Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
The word hammered in his head, keeping time with the relentless tapping of the rain. It whispered through the canopy of the great oak, a cold, insistent drizzle that soaked through his woolen cloak until the fabric felt like a sheet of lead against his spine. He pressed his back into the rough, grooved bark of the trunk, seeking any sliver of sanctuary the ancient tree might offer against the wind.
He shivered.
If he were a knight of substance, a man with a name that carried weight in the gilded halls of the South, he would be dry. He would be sitting within the high, silk-lined walls of a pavilion, watching the rain through a silver goblet of spiced wine while a squire oiled his plate and sharpened his steel.
But he was none of those things. He was not rich, he was not known, and he had no experience beyond the ache in his belly and the weight of a sword he barely knew how to wield.
His father never trained him much...
