Scholar

by L. E. Modesitt

  Rhodyn waited until the fit subsided, then handed him a mug from the small bedside table. “Watered lager. It helps.”

  “Thank … you…” Quaeryt took a sip, then a small swallow before replacing the mug on the plain wooden table.

  “… Rest, and we’ll hear the whole story when you’re better. Just know that you’re safe here.”

  Quaeryt wasn’t sure he was safe anywhere, but he was so feverish and tired that he doubted he could have taken a handful of steps. Like it or not, he had to trust his keepers. Once again, his eyes closed without his wanting them to.

  22

  Although the feverishness subsided, it did not totally disappear over the next few days, and the same was true of the coughing. For all that, Rhodyn and his household were both patient and solicitous. They also fed Quaeryt well.

  On Lundi afternoon, a week after he had collapsed literally on Rhodyn’s doorstep, Quaeryt sat on the covered porch on the northeast corner of the main house, from where he could see the ocean. The sky was silvered with the haze of high thin clouds, and not a vessel was in sight on the dull gray-blue waters. Across the table from him was Rhodyn’s wife Darlinka.

  She waited for him to set down the beaker that was still half-filled with lager before she said, “You don’t like to talk about yourself, do you?” Her Tellan was clear and concise, the way he’d learned it. “You gave the bare-bones account of your escape from the reavers.”

  The shorter explanation had been necessary, and he’d minimized his confrontation with the three reavers and the dog, just saying that he’d heard a dog in the distance and that he had run and pressed as much as he could until he’d had to deal with but one and had disabled him and then managed to make his way north and cross the Ayerne. “How many people are truly interested?” he replied in Tellan, smiled, then added, “There are some, but how many do you know who wish to know that much about another? How many of those want to know for the sake of knowing, and how many wish to learn in order to gain an advantage of some sort?”

  “There are some, and they are worth knowing.”

  “You and Rhodyn are among the first I’ve encountered in some time, and I find myself very fortunate that I have. Might I ask what enables you two to be so?”

  “You might indeed, and I will even try to answer. Even if it is a way for you to avoid talking about yourself.” Her smile combined warmth and humor.

  Quaeryt didn’t bother hiding his grin, but he didn’t say a word.

  “Rhodyn was born here, but when he was young, his father sent him to school in Cloisonyt, just as we have sent Syndar and Lankyt to study in Tilbora. Back then, of course, going to school in Tilbora was not possible. He was as guarded as a young man as you are. Through an acquaintance of his father, he met a young woman who was so unguarded that she might have been prey to anyone. Together, they began to see the world as it was.” She smiled again.

  “And you never stopped seeing it together?”

  “There is a time to question, and a time to answer questions, Scholar Quaeryt. We were fortunate to learn that together.”

  “It wasn’t easy for you two, was it?”

  “Not so hard as you might think. Four eyes and two hearts who can trust each other are better than one.” After the slightest pause, she went on, calmly. “You’re not a man who trusts many, are you? It frets at you to be depending on the goodness of others.”

  “And how did you notice that?” Quaeryt kept his voice light, still trying not to cough when he spoke.

  “That’d be another thing.” The older woman smiled. “You answer with questions. You’d think that your parents named you knowing that.”

  “They didn’t name me. If they did, I don’t know what that name might have been. They died in the Great Plague, and the scholars took me in. They gave me the name because I asked questions as soon as I could talk in their tongue.”

  “That would explain much. You are a scholar, yet you were not wearing that garb.”

  “No.” He offered a rueful smile. “When I disembarked from a ship in Nacliano, a harbor patroller tried to attack me because I was a scholar. I think he would have killed me if he could have. I had to dive into the harbor and hide under the piers … and avoid the patrollers. That caused me to miss the ship I planned to take, and that led me to take the vessel I did, and that resulted in getting caught in the storm and getting wrecked on something called the Namer’s Causeway.”

  “You were the only one who escaped the reavers, Rhodyn said.”

  “I don’t know that. The old reaver woman, the one I think might have poisoned me, said that two crewmen were found dead on the sands. There was no one else on the wreck when I left, but anyone else who might have survived could have left before I recovered enough to be aware of what had happened. After the worst of the storm hit and the ship struck the causeway, I never saw anyone else. I’d just tied myself to the ship to wait it out.” Quaeryt’s eyes drifted to the nearer mud-brick building, the one that he’d thought was a barn or some such, and wasn’t, but a long building with quarters for many of those who worked the holding. “Don’t your workers find this … lonely?”

  “Some do, and they’re free to leave. Some of those return before long. Even with Rhodyn requiring training in arms for the men and boys, most like living here. We don’t have winters near so cold as Tilbora, and the women like the calmer life.”

  “Do you have any daughters?”

  “Just one. She lives some five milles north on the old stead.”

  “From your family?” guessed Quaeryt.

  “A crotchety uncle. It’s mostly orchard, and Caella always did well with trees. She has a knack with them, even taught her husband some.”

  “She’s the oldest, then?”

  “Except for Jorem. He’s a produce factor in Bhorael.”

  Quaeryt tried to remember where Bhorael was, then nodded. “That’s just south of Tilbora, on the other side of the river, isn’t it?”

  Darlinka nodded, then stood. “I need to see about supper and how Liexa is doing. You just stay right there. It won’t be long before Rhodyn comes in, and it’s a real pleasure for him to have someone not from around here to talk with.”

  “I don’t know that I’ve been that entertaining … more like a burden…”

  “Nonsense.” With that she was gone.

  Quaeryt couldn’t help but smile. He did worry about the time it was taking him to recover, but his walks about the holding had convinced him that he needed a few more days to regain his strength. He also had to admit that he enjoyed talking to Rhodyn and Darlinka. It also made him wonder what he’d missed in growing up. But then, would his parents have been like the holder and his wife? He suspected few were, and even if he had sickened himself on more than one occasion trying to puzzle out imaging, would parents have helped … or turned him out, as some did when they found a child was an imager?

  He didn’t have to wait long before the holder appeared. Rhodyn carried a large goblet of a red wine out to the shaded table and settled into one of the wooden armchairs across from Quaeryt.

  “You look like you’ve had a long hard day.”

  “Long and tedious, but not hard. We got in the last of the late cherries. I fear that those baskets will make better wine than anything else.” Rhodyn had insisted on speaking Bovarian, saying he needed the practice.

  “There’s nothing wrong with cherry wine, is there?”

  “Besides the fact that unless you make it perfectly, it doesn’t keep well, doesn’t sell well, and few people truly enjoy it? No.” Rhodyn’s voice was cheerfully sarcastic, but not bitter. “Darlinka and Caella like it, and it’s rare enough that when I send some to Jorem, he can sell it to a few people who like it. So it’s not all a loss. We do better with the honey, though. It keeps, and people like sweets.”

  Quaeryt nodded and took a swallow of the lager.

  “You haven’t said much about why you’re headed to Tilbora,” said Rhodyn conversationally.

&n
bsp; “I haven’t. That’s true. Your wife says I avoid answering questions with questions, but I’m still going to ask a question first. How do you think the Tilborans feel about having so many of Lord Bhayar’s armsmen still in Tilbor more than ten years after the fighting stopped?”

  “I’d imagine they wouldn’t like it. No one likes having armsmen too close at hand. If they aren’t kept busy they get into trouble, especially with the local girls, and that leads to more trouble with the local young men. If they are kept busy, and what they’re doing is makework, they get angry because they’re being kept from the local girls. If you allow them to marry the locals, then that causes a different kind of trouble.”

  “So how do you keep the locals from rebelling without armsmen?”

  “Buy goods from them. Hire them to fix everything that’s broken or to build things they need. I’d wager that’s cheaper than paying armsmen to do nothing.” Rhodyn laughed. “Besides, if things get repaired and they get new market squares or better piers or wider roads that they didn’t have before…”

  “They might be happier.”

  “Some people are never happy, except when they’re causing trouble. Those you have to get rid of, but in ways that others accept. There was one old fellow who used to get into fights every Samedi night. My sire stopped that. He paid him an extra two coppers to watch the flocks on Samedi night, and told his woman about it. She’d insist he work on Samedi night, and he found out that he had twice as many coins because he wasn’t drinking them, either.” The holder smiled. “He saved enough to lease a morgen of land in the hills, and his son has an apple orchard there.”

  “That doesn’t always work.”

  “No. No one thing always works. You have to find what works for each man and each woman. You also have to learn to recognize those for whom nothing will work.” Rhodyn’s laugh turned bitter. “That was why we had to raze Fairby and the other hamlets to the south.”

  “I take it that was costly.”

  “It was. So much so that I would prefer we not talk about it.”

  Quaeryt was in no position to insist. “My apologies. I did not mean…”

  “I was the one who brought it up. You needed to know about how evil the ship reavers are. But then, I believe your own experience has reinforced my mere words.”

  Quaeryt smiled wryly. “You do have a way of putting things, sir. And yes, my experience was quite convincing.”

  “Experience often trumps words, and that is why what schooling and scholars can do is limited. Some people, perhaps most, only learn from their own mistakes, even when they see others make the very mistakes they will later make because they cannot learn from the failures of others.”

  “Rhodyn, dear … scholar … if you would join us for supper!” called Darlinka.

  “We’d be delighted!” returned Rhodyn.

  As Quaeryt rose, he considered the holder’s words. Certainly, what Rhodyn said made sense, but finding out what worked for all Tilbor … when he knew so little? He was finding problems in Telaryn that he never knew existed—and he doubted that Bhayar did, either, and Quaeryt hadn’t even arrived in Tilbora.

  23

  Four days later, and with three golds less in his belt, Quaeryt rode toward the southern edge of Bhorael, a town set on low hills on the south side of the Albhor River, across which lay the far larger city of Tilbora. While the holdings and the cots and the croppers’ houses along the road to the town were neat and well-kept, and mostly of lightly fired mud brick of a yellowish brown, Quaeryt noted that almost none were new or recently built. Likewise, the main avenue that looked to be leading to the river was brick-paved, but many of the bricks were cracked or replaced with others of a different shade. Not until he was close to the river, where he could catch glimpses of brownish gray water at the end of several streets sloping downhill, did he begin to pass any buildings above a single story.

  Even though he had directions from Rhodyn, it took him close to a glass to find the “river market square,” because all the buildings devoted to trade seemed to run in a swath paralleling the river. By then it was after the third glass of the afternoon. The “square” he sought turned out to be wide and open paved space two blocks south of the river and the ferry piers to Tilbora. There was not even a raised platform for end-day vendors, nor a statue or fountain, but the square and the buildings fronting it were higher than the area surrounding it, as if a low hill had been flattened, so that Quaeryt again found himself looking down a gentle slope when he glanced toward the river.

  The produce factorage had no name on the signboard across the front, just paintings of various kinds of produce—onions, potatoes, carrots, peppers, gourds. The paintings had been recently done and showed an attention to detail that Quaeryt appreciated. The two-story building itself was older, but looked to be in good repair, and the windows on both the lower and the upper level were both glazed and shuttered, but the only windows Quaeryt observed on the lower level were two large oblongs flanking the open front door, a door protected from the sun by a roofed porch. Two backless wooden benches graced the unrailed porch. Both were vacant as Quaeryt dismounted and tied the horse to the iron hitching post.

  He walked stiffly up the single stone step to the porch, limping more than he usually did, the stiffness the result of too much riding with too little practice in recent years, not that he’d ever had that much experience in the saddle. The wooden planks of the porch creaked slightly as he walked over them and into the factorage itself.

  Long and simple wooden tables in rows filled the front half of the building, and on each table were rows of baskets. After a moment, Quaeryt realized that each table held a different kind of produce—with differing kinds of onions and shallots on one, and a range of peppers on anther, potatoes on a third, different root vegetables on another. There were apricots, early apples, a single basket of late cherries.

  He turned toward the rear of the factorage and said in Tellan, “I’m looking for Factor Jorem.”

  A man who had been bending over a table straightened, then walked forward. He was broad-shouldered and square-chinned, with light brown hair and a slightly tanned face. He showed a far more marked resemblance to Darlinka than to his father, and there was a thin pink scar that ran down the left side of his face from cheekbone to jaw. Quaeryt judged that he was several years younger than Quaeryt himself, and that seemed young to have built or bought such an impressive factorage in a desirable location.

  “Yes? What is it?”

  “I have a letter here from your family,” said Quaeryt, extending the folded and sealed paper. “They were kind to me in my travels, and since I was coming this way, I offered to carry any messages they might have.”

  Jorem took the missive, although his face betrayed concern and curiosity. “It’s not often travelers come from the Ayerne. Nor are such travelers usually scholars.”

  “That wasn’t my plan, either. I was on a ship that was wrecked on the Shallows Coast. I barely escaped the reavers, but I fell ill on my escape. I fear that my acquaintance with your parents came because I collapsed on their doorstep while talking to your father. They were most kind and helped me in every way possible to recover.”

  Jorem frowned. “You’re not an easterner, are you?”

  “No. I’m from Solis. I was traveling to Tilbora when the ship ran afoul of a storm and fetched up on something called the Namer’s Causeway.”

  “I’ve heard of that … never saw it, of course.” Jorem paused. “Please look around, if you would, while I read the letter. Oh … and thank you for bringing it.”

  “It was truly the least I could do for them.” Quaeryt stepped back and then began to look over the remaining tables of produce. The leeks looked especially good, as did a variety of apples that were a mottled green and red. He didn’t see any cherry wine … or anything similar, but perhaps the factor kept special goods in another part of the factorage.

  He also wondered about the specific instructions that Rhodyn had given
him with the three letters—that Jorem was not to be told of the letters to Syndar and Lankyt and the two sons studying in Tilbora were not to be told of Jorem’s letter. Obviously, there were problems of some sort, but since Quaeryt wasn’t so sure he would have survived without the care and concern of Rhodyn and Darlinka, he intended to respect the holder’s wishes, particularly since he had sensed what he would have called a wistful melancholy in Rhodyn’s voice when he had asked Quaeryt to carry the missives.

  He looked up as Jorem hurried toward him.

  “I’m sorry. I was perhaps too brief.” The younger man offered an embarrassed smile. “My father thinks highly of you. He seldom offers that observation. You must have impressed him greatly.”

  “He impressed me,” said Quaeryt. “So did your mother. They’re both rather thoughtful people.”

  “He writes that you are traveling on behalf of Lord Bhayar.”

  “I do have a commission from him for a task in Tilbora.”

  “You must join us for supper and tell us about your visit. It has been almost two years since I saw them.”

  There was something sad behind Jorem’s words, but Quaeryt only said, “If it would not be an imposition, I would be glad to do so. Thus far, the only truly enjoyable part of my travels was with your parents—after the first few days, when I was so ill that I do not remember much.”

  “They are known for their kindness.” Jorem smiled. “Come, I will tell Hailae, and then we will stable your horse. There is an extra stall in the stable in back. He will be safer there while we eat, and you can groom him so that you won’t have to later.”

  “She’s actually a mare,” admitted Quaeryt. “I purchased a well-behaved horse, not a cavalry charger.”

  Jorem laughed as he led the way toward a door at the back of the front chamber. He opened it, revealing a wide staircase to the upper level. He stopped and called, “Hailae, we have a guest for supper!”