Jeff Crook: The Rose and the Skull

"Now, before you start complaining, let me say that what I shall propose tonight is not without precedent. I am but building upon what has gone before us. I'll not say any more about it until after supper, when the Grand Chapter is convened. So enjoy your meat, and there is plenty of wine to go round."

A cheer went up from the tables of the younger Knights. "Well, at least they heard me say that," Gunthar said in Liam's ear. Liam chuckled, despite himself.

"Don't be angry with me, my old friend," Gunthar continued privately to Liam. "I need you beside me. I need your strength of will and purpose to help me muddle through. My revisions to the Measure of Knightly Conduct will be my parting gift to the order, but it consumes so much of my time and energy. Without your help in the mundane affairs of the Knighthood, I simply could not manage. I could not have chosen a better protege, student, or friend."

Liam's face softened at these words. Gunthar studied his friend's face, seeing with fatherly eyes the young Knight of twenty years before, though of late strands of gray frosted his temples. Proud chin, stern brow, dark and brooding eyes, Liam was ever, from then to now, the picture of seriousness. Some of the younger Knights called him "Old Stone Face," for even when angry, his features remained like carved marble. Only the flaring of his nostrils and the quivering of his long, black Solamnic mustaches betrayed his feelings, whether of mirth or of rage. Gunthar knew that Liam's cold manner, considered aloof by most, was but his way of showing his great love for the Knighthood. Still, he hoped that someday Liam would learn compassion, that he'd learn to see things from both sides and not see the world always in black and white.

"You are stubborn, my friend, stubborn and rigid as an elven prince," Gunthar continued. "You love the Knighthood so much you don't want to see it change. But without change, a living thing stagnates and dies. The Knighthood is a living thing, like an ancient tree of the forest, greater than both of us, older, grander. As long as we let it live and breath and grow, it will go on when we are gone. We each have the power to destroy it, by strangling it with our love for it. That is what happened in the past, in the days before the War of the Lance. Great men with the best of intentions tried to strengthen the order by making it more and more rigid. It took a lowly Knight, Sturm Brightblade, and his sacrifice at the High Clerist's Tower, to show us that without the Oath, Est Solarus oth Mithas -my honor is my life- the Measure is meaningless."

"I've heard all this before, milord," Liam said, smiling patiently.

"Well, hear it again, and understand it better, Liam. If I teach you nothing else, I hope I teach you this. An honorable Knight does the right thing, even without the Measure. The Measure is this," he said as he snapped his fingers. "It is nothing, without honor.

"These young Knights were admitted based upon their innate sense of honor. For most of them, it wasn't something they were taught, like we were. They learned it on their own, much as Sturm did. Granted, they are undisciplined, but they are not a rabble. When the time comes, their honor will stand them in good stead. You must learn to trust the younger generation and have hope in them, for they are not entirely hopeless."

Liam's eyebrows raised at these words. He turned to look at the carousing horde filling Gunthar's tables, their chins dripping with gravy and their cups more often raised for refilling than in toast. They shouted, laughed, jostled each other in friendly roughhousing, tossed bones and scraps to the gully dwarves and hounds, and laid wagers on who would get which bone and how long he would keep it. Many were Solamnic by birth, once a concrete requirement for entrance into the Knighthood, but now no longer; a growing number of non-Solamnics were filling the ranks, from Abanasinia, Northern Ergoth, the lands around Balifor, Kalaman, Tarsis, even in one case, a barbarian of Estwilde. Many had fled the coming of the great dragons and the destruction these powerful new dragons were causing to the lands of Krynn. Most had been children during the Chaos War, and they were marked by it, having been forced to grow up too soon. One noticed it most in their eyes; at one moment joyful, filled with mirth and good humor, the next quiet and resigned. They lived for the moment, knowing the moments could be few.

"And besides," Gunthar continued, "I call them here on such frequent occasions to keep an eye on them." He smiled. "I'm not so big a fool as you think I am."

"My lord!" Liam exclaimed.

"No, no you don't have to pretend. I know you think I've grown soft in my old age. You may even think I'm a few sticks shy of a cord," Gunthar said.

"Lord Gunthar!" Liam protested. "I never doubted… "

"Yes, you have, as have many others. They will doubt me still more after tonight. Look there! My friend has got his cap back," Gunthar said, abruptly changing the subject and pointing to the rat-skin capped gully dwarf.

Gunthar raised his cup in silent toast to the small filthy creature on the floor before him. The gully dwarf's nestlike beard parted in a wide grin, and he blushed to the tips of his ears.

The feast continued well into the evening. Many knights ate to the point of near-paralysis, having their fill of beef, pork, mutton, and chicken, as well as ducks, geese, capons, and woodcock. There were also pies galore, in which had been baked all manner of meats and vegetables, potatoes and carrots, leeks from Solamnia, onions, and garlic from the Abanasian plains. There was sheep's stomach stuffed with meat and barley, lamb boiled in butter and poured over a shield-sized platter of rice from Northern Ergoth. It fairly rained bread and sweet butter.

Lord Gunthar ate sparingly, as was his habit. While the meal continued, minstrels played from the alcoves around the hall while skalds sang of battles, Knights, and quests of long ago, of the coming of dragons, of the fall of Istar, of the sacrifices of Huma Dragonbane and of Sturm Brightblade. Some of the gathered Knights told of their most recent adventures or of news from across the sea. Many discussed the devastation of the Dragon Purge. More argued about what was to be done. Few agreed about anything, except for the need for more wine. More wine was served.

Wagers were laid on the game of tossing bones and gristle to Lord Gunthar's hounds and the gully dwarves, but as the gully dwarves were, in general, the more devious and resourceful, they most often obtained the best scraps, with the exception of one small, nimble-footed female hound whose speed and agility won her an unusual share of the spoils. As the evening wore on, she again and again robbed unwitting gully dwarves of their prizes. Once she was caught, and a tug of war ensued between the hound and two gully dwarves over a large and meaty beef bone. The hound had the larger end firmly gripped in her jaws, while the gully dwarves, one male and one female, wrestled over the small end.

Finally with a howl of frustration, the female gully dwarf loosed her hold on the bone and made a leap for the dog, her yellow teeth flashing as she prepared to make use of the gully dwarf's primary mode of attack. She grabbed the hound by the paw and raised it to her mouth. The hound, sensing danger, released the bone and scampered away, her nails scratching at the slick stone floor.

Before the female gully dwarf could enjoy her triumph, a low brown blur dashed in and tossed the gully dwarf free of the bone. The female gully dwarf climbed to her feet and snarling, faced her attacker.

"Gulpfunger spawn," she spat. She shook the nap of hair from her eyes.

She cringed when she saw her opponent. "Uh oh," she said. Her face grew pale, and she quickly glanced around for an escape route.