The Templar

3 The Selection

The noble group followed Laggard's instructions and dismounted. Footmen appeared from one side of the Temple and took the reins of the horses while the Council of Thirteen led the way inside the impressive building.

Even in the dim silver light of the moon, filtered by the small windows at the top of the walls, Mat could discern some of the grandeur of the Temple. The solid double doors hid an entrance hall as wide as a ball room with an impressively high ceiling. The stone tiles of the floor and the white walls covered with banners placed at regular intervals, interposed with torches, made Mat shiver. She wondered why the torcher weren't lit. In the faint light, she recognized many of the symbols on the banners as the coats of arms of the different duchies of Teak. There were a few that she did not recognize but they were a minority. On the right wall, she quickly spotted the banner of the Ravenclaw duchy: a black raven descending on its prey, claws first, on a dark green background of leaves. Mat gripped the hilt of her sword and traced the outline of the raven crafted on it with her fingertips. She was determined to keep this banner on that wall at any cost.

Mat was so absorbed by her thoughts that she did not notice when the rest of the group followed the Council through a camouflaged door in the left wall. She ran behind them and nearly fell when she stumbled down the first step of a spiral staircase cut in massive rock. She followed quietly, advancing deeper in the complete darkness of the underground, led only by the sound of hundreds of boots stepping on the hard rock ahead of her.

After long seconds, a faint orange light illuminated the wall. As she kept going down the stairs, the light grew brighter until she finally reached an opening in the wall. She slept through the narrow oval and was taken aback by the room she was now in. It was more a corridor than an actual room, long enough for all the present nobles to stand in a line. Torches were lit on the walls and formed crimson circles on the dark rock while flooding the room with warm orange light. A line of boxes with dark powder in them was placed in the middle of the room and Mat hurried to join her father while the nobles silently formed two rows, one on each side of the boxes, facing each other.

Mat was on the row facing the door through which they came. She slightly leaned forward, her face still hidden by her large hood, in order to take a look at the members of the Council as they lined up at the end of the row, far on her left, facing the assembly. Mat gasped and was nothing short of shocked when she took notice of the King and the Crown Prince, standing in front of the Council.

Chatter slowly started to gain in volume as other nobles took notice of the royal pair. King Edward Lionheart was one of the youngest kings in the history of Teak, having taken the throne at the tender age of sixteen. He was presently around twenty-five years old and already known as one of the best monarchs Teak had ever known.

Now that she actually saw him with her own eyes, she found his especially hard to describe. She could not find the words to describe his traits, a hint more handsome than common, accentuated by his clear blue eyes, such as the sky on a sunny day of summer, which matched splendidly with his very light brown locks which were long enough to reach the tip of his perfectly cut beard.

The King's crimson and gold attire contrasted with the Prince's blue and silver clothes. Actually, they were more different than not. King Edward was a rather skinny figure and his pale skin and frail body cried his lack of training and sunlight while Prince Edmund was tall, well built, definitely a good swordsman and had perfectly sun kissed skin. Their only obvious common trait was the limpid blue eyes they shared.

The row of boxes suddenly ignited and Mat jumped back in surprise. A tall man with black robes and glasses came from behind the Council members and unrolled a scroll while the chatting died down.

The newly arrived figure read something on his scroll before claiming with a powerful and clear voice which echoed in the underground, "His Majesty the fifty-eighth King of Teak, Edward Lionheart, presents his son and heir, the Crown Prince Edmund Lionheart, as a noble Templar trainee aspirant."