Owlknight

Footfalls behind him woke Kuari, who swiveled his head halfway around to glare at the interlopers. Darian stood up and turned to grin at Anda and a sleepy-eyed Val.

“Ready?” Anda asked casually. Darian nodded, then coaxed Kuari up onto his arm.

:Time to go find a tree to sleep in,: he told the owl, who looked a little ruffled at having his nap disturbed. :I have to go inside now, and if you don’t find a secure place, you know that the crows will harass you.:

Kuari sighed, but agreed. Darian gave him a boost, and he labored off to a thick evergreen close to the Keep, where he could find a roost near the trunk, and the songbirds wouldn’t see him. At the moment, the songbirds were too busy heralding the day and warming up their muscles to pay any attention to Kuari.

Darian followed Anda and Val back inside, to the Great Hall, where a group awaited them. Again, knighting was usually done in the chapel, but Darian had voiced a mild objection to that. Breon had readily agreed, since the chapel at the Keep wouldn’t have held the full group that wanted to witness the knighting anyway.

Breon’s Keep was not very old; it dated back no more than a century or so. As a consequence, it didn’t have the same air of gloom that many of the older buildings of Valdemar did. In the Great Hall, the stone walls had been plastered over and whitewashed, then hung with tapestries. Above the tapestries, clerestory windows let in the early-morning daylight. Wooden beams supported the roof, and the battle banners of Breon’s family hung from them. Because of the windows and plastering, although the Hall was cool, there was none of that feeling of dank- ness and damp that made older versions of this room that Darian had seen in Valdemar so uncomfortable.

Breon waited on the stone dais that held the High Table; behind him the table had been set for breakfast, which would follow the ceremony.

That certainly shows where my importance is, Darian thought with great amusement. First, we get the ceremony over with, and then we can eat!

The rest of his witnesses were gathered below Breon. The sturdy Breon was wearing a surcoat that reached down past his knees, embroidered with the arms of his family and his own personal device. This was a relatively new item of his wardrobe, replacing the one he had worn for his investiture as a knight. The hertasi had made it for him as a birthday gift in time for Val’s knighting, and it was just as splendid as the one Darian would wear to tonight’s feast. Anda and Val led the way to the foot of the dais, with Darian following about four paces behind. From here on, the knighting would follow strictly traditional lines.

“Who comes before me in the light of the new sun, and why are you here?” Breon rumbled, in a voice that sounded a little hoarse - no doubt from all the shouted conversation last night. The wording had a weighty air of the ancient about it, a nearly palpable reinforcement that a knighting was anything but a casual lark.

Val answered, as the Senior Knight for this ceremony. “The Knighted Heir of Lord Breon, Sir Valyn, and the Herald-Mage Anda; we present a candidate for the honor of Knighthood, and stand as his sponsors.”

“And has he passed all tests of valor and virtue, of word and deed?” Breon replied, looking sternly down at his son and the Herald.

This time it was Anda who answered. “He has passed all tests and more, by the words of his mouth, and the deeds of his body. It is his actions of virtue and nobility that bring him before you this dawn.”

That last was an acknowledgment that Darian hadn’t been required to undertake any physical trials to prove his fitness for combat. Val had, because he had never actually fought, but Darian had faced - and struck down - the barbarian shaman of the northern Blood Bear tribe that had ravaged Errold’s Grove, and he had done so entirely by himself at the ripe age of fourteen. That alone probably would have qualified him.

Although I’m not sure how noble the weapons of a bucket and a pitchfork are. . . .

“Has he stood his vigil as ordained by tradition?” asked Breon.

The back of Val’s neck flushed with embarrassment at his own lapse, but he answered stoutly, “He has, waking the night through, alone with his thoughts, fasting, and in contemplation of his past and future.”

At that reminder of “fasting,” Darian’s stomach protested his lack of breakfast. At least it didn’t growl.

Breon nodded ponderously. “Therefore present him to me now, that I may see him with my own eyes.”

Val and Anda each stepped to the side, and Darian stepped forward. In his capacity as Herald - in the most ancient sense of the word - Anda presented Darian.

“Here we bring to all eyes and powers Darian Firkin, adopted of k’Vala clan of the Hawkbrothers, founder of k’Valdemar Vale, and worthy candidate for the honor of knighthood.” Anda’s voice rang out with strength, filling the Great Hall without sounding as if he was shouting.

Well, that’s one trick I’d certainly like to learn.