| Gone Knight |
| Summary: | Ser Jarod Rivers informs Squire Caytiv Hill that his knight, and his sister's fiance, is gone knight gone. |
| Date: | 25/09/288 |
| Related Logs: | May the Warrior Guide Me |
| Players: |
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| Courtyard — Four Eagles Tower |
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| The Courtyard of Four Eagles Tower is floored with a fine grey stone that match the color and tone of the interior structure of the castle's yard. Plants have been potted and placed around the entrances to add some color, the greenery accompanied by several trellises of flowers that climb the support columns. The most prominent structure in the area is the set of large slab steps that lead up to the great oak doors of the Great Hall. Several hallways and accesses lead off into different sections of Four Eagles which makes this the hub of noble activity when court is not being held. |
| Sun Sep 25, 288 |
The Courtyard of Four Eagles Tower is floored with a fine grey stone that match the color and tone of the interior structure of the castle's yard. Plants have been potted and placed around the entrances to add some color, the greenery accompanied by several trellises of flowers that climb the support columns. The most prominent structure in the area is the set of large slab steps that lead up to the great oak doors of the Great Hall. Several hallways and accesses lead off into different sections of Four Eagles which makes this the hub of noble activity when court is not being held.
Jarod is up early. At an hour most still haven't managed to wandered down to breakfast. He strides out of the castle, dressed in a leather jerkin atop his standard green tunic, sword at his hip. He's not alone, walking with a small cluster of guardsmen, to whom he seems to be issuing instructions. "Payte, Alen. Head down Stonebridge way. Be discreet, but see if you can ask some questions at the river crossings, as well as the stables and the like. See if he managed to get a transport. I'll like as join you on the morrow. The rest of you, ride out of the trails heading east, the ones off the main roads, see if you can pick up some sign of him there." The instructions are crisp enough, though Ser Rivers himself looks somewhat ragged. Unshaved, and still clearly shaking off the tiredness of the night. He looks as if he either didn't get too much sleep or perhaps spent too much time in a wine flagon the night before. Or both. Both is always a possibility.
Caytiv has always been somewhat allied in nature to the cock, his strutting done before the sunset and the lad up again hours before the sunrise, fine-eyed and frisky, if not exactly crowing. He's just bringing Ryande in from his morning run on the green, eating a chunk of bread he'd brought with him as he guides the unsaddled, unbridled stallion with his knees back into the courtyard and toward the stables, spotting the other men heading out and subtly urging Ryande to veer in that direction, calling out a halloo to the guardsmen when he's close enough he doesn't have to shout to do it.
The 'halloo' gets Jarod's attention. He pauses, though he urges the men with him off to the stables. Where they march to quickly. Whatever business they're all about, everyone's serious about it. The Rivers knight, however, approaches the Hill squire. "Cayt." The greeting is rather less merry than usual. "You spoken to your sister yet?" Unlikely, given the small hour of the morning it presently is.
"Nay, Ser," Cayt replies, "She's a way a gittin' pitched at a bloke, ay, does he wake her before the sun's up." A joke, but in name only, Cayt reflecting the quiet sobriety pervading the early morning cluster of guards and sworn. "Something's wrong," he surmises, rather than asks.
Jarod gets a chuckle out of Cayt's comment about Anais' tendency to get pinched. Though his laugh doesn't come as easy as usual. To the last, he nods a confirmation. "Aye. Something's wrong. And you should know, I figure. Jaremy…Jaremy's gone, Cayt. At least…he's left. We're going to try and find him but…he's left."
Caytiv shakes his head slowly, closing his eyes. "Ay. Ay, I heard he done left. I didn't reckon he done left, ay?" The difference between the two only in inflection. He takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders again, opening his eyes with a renewed look of steeled determination. "What'd ye needs me t' be about, Ser?" The boy's ready to ride.
"He done left." Jarod seems to understand the difference. "He…he left a note. Said he wanted 'earn back his honor' and 'renounced his place in the house.' Signed it Jaremy Rivers." Jarod snorts. "Which isn't how it works. I mean, it's a sign of affection I suppose but…that's not how it works. Rivers isn't an absence of a name. It's…acknowledgment. Best you can do when you can't have your father's. But Jaremy sometimes goes more for romantic ideas than sense…" His tone is more fond than exasperated, though exasperated is in there.
Without a clear path of action set in front of him, but with more information fed into the space between his ears to stew, Cayt lowers his eyes and, in the first sign of anger welling in him, he throws the crust of bread away for the pigeons to fight over on the courtyard stone. "A bastard's name is a well-earned token," he agrees, voice low. "Anyone can slide out from 'twixt a Lady's loins. Not everyone can fight for a father's nod. Sure not someone who would shame my sister suchwise."
"He didn't mean to shame your sister, Cayt, he just…" Jarod takes a deep breath, trying to place into words precisely what Jaremy meant to do. "…he just…figured this was something he had to do. Maybe thought he wasn't worthy of her, anymore than he was the title. I don't know. Only one this should carry any shame - or whatever else comes from it - is toward is himself." He looks off to the stables. "Some men are readying to ride out to check the forest trails northeast of here. See if he went through the woods in that area, off the main roads. If you can go out and scout with them this morning, it'd be a help. See if you can pick up his trail. But stay a moment, lad. There's another matter you should know of before you ride. You were Jaremy's squire, after all." Past-tense. "He mentioned that in his note as well."
"She were well fond of him, ay. Sometimes I reckon't she might have picked him to marry, herself, even had it not been picked for her," Cayt mumbles, heart stung as if in sympathy for the young lady. He lifts his chin, bucking up from his general mein of sulkiness as a way to be useful presents itself, but he holds up that moment when he's bidden to. The information is parsed and re-parsed, the lad bristling a little, "Sure he didn't leave on my count, ay? I ne'er did aught but he did ask it on me."
"Jaremy fell in love real easy, it always seemed to me. Or was able to say it to girls and seem to mean it easy," Jarod says. There's a touch of disapproval in his tone, though he doesn't comment any further on it. "He was fond of her, I think, and they might've grown to love each other. Maybe that'll still come to pass, if he gets found quick." As to the last, he shakes his head firmly. "No, Cayt, no. Nothing like that. I think it was just everything finally breaking in him. The loss of Stonebridge, and the Lady Isolde with it, and that whole business with Oldstones and the courier from Good King Robert and just…everything. He figured the world didn't look on him in the light he wanted, I think, so he's off trying to earn a new view for himself. But anyhow. He said…he commended your service to me. Meant to say you should squire for me now, I suppose."
It's well that Jarod went on to explain, for 'he commended your service to me,' gets naught but a warily uncertain look in reply, on top of the news that Jaremy used words of love so lightly. For all his own rather rough and bawdy behavior, 'love' is a word he doesn't tread on lightly, nor the notion of marriage. "Ay, did he?" he finally answers, "You have ye now your proper squire, Ser Jarod. Very," he reminds, dragging the name to the forefront of his mind. "Though I reckon it was decent of him to think on me." A moment, and his eyes narrow, "Who'd he commend my sister to, ay?"
Jarod nods to that. "Aye. I do. Though it's not uncommon for a knight to have two squires who do for him. One to keep his armor and weapons, another his steed and hounds and the like. And split duties in other ways. There's more than enough work for a squire to go around. Still…I don't think we should do anything with that just yet. We've men out looking for Jaremy, like as we'll find this soon enough, get him back and get this settled. Even if not, your lord father might have other ideas. You were went here to squire for the young lord, after all, and he may want you placed elsewhere if that can't be." And it's a definite step down, squiring for Lord Jerold's bastard son rather than his firstborn heir, but Jarod figures he doesn't actually need to say that to young Hill. He clears his throat. "For now, just help the men look for Jaremy, and we'll figure out the rest, as it needs be figured out. I've got plenty of duties I can put you to, squire or no." As for Anais, he shrugs wordlessly. "That's…he didn't mention her in his letter. You might want to go look in on her, come to it. We'll have riders out all day. You can go off with one patrol as easily as the next. I…I'm sure it's hard for her right now, and we're all Jaremy's kin so…" Another shrug.
Caytiv turns Ryande to go after the riders, then, half-turning him again, he looks up and over his shoulder to the tower, a long, mournful stare up as if searching for Annie's window, to see if there's a light on. "I don't reckon she sleeps, after all. I'll go to her an' see her, how she fares," he agrees. "He didn't mention her?" he asks, as though that part had just sunk into his brain. Instead of speaking further, he just closes his eyes again, and takes a breath. "We'll find him," he agrees. "An' I'll knock some sense inna his head, Lord Ser or nay." And he moves Ryande off toward the stables. At least riding bare leaves him without all that tack to unfasten.
"I'll not call you wrong to do it, lad. I might even like to watch," Jarod says with a half-grin, as to knocking sense into Jaremy. "Aye. We'll find him. If we don't get a clue to him in the wilderness, my suspicion is our men sent down to Stonebridge might have better luck. I intend to ride down there myself in a day or two, with my father's leave. If that happens I'll take you along, if you're amenable. Could always use another hand on the road. Anyhow. Go and look after your sister." He leaves Caytiv to it, on that note. Turning to head back into the castle himself, now that his guardsmen have dispersed.
