toes wiggled unconsciously in the perfect blue sky. Percy smiled to see his mentor so relaxed. Usually, Sir Broadsword would be engaged in more strenuous activities, like beating the tar out of a peasant or fighting his bowels after another one of the King’s notoriously low-fibre feasts. A quaint hum filled the air, courtesy of an archer by the name of Toby McGuire, who produced the sound by whistling on a blade of grass. Meanwhile, Sir Jacoby Locksmith chewed on the last of his trencher bread, and Sir John — the inventor of the modern flush toilet — was taking a forceful dump by hanging one over the castle wall. Behind him, Percy watched a skinny old peasant’s goat clomp on the stone walkway, led by a promise of oats held in its master’s hand. The whole scene was rather pleasant, and for once, Percy could simply breathe without liquid adrenaline motivating his every action.
Life in the medieval age was a hard, daily five-to-nine grind, and this afternoon had finally given him some relief. No disease, dysentery, domestic violence, dwindling food supplies, dentists, children, priests, religious persecution, bad weather, black death, boars, bears, blindings, or barbarians, which was certainly better than the rest of his week filled with all of those things.
Even as high up as he was, Jonathan Percy could easily smell the labour of the bakers in the wind. Today, he detected the greasy meaty scent of a pig roasting over an open fire and occasional wafts of bitter burnt rye bread baking in the ovens. He drew a deeper inhale but the wind went limp and his nose was instead rewarded with an updraft of foulness from the fecal-filled swamp known as Derkinagan’s Moat.
It was so called after the seamstress’s son, Derkinagan, fell into it and drowned after failing to correctly perform a cartwheel for Sir Broadsword. A more honest tale would note that poor young Derkinagan was thrown off the wall — by Sir Broadsword himself, no less — but this tale I am telling you is not the most honest tale, and not even the most informed. This is simply a story to account for a morning in the life of Jonathan Percy.
It is simply a coincidence that this morning was the one in which humble Jonathan Percy committed tragic murder.
Percy watched the peasant with the goat return along the stony pathway. They were a skinny couple, and covered in so much dirt that you could probably carbon date the day they were each born.
The animal looked about a hundred years old. What was left of its once-thick fur was thin and patchy, and cancer spots and other gastly blemishes detailing a nigh end popped through like pimples on flaky, barren skin. Cracked, yellow teeth protruded from an extreme overbite. If meth had been invented yet, the poor animal would have been the poster child.
The goat, on the other hand, looked about two hundred years old. Small, cataract-filled eyes gazed at nothing, and the few hairs it had left on its body stuck out from its chin like that befitting a witch in a Disney movie.
The peasant grabbed Percy’s arm as he passed, and breathed a stench in Percy’s face worse than the smell of Derkinagan’s Moat. He tried to pull away, but the tweaker had the strength of meth in him.
“Fear ye!” the tweaker exclaimed.
“Fear ye!” he shouted again. “Man is changing— Prepare! Man will sit amid a machine with artificial wings that beat the air like a flying bird, and he too shall fly with it!… Cars will move without animals, at unbelievable rapidity! Fear these, but fear not, for there is some beauty coming, too…” The peasant trailed off, and his face relaxed some.
Only his brow remained scrunched as if he was working on a difficult puzzle. Without much energy, and somewhat confusedly, he finished his rant: “A pipe of glass will give me and ye eyes into the heavens, and we can watch the slow-turning cosmos expand and solidify like milk curdling in tea… A barrel with fins will give us the chance to explore the dark depths of our oceans, where prehistoric creatures slumber, waiting to be studied… It is an amazing thing, this future of ours, and I only regret I won’t be here for it…”
The man trailed off for good, released Percy’s arm, and peered at him as if seeing him for the first time. Percy in turn, said nothing. He simply waited for the man to walk away. It was best not to react to people with brain worms. His only thought was that the whole thing peeved him, because of course, it had to be him that the idiot picked from all the others lounging about.
Sir Broadsword and Percy watched the peasant leave, his docile goat following clomp clomp clomp.
“Just another guy with Saint Anthony’s fire,” Percy said, and turned back to his Cheerios.
At that moment, a long ghostly blast through an oxen horn made Percy startle and nearly drop his spoon. The blast was cut abruptly by an arrow that flew straight and true into the trumpeter’s throat.
Chaos. A captain screamed to rally the disorganized men, and they stumbled over one another like sewer rats. One had been sleeping nude and ran along the wall with nothing on, only carrying his pants, shirt, sword, and shield in his arms and blinking furiously against the bright sun. Percy watched, fascinated — the man’s rear jiggled like the box of a truck with fucked suspension. Another had startled at his captain’s call and dropped his dagger on his foot. He came hopping like a hare, tight-lipped in great restraint, the dagger still protruding from his foot and his hands white-knuckling and denting his helmet so his head would no longer fit in it. Most of the “soldiers” were missing their weapons. Many were missing sleep. All were missing their mamas.
Sir Billy Broadsword, though, slipped into his boots and sheathed his dagger with the firmness and precision of a United States Marine. As his head bobbed with his actions, his long golden hair fanned like a mane, shining bright against the sun. He was ready. After a second, the muscle-bound knight turned to his squire, and disdain took over his face.
“That was a trumpet against impending invaders, and you’re eating grits out of your helmet! Are you ill?”
Sir Broadsword’s scorn hit Percy hard. He wanted to serve his master but had been overwhelmed by the trumpet’s baritone warning. He was afraid to do something wrong, however, fearing that he would be seen as useless. But spurred to action, he decided it would be best to head to the stable.
As he started away, Sir Broadsword called him.
“Where are you going?”
“To the stable, sir, to ready your horse.”
“Why would I need my horse?”
“To ride into battle, sir.”
“I’m not going out there on my horse, you frog-faced scum! Help me put on my armour, then get yourself a spear and take your spot in the barbican.”
The barbican! Why, that meant Percy would likely kill many people today! More giddy than Smeagol with a fish, Percy picked up Sir Broadsword’s body armour and began helping him into it. The weight of it was substantial — about as heavy as a pig fat for slaughter — and it glimmered impressively in the sun.
“And should I get myself some armour as well, sir?” Percy inquired.
“Absolutely not. A flea like yourself will be the last target in our enemies’ minds. If you play your hand correctly, you might even survive the capture of the fort. Though this castle will not be an easy one for those barbarians to take, certainly not while I’m here,” Sir Broadsword added, chuckling confidently.
“Yes sir,” Percy said, embarrassed for his own lowliness. He snapped in the last leather strap of Sir Broadsword’s armour.
“Alright, Pimply Percy, time to become a man. Go get a spear. We’ve got a battle to win. And if you do very well today, you might even be knighted.”
“You really think so?” Percy asked, hopeful once again.
“It’s not impossible,” Sir Broadsword answered.
Jonathan Percy ran down the steps towards the gatehouse, still carrying his helmet filled with breakfast. The gatehouse, typical of most castles, was the only entrance in — and even though it was heavily fortified, it was still the weakest point in the manor’s defence.
To make the gatehouse less appealing to attackers, the curtain walls which surrounded the castle left only a singular, narrow pathway to the gatehouse door (which itself was fortified). This meant that attackers had to pass single-file through the barbican pathway, break down the barbican door, and then reach the even-more fortified gatehouse entrance — which they would then also have to breach. Meanwhile, the ceiling of the barbican was speckled with holes which would rain with hot oil and arrows and spears on any attackers trying to bash down the barbican door. Percy himself would take a spot along the curtain wall above the barbican, and, armed with a long spear, would stab downwards on intruders. He had high hopes to slaughter many men and be knighted by the end of the day.
This thought was the freshest in his mind when he came upon the gatehouse. Tragically, the porters were just about to close the massive iron door when he reached it, and Percy’s opportunity for knighthood was closing with it.
“Wait!” Percy called, frantic to join the soldiers he could see through the door’s opening. He looked up and saw archers on their perches training their bows on the barbican doorway. Such preparation only happened when the enemy was about to break down the barbican barriers. This worried Percy. If there was no barbican, how would he take his place in it?
“Hurry your skinny arse!” The porter shouted, continuing to heave the gatehouse door shut.
Percy jumped and twisted and barely managed to squeeze through the door. As it closed behind him, he was now past the point of no return. He would either kill or be killed. Or maybe both.
A loud crash shattered his contemplation.
The enemies had smashed a battering ram into the barbican doors. It wasn’t quite clear how they did this, since the barbican was narrow enough to prevent such things from happening, but a battering ram is what made the crashing sound and a battering ram was what was slamming on the door.
A metallic man on a horse reached down and gripped Percy’s arm, and Percy screamed. The knight lifted his visor.
It was Sir Broadsword, looking rather angry.
Percy, too, became angry — Sir Broadsword said he wasn’t going out on his horse!
“Are you going to fight them with your bare hands? Grab a spear and get on top of the barbican as I told you!”
Percy scurried away and hoped he would no longer be judged.
He ran towards the gate and grabbed a spear that was leaning against the wall. It felt light and good in his hand, like he could kill many with it.
With renewed vigour, he slammed his helmet on his head.
He had forgotten that he was using it as a bowl for his Cheerios and goat’s milk, but was swiftly reminded. Blinded by the milk and rings of cereal, he staggered and stumbled, with only his spear to use as a guide. He tried to wipe his eyes, but the milkiness was like glue and the grains of wheat like gritty sand. It hurt worse than swimming in a chlorine pool with your eyes open, grinding salt and lemon juice in them, and then touching an open flame to them. It hurt like hell, to say the least.
A crash startled Percy. The gatehouse door had crashed down with a definitive thud, and a flood of barbarians streamed into the castle like particles from a violent sneeze. Sir Broadsword carried the counterattack, taking on two, five, then ten men at once. He slaughtered them all one-by-one with a combat genius that can only be compared to Keanu Reeves in the third Matrix movie that nobody ever watched. He repelled the whole army back to the gatehouse door, with ease and almost-single-handedly, and for a moment, it looked as though the castle would not be lost that day.
From up on the castle walls, archers whooped, and below, soldiers cheered and joined the attack.
Somebody shouted, “Fuckin’ barbarians!” and it was very unfortunate that Percy only heard the latter word. His delayed — though accurate — association of the crashing of the gatehouse door with the onslaught of the barbarians led him to make a significant mental error.
Still 100 percent blinded by Cheerios, he heaved his spear towards the gatehouse door with every ounce of strength in his body. As the spear flew through the air, he imagined it striking the biggest barbarian right between the eyeballs, and shisk-kabobbing that barbarian into the next two behind him.
As his vision cleared, Percy saw why the castle had fallen silent, and why the archers and soldiers no longer whooped and cheered.
The arrogant but alpha-of-the-castle Sir Billy Broadsword dropped heavily to his knees. Percy’s spear was plunged through his back, and Sir Broadsword could see the point sticking straight out of his chest. He swivelled his head slowly and saw through his helmet-holes that Percy was staring at him guiltily.
“Good throw,” Sir Broadsword finally said, and then died.
Without their Spartan warrior, the castle fell quickly. Many civilians were slaughtered that day, though Percy survived for months by hiding in a sewer and eating rats.
It seemed as though Percy’s wish did come true — he did kill many on that day.
