Scholar

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 call 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.

“You dispute that there are patterns?” asked Sarastyn.

“I’ve read enough history, sir,” said Quaeryt deferentially, “that even I can see that at times the pattern imposed is that of the writer, not of history.”

Sarastyn laughed, again softly. “You’re young, especially for a scholar. The patterns are there. They’re always there, but every generation refuses to see them. Some even ignore them, and replace them with their own patterns, as you suggested. Of those few that do discern the true patterns, most claim that they will escape the patterns of their times. There are few that are intelligent enough both to see the patterns and to understand that men are not all that different, generation to generation, and some of them try to explain to others. Such would-be explainers are either ignored or murdered.”

“People see what they want to see,” agreed Quaeryt. “Can you tell me which patterns have affected Tilbor over the recent past?”

“All of them.”

“I’m sure you’re right, but I don’t know the history, and no one outside of Tilbor has written it. Chardyn said that you-”

“Ah … yes, Chardyn,” replied Sarastyn in a lower voice. “He’s a pattern, too. He watches all strangers. More than he should, as he is now observing you.”

“Why might that be?”

“That … you will have to discover for yourself, but it is a pattern that has been consistent for the last few years. He always observes those who do not reside here for long.”

“I see.” That did confirm some of Quaeryt’s suspicions. “He said that you could help with the history.…”

“You risk that I may be telling you only my own recollections.”

“I’ll take that risk.”

For the third time, Sarastyn laughed. “It is a lovely day, and the Ice Cleft will not open its doors on a Solayi until the fourth glass of the afternoon. We should repair to the north porch.” After a last swallow from the mug, he stood.

Quaeryt rose as well, noting that Chardyn did not turn his head. Quaeryt still felt eyes on his back as he followed the older scholar.

Sarastyn chose a pair of chairs close to the railing, well shaded by the porch roof, but where the building did not block the slight breeze out of the southeast. Quaeryt settled into one of the wooden chairs to listen.

“In what are you interested?”

“Who was Khanar before Eleonyd … and was he stronger than his son?”

“It might be best if I started several generations before,” suggested Sarastyn, smiling broadly. “Context is often as important as the events themselves. Nidar the Great was the last of the truly strong Khanars-the great-grandfather of Eleonyd. He was the one who rebuilt the harbor here in Tilbora and restructured the old clan levies into the Khanar’s Guard and the militia.… Not coincidentally, he was the one who thwarted Hengyst’s ambitions to conquer Tilbor.…”

Quaeryt listened closely as Sarastyn continued, interjecting occasional questions for his own clarification and mentally noting particular references. Over the next glass and more, his interest grew, he had to admit, as Sarastyn’s verbal history drew closer to the present.

“… Tyrena was-I expect she still is-very blond and very strong-willed … as good with arms, if not better, than her father. But then, Eleonyd wasn’t much good at anything. So long as he listened to his wife … he got good advice … she died giving birth to Tyrena … listened to his daughter, but not enough … Rhecyrd … raised in the Noiran coast highlands … typical norther … tall, handsome, and thought everything could be solved with a bow or a blade … Eleonyd thought to preserve his lineage by marrying Tyrena to him … she wanted to rule in her own right … northers objected … members of the Khanar’s Council from both Midcote and Noira walked out…”

Quaeryt nodded as Sarastyn elaborated on what Chardyn had mentioned the night before.

“… can’t say as I blame Tyrena. She didn’t have much choice…”

“Could she have ruled in her own right?”

Sarastyn offered a rueful smile. “There’s never been a Khanara who ruled, but the people of the south preferred her. Rhecyrd started tales that Eleonyd wasn’t ill, but that Tyrena was poisoning him … most likely that his personal healer was, possibly paid by Rhecyrd … Eleonyd started to get better when the healer fell off a balcony and died … damage was done by then … and Eleonyd never fully recovered … got carried off by a nasty form of croup … might have been a civil war except the northers are hotheads … southers don’t like to fight losing battles…”

“Except that they did-with Chayar,” Quaeryt pointed out.

“No. Most of the southers didn’t fight at all. The Guard pulled back to the palace, and Rhecyrd’s clans fought. I don’t know that either of the Telaryn governors has understood that. Southers, and that’s all those south of the Boran Hills, are realists.”

“Just don’t back them into a corner?” asked Quaeryt.

“Mostly. Except for the Pharsi. They’re stiff-necked, but there aren’t many left since the riots years ago.” Sarastyn coughed several times. “I think I’ve talked long enough for now. Time for a rest before I take my afternoon medicinals.”

“Thank you. Have you written down any of this?”

“Save you, and a few others, who would care?”

“Those who have yet to be born who would also care,” suggested Quaeryt.

“You have great faith, Scholar Quaeryt. Few learn from what they observe, and fewer still from the accounts of the mistakes of others.”

“I have little enough faith, sir, but I refuse to give up hope.”

Sarastyn laughed, openly and without bitterness or malice. “Well said! Well said. So should it be for all scholars.” He coughed again. “This has tired me. We should speak later.” He rose slowly.

“Are there any books in the library that you or others have written that might be of value?”

“Those I wrote have long since vanished, and the others … you can see what you will.”

Quaeryt stood and watched as the older man made his way toward the nearest door.

Once he turned to head toward the stables, he saw Chardyn seated at the other end of the porch, seemingly reading a book. He had his doubts that the Sansang scholar had been just engaged in reading.

As Quaeryt stepped off the porch, he glanced to the north and west, but the sky remained clear, without even a trace of haze. While the day felt cooler than it had on Samedi, by late afternoon, it well might be hotter. He shrugged and continued to the stable.

When Quaeryt had finished saddling the mare and led her out into the sunlight, where he mounted, it was close to midday. He didn’t see Chardyn on the porch when he rode past the northeast corner, nor any other of the few scholars he might have recalled from the night before. Several students were playing what looked to be a form of turf bowling on the lower lawn in front. He thought one of them might be Lankyt, but the youth didn’t look in his direction.

He rode eastward past the anomen, and then farther, past the circular crossroads, which seemed even quieter than the last time he had ridden through it, before he finally came to the broader paved road that led south to the river piers or north to the Telaryn Palace. He turned the mare north.

Less than a hundred yards later, he rode past a produce wagon, filled with baskets of maize, most likely headed toward the river piers. A short distance behind that wagon was another, this one bearing bushels of the red and green apples he’d seen at Jorem’s factorage. By the time he was a good half mille, or so he judged, from the lower gate to the causeway serving the palace, he’d ridden past more than a dozen produce wagons, all headed south-and on a Solayi, to boot.

He eased the mare to the shoulder of the road and reined up and studied the Telaryn Palace and its grounds. The long rise ran roughly east to west and had been stripped of all vegetation except grass, and the grass had been grazed regularly enough that it looked to be less than ankle-high in most places. A dry moat some twenty yards across encircled the base of the entire rise, and another road ran parallel to and south of the moat, intersecting the road which Quaeryt had taken at the lower gate that guarded access to the causeway leading up to the palace. Halfway up the slope, the hillside had been carved away to create a wall out of the underlying limestone some three or four yards high. The sole break was where the angled causeway turned straight uphill for a timber bridge that crossed that gap. On the uphill side, the causeway angled back to the east, reaching a stone-framed gate near the eastern end of the gray stone walls.

After taking in the palace, he urged the mare forward and rode slowly toward the gates.

The iron gates were closed, set in gray stone towers that extended back to the moat. A timber bridge crossed the moat, supported in the middle by a single pier rising from the bottom of the dry ditch. A set of towers on the far side of the moat, with cables running to the edge of the bridge on the gatehouse side, suggested that the entire bridge could be lifted.

Two guards, Telaryn armsmen wearing standard green uniforms, were posted in front of the gates, one on each side, each standing under a slanted roof that cast enough shade to keep them from excessive heat. The taller guard, the one on the west side, followed Quaeryt’s every motion as he rode past, but did not move or say a word.

Quaeryt continued westward on the road flanking the dry moat, noting with a smile that the stone paving ended about a hundred yards from where the dry moat turned north and away from the road. The wooded hill to the west of the one holding the palace was empty of any dwellings, walls, or fences, but Quaeryt had no doubts that any incursion was likely to result in the appearance of armsmen.

He kept riding, deciding to try to make a large circle back to the Ecoliae.