The Installation of the Lord Baron of Darkmoor

You gathered before sunrise two days ago, just east of Elder Pool, where the High Way turns finally east. Horses and carriages had been sent by the Court. Each of you presented the wax-sealed summons that was your passport to Mainesbury and the “celebration.”

The royal guard, resplendent in their finery had treated each of you with appropriate respect, but with a firm hand. When the Royal, Lord Sparrowhawk had puffed out his vest about being seated amongst rabble, he had been informed in no uncertain terms that he was a guest of the King as were all those who had borne the sealed summons. You may have smirked at that.

The travel was long and you each had a chance to say something about yourselves, about the peoples that you represent and their hopes and fears for what a restored Baron in Darkmoor might mean.

After an overnight at an inn, where you had been helped to clean if unremarkable lodging, but good, warm food and better ale, you had continued. There had been some unrest on the road yesterday, but nothing the guard had any difficulty with. War, it seems, is imminent on the far eastern borders. Some suggest that it has already begun.

You have, personally, never before been to the capital. Mainesbury is vast. Wealthy beyond belief. More citizens worked the river, in their fishing boats, crabbing nets, water taxis and dredgers than live in all of Darkmoor. And that is merely the river. There are broad, mostly clean boulevards. Vast arches and pillars, shrines, monuments and glittering temples are seemingly around every corner. Dandies in their finery sip at cafes along the brickwork, rubbing elbows with artists and artisans, courtesans and plumbers.

Your trip through the streets of Mainesbury was dizzying, but did little to prepare you for the opulence and extravagance of the Royal Residence. The Court, with its marble-floored, silver-columned, frescoe-ceilinged richness was more than you could take in. At a certain point, it simply overwhelmed the senses. The smells of lilac and incense, the gold and ivory, the music in every chamber, the clever, concealed heating and lighting suffusing every room, despite the blustering wind outside.

You listened intently, for a time, at the pronouncements at the ceremony. Then, as the long lists were recounted, of lords and barons, relations and relations and webs of relations… who sired whom who later sired someone else.. your attention flagged. But, finally, he was revealed. Arthur Grey, Lord Grey. Now, at a sweeping gesture of the silvered sword from the great King, Baron of Darkmoor. The young man, clean-shaven, broad of shoulder and guileless in his demeanor. He accepted the honor with a seeming sincerity of gratitude that you found difficult to dislike, as much as you might have been prepared to do so.

Now, after the applause and the scraping, the hand-shaking and backslapping, you have been lea back to the carriages. To return to Darkmoor. Now, however, there is a great, ornate vehicle, drawn by a half-dozen pearl-white steeds at the front of your convoy. The emblem of a raven rampant on the silvered doors. The Earl of Eregore’s carriage, someone whispers to you. And here is young Arthur Grey, being introduced to each of you in turn by his man-at-arms in his heavy armor, the wolf of Darkmoor cut into the cuirass.

Lord Grey approaches you, an embarrassed smile on his face as he stretches out his hand. “I’m sorry,” he says. To you, the Baron of Darkmoor apologizes in his fine voice. “I did not catch your name.”