Character from Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence
The only Brother with a knighthood and something resembling a conscience — Jorg's closest friend, if 'friend' is a word that applies to people who follow a teenage warlord through hell.
Makin is a knight who fell. The details of his fall are his own, but the result is that he rides with Jorg's Brothers — a trained, educated man among criminals. He serves as Jorg's sounding board, his tactical advisor, and the closest thing the prince has to a voice of reason. Makin doesn't stop Jorg from doing terrible things. He just makes sure Jorg knows they're terrible before he does them. His loyalty to Jorg is genuine and inexplicable even to himself. He has every skill needed to leave and every reason to go. He stays. Partly because Jorg is magnetic in the way fire is magnetic. Partly because someone has to be the conscience, even if the conscience is consistently overruled. He becomes Jorg's steward when Jorg takes Ancrath, and later his lord chancellor. A fallen knight who rose again — not to grace, but to competent administration of a kingdom run by a monster.
A solidly built man with the bearing of a trained knight beneath the road dirt. He carries himself with more discipline than the other Brothers — he was something before he became this. Dark-haired, competent, and possessed of the particular weariness that comes from being the sanest person in a room full of psychopaths.
Also known as: Sir Makin of Trent