My Journey To Knighthood.

Hello once again people who read this blog! So lately I've been studying knights a lot (you know, those guys who ride around on horses and kill dragons? Yeah them.), what they do and how you become a knight. I finished about a week ago, so Mom got the idea that I should write a little story (are any of my stories ever little?) about how I became a knight. So without further ado, here's my story.



 Once upon a time there was a young boy, born in England in the mid 1500's. He was born into a family of Royals, and as Royals they had connections to the king. Naturally, the king wanted their newly born son to be his next famous knight. That young knight was me, Darien Kinzler, and this is my story. It all started the day I was born. The year was 1569, December 6th. My father, a wealthy (and slightly fat) Royal, was waiting anxiously outside the delivery room. Now, sense we're talking about the 1500s, we didn't have big fancy delivery rooms like you more "sophisticated" people. No, our delivery room was a dark, wooden shack with one candle giving one side of the room a friendly glow, and the other black as night. Now, I don't know this because I don't remember I've only been told by our servants, that during delivery my mother was screaming bloody murder. And when the adoring little baby came out, he wasn't doing much better. But he was such an adorable baby, they could cut him some slack right? Ok, time to stop talking about how cute of a baby I was and get on with it. So after I was born I spent the next 6 years learning how to use proper table, social, and knightly manners. Apparently my father had told the king that "If he were to have a son, he would make him pledge allegiance to you, Your Highness." so I kinda had no choice. He would often hold it against me when I was young that if I didn't train to become a Knight the kind would "Have his head". At the time I didn't know what that meant, or that he was joking, but I was sure it wasn't good. So I did what I was told: Prepared the table for supper, helped make supper, did chores in and outside the house, and went to buy food/supplies/anything else we might need. Then one day my life of "mannerly" training completely changed. I was dusting the knick-knacks like mother had told me to (Mother and father had gone into town to look at meat) when I heard a knock on the door. Mother always told me not to answer the door when nobody was home, but I felt like this was important. KNOCK KNOCK! Whoever it was meant business. So I walked over to the door, feather duster in hand, and opened the door slowly. Apparently not as slowly as I thought, because whoever was at the door took another big knock swing and fell down flat on his face. He wasn't dressed in any clothing I'd ever seen, but I knew right away what he was. He was a knight! I didn't even know what to say so I just stood there. A knight at MY house? After taking a quick dirt nap on the floor Prince Clutz stood back up to face me. He was at least 6'5 feet tall with a face only one of those "Oh I'll marry him because he's got money!" girls would love. He had brown curly hair that was short in the front and long in the back (I only knew this at the time because it was flowing over his shoulders), long muscular arms and legs, bright blue eyes, and white skin. I know what you're thinking "Weren't most of the people in England white at the time?" and yes they were, but this guy was literally white. I'd never seen skin so pale before in my life. "Are you Darien Kinzler?" he said after hardly regaining his balance. I didn't know what to say but sense he was a knight (and like most knights he was armed with a sword) I stood up straight the best I could. "Yes sir." I said with more "shake" in my voice then I thought. "Greetings young lad, I am Sir William." He said before saluting nothing. "At your service." At my service? I had a pet knight now? Oh this was going to be fun. "Now come along, I must take you to the kings castle." Now I was confused. "What for?" "For what you've been training for for the past 7 years of coarse. You're coming to live with me in the castle. There I will teach you further training in your quest to knighthood." Whoa! Father never told me about this part! This was going to be awesome: Awesome bedroom, huge property, incredible food, and no annoying neighbors. "Cool! Will mother and father be coming too?" "No." Just like that all the happy was gone. "W-Why not? Why can't they come live with us?" "Because the castle is for knights, servants, the king and the queen only. Your parents are only royals." "But you can't just take me without them knowing!" "I have already sent a messenger to tell them you'll be leaving today." I was ready to cry, I was only seven after all. "Now pack up your stuff, we're leaving in five minutes." I had no choice. I guess this is what I was meant to do. So I packed up my stuff (clothes, blankets, memories, etc.)  and fallowed Sir William to the castle. I didn't see my family for the next nine years.


Step 2: The Page.


The next 3 steps aren't going to be as long because nothing truly exciting happened during the time.When I arrived at the castle with Sir William I was amazed by how big it was. It was even bigger then I thought it'd be. It must have covered at least 100 acres, and had a property of 300 acres. If I was going to live here I'd better be allowed to walk around out here. It didn't turn out that way. Turns out the next stage to becoming a knight is to become a Page, and for those of you who don't know what that is it basically means I became a 7 year old servant. My job was to prepare the dinner table (that was 50 feet long), help out the maidens/ladies around the castle, do yard work which was SO much fun (sarcasm) and many other things. When I wasn't doing chores, and I was ALWAYS doing chores, Sir William took me out to do some sword practice with a wooden sword and shield. They were neither effective nor light, which I guess was the point. He would also teach me about horse back riding, chess, so many different kinds of manners I can't even count, hunting, religion, and many other things. That was basically all I did as a page.

Step 3: The Squire

Once I reached age 14 Sir William said I was ready to be promoted to the position of Squire. I didn't know much about what a Squire did, sure there were plenty of Squires around but I never got to ask them because they were always in a rush. Sir William seemed awful happy when he told me this. When I spoke to the king about becoming a Squire he told me I'd aid Sir William in many things for the next seven years. That didn't surprise me too much, I always helped Sir William when he needed it. But then the King said I'd be aiding him in things like robberies in the town, fires, and (occasionally) war. I was horrified. I didn't want to die at a young age just because Sir William didn't want to do ALL the dirty work! But I had no choice. It was either that, or go home and disappoint my parents. I would've gladly gone home, if I hadn't known that they would be heart broken. So I stayed and for the next seven years I learned things like "courtly etiquette", how to play instruments (my favorite was the Ocarina), how to dance, and probably my favorite: Jousting. The day Sir William introduced me to jousting I immediately fell in love with it. I mean, what 14 year old wouldn't love riding on a horse with a 10 foot long lance at a moving target? Sir William would often enter me into jousting tournaments so I could earn extra money for the king. It's not like the king has a zillion dollars or anything. I think I only lost one match the out of the five hundred that I did, and that's because my horse stopped mid-charge to look at a flower on the ground. The other jouster kept charging and knocked me right of my horse. While I was on the ground tending to my ribs, the horse was over there eating the pretty flower he just HAD to stop and look at. I did have to aid Sir William in war once, but all I had to do was armor up his horse for battle. There were a bunch of other Squires there as well, doing the same thing as me. Unfortunately while we were there the enemy pulled a sneak attack on us in the middle of the night. All I could do was run (I didn't have a weapon) and hope that Sir William and the other knights were winning the fight. In the end they won, and we only lost two knights in the battle. I didn't know if that was good or bad.
For the next few years Sir William taught me about basic combat. He showed me a great number of weapons - warhammers, greatswords, maces, etc. - but my two favorite were a regular sword and a bow and arrow. Then Sir William let me relax for a few months, because it was almost time for my graduation ceremony.

Step 4: The Knight.

Not much to really say in this section of the story. It was right around Christmas time when the King summoned me to the main room. Light snow was falling outside just enough to glaze over the ground. The castle smelled of Christmas cake, bread, wine, steak, turkey, and many other things. Once I arrived in the main room, Sir William fallowing me, the kind summoned me up to his throne. I walked up to his throne (I'll admit, I was nervous) and knelt down in front of him. The King pulled out his sword and walked down to me. He gave this really long speech about all the great things I've done sense I first came here (which wasn't much), how Sir William had turned me into a nice young man, and so on. But the only thing I really remember is the King putting the tip of his sword on my shoulder ans saying "I hereby name you, Sir Darien The Knight." or something like that. After that there was a huge feast in my honor, and later on I somehow convinced the King to let my parents live with me in the castle. That's basically all I have to say. So I guess I'll just close this off with how most medieval story's end: And they all lived happily ever after. The End.