The Fight is Won

Ser Grahame was as big as they came. He was bold. He was valiant. He was noble. He was chivalrous. He was all the things that a knight should be. Most importantly, he was focused, courageous, disciplined, wise, and just. Thinking of a proper and good knight would be to think of Ser Grahame.

Ser Grahame was the first born son of Ser Johne, the mightiest and most revered of the knights of his age. Sir Johne was the first born son of Ser Normane, the best of knights and winner of the Tourney in the Jungle, back in an age when the forests were larger and more lively.

And so it went with Ser Grahame’s noble lineage. All of his ancestors had been knights. Every single one of them. That was what they were about and they were exceedingly good at it. Annoyingly good. 

They were so good at being knights that one would expect that after centuries of the best knights going, there would be peace in the land in which they resided.

This was not the case.

For the first decade of his knighthood, Ser Grahame got on with the business of being a knight. That was what was expected and that was what he did. It kept him exceedingly busy.

For a whole decade, he rode the narrative set out before him, doing so bravely, courageously and nobly, and he did it in every and each way a knight should. This was after all his job, but more than that, it was his very destiny.

Everything would have carried on just as it always had, and how it should have according to the narrative to which Ser Grahame belonged, were it not for the appearance in his life of a single, persistent word.

The word was a seed and the seed fell upon fertile ground and would not be thwarted in the pursuit of its own narrative, and that narrative was growth. 

A seed is all very well.

A seed is miniscule and it is unassuming. That is the very nature of a seed. Seeds do not want attention, they want to hide away in the earth and get on with it. But once a seed is doing its job and, and it is doing it well, there is no ignoring it.

Ser Grahame stepped over many an acorn, but he had to go around the oak tree. There was no avoiding that.

This seed was no acorn though, and it was destined to be bigger and more impressive than even the mightiest of the oaks.

This seed was why.

Ser Grahame was a taciturn man. This was a necessity and he’d been trained this way in any case. A knight did not speak, he listened. He needed to keep his wits about him in order to keep an edge that allowed him to keep his head. 

The man listened and he always had. Listening was a skill that he embraced from the off. Right from the very start he understood some of the importance of listening and listening well. In living and listening some more, that importance grew, as did his knowledge and his wisdom.

As he accumulated knowledge, questions presented themselves to him and he actively listened for the answers. The disciplines of his brotherhood leant themselves well to this task. The more he worked at it, the more it worked for him.

The problem was that the questions got bigger and more difficult and they would not be ignored.

The biggest and most difficult of the questions was the seemingly simple one.

Why?

Why, if he and his brother knights were so effective in their abilities, was there still not peace in the land? 

There was an immediate rebuttal of this question and that was that it was not his place to ask this question, let alone seek to answer it. However, Ser Grahame relied upon his values and in his values was the very purpose of his existence. 

He knew that war was a necessary evil, but only to be resorted to when all efforts to keep the peace were exhausted. By now, with his formidable reputation preceding him, Ser Grahame should have been a deterrent, but instead he remained an oft used weapon.

He found that more and more, he stayed his hand. Mercy was a gift that he must use often and more. His strength and the outcome of any fight was obvious and so he used that power for the good of all. 

He fought less, and yet his victories became the stuff of legends. Ser Grahame himself became a legend, feared and respected throughout the land and beyond. This notoriety was dangerous and he understood this well before King Terence summoned him to court. He knew he had become a problem even before he was assigned the deadliest of quests.

As he was ushered forth and knelt before the King, he took in his surroundings. This room alone had taken many lifetimes to build. Each stonemason and craftsman had dedicated their life’s work to this space and it showed. He loved the art of the palace and could have spent months wandering this room alone, taking in each and every detail. For him it was not about power, or wealth, it was about beauty and the meaning of existence that made life worthwhile. Ser Grahame listened to his surroundings in every way he was able, and he called this living.

Now he attended to the King. He watched the man as he spoke and he saw his intent as clearly as he saw the mole on his weak chin. King Terence wanted Ser Grahame dead and there was no better way to achieve this end than to pit him against the most formidable of opponents.

The King knew that Ser Grahame had to accept his quest. Not only had he sworn allegiance to the King, but this was the most honoured and sought after of tasks. A knight existed to be tested. His was a life that was forfeit as soon as he took his oath. A fine and honourable death going up against the strongest of opponents was the ultimate conclusion of the best knight’s life.

Ser Grahame suppressed a smile, for it wouldn’t do to betray his thoughts or feelings. This was not the ultimate test. He knew that. Truth was his test. To speak the truth and to be the truth, even if it brought about his end. 

Love and truth were everything, and this right now was merely a play with the court jester sitting atop a gilded throne. King Terence was an angry King and he was hateful. These attributes were weakness personified. 

Yet Ser Grahame bowed his head, “yes my, liege,” was all he said when appraised of the task he was to perform.

There was a mighty cry from those assembled.

“Godspeed, Ser Grahame,” said King Terence, “you fight for your King and Country.”

Ser Grahame arose and bowing once more, he silently took his leave. He walked past the rank and file and in that throng he singled out the one person who truly understood what had occurred this day. Their eyes met and both knight and courtier nodded imperceptibly. It was a goodbye. There could be nothing more for the likes of them in this world, perhaps they would meet under different circumstances in the next.

“Saddle my horse, boy!” cried Ser Grahame as he entered the stables.

The young lad bolted up from his makeshift bed of straw. He ran to the knight and looked up at his towering lord, “where are we headed, Ser?”

“We, are not,” said Ser Grahame curtly.

“But…” the lad was crestfallen, these two had ventured and adventured far and wide and his place was with this knight, right up until he himself became that which he had always desired to be.

Ser Grahame placed a huge hand on the boy’s shoulder, “where I go, you cannot follow. Not yet, anyway. This is the fork in the path that takes us in different directions. The lady of fate smiles kindly on you. You will have your day.”

“I…” croaked the lad, “what am I to do?”

Ser Grahame smiled a rare smile, he reached into his tunic and took out a small scroll, “take this to the Master Croft, you are ready.”

The lad stared at the scroll, but did not take it. He looked up at the man who had been his entire world since before he could remember, his eyes filled with tears, “but father…”

Ser Grahame squeezed his first born son’s shoulder and nodded, “you have made me proud time and again, boy. Now go, and do yourself proud.”

He thrust the scroll towards Gawaine, and that was the end of their audience. The lad nodded once, took the scroll and slipped it into his clothing, then went about the business of readying his knight’s horse and equipping him for his trip. When he was done, he watched the knight ride away from the palace, only later would he learn his father’s fate and mourn his departure.

The pinnacle of a life is to go up against a dragon. This Ser Grahame knew, was a universal truth and not restricted to the life of a knight. He went alone, for it was right that he do so. This was his journey and his alone. He needed time. He needed space. And he needed the complete silence of solitude to consider the battle ahead and the possible outcomes of that battle.

He had barely cleared the shadow of the palace itself when he understood that the battle had already commenced. That his inherent inner conflict was something he would have to overcome before he drew his sword again. His quest for peace had to begin with his own heart and mind.

He saw that now and he wondered at how he had not seen it before. Another smile came to his face. More smiles in one day than he’d used in the whole year before. This smile spoke of serenity even in the face of a task that would surely see his end.

To battle a dragon, you first have to find it. This is an oft overlooked aspect of the most fearsome of quests. Many a knight has died before battle was ever brought. After all, tomorrow is never guaranteed. Dragons are solitary and almost illusory creatures. Timeless myth made ancient flesh. They do not grant audiences often and they do so wholly on their own terms. They are as old as the mountains they dwell in, they are powerful beyond measure and they bow to no man.

The rage-filled and pathetic King knew what he was about. His aim was clear, to rid himself of the troublesome Ser Grahame and to rise up from under the shadow his heroics and mercy had cast. Ser Grahame was everything that the King was not and King Terence envied him to a point that it pained him.

It was clear to anyone with their wits about them that the outcome of Ser Grahame’s quest was a foregone conclusion, he had gone to his death and soon enough he would be a story that womenfolk told their bairns. A dangerous, living legend consigned to a harmless fairy story.

King Terence had not countenanced Ser Grahame’s victory. A victory of a single knight against any dragon was unheard of. Besides which, Ser Grahame’s return in any guise other than victory was unthinkable, it was not within Ser Grahame to admit defeat. 

The King had underestimated the best of his knights and he had also judged him by his own standards. Defeat and failure were Ser Grahame’s bed fellows. He had risen so far, not on the backs of his victories, but by picking himself up from his failures, learning from them and going again, harder and stronger.

Ser Grahame reflected upon this and much more as he rode south into the mountainous region where the dragon dwelt. Two months of travel and solitude gave Ser Grahame plenty of time to prepare, and it also gave him a beard. Never before had he worn a beard, but now it suited him to wear it. The beard was a sign of the transformation that began when the callous and cowardly King attempted to banish him from his kingdom.

Abandoning his horse and much of his weaponry and armour, Ser Grahame walked up into the highest of the mountains. For seven days and seven nights he climbed until the air thinned and his lungs burned. On the final day he walked through cloud, soaked to the bone and shivering, until he emerged into a magical kingdom beyond the clouds.

There he sat, the sun warming and drying him as he took in the cloudscape in joyful wonderment. Never before had he seen such a sight. Few ever had. 

Reaching into his pouch, he retrieved a hunk of dried meat and chewed on it until a piece came away. Picnicking in a world beyond the world he had dwelt in all his life. If this was heaven, then so be it. He took a moment longer to truly appreciate his surroundings as he chewed on the tough meat.

“You are either a fool or…” the thunderous voice was behind him. Ser Grahame felt it through the rock more than heard it in the way he’d heard a thousand voices before it.

“Curious?” ventured Ser Grahame.

“Ah!” roared the voice of the dragon, “now that is curious in itself. Turn Ser Knight, for you are a Knight, are you not?”

Ser Grahame stood, turned and bowed, “I am a man, and I am indeed a knight. I have come to parley and to pay tribute.”

“Tribute, eh?” said the dragon, “what do you bring in tribute?”

Ser Grahame kept his head bowed, but his eyes on the fearsome beast before him. The dragon’s head was the size of a farmer’s hay cart and there were trails of smoke issuing forth from it’s nostrils. He could hear the creature breathing. Great bellows pumping vast quantities of air in and out of its hulking form.

“I bring myself and I bring my name,” he said to the dragon.

A monstrous sound like a huge rockfall issued from the dragon’s mouth, Ser Grahame realised that it was a chuckle. He vowed not to make the dragon laugh, for it would surely deafen him, or worse still, scramble his insides.

“Words have power, and a name is the most powerful of things,” said Ser Grahame, “I am Grahame of Falls Valley, son of Johne and father to Gawaine.”

“You curious man! You come here alone and you give me this. That is not what I had expected. You disarm me with words, but to what end? Do you think you can render me helpless with words alone?” asked the dragon.

Ser Grahame smiled, “never.”

“Then what?” the dragon said, “you are a knight and you have a single purpose. I doubt that you have come here of your own volition. You have been sent by your King and your King would only send you here with one outcome in mind.”

“Our deaths,” nodded Ser Grahame.

Again the rumble of rockfall, “our deaths? You bold and funny man! You are almost impertinent, but not quite. I find you interesting. I might even like you. That is why you still live.”

“And you still live because the world is a better place with you in it,” Ser Grahame told the dragon.

“Eh?” the dragon’s bright green eyes widened, “not a fool, no. Nor a coward. You are duty bound to fight me, and yet here you are.”

Ser Grahame laughed.

“What? What is it? Why do you laugh?” the dragon shifted and Ser Grahame fancied he saw molten fire deep down inside the beast’s mouth.

“You! You with your ancient wisdom! Surely you see what is happening here?” said Ser Grahame.

The dragon’s eyes narrowed. The world could sometimes turn on the smallest of coins, and now it did. That turn could go either way, and Ser Grahame was entirely at the dragon’s mercy in that moment.

“Oh!” exclaimed the dragon, “we skirmish yet! You came at me head on and you brought the best of your weapons. We are well met, Ser Grahame. A finer warrior I have yet to meet. My name is Slainshar and you are the first of your kind to know this. Tell me, what is it that you desire?”

“You honour me,” said Ser Grahame, “that which I desire, I believe we can achieve. You say I have a single purpose and that is true. I was not made to fight though. That is to misunderstand the purpose of my being.”

“It is peace that you desire,” the dragon stated this, it was not a question.

“I am a deterrent. I am a symbol of what is good and true. You are those things and more. Conflict is within. Together we are strong and together we can do great things.”

Slainshar nodded, something like mischief in its eyes, “tell me, did anyone ever teach you that a fight is always won in the mind?”

“No,” said Ser Grahame, “they did not.”

“Your son? He knows?” asked Slainshar.

Ser Grahame nodded, “everything and more. He is the best of me and he will eclipse everything that I am.”

“Love as well!” roared Slainshar, “you have me there, if you had not already captivated this old and lonely dragon. You win Ser Grahame! Come, let us talk some more. We have much to talk about.”

Ser Grahame was gone for a year and a day. All but his son Gawaine, and a single courtier, thought him lost forever. But in the dying embers of that day beyond the year, he returned, and he was not alone…