I Will Be the Greatest Knight
Chapter 124: Home

Chapter 124: Home

Stagnancy was to be expected in a northern winter as heavy snow fell and life outside ceased to exist.

Sir Arthur began to realize that it was perhaps best that he lost his hand at the end of autumn. Then he could slowly get used to the life he was handed rather than forcing himself to get back to normalcy so aggressively.

After all, he tried that approach by wearing a prosthetic hand for the monster culling and ended up with a bloody stump by the end of it. Since he felt awful at having failed to regain use of his sword in any meaningful way, he paid Stanley handsomely for all of his trouble.

He wouldn’t be sword fighting in the winter, but it seemed to have slipped his mind that winter was the letter-writing season. While the nobles were bored and couldn’t socialize, they still found ways to reach each other through either magic or messenger hawk. The flowerbeds were dormant, but gossip bloomed.

At least they were finding ways to keep themselves entertained.

The knight sighed as he sat in his study, practicing writing as if he were still a small child. The iron hand was set to hold a quill and he wrote sentences line by line, dissatisfied each time he punctuated and resisting his very real urge to crumble up the paper and throw that along with his prosthetic across the study.

He wondered how he was supposed to slowly confess to the duchy that he would be relieved of his duties by the end of winter. Perhaps his handwriting would give him away.

Arthur decided to call it a day and go upstairs where he could at least read a book and sit in a comfortable chair. There was no use in wasting more candles for such terrible writing.

He blew out the candelabra on his desk and didn’t bother with the slowly dying fire in his fireplace.

As he walked down the hall, he was shocked to hear a knock at his front door.

His natural reaction was caution, having seen enough in his life to make anyone paranoid. He reset his prosthetic—at least having mastered that much—and unsheathed his heavy sword.

The knight took quiet steps forward, surprisingly deftly for the size of the man, and he made it to the front door. There he pressed his ear against the cold wood and listened for anything strange.

Another knock.

He opened the slide about eye level but was surrounded by a cage so he wouldn’t have to subject himself to something too dangerous.

"Who goes there?" he demanded.

"Dad," the voice he last expected to hear replied and the knight immediately unlocked the door and then flung it open.

"What on Earth!?" Arthur exclaimed as he sheathed his sword.

He pulled his daughter to his chest and squeezed her tightly in a hug. Something about her voice told him she needed comfort. He looked over her shoulder and around the area to see if anyone else was there.

Since there wasn’t another person around, he was able to address her as he wanted to.

"My sweet girl," he greeted her affectionately but it didn’t stop his protective nature from coming forth. "What are you doing here? Did you go all this way on your own?"

Irene returned the hug but she was no less distraught.

Rather than answering any of his questions knowing that they would lead to longer conversation—which she didn’t have time for—she stepped around him when he let her go and looked around the halls.

"Where is mother?" she asked.

"In our bedroom," Arthur responded, somewhat offended that she sidestepped him but even more confused that she would be looking for her mother over anyone else.

Irene didn’t waste any time as she went towards the stairs and ran up. The help she needed was urgent.

It wasn’t particularly something she wanted to talk to her father about even though he would understand it. Sünstoian men treated women a bit differently regarding their monthly cycles in comparison to the men further south but it was still an experience exclusive to women so it made them easier to talk to.

No matter what, she heard the creaking of wood as her father followed her and she couldn’t help the questions of her own while she moved forward.

"Did you have your sword drawn?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder.

"I wasn’t expecting visitors so late on a winter day," Arthur justified.

There was no more questioning despite the knight practically bubbling over with questions for his daughter. She was clearly on a mission and he was curious the outcome.

When Irene made it to the main bedroom, she knocked on the door.

Only when her mother gave a brief reply did she walk through.

Rochelle gasped. "Irene?" she asked.

"Mother..." Irene began, feeling ashamed that the woman she had been so cold to was the very same one she was now seeking guidance from. "I began my monthly bleeding."

Arthur stood in the threshold of his bedroom and looked on in shock. One thing he had always dreaded was his daughter growing up and not needing him any longer. While she was doing plenty of that in the knighthood already, this only furthered his dread of having to let her go one day.

Considering she was unbelievably opposed to marriage—and, in Arthur’s opinion, she would never be satisfied with someone who was any less than Sünsto—he knew she would carve her own path and amount to something on her own.

The thought of losing her to the world was horrible no matter how he looked at it.

However, he saw his daughter bow her head, practically cowering in front of her mother and he realized the heart of a father was so very selfish.

Meanwhile, Rochelle forgot that she was upset with her daughter at all. Even with her hair cropped short and her clothing boyish, her daughter needed her for once and she was going to offer her the care only a mother could provide.

Seeing Irene bow her head in sorrow made guilt well up in Rochelle’s heart.

The woman rushed forward and placed her hands on her daughter’s shoulders.

"Arthur, get the tea!" she ordered. "You know which tea."