Sir Waine and his squire Tycel
Sir Waine and his squire Tycel are buried in The Graves of Heroes **(15.19). **The knights of Thring hold it to be lucky to place a fragment of each gravestone on either side of their sword pommels.
All know the story of how Sir Waine rescued his beloved squire from the clutches of the Whispering Sisters, his armor blackened so they would not see him as he floated down out of the night sky with sword in one hand and feather talisman in the other to attack their fortress (32.22). And all know how at the end the pair died bravely here along the border of Thring, their forms wreathed in alchemical vapors so that their enemies could not coordinate against them and make unfair use of their superior numbers. But there are few that know that Sir Waine wielded the great sword Caledbrand (15.15), if only for a day.
Like all paladins of Thring, Sir Waine swore to touch no mortal woman with lust in his heart. Like Duke Ulthar the Loved, the first Duke of Thring, they are married to the Green Lady and serve her just as they serve as the voice of the Duke in the wild corners of the Duchy were there are no lords.
The dedication of the paladins of Thring brings hope to these lands where men seem to swing wildly between the evils of cynicism and fanaticism, forgetting the purity of chivalry. Many sons of the lords of Thring seek desperately to be taken on by a paladin as squire but few succeed. Sir Waine himself turned away many highborn and plucked a graceful lad from among a travelling band of troubadours to serve as his squire and none now can fault the wisdom of his choice.
Hooks:
- Do the chips of tombstone do anything concrete?
- If Sir Waine floated down on the Whispering Sisters with a talisman that granted him feather fall, how did he get up in the sky in the first place?
- How did Sir Waine get his hands on alchemical materials?
- How did Sir Waine get Caledbrand out of the sepulchre (15.15), even if it was only for a day?
- Presumably the marriage between the paladins and the Green Lady was symbolic, but was it real in the case of Duke Ulthar? Is she his children’s mother?