Being that they did not worship the same gods, Count Swifthunt had already forbid them from making another place of worship to the Great Spirits in Mansfield. That was fine with them. The tribes were nomadic. If they wanted to commune with the Great Spirts, Enetes or whoever the new shaman would be could simply make the trek to the arches monthly. In all the time that it was up, no foreign centaurs had come to check it out. That was a shame. I would have liked to see this being a spot of spiritual relevance too. We humans could have charged for that. Then again, it also could have gotten us all into big trouble with the human religious authorities. The centaur children were all going to have to leave the county in order to find their own mates at this rate. That would be a bit sad. I liked seeing them scamper around and hang out with my children. Leonardo, Lenard and Lennox were doing weapon training. I was great with throwing knives. They were close range weapons for melee and a ranged weapon when thrown. I taught all the 5 hybrids. Raolin taught them to use polearms.
Calling on the elves of the free folk village, they got to learn some archery. Leonardo, Lenard and Lennox were old enough to be squires. I taught them about chivalry and etiquette. Anthony had to check me and do a lot of correction for them. I was just going off of books and stories. They had learned how to take care of my leather armor. It was important as servants that they could maintain my gear. One day they would have their own stuff to take care of. They also needed to know how to properly wear and use it. They also knew how to maintain blades and clean them. I cooked just as often as my wife, but it was my pages that served the food to me and Grissell. It was part of the training of pages. When our food was served, they were dismissed to eat in the guesthouse. Grissell never cooked for them. It was her right not to acknowledge my other children. Her meals were only for me and the girls. When I cooked, it was for everyone. Even Lyari got fed. I cooked 2 or 3 days a week. When I did not cook, everyone in the guesthouse had to go to the local tavern for the meals.
The sauna was a huge draw, so we were doing alright when it came to money. I was to open one up in Mansfield when we arrived. Now that the hybrids were old enough to be squires, it was important to see how they were all developing as people. One day, I would want Anthony, Fabien or Count Swifthunt himself to take them into their service. This was an uphill battle. I could help by leading the moral instruction to ensure that they did not turn out to be scummy people when they came of age. Maybe it was due to the fact that they were the sons of literally tree spirits, but they were all pretty docile. They could handle meditation and quiet analyzation with ease. They all were polite and could pick up new information well. None of them were cowardly or greedy. They did not covet things others had. They had requests for things that they wanted, but it was never based on envy. There was one major personality defect that I noticed early on: sado-masochism. Leonardo and Cody were sadistic. They liked making it hurt when they spared against others. Brody and Lennox were masochists.
Lennox and Brody seemed to get a kick out of getting hurt during training. Lenard was somewhere in the middle. He liked dealing damage and he could take it, but it was to a lesser degree than his brothers. That also meant he would be on one side or the other depending on his mood. Sometimes, I would catch Leonardo and Lenard ganging up on Lennox. I would break it up and punish them severely. I did not believe in corporal punishment, but I soon realized that nothing else would get through to them. I bent them over my knew and spanked them with my hand. They got the message. Other times, it was Leonardo making Lenard and Lennox do something very unreasonable to satisfy his own sadistic whims. Needless to say, I had to pull Leonardo to the side and tell him that it was not good to harm people for fun. He looked at me in confusion and asked why. I was ready for this. "You should not do it, because it sets a standard where everyone can be mean and evil if they are stronger than someone. Places with that attitude get destroyed. No one wants to help mean guys."
