A Knight of Contradictions Read online

  “What is it? I’m going to the bathroom.”

  “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t fall in with that tiny body of yours.”

  “How dare you insult me? If you don’t apologize right now, I’ll tell the king and—”

  “And what? Get me replaced? I’m the only knight you’re going to get, and from what I’ve heard about this battle for the throne, you’ll need me.”

  “I don’t need you. I can take care of myself.”

  “Whatever, just make sure you wipe yourself clean. Don’t want to ruin your favorite dress.”

  Leaving the bathroom, she went back to her room, knight in tow. Once she arrived, Anna rang her bell for the servants to come and get her ready for bed. She got dressed and climbed into bed.

  Looking at her knight, she said, “Good night.”

  “Good night. Don’t let your siblings kill you in your sleep.”

  Anna just gave him a dirty look and rolled over.

  Chapter 2

  Anna was rudely awakened by a metal finger poking into her cheek. Opening one of her eyes, she saw her knight’s featureless face staring at hers. She looked outside the window, realized it was still dark out, and rolled back over. Anna’s eyes had been closed for all of two seconds when she felt that same finger poking her again. Frustrated, she pulled up her blankets over her head and hoped he would go away. Sadly, he just jumped onto the bed and started bouncing.

  “What!? What is it!? The sun hasn’t even come up yet. What do you want?” she said, fed up.

  “Just wanted to say hi. So…hi.”

  “Get out of my room and let me sleep, now.”

  “Can’t leave you by yourself.”

  “Could you at least let me sleep? I don’t have to be up for another hour,” she complained.

  “But I’m bored. Unlike you, I don’t have to sleep. And I can’t go anywhere, so I’m stuck here until you wake up. So, come on, you’ve slept enough. What’s that saying? The early bird gets the worm,” her knight said, standing up.

  “Yeah, and the second mouse gets the cheese. It’s your job to stand there and do nothing until I say so. Now shut up and leave me alone.”

  “Princess,” her knight whined. “Princess, come on. Just get up, please. Pretty please? I’ll make you some tea…”

  Throwing off her covers, Anna got up and said, “Fine! Fine! I’m getting up. It’s obvious I’m not going back to sleep. Just…just get me some tea while I ring for the servants.”

  “Hurray!” he said, going off to make a fire in the small slate fireplace to boil the water.

  Rubbing her eyes, Anna grumbled as she rang the bell for the servants. They were no happier than Anna to be up preparing for what was to be a very long day. Her favorite dress donned, Anna sat down at her small mahogany table set and drank that too-sweet tea. She could have had the servants light some torches, but the sun was just coming up anyway, so there wasn’t any real reason. The whole time, her knight was pacing around, desperate to get out of the room, so as payback Anna waited a little longer than necessary to go down to breakfast. Once she was hungry enough, Anna decided to head down and enjoy a little something.

  As she and her knight were walking the hall, the guards were just changing shifts, and the servants were all bustling about preparing for the new day. Unlike most other nobles, she actually took the time to greet the people beneath her and get to know them. It was a little secret she knew—that if you were genuinely kind to them, so were they to you. This way of thinking made sure Anna never had any nasty surprises pop up during the day, such as finding any bugs crawling around in her bed or food.

  Sitting at the table, Anna once again was the only one of her family to be there. Her siblings only dined together on very special occasions, and breakfast wasn’t one of them. They were either away at their own homes, being too old to live with their father, or just not very social, too preoccupied with their own lives. Sighing, she was given her meal of scrambled eggs and roasted pheasant with a cold glass of milk (in hopes it would help her develop a bit). After Anna thanked the chef, she began cutting into her food in a very dignified, precise manner. After a while, she noticed that her knight was staring at the food. Anna realized what was wrong.

  “That’s right, you can’t eat anything,” she said, feeling a little bad.

  “Yeah, I may not be able to eat it or even smell it, but it sure looks great,” he said, picking at some of the pheasant.

  “I’m sorry, it’s rude of me to eat in front of you like this.”

  “No, no, it’s all right. Just another thing I have to get used to.”

  After a moment she said, “Actually, I used to eat breakfast with my old servant all the time—

  one who could actually eat is what I’m saying, and…I miss him.”

  “Just something you’ll have to get used to,” he replied in his usual manner.

  “Yeah, I guess I will.”

  Finishing up, Anna wiped her mouth clean and excused herself from the table. Tomorrow was the first day of school, which left her with a little free time. Trying to forget her old friend turned out to be challenging, as Anna’s first inclination was to read her favorite book that she had given to him. Finding something that didn’t remind her of him became increasingly difficult, as they had done everything together. For the first time since Anna had met him, she was actually thankful for her knight’s remarks, as they kept her thoroughly distracted. Of course, that didn’t mean it was any less annoying, but what was she to do? Deciding to do some light reading, Anna went to the royal library to find a book she could take back to her room.

  The sight that greeted Anna when she stepped through those doors always took her breath away. Books stowed away on shelves twenty times as tall as her and even wider lined the room. There were books of every kind, big and small, old and new, fiction to the very beginning of history. The library had it all, and these were just the books she could get at. Locked behind a nondescript door, tucked away in the corner, was a room that held some of the kingdom’s most powerful and darkest secrets. There were a few times she’d been tempted to break in there, but Anna had always decided against it. The idea gave Anna the feeling it would cause her far too much trouble. So she scanned the shelves in no real hurry to find a book, until a bright red one caught her eye. The only problem was that it was at the very top of the shelves, so she would need a ladder to get it.

  “Could you please get me one of those ladders so I can get that book?” she asked her knight.

  “Which book? I’ll just get it for you.”

  “The bright red one at the very top. Now, let’s find a ladder and—what are you doing?” she screamed in shock.

  It seemed that her knight had decided that he didn’t need a ladder, and he’d started climbing the shelves like a monkey. Horrified, Anna started yelling at him to get down, but he just waved her off. Finally, he reached the top.

  Calling down, he asked, “Which book is it?”

  “Uh…um…it’s the small book to your left,” she called back.

  “This one?” he said, grabbing the nearest to his hand.

  “No, the red one.”

  “There’re like three red ones up here.” He shifted around.

  “The bright one. It looks like a—oh, be careful! You’re going to fall, you fool.”

  Swinging out his arm wide, he said, “As if I, your amazing knight, would ever be so stupid as to—did you hear something?”

  Turns out the shelves had a precise equilibrium, and the metal primate fooling around at the top undid that balance. Her knight tried climbing down, but the damage was done. The shelf fell forward and slammed into the one in front of it. Thankfully, next in line was a wall, so the chain reaction stopped there, but more than enough books fell to cause a great mess. Having been able to jump out of the way, Anna had avoided any damage, but she
couldn’t find her knight in the giant pile. Sifting through books, she tried to calm herself by thinking about how indestructible he was supposed to be. That was, until she found his detached hand. Scared out of her mind, thinking she had just broken her knight not even a day after she got him, Anna started tossing books out of her way to find him, and finally she did. He was separated into pieces, strewn throughout the books like a broken doll. She picked up his head and cradled it in her arms, on the verge of tears, when she heard laughing.

  “Oh, my god, you should have seen the look on your face. It was hilarious!” Her knight laughed.

  “You…you…you jerk!” she screamed, throwing his head away from her.

  “What? What did I do?”

  “You actually had me worried about you. Were you even hurt?”

  “No. I can’t feel pain, and I was the one who separated my body into pieces. I can do that, but I do have a problem putting myself back together,” he said, shrugging his dislocated shoulders.

  Anna just turned on her heel and walked out of the library, leaving her knight to put himself back together. It was several hours later at lunch when he finally reappeared, whole again. Anna didn’t even want to look at him she was so angry. So she ate her lunch in silence. He came up to her and stood there with his hands behind his back, staring at her, until, finally, she relented.

  “What do you want?”

  Pulling the bright red book from behind his back, he said, “Look at what I got.”

  “Humph,” she said, grabbing the book from him.

  Excusing herself, Anna went back to her room so that she could read in peace. She couldn’t help but get a little excited on the way after reading the title of the book, Swords of Love. Hopefully, it was full of adventure, heroes, love, and maybe some naughty stuff if she was lucky. Looking back at her knight, Anna realized that she couldn’t possibly let him see what was in this. No doubt he’d make fun of her for it. So, when she got back to her room, Anna closed the door on him and locked it. He started yelling at her to open the door, but she ignored him and just read her book. It was exactly like she wanted it to be, and this made Anna even angrier that her life had taken such an unwanted turn.

  Why couldn’t he have been like one of the knights Anna read about? But no, he had to be a wisecracking jerk. From the servants’ whispering and what she knew, his being like this was unprecedented, and no one could figure out why he was acting this way. The knight was so strange. He was acting completely randomly, like a newborn figuring out how its body worked. It was really beginning to get on Anna’s nerves.

  But what could she do about it? Unless…that’s it! Maybe he’s defective. Could she ask for a new one? It would be unheard of, but so had been everything before this. Why not? Anna would ask her father for a new knight, and everything would be as it was supposed to be.

  Closing her book, Anna rang for her servants. When they arrived, she told them to ask for an audience with the king. Even being the princess and his daughter, it was difficult to tell whether or not he’d grant her this, but she had to try. Anna didn’t bother explaining the situation to her knight, for he would be gone soon anyway. A servant came back saying that her audience had been granted. As fast as protocol would allow her, Anna made her way to the throne room with her knight close behind.

  Anna had stood in front of the same doors only a day before. They opened, and she stepped forward. It was different from yesterday. Only her father, stonelike on the throne, was the same. Everything else was gray and cold as ice. This time, to make Anna even more frightened, her father’s knight stood by him, an ever-constant presence, save for those few times when he would dampen the mood of the event. Ironically, he looked somewhat similar to her present knight, only better. His white mantle was emblazoned with the symbol of their kingdom and his cloak was a rich, royal purple. For a weapon, he had a large zweihänder, and, like the rest of him, it had played part in many a battle. Reaching him, Anna’s own knight knelt and pledged himself to the king. Her father initiated the conversation.

  “Hello, Princess Anna. It is strange to see you two days in a row,” her father said in an emotionless voice.

  Trying not to get ahead of herself, Anna spoke softly and slowly. “Hello, Your Majesty. I’ve come to talk to you about my knight.”

  “Ah, yes, an even stranger thing. What of it?”

  “Well, like you say, h—it—is a strange thing indeed, and I would like to know if this could be fixed somehow.”

  “Fixed?” The king stood at full height. “There is no fixing this, for nothing is broken. It is your knight, and that is all there is to it.”

  “But…but…I don’t like him, and he obviously doesn’t like me,” she burst out.

  “Like? Liking has nothing to do with it. It does not feel anything. And as annoying, as shameful, as defective as it may be, it will do its job protecting you even if it brings its own destruction from it. It is yours to command, and maybe if you had a backbone like your brothers and sisters, it’d actually listen to you. Now, if you’re done with this foolishness, leave me.”

  Utterly defeated, Anna said, “Y-yes, Your Majesty.”

  Turning around, Anna did her best to hide her tears as she left the throne room. Her knight followed in silence back to the room. Anna didn’t even care that she had missed dinner. She was so angry at her knight, her father, her life—but mostly at herself for being so stupid. She cried well into the night and had more nightmares just like before, only now there was no light.

  Chapter 3

  Anna was still furious with her knight, and he clearly got the message. He didn’t say anything while she was getting ready for school. Anna went about collecting her things that she would need, like ink, pens, paper, textbooks, and her unbearably stuffy uniform. It was a simple silver and black dress—the boys wore a two-piece suit—and it showed that she was attending Thales, the school of the nobility. This school taught the many things a noble would have to know to lead a successful life, such as the sciences, arts, English, and little mannerisms they’d need.

  Of course, there was one class that Anna was really interested in, and that was magic. Magic was an art known only to the nobles and was a highly coveted secret kept from the commoners. This was the first year she would be able to practice real magic, not just learn about the history and theories behind it. It also caused her great anxiety, as the number of nobles who had been born able to do magic had gone down over the years. It had stabilized within her lifetime, thankfully, but Anna was still worried because she’d had less of a chance to actually do it than those before her. Stepping into her personal carriage, her knight close behind her, Anna said hello to her long-time chauffeur, William, a man who was the stereotypical father, jokes and all. His uniform consisted of a black tailcoat and a matching cap to accompany it. Anna thought it better suited to a young boy, not a middle-aged man with a five-o’clock shadow and receding hairline.

  “Hello, Bill, how are you today?” she said with a bow.

  “Now, Princess, you’re supposed to call me William like everyone else.”

  “Please, we’ve known each other long enough that I can call you that. Just like I’ve said you can call me Anna.”

  “How about we compromise with Princess Anna? And we’ll, uh, just keep the other thing a secret between us,” Bill whispered with a smile.

  “Fair enough. Now, Bill, you know where to take me.”

  “Of course, Princess Anna. But first, can I take a look at your knight?”

  “Oh, well…”

  “This thing certainly is something, all right. Just look at the shine on it. And those weapons, woo, pretty cool,” Bill said as he poked her knight in the face.

  “Listen, Pops, I’d prefer if you didn’t smudge me.”

  Bill jumped back. “Good god, I thought they were just rumors, but he really can talk.”

  “Yes, s
adly he has full use of his vocal abilities. Come on, you two, we don’t want to be late on the first day of school,” she said with a clap of her hands.

  Bill got up on his seat and got the horses ready. Anna held the door open for her knight. Bill looked back at her with a nervous look on his face, finally saying, “Uh, Princess Anna, I know you were allowed to have your old servant ride with you, but these knights are—”

  “Considered less than even those worthless slaves,” her knight finished for him. “I’ll walk to the side and keep watch like I am supposed to.”

  “Oh, right, you do that then,” she said, shutting the door, a bit uncomfortable making her knight walk.

  Anna kept forgetting that, to the nobles, the knights were considered the lowest of the low and treated as such. Unlike her old servant, Anna couldn’t even use the defense for the knight that he was a human being, considering a knight was just hollow metal. To take her mind off it, Anna looked out the window. She rode down the well-paved streets of the inner circle of the city and saw other students riding in their own custom carriages. Each one had a different knight right alongside it. Apparently, everything was just as it should be—everything except her.

  It was only a few minutes’ drive, and Anna had done it a thousand times. Still, she always liked to look at the other nobles’ homes. All were unique, but Anna was able to tell the position of who lived there based on the décor of the building. There were the political ones focused more on intimidation rather than beauty. Then there were the religious people with all their flowery, holy stuff stuck everywhere. There were also the regular do-nothing nobles who went for sheer opulence.

  The one thing she had noticed over the years was that the farther away they got from the center of the city, her home, the smaller and less attractive the residences seemed to become. Before she knew it, they had arrived at the school, an old castle that had been refurbished for the noble youth. Actually, Anna had learned in history class that it had been the first royal castle, until her great-great-grandmother, Sucilia, had decided on an upgrade.