Scholar

by L. E. Modesitt

  He saw wooden rail fences, and occasional stone and brick walls that were between knee-high and chest-high. The dwellings were smaller and more modest the closer he got to town, but none were built wall-to-wall as they were in other cities he had visited.

  After riding another half mille, he came to a brick-paved circle, a crossroads of sorts, in that two roads did cross, but various shops and other structures had been built all the way around the edge of the paved circle, leaving four equal arcs of buildings, each arc set between two roads. More than that, there was … something about the buildings. None quite looked like those he had passed earlier. All had narrower but longer windows, and every door had an iron grate that closed over it, although all were swung back at the moment. The types of shops seemed normal enough. He could pick out a small woolen shop, a tinsmith’s, a fuller, a cooper. One “quarter” held an inn, and the signboard suggested it had been named something different before, because the peeling paint revealed traces of another name, but not enough for Quaeryt to read it.

  A woman emptied a bucket of water on the bricks before a shop and then used a worn broom to sweep away dirt and other less benign objects.

  Was this a Pharsi area before? Or has it changed as some areas will with time?

  He couldn’t tell, and he wasn’t about to stop and ask. Not at the moment, anyway.

  He kept riding, and before that long the narrow road ended at a stone-paved square that served the harbor area. At the east end was a knee-high seawall, also of the same gray stone. The mortar was cracking and missing in places in the wall, and the paving stones were uneven, as if they had not been reset in years. One pier jutted out from the south end of the square, a second from the north end, and a third and smaller pier was set farther to the north.

  Quaeryt rode around the edge of the square, past a chandlery and a café of sorts, and all manner of small shops, a number of which bore signboards sporting painted fish. There were fewer women than men on the narrow streets and sidewalks, and most of the women he saw looked older. He kept riding, going up one street and down another, but avoiding the alleys, and eventually ended up back at the harbor square, where he reined up, trying to think over what he’d seen.

  The harbor area was far smaller than that of Nacliano, stretching little more than six or seven blocks north and south and three or four to the west from the three piers, none of which approached the length of the smallest in Nacliano, or even the short coastal pier in Solis. In reality, the piers were not even that, but wooden wharves built on what looked to be rough-stripped tree trunks sunk into the harbor floor.

  “You’d be looking for something, sir?” The inquiry came from another of the olive-green-clad city patrollers as he walked toward Quaeryt.

  “I’m new here, and I was just riding to get my bearings.” Quaeryt paused just slightly. “You don’t have harbor patrollers here, do you?”

  “No, sir. Why would we need them?” The patroller looked up at Quaeryt. His face was lined and ruddy, and his square-cut beard held streaks of gray.

  “The last port I was in was Nacliano, and they had harbor patrollers. I’ve never been here before and didn’t know if it might be the same.”

  The patroller smiled. “We’d not be needing them. Our folk don’t take to rowdiness or theft or any of that foolishness. We’re here for the times they need a mite of assistance.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “You need a good stable … you might try Thayl’s place. It’s two blocks west of the small pier.”

  Quaeryt smiled at the indirect suggestion that he needed to move on. “If I do, I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you.” He flicked the reins and guided the mare northward in the general direction of Thayl’s, not that he intended to stop there.

  When he reached a point opposite the smallest wharf, he did turn the mare in the direction suggested by the patroller. After a single block, he began to grin. Just before Thayl’s stable was another building, one with open second-floor windows. Several of the windows were adorned—if that were the proper term—with women wearing the sheerest of cotton shifts or blouses, and some of those blouses were not fastened in the slightest.

  The building had no signboard, but then it needed none, and he could see why Thayl might do a fair business stabling mounts for a short period of time. He rode by and took in the scenery. He’d seen better, and he’d seen worse, and in some places, like Nacliano, there wasn’t much difference between places like the Sailrigger and a brothel. He’d never patronized either type, not because he didn’t appreciate femininity, but because women like Hailae—or especially the not-quite-gangly Vaelora—were more to his taste. At the same time, he couldn’t help but wonder exactly how the brothel made its presence known in the depth of winter. Not that he had any intention of being around past Year-Turn to find out.

  When he rode back up the lane to the stable behind the main building of the Ecoliae, at close to fourth glass, Quaeryt had a fair understanding of how Tilbora was laid out—a town that had sprawled into a larger town based on the river piers and the harbor with the former Khanar’s Palace withdrawn to the northern heights and overlooking the town. Interestingly enough, while there was a good paved road across Tilbora from the palace to the river piers, there was no direct road from the palace to the harbor. That, unfortunately, said far too much about the Khanars and about Chayar and Bhayar.

  Also, the men and women he’d seen were taller and leaner than the people of Solis, not that all of them were lean, as evidenced by the view offered by the unnamed brothel, and most of them seemed to have sandy brown hair or blond hair. He’d seen no redheads, and very few people with black hair.

  After grooming the mare and seeing to her feed, Quaeryt walked from the stable to the main building, climbing the rear steps to the porch and walking toward the shaded east side. For all the size of the Ecoliae, he saw but a few handfuls of scholars on the wide porch, most of them in two groups in roughly circled chairs.

  He didn’t feel like intruding, but he also didn’t want to turn and walk away. He decided to compromise and walk to the edge of the porch and look down at the small flower bed he had noted earlier. There wasn’t much to see, just harvest lilies that were beginning to look scraggly and a line of flowers he didn’t recognize, but that appeared similar to sun daisies.

  He straightened and turned, debating whether to leave or loiter for a bit longer.

  “You must be the visiting scholar. I’m Chardyn … Chardyn Traesksyn.”

  The short scholar who spoke in cultured Tellan, if with a Tilboran accent, and who approached was neither slender nor wiry, but somewhere in the middle and well-muscled. He wore a short straight blond mustache, an affectation Quaeryt had not often seen. In the south, most men either were clean-shaven or had short beards. From what he’d seen in his ride through Tilbora, most men seemed to have full beards. Then again, Quaeryt hadn’t exactly counted.

  “The whispered word through the students is that you’re on some sort of mysterious quest for some even more mysterious patron.”

  Quaeryt laughed. “The next thing you know, they’ll be saying I’m the bastard son of Lord Bhayar, not that he’s old enough to have fathered anyone my age.”

  Chardyn gestured toward a pair of chairs. “If you wouldn’t mind joining me?”

  “I’d be pleased.”

  “Good.”

  Quaeryt settled himself into one of the chairs and waited until the other had settled himself as well.

  “Can you enlighten me as to the truth of the rumors?” Chardyn lifted both eyebrows.

  “They’re true, except that the quest isn’t all that mysterious. Nor is my patron mysterious, except that he prefers to remain unknown because he has discovered that if he ever reveals that he provides scholars with gainful tasks he will be inundated with scholars.”

  Chardyn laughed, a soft but high-pitched sound. “You have answered what you can about your patron, but what of the quest?”

  “There’s been
very little written about Tilbor and its history in recent times. I’m looking for whoever might have the best understanding of Tilboran history, especially over the last few hundred years.”

  “That scarcely sounds like the sort of quest most patrons would fund. Most want their names inscribed in tomes more likely to be widely read or upon large and elegantly ugly statues.”

  “Oh … I think he would be most happy with an inscription on a very good recent history. Is there anyone here—you, perhaps—who might be of assistance?”

  “Not me. Hardly me. I’m the martial-arts scholar.”

  “Study or demonstration or both?”

  “I’ve studied a number. I’m relatively proficient in Sansang.”

  Quaeryt nodded. He’d heard of Sansang, supposedly a discipline that mixed all types of unarmed and nonbladed combat techniques, coming as it had from the ancient High Holder prohibition on the use of bladed weapons by anyone but High Holders, except as armsmen of a High Holder or a ruler, but he’d never met anyone proficient in it. “I’d like to watch your instruction sometime.”

  “You’re welcome any morning at sixth glass on the practice green.”

  “I’ll be there some morning.” Quaeryt smiled. “I’m not sure it will be tomorrow, though.”

  “It won’t be. We don’t practice on Solayi morning.” Chardyn’s tone was light.

  “Who might be able to help me with the history?”

  “Right now, no one speaks much about Tilboran history.” Chardyn pursed his lips. “No one else but Sarastyn comes close.”

  “Could you introduce me?”

  The other scholar shook his head. “It’s past the third glass of the afternoon. He’ll be down soothing his throat, as he puts it. It’s best to catch him in the morning. Well … not early in the morning, and definitely not early tomorrow morning.”

  “Doesn’t he have tasks…?”

  “No. He was the assistant princeps for student studies for twenty years. He must be over seventy now, and as gnarled as winter-heights pine. He claims that his blood is half ale, and I’d believe that. Some men’s tongues loosen when they drink. His doesn’t. It tightens.”

  “I met Scholar Zarxes, but I neglected to ask him about the Master Scholar here.”

  “That’s Phaeryn. You can’t miss him. Tall, silver-white hair, voice like a deep drum. He’s done wonders in keeping everything working since…” Chardyn shrugged.

  “Since Tilbor became part of Telaryn?”

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “How would most Tilborans put it?”

  Chardyn laughed again, briefly. “Those who are political will say something about the ‘unfortunate occurrence.’ The merchanters will say something about Lord Chayar wanting to tariff them heavily to pay for his ambitions to rule all Lydar.”

  “But he died years ago.”

  “Oh … they’ll just say that his son is no better.”

  “What do you say?”

  The short scholar smiled. “They’re both true. Then there is the fact many will not admit. Eleonyd was not the strongest of Khanars, and the fact that he had no sons and that his daughter refused to marry Bhayar left him in a weakened position. When he died suddenly … everyone suspected the hand of Chayar.”

  “Rhecyrdyl … or whatever the Pretender’s name was … said that was the case, didn’t he?”

  Another high short laugh followed, a sound that bothered Quaeryt, but he waited.

  “Rhecyrd. He was Eleonyd’s cousin. He never said anything. In fact, all he did say was that it was too easy to blame Chayar. The Telaryn envoy arrived in Tilbora a few weeks before Eleonyd sickened and died. Then the rumors started, and someone doused the envoy’s ship with Antiagon Fire with him still aboard. After that, who could prove anything? It was rather convenient for whoever actually caused Eleonyd’s death. More gossip began, this time that Rhecyrd’s imager was involved. But he was thirty milles north of Tilbora before and during Eleonyd’s illness and death.” Chardyn shrugged. “Then Chayar demanded Tilbor submit, and everyone put aside looking into Eleonyd’s death … for various reasons.”

  Quaeryt winced.

  “For Tilborans, all that was subtle,” Chardyn pointed out.

  “What happened to the daughter?”

  Chardyn shrugged. “She fled to Bovaria with all the jewels she could manage. Some say she married a High Holder there—Iraya or Ryel or something like that. Others say she put Rhecyrd up to everything and then left him to face Chayar. Some think both.”

  Quaeryt considered what the other had said. He recalled what Bhayar had told him, and nothing that Chardyn had said contradicted that. Supposedly, Chayar had been furious about the treatment of the envoy, but Bhayar had confided to Quaeryt that it had made it easier for his father to justify the war that followed. “What do you think?”

  “That was over ten years ago. What does it matter? We all have to do the best we can with things as they are now.”

  “Zarxes suggested, rather indirectly, that it has been difficult to keep the Ecoliae going in these times.”

  “Difficult? Yes. Phaeryn has managed well, better than any could have expected. Teaching Bovarian has brought in many children of the wealthier merchants for day studies, and boarding fees for those who live farther away. He has also found other ways to bring in the necessary coins.”

  “Such as?”

  “Offering hospitality to those such as you. Accepting produce and services for teaching the children of merchanters and growers. Using the skills of scholars to rebuild the anomen in return for some support from the chorister. He has been most creative.” Chardyn’s smile contained a certain hidden amusement.

  Quaeryt ignored that amusement, trouble though it suggested, since calling attention to it would only warn the other scholar. “He sounds most able.”

  “He is indeed.” Chardyn rose. “Come, let me introduce you to some of our company.”

  Quaeryt stood and followed the other, a pleasant smile upon his face.

  26

  After being introduced to a good half score of older scholars, Quaeryt joined the group for a modest supper at the scholars’ dining hall, then listened throughout the meal and for a good glass afterward, before taking his leave. Chardyn bothered him in more ways than one, but since the man had done nothing at all except be friendly, all Quaeryt could do was to be as careful as possible. If his suspicions were correct, it would be a few days before trouble appeared, but he might be too optimistic.

  He didn’t sleep all that well on Samedi night, not surprisingly, although he did take the precaution of also imaging a clay wedge into place under the heavy door, in addition to sliding the bolt and barring the door. After waking early, he rose, washed and dressed, and went out to the stable to check on the mare. When he returned, he visited the dining hall and ate, waiting to see if Sarastyn appeared.

  An older gray-haired and burly scholar appeared just before the servers were about to close the hall. Based on the description Quaeryt had gathered from others the night before, the late arrival was most likely Sarastyn. Quaeryt lingered for a time, then rose from the table where he had been sitting and walked toward the other.

  “Scholar Sarastyn, I presume?”

  “You are presuming for so early.” Sarastyn’s voice was harsh, gravel-like.

  “Might I join you?”

  “It appears you already have.” Sarastyn’s gesture to the seat opposite him was little more than grudging.

  “I’m Quaeryt, and I traveled here from Solis.” He smiled politely. “I understand you’re the foremost in studying the history of Tilbor.”

  Sarastyn took a long swallow from his mug before replying. “That might be an overstatement. If it is true, and it doubtless is, it is solely because no one else has bothered to amass any knowledge at all about that collection of anecdotes that some equate with historical scholarship.”

  “You seem to be suggesting that some scholars merely piece together anecdotes and cal
l it history?”

  “Why not?” Sarastyn began to cough.

  Quaeryt waited for the other to recover.

  The older man took several more sips from the mug. “Those selfsame individuals piece together mere information and call themselves scholars. How would you define history in scholarly terms?”

  Quaeryt thought for a moment. How he replied would doubtless determine whether Sarastyn would prove helpful. “The organization and presentation of past events in a structure that reveals not only what happened, but the patterns behind why it happened.”

  “Patterns … in all the times I’ve asked that question, you’re one of the few who has used the term ‘pattern.’ Where did you say you were from?”

  “Solis.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “To find out more about the recent history of Tilbor, particularly in the years before it was taken over by Telaryn.”

  Sarastyn nodded slowly. “That would seem simple enough, as would most history, but what seems is not what was.” He laughed, a soft sound at odds with his harsh voice. “That is scarcely astonishing when what we think we see and experience is seldom what is. If you ask any three scholars their recollection of an event, you will receive three accounts, and often those accounts are so different as to make one think that there were three different events.”

  “If one gathers all the recollections…” suggested Quaeryt.

  “One will have an assembly of nonsense, such as the tomes once racked in that moldy storehouse of a chamber that Zarxes terms a library. One must discern the patterns behind such events.”

  For a moment, Quaeryt paused, not because he had no response, but because Chardyn had entered the hall and seated himself with two younger scholars.