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The first time he sees Vincent is in a lake. This lake is well tucked away, reachable by a little dirt road that Thomas happens to stumble upon. It is clearly not the way to the manor he seeks, but as of lately this knight has taken on the habit of walking down strange paths and following pointless little whims. And who can blame him for preferring the quiet comfort of the woods over the whims of his lord client?
The skin of the man in the water glows golden under the sun. His body is thin and muscular, filled with little scars. He is clearly a worker, likely nothing more than a simple farmhand, but something about the man gives Thomas pause. He has the urge to stay hidden and watch him bathe, but his shame at this indecency is greater than the desire and so he walks to the edge of the water and crouches to drink it. He will leave after.
He is noticed, of course. The man looks at him and smiles gently. His face is boyish, and there is something in his eyes that make him seem oddly innocent, though the streaks of grey in his dark hair reveal his age. Thomas smiles back and turns to fill his waterskin. By the time it is full the man is already at the shore and half-dressed. Thomas sees him sit and take a piece of bread out of a small leather bag. Thomas can’t help himself–he stares at it hungrily.
“Would you like some?” the man asks. His timbre is softer than most and pleasant to the ear. He doesn’t wait for an answer, but breaks the bread in half and stretches his arm toward Thomas.
Thomas hadn’t eaten well in days and so he takes it gladly. He wishes he could repay him somehow, but there is not one piece of silver left in his pockets.
He puts the bread in his mouth, thanks the man and leaves. The few bites of nourishment seem only to magnify his hunger, and altogether this episode reminds him that he really ought to go toward his job instead of engaging in vagary. He returns to the main road and goes on until he finds the sign that guides him to the path to the lord’s manor.
He is received there warmly, as wizard-knights usually are. His client orders his servants to lay wine, meat and fruit upon the table, and although he is thankful for the meal, Thomas finds it hard to enjoy the company of the stentorian man dressed in scarlet.
“My problem,” starts the lord as he holds a wine glass, his second, “is thieves. They have not stolen from me so far, but I know there is one that plans to take everything that is mine. His intention is to put my head on a pike and live here as if this home is his birthright.” His voice grows in volume and anger as he speaks, and then becomes quiet and conspiratorial for the first time. “I hear the whispers. He has begun organizing men. He speaks to crowds in the square as if it is him the lord of this land. Bah!”
“And it is this leader that you want me to kill?” Thomas asks.
“Yes,” the lord says. The word kill mollifies him. It is as if his problem is already solved. “Tomorrow night you will be taken to his farm. Take care of him and his companions and I’ll be generous in my reward.”
Thomas nods. That night he sleeps in a room of finery, but the sleep is not restful. He has half the mind to leave the manor in the morning without bothering to explain why, but he has already given up on too many jobs out of immediate antipathy toward his employers and he would like to raise himself out of poverty. Yes, he would like it very much indeed. And perhaps this leader and target is as wicked as the lord says, and so spilling his blood might be just. He holds onto that hope and sharpens his blade in the afternoon. At night he dons his chainmail and the chain which holds his spellbook. The lord didn’t say how many ‘companions’ the future thief has, but Thomas is not afraid.
When the culmination of that night’s moon comes, a servant leads him to his target’s farm. The house on the horizon is small, dark and modest. The boy stays behind in the woods; Thomas walks alone into the fields. He sees from a distance a large, hairy guard dog sitting behind the low wooden fence. The animal widens her eyes, but before she can so much as bark Thomas whispers his magic and she falls asleep like a tired puppy. He walks to the door and stops briefly, listening for voices. When he hears none, he whispers once again. The lock opens.
The moonlight illuminates the inside of the house. It is a poor man’s home, but still very clean and neat. Thomas wonders if this future thief has a wife and children and decides at once that if he does, Thomas will simply leave, and perhaps he can walk to the next village and ask if the local baker would be willing to give a job to an old man who has never done anything with his life except wield a book and a blade. He never minded being an early riser, and who doesn’t like the smell of fresh bread? He could live in it and be happy.
He daydreams of such things as he walks up the stairs, his blade already out of its scabbard. On the first floor all doors are closed except the one at the end of the corridor. Inside the open window lets the light in; the room is bathed in a soft blue clarity, and in it a man sleeps alone in a small bed, his body turned from the door. Thomas walks to his bedside and lays the flat of the blade on the man’s shoulder. He stirs and turns. The man’s eyes open slowly at first and then widen with fear and surprise, but this only lasts a second before a calm, resigned dignity fills his face instead.
“It’s you,” the man says, his voice entirely deprived of the warmth Thomas had heard the day before. “I should have expected it. I knew from the moment I saw you at the lake that you were a powerful man, but you had such kind eyes. Oh, get it over with.”
Thomas’ grip tightens around the hilt of the sword. He is angry at himself most of all. He takes a step back and puts the blade back into the scabbard.
“You should run,” Thomas says. “He will hire another.”
Thomas turns to the door, but before he leaves the room he hears the man’s feet on the floor.
“I’ve never known assassins to be merciful,” the man says.
“I’m not an assassin,” Thomas says. “I’m clearly not fit for it. From today onward I’m a gardener or a baker or some such.”
He walks on but the man follows him, keeping a few steps behind. Once Thomas reaches the bottom of the stairs the man calls out to him.
“Wait!” he says.
There is some measure of warmth in his tone again. Thomas looks at him and sees clear confusion in his features.
“What is your name?” he asks.
“Thomas.”
“Thomas,” the man repeats quietly as if measuring the name to himself, as if he will reach some truth by doing so. He begins to walk down the stairs. “Are you hungry, Thomas?”
“You’re already spared, you needn’t make me dinner,” Thomas says with some humor.
“I’m interested in you,” he says. “My name is Vincent.”
Thomas considers this for a second or two. Truth is, he is interested in Vincent too, and since he won’t return to the lord’s manor now he is in no position to turn down food. He nods.
“Yes, I am hungry,” Thomas says.
Vincent smiles congenially and leads Thomas into the kitchen, where he sits at the little table under the window. Thomas watches him light fires first for the table candle and then for the kettle with a sort of astonished amusement. This man has, with an easy naturality, gone from fear to acceptance of his own death to pleasant host in but a few minutes.
“Tell me about yourself, Thomas,” Vincent says as he takes a meat pie from the oven. “Why have you tried to be an assassin if it’s not the right path for you? It’s not the sort of career one falls into accidentally.” He glances at the sword and book and Thomas’ hip.
“I… I was a knight,” he starts, and is shocked at the sound of his own voice. He doesn’t know why, but he has the urge to tell things to this man that he wouldn’t to others. “A knight to a good king. When he passed, his successor was less than what I hoped for. I couldn’t stay. I have been a vagrant since. I looked for a new lord, but there are not many men worth killing for.” He gives Vincent a half-smile as he lays the plate on the table. “Thank you.” He removes the bulky sword from his hip and leans it against the wall behind his chair.
“My first impression of you was right,” Vincent says as he pours the tea for both of them.
“That I’m a starved vagrant?” he quips.
“That you are a good man.” Vincent sits down across from Thomas. “I saw you hungry by the lake. No wizard-knight ever goes hungry unless he prefers it to killing.”
Thomas feels a stab of pain. A good man? Hearing Vincent say it moves him somehow. He has not been called a good man in a long time, what they call him instead is–
“I’m a deluded old fool,” Thomas says, shamefully, as he looks down at his dark tea. “Nowhere to go, nothing to do.”
Vincent lays a gentle hand atop Thomas’.
“You’re noble,” Vincent says, his dark eyes open and sincere.
Thomas feels heat in his cheeks. All these compliments… He swallows and sighs deeply, and then squeezes Vincent’s hand before taking his away and turning to the food.
“And what about you, Vincent?” Thomas asks as he cuts into the pie, eager to change the subject. “What have you done to earn yourself the ire of a lord? He told me a tale but I doubt it’s true.”
“What has he told you?”
“That you are organizing a revolution, gathering men to take his life and land. He made it seem as if there would be many others here, staying with you.”
Vincent looks very surprised at this.
“Certainly not,” he says. “I have discouraged violence.”
Thomas raises his brow. “But you have encouraged something.”
“I speak to the people and tell them the truth: that he is a cruel and unjust man,” he says. Thomas notices how his voice becomes firmer, righteous, and at once he understands how this man could be a leader. “He takes from us much more than he has any right to, even when the harvest is poor, and gives nothing back. He thinks he owns every woman in the village and acts as if we ought to thank him for our suffering.”
“And what do you all mean to do about it?”
“Pay him no more. He has enough. We intend to bring together our bounties and use them as we see fit. We need to build new wells, and I travelled south in my youth, I saw how their irrigation systems largens the harvest and brings great wealth. We can build them here, too.”
Thomas stares at him with wide eyes. Vincent smiles.
“You mean to oust him as lord. No wonder he wants you dead,” Thomas says.
“I didn’t think it would come to that,” Vincent says. His shoulders sag and he presses his lips together. It’s as if he is remembering that this was meant to be an assassination attempt.
“What did you think it would come to?”
“I don’t wish to become lord of this land. What I see in my dreams is different,” Vincent says with such sincerity that Thomas doesn’t doubt him at all. He is curious about Vincent’s dreams, but now is not the time for idealism.
“My friend, you walk an odd line between worldliness and naïveté.” Thomas leans forward and looks into Vincent’s eyes. He hopes his tone is grave enough to pass some sense into the man. “You will be killed. You need to run away as soon as you can. Tomorrow, if you can manage. I will return to the manor and talk him up, buy you some time, but you mustn't return here.”
“I won’t leave my home,” he says. “If he sends mercenaries we will defend ourselves, but it will be no more than defense. If he opened himself to dialogue this could all be solved in peace and friendship, but he seems to think we are too far below him…”
“He has already sent a mercenary,” Thomas says and straightens up. “You’re lucky I’m an incompetent one. I can tell you’re not a man of war, Vincent, but you’ve set this land up for blood.”
“Then I’ll bleed for it.”
They hold each other’s gaze. Vincent doesn’t waver. Thomas sighs heavily and falls back on his chair.
What is this? It’s all madness. Thomas has seen his share of failed revolutions. They have no hope.
And yet he knows that he couldn’t bear to walk away and leave this man for dead. If he were to go down those dirt roads aimlessly he would feel his heart heavy and his mind troubled. And where else is Thomas to go? He has no home. But if he stays he might die in this little conflict…
Why not? whispers that maddening little voice in the back of his head that has gotten him into trouble so many times. You have nothing to live for anyway. Perhaps, here, there could be purpose.
And he listens to it, of course. It’s all he ever does.
“Would you be interested in hiring me?”
Vincent’s eyes, which had flown far away in reverie, snap back to Thomas. The candlelight dances in their blackness. He is fire itself.
“I couldn’t possibly pay you.”
“If you give me a cot and more pies I’ll be satisfied. This one was quite good.” He smiles and sets down his fork.
The joy that he sees in Vincent’s face fills him with warmth. The path is set. He will be this man’s knight.
“I hire you,” Vincent says. “You’ll eat well.”
Thomas rises from his chair and kneels on one knee in front of Vincent.
“Sir Thomas Lawrence, at your service.”
He keeps his head low. This small act of solemnity soothes Thomas. When he looks up, he sees Vincent’s smile.