Joren Volkov was a man fond of frowning, and often found himself frowning for one reason or another at any given time of the day. He grimaced in the mornings as he limped around his chambers, every step sending a jolt of pain through his leg -- the mornings were always the worst. By noon on even a bad day, Joren liked to think, he could outrun any other cripple in the Whitelands. In the mornings, though, he was invariably reduced to a slow shuffle on a good day or a cane on a bad one. As the years had passed, more bad days had started to come than good ones.

He found himself frowning again by midday, drilling the paltry guard that had been left to garrison the castle since the late Duke had marched off. Mostly they were boys who had never left the village or fought someone with a body that wasn't made of straw, and Joren's frown would grow deeper as the men grew more tired. By the afternoon he would call off training and the guardsmen would go off to patrol -- or, increasingly, to drink in the village and chat with servants in the halls.

Joren would continue frowning throughout the various council meetings and court sessions that he was able to attend, and that frown grew ever deeper on the day that the boy regent called the lords to him. It was a necessary formality, of course, but still one that might have been better off saved for when the new Duke, Joakim's brother Gregar, finally found the time to come back to his seat. A sixteen-year-old regent without a hair on his chin did little to inspire confidence in one's vassals.

Regardless the day passed, and lords began to pour into the keep. Among those was an envoy of Joren's own family, some distant cousin or another, from whom Joren learned that his children were growing up well at home. He had often considered bringing them to the Wintershouse -- or perhaps even retiring from his position and going to them -- but the boy regent was in need of good guidance now if he ever would be, and so it was Joren's duty to stay. 

It was also his duty to keep one of his trademark frowns from becoming too apparent when Joakim had announced the army marching into the Whitelands, and Joren found himself even more taxed when the boy declared that he would be travelling to free a captured knight himself -- and that Joren would be accompanying him. It had been years since he had left the keep, to be completely honest, and he hadn't sat a horse in a good thirty years, with good reason. Regardless, he could hardly disobey, especially when Joakim had already managed to point out his leg and his horse issues in a single remark. And so Joren nodded in silence and resigned himself to a long trip on horseback to manage a garrison of unfamiliar soldiers who owed him no loyalty. With any luck the horse would fall to the right if it fell, and Lord Perris would not circle around to take the Wintershouse while everyone but the coin-counters and the drunken guardsmen were gone. 

After the meeting Joren met with his garrison, chose someone he was reasonably certain that he could trust to manage the guard, and then went off to see about finding a sturdy horse. One low to the ground, perhaps.