Elfborn: The Quest

Knighted

Frederik smiled somewhat smugly as Lash stiffly stepped in through the side door of the magistrate's tent to walk carefully towards him, his dark skinned face a mask of concentration. The boy was dressed as an initiate, though most initiates weren't knighted until long years of study and training. Nor did he actually sit the vigil overnight following a twelve hour fast after which consecrated Jebusin washed and blessed him. But, ash take him and the rest, he wore the white robe, the boots of new leather and the belt of white satin around his middle, just as an initiate would, stepping along the Path of Light towards the ceremony that would make him a knight.

Of course there were two ways of making a knight: a battlefield commission, which was certainly faster and spared everybody the long and rather boring ritual of knighting a man. But, considering the low morale in the face of the failing weather, the King of Germanse felt that a good ceremony would be just the thing to bring a bit of cheer to his weary knights and foot soldiers. It would put smiles on the faces of the men for the approaching genesis to the long journey to the shores of Arafel. And so he had called an Assembly to witness the knighting of Lash de Marniet.

Frederik's smile tightened slightly as Lash approached the first dais. Would his silver arrow resist being made a knight so soon by refusing to go through with the ceremony? The dias was the lowest of the three that gradually brought the initiate to the king's level. Each represented both the levels an initiate had to pass through in order to qualify as a knight: page, squire and finally knight, as well as the three members of the Ristusian Godhead: The One God, his Son, Joachin Hristus and the Holy Spirit, by which all miracles were worked.

It was a sequence as old as feudal rule in Evindel, since the first knights were made by King Avindas, master of the ancient kingdom of Calin, from which Germanse and Bavria sprang. The Ristusian meaning came somewhat later, shortly after the Jebusin began to spread the word throughout Evindel from their headquarters in Romis. Of course the ceremonies back then were much simpler than the evolved ceremonies of today. However, they did the same thing: made a man into a knight.

As he stepped onto the first dais, Lash stopped and slowly sank to one knee. 'Perfect,' Frederik found himself thinking with no small amount of relief as the two trumpeters beside him raised their horns to their lips to sound a single note. It was a clear, belling sound that briefly filled the packed full magistrate's tent with a taste of the fabulous court of Schlagerhof, Frederik's capital and brightest jewel in the Germansic kingdoms which crowned central Evindel.

There, in the vaulted ceiling'd halls of Frederik's castle palace of Hegenheim, there would have been brightly colored pages running to and fro, even more brightly colored courtiers and their ladies babbling excitedly, Lords and Magistrates walking stiffly in their robes of state. In addition, tables of food and drink stood ready for the feast following the knighting and the row upon row of dour looking Jebusin, adding an air of celestial legitimacy to the whole affair.

But what was taking place here was much more satisfying than any ceremony that could have been held in Schlagerhof. For this day, he would truly bind the awesome power that was named Lash de Marniet to the crown of Germanse and to him, King Frederik of House von Tappen, rulers of Germanse for over five generations.

Frederik's eyes narrowed slightly as he turned to scan over the tightly packed Assembly. Most were knights, called to witness the creation of one of their own. But the knights he sought out stood apart from the rest, watching the ceremony's beginning with smirks of their own. Soon enough they would be just as satisfied as he would.

"Behold, Lords of Evindel," Sir Wilfred, acting as Frederik's Lord Chamberlain and Master of Ceremony, boomed from where he stood on the top dais, two paces exactly from Frederik's left side. The bluff and capable knight was in his full armor, buffed to a high shine by his squire, the dark surcoat that held his coat of arms brushed until it gleamed. All he missed was his plumed helmet to complete the picture.