Moment of Glory

The night before the Band of the Falcon marches back into Wyndham, a lavish banquet is held in their honor. Because the company numbers in the thousands, only a small party attends as representatives: Griffith, Guts, Casca, Judeau, Corkus, Pippin, and Rickert, and for the first time the rank-and-file mercenaries dress up to mingle with the aristocracy. Griffith moves through it all with ease and is at once mobbed by admiring women, while the other men soon find themselves cornered too. Guts, celebrated for cutting down Boscogn, is overwhelmed and slips away from the crowd fawning over his comrades.

Laban and Owen, both present, notice nobles watching Griffith with sharp interest and remark that so meteoric a rise is certain to draw enemies eager to check it. Meanwhile Casca, hemmed in by suitors, spots Guts resting on a bench, excuses herself, and hurries over to use him as an escape. She jabs him under the chin and hauls him out onto the deserted terrace, where she admits she feels out of place in a gown and asks whether years of fighting have left her body looking wrong in one. Guts tells her she outshines the women circling Griffith and suggests she ask the commander to dance, but she refuses, sure she would tread on his feet.

When Casca wonders aloud what could have drawn Guts to such an event, he says the celebration is the harvest of everything Griffith has built and he wants to see it firsthand. Before he can say more, cheers erupt inside as the king, queen, and princess of Midland arrive. Casca heads back in while Guts lingers, keeping to himself a second, private reason for coming that only Griffith knows about.

Addressing the hall, the king recounts Midland's wartime suffering, announces an armistice with Tudor that ends the war, and reveals that he will grant the entire Band of the Falcon the highest noble rank under the name White Phoenix Knights, raising Griffith from count to general and knighting the unit commanders. As the stunned band celebrates, Griffith glances out at Guts and smiles warmly.