HARRY BOLTMORE

“What’d ya see, Pyp?”

“A poacher’s son’s what I see, Walder.”

“What kinda, Pyp?”

“A stupid one!”

They glowered before him, laughing and mocking, three of them. One was Pyp, a copper-skinned boy, fat like a seasoned ham with an oily face like that of a pig, and a nose revelling in a battle with the snot dancing above his big lips, which was curved into a stupid grin. One glance and no one would believe he was of age to wield the sword. Harry wondered if he was even able to wield anything besides a running nose. 

Another, who stood at an arm’s length from Pyp, was Walder. He was worse to be honest. He looked pale and underfed, and bore the risk of snapping in half if he ever tried to lift a real sword; Pyp might be more of a man than he was. His face was an ugly one, housing a crooked nose and messy hair of muddy colour; he as well, was wearing the same stupid grin as Pyp. Ravens be good, Harry did not know whose face he hated to behold the most. 

The last one of the three moseyed from behind Pyp and Walder, pushing them aside as he did. He, who was bestowed the name Drustan Gararic, looked their leader, and wore the same stupid grin as the other two, but stood more likely of a man than them both. He had long, shaggy hair of honey-blonde, and above his upper lip the shadow of a moustache manifested. 

Harry bade watch the mocking glare the boy showered him with from the doorstep he sat on. He hated him no more than he hated Pyp and Walder, but he would rather stare at his face, than let his eyes repeatedly bleed from the ugly appeal the other two bore. 

“What do you want?” Harry asked faintly, already growing tired of exchanging sight with Drustan and his minions.

Drustan Gararic cackled, and so did Pyp and Walder. They were like flies, buzzing about Drustan with no mind of their own; Harry had never seen people more annoying throughout the realm in his seventeen years of life, and he was not sure if he would.

“Did you hear that, boys,” Drustan jested, taking short glances at Pyp and Walder before returning it to Harry, his insulting grin unrelenting. “He speaks. The poacher’s son speaks.”

Fat Pyp laughed a short laugh, and so did Pale Walder. “He speaks to Lord Drustan, Walder.” The sound of Pyp relentlessly dragging back his falling snot into his nose, frustrated Harry beyond reasoning. What sort of man had a snot fall from his nose?

“He a stupid one alright. No one dares speak to Lord Drustan the great,” Pale Walder said, his voice as crooked as his nose. 

Harry lowered his eyes and sighed wearily. It was the same each time he came to town on the fifth day of every week; these boys playing men were always there, coming to make his wait ever more daunting than it already was. They were like an infection that would not cease to leave him be. 

“You dare not lower your eyes when I stand before you!” Drustan’s brows knitted in a strong frown of disdain as he roared, making sure Harry’s flailing attention did not fully leave him.

“Your eyes up, maggot!” Pale Walder tsked.

“Yes, raise your eyes!” Fat Pyp chipped in as well.

The pair of mindless fools both took a step forward, but just enough that they retained their positions behind their ever so lordly, Drustan, all the while allowing their brows to join his in a knitted frown—theirs might have been even stronger.

Harry sighed again. “I dare not speak and I dare not lower my eyes. What would you have me do then, m’lord?” His plain, little mockery of Drustan flew over their heads, as he adhered to their commands by giving their eyes his, or to be factual, giving Drustan’s eyes his, he would not have himself suffer any more than he was already, by looking upon the other two.

Drustan scoffed, then took quick, short glances at Pyp and Walder before saying to Harry, “I hear you plan to fight at the tourney, maggot. Partake in the battle of the Kingsknight?” 

“The word is as true as you heard,” Harry answered sharply, his plain face raised into a watch on Drustan’s, which had slowly begun to grimace into a frown.

“You? A Kingsknight? Bloody hell. Hear that, Pyp? The bloody wanker wants to stand beside the king.” Walder guffawed, eyeing Harry disgustingly as he did. 

“I hear, Walder. Told you he’s stupid,” Pyp answered, his snot receding as his lips danced chaotically.

“Shut up, both of you! Do not talk when I’m talking!” Drustan turned over to them and barked, then swung a ferocious gaze back to Harry, as his cheeks tinted a soft red. “A poacher’s son on the lists would stain the kingdom, and my name. You shall not ride where I shall ride. I am the only one in Old Town worthy of becoming a Kingsknight. Do you hear that, maggot? You shall not fight!”

“Why not? Why should I give ears to your nonsense.” Harry had touched his limit. He hated quarrels, but now, where he sat, he had grown tired of letting these boys trample all over whatever manly pride he had left. “Aye, my father’s a poacher, but what does that have to do with me? The poacher’s my father, not I. And you, you self-proclaimed yourself a lord, but in reality, you’re just the child of an ironsmith, walking around with a man-pig and a withered stick for men; we are all down in the food chain, all three of us, so why should I have to take orders from you? And truth be told, I reckon I could take three of you in a fight… all at once.”

That was it, that was the driving force, the red was all over Drustan’s screwed face now, visible in the raining light of the sun. Harry had successfully angered him, and as well, Pyp and Walder, but he did not falter, he did not care, he was confident in himself, and very well believed that he could beat all three of them. They stood no chance, he was sure. 

“You maggot!” Drustan lunged forward red with anger, and grabbed Harry by the collar of his overly and lazily patched green and brown tunic. Harry watched him without saying a word, his plain and veiled face unabated. It angered the honey-blonde haired boy more so, the sickening fact that Harry just sat there and watched him with a straight face. He hated it, he hated him, he wanted to beat a painful reaction out of that face. 

His palm tightened into a fist, and in return, Harry’s eyes finally left the watch of his face, to sneak a glance at his tightened knuckles. But as Drustan threw his hand backward in an attempt to swing a blow towards Harry’s left cheek, the wooden door of the doorstep Harry had taken for his seat, gave way with a creak, and a husky voice swept forth from it, putting an end to the swing before it even began. 

“Not at my door, brats.” 

Pyp and Walder, and Drustan, who still held Harry’s tunic collar tightly, raised their eyes to the man who emerged from the door. They knew who he was, everyone knew who he was. He was a man who stood beside King Sargon Ravenswood the first, and fought for him, the man whose position Drustan wanted to acquire; the retired Kingsknight: Ser Gale Mormont. His face was a craggy one layered with a heavy, unshaven stubble of black. The tunic of white which sheltered his body, made little effort to hide the muscly arms he had honed from years of wielding the sword for his king, if not for his face, no one would believe he was well into his fifties. 

“What’re you glaring at? Be off with you; take your squabbles somewhere else.”

Drustan breathed a vicious exhale, unwillingly letting go of Harry’s collar as he did. “See you at the lists, maggot,” he threatened, but Harry ignored him, choosing to focus his attention on straightening his collar, which had become somewhat rumpled from the earlier exchange, rather than feed Drustan’s ego with a word of reply. But he did feed something else of Drustan’s, knowingly or not, he fed it, he fed his rage. Drustan shivered with anger, so much that he had to tense his fists to help calm himself. 

“Let’s go,” Drustan said to Pyp and Walder as they turned around and walked away. 

“And you, boy.” Gale Mormont lowered his gaze at Harry, who still sat at his doorstep straightening his collar. “Here.” He threw a stringed, small packet of parchment onto Harry’s laps. “That makes it ten silvers.”

Harry let his collar free, picking up the parchment as he gently jumped to his feet, and turned around to meet Gale Mormont’s face. “I’ll pay it all, I swear it.” He bowed.

“And how would you do that?” The retired Kingsknight tugged his arms into a fold, as he watched the boy’s lowered head. “Do you have a job?”

“No,” Harry replied. “But…”

“But you’ll win the tourney and become the Kingsknight that I once was, is that it?” Gale Mormont completed Harry’s words. “Your delusion will be the end of you, little man.”

“It’s not a delusion!” Harry’s face had emotions strike it for a second as he looked up, startling Gale Mormont’s brows to a twitch, before it faded as quick as it came. “I will win and become the Kingsknight that you were, Ser Gale. I know it.” He lowered his head again.

“Cease the Ser, boy. I no longer wield the sword.” Gale Mormont sighed and turned around to make his way into his abode, but then he halted, and posed a question which had struck his mind. “Do you even have one? A sword?”

Harry raised his eyes to the broad back of the retired Kingsknight. “No… not yet. But I will find one before the tourney.”

“The tourney is less than a fortnight away, boy. It takes two fortnights for a smith to forge a good sword.” 

Harry’s face scrunched at the realisation, and his mind began to wander restlessly. He needed this tourney, there was no other way for him, no other way he could think of. 

“Come before you depart for the tourney. I shall let you have my blade.” 

Harry’s eyes swole brightly, at least as bright as he could get it. “Thank you. Thank you,” he kept pouring words of thanks, as his head fell into a bow again, until the sound of the door shutting tingled his ears. 

When Harry arrived at his home, a one-room, tiny cruck house a tad away from the crux of town, he was greeted by an unrelenting barrage of dry coughs. He sauntered beside the coughing man with a pallid skin, who lay tiredly on a bed of straw at the edge of the room, his neck reddened because of his almost never-ending coughs. 

The man, Larry Boltmore, was Harry’s father, and shared the same hair colour of dark-blonde as his son, but his had become daubed with grey here and there over his head. Harry placed his palm on his father’s forehead; it was burning, almost as hot as a cooking pot of pottage. “It’s become hotter than before I left,” Harry whispered. 

“Harry, is that you?” Larry Boltmore spoke in between ragged, wheezing breaths. “Where did you go off to?” 

Harry removed his hand from his father’s forehead, and walked to the open stone hearth at the centre of the room, squatting down as he began to arrange a few chopped logs of firewood in it. “I went to get your medicine. Wait a little bit, I’ll make soup with whatever we have left,” he said.

“Medicine… We don’t even have the money to pay for that. There comes another debt.” Larry coughed weakly. “I’m sorry, Harry. I’m such a useless Father. I should be the one taking care of you, but I’m making you take care of me instead. I’m so sorry.” 

Harry kissed flint with the steel of a knife to spark the start of fire in the hearth, then pushed himself up, and walked to the corner of the room to pick the large pot seated languidly. “I’m doing it for Mother either way,” Harry murmured sullenly. “You should stop talking and rest, it’ll take a while for the soup to be ready.”