Chapter 160: Wild Conjecture
In a different room in the Summer Villa, Inquisitor Diarmuid sat with Confessor Eleanor and the newly titled Templar Tommin. Despite the august status of each of these people, no servants were allowed to attend them and the Confessor herself poured wine for both men before pouring a cup for herself.
"I didn’t have a chance to say it during the ceremony," Eleanor said lightly as she poured. "But congratulations, Sir Tommin, on awakening the power of a Holy Light Blade. Not many who join the church so late in life are able to complete this step to become a Templar of Light in the service of the Holy Lord of Light."
"Sir Tommin’s piety should be an inspiration to all young Templars," Diarmuid praised. The sword had been one of many weapons he requested from the Inquisition when Eleanor joined Lady Jocelynn on her journey to the frontier but even he had expected it to take some time for Owain’s former personal guard to master the art of empowering a Holy Light Blade.
Diarmuid had two blades sent specifically to test the new Templar with. If Sir Tommin hadn’t been able to master either of them, he would have remained an ordinary Templar within the Church. Such men were numerous and would be accorded the same privileges and treatment as secular knights both in life and on the field of battle.
Beyond the general order of Templars, however, existed the Order of Holy Light and the Order of Holy Flame. To ignite a Holy Flame Blade required a depth of zealotry and hatred toward demons and the enemy of the Church that few possessed. If a person’s faith was lacking in desire to cleanse the world of heresy and evil, they would be unable to ignite the Holy Flame.
Sir Tommin possessed no such zeal. Instead, he possessed a deep devotion to the ideals of the Holy Lord of Light. A purity of faith that believed in the justice and mercy of the Church and its duty to protect the innocent from darkness defined the Order of Holy Light.
Most Templars trained and prayed for years, if not decades, before they achieved a purity of devotion or zeal that would allow them to wield the Church’s greatest weapons, but Sir Tommin had succeeded at the first opportunity, placing him above any of the other templars who accompanied them on this journey.
"I don’t think young Templars should learn from my example," Sir Tommin said with a complicated look on his face. The Tommin of a year ago would barely recognize the face of the man he saw reflected in his wine goblet.
Joining the Templars protected him from Lord Owain and Marquis Bors who might have decided at any time to kill him or threaten his family to secure his silence about Ashlynn Blackwell’s murder. At the same time, Templars were allowed no family other than their brethren in the Church. Even though he hadn’t left Lothian March, he hadn’t seen his wife or son in the months since he approached Lord Loman to join the Templars.