The knight placed one foot slowly in front of the other. His left foot was dragging a little, probably from the knee he force fed the bandit trying to gut his horse. But that didn’t matter now. He was home. He let gravity win, and collapsed into his bed, imagining sleep even before his head hit the pillow.

  “Would now be a bad time?”

  The pillow wasn’t working. Usually it would knock him out cold. What was wrong?

  “Leonard, the queen is asking for you.”

  He grunted. The rusty mechanisms of his brain trying to piece the shattered puzzle of sleep back together. Bending every last drop of his strength, he raised his arms to the pillow, and fluffed it up just the one time before the weariness loosened his grip.

  “Leonard, she seemed really serious. She was quite upset you didn’t come to see her first thing”

  The squeaking finally caught his attention. He had dismissed it as another mouse getting into their supplies. But it seemed this mouse was intelligent. It was trying to communicate.

  “I’ll draw you a bath, shall I? Can’t see the queen smelling of.. well.. you…”

  The part of him that never slept, the part that kept him alive through the years of battle and the ambushes of the night, the part that was wholly and solely concerned with his own self preservation took offense at that. That slight prick at his pride was all it took to ratchet his eyes open, and glare menacingly at the boy who was bending over to pick up his greaves.

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  “Boy. A better man than I might let such an attack slide. You live only because my muscles have been rebelling against my rule for the better part of a week.”

  “There is no better man than you, your lordship” the young boy chirped happily “you are the epitome of the glorious knight, one who will rid the world of evil and defend us innocents against the machinations of the wicked”

  “You’ve been hanging around that wizard again haven’t you”

  The young boy's eyes opened wide, which was astounding to see considering how much of his facial real estate they had monopolized. “How did you know your lordship? Are you truly the queen’s spymaster as the rumors say?”

  “No, I just know you don’t have enough room in your head for the word machinations unless someone grafted it there for you.” Leonard sighed. He wanted to sleep. Forget the endless marches of the past two months and welcome the soft lusciousness of his favorite nighttime companion. He again embraced his pillow, willing its magic to overtake him once again.

  “Lord, I know you hate being bothered when in bed. But the queen did tell me personally that if you didn’t see her before the evening meal, she would have your bed drawn and quartered, then burned with the most magical flames the wizard could produce. And I think he was looking up dragons breath when I last saw him”

  He couldn’t believe it. Not only was his beloved not answering his pleas, but now their child was being threatened? This would not stand. As he rose to right this injustice, he realised, neither could he. Sinking to his knees, he beckoned the boy over.

  The boy fucking scampered. “I knew he was part mouse,” Leonard thought.

  Throwing his weight on the large mouse’s frail body, he was half dragged, half carried to the bathtub. He lay in the slowly filling tub as the whiskerless squeaker ran back and forth dragging buckets, sponges, and soap to his side. The wizard had told him a fire crystal bath could be made available to him. The wizard wouldn’t mind bumping a few of the nobles down the list. But he didn’t trust the weirdo not to spy on him through whatever enchantments would be placed on it.

  Such thoughts busied his mind as the heat seeped into the stiff muscles of his body. The soapy fingers of the little mouse dug pleasantly into them, massaging and cleaning all at once. It was almost as nice as being in bed.

  “Little one, I have decided. I shall reward you with the choicest of cheeses for your excellent service today”