Lord Raphael ben Gideon
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Proprietor, Weaponsmaster
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| Raphael@Crimsonspade.com |
Chapter 1 – The Birth
Gideon ben Levi, fled Spain in 1492, under threat of
death by the Inquisition. He fled to his sister’s chateau in Foix,
and there met Hannah bat Chaya, a noble woman from a small barony near
Foix, who Duchess Natalya had befriended. They were married in 1497,
though Hannah was developing a sickness the medics could not seem to
identify. There was grave concern for her health when it was discovered
that she was pregnant, but she carried the pregnancy to term, and in
the summer of 1498 she gave birth to their first child, a son. Miraculously,
the day the child was born, Hannah’s symptoms cleared up, never
to return. Because he seemed to have caused her recovery, his parent’s
named him Raphael, meaning “God has healed.”
Raphael ben Gideon was raised in the Chateau du Foix. He was taught
arts and languages by tutors brought in from around the world, but his
most important lessons came from his father, who taught him the stories
and traditions of the Jews, and never, ever let him forget that there
were many in Spain who had not escaped the Inquisition, who had either
died or been forced to renounce their faith in order to survive. This
injustice burned in Raphael’s heart, and he knew that some day
he would find a way to offer aide to those still trapped under the heel
of the Inquisitors. “It is the highest good to help those who
cannot help themselves, and to grow strong to aide those who are not,”
his father said.
The day of Raphael’s 10th birthday was a day of
great celebration around the Chateau, though young Raphael was not told
exactly why. Standing high in one of the towers, dressing in some of
his new clothing, he looked out the window and saw a knight, riding
towards the castle, clad in brilliant plate. Excited at the possibility
of news from afar, Raphael ran down stairs to find his father, in order
to find out what news the rider carried. When he arrived in the Great
Hall, he found his father embracing the knight. “Raphael! Come,
meet your uncle.” Approaching quickly, Raphael stopped short,
intimidated by the man towering over him.
“Ah, Raphael, my nephew, you have grown into a strong young man
since I saw you last. You wouldn’t remember,” the knight
said, beaming down at him with a look of pride. “Last time I was
here was just after you were born. I am Sir Stephan de Huyn, half-brother
to your aunt and father.” Raphael nodded, his head spinning with
the news of new family. “I am here today, as your father and I
agreed eight years ago, to take you on as my squire, and see that you
are properly trained in the martial arts. You will come back to my Chateau
and be taught of the world beyond Foix, beyond the sea to the south
and the mountains to the north.”
At this Raphael, who had been nodding along somewhat apprehensively,
froze for a moment. The knight continued, “I will not, however,
take you against your will. Do you wish to come with me?” The
boy was torn. The opportunity to learn of the world, to see new places
sparked a fire in him had never before felt, and the chance to be trained
by a knight, his own uncle, seemed too good an opportunity to miss.
However the idea of leaving his mother and father, of leaving the only
home he had ever known, to live with a man he knew nothing of, was troubling
to the young man. He looked up at his father, remembering those words,
“…To grow strong to aide those who are not.”
“Yes, I will,” said Raphael. His father smiled proudly and
embraced his young son. Saying farewell to his tearful mother and aunt,
Raphael put his most prized things in a bag and, that very night, rode
off into the unknown.
Chapter 2 – The Shaping
The first two years was hard on the boy Raphael. His uncle, though a good, kind man at heart, pushed him into his training starting before dawn on the day after they arrived and never let up. He taught him along side several other squires, all of whom were older. The most grueling jobs were always passed down the line, and with no one left below him, Raphael spent a lot of time doing the dirty work. He carried wood for the fires and cleaned the knight’s armor and cared for the horses. At times he burned with anger at the lowly tasks he was assigned, but he learned the importance of these tasks, and that when work needed to get done, Raphael no longer waited for tasks to be passed to him, but stepped up to the harder, more challenging tasks. And he grew.
As promised, his uncle taught him of the world. He taught him of the lands to the East, of Jerusalem and Egypt. Stephen taught him about the Germans and the English and the Italians, showing him art gathered from these far off lands, depicting acts of great nobility and courage. Raphael was particularly fond of the stories Sir Stephen told of their ancestors, traveling around the world, seeing amazing sights across great oceans. He sat by the fire at night; listening for hours about the people his ancestors had met while on the Crusades, and the wondrous foods and spices brought back upon their return. He would fall asleep and dream of traveling to distance lands and adventuring across the waves. And he grew.
One fine day, while Sir Stephan and Raphael were taking a break from
a lesson, Stephan asked “What marks the difference between a base
man and a good man, Raphael?”
“The desire for justice and peace?” Raphael said, unsure
what the knight wanted him to say.
Stephen smiled very minutely, “A man is riding down a road to
a town and sees three bandits robbing a traveler. The man, knowing he
cannot overpower three bandits quickly rides to the town and finds the
constable, saying to him ‘There is a man down the road in need
of your help. Here is a bag of gold to help you hire more people to
keep the roads safer.’
“Meanwhile, shortly after the first man passed the bandits, another
man approaches the attackers on his way to the town. Seeing the bandits,
the man swings down off his horse and attacks them, drawing their attentions
moments before they were going to stab the traveler and take his purse.
‘Run,’ says the man to the traveler. The man strikes down
two of the bandits before the third disarms him. As the man stands,
knowing he will die, an arrow strikes the bandit through the heart,
killing him instantly. The man looks down the road and sees the traveler,
standing there, bow in hand. Together, they walk the rest of the way
to town.” The knight paused a moment, looking intently at young
Raphael, “Now, answer me again.”
Raphael nodded, gazing off into the distance. He sat in silence for
a moment, then started to speak slowly, his thoughts still forming,
“The noble. He…the first man may have made the roads safer,
but what does that matter to the noble? He would have been dead before
the first man made any difference…” He shook his head and
faded off into silence, his eyes seeming to focus on the space just
above the sky. He sat as time passed around him, his mind swirling with
new thoughts and possibilities. When he spoke next, there was a change
in his voice, and as Stephen looked at his eyes, he saw a light burning
that had never been there before, “Sacrifice. The willingness
to sacrifice. We cannot change the world merely by depending on efforts
of others. We must be the change we wish to see.” Raphael turned
and focused his eyes on Stephen for the first time since the knight
started telling the story. Sir Stephen nodded and stood, “Now
you know why to fight. It is time you learned how.” Raphael stood,
knowing he had grown.
Chapter 3 – The Strengthening
Raphael had thought that his body had been pushed to its
limits in his first years in Huyn. Once his real training started, he
lay on his mat at night, after a full day of training, longing for a
day when he only had to walk, barefoot, ten miles with a hundred pounds
of firewood through the snowy woods.
At first, his training involved building his body into the shape it
would have to be to support the skills that were to come. He was made
to run and climb and lift without pause or mercy. Gradually, though
fast than he had expected, his body began to harden. The walls became
easier to scale and eventually he was able to circle the chateau without
running out of breath or causing his hands to be unsteady
Sir Stephen started to prepare his mind for adversity as well. Waking
up calls came at all hours in the form of cold water, rousing him violently
from sleep barely an hour after he had been allowed to sleep. If he
dosed off during a lesson he was forced to stand in the courtyard for
a full day, sunrise to sunrise. He quickly learned to sleep when he
could, his body and mind adjusting to rest when it was allowed.
After several months of this treatment, he moved on to the next stage
in his training. He was given a blunt sword, a small, battered shield,
and the thinnest leather armor he could imagine, and pitted against
the other squires. At first he lost constantly. He was still the youngest,
and the others had been training for much longer than he had been. His
muscles, though stronger than he had ever been, were still unused to
the positions they had to hold to fight effectively. Every day for the
following month was devoted to working with the other squires, and Raphael
continued to lose, frequently in painful and humiliating ways, while
Stephen looked on, seemingly indifferent to the treatment his nephew
was receiving.
Then,
one night, when he was laying on his mat, his muscles aching and bruised,
tears of frustration traveling down his cheeks, there was a knock on
the his door. Quickly wiping his face, Raphael opened it and was surprised
to see his uncle standing there. Sir Stephen stared him in the eye for
a moment, then turned and walked down the corridor without saying a
word. Confused and worried, Raphael trailed after him, following him
out into the courtyard, which glowed bright from the nearly full moon
overhead. A circle had been drawn in the dirt and two training swords
lay on a table to the side. “Forget nothing and tell no one,”
the knight said
Raphael
nodded, still a little bewildered. Stephen took the swords and handed
one to Raphael, then turned and stepped into the circle. Raphael followed,
a bit behind his knight. “Never attack unless you know you have
the advantage,” Stephen said, and before Raphael could respond,
Stephan spun and swung at him. Without thinking, Raphael stepped back
and brought his sword up between his head and the incoming blade.
With that the lesson began.
Stephen continued to step and swing and retreat and advance, talking the entire time, telling Raphael every reason for every movement and decision, never pausing between actions. The knight moved exactly as fast as Raphael could at the squire’s fastest, the attacks forcing Raphael to react faster than he would have thought possible. The lesson continued until the moon had nearly finished its nightly travels. Then, as suddenly as the lesson had started, it stopped. The knight dropped the sword to his side and walked over to the table, setting it down. “Erase the circle and put the swords away, then rest.” As Sir Stephen re-entered the building, his first words of the night rang in Raphael’s mind, “Forget nothing and tell no one.” Nodding to himself, he cleaned up and went to bed.
And so his days went. During the day he practiced with
the squires. During the night he practiced with Sir Stephan. To begin
there was no change, as his body continued to adapt to the new movements.
Then, one morning he noticed the squire he was fighting, one of the
older ones, repeating the exact same movements he knew he had made in
the circle against Stephen. And he thought, and he remembered, and everything
changed.
Raphael stepped, faked, and thrusted, knocking the wind out of the squire
and landing him on his rear.
All of the squires, who had been chatting amongst themselves, as fights
against Raphael had always ended the same way, stood in shocked silence.
The defeated squire nodded, impressed, and the next squire stepped up.
Again Raphael recognized the movements, remembered the lesson, and won.
The pattern continued throughout the day. A couple of the bigger squires
got through to him by sheer force, but he was not troubled by these
defeats. Standing slightly apart from the other squires, watching another
pair go at it, he heard one of them whisper to another, “He moves
like Sir Stephen.” Raphael smiled and forgot nothing and told
no one.
Raphael continued to work with the squires during the day and Stephan at night, but things shifted. Before, the squires just fought each other until one of them lost, and then moved on to the next fight. Now, two squires fought while the others watched, then they would all talk. At first, their advice to each other was simple and comical, “Don’t get hit,” or “Try tripping over your own feet less,” but then they started really watching the fights, and they got better. Raphael added bits and pieces here and there, but he always phrased it as a guess, never as something he had learned himself. His real lessons were at night, and as he improved, the lessons became more and more challenging.
One morning Sir Stephan pulled Raphael away from the
others. “It is time for you to see the world. You have learned
well from me, and, though I still have more to teach you, I wish you
to go out and explore and learn from the outside world. Come back to
me in two years time and we will continue.”
Raphael thought and nodded, “Yes, sir. I do wish to go and see
what the world has to offer. And I will certainly come back to continue
my education with you.”
"Very
good, then. Your parents will wish to see you; four years have past
since they last set eyes on you, and they will be proud of the man you
have become. Go, and forget nothing…”
Raphael left that same day to return to his childhood home.