It’s been a fairly busy time recently. Not that being busy is in any way a bad thing. Keeping active keeps our wits sharp, gives a reason to keep our blades keen and – in my case at least – holds off a strange tendency my armour has to shrink if I sit around the hall for too long doing nothing!
Aliona’s training is just about complete now, and pretty soon we will make our way to the temple, and there will be one more able member of the ranks of the rogues of Valorn. It’s an honour and a privilege to be able to usher initiates onto their chosen path, to help them learn the way of the rogue, both before and after visiting the temple.
It takes more than signing a parchment to set somebody into the way they have chosen. That is how it seems to me.
A long time ago I saw a rogue in Milltown, and asked him I could become one such as he.
‘Follow me,’ he said, and led me to the temple. Once inside he asked for my apprentice papers, and signed his name to the parchment. ‘There,’ he said. ‘Now you are a rogue.’
I left the temple with no clearer idea of what I should do than when I entered. In the turns and cycles that followed, I learned the ways of my profession. Just about everything I know is self-taught, learned through often bitter experience.
I made a vow that should I ever be asked to sponsor a would-be rogue that I would never leave them in the position in which I had found myself. So my students are faced with lessons, during which I talk probably far too much in the hope that they will remember some of what I try to impart. There are small quests to hone skills in information-gathering, and instruction in the art of fighting with two blades rather than with the sword-and-shield combination they have used previously.
While I speak of the profession and of what skills we can use for the benefit of all, I invariably find myself reflecting on how I do certain things in a particular way, and the reasons I chose that way to operate. That will sometimes spark an idea for me to improve my own methods.
The students are, naturally, free to choose their own ways once they leave the temple. But I can take some satisfaction from knowing they have had a thorough grounding in the basic knowledge they need. Many may have become impatient, though they hid it well. Most have stayed the course. They are, I am sure, more knowledgeable and more confident as they take their first steps on the path than if I’d merely signed a piece of parchment for them. They can take pride in themselves, and I can be proud of them as I follow their progress.
And there maybe might be just a little pride left over, for me, knowing that someone looking for a teacher and sponsor has been told to speak with me. Seems I’m not the only one who thinks my way, hard as it might sometimes appear, lead to a competent and honourable rogue, well-versed in the ways of the profession and aware of how their skills can be used for the good of all.