She was back now though, and the place had picked up her energy.
Marloynne and Ashlyn also lived with the McGees. Pete and Ashlyn had become instant friends from the moment Pete stood up to King Cyril the Dead-and-Buried’s guards. The friendship had grown, and was solidified when Pete saved Marloynne from the King and reunited him with his true love, Ashlyn.
Both Marloynne and Ashlyn had worked in the castle. With the death of King Cyril the Exploding-Head, a new King had been inaugurated. His name was King Rayon, which Pete thought was extremely kingly sounding, a much better name for a king than Cyril.
King Rayon had reinstated Ashlyn and Marloynne to the castle. The jobs didn’t pay much, but with Mrs McGee also back to full health and able to pick up some work here and there, it meant more money than the McGees had seen in a long, long time. The extra hands around the house also meant that the crops they tended flourished, the house was cleaner, they had healthier animals and were even able to get another chicken.
Things were good.
Things were, in fact, AWESOME! It was the day of Pete McGee’s fourteenth birthday. This was the age that young men were eligible to train with a mentor, to learn and to grow so that they may one day become a great knight. This was, and had always been, Pete’s dream. Sir Pete McGee. Imagine. Sir Pete McGee. He dreamed it for himself and he dreamed it for his mother, who had always told him he could be anything, that he would show the world just how great a man with one arm could be. He wanted to prove her right again and again.
Not that he thought about it a lot anymore, but at times like this it struck home … he only had one arm. No other knight had any disability of any kind. They were like the perfect humans. Tall, strong, muscular, skilful. They had it all. Perfect hair. Perfect stance. They even all had that chiselled jaw that made them look like their parents hadn’t had a baby the normal way, but had got a huge rock, chiselled away at it for nine months, and made a rock baby that grew into a looked-like-he-was-carved-out-of-rock man.
Pete didn’t look like he had been carved out of rock. If he had been, his parents mustn’t have been great stone masons. There was his missing arm, for starters, which made it look like they’d begun chiselling too close to the edge.
He was skinny too, although extra money meant extra food, and Pete was starting to bulk up a little. Only a little though, and he still looked like he would blow away in a strong wind.
His hair was messy, like they had gotten bored with chiselling, and it was also a little long, probably because there had been some spare rock at the top.
In a small way it bothered Pete, being who he was. Mainly though, he just wanted to be a knight. His mum believed in him, he knew that, and that was what had seen him through his last quest. So knights were usually big and strong and broad-shouldered and chisel-jawed … so what? No-one had ever gotten the Wilderene Flower either, and he did that, so ner!
That’s what he thought … so ner. Yes, sometimes Pete McGee could be as mature (not!) as anyone else.
But now he was fourteen. He had a chance to become a knight by name. He knew there were rules, things he should have already done, certain families he should have been born into. He knew these things stood in his way, but he was determined to overcome them. He knew he could overcome them. His mum always told him to abide by rules, but come on! These rules were like three hundred years old and rules could be bent and King Rayon was kind of cool and Pete was sure … he stopped thinking about all of that. He would deal with the rules when it was time.
Right now, even though he was fourteen and aimed to be a great knight, there was still plenty of time to be a normal kid. This meant he needed to wake up his mum, Ashlyn and Marloynne. It was present time!
King Rayon stood in his chambers. He was not an overly tall man, yet he seemed tall. It was in the way he carried himself, his aura. His broad shoulders looked as though they could support any weight placed upon them, although his skinny little legs looked as though they could be snapped like a toothpick.
The King walked around his room, his thoughts turning to the events of the day. A speech; a meeting with rich people who wanted lower taxes so they could have more money; lunch; another meeting with the same rich people who, along with wanting the lower taxes, also wanted better roads.
After that was what King Rayon looked forward to. Meeting the future knights of the realm and attaching them to the knight who would train them. This really was a great day. Any lad who had turned fourteen during the past twelve months could apply, although, even as he thought this, he knew it wasn’t true.
There were limited spots for new trainee knights. Those who had served as a page in a lord’s castle; those who had money; they were the ones who were chosen.
He would not even see many of the down-and-outers, for they knew how things worked. They knew which boys would be selected.
King Rayon knew something of down-and-outers. Not that he hadn’t been born into a rich family, for he had. In fact, his family had been so rich that their horses slept in their own rooms. That’s right, the horses had their own section of the house! No stables for them.
Rayon and his family ate caviar and other rich-sounding food for breakfast, and their servants rode around on prancing horses. Not just outside either, but even when delivering food from the kitchen to the dining area.
Clothes would not be washed. A new outfit would simply be bought once a speck of dirt appeared on the old clothes.
So they were rich. Not filthy rich, because they just kept buying clothes, but they were rich all the same.
Rayon, at age seven, received the opposite in tuition to that of a future knight. He was not sent to work for a lord. He was, in fact, sent to work as a farm boy for one of the poorer families in the district. This was part of his parents’ plan to let him experience all sides of life. They knew that he was seventh in line for the royal throne, and they wanted him to be able to relate not only to the upper class, but also the middle, lower, and lowest-of-the-low classes. That was what they believed would make a great king, and so Rayon was sent off to experience all that being a peasant could offer.
Don’t feel too sorry for him though. From the age of twelve, Rayon was trained by the best archers in the land; from the age of fourteen he received training in, well, basically anything he wanted with the best in that particular field. At the age of sixteen, Rayon was sent off to experience other cultures. He travelled for a year in all, fully paid for by his parents. So along with having to, as many saw it, lower himself to work with peasants, he got to see the good side of life as well.
At twenty-nine, Rayon received notice that King Cyril the Unloved had perished and that he, Rayon, was to become King. This was a shock as, although his parents knew he was in line to become King, they had forgotten to pass on this fairly important information to Rayon. They hadn’t told him why he had been sent off to have all these adventures. They had just said that it would be good experience for when he was older.
He had believed them, and why wouldn’t he? He was actually glad he hadn’t known about the king stuff, because it could have gone to his head. As it was, when the call came he was ready, fully grounded in who he was and confident in his abilities to do anything. Which was lucky, because he had to lead a country as their king!
Rayon sighed and sat on the royal toilet, the news of the day in his hand. He knew he would see sons of noblemen today, but he hoped they had some spark. He hoped there was more to them than the families they had been born into. He also hoped against hope that some of the poorer young men would not be put off by the odds that were against them, and would proudly come forth. With that thought he opened the news of the day, began to read, and began to empty the royal bowels.