All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 142: Knight’s Watch

The five men outside of the gate looked at Bee with blank looks of confusion after her declaration. She couldn't tell if they thought she was joking or something, but she was starting to get a little insulted. A light cough brought them out of their apparent shock.

She met their thoroughly confused stares with a bland smile. Internally, she was quite frustrated. There were much better ways to go about preaching than simply pointing at something and declaring it a god. How could she call herself the high priestess if she couldn't even properly introduce Void to new people?

If there had been a preaching-related skill offered, she would have chosen it in an instant. She almost regretted turning down Prayer Leader at this point. Her combat abilities had been adequate for quite some time, and she really needed to work with people a lot more than she had ever really planned for. At least she had some practice with public speaking now. Between teaching classes and telling the people her stories of Void, she had learned a lot. Without that practice, she could only shudder at what she would be capable of now.

Finally, she saw that their attention was actually coming back as they processed her declaration. Still, they didn't say anything, making her slightly uncomfortable. "We'll let you in, but I just wanted to make sure we go over some of the ground rules first."

As if broken from a trance, the leader shook himself and nodded at her, half turning it into a bow. "Of course, your… holiness? We are more than happy to comply with anything that makes you and yours more comfortable."

As she explained the rules, Bee couldn't help but notice their behavior. Not only did they ignore Void, but they thoroughly avoided so much as glancing in its direction at all. As affronted as she wanted to be, though, it was hard to blame them. If she was told something was a god, she would probably be terrified of it, not wanting to give offense. That, or she would be convinced the person speaking was crazy and unstable. Both were good reasons for the men to be on her good side. Sadly, she figured this was probably the latter case.

She supposed that things could be worse. If they thought she was insane for now, it wasn't the end of the world. Hopefully, they understood Void's power after watching their weapons being devoured and kept themselves out of trouble. She was slightly worried about the large number of women and children. There were only a handful of combat-capable members in the castle, really. Susan and Tony came chiefly to mind, all the others being farmers or very low-level.

If these men worked out and proved themselves trustworthy, they could be quite the asset, provided they stayed. As it was, she wasn't sure if they wanted more than a night of shelter and food. She finished speaking, telling them to keep to themselves and follow Tony to some rooms.

As the gate was opening, she pulled her fellow disciple aside and asked him to keep a watch over the men and take them to Trent after they got settled in. Trent always needed more hands in the fields. She wasn't exactly sure what he was doing with those hands all the time, though. Farming stuff, she supposed. One of the great benefits of having him in charge of that sort of stuff was that she could keep out of the details.

Once the gate was all the way up and the men were inside, they followed Tony. Still, she could tell they were looking at everything curiously. With a sigh, she could only hope there wouldn't be any issues.

---

While I was glad that Beatrice had asked Tony to keep an eye on the dirty newcomers, I wasn't nearly as confident in his combat ability. While it had greatly improved since he had come to the castle, I still hadn't had the same dedicated time to privately tutor him as I had with Beatrice. The man still tended to fight with a heavy stick rather than a proper weapon like Beatrice's broom. Even something like my sword would be better than that.

So I stayed close, ready to trundle in once there was trouble. After Tony showed them to a small block of rooms that were far away from any of the other inhabitants of the castle, the oldest man slightly redeemed himself in my eyes by asking about a bath. "After we put in some work, of course."

Even if Tony wasn't inclined to agree to their request, I would insist they bathe before they use any of the furniture. The beds are included. One of the younger boys arrived shortly after, lugging a large basket behind him. He handed it to Tony while the newcomers were still settling in. Once they were ready to head out again, Tony doled out the contents of the basket to the men as they made their way back outside. They graciously accepted the bread and cheese, spraying crumbs everywhere in their desire to express their gratitude.

As they walked, I cleaned up the crumbs as we went. Truthfully, I didn't mind this kind of mess. It was the thing I was made for, after all. Of course, I would have minded even less if they were slightly more considerate, but it wasn't like they were making a mess for absolutely no reason.

I followed the group outside and watched as they joined Trent and his helpers in the fields. Under his supervision, they got to work removing rocks and digging holes for some purpose. I saw a few of them looking a little longer than expected at some of the other helpers. Whenever it happened, though, a glare from their leader or Trent soon brought them back on task.

After a few more instances of this, the leader talked to Trent about the "issue." He even threatened to beat a lesson into his men if he had to. It seemed a bit harsh for a little bit of slacking to me, but Trent only nodded. "See that ye do."

Trent spoke in a voice much gruffer than he usually used. I wondered why? Was he also getting sick? Maybe I'd ask Bee to check him over as well to make sure.

***

The rest of the day in the fields passed uneventfully. Sometimes I did catch some of the children watching the new men from not-so-discreet hiding spots. Each time it was always a pair that carried their sticks with them, always held at the ready. What were they on about? Did they also not trust the newcomers? If so, that was quite adorable. Little humans were so entertaining.

Tony escorted them back to their rooms for the night and brought them some more food. While they were away, a bathtub was moved to a nearby room with drains. I think it was one of the rooms where some of the wet mess makers had been kept before Beatrice disposed of them. They took turns getting reasonably back into presentable condition. Their clothes still needed some work, but it was significantly better than before.

With the sun barely down, they were already all in their beds and making a very loud rhythmic noise. I wasn't sure what that was all about, but it couldn't be a very effective method to charge. Neither Beatrice nor Tony had ever used that method before, and I had observed that most of the humans found noise to be counterproductive to charging. Something about running their auditory detection sensors took a large amount of energy at night.

As the castle quilted down, I watched a pair of children sneak out of their beds and stand on either side of the hallways leading to the men's rooms. They gripped their sticks tightly, still dressed in their sleeping clothes. They touched their little fists together and whispered, "Nighty Knights."

Then each stood around the corner on either side of the entryway for that wing of the castle. What were they doing? It didn't seem harmful or anything, so I didn't fetch the woman immediately. Instead, I watched. Best to make sure they're not up to something mischievous.

I watched as the little ones fought against sleep for several hours before a few more came and replaced them. The little one of this pair was less successful in her fight to stay awake, and her partner had to poke her with his stick a few times to prod her into alertness again.

This pattern repeated itself several more times until almost all of the older kids had taken a turn watching over the hall for a while. I respected their dedication, but they were laughably bad at it. After the first couple of hours, they were already falling asleep as they showed up. In order to make their shift, they must have stayed up late. Or maybe they were just too excited to sleep.

Also, they were really bad at telling time. One pair spent the whole time arguing that their two-hour shift was already up. This argument started nineteen minutes and eight seconds in and just kept going. Eventually, one of them left, and fifteen minutes later, they reappeared with their bleary-eyed replacements. The other one, who was arguing that they had overstayed their shift, took that as vindication that they were right. The two left, completely convinced they had stayed at their post for four hours at least.

Despite their complete confidence that their replacements had failed to wake up in time, that pair was the closest to actually staying for two hours as they seemed to be aiming for.

Throughout the whole night, I didn't interrupt their operation, wanting to see where it went. One pair saw both kids fall asleep on the watch. Their replacements didn't show up when they should have, and a second shift passed. Eventually, Felix showed up a few hours before dawn and found them sleeping against the wall and was perplexed that they were not the kids he was expecting. Roughly waking them, he berated them for a bit before sending them to fetch his partner and sleep.

I judged their whole operation to be a hilarious source of entertainment for my own watch, but I couldn't expect more from them on their first attempt. Tomorrow I would see what I could do to improve their organizational skills. They should learn to be ready at all times. Perhaps I could make some sort of device to help them tell time?

Eventually, morning came with not so much as a stir from any of the new people. Long after the sun rose, I was still watching. The kids were not in any shape for morning exercise, most still stumbling around from too little sleep last night, so I gave them a day off. Truthfully the combination of sleepiness and long-term training meant I didn't need to burn off some of their excess energy anymore. Plus, I wanted to keep an eye on the newcomers as well.

My attention had wandered slightly as I was preparing a lesson plan to help teach the kids how to keep a properly organized watch schedule. That's why I missed the sound of the first door opening. The one with a lot of knives stood at the door, blinking, looking right at me sitting in the hallway.

We stared at each other for a few moments before he broke eye contact and rubbed his eyes. Then he looked at me again. I wished him a good morning and asked him to wait for the rest of the group to wake up so we could keep them all together for now. Tony or Beatrice should show up soon to take care of them.

Unsurprisingly, he didn't seem to understand. The man cocked his head at me, then walked across the hall, sliding down back against the wall to sit next to me. "So. You're a god, huh? What's that like?"