Midwinter is the most important festival in the Tortallan calendar. For a week in December normal palace-life, and indeed life throughout the realm, is abandoned in favour of time with family, balls, banquets, and of course gifts. The festival celebrates the rebirth of the sun and of the year after the longest night of winter, which is the third night of the celebration.

At the palace, midwinter means balls and banquets by the million. The monarchs dine in state with their guests each night, waited on by the realm’s pages. Fantastic structures of cakes and sweets shaped like castles and immortals are served as desserts, players and musicians entertain and the guests dress themselves as lavishly as the banquet hall is decorated.

As one page (Neal) once said, the midwinter service is best described as an “ordeal by etiquette”. The second-, third- and fourth-year pages can be seen taking course after course from the first-years in the kitchen to serve their tables and getting sweatier and more exhausted as the night draws on. If you’re lucky enough to be the noble waited on in this situation, remember to treat your page kindly and allow him to go about his duties with little talk, as he is probably so nervous he is forgetting to breathe!

As the pages fall into bed, the squires’ duties are only just beginning: they must wait on nobles with food and drink at the numerous parties following the banquets that take place throughout the palace grounds. If, as a squire, you are lucky enough to be asked to dance by a lady, ensure not to step on her toes, and if your life is worth living, do not refuse.

As a page or squire the only way to escape the ordeal by etiquette is if you are facing the Chamber of the Ordeal; if this is the case, you are excused to allow you as much time as possible to get as nervous as possible about the approaching Ordeal! Each night, a different fourth-year squire will face their ordeal. A squire will bathe and be instructed by his knight master and one other knight in the the Code before a nightly vigil in the Chapel of the Ordeal, culminating in their ordeal in the chamber, which ends at dawn. The squires are greeted by crowds of proud friends and family as they emerge to be taken into the care of their knight-master for the last time. They are then knighted by their king in front of an audience that evening.

For some of Tortall’s nobles the Midwinter balls are viewed as the annual torture inflicted on them by their king and queen – Lord Raoul, the commander of the Own, is particularly strong in his convictions. Others, such as Alanna’s outgoing daughter Alianne, look on it as an opportunity to flirt with the squires and young knights and break a few hearts before they take the inevitable family-arranged marriage. Of course, if you are a family looking to marry a daughter, midwinter is the perfect time to impress the prospective husband’s family, so ensure your daughter is at her most elegant. However it must be said that the balls and parties at the palace are a most spectacular affair: musicians play lilting tunes, garlands of winter flowers and ivy hang on the walls, heavy logs burn in large hearths, releasing piney scents, and candles burn in every window. But if you’re dazzled by the beauty or wearied by the dancing chances are you can retire to the book room to find others of like mind and stimulating conversation.

One part of midwinter which I’m sure no one but perhaps the most stingy of you can complain about is the exchange of gifts. Gifts are given on the fourth morning of the festival following the longest night of winter. Make sure to visit Corus’s market if you are in the capital around the holiday because you are sure to find the best gifts here. However, pages in particular are reminded that free time is a luxury deprived of most, and shopping is best done in advance.

If you are interested in the parallels of Tortall and our own world this year (in the northern hemisphere) midwinter would fall between 19th December and 25th December. The longest night will be the 21st December and gifts should be exchanged on the morning of the 22nd December.