The Knight of Chivalry

Chapter 24

Simon woke up in his own room on the lord’s estate, he was well rested after a good night’s sleep and he was glad that he did not have to worry about travelling anymore as they had reached their destination. He dressed and went down to the main hall where the servants were serving breakfast, he sat down at a table and grabbed a plate of fresh bread and bacon and got a flagon of water. It didn’t take him that long to polish this off and once he was done he left the estate and started to explore the city. There were a great many sights to see, he started in the inner ring first. Here there were many large estates that were beautiful and looked very expensive and he guessed that these would be owned by the important people of the realm like the lords and such as well as rich merchants. Most of the people in the street looked at him in disgrace, they were all very nicely dressed and he was dressed in a simple boiled leather hauberk but he was comfortable as he was a cared not for the looks of these well to do person. There were also several shops in this district which served the rich people with the fanciest of foods and wines as well as shops for fine clothes and jewels, they seemed to be doing a brisk business and Simon could tell the food stores were visited mainly by the servants or stewards of the households in this area than the lords themselves. As he continued to explore he came across one of the most beautiful buildings he ever saw, it was a huge cathedral for religion and it had a lot of intricate statues on the outside, he saw that it was open so he went instead and paid homage to the god. There were others here who offered their prayers as well and priests walking around and talking to these peoples. Once Simon had said his prayer he approached one of these priests.

            “Excuse me father but I have a question?” Simon asked the priest.

            “Be quick about it then peasant I don’t have all day” the priest said in an impatient tone.

            “Where is the library of the city?” Simon asked, this made the priest looked surprised.

            “I don’t know what a peasant would want with books but it is on the other side of this district right next to a monastery as it is the monks who look after the books” the priest said.

             “Thank you father” Simon said and he left the cathedral and made for it. His journey took him past the palace which was even finer up close than it was when he saw it at a distance yesterday when he rode into the city. There were finely armoured guards on the gate to the palace who glared at him suspiciously as if they expected him to try and attack the palace but he just moved on. He reached the monastery and saw the monks were walking around their compound going about their business. As the priest said the library was right next to the monastery and it was a good sized stone building of fairly simple design so it looked a little out of place here in this district. He went inside and there were a few monks wondering its halls with books in their hands and they were filing these books in the numerous shelves of this library. A monk saw him and came rushing over to him.

            “You cannot be here peasant, this place is not for you, and you will ruin the books with your dirty hands even if you could read” the monk said in a distressed manner.

            “I see like the priest you have been deceived by my appearance, I am no peasant but a knight with very clean hands as you can see, I came here to see the collection of books as I have heard it is one of the best” Simon said showing the monk his hands.

            “My apologies ser, you are dressed so very simple for a knight, most in this city dress very finely, though we don’t see them very often and never in this library, they do not appreciate the written word” the monk said.

            “Well I do, I have read most of the books in Lord Reiner’s library, and they have a lot of useful wisdom in them” Simon said.

            “Ah I know Lord Reiner he has visited this library once before a long time ago and donated to help us preserve some books, I will gladly show you around this library” the monk said and he was true to his word. They spent hours going around the shelves and the monk told Simon all about the books they kept here and how many were centuries old. The monk said that though Simon couldn’t take any book out of the library that he was quite welcome to come back and read in the library those books that interested him and weren’t very fragile, Simon thanked the monk for his time and the offer saying he would return soon to make use of it. He went back to the lord’s estate then and got some lunch as the sun was just past its peak then and he was hungry. A servant told him that the lord would like him to remain at the estate tomorrow as they were going to pay homage to the king, Simon thanked the servant and said he would make sure he was here. He then saddled his horse and rode down to the lower levels of the city, exploring on horseback and seeing the sights. From busy markets to beautiful churches, from the smelters street to carpenters way, there was a lot to see. The people were also of interest as there was many of them and each new area they appeared differently according to the way they dressed from nice silks to scruffy wool and there was a wide range of different colours within the crowds as well. The sun was close to setting when Simon emerged from one street and came across the tourney ground. It was a very large field, to one side was an archery range, in the middle was the stands for seating a king and his court and the rousting run, then on the other side was where the melee would take place. Simon dismounted and felt the ground, it was fairly hard and he liked this. There were a few people running around the field, getting it ready for the tournament he reckoned. He remounted his horse and rode back into the city heading back up the hill to go back to the lord’s estate. Once he reached here it was fully dark, he sorted out his horse then went into the hall and got some food and then went to his room to sleep, he expected that tomorrow would be very eventful.