The Vampire & Her Witch
Chapter 487: Ollie’s Virtues (Part One)

Chapter 487: Ollie’s Virtues (Part One)

Telling Ollie’s story took over an hour, and just as they’d promised, Milo and Juni were merciless in pointing out any attempt on Ollie’s part to take less credit for something than he deserved or to downplay the difficulties of what he’d done.

During that time, the remainder of Ashlynn’s traveling companions slowly filtered into the long house once they’d completed their duties, including an eager and attentive young Emmie who seemed almost upset that Georg had taken charge of attending to Heila’s needs along with everyone else instead of summoning her to take care of her lady.

"You’ll have plenty of opportunities to wait on me when we reach the castle," Heila said with a laugh as she pulled her young squire onto the pile of cushions next to her. "For now, enjoy Georg’s cooking while you can. It’s a rare treat for him to cook for you personally."

"Now, now, little Heila," Georg said with a hearty laugh that shook his soft belly. "You know that I always save a few treats for people who are special. I saved treats for you, didn’t I? Besides, Sir Ollie helped this time. This is just as much his work as it is mine."

"You know," Ashlynn teased from her pile of cushions as she sipped a rich, full-bodied red wine that tasted earthy and slightly smoky as it slid smoothly across her tongue. In a place like this, she had no doubt that Georg had brought the bottle specifically from Nyrielle’s personal cellar, but the smile on Ashlynn’s lips when she relaxed to savor the flavor told him that it was more than worth the effort.

"I didn’t expect that you would take humility as one of your virtues, Ollie," Ashlynn said, giving the young man a look that swirled with hints of curiosity, consideration and a soft, gentle pride in the young man who had come so far from his days scrubbing pots in the Lothian kitchens. "Have you selected your others?"

"I didn’t really plan to take humility as a virtue either," the flame-haired young man said, ducking his head in embarrassment as he became the center of attention. "But Sir Thane said that if I didn’t, I wasn’t being honest with myself about who I really am."

"Big brother Thane is right," Ashlynn said with a nod. "You have to know yourself, know the kind of person you truly are and the kind of person you want to become, or you’ll fail at the very first step," she said, sharing a knowing look with Heila. "So what else have you taken as a virtue?"

Something about Ashlynn’s tone suggested that she wasn’t just making idle conversation, and Ollie realized that a moment he hadn’t expected to come for several days was already upon him. After listening to the praise heaped on him by Milo, Juni, and even Georg, and the way everyone from the Vale of Mists addressed him as ’Sir’ Ollie, Ashlynn was testing him to see if he was prepared to live up to the title.

In the Kingdom of Gaal, by tradition, every knight swore to uphold five virtues above all others. Not every knight chose the same virtues, but there were a few that were so common they were seen as almost required.

"Lady Ashlynn won’t care about tradition," Sir Thane had advised him one night when they spoke at length about what it would mean for Ollie to become one of Ashlynn’s knights. "She’s broken with the Church, and I doubt that you’ll find any reason to proclaim ’Faith’ as one of your five virtues. Humility suits you, but you should think very carefully about the other four."

The question had plagued the former kitchen boy for weeks, and he’d spent more evenings than he could count talking to everyone from Commander Bassinger to Georg to gain some perspective on how the Vale of Mists thought about virtues, but in the end, his decisions needed to come from his heart and no one could make those choices for him.

"Even though I’m not very brave," Ollie began. "I’ve decided to take Courage as one of my virtues. I hope, one day, to live up to it, but for now I can only do my best so I can live up to it someday in the future."

The instant he said it, Milo shook his head at the man who called himself a ’coward’ even while he constantly threw himself into difficult and sometimes dangerous tasks in the name of caring for others.

Ollie’s brand of ’cowardice’ had given Milo the courage he needed to step back from his vengeance against the Lothians and to focus on building a village and caring for his own family. It wasn’t the kind of courage he’d grown up having childish fantasies about.

But when he faced the decision to join Commander Bassinger’s army in the fight against the Lothians or return to the village Ollie was building for Milo’s family and the other refugees... he’d realized that sometimes, staying away from the fight took even more courage than rushing into it, and he couldn’t have reached that point without the young human’s example.

"I’ve also taken Strength as a virtue," Ollie said, surprising both Ashlynn and Heila with his third choice. "Among the Eldritch people, strength is a requirement to protect anything else. My words won’t carry much weight if I’m weak, and my people, I mean, the people in the village," he said, his face turning red when he realized he’d casually referred to the villagers as ’my people.’ "Well, they’re counting on me to watch out for them, and without strength, I can’t do that."

"Everyone needs strength in this world," Heila said softly, giving Ollie a gentle look that contained a core of deep strength, like the roots of a tree that had sunk deep into the earth. That strength hadn’t been there when she left the Vale of Mists, but looking at her now, it was undeniable that she spoke from experience.

"Even healers need the strength to strike down enemies who would harm the people in their care," Heila added. "So I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking Strength as one of your virtues, no matter what kind of knight you’re going to grow into."

"Um, thank you," Ollie said at the unexpected advice from an even more unexpected source. "Um, little Emmie said she was your squire now. Does that mean that you’ve become ’Dame Heila?’ Are you a knight now?"

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