Paks watched them come up the aisle, her heart pounding with excitement and joy. This was exactly what she had thought about in Three Firs—the music, the brilliant colors—she tried to take a long breath and calm down. She recognized Sir Amberion and Lady Cami, but none of the other paladins. They mounted the platform behind her, and she heard the footsteps move away to its far side. Then the trumpets were still, and the Marshal-General’s clear voice called out the ancient greeting:
“I call the light!” came the response from every voice. It seemed to shake the air.
Paks half-listened, knowing the words better than any other she’d heard from the Marshal-General. Just so had her grandfather said them, when she was small, and just so her father had said them, the last Midwinter Feast she was at home.
With the others, she gave the response. And together they all completed the ritual, raising first one hand then the other, and finally both, to defy sundeath and greet the sun.
This would be repeated between every segment of the ceremonies, until sunrise the next dawn. Paks remembered falling asleep, year after year—and the first year that she had managed to stay awake, the last year of her grandfather’s life, to light the first morning fire with new wood. For with sundown, all fires were destroyed—to show respect, her grandfather had said, and to prove their courage to endure. Here, too, the fires went out when the sun fell, to be kindled at daybreak. Only those desperately ill were allowed a fire on Midwinter Night.
“Yeomen of Gird,” said the High Marshal then, and Paks pulled her mind back to the ceremony. “We have with us those who seek to join the Fellowship of Gird; by our ancient customs we will test them in their steadfastness, and you will witness their vows.”
“By Gird’s grace,” came the response. Paks felt her neck prickle. She was suddenly cold, and wanted to rub her arms.
“Stand forth, you who would swear fealty to the Fellowship of Gird,” said the Marshal-General. With those on her side of the aisle, Paks faced toward the center of the Hall. One at a time they would mount those steps and face a Marshal for the ritual exchange of blows. Paks suspected that in her case it might be something more than a ritual. Her leg itched; she resisted the urge to rub it on her other leg.
Before she had time to worry, she heard her name. All at once she felt eager, and went up the steps quickly. To the questions she made response firmly: she acknowledged Gird as the High Lord’s servant, the patron of fighters, the protector of the helpless. She swore to keep the Code of Gird, and obey “all Marshals and lawful authority over you.” And then the questioner stepped back, and she faced the Marshal-General, who held out two identical staves.
Paks took one, with an internal prayer that she wouldn’t look too foolish. The Marshal-General smiled, feinted, and aimed a smashing blow at her. Paks rolled aside, countering as best she could. The power of the Marshal-General’s blows carried all the way up her arms. Ritual exchange of blows indeed, thought Paks. The staves rattled. She took a blow on the thigh, and managed to touch the Marshal-General’s arm with a leftover move that carried little sting. Then her staff seemed to twitch in her hands and go flying through the air; the Marshal-General’s staff tapped her head firmly before she could dodge. And the Marshal-General stepped back, bowed, and greeted her.
“Welcome, yeoman of Gird, to Gird’s grange.” As she spoke, she placed a Gird’s medallion over Paks’s head.
Paks bowed as she had been instructed. “I am honored, Marshal-General, to be accepted in Gird’s Fellowship.” Then, dismissed, she left the platform and moved to a space behind it, where the Training Master waited to help her on with the candidate’s surcoat and her new Gird’s medallion.
The paladin candidates were presented just before dawn, after ceremonies honoring Marshals and paladins killed in the past year. It seemed to Paks a very plain affair: the candidates were simply named and shown to the spectators, and assigned to one of the knightly orders and a sponsoring paladin. After the events of the day before, Paks had hoped to get Cami as her sponsor, but instead Amberion led her before the crowd. Cami was sponsoring a yeoman-marshal from somewhere in the Westmounts, she heard later. Paks knew none of the candidates well, and only four of them at all; the others had been sent from distant granges after earlier selection.
She had one more day of freedom—for the second day of Midwinter Feast was as lively as the first—and fell into bed that night completely exhausted and as happy as she could ever remember being.
23
Paks’s first experience as a paladin candidate was a familiar one—moving into new quarters. These were south of the main complex, in an annex to the Paladin’s Hall. She was surprised to find that she would still have a room to herself, but Amberion explained.
“You will spend time in solitary exercises; you will need the privacy. Later, you will learn the skills of meditation even when surrounded by noise and upheaval, but for novices it’s easier to learn in solitude.”
Paks nodded silently. She was still shy of her paladin sponsor; it was hard to believe that he and Cami were in the same order. He seemed more sombre, far less approachable. She unpacked her things quickly, wondering a little at the requirement that her sponsor must see everything she owned. But for that, too, he had a reason. Paladins must be willing to go anywhere, anytime—able to endure hardship, not just discipline. Those who clung to treasured possessions, favorite foods, even friends, might make fine Marshals or knights, but not paladins. So in the early days of training, they must do without accustomed possessions. Those who withdrew would have theirs restored, but those continuing had to face the possible loss of items deemed too luxurious. Paks understood the reasoning, but could not imagine anyone preferring fancy clothes or jewelry to being a paladin. She said so, and Amberion grinned at her.
“I’ve seen it myself. And there is always something hard to give up. If not material things, habits and ways of thought. This may be a trivial test for you, but there are others. No one passes through this training without struggle.” He looked over her gear as he spoke, and told her to keep Saben’s red horse and Canna’s medallion. Aris’s gift, her weapons, the shining mail the elfane taig had given her—all these went into storage. Then he said, “What about money? Do you have any gold or silver?”