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...But most of the terrible things that happen in this land don`t happen because of evil men, not really. They happen because of people who just don`t know any better. A tax collector who never wonders if this season`s crops might be too small to warrant the silver he has just collected: a family`s entire income. A soldier who never questions why he`s been told to take casks of oil and condemn a mother and her children to a fiery death. And a woman, barely more than a girl, who thinks only about how fine it will be to have a big castle and a pretty throne, and never wonders why so many great intrigues have been set in play to put her there.

Now, you might be wondering what the differences are between a Knight and a Greatcoat, since we both apparently have at least some connection to the law and fighting. Well, there`s the obvious part: they wear armour, and we wear our coats. They`re suited for war, and we`re suited for duels. Then there`s the fact that they swear their oaths to a Duke or Duchess, while we swear our to the King`s Law -- not the King himself, mind you. The Knights consider an oath to an idea to be no oath at all, and furthermore, the fact that we bow before no one in the course of our duty is, to them, an abomination. There are other differences, of course, but the most mportant one is that Knights are absolutely honourable and prize their honour above all things. Greatcoats, on the other hand, value justice, and tend to have a difficult time understanding how theft, rape and murder all suddenly become honourable pursuits just b ecause a man you swore an oath to asks you to commit them.

The second worst feeling in the world happens when your body discovers that yet again it`s about to get into a fight for its life. Muscles start to clench, you start to sweat, you start to smell (luckily, nobody ever notices that at the time) and your stomach sinks down to your nether regions. But the first worst feeling in the world is when your body realises the fight is over. Your muscles start to give out, your head throbs, you keep sweating and -- oh yes, you notice the smell. Last but not least, you realise there`s a crossbow bolt sticking out of your thigh. It was the crossbow bolt that finally forced me to stop. "It`s going to have to come out," Brasti said sagely, looking down from the rooftop where he was scouting for the constables. I could have killed him, but that would require asking my body to repeat the whole cycle again and, frankly, I smelled bad enough as it was.

"How would you rate our chances?" I asked him. "We`ll win," he replied, "but I`ll get wounded, probably in the back. You`ll get hit by one of the crossbow bolts and likely die. Brasti will almost certainly be killed by one of the pikemen, once they get past the weak defence he puts up with his sword." "You`ve been a real joy to work with, Kest, you know that?" Brasti said, shifting his guard. Kest rolled his right shoulder, preparing for the first attack. "Blame them -- they`re the ones planning to kill you."

The duchy where I was born is called Pertine. It is a small and simple place, largely ignored by the rest of Tristia. The word 'pertine' has a number of different meanings, but they all come from the flowre that grows on the leeward slopes of the mountain ranges that ring the region. It is an odd sort of bluish color, and you would call it bright at first, but then as you looked on it further, you`d find yourself adding words like 'oily' and 'runny-looking' and finally 'sort of disturbing'. The pertine has no known medicinal properties, it makes you sick if you eat it and it smells horrible once plucked from the ground. Needless to say, you`d have to be pretty stupid to make it the one thing people remember about your region. However, somewhere in the distant past, some warlord decided to pick one of these flowers, put it on his cloak and name this land of my birth 'Pertine'. I imagine he was born without a sense of smell.