Capítulo 5: Captain of the Guards
The Lord's castle in the city of Landow was quite large, it was more of a self-enclosed town constituted by the castle itself, the stables which hold the lord as well as his personal guard's steeds; training grounds to train and maintain the guards in top shape, the armory which holds their weapons and equipped with its own blacksmith to maintain them, huge warehouses for storing food and raw materials, extensive quarters for the manpower necessary to run all these facilities and much more.
All of this was surrounded by an 8 meters tall and four meters wide stone brick wall, making it a headache for any wannabe attacker.
The castle would have been self-sustaining if only it could produce its own food, though that was impossible. Packing so much personnel and facilities pretty much took all the space available and making the castle larger would only burden the defenders.
Soon William and Oswin arrived at the castle stables. Even for someone who did not know much about horses, William could see that what the guards had were top-notch breeds that were born for battle.
They were large and muscular, seeming to excel at charging at any foolish enemy that dared to group up into a formation and rip right through them, while the well-trained soldiers on their backs skewered their enemies with their spears.
William started to fear for his well-being. "These warhorses are freaking intimidating. I never rode a horse in my life not to mention that the "old William" sucked at riding them, so I have nothing to work with here.''
He paused for a little to examined them further and then continued.
"No way man, I am not going out like poor dead William, thank god I don't remember his last moments otherwise I would need to see a psychiatrist and I am pretty sure they don't have any of those here.'' William thought to himself.
Apparently, Oswin was not that bad after all, since they did not stop in front of the warhorses and move on until they reach a secondary stable that held more reasonably sized steeds.
Oswin quickly went in and brought what looked like a frail horse, seeming like it would give up the ghost any moment now.
"This is Lucky. Though it's old, it has served its rider and therefore this house faithfully. Unfortunately Lucky is no longer fit to go to battle, it is nonetheless one of the calmest steeds we have so I think it would be a perfect match for you, at least until your skills improve and I drill into you the basics until they become second nature for you.''
Oswin passed the reins to William and added "here you go, hold the reins firmly in your hand and slowly start to caress the horse's back and make sure to show it some respect, as it will be your partner from now on. Horse riding does not only involve riding a horse, but you must also trust your steed and it must trust you back and for that, a bond must be established. That means you give and also receive, therefore I expect you to take care of your horse's basic needs, you will bring it food and water as well as brush its mane".
Oswin continued to explain what was expected of him, "his duties toward the steed" if you will. Afterward, he called for a young man from the stables and told him to teach William how to take care of his brand "new" horse then he turned towards William and finished by saying.
"Follow the stables boy and learn how to take care of your new partner. We start your training tomorrow, so I expect to find you here as soon as the sun rises" the moment Oswin finished what he had to say he turned around and left.
William was speechless, this guy needed to chill the hell out and stop his "I will end the conversation whenever I damn well please" attitude.
"Is he even allowed to treat me like that, from the memories I have access to, the old William never had anything to do with the guards or their captain, which was his brothers' thing since he was a battle maniac. Seriously this guy has a bit of an attitude problem and needs to relax a bit."
William soon let go of his ramblings and followed the stables boy to learn how to take care of this partner of his.
Even though he had to spend the whole morning working which was a bit tiring, he found himself enjoying it as it cleared his mind of the recent "decision" taken unilaterally by the powers that be, to transfer him to another freaking world.
After he finished with the "bonding experience", William took a shower and as you would expect, it was nothing more than plain water. To spice it up he had sand and ash as his only options to exfoliate which made for an uncomfortable experience.
Afterward, he ate his lunch in his room and started to plan his schedule for the short term.
Other than most of the mornings that will be taken by his lessons with the captain, he decided to dedicate the afternoons to the exploration of the city of Landow and its unique culture. William knew that the middle ages were neither peaceful nor pleasant; he was a history major after all and knew what a hell it could be.
This did not stop him though. What was he going to do? Hole up in his room and hope it all goes away.
He knew that was a pipe dream, so instead, he decided to make the most of it and look at things in a positive way to keep his mental health stable.
Plus who knows, he might be the one in a million lucky bastard who does not get killed by disease, criminals, war, political conflicts or the thousands of other things that could take him out.
He could instead be the guy who gets to have adventures, save a princess or two and rule a territory to top it all off; hell.... he was pretty much already set for the last one.
William was eager to start his life in this new world they call Pandora, now he was once again fifteen years old, healthy and relatively handsome with deep black hair and eyes as dark as the night, giving him the mysterious look that girls usually like to go for and though he was not very fit, he could always work on that. He had his whole life ahead of him; granted life expectancy was probably quite short at the moment, but a whole life nonetheless.
Other than training and exploring the city, William also planned on continuing to read as many books as he could in the castle library to further his understanding about this world; without expanding his relatively limited knowledge about his new environment he was not going to make it far.
The rest of the time would barely be enough for sleeping and eating, so he was going to get busy for the foreseeable future.
William noted everything down, spent the rest of the day reading and prepared himself for the hectic but exciting days ahead. When the sun set behind the plains he went to bed closed his eyes and soon fell asleep.
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