Scholar

by L. E. Modesitt

  After that, he checked the mare, thought, talked about matters with Meinyt, and fretted.

  Just before supper on Lundi evening, Skarpa appeared in the barn holding Sixth Battalion. “The governor’s called an officers’ meeting.” His eyes went to Quaeryt. “That includes you, scholar.”

  Quaeryt inclined his head.

  “I don’t think it’s good,” added the major.

  “I wouldn’t expect so. The hill holders have regarded themselves as beyond anyone’s law but their own for far too many years.”

  “Why did he even send a message, then?”

  “So that, after we’ve destroyed Zorlyn and a few more holders totally, he can make an offer again for those few remaining.”

  “They could just abandon their holds and wait him out,” pointed out Skarpa.

  “Do you really think so? You’ve told me how hard the winters are. Second, no one’s ever succeeded in carrying this kind of war to them before. They don’t really believe it can be done. They’ve been too isolated, and they’ve never dealt with someone who has the skill, determination, and the number of trained troops that the governor has. Even so, he’s just starting the destruction. He’s counting on the winter to largely finish it.”

  Skarpa nodded slowly. “I need to tell the other officers. We’re to meet immediately.”

  “I’ll come with you, then.”

  The two walked toward Gauswn, some twenty yards away, standing back from the east doorway.

  Quaeryt said nothing more as Skarpa gathered his officers, and they all walked to the meeting—in the same chamber where Rescalyn had received Quaeryt the day before. Once all the officers had appeared, the governor entered the room. He wasted little time on greetings of formalities.

  “As I reported to all of you yesterday,” he began, his voice shorn of the heartiness it so often possessed, “I sent a courier with escorts to Holder Zorlyn. My message offered an amnesty for those hill holders who had not taken up arms against Telaryn, provided they swore allegiance to Telaryn and its lord and provided that they paid tariffs equal to the rates of other High Holders, with an addition of two parts in ten for the next several years.” Rescalyn paused, then went on. “We received a reply less than a glass ago. The courier and his escorts were returned … and released three milles from here. When they reached our camp, two escorts were dead, strapped to their mounts; two were alive but wounded; and the courier was alive—but with a letter pinned to his chest with a knife.…”

  Quaeryt felt like wincing. The idiots … the absolute, boar-headed insufferable egotistical sow-slutted … They’re playing the plaques exactly as he had planned they would. And yet, there was no real proof, only his suspicions. Was he justified in planning what he did with only what he knew and sensed? And yet, waiting too long would create another problem.

  “I will read you the letter,” said Rescalyn, coldly. He cleared his throat.

  “To the one called governor—

  “The message you sent is an insult to Tilbor. It is also an insult to any self-respecting Tilboran, let alone to a holder whose lands have remained self-governing in his family for generation upon generation. Not even the most absolute of the Khanars ever insisted upon such outrageous tariffing. Nor did they bring in foreign scholars to change the way those who received their education at the Ecoliae were taught. Nor did they elevate mere crafters and merchants to the levels of those who have stewarded their lands wisely for all these many generations. After such acts, then for you to attempt to destroy all those who stand up for their time-honored rights and traditions is an even greater outrage, and one for which you and every man in your regiment will perish.

  “There can be but one reply to such ignorant arrogance and such self-serving egotism … and that is the reply you receive. I spare those whom I have returned solely so that you may know that I indeed am the one who sends this message…”

  Rescalyn paused. “The courier and the two surviving ranker escorts told me that Zorlyn himself personally read them these words in the great hall of his hold, before two of them were cut down, and the others were maimed.”

  Rescalyn let the silence speak for him. Only after it became oppressive did he speak again. “I have offered amnesty and mercy twice. It has been spurned in the cruelest way. We will begin destroying this hold at dawn tomorrow. We will ride out by sunrise.” He paused but momentarily before saying, “That is all. Pass the word to your men.” This time, he stood silently as the officers, and Quaeryt, filed out.

  As he walked back to the barn, Quaeryt couldn’t help but admire Rescalyn’s planning and understanding of the hill holders.

  89

  Mardi morning was clear, but the skies to the northwest showed a haze that promised a change in the weather. The wind also blew from the northwest, hard enough to fan the fires set in all the structures in Demotyl’s holding into infernos within less than a quint after they had been set. By midmorning, the regimental column and its wagons, almost twice as many as had left Boralieu as a result of those recovered from the various holdings, had covered more than seven milles, and a third of the sky was covered with low, thick, gray clouds. The wind had turned intermittently biting.

  The first attack on the vanguard started at ninth glass, when several hundred riders galloped across the matted brown grasses of an upland meadow to within two hundred yards of the road and the lead companies. There they reined up and began to loose volleys of arrows at the Telaryn forces.

  Rescalyn called on Fifth Battalion to attack by circling from the right. The hill riders waited until the first company was within fifty yards before loosing three volleys at directly at the cavalry. Fifth Battalion ran down those too slow to escape and cut them down on the spot, perhaps fifty, according to the messenger who rode up and passed the work to Skarpa. Fifth Battalion suffered almost that many casualties, and more than twenty men were killed or wounded in the vanguard.

  Rescalyn sent out more outriders and scouts.

  All during the time between noon and the first glass of the afternoon, arrows and quarrels arched intermittently from the woods or from hills or bluffs down on the column, occasionally striking riders before one of the squads detailed to chase the archers away neared the attackers and they faded into the trees. The column scarcely slowed at all.

  Shortly after that, a ranker rode back and summoned Quaeryt to ride forward to see the governor. When Quaeryt approached, Rescalyn motioned for him to ride next to him, but the governor did not speak immediately.

  After they had ridden more than a hundred yards, Rescalyn asked, “Scholar … what did you think, honestly, of Zorlyn’s reply?”

  “Foolish … and predictable.”

  “Zorlyn is anything but a fool.”

  “I am certain that is so, sir, but intelligent and perceptive men still make foolish statements and attempt unwise acts when they fail to realize they are captive to perceptions or beliefs that are in error. Zorlyn has never faced a determined foe whose desire is to obliterate what he stands for. Neither have any of his forebears. The Khanars always compromised, and the hill holders believe that all rulers will do so, rather than fight and lose more men than is seen to be worth their while. Zorlyn, like all hill holders, assumes that your interest and that of Lord Bhayar is merely to collect tariffs. He also assumes that you will not pay the price for your actions. Were his assumptions correct, then his defiance would be justified. But those assumptions are incorrect.”

  “How does a man tell when he is captive to erroneous perceptions or beliefs?”

  “Some men never do. Others discover the errors of their ways when they fail or are about to die from those errors. Seldom do they discover such errors except through some form of trial or pain. Even then, some do not.”

  “You could unsettle any man, master scholar,” replied Rescalyn with a hearty laugh.

  “I doubt it. Those who might be unsettled usually refuse to see.”

  “You are a cynical man, even for a scholar.”

/>   “When people disagree with what stands there for all to see, they often call those who observe events with accuracy cynical. One such might call you cynical for observing and acting on the fact that the hill holders will not capitulate to reason until you have effectively destroyed the majority of those with power.”

  Rescalyn laughed again, if with a slightly bitter edge.

  Before the governor could speak, Quaeryt pressed on. “I have to ask … once you’ve destroyed Zorlyn and his holding and men, how many more will you have to obliterate before the remaining hill holders surrender? All of them?”

  Rescalyn frowned. “One or two more, at the most. We have already destroyed three of the four most powerful holdings in the Boran Hills. Zorlyn’s is the most powerful. On Samedi I received word that Commander Pulaskyr has done the same for the two strongest hill holders in the north. The remaining five hill holders in the south can likely muster together fewer men—and women and youths—than Zorlyn can alone. The remaining four in the north pose little problem. They’d just as soon be minor High Holders, but feared the others. We may have to destroy one more here in the south to prove that we will go after even the weaker hill holders. We could destroy them all, if need be.…”

  “But you still must best Zorlyn.”

  “That we must … but I have a few surprises for him—and you, perhaps—as well.”

  “You have formidable talents, sir. You may well surprise me, but I will not underestimate you.”

  “You always have an interesting way of putting things, master scholar.”

  “I try to be accurate, sir. Or, as some might say, cynical.”

  “So … cynicism is merely accuracy when no one wishes to accept that accuracy?” Rescalyn shook his head.

  “Sir!” A scout rode toward the governor.

  “You may return to Sixth Battalion, scholar.”

  As Quaeryt eased his mount onto the shoulder and back toward Sixth Battalion, he reflected. There was no doubt that Rescalyn was brilliant and a good commander, and he inspired his men. Yet, beneath the genial facade, he was ruthless, far more so than Bhayar, and he certainly had continually deceived Bhayar, scarcely a laudable trait. Quaeryt smiled ruefully. There was also the simple fact that Bhayar, for all his impatience, had befriended Quaeryt and that he listened … and might well help Quaeryt achieve his goals of better positions in Telaryn for scholars and imagers. Rescalyn’s continual efforts to place Quaeryt in harm’s way suggested all too strongly that Quaeryt would never be able to trust the governor.

  Once Quaeryt eased the mare back alongside Skarpa at the head of Sixth Battalion, the major looked at the scholar, but did not speak.

  “The governor wanted to know what I thought of Zorlyn’s reply.…” Quaeryt went on to recount most of the rest of the conversation.

  He had no more than finished summarizing what had been said when the ranker riding in front of them, the last rider in Fifth Battalion, stiffened, flailed, grabbing at his neck, and then slumped in the saddle, a crossbow quarrel through his throat.

  Quaeryt felt the impact on his shields and glanced ahead and to the left. “They’re up behind those bushes!”

  “First squad!” snapped Meinyt from behind Quaeryt and Skarpa.

  “Where, sir?”

  Quaeryt looked around. The archer had vanished, but he’d marked where at least one man had been. “This way!” he called, urging the mare onto the shoulder of the road and then at an angle uphill.

  “Follow the scholar!”

  Quaeryt guided the mare through the low bushes that stretched for a good thirty yards back from the road, keeping his head down and close to the mare’s neck. As he neared the top of the slope, the mare’s hoofs slipped once in the slushy snow that remained in patches between the bushes, but Quaeryt kept riding toward where he’d seen the archer, then was surprised when three other figures, wearing white cloth over their leathers, rose out of the bushes and let fly their shafts.

  They missed.

  More archers rose, and Quaeryt kept riding. Another shaft struck his shields, but it must have been at an angle because he barely sensed the impact. He could feel the squad had almost caught up with him.

  The archers turned and began to run.

  One stumbled, and another tripped. The squad leader swept past Quaeryt, then leaned forward and slashed down across the back of one man’s neck.

  More arrows flew from the trees, and Quaeryt turned his mount directly toward the archers, but had covered no more than a few yards before the volleys stopped. He could hear the sounds of crackling underbrush and then of horses. He reined up, as did the rankers around him.

  “First squad … return to the company!” called the squad leader, who then added, “Sir … we’re not to follow into the trees once they stop shooting.”

  Quaeryt turned the mare, seeing two figures who had fallen amid the bushes and the remnants of slushy snow. Red stained their white overgarments.

  One of the rankers bent down in the saddle, so easily that Quaeryt was amazed, and grabbed the crossbow from where it lay caught in the bushes beside one of the hill archers, while another retrieved a bow and quiver.

  By the time the mare carried Quaeryt down the slope and forward to Sixth Company—which, with the rest of the column, had kept moving—Quaeryt wondered, exactly, why he’d done what he had.

  Behind him, the squad leader reported to Meinyt, “We got two stragglers, sir, before the rest got to the woods and rode off.”

  Skarpa looked at Quaeryt. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t make an officer.”

  “I said I wouldn’t make a good one,” Quaeryt said dryly. “A good officer would have described where to go in a few words. I couldn’t find the words quickly enough. So the only thing I could do was lead.”

  “That’s what officers do. They act when things go wrong. Anyone with any sense can handle matters when they go right.”

  Quaeryt wasn’t about to argue, especially since, suddenly, large wet snowflakes were pelting the riders and mounts.

  “Good thing they’re large,” observed Meinyt from behind Quaeryt and Skarpa. “The large flakes mean the storm won’t last long. The small really cold ones mean a storm can last for days.”

  The heavy snow continued for almost a glass, until everything was covered, before it subsided into occasional flurries. For Quaeryt, that glass seemed all too long.

  90

  More scattered attacks occurred on Mardi afternoon and evening, as did more snow flurries, but the regiment again took over a hamlet that evening, one supposedly situated less than two milles from the gates of Zorlyn’s holding. There were no attacks on Mardi night, but that might have been because Rescalyn had posted sentries and supporting patrols all the way around the hamlet, which was named, unsurprisingly to Quaeryt, Zaemla. It also might have been because cold and snow flurries continued through the night.

  Early on Meredi morning, with Rescalyn having assigned Sixth Battalion as the vanguard, the regiment moved out under high clouds, down from which drifted occasional small flakes of snow. Even wearing his browns and another shirt, Quaeryt was chilled after riding less than a quint.

  His first glimpse of Zorlyn’s holding affirmed his suspicions, because he saw it from a good mille away, situated on a low hill or ridge, facing to the south. The stone-walled and slate-roofed structure was close to as large as the central palace building of the Telaryn Palace, but without its wings and all the other structures held within the walls that had sheltered the Khanars. Although there were some ornamental trees near the hold, and there looked to be, from the tops of trees protruding, a walled garden adjoining the hold on the southwest side, effectively there was no way to approach the hold without being exposed. Halfway up the hill and close to a half mille downhill from the lowest of the outbuildings was a stone wall of close to two yards in height that encircled the entire hill. Quaeryt could see but a single gate, which served the road on which the regiment approached, but there might have been another on the nort
h side. Not only were the iron-grilled double gates closed, but large stones had been stacked in front of them to the height of the wall on each side.

  Rows of archers stood on the sloping ground about fifty yards back of the wall and gate. But Quaeryt did not see any other men-at-arms, not that he doubted that there were a good thousand or more somewhere nearby.

  The regiment halted some three hundred yards from the gate and wall. Horn signals followed until the horse battalions were in formation side by side. What Quaeryt didn’t understand, though, was why they remained in files of two, rather than with the five-man front used for attack. For another half quint, the regiment waited.

  Then two strange-looking wagons appeared. The long wagon beds were filled with bags of some sort, and at the rear of each wagon was a wooden shield that rose a good two yards. Behind the shield were six horses, with far wider spacing than in a normal hitch, and a single teamster rode astride one of the rear horses. The wagons moved forward along the road no faster than a man could walk, creaking and groaning. As they approached the wall, the archers let fly, but the arrows either missed or stuck in the timber shield or the bags in the wagon bed. One wagon turned gradually and slightly to the right and one to the left until they were lined up to reach the wall on each side of the blocked gates.

  More arrows flew, but the wagons continued to move forward slowly until they reached the wall. Then they stopped. For a time, it appeared to Quaeryt that nothing happened, even as arrows sleeted down, but were blocked by the wooden shields that were beginning to resemble hedgehogs. He realized that there were two teamsters and that they were doing something with the hitches and turning the big dray horses. Then the horses began to pull again—except that the wagons did not move, but began to tilt until the front end lifted and kept rising until it was as high as the wall. At the same time, the wagon bed stretched.