Chapter Text
"The Knight yclept James of the House Kirk, of the River Tiberius, the Champion of the Tournament of Golden Petals and holder of the Lance of Silver Tongue, is presented to Milord the King Sarek of S'chn T'gai, holder of the Kol-Ut-Shan" cried the herald.
With a horn flourish, two men opened the wooden doors perfectly in unison, and Sir Kirk entered the Great Hall.
Jim stifled his gasp of suprise at the scale. The hall was built with large blocks of sandy stone, and it had higher ceilings than any place Kirk had been in before. The ceiling sloped across the long, rectangular room to a high point above the dais. Short but wide windows let light but not heat in. The windows, in what Kirk had picked up was the traditional style of this land, were unglassed, with thin, loosely-woven amber curtains much longer than the window slits softly fluttering.
The room was large, but strikingly empty, with a few courtiers sitting on low risers on each side. The members of the court and the three figures on the dais barely muttered a sound; the stillness was broken only by the call of the herald and the soft ring of Kirk's sabatons on the stone floor.
Kirk, usually confident, suddenly felt a pang of self-consciousness, silently barraged from all directions by their looks of haughty judgement. But a voice in his head——his mother's——said that though he had not been born a noble, he had worked to get where he was, and he had as much a right to be there as any of them, if not more. He exhaled sharply, straightened his back, and looked directly forward.
The architecture and light of the room drew attention to the dais at the front of the hall. At the center sat Sarek, in a black robe of stiff fabric with a high collar, an arched crown, and a chain of office.
To his left was a woman—the Lady Amanda of the House Gray, from Kirk's own kingdom—in a long pale blue houppeldande with dagged sleeves gathered in large folds with a wide white sash from which hung a chatelaine, and a sheer white veil loosely laid over her hair with matching dagged edges.
But the figure most fascinating to Kirk sat to Sarek's right. He wore a deep blue robe, woven in some unidentifiable, shining pattern; his head was turned away slightly and covered with a wide, veiled hat.
Kirk reached the dais and kneeled in front of the king, placing his billhook on the ground parallel to the throne and his rapier horizontally across his higher knee. "I kneel in new fealty to Milord the King."
"Kirk-Knight, rise a member of my guard. But know that that for which I have summoned you is not simply a gate-guardsmen. On my Lady Amanda's advisement I have summoned you to protect my son, the Prince Spock."
Kirk rose. "Yes, milord."
He then moved to bow to the Lady Amanda. "I thank the gracious Lady for her advisement on my behalf."
Amanda softly smiled, the first smile Kirk had seen in this castle. "O Knight, Champion and Lance-Holder of the land of my birth, Fortune is at your side."
Kirk nodded his head in thanks, and then passed to the figure on the leftmost chair on the dais. This must be the prince.
Jim had seen a similar headdress on various townspeople and farmers on his ride to the Castle S'chn T'gai, but he didn't think he'd seen one with such wide brim, with such fine netting the colour of night clouds, with such fine, almost familiar, embroidery. But one thing was certain. He had never seen such fine, sweet, mournful brown eyes anywhere.
Kirk knelt before him. "I am at your service, Milord Prince Spock." It rang through the silence of the large hall. And he took the prince's hand, and he closed his eyes, and he kissed it. Lips still pressed, Kirk kept a grasp on the well-formed hand and looked up.
As their eyes met, the air crackled, and a star somewhere sparked to life.
"I am your knight."
After a few moments that felt like an eternity, Kirk let the prince's hand go, and it slowly returned to its original position. The room was still again.
Kirk walked backwards to a little ways away from the dais, and bowed again to the King, then picked up his polearm and sword.
As he departed the room, he felt the gaze of Spock never leave him, unflagging over the flagstones.
I think I just may like it here, thought Kirk.