Scholar

by L. E. Modesitt

  “Scholars in favor can gather in golds,” pointed out Voltyr.

  “Golds aren’t much use to a headless man.”

  “Don’t ask questions.”

  “What’s the point of being a scholar, then?”

  “How about the good life … or the best life possible for someone who wasn’t born a High Holder?”

  “High Holders are captive to their wealth.”

  “Quaeryt … I’d like to be held captive like that.”

  The scholar laughed, then sat there for several moments before asking, “What do you know about Tilbor?”

  “Most of it is cold. The people are rude and crude, and they don’t like strangers. They don’t like scholars and imagers, except that they like Telaryn soldiers even less. They like to fight a lot, except when they’re drinking, and they do a lot of that in the winter because it’s too cold to do anything else. Even Antiagon Fire wouldn’t warm Noira in midwinter.” The imager frowned. “Why are you asking?”

  “I’m thinking of going there.”

  “Why, for the sake of the Nameless?”

  “To learn about it, to try to resolve something for Lord Bhayar. Besides, I’ve been seen at the palace too much in the past few seasons. That’s getting to be a problem.”

  “That’s a problem half the High Holders in Telaryn would like to have.”

  “They only think they want that problem. They don’t know Bhayar.”

  Voltyr frowned. “He’s not that arbitrary or cruel. Certainly not like his father, is he?”

  “He’s generally very fair. Most High Holders aren’t. But neither forgets anything.”

  “Oh…”

  Quaeryt stood. “Do you want to go down to Amphora later? I have a few spare coppers.”

  “How could I refuse such an invitation?”

  “You can’t,” laughed the scholar. “Half past fifth glass? I have work to do later.”

  “You’re paying.”

  With a last smile, Quaeryt turned and walked toward the north porch, hoping the nook by the north chimney wall would be vacant. Both Bhayar’s and Voltyr’s comments about imagers had played into the half-formed idea in his thoughts. Why, indeed, did imagers have to move and act with such care? Could he do anything about that? Or, at least, about his own position?

  2

  “Good night.” Quaeryt nodded to Voltyr as they stepped out of Amphora.

  “Where are you headed? You said you had work to do.”

  “I do. I don’t want to keep her waiting.”

  “That’s not work,” protested Voltyr.

  “With all that’s expected of me … it’s work.” With a wave, Quaeryt turned down the street, south from both Amphora and the Scholarium. Even though he and Voltyr had spent almost two glasses at the café, the sun was barely touching the tops of the shops and dwellings to the west.

  Quaeryt had not been jesting about the work ahead of him. That was why, at Amphora, he had eaten a domchana, whose batter-fried crust was light but filling, although he felt that the fowl strips inside were tough and the peppers stringy. The tangy cheese helped, if not enough. The two lagers had also helped.

  When he reached the harbor, he walked to the seawall that ran between the third and fourth piers. There he sat on the stone wall, in a spot almost exactly between the two piers and directly above one of the spots where silt and debris collected, enough so that it mounded close enough to the surface that the water actually broke over it in little wavelets. While the sun had not set, shadows were stealing across the entire harbor, leaving the topmasts of the tallest vessels in light while shading the lower masts and decks. Sailors were beginning to leave their ships and hurry in along the piers toward the cafés, taprooms, and taverns that filled the streets just north of the harbor.

  As Quaeryt sat there, he concentrated on the image of a copper. One appeared on the stone beside his hand. He waited a time and concentrated again. A second appropriately dingy copper manifested itself. He managed seven more coppers before he felt light-headed, a sign that there was not that much left in the way of copper fragments and minute bits in the harbor basin and debris nearby.

  He blotted his damp forehead with an old linen square, then eased the nine coppers into his wallet. He remained sitting on the seawall for over a glass, resting and enjoying the sunset … and absently recalling how long it had taken him to learn to focus and concentrate on every detail on each side of a copper … and how, once he’d mastered it, he’d left the Scholarium, thinking that he could get by as a sailor and not have to listen to grumpy scholars any longer.

  He shook his head ruefully at the memory.

  Then, in the fast-fading light, for twilight did not last long in Solis, he stood and stretched. He walked northward for several blocks before turning west, making his way among and around the sailors from the vessels tied up at the piers. Few paid any attention to him, their thoughts and doubtless their emotions elsewhere. Once Quaeryt left the harbor area, despite the warmth of the air, as the evening darkened into night, he pulled his cowl up. His white-blond hair, cut short as it was, still stood out too much in the darkness, and that could be a problem in the narrow streets.

  He glanced to the western sky where the reddish half disc of Erion hung just above a low cloud. Artiema had not yet risen, and that was fine with him. He’d passed the area that held the better factorages, cafés, and crafters’ shops, and was headed into the oldest area of Solis, where sagging houses with crooked shutters or even boarded-up windows sat side by side with shells of dwellings and ruined buildings.

  A block ahead were the ruins of an old smelter, little more than piles of rubble overgrown with thornweed and knifegrass. While it was slightly safer during the day, far too many people would have asked questions, and Quaeryt preferred to be the one asking, not the one having to answer.

  He sensed the movement in the alley some yards away, and he stopped beside a wall that would keep anyone from coming up behind him. He just waited as the man in tattered grays and a long knife held at waist height edged toward him.

  “What do you want?” Quaeryt let his voice quaver.

  “Old father … I’m sure you’d be having some coins.” The man’s grin revealed more broken and blackened teeth than white or yellow ones.

  “You’d not be wanting to bother me.”

  “That I’d not once I’ve your coins.” The knife flashed toward Quaeryt’s gut.

  The scholar darted back and imaged bread into the man’s windpipe and throat. Then he stepped back, glancing around. No one else emerged from the shadows of the alley as the thief flailed silently for quite some time, then grasped at his throat, before collapsing against the side of the lane. Once the man was dead, since he would have no further use for his coins, Quaeryt quickly examined his wallet. He found five coppers and a silver, which he transferred to his own wallet, before straightening and continuing down the dark lane toward the ruins of the old smelter.

  He didn’t need to get too near, choosing to stand close to the section of wall that had once held a wagon gate. Not even the iron hinges remained, only holes in the crumbling bricks and mortar. From where he stood, he began to concentrate. First, he tried to image a silver. The first was easy, and so was the second. After a clear strain with the third, he paused and slipped the coins into his wallet, then blotted his forehead.

  He waited in the shadows almost a quarter glass, checking the lane in both directions, before he resumed imaging. Eleven coppers later, he stopped and blotted his forehead again.

  He was tired, but not exhausted. Metal imaging was far harder than the other imaging he’d tried. Imaging earth and soil into place was far easier. He’d learned that as a boy forced to garden, although he’d had to grub up his hands so that the scholars who appeared to check his efforts hadn’t learned how he’d kept the garden so free of weeds.

  His wallet wasn’t sagging as he made his way back along the dim alley, giving the dead man a wide berth, but it was definitely heavy.
<
br />   All in all, it had been a good night’s work. More coppers and silvers for his wallet, and one less thief to trouble people who didn’t need that sort of difficulty.

  3

  More than a half glass before seven on Mardi morning, Quaeryt reached the side gate of the palace. As he’d calculated, Jhoal was on duty.

  “Pleasant morning to you,” offered Quaeryt with a smile. “For now.”

  “Be as hot as an Antiagon’s balls by midmorning, scholar, maybe sooner.” The sentry’s Bovarian held the harshness of a Tellan native speaker.

  “It’s still early Juyn, and harvest is hotter than summer. Wait until Agostos.”

  “You’re not cheering me up,” replied the guard, glancing toward the tower on the southeast side corner of the wall and then using his sleeve to blot his forehead. “Got two more glasses before Dhuar relieves me.”

  “The first watch is easier.”

  “In summer.”

  “Were you ever posted in Tilbor?” Quaeryt already knew the answer.

  “We all were. Old Lord Chayar wouldn’t have any guards who hadn’t seen battle. Lord Bhayar’s the same.”

  “He might have to change that before long, unless the Tilborans revolt or there’s another war.”

  “Nah … they’re still fighting there. Stiff-necked bunch. Worse than they say the Bovarians are.”

  “Don’t you think there are people like that everywhere? You must see it here.”

  “More ’n you’d believe, scholar. More ’n you’d believe.”

  “High Holders mostly?”

  Jhoal shook his head. “They’re mannered folk. Might look down on you, but most don’t swell out of their britches.” After another furtive glance toward the tower, the guard scratched his neck, just below the bronze ceremonial helmet. “Most, anyway.”

  “Except High Holder Khervar? Isn’t he here all the time?”

  “He is.” The slightest hint of a smile crossed the older guard’s face. “He’s young.”

  “I’d better be careful,” replied Quaeryt. “I’m not that old, myself.”

  “You were never that young, I’d be thinking.”

  Quaeryt hoped not. “I suppose I’d better go inside. I wouldn’t want to be late.”

  Jhoal stepped back and opened the narrow gate. “Take care, scholar.”

  “You, too.”

  Quaeryt walked up the steps leading to the roofed colonnades that flanked the garden. The guard at the top of the steps studied the scholar, then nodded. Quaeryt took his time, but did not loiter, especially when he saw Savaityl—the palace seneschal—standing beside the grille to the private staircase, quietly talking to the guard. The staircase guard looked straight ahead, not at Savaityl and not at Quaeryt.

  Even so, Savaityl turned. “You’re a quarter glass early, scholar. You can wait here.” A good ten years older than the scholar, the seneschal had a face that would have fit an ax, hard and smooth, with flinty gray eyes under coal-black hair cut short enough that it lay flat on his scalp, barely covering it. His Bovarian was precise and flawless, like everything else he cultivated.

  “Certainly. I wouldn’t want to intrude. I just didn’t want to be late.”

  “Lord Bhayar appreciates your punctuality. So do I. There is a difference between being slightly early and far too early … especially when one is here so very often.”

  Quaeryt nodded respectfully. There were times when responding verbally was worse than unnecessary. Savaityl had served Chayar, and now served his son. Both lords sent those who didn’t meet their standards to handle unpleasant and marginally meaningful tasks in even less pleasant locales. Bhayar was an enlightened lord. He did not believe in torture. Those who failed were exiled to distant locales. Those who stole or did worse vanished forever.

  While he stood waiting, Quaeryt considered again his plan. Would it work? Who knew? What he did know was that Bhayar had little real regard for scholars and a wariness combined with contempt for imagers. On top of that, he had little patience for advisors—or anyone—who loitered around the palace providing little but pronouncements without ever undertaking anything of risk or value. Savaityl’s last words had reinforced that.

  A time later, but before the chimes rang out announcing the glass, Savaityl returned and nodded. The guard unlocked the private staircase, and Quaeryt started up the steep and narrow steps and made his way up to the private corridor on the upper level. There the walls were of goldenwood bleached out until it was a faint tannish off-white. The floor was of pale blue tile, edged in dark blue. There were no hangings, no paintings, and no other decorations. In fact, mused Quaeryt, except in the receiving hall, he’d never seen any art or sculpture, and all that was displayed in the one chamber had been gifted to the Lord of Telaryn.

  One of the assistant stewards stood by the half-open door to the study. He inclined his head, then turned and announced, “Scholar Quaeryt Rytersyn to see you, Lord.”

  There was no answer, only a gesture. As was his wont, Bhayar was not seated behind the overly ornate carved goldenwood desk, but standing. He had been perusing the map of Lydar affixed to the map stand.

  “Good morning, Lord.” Quaeryt bowed.

  “Good morning. Do you have an answer to my question, scholar?” Bhayar’s voice was jovial, meaning that he’d had a good evening with his lady. Everyone knew when he didn’t.

  “I do have a proposal, Lord. Who’s the governor of Tilbor Province?”

  “I asked for an answer, not more questions.”

  Quaeryt inclined his head respectfully and waited.

  Bhayar sighed, but it was a deep sigh, for effect, and not the tight short sigh that meant displeasure. “Rescalyn. He’s a good troop commander, doesn’t put up with local nonsense.”

  “Who’s the deputy governor or the assistant governor?”

  “Straesyr. He’s the princeps. He was a solid marshal, not brilliant. He’s good with golds and supplies.”

  “Why don’t you send me to Tilbora as a scholar advisor to Straesyr?”

  “You want to go to Tilbora?”

  “No. But I can’t give you a recommendation without going there.” Quaeryt laughed. “I can’t even ask the right questions.”

  Bhayar fingered his clean-shaven chin. “Anyone who wants to go to that forsaken place…” He paused. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Finding out if there’s a way to stop the incidents without killing people—or a way to do it with fewer troops.”

  “You can’t calculate that from here?”

  “Did your father conquer Tilbor by staying in Solis?”

  “More questions … Your questions will be the death of me.” Bhayar shook his head. “I’ll write you an appointment. The pay won’t be much, a half gold a week and a room in the barracks. Do you want to travel with the next dispatch riders?”

  Quaeryt shook his head. “I’d like to go by sea and look around some before I present myself.”

  Bhayar nodded. “How long will you…” He broke off his words. “Be back by the end of winter, or don’t bother.”

  “You’re worried about the Bovarians?”

  “Who wouldn’t be after what Kharst did in Khel?”

  “In time, that could be your opportunity.”

  “How do you see that? I don’t know that the Pharsis will look to me as their savior, and the Bovarians were pleased to see the Pharsis brought down.”

  “You don’t have to be a savior. Just don’t make all the mistakes Rex Kharst has.” Or your father did in Tilbor.

  “And just what would you have done with the Pharsi?”

  “I’d have to think about that,” Quaeryt admitted, “but don’t you think that after the war is over and you’ve made people part of your land, you need to find a way to make them want you as their ruler?”

  “That’s why you’re going to Tilbora, I suppose? Rather than say that I should go?”

  “Can you think of a better reason?”

  “Not at the moment. What’s
in it for you?”

  “Your appreciation, if I succeed, and your willingness to agree, again, if I succeed, that scholars are occasionally useful.” Quaeryt grinned. “Also enough coin and gratitude that I don’t have to become an itinerant scholar, always looking over my shoulder.”

  “You might get one out of two, and half of the other.” Bhayar rose. “I’ll have your commission and appointment ready on Jeudi, with a few golds for travel. Come by in the late afternoon, fourth glass or so.”

  “You have that look. Which minister are you meeting with next?”

  “Thrachis. The factors are protesting that I’m spending golds on roads that make travel easy for the High Holders, but not for trade. They’re never happy.”

  “Some people are only happy when they’re complaining,” observed Quaeryt. “Sometimes they’re right, but when you address their complaint, they’ll soon find another. You might have him ask them, if you address their problem, how long it will be before they find another.”

  Bhayar laughed.

  Quaeryt could see the calculation in his eyes. “By your leave, Lord?”

  Bhayar nodded, a movement somewhere between indifference and brusqueness. “You may go.”

  The scholar offered a respectful bow before turning and departing.

  4

  Meredi found Quaeryt in what was called the library in the Scholarium Solum. A pretentious name, not only for the repository of miscellaneous volumes, but for the location itself, suggesting that the large but decrepit old building held the one body of scholars in all Telaryn, he thought, as he brushed a moldering bit of plaster from his shoulder with one hand, while brushing the cobwebs off a tome on the shelf before him. He eased the volume out and opened it, reading the title: Rholan, Synthesizing the Esoteric and Exoteric?

  While it was far from what he was seeking, he read through several pages. One paragraph did catch his attention.

  Although so little is known of Rholan the Unnamer that he might as well be apocryphal, the stories and saying attributed to him are a remarkable fusion of the exoteric and esoteric, as if he were attempting to instill spirituality within the most pragmatic of human group functions and interactions.… Yet, for all the impact he has had upon history and belief, the man himself remains more evanescent than morning fog in summer.… We only know that he lived in Montagne and was presumably born there, although no records exist, and that he vanished after traveling to Cloisonyt in his fifty-third year, according to the historian Jletyr Vladomsyn …