Lady Knight Sabine still didn't know whose choice it was to outlaw Lady Knights, so she blamed the one ruling them all- the King.
"Seriously, WHY did you agree to that! You could have stopped it!" Sabine demanded of her overlord.
The king was unfazed. "The time of war is past, we no longer require ever sword possible. The Gentle Mother demands females are excused from the demands of war."
"Come on! You don't believe that stupid 'Gentle Mother' stuff anymore than I do! You could have stopped it!"
"Could I have? THINK Sabine! If I had disagreed, they would have put their dim-witted lackey on the throne! It was all I could do to keep second sons from being forced to become priests and scribes! If the progressives had their way, only first sons of families in the Book of Gold would be accepted!"
[A/N- it's change that bans women knights, so they are progressives, to become conservatives in SotL]
"Oh, so whats next- young women being forced to go to the convent, having no choice to become a scribe, Dog, and other occupations!" Sabine demanded.
"If they have their way and put Samuel on the throne, then YES! Now do you understand why I must agree?"
"I just find it funny, seeing as it was a female who saved your son many times over!"
"I KNOW! But it's in the hands of the other nobles now! I am just a figure head in these meetings! I have no word of say! You know I highly respect Lady Knights, but it's out of my hands!" The king (what ever his name is) protested.
"It's out of your hands because you never put it IN your hands! If you had kept a tighter rein on that training master," she spat at the word, "this never would have come to pass!" Sabine wanted to storm out of the palace.
But she also wanted to stop this.
But could she? She, after all, was 'Just a Lady Knight' in their eyes.
Didn't she owe- herself, Beka, Tunstall, the kingdom, Mithros, the Goddess- to try with EVERYTHING she had?
So she did, at the next council meeting and everyone after that, and slowed it down considerably.
But in that time, no female pages came.
And the council just waited 15 years, until the last Lady Knight (Sabine) and the king passed away, to do the change.
And from there on, there were no Lady Knights- until Alanna.