She indicated the rest of the list. “All of these others are my thoughts on what you might find interesting.”
Her forefinger moved down the page, as she read off the suggestions.
“I assumed you would want to spend time in the St. Tomo’s abbey library. It’s about the same size as the one at St. Sidryn’s, although it has different collections, especially on the histories of both Keelan Clan and the mainland Anyar realms. I know you read Caedelli, but some of the better histories are in other Anyar languages. I can describe the books’ topics, and with those you find interesting, I can read selected parts to you and work to give you translations for a few of the most interesting.”
“You can read the other languages?”
“Not all. Only High Landolin, Fuomi, Frangelese, and Narthani well, plus I can manage in some of the Iraquinik and other Landolin dialects.”
“That’s all?” said Yozef, smiling. “I’m curious, Maera. My impression is that few people on Caedellium know other languages. I suppose some were spoken in Preddi before the Narthani came, since it was the main trading center, but the rest of Caedellium hasn’t had the need, with so little outside contact. How is it you know so many languages?”
“Some are necessary to read books from other parts of Anyar. High Landolin is the most recognized scholastic language, plus Fuomi and Frangelese, to a lesser extent. Also, important books in other languages often have translations into those three. Being the hetman’s daughter doesn’t give me that much to do, especially when Father’s away, and I enjoy learning. I found studying history and languages often more enjoyable than interacting with other children and later with most adults.”
When Maera finished talking, her face took on a stubborn look, perhaps defensive at her last words.
“Of course, I don’t speak any of the languages well, since there’s been little opportunity to use them. I used to practice when traders went through Keelan or with an occasional scholastic, though there’s been minimal opportunity the last years.”
“Still, it’s impressive you have both the ability to teach yourself and the determination to do so.”
Maera’s defensive look evaporated, and her face relaxed, a slight flush coloring her cheeks. She knew and regretted that her studies were often a refuge and contributed to her reputation for being reserved. She had always been ambivalent toward the occasional praise for her learning. Somehow Yozef’s regard meant more than that of other persons.
So it’s true. Yozef thinks I’m smart, and it doesn’t bother him. In fact, he seems appreciative. He said it that day at the picnic, and Father said Yozef said the same to him.
I know it’s true, but when others say it, I always wonder whether they’re being honest or, if honest, are uneasy about it since I’m “only” a woman. Yet Yozef is different. When he says it, I believe him, and it feels better than when others say the words. It makes me feel . . . what? What’s going on with me?
She hadn’t responded to Yozef’s last comment, lost in her thoughts, twirling a strand of hair with her left hand. Then her eyes went from the paper back to him, looking at her expectantly.
Maera started to say . . . something, but her tongue caught. Am I flustered?
Yozef rescued her with a question. “What else is on the list?”
Maera cleared her throat. “There are many more tradesmen in Caernford than in either Abersford or Clengoth, and I thought you might like to visit with them and see if there are any crafts or methods of interest. Also, you mentioned the concept of ‘franchising,’ I think you called it, where you agree to let others use your methods for a percentage of the profits. I know you have agreements with some tradesmen in Clengoth to produce some of your products and wondered if the shops you’ve established in Abersford and the Clengoth franchises are sufficient or if you might want to consider similar arrangements here in Caernford?”
Yozef scrunched his mouth sideways, as he ran his tongue over his teeth—a habit she’d noticed when he was contemplating an idea. “Now that you mention it, Cadwulf and Filtin told me the orders for lanterns and paper products were increasing so steadily, they predict we wouldn’t be able to fill all orders within a few more months. We’re already adding soap and kerosene production to other provinces. So, yes, I like your suggestion. Let’s plan on my talking with some of the local tradesmen while I’m here.”
Maera looked pleased, again. “Oh, and besides visiting the abbey library, did you want to meet with any of the scholastics at St. Tomo’s? You’ll find many of them not as open-minded as those at St. Sidryn’s but there are exceptions, and Abbot Beynom has written Abbot Walkot at St. Tomo’s about you. I’m sure Abbot Beynom also asked you to pass on his greetings.”
Yozef grimaced. “The abbot did make such a request, and I’d forgotten until you mentioned it. Thank you, Maera. I need a pocket planner or a secretary.”
Maera ignored the new words. If they were important, she’d hear them again from Yozef and ask about them then. She pushed the page in front of her to one side but kept looking at it with a turned head. “Those are the major items I thought to discuss with you. Is there anything else you can think of?”
“Since I’ve never been to Caernford, I’d like to see the city and some of the surrounding countryside. Are there any favorite places of yours?”
She wondered whether the question was deliberate. Yozef had taken her to one of his favorite places near Abersford, with the jacaranda trees and the day’s outing that ended abruptly when he kissed her. She kept looking at the paper and said noncommittally, “There are a few such places nearby. I’ll be happy to show them to you.”
Yozef wrote to Cadwulf that he’d be staying longer in Caernford and to pass on the information to Filtin and the other lead workers. The next sixday passed quicker than Yozef expected. The single planned meetings with Luwis and Kennrick extended into two additional sessions, this time with both men. Luwis, a naturally dour man, had been borderline hostile at first, then had listened and become more interested in Yozef’s comments once he’d thought them over. Kennrick was reserved but pleasant from the beginning. Only by the last meeting did Yozef fully appreciate Kennrick’s acumen and Luwis’s forthrightness.
During one meeting, Luwis commented on increased patrols and preparation for feared Narthani moves on other clans. At Yozef’s request, Luwis took him to a field where fifty men on horseback were training. Yozef’s first impression was that the men were engaged in demonstrating chaos.
“What exactly are the men doing, Ser Luwis?” Yozef was afraid of the answer but had to ask.
“Being sure the men can ride, fire their muskets and pistols, then go to lance and sword. Some men are accomplished riders but can’t handle the horse and weapons at the same time. Others are skilled with firearms or blades but aren’t good horsemen. This group is mainly shop workers who need work on controlling their horses.”
“Maybe they would do better fighting on foot.” The Caedelli don’t know about infantry?
“Then how would they either escape from the enemy’s horsemen,” said Luwis, “or chase the enemy if they retreated?”
“So all the fighting is done from horseback?” Please tell me no.
“Of course, unless an enemy is hiding in buildings or heavy vegetation, or in cases like the raid on St. Sidryn’s, where the citizens defended the abbey.”
Yozef was discouraged. “Ser Luwis, I’m wondering what’s the biggest battle or fight Keelan men have engaged in the last tens of years?”
“About fifteen years ago, there was a dispute with the Eywellese stealing cattle. We took two hundred men to catch the Eywellese, who numbered about eighty.”
“Two hundred? Eighty? Nothing larger? Numbers in the thousands?”
“Thousands, no. Not in my lifetime, though there are records from past generations where fighting involved two or three thousand men.”
“What if the Narthani attack in great numbers, and the clans need many thousands of men to stop them? H
ow will you or the hetmen control the fighting? I see here that only fifty men have difficulty working together. What will happen if instead of fifty men, it’s thousands?”
“That’s a problem,” deadpanned Luwis.
Yozef flinched. No shit! That’s it? “It’s a problem?”
Yozef remembered watching Carnigan ride off with men for a routine patrol and thought at the time they looked like a posse—a mass of riders with no organization. Now he cringed at the thought of that posse numbering in the thousands and facing a disciplined army. It wasn’t an image to engender confidence.
The other planned meetings around Caernford were scheduled during visits to St. Tomo’s abbey. While Yozef was accustomed to divisions in attitude toward himself by the brothers and the sisters at St. Sidryn’s, at St. Tomo’s the gap more resembled a chasm. Maera served as guide and clued him in on the abbey’s internal workings. Several of the scholastics were eager to meet with him, though not all.
“Sorry, Yozef,” said Maera. “Several of the St. Tomo’s scholastics have stubbornly refused to meet with you. Two say they want to meet, though I suspect it will be to refute anything out of your mouth. I’m afraid there are feelings you’re a threat to long-held beliefs and resentment that their expertise is belittled, if elsewhere on Anyar there’re scholastics far in advance of themselves.”
“Not to worry. Things aren’t that much different in America. God knows, I’ve met and seen many a person who was threatened by novel ideas or any suggestion that their understanding wasn’t the ultimate word.”
Maera’s caution came true, that Yozef should be prepared for difficult sessions with some scholastics from St. Tomo’s. She witnessed one such meeting, this with a sister specializing in astronomy who had left the meeting in a huff.
“Gravity? Some unseen force holding people on the round planet? Obviously, it’s simply God’s will. Stars being how far away? Nonsense. My calculations proved them to be only a few hundreds or thousands of miles distant.” Phht!! Huff, huff. Stomp, stomp.
As the irate sister left, Yozef smiled, to Maera’s curiosity.
“Why are you smiling, Yozef? The sister essentially called you both a charlatan and the Evil One’s agent.”
“Oh, Maera, there’re so many people with closed minds. If we let ourselves become upset every time someone won’t listen to new ideas, we wouldn’t have time to do anything else. I have sympathy for them. I’m seen as a threat to who they are and their professions. People also resist changes that threaten long-held beliefs. I expect many of the more honest ones will go away and think about what I’ve said, then come back later to learn more, if not from me, then from other scholastics or from their own thinking. Even if not, there will still be some here at St. Tomo’s who do listen.
“Arguing with the others once you see they how entrenched are their positions is unlikely to convince them at the time and may have the opposite effect of having them reject anything you say. All you can do is encourage them to reconsider their ideas in the future.”
Maera listened and felt chagrined. She could recollect many of her past discussions, in which she was scathing when other people disagreed with her. She remembered few times when a person had later come around to her position. Being honest with herself, she wondered how many times Yozef was right, and all that she’d achieved was exactly the opposite effect, by pushing them into shutting out her ideas entirely. Part of her still liked telling people what fools they were; the other part admitted that Yozef’s attitude likely achieved better results.
“I’m afraid I’m not as patient as you, Yozef. I find myself wanting to be right in any argument. It’s not that way with you, is it? You want to get the right answer, not be right. Yet you seem to know so much more in certain areas. Doesn’t it give you pleasure to be smarter than most others?”
“God, no! I may have more facts than others here, but having facts is not the same as having intelligence. I hope I haven’t given the impression that what I’ve been introducing here on Caedellium are my ideas.”
They had exited the scholastic hall at St. Tomo’s while speaking and stood under a vine-covered arbor.
“I need to thank you again, Maera, for arranging these meetings. The ones with Brother Nywin and Sister Yesifa about the history of your people coming to Caedellium gives me more background into Caedellium clan interactions and history. Also, I’m glad I met the two brothers interested in the mixing of specific substances to generate new compounds, similar to what I studied—chemistry. Although we didn’t have time to talk in detail, I believe they and I will have interesting correspondence. I may even invite them to come to Abersford to personally see our shops. I believe I know more of the basic science, but these two have practical experience I lack, and both seem open to new ideas.”
“Science,” echoed Maera. “You explained it to me in Abersford, but I’m still not clear what it means beyond studying the world. Is that not what scholastics do?”
“Science is a type of thinking. Considering all possibilities and being willing to change your ideas if there are shown to be better ones. In practical terms, in my shops, Filtin tries to make more efficient distillation apparatuses. He may want stronger glass, but how does he get that stronger glass if he doesn’t know how to make it? The answer is that he ‘experiments.’ He keeps trying different additions to the glass until he comes up with a solution. He then remembers the procedure and tells others. They, in turn, use his procedure until they or someone else comes up with a better one. They then tell Filtin, and he adopts their new procedure in an endless cycle. Once the question or the problem is identified, science would say there are no final answers, only temporary ones.”
“What about the theophists? Their answers aren’t temporary.”
Yozef was slow to answer, as if carefully choosing his words. They hadn’t spoken in depth about theological matters, so she wasn’t sure exactly what he believed.
“That’s one difference between your people and mine. We distinguish between science and theology. Theology deals with faith, while science says nothing can be taken on faith. That’s a gross simplification and a difference that many great scholastics have argued doesn’t necessarily exist. I tend to agree with the distinction.”
Maera’s looked thoughtful. “I need to think about this. However, I advise you to be careful in telling this to the brothers and the sisters. I’m not sure how many of them would react to the difference between what must be questioned and what cannot.”
“I agree, and I try to be careful.”
Chapter 15: An Unexpected Proposal
Surprise
Yozef’s Caernford routine changed on the fourth night after the hetman left. The second and third nights, Yozef had eaten with Carnigan at the Galloping Horse Inn. He had continued the morning meals in his guest quarters, along with working on getting Norlin to be less formal. On the morning following the fourth night, Maera passed on from her mother an invitation to eat again at the manor house the evening before Godsday. It was a small soiree, with a dozen other people in attendance, including Luwis and Kennrick, along with wives, a couple of the scholastics more receptive to Yozef, and several others whose names he managed to keep straight but whose roles in Keelan society he was unsure of.
Yozef sat opposite Maera and next to her mother, who was at the head of the table in the hetman’s spot. They retired to the parlor after dinner to be entertained by the four Keelan daughters, singing and playing a variety of stringed instruments. Maera’s looked and sounded something like a skinny cello, and he could pick out her voice from her sisters’. The quartet wasn’t always on key, but the melodies were distinct, and guest sing-along was obviously part of the custom. Various guests contributed songs before Mared grabbed Yozef’s hand and pulled him from his seat.
“Ser Kolsko, you must know songs from your homeland. Sing one for us. Please, please.”
He became everyone’s focus of attention, including Mared’s pleading voice and Maera’s eyes. Y
ozef reluctantly stood by his chair. His first frivolous thought was the English version “I’ve Got Friends in Low Places,” but Maera’s frown warned she was worried about the same. She’d heard the Caedelli version at the Snarling Graeko. He settled on something safe, where he knew several verses.
“This song is about the love of my people for their country,” and he proceeded with a credible version of “American the Beautiful.” The audience listened, not understanding the English words but sensing the essence of the song. Finished, he sat to respectful tapping of feet and verbal appreciations.
The entertainment session was followed by serving one of Yozef’s new distilled whiskeys and biscotti-like sweets. The drink was not to his taste, and the other guests’ opinions differed. Still, he received multiple congratulations and thanks for the new libation. Although everyone was polite, he was conscious of curious stares during the evening.
As the gathering ended, Yozef was taking his leave from the hostess when she changed his routine.
“Ser Kolsko, may I call you Yozef, if it’s not impolite among your people?”
“Not at all. Our customs are that first names are reciprocated. Would it be allowed to call the hetman’s wife by her first name?”
“It is if she says it is. There. It’s settled. You’re Yozef, and I’m Breda. That’s better. Now that we’re friendlier, I see no reason you should eat your meals either alone in the cottage or at the inn in Caernford, unless you prefer it. Please consider this an invitation to eat morning and evening meals with us here in the manor house.”
The Pen and the Sword (Destiny's Crucible Book 2) Page 17
