“Silas, you need a great deal of tutoring to catch up with the learning that is required to become part of our guild family,” she began abruptly. “And these two ruffians,” there might have been some affection in her voice and expression, though Silas didn’t know her well enough to be sure, “owe me several penalties for their behavior lately. So they are now your tutors for the next four months, and we’ll see if we can get you caught up with your peers.”
“Four months?” one of the boys immediately objected. “He has to learn five or six years of lessons!”
“It may have taken you two six years, but perhaps this boy can do it faster,” Cinda’s tone implied that Silas would easily best the learning pace of his two designated teachers.
“This is Brean,” Cinda placed a hand on the arm of the boy who had protested, “and this is Jimes.
“Gentlemen, this is Silas, your project,” Cinda informed. “Today is his first day. He’s staying in the blue house, on the third floor.”
Brean and Jimes looked at one another.
“We were on the third floor when we lived in the blue house,” Brean said, while Cinda removed herself from the group and went back to the alcove where the adults in the room sat in a safely segregated space
“Let’s go see whose room he has,” Jimes proposed.
“I’ll show you right now, if you want,” Silas began to rise to his feet.
“Before the baked goods?” Brean asked in astonishment.
Silas had assumed the meal period was ending, as the platters that had held meat and vegetables were mostly empty vessels on the tables. “What baked goods?” he asked.
“Is this your very first dinner here?” Jimes emphasized the word ‘very’. “We get a baked treat after dinner, unless the room behaves terribly.”
“Or unless the leaders are terribly cranky,” Brean added with a nod to the alcove of adults.
“As soon as we’re done with the cake, we’ll go to see the blue hall. I haven’t been back since we moved out,” Jimes decided. “Come over and sit with us at our table, so we can leave together,” he directed, tapping the table.
“Am I allowed to sit over there?” Silas asked cautiously. He knew he wanted to as soon as Brean made the suggestion.
“Sure, come on,” Jimes agreed. Together, the two designated tutors led Silas across an aisle to the table where they had sat.
They made quick introductions to the other pair of boys sitting at the table.
“We all live in the purple dorm,” Jimes said.
“Lavender,” one of the other boys corrected.
“I’m just calling it like I see it. Besides, the girls can call it lavender if they want,” Jimes nodded to a nearby table where a number of girls of the same approximate age were sitting and talking among themselves with giggles and glances at the boys’ table.
“Here comes the cake,” Brean pointed out, as several servants carried large trays from the kitchen doorway, and distributed their goods around the room.
As they quickly ate their slices of the sweet dessert, the boys at the table began to educate Silas about life in the Wind Word compound, and among their own cohort in particular.
“Those girls over there,” Brean began to explain the people at a nearby table.
“No, don’t look, they’ll know we’re talking about them,” another boy quickly interjected as Silas began to examine their neighbors.
The boys’ voiced dropped into conspiratorial whispers.
“Those girls are the ones who come from noble families,” Brean resumed.
“Not that it’s a bad thing itself,” Jimes defended the class, since he was a member of a minor house from Avaleen.
“It’s not a bad thing,” Brean agreed. “But they’re used to being served, plus they think they have mastered all the lessons and they’re certain to be initiated into the Speakers service.”
“They probably will,” another boy grudgingly concurred.
“They’ve all got a good chance,” Brean remained judicious in his judgement. “So they keep themselves above us.
“Those girls over there,” he gave a discreet nod in another direction, allowing Silas to disguise his own casual examination of the next target of discussion. “They’re really just about as good as the snob girls, but they aren’t nobility.”
“And they’re just as pretty too,” Jimes mentioned.
“They’re good girls to get to know. They’ll talk to you and not make you feel like a bug beneath them,” Brean explained.
Silas digested the information.
“Watch out! Here comes Botton,” one boy said.
A man had left the safe harbor the instructors had sat in and was approaching the table of teenage boys.
“We have a new scholar, I hear,” the man said as he came to stand directly across the table from Silas. The man stood silently and examined Silas, who in turn looked at the teacher. He was shorter than most adult men Silas knew in his home village, with a narrow, long nose, and close-set eyes.
“You’ll find it difficult to learn all the knowledge that we’ve tried to drill into these thick skulls around you for innumerable years,” the man stated flatly. “I wish you well, but I have little hope that you’ll succeed, and I’d rather not see our Guild waste resources on a hopeless cause.”
With that, the unpleasant man turned and walked out of the dining hall.
“He talks like that to everyone, all the time,” Jimes spoke in a near-whisper. “Don’t take it personally.”
“Everyone at this table would have been kicked out of the academy ten times over if he had his way,” one of the others affirmed.
“Let’s go see your room in the blue dorm,” Brean stood up, and the rest of the table followed suit.
Chapter 5
Three months later, Silas was sitting under a shade tree on the Guild campus, talking with Jimes. “I understand that ever message begins with the name of the person the message is sent to, followed by the name of the person who is sending it, the code system used – if one is used, then a topic word, the date and time it was sent, and an estimate of the length,” Silas recited the topic of starting a Wind Word message. “I just don’t understand why it might have to be sent in code, and why you announce the code it is sent in at the very beginning.”
“Because,” Jimes rolled over from his back to his stomach as he lay on the lawn, and he looked at Silas. “You tell the receiver if it is coming in code so that he can get ready to receive it and write it down.
“Remember,” most messages we send are sent by either the Guild itself, or from one ruler to another, or from one trader to another. They all need to be accurate, so we usually write them down when we’re on duty as the official Wind Speaker of a court or a trading company, because our client expects the messages to be not only fast, but accurate.”
“What’s the code got to do with that?” Silas asked.
“A lot of things the traders and the national courts send are secrets. Our clients don’t want them to be heard by just anyone. When we send a message, like a message from here in Heathrin to someplace like Amenozume, every Guild listener in Amenozume can hear the message. So we send it in a code that not everyone knows,” Jimes answered.
“But we’re all learning the codes. If you send a message to Brean in code, I know the code, so I’m going to learn your secret message,” Silas pointed out.
“The codes change every year. At the Annual Conclave, the new codes are released,” Jimes mentioned.
“So you mean I’ll have to learn new codes every year?” Silas groaned.
“Maybe a couple of general codes. But if you’re assigned o part of a trading guild or a shipping conglomerate, they may have their own private codes that they use. They’re supposed to send a copy of their code book to the Guild headquarters here, of course, but I don’t think that all the code books get delivered for some reason.
“And speaking of reasons,” he sat up, then scrambled to his feet, “here co
me Lenee and Sloeleen. Stand up.”
The two girls were from the lavender house where Jimes resided, and where Silas often went to socialize with others of his own age, though he still primarily took lessons with the younger children in the blue dorm.
Silas rose to his feet as the girls arrived.
“Hello Silas,” dark-eyed Sloeleen, greeted him, as Lenee placed her arm around Jimes’s shoulder.
“I have a favor to ask,” Lenee said coyly, and she led Jimes away from the other two as she began to speak softly.
“Silas, is it true you can track game better than anyone else in Heathrin?” Sloeleen unexpectedly asked. She’d been mildly friendly in her treatment and attention to Silas, but hadn’t come out of her way to speak to him before.
“I think so,” he answered confidently, not sure where the conversation was going. No one at the Wind Word Guild seemed the least bit interested in tracking. Silas had been shocked to come to the realization that Brigamme’s sense of self-importance as the home of the best trackers in the world was a title that seemed to be of very little consequence to the rest of the world. Apparently, people really didn’t use or need tracking skills very often, despite what the people of Brigamme assumed.
“I’ve been having some things stolen from my room, and I’d like to catch whoever did it. Can you help me?” the girl asked, studying his face intently as she spoke.
“I can try,” Silas answered cautiously, suddenly put on the spot after his boasts about his tracking ability. He knew that in the forest he would be able to follow his quarry with relative ease, and he had always referred back to that environment when he had thought and talked about his tracking. But on the Heathrin campus of the Wind Word Guild, with paved paths, manicured lawns, an absence of mud, brambles, and stony outcroppings, tracking would be a more difficult task.
“Where are you from again?” Sloeleen asked.
“Brigamme. It’s a mountain village in the north, between Ivaric and Shouldteen,” he explained.
“I’m from Shouldteen. Most folks here on the west side of the mountains don’t know anything about our kingdom. I’m glad that at least you’ve heard of it,” Sloeleen smiled prettily. “So what do you need to do to track this thief?” she asked.
“I’d like to go to your room to look around, to see if there were any clues left behind. How long has it been since the last time something was taken?” Silas tried to sound serious as he asked.
“You know boys aren’t supposed to enter girls’ rooms, don’t you?” Sloeleen asked in a low voice.
“This is exciting!” she almost whispered. “Can you come up to my room when the moon sets tonight? I’ll let you in and you can look around. Don’t get caught though,” she warned.
Lenee and Jimes returned to join them then, both giggling.
“See you later?” Sloeleen asked.
“I’ll see you,” Silas agreed.
“Later Lenee,” Jimes said, and the girls walked away.
“She asked me to go to the Priestesses’ Ball!” Jimes said with delight when the girls were gone. “What did Sloeleen say to you? Did she ask you to the Ball?”
“No,” Silas answered, feeling both disappointed and relieved. “She asked if I’d help look for some missing jewelry,” he fudged the nature of his conversation.
“Oh, too bad, I thought we might go together,” Jimes looked off into the distance with a foolish grin for a moment longer, then relaxed and sat back down on the lawn. “So where were we in our studies?” he asked.
“Codes,” Silas informed him.
“Right. Right, right, right,” Jimes pattered softly. “So different groups use codes to keep their messages private, because messages can be heard by any Guild member who is in the direction of the message. We have the Conclave every year, and new codes come out then, and get distributed.”
“Okay, got it. So whose code have I been studying the past fortnight?” Silas asked.
“That’s last year’s code for the jewelers’ trading guild,” Jimes answered. “They only change their code every three or four years, which is true for many groups as well.
“I think that’s enough studies for today,” Jimes decided. “I want to go tell Brean about Lenee! See you again tomorrow, same time?” Jimes asked Silas.
“Sure,” Silas agreed. He had chores to fulfill, and a regular class to take as well, besides picking up his new assignment of assisting Sloeleen with her burglaries.
Chapter 6
Silas waited in his own room until the edge of the moon touched the western horizon. It was the signal to start moving towards Sloeleen’s room. He walked out of his own room and down through the lobby of his blue home, where a single candle dimly lit an empty lobby. Silas left the building and crossed the grassy lawn that sat between the two buildings. He sensed another person on the lawn as well, but with the moon setting, there wasn’t enough light to see with certainty.
He circled cautiously around the lavender dorm once in the darkness, noting only three rooms that showed dim lights through their windows. He knew which one was Sloeleen’s – her window on the second floor had a tree growing close by. And her window was lit.
He returned to the front and slipped in through the door. The rule preventing boys from entering girls’ rooms was silly, he thought. It couldn’t accomplish anything; if a couple was going to get together, they’d find a place and a way, he was sure.
Silas climbed the stairs on his toes alone, then crept quietly down a hallway. He ran his fingers gently along the wall, counting the doors he passed in the darkness, until he reached the fifth door. It was Sloeleen’s. He tapped lightly on the door, then waited. As he stood expectantly, he heard footsteps start to ascend the stairs, and he grew nervous. He tapped again, waited a pair of seconds, then lifted the latch and cautiously opened the door.
A dim light began to illuminate the hallway at the top of the steps, and Silas panicked. He opened the door wider, stepped inside, and quickly closed it behind him. With a sigh of relief, he turned, and saw that Sloeleen was standing next to her bed, wearing a short night gown as she held a candlestick.
“Silas!” she exclaimed. “Just come right in!” she indignantly protested his uninvited entry.
“I knocked, but you didn’t answer, then someone started coming up the stairs, and I got scared,” Silas stared at the girl for a moment, then turned his head to look off to the side, suddenly discomforted by the situation.
“I saw a light coming up, and I didn’t want to get caught,” he spoke to the wall he faced. When he turned to look at Sloeleen again, she was pulling a robe around her frame, covering her long and enticing legs.
“Oh very well,” she conceded. “Now that you’re here, remember this is just about catching the thief who stole my things.”
“What was taken?” Silas asked from his spot by the door. Even with the robe, he found that Sloeleen’s attractive looks intimidated him. She seemed like a girl who would ordinarily not even deign to notice that he existed – and she was from the group of girls that Jimes and Brean had deemed approachable. Under the suddenly exotic circumstances, she felt to Silas to have grown ten times more distant than she had seemed just hours earlier when they had spoken.
“I had some jewelry – a chain with some baubles on it. And also a white file that I used to trim my nails,” Sloeleen answered.
“How much were the jewels worth?” Silas wanted to know.
“Nothing. They were paste. That’s why I left them out, I suppose. They were right here by the window sill,” she patted a small table next to the window.
“Were they taken at the same time?” Silas wondered, as he slowly walked over to the window-side table.
“No, they were taken on different days. The file disappeared three days ago, and I about convinced myself I just lost it. But then the jewels disappeared the day after that. I didn’t tell anyone, because I didn’t want to seem to accuse anyone of being a thief, without knowing who it was.”
There was a sudden knock on the door, a sharp rap. “Are you in there Sloeleen? Are you alone?”
“Dear gods in heaven! It’s Master Botton!” Sloeleen whispered in horror, as both the students recognized the voice of the mean-spirited teacher. “Go out the window!”
Silas brushed past her as he went to the open window.
“There’s a tree branch! Go!” Sloeleen urged as she moved to the door.
“Sloeleen!” Botton called through the door.
Silas slung a leg over the window sill. The world outside the dim room was dark. He vaguely sensed something off slightly to his right just a few feet away.
The door began to rattle, as Botton opened it even before Sloeleen had reached it. Startled, Silas lifted his other leg through the window and lunged out into the dark, his arms spread before him as he moved in the direction he thought the tree branch waited in, and hoped for the best.
He moved through the air, outward for a split second, then he began to arc downward as well. A part of his mind relived the long-ago memory of jumping through the air to reach a woodland wild grape vine; that had been fun, and a challenge. This was fearful, not fun. As he flew, his wrists struck something solid, and his hand slid onto a tree branch. He reflexively gripped the branch tightly
Silas’s fingers clamped onto the tree branch, and he held tight. His body swung forward, and the momentum nearly wrenched his hands off the branch, but desperation gave him the strength to maintain his grip.
“Are you alone?” Botton’s voice asked from the room. “I thought someone in the hall entered here?”
“No, just me, master,” Sloeleen answered in an innocent voice.
“So I see,” Silas couldn’t see the room behind him, or the face of the teacher, but he heard the disappointment in the man’s voice.
“Well, pay attention to your lessons and study hard,” Botton’s parting words were anything but friendly.
The Mirror After the Cavern Page 4
