The Care and Feeding Of Squires:

A Tale from Camelot

 

Agravaine was in over his head.  It was rather too late to make a house call but then the young knight was desperate and Gawain had said to come at any time he needed him.  Perhaps his brother had not meant to come in the middle of the night, but by the time his new squire had casually waltzed back into their shared quarters at a good deal past midnight, by the time the ensuing argument and screaming match on his squire's part had been quieted by Agravaine's ignoring him to go to bed, informing the boy they'd speak of it in the morning, then finding that he couldn't sleep, the time was already getting on.

 

 After another several minutes of lying there in the dark trying to calm his nerves, there had been only one thing for it, which was how Agravaine now found himself slipping to the outskirts of the court and pounding on his brother's door as if this were the greatest of emergencies that had ever been. To Agravaine's own mind it truly was.  Already he was failing the boy, should never have asked him if he'd be his squire, should never have chosen to take one on in the first place or waited a few years or....something, anything else.  But it was far too late to ponder now. He had his squire and he loved him, as he imagined any father might, he just wanted to throttle him right now.

 

"Gawain!" he pounded harder on the little door.  "I know you have to be awake, people with babies don't actually sleep at night."  He joked, though the truth was that Gawain's current youngest was actually walking now. It didn't change the fact that someone was almost always awake in that house though.  "I know it's late but I..."

 

"Let me guess," a scowling Gawain practically ripped the door off its hinges. "You've had a nightmare."

 

"In more ways than one." Agravaine answered, pushing, or attempting to push his way past his brother into the small house. "You have to help me fix it, you're the only one with any real experience with this type of problem in the Court right now..."

 

 Gawain's expectant look, his only response so far, somehow made Agravaine feel worse.

"I've done something that's very stupid." he continued, trying to breathe and failing. "You know..." No, by the way Agravaine knew he was rambling, Gawain probably didn't. "And you’re the one who actually understands how this goes, I mean you have actual children and..."

 

"I refuse to believe you've gotten anyone with child." Gawain was blunt as ever. "At least I didn't think you favored anyone at court lately." he added, ushering Agravaine into the kitchen and towards the table. "Sit down, Catch your breath. You'll manage to make sense then."

 

Always the eldest, Agravaine thought now, though he'd never come to seek wisdom before. That was usually saved for Gareth, Gawain's favorite, who as youngest, tended to inspire that sort of behavior on all of their parts, but Agravaine? He and Gawain had spent their childhood hitting each other and had never quite gone past that stage before.

 

"I never thought..." Agravaine heard himself saying as Gawain set water on for tea. "Of just how hard it is to be responsible for someone else before. I don't understand," he looked up as Gawain sat across from him. "How you manage it and keep your sanity intact and I've only got one."  He sighed again as now, a little calmer, he came down to the real reason for the visit. "I think my squire's out to kill me."

 

"How...what?" Gawain blinked as the last part finally came out. Agravaine could almost see him sighing with relief and then, he did what was to Agravaine, unthinkable. He smirked. Agravaine glared.

 

"How can you find this funny?" he demanded, feeling some of the fear and worry he had felt earlier slipping through, where they had not with Anwas.  "Tonight I didn't even see him until well past midnight. You of all people ought to know how terrifying that is. Or maybe not, none of your sons do that." None that Gawain knew about at least and Agravaine was not the sort to tell tales on his nephews. "He was angry when I tried to talk to him about it and...dammit." Agravaine did not like admitting the next part, but from Gawain's look, he knew he had to.

 

"I...snapped at him too, after a point." Agravaine admitted. "I wanted to shake the boy until he agreed not to do this anymore." he found himself confessing, not sure what was wrong with him on that account. "Or to slap him a few times or...He makes me lose my patience, though I try my hardest not to...maybe he's seeing how far I'll let him go, testing my limits or what have you...All the same..."

 

"Well do you even know what limits are?" Gawain interrupted, rising as he fetched the boiling water, pouring it over tea leaves before passing Agravaine a cup. "God knows neither of us had any. I remember when you were his age..." he added, with a little shudder, "Though, really, with Morgause and her lovers...one can almost see why you did it.”

 

"They deserved all that they got from me and worse." Even years later, Agravaine would stand by that, though he did not wish to spend much time tonight discussing his mother the whore. It was an old conversation, one in which nothing was ever solved and he doubted it ever would be. Doubtlessly, Morgause the trollop was better than Morgause the witch at least, and he could keep that one in mind.

 

"Be that as it may." Gawain continued, sipping at his tea a moment, scrunching up his forehead as he looked straight at Agravaine. "That still does not mean that some of it at least was not some misguided attempt at making them notice you, getting some attention from them, maybe? I’ve always wondered what it was you thought then and…” Gawain shrugged a little. “What you hoped you would accomplish.”

 

What had he been thinking? Ten years later, Agravaine found that he was not entirely sure.  It wasn't as if anyone had much cared what he did, a fact that hadn't really changed so much at Camelot, where he was just Sir Gawain’s younger brother, son of the great witch Morgause, not regarded so much, as anyone in his own right, but a thread of some vast tapestry where he did not matter so much himself. 

 

For a while, this had nearly killed him. Realizing he hadn’t mattered, the young knight had found himself sinking into the selfsame mire of alcohol and sex his own parents had left him as a sort of legacy. It hadn’t been until a year or so ago, he’d come to realize what those patterns were, the ways that they played out, and vowed to stop them. Since then, he’d learned to judge, or thought he had learned to judge, the ways that he at least could care about his own behavior.  The years before this had been lost, he knew it now, regretted them some, and hoped to never put his squire in the…

 

“…Oh.” Agravaine said simply and from Gawain’s sympathetic smile, felt that he had stumbled onto something. “There may be a point in that somewhere.”

 

“Is there ever not?” Gawain pressed. “And besides that, there is the matter of your Anwas. We’ve barely met, I do confess, save for that dinner last month when you’d only just chosen him and…” The older knight shook his head a little. “I’ve wondered so many things about the two of you. You know you’re young for a squire of your own, and you’ve chosen one who seems so…”

 

“Difficult.” Agravaine supplied, feeling almost duty bound to admit that one.  “You can say it, Gawain, because he honestly is most days.”  That difficulty was in fact, the reason Agravaine had chosen the boy, decided that he wanted to take a squire after all. “The thought of him with any other knight…well…”  How did he go about explaining all of it?  Agravaine wondered, thinking back to when he’d met the boy. 

 

“The first thing he did was ask me not to tell Cai where he was.” Agravaine continued now. “It seemed sensible enough, he’s very frank about that sort of thing, and he’s picked up Cai’s sense of humor, but then he’s been at court so long he might as well have.”  After all, Anwas had no father to speak of, his mother had left him for a page when he’d been very young and Agravaine had been struck by the fact, as well as the sense of humor.  “At the time he seemed he’d make a proper squire for a proper knight still…” Agravaine continued, grinning now. “No way one that I could teach, but then…my purse went missing.”

 

“And this indebted you toward him further, how? “ Gawain raised his eyebrows. “Don’t tell me it’s because you went through that stage yourself when you were young. That seems more like a case of the blind leading the blind if you ask me and if he hears that you were a thief yourself…”

 

“He’s hardly a thief!” Agravaine’s protest was vehement enough, no matter how annoyed he might be with the boy at the moment; it gave no one else the right to criticize his squire but himself.  “He has his faults of course…” Agravaine found himself musing now, taking another sip of tea as he thought these things over. “Those might have kept him from being taken on by any of the knights, and while a palace squire could be knighted…it just isn’t the same.” He knew he’d have liked the chance to actually learn something when he’d been young, not thrust into the real world of a knight as he’d been at seventeen. 

 

“How do you know another wouldn’t?” Gawain pressed. “If it’s a matter of that fault alone, surely someone with more experience could deal with it, a firmer hand perhaps than yours…”

 

“Would well have made him worse.” Agravaine snorted a little, finding his older brother almost amusing in that statement he’d just made. “Did I ever respond to that sort of control?  And if Cai hasn’t done it yet in all the years he’s been here, clearly something isn’t working. Either way would have hurt him more, and we’ll not begin discussing what might have happened had someone like you or Lancelot got hold of him.”

 

“And what precisely is so wrong with me?” Gawain raised another eyebrow. “There is nothing wrong with any of my sons and they know how to behave. Lancelot, at least, I can understand why you would say that; the man can barely take care of himself but…”

 

“You’re too impatient, probably a little harsh.” Agravaine had thought this out before, though he’d never dreamed he’d actually say the words before, or even have the chance to say them.  “I think you would expect for him to change at once, willing as you might be to work with him on other things, his faults just can’t be pushed away after he’s been punished for them. Anwas is…” he paused a moment, gathering his thoughts as best he could. “He can’t be rushed into these things; he needs an explanation as to why something is wrong before he understands why he shouldn’t do it.  Not that I am saying I intend to tolerate most of it, or that I have so far."

 

Indeed, there had been many a sullen glance, many a fit of sulking, much hair pulling and sighing on Agravaine's own part, more on his than on the boy’s of course, though he was careful to sound patient and never to shout, even when he most wished to. He’d learned control from this, if nothing else, he thought, a little wryly. “I just think it best that Anwas be eased in slowly. They aren’t all cut from the same cloth so of course the dyeing process will be different. Anwas just…it’s going to take a lot longer. But it’s worth it in the end. He’s going to shine no matter how long we have to work.”

 

 Of this much, Agravaine found that he  was absolutely certain, he had seen too much in his squire’s eyes, his smile when Agravaine had asked him to take up service with him instead of with the court, the stubbornness, determination…if he had had his own son, he didn’t think that he could ask for more than that.  It was a job all right and sometimes…”I think I wasn’t ready.” He heard himself confessing, not sure why he said this now, though it was in fact the truth, “Still there is so much in him that it needed to be begun at once…”

 

"Some people do have that." Gawain agreed, "Though I confess I don't see it so much with him. Still...it's usually the case, isn't it, that only one person sees at first?"

 

"Something like that." Agravaine nodded. "It's there if you look hard enough, Gawain, or know what it is you're looking for." He did, he’d learned to look there right away when he’d first met him. It was still a shame that no one else could see it, but if there was no convincing them yet, Agravaine was willing to wait for it, sometimes goals took longer to achieve than planned.

 

"A good deal like yourself." Gawain considered, giving his brother a nod. "At least I would say that he resembles you."

 

"A little..." Agravaine found himself nodding. "That probably is part of the reason...I suppose I almost know a little, I'd like to make it easier, bring out what I know he's hiding."

 

"And do you think you can?" Gawain's question was simple enough, and his smile softened enough, that it seemed he already knew his brother's answer, though Agravaine wasn't sure how he did that.

 

"No." Agravaine was serious along these lines. "I know I can't. But..."

 

"But you have to." Gawain nodded. "And not even for your own sake."

 

"Exactly." Agravaine relaxed a little, glad Gawain actually did understand as he had suspected he would before he'd snuck out here. "I don't care much about letting myself down, but for Anwas....I couldn't do that. It isn't right to fail him in that way."

"Then you'll remember it." Gawain answered, with all the wisdom that a father and husband who had been there could muster up. "When you have that in mind, you're hardly able to fail them then.”

 

"No." Agravaine found that he was actually smiling now. "It seems I can't. That does however raise the question of how I am supposed to deal with this. If the morning is anything like tonight, explaining my reasons won't do much good, he doesn't seem in the mood to listen to any reason right now.” A new thought crossed his mind as he surveyed his brother. Since Gawain knew so much about it, perhaps he could…

 

“I am not doing your work for you.”  Gawain informed him with a smirk, in that way he had of reading Agravaine’s mind without actually reading it.  Agravaine was half convinced it came with being eldest somehow.  “But it’s going to depend on where you place the most value, what you want most from him, what you’d like to teach him most, where the most problems are right now.” 

 

“Well…I'd like for him to trust me first off." Agravaine mused now thinking out loud. If there was one thing he really didn't like about his squire it was the way he managed to find out about everything the boy had managed to get into secondhand, as if he were afraid to tell him or… “I don’t know. It seems he might be trying for my attention as you suggest but…” he bit his lip a little thinking. “Granted we’ve not spent so much time together this week, it’s no excuse on my part but things conspire…errands for him, patrols for me that I didn’t want to bring him on just yet…”  Twelve year olds were probably too young to hear the full details of the series of rapes two towns over, Agravaine was pretty sure of that even if he didn’t know much else.

 

“Well some nights you just can’t help but come home late, some days you just can’t help but be away.” Gawain sighed a little. “My wife could tell you, probably has at one point or another.” His tone was almost wry here, Agravaine noticed, and he had to smile at that.  “Occupational hazards...knights do have to face them,” Gawain pressed on, “But there's making it up, or trying to, the other times. It never is too late for that.”

 

Dangerously close, Agravaine thought, to urging him into Christianity with the tenants he'd not believed in ever.  Close enough that it was almost uncomfortable. Sighing, Agravaine poured out more tea, taking a long sip before considering his next answer.

 

"We do need that, the both of us. But the rest of what you seem to be suggesting. You know that I'll not be a hypocrite, Gawain."

 

"Even if that is best for him?"

 

Agravaine blinked, and then blinked again.  There was some sort of truth in the question there, in the fact that though Agravaine believed in nothing, it did not mean that he ought to encourage much, by way of his own behavior.

 

"He'd be trying to impress you." Gawain offered. Rather bluntly, Agravaine thought. "The more you mention it...everything that seems to be a problem. Well you have been fairly...you've earned yourself a reputation at this court he would be well aware of. He may half think you wish for him to follow…”

 

"He is twelve." Agravaine shook his head. "Impressionable and with me as his influence...I'm not the best by far." He could be better though, of that much he was certain, he wanted to be better, make the change for both their sakes.  “I’ll try it then.” He found himself agreeing now he’d seen the point of the matter. “If I ask for his own help as well…”

 

“He’d probably love that.” Gawain smirked a little. “And if he’s watching you as closely as I think he might, he’ll have no time of his own to get into any sort of trouble. I’d discuss it soon, along with the rest. Tomorrow, in the morning if you have the time…”

 

"I'll make the time." Agravaine could spare that much, certainly. "Lancelot can handle my patrol tomorrow, he owes me a few favors, Anwas doesn't have any pressing errands to run..." it would be well worth it, he decided, giving Gawain another smile.  "I needed this." He confirmed, setting down his cup. "And I don't mean the tea."

 

"Any time that I can help." Gawain's tone was actually still sincere, though Agravaine would have expected strangulation by this point. "Next time before midnight unless someone is bleeding or there's been a fire but...I'll be here."

 

"I know." Agravaine agreed, pushing back his chair now, retying his cloak and starting for the door. "I'll owe you one." he added, over his shoulder, heading out into the night and back up toward the castle and his rooms. He did not want to think what morning might bring, but now he felt a little better facing it, as if…

 

Halfway there, a cloaked figure bumped into him with a little squeak. Agravaine blinked as his eyes readjusted and he recognized his squire.

 

"You were gone when I came out to...to tell you I'd been wrong." Anwas said simply, his voice shaking a little, though not so much as Agravaine might have expected with his next words. "I don't understand why but...I'd thought you wanted to be rid of me, couldn't stand being there another minute because I...I suppose I'm going to be packing in the morning aren't I?"

 

“What?” Of anything, this shocked Agravaine the most. To think the boy had actually thought… “Of course you won’t be going anywhere.” He added in what he hoped was a reassuring tone, as he place a hand on his squire’s shoulder. “We’ll be having a talk.” And he didn’t know entirely what to say, had his work cut out for him there, but he didn’t mind so much now. “But it won’t be just about you.” he felt the need to add, because the boy still seemed quite unconvinced. “It’s also going to be about me and, we’ll work it out one way or the other, don’t you think?”

 

“We’re supposed to help each other after all.” The squire nodded, grinning a little, and Agravaine relaxed. Somehow he really thought they would now.  For the first moment in a very long time, this squire business didn’t seem so bad.

 

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