View source for Half a year is an eternity of doubt

{{JournalHeader
|Image=Half-a-year.png
|Author=Arcas
|Character=Yraen
|Year=497
}}
Half a year seems like forever. That’s how long it will be until I become a squire. Will I do well? I don’t know.

What if it is hard? Father will be mad if I don’t do well.
Hwyn has shown me a lot of the basics. It doesn’t seem hard, just … well… boring.

I thought it was all about learning how to become a knight, and perform heroics and fight with [[swords]] and such. Most of it seems to be cleaning though. Cleaning the horse, which I don’t mind, I like [[horses]], clean the armour, clean the [[weapons]], clean scabbard, clean the boots. Things like that.

Well, it’s at least more varied than being a page, just being sent to fetch things. Fetch the wine, fetch the meat, fetch the clothes, fetch the cheese. Well, the cheese was at least a bit interesting at first. One of the squires told us that there are monster rats down in the basement in Sarum. I never saw any though. The squire was probably just trying to scare us. Some of them really like bullying us and being arseholes toward us just because they are bigger and stronger. I won’t be mean to the pages when I become a squire because that’s not nice. Mother told me that you shouldn’t be mean to other people just because they are of a lower station or weaker than yourself.

Sigh
I don’t know what to do. Father says that mother is ill and that I have to look after my siblings when I am home. Mother doesn’t seem sick to me, she just sleeps and cries a lot and she obviously hates my little sister. Cada who just had a son of her own had to act as a wetnurse to my sister [[Gweneth]]. None of my brothers ever had a wetnurse, mother always loved them enough to feed them herself. I don’t know why mother hates [[Gweneth]], she isn’t that ugly even though her hair is completely white and she is pale.

I tried consoling mother because I love her a lot and she just held me and cried and said I was a good boy. I just felt awkward and didn’t know what to do. The she fell asleep again.

Father put me in charge of looking after my little brothers when the servants and the rest of the household are busy.

Finnach is doing alright but I can tell that he is putting on a brave face. He always does that. I think he will go off and fight a dragon when he becomes a knight if anyone dares him to. He always wants to do the same things I do. Father says that he has to wait another two years before he becomes a squire

[[Cavan]] is stupid and hardly ever does what anyone tells him to. He just sits there and stares at things, most of the time at the sky or the stars. Mother says we mustn’t make fun of him for being slow. She says that some people just need more time to figure things out. I don’t think he ever does though, he almost never says anything.

[[Arthian]] is still very little but now he wants to do everything himself even though he mostly makes a mess of things. It seems to amuse father though who often laughs and encourage him to try to do things by himself. Father always wanted all of us to be able to stand up for ourselves.

I don’t know what to make of our little sister. She doesn’t behave like a baby should. She doesn’t scream or cry, she merely whimpers when she is hungry. She is also so tiny. Father says that’s because she was born early and because she arrived in the middle of the winter. Father calls her his little princess, and he says it in a special way, not the way you talk to babies.

Father is awfully busy even when he is home. Some new soldiers moved in during autumn, five of them. Father holds command over them. He says they are here to help him keep the [[forest]] safe. He says that they are here to make sure that the dangerous things don’t leave the [[forest]], because the people outside the [[forest]] don’t know how to fight them. The men are more like our kin from [[Jagent]], keeping to themselves. They behave decently enough around me and my brothers, but I get the sense that that is mostly thanks to who my father is.

Father expects me to become like him when I am older, he has said so many times. He takes the time to show me how to wield a [[sword]] even though by right he should let Hwyn take care of that. I have a hard time keeping up. Father is so incredibly fast, I haven’t seen any other knight move as fast as he does. I don’t think I will ever be that fast. Father doesn’t seem to fear anything. Anything except mother being sick that is.

Father says that he has arranged it so that I will serve uncle [[Amig]] as a squire. Father says that he himself served lord [[Amig]] as a squire when he was young and that it is thanks to the things he learned from uncle [[Amig]] that he is the man he is today. I don’t want to disappoint father but what if I can’t do as well as he did. What if I let uncle [[Amig]] down? He seems so strict and severe and always looks like there is a great weight resting on his shoulders. Father says that uncle carries this county on his shoulders and that we must help him carry this burden. I am not sure how I can help?
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