Chapter 85: Obedience
For a while, Irene’s focus was on becoming suitably adaptable so that she could take on whatever was handed her in the knighthood and not crumble under pressure. However, it seemed that her focus had changed because, as they went on with the winterization, she found that the next trial was obedience.
Their tasks through each village, township, or simply a random group of houses placed in the middle of nowhere required them to check in with the reeves or leaders in each location. Best case scenario, the leader would walk the knight and apprentices around the area and show that they were well-stocked for the winter then they would be on their way.
More times than not, however, they had to lend a hand in helping the villagers with tasks that seemed menial but added up to their preparedness for winter. Only when the tasks were nearly complete did they move on to the next location.
Rather than it being simple knight training, it felt like they were training to be a ranked knight or even the Duke or Duchess themselves considering this wasn’t normally the job of a regular knight. In the years past, the Duke would lead the charge and bring most of the knights and apprentices with him to do the footwork.
Considering Irene was aiming for not only greatness but being the greatest, she decided to follow orders and do everything that was set out for her. While it was unlikely she would ever reach higher than the noble status she already carried because of her father, having a chivalrous reputation was also important. She decided to stress that point more than anything else.
Well into their winterization tour, they were working with a reeve who had quite an expansive list of things he needed them to help with.
Since Irene was practicing obedience, she decided to keep to herself that it seemed the reeve was anticipating the arrival of knights and waiting for them so he wouldn’t have to lift a finger. At one point, her eyes met Leif’s and she knew that he was thinking much of the same.
With the high amount of things to do, the four travelers had to split off from one another and attend to various tasks on their own. They would get things done more quickly if they weren’t there to distract each other. That had remained a common theme between the apprentices who could find something fun no matter where they were or what they were up to.
Gunnar was, unfortunately, well attuned to their habits both bad and good. Very little slipped by the man.