Minor House Spotlight: House Holden

Bill watched as the Holden knight drove his horse forward, lowering the cinquefoil-tipped lance with expert precision. The purple fabric danced in the air as the knight rode, painting a trail of a twilight sky behind him as the steed thundered towards his opponent. When the lance struck its mark, Bill forgot entirely his training as a respectable lord of the realm - he burst from his seat with a cheer and a fist raised so high that his knuckles grazed the fabric of the Darlynton pavilion.

House Holden is one of, if not the first, post-conquest houses to be formed in Cornay, formed by Ser Holden Barryl - the first man to be knighted by a Cornayan King and arguably the founding father of the code of chivalry that defines knighthood today. The house takes the Cinquefoil, more commonly known as the Silverweed, as its heraldry - a symbol associated with love and chivalry in Cornay - due to the historic knighting of Ser Holden Barryl occurring in a field of such flowers. The house also takes the words "Honest in Words, Brave in Action" as its house motto, reflecting back to their long-kept tradition of raising knights and thronesguard.

Settled in the northern half of Crosser's County, Holden's Point is a moderately sized keep and town looked over by House Holden, known for its well-maintained tourney grounds and its famous standing stones that surround the outer walls of the settlement. These stones, long predating the settlement as it is known today, are carved with depictions of mythical beasts such as cockatrices, unicorns and jackalopes. The study of these stones led many to believe that such creatures once existed in the forests of Crosser's County, though contemporary historians turn their noses up at the suggestion. What is known for a fact, though, is that the site of Holden's Point is the home town to which the first knight of Cornay was raised - a town granted to Ser Holden by Romidor the Great in the years following his coronation.

Since then, House Holden has had a member of their family in the Thronesguard for nearly every living monarch - a duty that the house holds sacred, often training their second-born child from the age of six years old to understand the duties and responsibilities of the guard most trusted by the royal family. Those who do not become members of the Thronesguard often pursue knighthood regardless, with many famed tourney knights hailing from House Holden and many being heavily sought after as knight-masters to noble squires. Today, Ser Willem Holden acts as the Knight-Commander of the Thronesguard - an honourable and logical knight known for his unwavering loyalty to the realm. His younger brother Ser Gawain and older sister Ser Cateline are also knights of the realm, with Ser Gawain being an infamously difficult knight to face in the lists and Ser Cateline being a talented combatant with the greatsword.

Not all is perfect for House Holden, though, with the splintering House Barryl that now occupies the nearby town of Heroes' Point. House Barryl, born of a supposedly legitimised bastard of Ser Gerold Holden - a knight during the reign of King Alvarus Cornay the Fourth. House Barryl, a proud and often accused of being jealous house, strives to reach the heights of its sister house - going so far as to take Ser Holden's original surname as its own to claim further legitimacy over its original counterpart. Ser Royce Barryl, known to the realm as "Royce the Unready" due to the young age at which he overtook his mother's position as head of the house, is now the lord in charge of House Barryl - a brooding and bitter boy of twenty-three whose immense skill at arms is matched only by his ability to turn a conversation dour and melancholic.

House Barryl takes the same heraldry as House Holden, though it turns its white Silverbloom and field into a shade of bronze. It retains the accents of dark purple, though it removes one leaf from its Cinquefoil's head. "Truth in the Name" are the chosen words of House Barryl, a contentious saying for those of their Silver counterpart - though their relationship has never turned violent, House Barryl and House Holden are far from friends.