Chapter 58: The Dignified Duchess
For two weeks Arthur remained in the Duke’s Tower to oversee his daughter’s recovery, but there was a point he knew she didn’t need him any longer. She stopped staying inside the Duke’s Tower and was starting to get reacquainted with a set schedule that followed the other apprentices.
Even though Irene couldn’t do night watch, she was still keeping to their schedule which meant that she was awake when Arthur mostly wasn’t. Their awake windows started overlapping less and less.
What further forced Arthur’s hand the most was the snow that started falling. It was light but foreshadowed how harsh that winter would be. He needed to get to his wife and youngest child and ensure that they were set for the winter considering he had neglected them for the duchy. It was time to truly part with his daughter for a while.
In the order, there were set rules in the knighthood each winter. The knights were permitted to go off to the various corners of Tenetium where they originated from, but they needed to do knights’ work for the season—whatever was asked of them by the townsfolk, they had to do. Squires had much of the same where they would go back to their homes for the season.
However, apprentices were much different.
Since the amount of monsters that appeared during cold months plummeted considering they were greatly affected by temperature, the group of apprentices they had were more than enough to protect the Duke’s Tower.
Of course, people without families like Sir Gunnar, Sir Sven, and Sir Phillip would be there all winter long as well, but for the most part, the majority were apprentices.
Irene stood at the front of the Duke’s Tower with a cloak wrapped around her that kept getting whipped open by the harsh autumn wind. With each burst, microscopic snowflakes flew off of the castle’s roof and tumbled down on the apprentice and her father, causing the air to be full of brilliant sparkles considering the clouds had gone off for the day.
"I will see you soon," Irene insisted a bit hopelessly, knowing that soon would be over two months before it would be safe to travel once again.