Chapter 756: Eldritch Honor
More than a full day after Sir Ollie’s duel with Sir Rain, Hugo Hanrahan and Carwyn Belvin sat in their luxurious sitting room, staring at the remains of the most sophisticated meal either man had ever consumed while they tried to process the events of the past two days.
Following the duel, Sir Rain had lost his privileges to be treated as a guest. Sir Ollie had apologized more than once but the way he’d explained things gnawed at Hugo, leaving his heart restless and his mind turning over again and again.
"The Eldritch see duels between champions as somewhat sacred affairs," Ollie said when they asked why Sir Rain would be imprisoned after the duel. "The Eldritch don’t require loyalty to a lord who can’t prove their strength. It isn’t like it is in the kingdom where you owe a man loyalty because he sits on a chair his father gave him. A lord can be challenged at any time."
"But Sir Rain didn’t challenge you," Hugo countered. "You were the one who issued the challenge. A knight’s challenge. What do Eldritch rules have to do with a challenge between knights over a matter of honor?"
"His disrespect was his challenge," Ollie said with a sigh. "If I accept that rudeness from him, the Eldritch would have believed that he was stronger than me. So, whether it was a matter of honor between knights or a challenge to the ruler of my village, we had to fight. But in the Eldritch world, just like it isn’t a crime to challenge a ruler, there are consequences for challenging a ruler and failing."
"So you’re saying that if he’d won the duel, you might have let him go free?" Sir Carwyn asked, trying to understand the logic of Eldritch honor.
"I can’t do that because he isn’t my prisoner," Ollie said. "But if he asked me to bring him to Lady Ashlynn to plead his case, I would have done it. And he may have been granted additional freedom in the castle. It’s complicated. The thing you need to know is that your status and titles don’t work like suits of armor or swords here. They won’t protect you from the consequences of your actions, and you can’t use them against people who have no reason to respect your strength."
"To the Eldritch, power comes with obligations," Ollie said. "The strong must protect the weak. Lady Nyrielle rules here but she must protect the people of the Vale of Mists. If she fails to do so, she can no longer be the Eldritch Lady of the Vale. It’s the same in my village. I need to protect my people," he said solemnly. "All of my people. If I don’t do that, I don’t deserve to be their knight."
Ollie’s words dug their way under Hugo’s skin like splinters, haunting his heart and mind like a pebble in his boot that he couldn’t ignore.