by Tim Stead
He smiled.
“Let us go home,” he said.
48. A Gift
Sara had changed her mind about Manoc Anatano. The Sage’s secretary did not live down to the unattractive characteristics of his face. There was some bitterness in him, to be sure, but there was also a childlike enthusiasm for his work and an eagerness to please that she found quite disarming. She had come to think of his pinched features as delicate, rather than narrow. More than anything else she thought of him as cynical, but only about life, people, politics, war, about everything except knowledge, and books.
Lira had gone off him completely. This, Sara believed, was because Manoc had ignored her steadfastly from day one. The maid had tried her hardest to be noticed, and Sara had even frowned at her a couple of times when her antics had become too brazen, but it had all been to no avail. Manoc was as immune to her wiles as the ancient scholar he served. Sara found that it made her like him more.
Now she was spending her evenings with Saul, her son, and her days with the scholars. She had employed a nurse from the more northerly of the estate’s two villages, a plump woman of middle age who was happy to see to all the child’s needs for a modest reward, except for feeding him, which remained Sara’s duty and pleasure. But Sara was increasingly enjoying her time with the scholars.
In spite of his early start on the first day, which Sara put down to his eagerness to see the codex, Nesser had been somewhat later rising than his secretary. It was inevitable, perhaps, that his age should show itself in at least one way. Otherwise they all three spent their days in the library, going out of it for meals and walks in the gardens when their limbs demanded exercise. They conversed as well. To begin with it was Nesser asking questions and mostly Sara replying, but gradually their discourse tended more towards a conversation, so that by the end of the third week they had all the appearance of three scholars sharing a workspace, status, and wisdom quite equally.
Sara found Manoc not at all slow in mind, despite Nesser’s unkind words on that first day. Indeed, he seemed quite the master of practical problems, and she talked to him more and more about her catalogue, the organisation of Lord Skal’s library and the preservation and longevity of books.
“You have been lucky here,” he said. “The room is quite dry and some person had the wit to store all the valuable books on the south wall where they are not rotted by the sun.”
“I think the place was somewhat neglected,” she admitted.
“But you have done much to put it right,” he said, hasty to distance her from the blame. She liked him well enough, and it was clear that he liked her, but she found him strange to talk to. For all his scorn of the material world he was a man born to privilege, educated and soft. He had no experience of life worth speaking of, had not been ground down by life’s boots in poverty and hunger, and had not walked as close to the edge of life as she. Her existence, even in the good times she had shared with Saul, had been just a few steps away from disaster. As a journeyman tanner Saul had earned enough to feed them, and the house had been provided free of charge, but there had been no fat in their lives. One accident, one illness, would have been enough to throw them down into the street.
Sara knew the value of a good meal. She knew the worth of security and a warm bed. She did not think that Manoc shared this knowledge. He often said things that suggested he saw some nobility in hardship.
“I have done what seemed appropriate,” she said. “I had no schooling in it.”
“Ah, but the silk curtains,” he said. “A stroke of genius. It is a sacrifice of the silk, it must be, but to preserve the books, an excellent idea. It lets in light, but not the harm of the light.”
This morning Manoc was copying passages that Bento Nesser had instructed him to copy. He had unpacked a ream of high quality paper and was sitting in the light with ink and a pen, scratching away. Or so it seemed until Sara saw what he was writing.
His script was beautiful. He wrote with a flowing motion of the hand, which automatically, unconsciously wandered back to his ink well at intervals, and the letters that his hand made were beautiful. She had never seen such writing, except in books.
“You writing is very fine,” she said.
Manoc smiled a wry smile. “Sometimes I think it is the chief reason for my employment,” he replied.
“Well, it is certainly as fine as any I have seen in these books,” she said. It was no lie. Even the oldest and most distinguished of her books could not lay claim to a finer hand.
“I thank you for the compliment,” he said. In spite of his remark he seemed genuinely pleased.
“Will you copy the whole book?” she asked.
“I prefer to,” he said. “If I copy a whole book, then it is as if I have created it again. Sage Nesser does not always require it though.”
Sara watched him write for a while. It was a new pleasure for her. She could write, barely, but her characters were a procession of ill fed beggars compared to Manoc’s royal cavalcade.
“Will you write something for me?” she asked on impulse. She had a sudden desire to possess a piece of that perfect script – to own it.
“Something small, perhaps,” he said. “Is it for yourself? You know that copies of books are highly regarded as gifts?” He paused, and seemed to think that she might mistake his meaning. “My time is not my own, you see. I am in the service of Sage Nesser, and must do his bidding. It takes most of my time, and he pays for the ink and paper.”
She laughed. “I do not mean to steal you from your master,” she said.
Manoc leaned forwards and lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “I wish that you would, my lady,” he said.
She laughed again, and he smiled to see that he had made her laugh. It was at this moment that Bento Nesser pushed past the door and begun to tap his way into the room.
“What jollity is this?” he asked. “You do not have my permission to laugh unless I am present,” he said. His smile indicated that this was to be taken in jest. It was not always obvious with Nesser what he meant seriously and what not. His face was so grave with the passage of time that it was hard for any expression to make itself known.
“I was admiring Manoc’s calligraphy,” Sara said.
“Quite right,” Nesser said. “The finest hand in Bas Erinor or Golt, or so it is said.” Manoc looked down at his work, and said nothing more. So the morning returned to its usual pattern with the three of them doing whatever work they had, which for Sara meant reading yet another book. Now she had moved on to “The Fishes of the Eastern Sea: a description of the prominent species, their habits, and the value of their flesh for eating”. Not only were there rare coloured paintings in this particular book, but it also contained recipes for cooking the fish should an adventurer be lucky enough to snare one and have this volume to hand. The author, one Lissan Fellmass, dwelt in far more detail than warranted on the more edible creatures and skimmed the noxious ones.
At midday Sara ate a light meal with Manoc and Bento, and then walked alone in the garden, neither of the others wishing to do so. She sat on the bench by the pond and watched a pair of ducks retreat into the reeds on the far side. They were afraid of her, though they had no cause to be. Indeed, their cause would be better served by being her friend, coming to take crumbs from her hand, swimming to greet her each time she came to the pond. She would be their friend. She would protect them.
As she watched the ducks, scavenging for food nervously among the reeds, the idea came to her that she was no more than they. They, too, walked close to the edge of life. They too were dependent for their survival on the whims of greater beings and if the ducks were too ignorant to seek her patronage, the she was wise enough too seek favours with those greater than her. Manoc had suggested a gift, a gift of writing.
She sprang to her feet and walked directly back to the house, into the library.
“Bento, I want to steal Manoc from you for a time,” she said.
Bento looked up from hi
s book, and for once she could read the expression on his face quite clearly. He was surprised. Manoc looked equally taken aback, as though he thought that his jest of earlier had suddenly become a fact.
“I suppose it might be possible,” the old man said. “How long? I cannot spare him for long.”
“A month.”
“A month?”
“Yes, that should be enough time.”
Bento shook his head. “I cannot spare him for a month. A day, perhaps. What do you want him for?”
“I will pay for his time, Bento.”
“Money is money, time is time. You cannot buy one with the other.”
“Nonsense, Bento. Men buy time as a matter of course.”
“You want him to copy the codex,” Bento said. It was uncanny sometimes the way the old man could read her mind. It almost seemed like magic. “But you already have a copy. You have the only copy. Why?”
“A gift.”
“Do you know that Manoc’s skill is such that he is paid a guinea a day just to write words? A month is thirty days. Who is worthy of such a gift?”
Thirty guineas! For that much she could have bought a small house in Bas Erinor and fed her family for two years on what was left. Yet she had the money. Lord Skal had left the income of Latter fetch in her care, and she knew that she had twice that amount ready to hand, though she had hardly dared to open the strong box and look at it. Now she was contemplating spending it.
“Wolf Narak,” she said.
“You know the wolf god?” Bento sounded genuinely impressed for just a moment, but then he saw from her face that she did not. “Ah,” he said. “But when he receives this gift he will know you. He will remember you. Your name will be in his mind. Is that what you want?”
Sara said nothing, and Bento stroked his chin, a sure sign that he was thinking.
“It is a good gift for the Wolf,” he said after a while. “Narak knew Pelion, or so they say, and this book goes back to times before Narak, before all the Benetheon. It will interest him.”
“So I hope,” Sara said. She noticed that Bento was no longer speaking as though Manoc’s labour was an impossible thing. The thought had apparently intrigued him.
“I will think on it,” Bento said. “It is a great thing to ask. You know that?”
“I know it,” she said. But was it really so great a thing? A month of a man’s time, and that time paid for, not given. It was not as though she asked for something for which she could not meet the price. However, it seemed that she was not to get her answer on this day, and so she settled down to read again, but Lissan’s fish failed to hold her interest, and so she went for a walk and sat by the pond, and looked at the unfortunate ducks.
It was not that day, or the next, but on the third day that Bento gave her his answer. She had eaten her breakfast alone, having come down after Manoc and before the old man. She had slept well, which had surprised her, given that she was waiting on Bento’s whim, but she had given up on the fish book the previous day and turned instead to a ferocious account of the Great War by some Afaeli nobleman. It was all noble deeds and tall stories as far as she could tell, but it entertained as much as any book she had read, and she had devoured fully half of it before their evening meal, and was looking forwards to the other half this morning.
She had just stood from eating when the old man shuffled in, tapping the ground before him with his stout stick. He stopped in the doorway and looked at her, perhaps surprised to see her still here.
“Good morning to you, Lady Sara,” he huffed. He looked both ways as though to see if anyone else was in the room, though it was obvious that there was not.
“Good day to you, Sage Nesser,” she replied.
He snarled his smile at her. “I said you should call me Bento,” he chided her. “What’s in the dish this morning?” he asked.
“Eggs, ham, cheese and nuts,” she said. “Bread, butter, smoked chicken, mushrooms.”
“The usual, then.” He grinned again. “Well, if you’re going to assault me with formality then I must surrender. You shall have Manoc for your wolf gift, and there will be no charge. How can I charge when I have gained ten pounds in weight just eating your food?”
“Bento, I am very grateful,” she said, surprised by his sudden capitulation.
“That’s better,” he said. “Now go away and leave me to eat in peace.”
Sara nodded her head, a sort of vestigial bow, and stepped lightly out of the room. She was to have the book after all, her favour gift to Wolf Narak. She could not help but smile as she walked the length of the corridor that led to the library.
Today she thought she might take a crust or two with her to the pond and feed the ducks.
49. Life and Death
Pascha stood on the wall with Skal beside her. He seemed quite comfortable now, if a little impatient.
At first Skal had seemed almost afraid to walk the wall. No, that was wrong. It was not fear, more like a feeling of trespass on the past. This was where a defining thing had happened for the young lord and Pascha had seen it. Skal had expected to die when he had fought to stem the breach that Telan troops had made those many months ago. He had stood side by side with other men, outnumbered, hard pressed and desperate. He had resigned himself to death, and then he had lived. Such moments change men.
The first time they had gone up to the platform Skal had been very quiet. He had looked at the boards more than the enemy beyond, as though he expected to see his own blood staining the wood, but his sacred moment had passed, and now he was his young impatient self again.
Pascha had delayed and delayed for as long as she dared. By now the Seth Yarra army was more than a week north of Fal Verdan, and its vanguard must even now be treading the leaf litter of Narak’s sacred forest.
“Surely we must attack them soon, Deus?” he asked.
“Yes, soon.” Pascha was becoming almost as adept as Narak at giving nothing away, and she understood why he did it. The Wolf God had reasons that he would not or could not tell. So did she.
“Tomorrow?”
She looked at him and smiled a deliberate, enigmatic smile. She said nothing. She knew that it irritated him. Tomorrow? Yes, tomorrow. At dawn she would strike a blow at the heart of the Seth Yarra force beyond the gate and then she would send the signal and wait for Hestia and Terresh to attack. Her men, Skal’s men, would be lined up behind the wall, cavalry to the fore, men on the ropes ready to swing the gates wide. Then there would be a one sided battle.
She looked across the killing ground. There were still signs of the first battle of Fal Verdan out there: fragments of twisted armour, broken arrow shafts, the occasional glint of metal in the short grass and at the foot of the wall she could still see a few charred bones hard up against the stone. It had been a bloody fight.
Beyond the killing ground there were two camps. Trees had been felled for firewood, for building, and now the camps could be clearly seen, and clearly showed their differences. The Seth Yarra tents were laid out in a great square with small fires at every alternate junction. They used a pale cloth that was clearly visible through the denuded branches that remained. Their rows seemed to have no centre, though Pascha knew very well where the centre was.
The Telans, on the other hand, had laid out their brown canvas in concentric rings with a great fire at the centre, and a tent that could be nothing else than their commander’s residence. There was no mingling, and that alone should have been enough to alert the Telans to the trouble they were in.
The real commander, the Telan King, or indeed the Queen, was a few miles to the south, and Pascha would tell her tonight that the attack was to happen at dawn. It would be as much a relief to them as it would to Skal.
She spoke without looking at him. “We attack tomorrow, at first light.”
“Tomorrow?” He seemed almost shocked. After so long waiting she could not blame him for it. She had prevaricated until the last possible moment. The purpose of the attack was almost
gone. “Do you have any further orders?” he asked.
“You know your business, colonel. Have the men ready behind the gate at dawn.”
“Indeed I shall,” he said, and turned to stride away already looking for his officers, stepping quickly and keenly. He was a man who did not wait very well, she reflected. She found his impatience a likeable trait. Skal was young, but he was not ignorant of war. He had fought several engagements, been grievously wounded, and yet still wished to be in the thick of it. She knew his reasons well enough. He wanted glory to rebuild his blood, to raise up his family name which had been cast down by his father’s treachery.
Mortal men were strange, she thought. All that effort and then death.
* * * *
In the morning Pascha was up before the sun. She translocated to a perch high above the pass, hidden from human eyes. She lit a small fire, laid her bow down beside her and rested beside it. She could see Skal’s men, three thousand of them, lining up along the pass. The men stood beside their horses, keeping them as quiet as possible. The horses steamed gently in the cool of pre-dawn, and their smell rose up to her through the morning air. Behind them, along the pass, stood the infantry, a prickly caterpillar of steel. The foot soldiers would be lucky to get a taste of the battle, she thought. With the Telans attacking and a thousand Avilian cavalrymen carving through the Seth Yarra it should be over quickly enough.
