⏱ ~5 min reading
In a white-stone castle above a blue river lived the knight Bohdan. Tall, broad-shouldered, with fair hair and slightly sleepy gray eyes. He had armor, a sword, and a horse—a bay, gentle horse named Tuman. Everything befits a knight.
Only in one thing was Bogdan different from the others. The other knights were always waiting for war. They sharpened their swords. They held tournaments. They fought with effigies on the playground. And Bogdan planted trees.
It all started small. One spring, he passed by an old apple tree in the castle courtyard. Its bark was twisted, its branches were dry, but one branch still held a pink blossom. Bogdan stopped. He sniffed. It smelled of honey and childhood—his grandmother had an apple tree just like that in the village.
"It's a pity you're old," he said to the apple tree, placing a large, warm hand on its trunk. "Let me help you.".
He brought a shovel from the barn, dug up the roots, scattered rotten leaves under the apple tree, wrapped the dry branches in a linen cloth. And then he thought - why only one? And he planted a young pear tree nearby. And next to it - a rose bush. And under the rose - two handfuls of crocus bulbs.
That's how the garden began.
The other knights laughed. They gathered around the stable and shouted:
— Bogdan! Throw down your shovel! Come with us to a tournament in a neighboring kingdom.
"I won't go, friends," Bohdan replied gently. "My roses are waking up today. I want to see how the petals unfold.".
"You're not a knight, you're a village woman," the young knight Ostap sneered.
Bogdan wasn't offended. He just smiled into his beard, adjusted his straw hat on his head—he left his old helmet in the castle—and walked to his trees.
And there were no wars. For many years the kingdom had lived peacefully. The neighbors were friends. The borders were guarded by a small garrison. The knights were bored, fought for fun, arranged feasts and competitions. And Bogdan's garden became more beautiful every year.
With the warm hand of the knight-gardener, roses bloomed - white as the first snow, pink as the cheeks of a baby, and dark red as the wine in the king's glass. Apple trees grew and bloomed so densely that bees buzzed above them in whole clouds. Grapevines turned green along the southern wall of the castle. Between the beds were laid paths of flat pebbles, which were pleasant to walk on barefoot.
People began to come to the garden. First, lovers. A young shoemaker from the neighboring street brought his bride here, sat her on a wooden bench under an apple tree, and whispered something in her ear that made the girl blush more than roses. Then the children came along - they played hide-and-seek behind the bushes, caught butterflies, and wove wreaths of daisies. Then the old women. They sat on the benches, basked in the sun, and fed the sparrows crumbs.
Bohdan didn't chase anyone away. On the contrary. He put more benches in the garden. He sculpted a large bird bowl out of clay. He dug a small pond in which lived goldfish and one black frog that loved it when children came to look at it.
One day, the king himself came to Bohdan's house. An old man with a gray beard, in a simple everyday retinue - without a crown. He sat down on a wooden bench, smelled a rose, and closed his eyes.
"Bohdan," the king said quietly, "I once sent you to study with the best swordsman. I thought you would become the first knight of the kingdom.".
"I apologize, Your Majesty," Bogdan looked embarrassed and lowered his eyes.
"Don't apologize," the king smiled. "I come here every day. My knees hurt, but here I breathe - and it becomes easier. Now I think - you, Bogdan, are the first knight. Only your sword is a shovel. And your tournament - that's all.".
The king circled the garden with his hand. A bee flew above him. A frog splashed in the pond. Somewhere in the depths a child laughed.
"Heroes are needed in times of peace too," added the king. "Because someone must protect beauty. Without it, man will forget why he lives.".
Bogdan was silent. He just stroked his shovel, the way other knights stroke their swords.
That same summer, a little story happened in the garden. The young knight Ostap - the same one who had once sneered at Bogdan - returned from the tournament with a wounded hand. The doctors bandaged it, but his soul still ached: he had lost the battle. Ostap walked past the garden, looked in and sat down on a bench. Bogdan silently brought him a jug of cool water with mint.
"How do you live like this, Bogdan, without victories?" Ostap asked.
— And I win, — Bohdan smiled gently. — Every flower that blooms is my victory. You just blink — and there's another one. There are more tournaments here than you have on the field. It's just that the enemy is silence.
Ostap laughed for the first time in a week. And the following spring he came to Bohdan and asked him to teach him how to graft apple trees.
Decades passed. Bohdan grew old, his beard turned white like an apple blossom. But the garden had grown so much that now you could walk in it for half a day and not walk all the paths. When Bohdan died, all the people came to bury him. No one had any loud speeches. Everyone simply brought one flower from their garden.
They buried Bohdan under the largest apple tree—the same one that had once started it all. On a simple stone, they carved just a few words:
«"The knight who protected beauty.".
And in the kingdom since that time, boys dreamed of becoming either warriors or gardener-knights. And every profession was respected. Because if there is someone to guard the border - good. And if there is also someone to guard the roses - then the kingdom is truly alive.
✨ In times of peace, beauty also needs its knights - and this work is no less honorable than military work ✨