Who is Suited to be a Knight?

"Such thing has never occurred before. Please reconsider, Lord Senebres!" claimed Mylan Pierre.

The Lord, Senebres, in question was no other than Huvel. When Huvel received his noble title, he adopted a new family name for himself. The name he chose on a whim was 'Senebres' which he thought as a compressed form of 'seigneur des ténèbres'*. Though it might sound clingy, he believed nobody would pry too deep into that name and just went with it.

The next thing he lacked, after a family name, was reliable and loyal knights. As a nobleman, it was necessary to have at least one or two knights to serve him. The prince could not help him much with that matter. It was inappropriate to tell a knight to abandon their current lord and swear loyalty to another lord. All he could do was making two squires who were in training to become knights, follow Huvel to Boswel. Even so, whether they swear their loyalty to Huvel or not depends on how they see Huvel Senebres.

But Huvel could not wait until those squires finish their training. There were eight knights in Boswel and they have authority over both military and civil affairs. There were officers in charge of civil affairs but it was reported that the knights took over the authority in the recent years. Since Huvel was the lord of the realm, he had to bring at least the authority over civil affairs under his control. If he did not have at least a knight to work for him, it would be hard to stand his ground against the active knights.

As such, Huvel resorted to an immediate solution for that matter. That was simply to give Karl the title of knight. Since Karl had received the training from a veteran knight together with him when they were young, it was not impossible for him to become a knight himself. He was already familiar with the etiquettes of knights and his swordsmanship was not lacking either. However, when he announced the words to knight Karl, he received a report that said the knights were extremely displeased.

The next day, when he was thinking how to deal with the situation in his office, a guard came in and reported, "My Lord, the knights of the wall led by caption Mylan Pierre are requesting an audience with you."

"They came too fast! I still don't know how to deal with them." Huvel thought as he rubbed his chin.

Chance who was appointed as his butler and helping him with paper works asked him, "Shall I tell them to come back later?"

"It's fine. I can't avoid them long anyway." Huvel replied after thinking for a short while. "Let them in," he ordered the guard.

Several knights entered the room shortly after. Huvel looked at each of them carefully. The man in the front was Sir Mylan Pierre, the caption of the troops of the wall of Boswel. Huvel knew him since he had come the other day to introduce himself and explain the situation around the wall. He was a man in his fifties. It had been more than 20 years that he was on the wall. He was a true veteran and seemed to be respected a lot by the soldiers. Among the eight knights in Boswel, Mylan and two other knights served the king and the remaining five were each from the nearby noble realms, including the Mustero Duchy.

Huvel did not know the other knights so he took the chance to remember their faces. There were five knights that came in. The other three knights probably disagreed with the protest and did not came. However, that could not be taken as a fact. They might be busy doing something else after all. But after watching the last one entered the room, the corner of his lips curled upward for a short moment without anyone noticing.

"I'm very sorry to visit you without prior appointment, Lord Senebres," the man in the lead, Mylan, said as he bowed his head. The other knights also bowed their heads but their mannerism was too sloppy compared to Mylan.

"Ahem!" Chance cleared his throat to reprimand those knights. He only kept himself from saying anything because Huvel raised a hand to stop him.

"It's fine," Huvel replied to Mylan. "Since five of our honoured knights who are busy protecting my realm came to me in person, I believed there must be an important issue."

Some knights behind were agitated by Huvel's sarcasm. Mylan, however, did not mind it and got to the point.

"Of course, we dare not disturb you, the lord of this realm, with trivial matters. We just happened to hear that the man you would be knighting in two days is a commoner! Is that true, Lord Senebres?"

"Hmm..." Huvel made a noise as if he was uninterested. "I don't know his father well but it seems he is a commoner. Is there any problem?"

"Indeed, Lord Senebres! Knighting a commoner had never happened before in the kingdom. It will cause an uproar among the nobles. Please reconsider!" claimed Mylan.

"Hmm... why is that a problem though?" Huvel replied lazily as if he did not want to continue the conversation anymore.

"Hmph! It seems Lord Senebres can't even understand that he can't knight a commoner!" A knight in the back could no longer stand Huvel's laid-back attitude and spoke out loudly all of a sudden.

"Oh my!" Huvel exclaimed before anyone could say something. "It seems I was lacking with my studies. Do you care to tell me the law which prevent me from knighting a commoner?"

The knight could not read the room and continue to sneer. "It is not stated in the law. It is common knowledge among nobilities. Don't you even know that?"

"Sir Luc!" shouted Mylan.

"Hahaha." Huvel laughed off lightly. "Sir Luc, was it? You are quite funny. Are you saying that I have no common knowledge of noblemen? Listen, you foolish bastard! Why should I care whether someone knighted a commoner before or not. If it is not stated in the law issued by the king, who dare say it is illegal? A duke? A prince? You, a knight?"

"WHAT?!! You, you…"

"And the fact that you, a mere knight, trying to teach a viscount his place is overstepping the boundary. You are just a trash that defames one's own lord. Rather than having a knight like you, I would have dogs on the streets as my knights!"

"….."