Hynes Family/Alois/The Boy/Roleplay2

The mulled wine warmed his mouth and soothed the cold from his bones and the aching soreness from his body. He almost felt sorry for his young Squire. They had trained at the Academy all day, and the tutor had been relentless with him. He had taught him some basics of style, technique, and then set him to spar with another young squire two years older who had beat him senseless with a blunted tourney sword. And now he struggled against his own soreness as he sat scouring Alois’ hauberk in a large bucket of sand, removing the grime that had built up in the weeks since Alois had done it himself. He was grateful he would no longer have to maintain his own gear. “Will we train again tomorrow?” the boy asked, stopping to work loose a kink in his shoulder. Alois only grunted in reply, and returned to sipping the wine. After a long pause, he said, “Training may be hard, child, but the more pain we have the stronger it makes us. We must strive to be the strongest, We must endeavor to pursue true mastery of all the major arms, it is the core principal of Knighthood. If we did not strive for mastery, we would be no better than a common Man-At-Arms.” The child let out a deep sigh, said, “Yes, ser,” and promptly returned to scouring the hauberk. Alois set the wine aside and turned his attention to the packet of unopened messages setting upon his desk. He skimmed each one, discarding it once he deemed it unimportant, and thinned the stack in a matter of mere minutes. When he came upon a letter from the King himself, he stopped, suddenly hesitant, and read it with care. A smile crept across his face as he finished it, and read it again. The squire stopped his work and looked curiously at his master. “Ser?” Alois came up from the chair and showed the boy the letter. The boy took the piece of paper, scanned it slowly and turned bright red. “I cannot read, Ser,” he admitted quietly as he handed Alois the letter. “Well,” Alois said quietly as he took it from the boy, “We will have to remedy that quickly. I will speak with one of the mentors.” He cleared his throat and lay the parchment aside. “Duke Robert is calling for Volunteers to march on the Isles! This is my chance, boy, to prove myself, my courage and loyalty, to the people of Itorunt!” He paused for a moment, chewing on his thumb as he paced back and forth across the room. “I must speak to Duke Robert, send him a message. My scribe, boy!” he commanded in an excited voice. The boy leapt from his crouching position and hurried to fetch the scribe.