1053AD (15 years later)

A boy sits alone, leaning back against his favourite tree looking up at the sky. It is an old yew, gnarled and sprawling like an old ladies hand, placed in a clearing as if fossilised and released to breath again when the ice melted. He has sat there many times before; relaxing, practicing his lyre, watching the birds over the sea as they stoop to pick up whatever krill the fishermen may throw over the side of the boat. He loved it there, felt at peace, the shape of the buttress against which he leant seemed to be shaped perfectly for his body, it held him tight as if the tree was embracing him; connecting him with nature. It was the only place he could truly escape, be free, no one knew he was there. He could get away from his over protective mother who, although he knew she meant well, still found it hard to realise that he was no longer five years old and therefore needed to be treated more like a man. He could escape the his mother had let into their lives. He was initially pleased for his mother when the man moved in. His father had died before he was born. The details he had of his father were vague and disjointed, his mother found it too hard to talk about what had happened. From what information he had gleaned, his father must have been a good man who died trying to protect the city from the attack from Chaval who sixteen years ago had threatened to take all surrounding cities. Thankfully Avalon, his home, had been the only principality saved from the tyrant, and although Chaval was unsuccessful in his quest to rule all of South West France, his threat had left Avalon paralysed. The pleasure that he derived from this new man moving in was short lived. His mother was struggling to find money to feed, clothe and house him and his uncle, and the money from this new man was welcomed: but the trouble he brought with him soon outweighed any financial gain. His mother sold jewelry made from shells she collected from the beach, and ointments and medicines made from various herbs and plants that grew both in her small garden and also wild in the forest and marshland that surrounded the city. It was her self-belief and caring nature that pushed her into offering her skills to help the sick through her medicines, although many of her friends warned her against being so open about what she made. Her ointments, and practices she performed could have been seen as heresy, but the empathy and tenderness that she showed with each person that visited, and also her general success in healing these people ensured that Arlette was thought of very highly throughout the city.
Banyu or Beni as he liked to be called saw how beautiful his mother was, and took her need of help financially as an opportunity to exploit her. He was a soldier, not a particularly good one, which was evident by the fact that he had spent nearly twenty years as a soldier and not once had he been called upon to fight for Avalon. He had never been promoted, and spent most of his time in the barracks shouting at the youngest recruits making them run errands for him, shine his armour and fetch his wine. They had obviously done a bit too much fetching of wine as Beni spent his life hung over, getting drunk, drunk or sleeping. He hated him and wished his mother would make him leave their home, but even though she had tried on numerous occasions he always managed to talk his way back into their lives again. His mother had never seen Beni as a replacement for his father. They were not lovers, she probably looked at him with the same disdain that he did, but he still managed to cling to their lives like an unwanted barnacle.
The boy sat there wistfully dreaming, letting the mottled suns rays filter through the overhanging branches of the trees warm his face. It was his way to escape the grey cloud that had descended on the city he called home. His mother would tell stories of the city when his father was alive, before Chaval had forced so many people from their homes, forced them to find refuge in the only piece of this land that was not under his control. She told of a city where children would play in the street outside their house, and could leave the city walls without fear. A city where the market would buzz everyday as town folk made a living selling produce they had grown or reared. A market that would sell textiles and spices brought buy merchants from Africa and Spain. Nobody traveled to Avalon anymore; the city's gates had been locked ever since the king gave the order to fortify the city. That was the last time also that the king had been seen in public. Under the king’s orders the city walls had been increased by another twenty feet in height and width. He felt that this would ensure that Chaval would never be able to take this city, but all it proved to do was make the city a prisoner to it’s own protection. Why the king didn’t stand and fight against Chaval was a mystery, but the day the cities gates were closed life within the walls was snuffed out.
As he sat beneath the tree he dreamed of the day that the gates would reopen. The day that the ivy, which had grown up the huge gates as a testament to their extended imprisonment, would be ripped from their roots allowing the world to flood back into the city again, as if arising from the depths of the sea to take a lung filling gulp of fresh air. He pictured himself standing with this fellow man, not with his lyre but a sword prepared to fight, ready to take back their freedom. Fight for the ability to walk in the fields again. Fight for the right to take back the land of his neighbours who had had there’s brutally stolen from them. He had told his mother how he wanted to become a knight, but she would always change the conversation, or told him that he was too special and she needed him to be a knight for her. This would frustrate him, why wouldn’t she let him chase his dream, allow him to be a man, why does she treat him like a boy? He would become a knight though he thought to himself, so she could be free and live the life that she deserves. He would fly like the seagulls.
The only time that he had ever asked Beni for anything was on his fifteenth birthday when he asked if he could introduce him to the Captain of the army as he wanted to learn how to fight. His response was little more than he had expected. ‘What? A wimp like you Gill? Why would we want a little wimp like you?’ followed by a gloved hand across Gill’s face that left a bruise for days. When quizzed by his mother as to the origin of the bruise he lied, as he had done in the past, ‘I fell over’ or ‘I was hit by one of the other boys’. Gill knew that his mother lied to him also about bruises that she would regularly get from walking into a door, or a burnt hand she got as she took the water off the fire. Gill had heard these lies so many times before he almost started to believe them. In spite of his mother’s forbidding, and Beni’s mocking Gill was still determined that one day he would become a knight and free his city. He had dreamt about it for as long as he could remember, and it was for that reason that Gill found himself under his favourite tree on that day.
Gill’s days would usually take the same regular pattern. Wake up, wash, dress, have breakfast with his mother and Sebastian his uncle. Tidy his bed away then go to school. His constant daydreaming watching seagulls circling, envying their freedom, their swiftness, made concentration in class difficult. He was a bright boy, polite, and his teacher was hopeful of him, but his biggest limitation was his lack of attention. Gill learnt best when he was free from the constraints of four walls of the church where he took his classes. Lessons in grammar, rhetoric, and logic, although he showed adeptness to all three, didn’t interest him. He would try hard at his studies, to appease his mother, however his true passion was to learn the way of the knight. Gill was popular, drew eyes from the girls, and was a natural athlete. He was strong, agile and possessed a natural talent with the sword and bow. His other talent that he practiced, again more for his mother than himself was playing the lyre. He liked playing when alone, but whenever his mother had guests she would beg him to play for them, which greatly embarrassed him. Gill didn’t like attention. It made him uncomfortable, but the beauty of playing for Gill was that once he had begun after the first few notes he would be completely immersed in his music and would be able to forget that their were others in the room. The sound of the lyre and the vibration from the plucked strings would resonate through his body sending him into a hypnotic state. For the five or ten minutes he played he completely left his body and the worries of his mother and the city, and was flying with the seagulls. For this reason Gill continued playing the lyre, for the escape, but also for the practice time which gave him an excuse in the afternoons not to come straight home but instead return to his favourite tree.
The afternoons in the sunshine would not purely be for practicing his music; he also wanted to practice his knightsmanship. Hidden in his tree was a sword he had fashioned from two branches that had been lovingly whittled down, and tied together with twinning. The weapon was basic but it felt the right weight and ideal for practicing. He had also made a bow from a long yew tree branch. He stripped the bark and tied twinning to either end. Gill was particularly proud this. The wood was smooth and the string taught, the arrows that he had also made flew far and true.
He would spend two, three or even four hours some afternoons practicing, sitting, thinking, and escaping. This was his place; he had never seen another person there and the solitude was comforting. It was a short walk from the city walls in the direction of the sea. There was a gap in the wall that his mother had shown him once ‘in case you ever need to escape this city,’ she had said: although Gill was sure that she hadn’t meant for him to use it almost everyday. Quite how his mother knew about it Gill didn’t know, and when he quizzed her on it she blushed and said that she didn’t find it, and that it found her. Gill didn’t delve any deeper, she wasn’t making sense and he didn’t really care anyway he was happy that she had found it, and what it had given to him.