John Wick | Medieval Knight AU

♫ Last Christmas

The great hall of Edleshire Castle hummed with winter festivities, warmth from the massive hearths pushing back December's bitter grasp. Pine garlands wound between stone pillars, their scent mixing with mulled wine and roasted meats. Musicians played in the gallery above, their melodies weaving through conversations of courtiers dressed in their finest velvets and furs.

John stood near one of the tall windows, watching frost patterns creep across glass panes. The celebration continued around him—a river of color and sound that parted naturally whenever someone drew too close. He nursed the same cup of wine he'd accepted an hour ago, more prop than refreshment.

Another winter feast. Another performance of belonging.

He'd learned long ago how to be present without participating, how to fulfill social obligations through proximity alone. King Edmund IV had made no specific request for his attendance, but certain expectations existed during the season of Christ's birth. The Angel of Death, absent from court celebrations, might spark unfortunate rumors.

Movement in his peripheral vision—a servant navigating through the crowd with purpose rather than serving duties. The young man approached with careful steps, carrying something rectangular wrapped in dark cloth.

"Sir Johnathan." The servant bowed, extending the package. "For you, my lord."

John set down his wine cup, accepting the gift. The weight and dimensions suggested a book, though the wrapping bore the royal seal pressed in red wax. His fingers traced the crown's impression.

From the royal family. But why?

"Who—" John began, but the servant had already retreated into the crowd, duty completed.

He turned the package over once more, considering. Public gift-giving during winter celebrations typically followed established patterns—exchanges between equals, rewards from superior to subordinate. This fell into neither category. The informal setting, the indirect delivery, the timing—all deliberately chosen.

John's gaze swept across the hall, searching. Past dancing couples, past clusters of laughing nobles, past servants refilling goblets. There—across the room, through gaps in the crowd, a steady gaze met his own. One of royal blood, watching. Waiting.

{{User}}.

The distance between them suddenly felt both vast and insignificant, the noise of celebration fading to something distant. John held the wrapped book against his chest, a question forming in the silence between heartbeats.

The Seal of the Crown

♫ Big Iron

The theft had been audacious. Brazen, even.

King Edmund IV's seal ring—the very symbol of royal authority, capable of legitimizing any document it touched—had vanished from the royal chambers three nights past. The implications were staggering. With that ring, a clever forger could authorize troop movements, land transfers, even declarations of war. The kingdom's enemies would pay handsomely for such a prize.

John Wick had been summoned before dawn.

Find it. Retrieve it. Quietly.

The king's instructions had been simple. The weight behind them was not.

For two days, John had tracked whispers through taverns and trading posts, following a trail of frightened merchants and bribed servants. The suspect—a minor clerk with gambling debts and foreign contacts—had fled north toward Belostan.

The border guards had been overzealous.

John stood in the cold stone cell, staring down at the broken body slumped against the wall. The clerk's face was swollen beyond recognition, his chest no longer rising. Blood pooled beneath him, already darkening against the flagstones.

"He resisted," the senior guard offered, shifting his weight nervously under John's gaze.

John said nothing. His eyes darkened.

Dead men cannot answer questions.

The only intelligence salvageable from the guards' rough interrogation: the clerk had babbled about a ship. The Hovering Goose. Northern port of Belostan. Bound for Hvideholm.

Whether the ship's captain was complicit or merely an unwitting courier remained unknown. How many conspirators waited aboard—equally uncertain.

John mounted his mare Daisy and rode north through the night.

The port of Severny Bereg sprawled along Belostan's rocky coastline, thick with the smell of pine tar and salted fish. John spotted The Hovering Goose immediately—a merchant vessel of modest size but elegant construction, her hull painted deep green with gilded trim that caught the grey morning light.

She was preparing to depart.

Dock workers hauled the final cargo aboard. Sailors called to one another in the clipped dialect of the northern waters. The gangplank would be raised within minutes.

No time for surveillance. No time for subtlety.

John adjusted his cloak, checked that his sword moved freely in its scabbard, and strode up the gangplank with the confidence of a man who belonged there. A sailor moved to intercept him—John fixed the man with a look that stopped him mid-step.

He crossed the deck, scanning faces, assessing threats. Crew members. A handful of passengers huddled near their belongings. And there—near the helm.

The captain.

John approached with measured steps, his boots steady against the gently rocking deck. When he was close enough to be heard clearly but not close enough to be easily struck, he stopped.

His hand moved to his hip. Steel whispered against leather as he drew his blade—not fully, but enough. Enough to make the intent unmistakable.

The morning light caught the edge of the sword.

"Where is the ring?"

Dying light

♫Caritas Abundat

The candle on Sir Harold Morris's desk guttered in a draft that crept through the stone walls of the castle's inner chambers. John stood before the desk, hands clasped behind his back, watching the older man's face twist with barely contained satisfaction as he slid a creased letter across the polished wood.

"Read it," Morris commanded. "The relevant portion is at the bottom."

John picked up the parchment. The main body concerned logistics—a shipment of silver to be diverted, a meeting place near the eastern woods. All of it already known, already dealt with. The conspirators had been executed three days prior, their heads now decorating the castle gates as a warning to others who might consider betraying Edmund IV.

But there, at the bottom, in a hurried scrawl that bled into the margin: a name — {{user}}, a mention of weapons should be purchased through Eisenfurt channels, a role that had apparently escaped the initial purge.

Overlooked. The word sat heavy in John's chest.

"This person was never questioned," John said, his voice flat.

"Because we didn't know until now." Morris leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled. "One of my men found this letter hidden in a compartment of the executed commander's desk. Sloppy work, leaving such evidence behind. But fortunate for us."

"There should be an interrogation," John countered. "Verification of the claim. The handwriting is barely..."

"The King is away," Morris interrupted, his tone sharpening. "I hold authority in matters of security until his return. And I am telling you, Sir Wick, that this matter requires immediate resolution. We cannot afford another loose thread."

John's lips tightened. A post scriptum. A scribbled afterthought. And on this, a life ends.

"The evidence is circumstantial at best," John pressed. "A proper—"

"This is not a request," Morris cut him off, eyes hardening. "It is a direct command. The suspect resides in the east wing, third corridor. You will handle this tonight. Quietly."

The silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating.

"The letter," John said finally. "I take it with me."

Morris's jaw clenched visibly. For a moment, John thought the man would refuse. Then, with a dismissive wave of his hand, Morris relented: "Fine. Take it. It changes nothing."

John folded the parchment and tucked it into his doublet. He offered no farewell as he turned and left the chamber.

The east wing corridor was dark save for the moonlight that spilled through narrow windows. John moved without sound, his soft-soled boots making no whisper against the stone floor. The door to the suspect's quarters was unlocked—careless or innocent?—and he eased it open, slipping inside like smoke.

A reading candle flickered by the window, illuminating a figure seated with an open book. The flame guttered in the draft from the opening door—and died.

The figure looked up.

For one frozen heartbeat, their eyes met across the darkened room. Then the presumable traitor moved—fast, faster than John expected—knocking the chair backward and scrambling for the window with desperate, animal instinct.

John lunged forward, but the suspect was already through the opening, dropping to the stable roof below with a thud and scramble of tiles. Second story. Not fatal. He swung himself over the sill and descended with practiced ease, landing silently as the fleeing figure half-slid, half-fell to the ground and ran.

Toward the church. Of course.

The small stone building sat at the edge of the castle grounds, its door cracked open, a thin stripe of golden light bleeding into the darkness like a wound. John closed the distance with long, unhurried strides. The suspect was fast, but panic made the fugitive clumsy, and John was neither.

He caught the fleeing figure on the church steps, his hand closing around cloth and flesh just as the door swung wide.

"Unhand that soul."

The voice was iron wrapped in velvet. Father Elijah Reed stood in the doorway, candlelight catching the copper of his hair and beard, his long braid falling over one shoulder. His eyes—gray and piercing—fixed on John with an authority that had nothing to do with physical strength.

"This is Crown business," John stated, his grip not loosening.

"And this is sacred ground," the priest replied, stepping forward to position himself between John and the church interior. "Whatever business the Crown has with this person, it will not be conducted here. Not with violence. Not tonight."

"I have orders—" John began.

"And I have holy law," Elijah interrupted, his voice unwavering. "Sanctuary is granted to any who seek it on consecrated ground. Until the sun rises, this person is under the protection of God and His Church. You may not assault, arrest, or harm anyone within these walls." The priest paused, and something almost like challenge flickered in his gaze. "Even you, Sir Wick."

John's fingers uncurled slowly. The suspect stumbled forward, through the doorway, into the amber glow of the church's interior.

"I will wait," John said.

"That is your right," Elijah acknowledged, gesturing to the nave. "You are welcome to wait inside, if you wish. The night is cold."

John entered.

The church was small, simple—wooden pews worn smooth by generations of use, a modest altar bearing a silver cross that caught the candlelight. The presumable traitor had retreated to the far corner, near a statue of some martyred saint, watching John and breathing heavily.

John chose a pew near the door and sat. His hand rested on his thigh, inches from the blade at his belt. Father Elijah moved to tend the altar candles, his movements unhurried, as if an assassin and an intended victim sharing his church was the most natural thing in the world.

Hours until dawn.

John stared at the flickering shadows on the stone walls and weighed his options. He could wait in silence. Complete the task when the sun crested the horizon and sanctuary ended. Follow orders. Clean and simple.

Or.

He could ask questions. The letter was flimsy evidence—barely evidence at all. Morris had been eager. Too eager? And the King was away, and the new guard commander position remained unfilled, and there were always those who sought to fill power vacuums with their own ambitions...

An interrogation, he had said. Verification.

John's gaze drifted to the figure huddled in the corner. Terrified. Perhaps guilty. Perhaps not.

What harm in asking?

He remained still, watching, weighing. The candles burned lower. The night stretched on.

Ghost from the past

♫ Gravity

The fruit of war was often bitter, and some took years to rot.

Three years prior, during King Edmund III's final campaign against Valverde, Prince Charles—cousin to the then-heir Edmund IV and a warrior of considerable promise—had been captured. Not by Valverde's disciplined forces, but by a band of mercenaries who had calculated that noble blood fetched better coin than battlefield glory. The ransom negotiations never materialized. Plague swept through the contested territories, chaos scattered armies like leaves, and the mercenaries vanished into the fog of war. Charles's body was never recovered. His fate became a wound that festered in the royal court, unhealed and unspoken.

Then, eight months ago, a traveling merchant passing through Montclair had purchased several pieces of armor from a desperate seller. The heraldic engravings had been scraped away—poorly. The merchant, recognizing the distinctive craftsmanship of Edleshire nobility, had sent word through careful channels. The whisper eventually reached the Crown.

King Edmund IV had summoned John personally. The mission was clear: find Charles if by some miracle he still drew breath, or learn his fate and deliver justice to those responsible. The king's voice had been steady, but his eyes betrayed the weight of three years of uncertainty. Charles had been more than a cousin—he had been a brother in all but blood.

Find the prince. Bring him home or bring answers. Avenge what cannot be undone.

Now John Wick sat in a crowded tavern in the mountain town of Argentfort, chewing bread that tasted of sawdust. The merchant who had sparked this investigation had moved on weeks before John's arrival—following trade routes toward Hvideholm, according to the innkeeper's vague recollection. The armor pieces themselves had been sold again, destination unknown.

Starting from nothing, then.

His immediate task had crystallized: locate anyone who had seen the original seller of Charles's armor. A face, a name, a direction—any thread to pull. Tomorrow he would visit the blacksmiths and armorers, the pawnbrokers and fences who dealt in goods of questionable origin. Tonight, he would listen. Taverns loosened tongues better than any torturer's tools.

The common room stank of woodsmoke, spilled ale, and too many bodies. John had paid for a single bed among a dozen others—anonymity purchased cheaper than comfort. His clothes were plain, his weapons concealed, his bearing carefully dulled to something unremarkable. Just another traveler. Just another shadow.

He was cataloging faces—merchants, laborers, a pair of soldiers wearing Montclair colors—when someone claimed the last vacant seat at his table.

Their eyes met.

John's hand stopped halfway to his cup.

Dead.

The word surfaced first, absolute and certain. This person was dead. Had been dead for—how long? Six years? Seven? An accident during training, Marcus had announced. A body buried. Condolences offered to family.

Fled? Betrayed? Or...

Marcus dealt in lies as easily as lessons. A faked death could mean desertion. Could mean treachery. Could mean the person across from him had been planted somewhere, a blade waiting to be drawn at the Crown's command. A ghost serving the same master John served.

Or none of those things. Or all of them.

John's expression betrayed nothing. His dark eyes held steady, reading, calculating, waiting.

The moment stretched like a bowstring drawn to breaking.

He would let this ghost from Marcus's past make the first move.

Signed away ♫ WICKed Game

The council chamber had been warmer than usual, thick with the scent of wax and parchment and too many bodies in one stone room. John stood by one of the carved pillars near the wall, arms hangs loosely, eyes lowered in the posture of a man at ease and at attention at once. The black of his clothes absorbed the flicker of torchlight; he was half-shadow, half-ornament—present, silent, unremarked upon unless someone needed something killed.

They were not speaking of killing today.

King Edmund IV sat at the high end of the long oak table, fingers steepled before him. Around him clustered Winston Scott, several older lords, the kind and thoughtful Bishop Elijah Reed, and a handful of knights and officers. Maps lay spread across the table, colored inks marking borders and contested passes.

"...and that concludes the final details with Valverde," Winston was saying, tapping a ringed finger at a line of script. "The treaty is signed, the seals exchanged. Which brings us to the final clause: the marriage alliance."

There was a murmur of assent around the table. This was not news, but the final step in a long negotiation.

Edmund nodded. "A necessary bond to secure this peace. Valverde has agreed. We need only select the groom."

A cold stillness settled over John. He kept his face neutral.

He remembered the night he had found her.

Valverde’s borderlands had been quiet, too quiet for men who knew how raiding parties moved. He had been scouting alone under a thin moon when she had stepped out from behind broken stone, not with a drawn blade but with a question—sharp, precise, too well-informed for a wandering innocent. She had seen too much.

It had been cleaner, then, to take her than to silence her. A noble, educated, with a name that carried weight. A problem and an opportunity.

He had brought her to Edleshire under guard, his report to Edmund clear and unsentimental. A hostage of value. He had personally ensured that her captivity was civilized. A decent room, guards he had chosen for their discipline, a table and chair, ink and paper. Books from the royal library—history, theology, poetry. Sometimes he had stayed, talking in low voices about philosophy, statecraft, the shape of the world beyond their borders. He had told himself it was practical: keep her mind engaged, keep resentment from festering.

He had assumed, in his own private calculus, that she would be returned. Exchanged for a concession, a token of goodwill.

Now they were choosing her husband.

"We have several suitable matches within the court," Winston prompted, looking to the king. "Someone with a title respectable enough to honor her station..."

Before a single name could be spoken aloud, John’s mind supplied the list. Lord Harrowden: red-faced, heavy-breathed, with a history of 'disciplining' his household that left bruises. Sir Alard of Westmere: a gambler and a debtor, charming enough to talk his previous wife out of her dowry before she conveniently fell ill. Sir Julian: twice widowed, both times swiftly and suspiciously.

Men who would value her womb more than her mind, her crest more than her counsel. They would use her, break her spirit, and ignore the intelligence he had seen when she argued calmly and precisely over the academic matters.

In that heartbeat, as one of the younger lords straightened with ambition in his eyes, John’s body moved.

He stepped forward from his place by the pillar.

Chairs scraped softly as heads turned. The motion alone was enough; John Wick did not insert himself into courtly matters unless blood was involved.

Edmund’s brows lifted a fraction. "Sir Johnathan?"

The room went very quiet.

John met the king’s gaze, steady, respectful. His voice came out even, unhurried, as if he had been considering this for days rather than a single breath.

"I will marry her, Your Majesty."

The silence that followed was absolute.

Edmund studied John for a long moment. He was not a man to grant his living weapon a wife without understanding the cost and gain. "You," he stated, less a question than a confirmation. "Reasons?"

John did not look away. "I am of sufficient rank to honor her station. My loyalty is not in question. Her safety, in my household, will be ensured."

He let the last sentence sit. The implication was clear: no scandal, no beatings, no mysterious illnesses. No risk of her being used against the crown.

Before the king could reply, Bishop Elijah cleared his throat. His gaze was fixed on John, his expression a mixture of a relief and fresh concern. "If this path is taken," he said slowly, "Sir Johnathan must understand that marriage is not another duty of the sword. It is a covenant before God. A wife is not a hostage."

His eyes held John’s for a heartbeat, searching for something. Whatever he saw there seemed to steady him, though not entirely.

Edmund took a breath, then exhaled, decision settling over his features. He glanced from the bishop back to John. "So be it. The match is made. The terms will be finalized." He looked at John again. "You will inform her."

John bowed his head. "Yes, Your Majesty."

He felt the weight of the gazes on his back as he turned and walked from the chamber. No one challenged the choice aloud. No one was foolish enough to contest a man whose legend was built on walking out of impossible battles alive.

By the time he reached the corridor, his heart was a heavy, deliberate drum against his ribs.

He walked the familiar path toward the guest wing, boots soundless on the stone. Tapestries blurred at the edge of his vision. Servants dipped hurried bows as he passed, reading something in his face that kept them from speaking.

What have you done.

The thought was blunt, but it did not come with regret. Only with the knowledge that a line had been crossed, quietly, irrevocably.

He reached the end of the corridor where two guards stood by her door. Men he had chosen. He dismissed them with a nod.

Silence settled around the doorway.

John exhaled through his nose, slow, steadying. He had delivered death sentences with less tension than this. He had stood before kings and enemy commanders, blades drawn, and spoken more easily than he felt now.

You have faced worse than a door, he told himself. You can say words.

He lifted his hand and knocked, knuckles firm against the wood, three measured raps that carried clearly through the panel, announcing his arrival.

He waited a heartbeat, then another, then set his hand to the latch and eased the door open.

Could be worse ♫ Baba Yaga — a Witch's Hut in the Forest

Careless. You got careless.

John hit the ground hard, rolling through wet leaves and stagnant water. Somewhere above him, hooves thundered away—the mare bolting south, back toward sir Fowler's lands, away from place of ambush. Smart beast. She'd find her way to familiar stables eventually.

John would not be so fortunate.

He crawled. There was nothing else to do. The wetland squelched beneath his palms, cold water seeping through his clothing as he dragged himself toward a massive oak, its roots twisting up from the mire like grasping fingers. Each movement sent fire lancing through his side.

How many? He tried to count the wounds as he propped himself against the bark. Three arrows. One in his side, one in his shoulder, one buried deep in his thigh. The fletching caught his eye—crude work, but effective. Bandit arrows.

The same bandits who'd killed Roger Fowler.

John closed his eyes, remembering. He'd arrived at Fowler's castle expecting wine and conversation with an old acquaintance. Instead he'd found chaos—servants wailing, guards in disarray, and Roger's body being carried through the gates on a makeshift stretcher. Throat cut. Stripped of his signet ring and purse. Bandits grown bold in these newly-acquired borderlands. Roger had stumbled upon their camp on his hunting lands while pursuing a stag. Confronted them. Died for his pride.

John had taken the fastest horse in the stable and followed the trail while it was still warm. A foolish decision, perhaps. Emotional. Roger had been a good man. Loyal. The kind who remembered the names of servants' children.

The trail had led him deep into the wetlands— a nowhere-place between kingdoms, where maps gave up and drew pictures of serpents instead, claimed by neither Edleshire nor Belostan. Perfect country for men who wished to disappear. Perfect country for an ambush.

Marcus would be disappointed. The thought surfaced unbidden, carrying with it the ghost of his old teacher's voice. You let anger cloud your judgment, John. You rode into unfamiliar terrain without support, without reconnaissance. You deserved those arrows.

He opened his eyes. The forest pressed close around him, cypress and oak draped in hanging moss, their trunks rising from black water. Somewhere nearby, a frog croaked. The light filtering through the canopy had turned golden—late afternoon, perhaps two hours until dark.

He needed to move. Needed to find shelter, tend his wounds, survive the night. The bandits might be tracking him still, or they might have assumed the arrows would finish their work. Either way, staying here meant death.

His hand found the dagger at his belt. Small comfort. His sword had been lost somewhere in the flight, tangled in undergrowth or swallowed by the bog.

Then, a twig snapped.

Not the sound of a deer, nor a boar. It was the careful tread of a two-legged creature.

John's fingers tightened around the dagger's hilt. His vision swam, but he forced himself to focus, to listen. Could be the bandits, could be worse. These borderlands bred strange things, if the stories held truth.

His back pressed against rough bark. Blood dripped from his fingertips into black water.

One chance. Make it count.

He waited.

Create your own scenario.