“Please to meet you Donell if your anything like your father never mind your grandfather, I’m sure you’ll do both them and Glenn here proud. I never was a fan of your uncle I must admit good with a sword he was but that was about it. Still, I was sorry to hear of his death never a good way to go not even for the likes of him. How do you find squiring son, for the most part, I enjoyed it immensely but to tell you the truth it’s not for everyone.”
“Well for now at least sir I don’t have any complaints and as far as I can tell it suits be fine but that might just be down to Sir Glenn here and his approach to the whole thing. And as to my uncle well I don’t remember ever meeting him, but I can’t say I ever met anyone who had a good word to say about him. My father’s just glad that the world has seen the last of him and the stain he was on our family’s honour.”
“Well I have other things to get up to so I must bid you farewell for now but while your here feel free to make use of our training facilities.”
“Mighty kind of you Amondo and I think we’ll take you up on your offer, the lad is a fine enough swordsman for his age but his footwork isn’t anything to be proud of and put a dagger in his hand and he’s more a danger to himself than he is to others.”
“Until later then.”
After leaving the training yard Amondo asked the constable to have two clerks search the library for information about the rites of Kuetai while he and Mavin were going to search the map room for it as well.
“ Remember we’re looking for information about the rites or anything similar and while we’re at it look into the legality of the whole thing. I know they were banned at some point, but I am not entirely sure whether or not they ever lifted that ban. It may be that they reimposed the ban several times over the years but hopefully that currently isn’t the case.”
Mavin and Amondo spent the next two and a half hours searching through the many books currently held in the map room and only managed to find a handful of books that mentioned the rites and of the five only one of them had all that much to say. Luckily the library proved much more helpful with a whole tome on the subject at hand. It wasn’t the easiest book to understand mind you but once you got past the terrible handwriting and the poor grammar in did, however, prove useful.
Unfortunately, it seemed that the rites were illegal or at least they were at the time the tome had been written. However, it seemed that the rites had at one point inspired an order of knights to come up with a series of challenges their prospective members had to pass before being admitted to the order and then they had to be renewed every ten years thereafter. The order in question had only existed for a century or so before it had fallen on hard times and been disbanded but that was down to a series of misfortune event outside its control and not the quality of its membership.
“Well thankfully that wasn’t a waste of time and hopefully Glenn will be willing to forgo the rites and try these five or so challenges instead. Now if that is the case the only thing we have to decide is whether it would be best to quietly run him through the challenges or make more of a spectacle out of it during next month’s annual Membe dungeon day fair. Nah best to let him decide and then take it from there. Mavin why don’t you get back to that other thing while I go and have a talk with Glenn.”
“I should have something for you on that by tomorrow I think.”
“Take your time better a thorough job done without haste than a lacklustre one done quickly.”
Expecting still to find Glenn and his squire in the training yard Amondo headed there but he was disappointed to find they had left a few minutes ago. Eventually, after asking a page he found them in the stable taking care of their horses and discussing fighting on horseback.
“So Amondo have you decided how you are going to deal my request?”
“That I have, unfortunately as far as I can tell the rites of Kuetai are currently illegal and have been for some time but have you ever heard of the order of the errant mind?”
“Can’t say that I have who were they?”
“One of those groups of knights who decide to band together every so often to right wrongs and the like. I know usually a pain in the ass for all involved but these boys seemed to have the right blend of idealism, common sense and dogged determination to avoid the usual fate of such brotherhoods, for a while anyway.
What is of interest to you is that after existing for a year or more they decided that from that point anyone who wished to join them would have to complete several challenges first and just to be fair the existing members would have to undertake these if they wished to remain as part of the order. Ten years after this it was further decided that members retake the challenge every ten years to remain as such.”
“So what exactly were these challenges they had to undertake and how hard were they?”
“I have a list do you want a read of it?”
“Right hand it over.”
Once the list changed hands Glenn had a read of it and for the most part, liked what he saw.
“Not too sure about that last one but otherwise count me in.”
“About that, if you want they’ll only take a day or so to set up before you can quietly have at them or and this is totally up to you wait until our dungeon day fair next month where you can complete them with an audience?”
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