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As Rhydsar stepped out into the cloisters, and then upon the garth enclosed therein, Gütta was at his knife-play, sinking the steel slivers, greyed with age but gleaming at their edges (much like their master), into his swinging bullseye. The sound struck Rhydsar, for it was one which he associated with the man, and he wanted to stand and watch awhile as this nostalgia's fingers plucked at his brain. But the road had fatigued him, and the master and man-at-arms had not seen each other for many months. Impatient, the old boy, nearly a young man, crossed his arms.

"[color=#f1b1e3]Gütta, it's been a while,[/color]" he said.

Only then, at the lord's beck, did the mercenary, aging gracefully like a fine cheese, notice his presence. To apologize for having his back turned to the boy, he planted his knee in the dirt, and thus, genuflected. "[color=#e3ed74]It has, m'lord,[/color]" said Gütta. "[color=#e3ed74]You took longer than I expected.[/color]"

"[color=#f1b1e3]Indeed. I was delayed.[/color]" The words slipped through lips curled up in a smile, much too boyish for Rhydsar's austere face; for he stared Gütta sternly in the eye as one would with a penal disposition. He sat, leaning himself up against a pillar. "[color=#f1b1e3]Rise. What have you discovered in your time here?[/color]"

"[color=#e3ed74][i]Yare, yare[/i]. It's always business with you.[/color]" Gütta turned back to the bullseye, poising himself to throw: his feet spread, his shoulder twisted back and his hand, clutching a knife, slung over it. "[color=#e3ed74]Frankly, m'lord, I think trouble follows the Order, not the other way around.[/color]"

"[color=#f1b1e3]Bad luck? Or something they can fix?[/color]"

The mercenary hummed a long syllable, stalling for time as his words coagulated upon his tongue. He threw, and with the muffled thud of steel impaling wood, the knife hung now from the bottom edge of the painted circle. The bullseye shivered. "[color=#e3ed74]It's like a carriage on the road,[/color]" he said at last. "[color=#e3ed74]It's surrounded by men-at-arms and scouts, so you know someone important is inside. Maybe the Order brings trouble with it because troublemakers know we go where there are princes, sheriffs, priests—in a word, treasure.[/color]"

He was walking at that point toward the bullseye, to wrench his toys from the wood. Rhydsar watched the man's small, sinewy figure as it strode away from him. "[color=#f1b1e3]Then who's really in charge here? The girl is the one in the carriage, but she cannot really be running the show.[/color]"

"[color=#e3ed74]Have you met her, m'lord? She's supposed to be with the royals, attending a feast.[/color]"

"[color=#f1b1e3]She's back now. She hurried off to a meeting with her knights, so I will wait for introductions.[/color]"

Graveness drained the color from Gütta's cheeks, his mind deluged with rowdy thoughts doing battle against themselves. He lamented that he never seemed able to walk the fine border between boredom and chaos; not without tripping. So just as soon as he'd whittled his morning away with yawning entertainment, aching for excitement, suddenly he feared that very excitement, of the breed which followed the Order's oligarchy, their breed which slept belligerently in his stomach as nightmares in his skull whensoever he feasted of it. He wanted naught to do with the pandemonium which they wrought.

"[color=#e3ed74]Can I explain on the way to the library? Peace and quiet are rare treasures indeed when she's leading her puppydogs around,[/color]" said Gütta. "[color=#e3ed74]Besides, that's where I've hidden your present.[/color]"

"[color=#f1b1e3]A present![/color]" Although Rhydsar had grown and his voice had fattened up, growing rich and manly over their distant years, it seemed now to have faintly thawed, and Gütta recognized the childish excitement instill therein. Yes, he was the same boy, though even at first glance, as Rhydsar stood, Gütta saw that he had grown taller, stronger, and of course, more headstrong. "[color=#f1b1e3]By all means, lead the way.[/color]"

"[color=#e3ed74]There are three rules of survival in this place,[/color]" Gütta said, gathering his knives in coalition in his fist. Some, biting rather deeply at their target, he tugged free with a quick struggle. Where his pollaxe and sword leaned against a pillar he also had placed a leather satchel, and he endeavored himself toward that place. "[color=#e3ed74]That's the first: if you care about something, don't leave it unattended in plain sight. Not in the barracks; not in the armoury. Nowhere. We've got a few 'pranksters' running around. As far as I'm concerned they're saboteurs.[/color]"

"[color=#f1b1e3]'Saboteurs!' Doesn't someone get the shit kicked out of him if he pranks someone bigger than him?[/color]"

though Gütta sighed again, he released this breath in a disjointed stagger, a phantom of a shadow of a halfhearted laugh. "[color=#e3ed74]Punishment is unheard of here,[/color]" he growls, "[color=#e3ed74]except by insubordinates. Ignoring orders will turn people against you quick. The Captain maintains law and order through popularity contests, not through discipline.[/color]"

"[color=#f1b1e3]And the senior knights listen to her?[/color]"

Gütta by then had placed his pollaxe on a rack in the armoury. He carried his sword tucked into a cat's skin wrapped around his waist, and in the satchel, pressed possessively against his belly, his throwing knives. He had led Rhydsar underneath the shelter of the cloisters, and was leading him down the open walkway. For many tantalizing moments he was quiet, rallying and organizing his words cautiously.

"[color=#e3ed74]I guess so,[/color]" he deigned to say. "[color=#e3ed74]I can't imagine any of these goody-goodies having sunk their talons in her. No shadow governments here.[/color]"

"[color=#f1b1e3]So what is she like, as a person?[/color]" Rhydsar tried to ask casually. Feeling he failed, though noticing that Gütta had noticed himself, he offered forth no clarity of purpose.

"[color=#e3ed74]Typical woman, really: too weak to fight her own battles, so she surrounds herself with boot-lickers.[/color]" Gütta spoke with a sneer nestled into the wrinkles of his nose, bleeding down into the corners of his mouth. "[color=#e3ed74]Beyond that, we haven't met much.[/color]"

It was Rhydsar's turn then for a lengthy pause, awkward and frigid. "[color=#f1b1e3]...What is she looking for in a henchman?[/color]"

"[color=#e3ed74]Be here for the right reasons, m'lord.[/color]"

"[color=#f1b1e3]I am.[/color]" The aristocrat was back, tucking the giddy little boy gently away into some corner of his heart, and locking the door. "[color=#f1b1e3]What are the other two rules?[/color]"

"[color=#e3ed74]Did you hear the explosion? Thunder, fire, the wrath of the screaming damned?[/color]"

"[color=#f1b1e3]It must have happened before I got here.[/color]"

"[color=#e3ed74]Well, rule number two is: run [i]toward[/i] the strange noises only if you're a hero or a madman. We've got plenty of both running amok in this place, so I mind my own business. Nothing good comes of being curious about what the witches are up to, nothing at all.[/color]"

On any other day Rhydsar may have smiled at Gütta's warning, asking him whether father had bribed him to say such a thing; keeping the boy out of unnecessary troubles. Needless to say Rhydsar did not totally heed these words. The mercenary of course wore in his features a collected calm, a slight swagger in his steps, like he hadn't a worry in all of Thaln; quite contrary to his dire words. "[color=#f1b1e3]And the third,[/color]" Rhydsar ordered.

"[color=#e3ed74]And the third; well, this one's for me, really. You may want to amend it.[/color]" Gütta, Rhydsar noticed, was suddenly skulking. They had come to one of the cloister's many doors, and the spunky mercenary seemed wary suddenly of what lied beyond.

"[color=#f1b1e3]What is the third rule?[/color]" Rhydsar asked again.

"[color=#e3ed74]Don't disobey orders,[/color]" said Gütta, pressing his eyes to keyholes, peering through the seam between them, "[color=#e3ed74]but don't volunteer for shitty jobs, either. There are no promotions here. No medals, no treasures. All you'll accomplish is getting the taste of the Captain's toes stuck between your teeth.[/color]"

"[color=#f1b1e3]You're right. I might change that one.[/color]" Though Rhydsar watched this display with curiosity written conspicuously across his face, he made no gestures to question it. "[color=#f1b1e3]This 'insubordination'; what is it like?[/color]"

"[color=#e3ed74]She keeps her hands clean. Acts all skittish and weak while her lapdogs do the fighting for her.[/color]"

"[color=#f1b1e3]Worse comes to worst, then, she's not the one who will slit my throat.[/color]"

"[color=#e3ed74]You've met them in the courts, m'lord: royal sycophants. Kissasses. The people who defend her because she's the leader, not because what she's saying is true.[/color]"

"[color=#f1b1e3]Aye; I've met them. And I've had a few of my own. If she's worth her salt then she will know how to take advice, and thank them for it. And she deserves better people around her if they're afraid to speak out against her.[/color]"

Gütta did not reply verbally, typically a sign of acquiescence. Perhaps he felt a sting, an accusation, in that phrase: [i]I've had a few of my own.[/i] Whatever the case, he was standing again, and he had placed his hand at the doorknob. He prepared to turn it with slow deliberation, and the hinges squeaked with their arrival into Candaeln's halls.