Scholar

38

On Lundi morning, Quaeryt made certain he was in his assigned study a good half quint before seventh glass, then walked over to the princeps’s anteroom.

“Vhorym, is there any special format I should use for my reports?”

“The standard form is like this, sir.” The squad leader turned to the wooden box beside his table desk and lifted the hinged cover, removing a thin leather folder and laying it on the desk before extracting a single sheet. “You see? The top line is the addressee, the second is the writer, the third the subject, and the last line of the heading the date.” He slipped the sheet back into the folder, and then replaced it in the file box.

“You’re very organized.”

“The governor … and the princeps … wouldn’t have it any other way, sir.”

“Vhorym. One other thing … the princeps mentioned that when I do leave the palace grounds, I’m to log out. Where do I do that?”

“In the gatehouse just inside the south side of the main upper gates, sir. There’s a log for both missions and individuals.”

“Thank you. Later today, if the princeps asks, I’ll be down in the archives chamber. I should be there most of the day.” With that, Quaeryt returned to his study, where he remained, thinking, until two quints past the bells striking seventh glass. Then he left the study and made his way down to the lower level of the palace to continue his perusal of the seemingly innumerable boxes of papers in the more than capacious archives.

While he had hoped to move from box to box, reading each in place, he ended up carrying a box at a time to the table under the lamps, because none of the other wall lamps held oil, and a hand lantern would have shed so little light that reading the papers would have been even more difficult.

Thankfully, the documents in the other file boxes were in fact organized, not only by date, but by subject matter as well. By midmorning, Quaeryt had located and read through a set of files that contained records of all meetings of the Khanar’s Council for the three years prior to the last year of the khanarate, documented in a haphazard way by the scattered files in the first four boxes. He would have liked to have seen all of them, but what was missing was likely destroyed, especially anything bearing on the change in rulers.

The Council records were mostly routine. One entire meeting had been devoted to the question of wastes being dumped into rivers and in particular, the Albhor River. Another meeting had been on whether the Khanar should set up a mint in the palace or continue to have coin struck by the gold- and silversmiths in Tilbora, and yet another had dealt with the penalties for conviction for logging on the properties of another. From what he could tell, not a single file was missing from that period, and all were reported either one hand or another, only two scripts alternating over the three years.

Studying all those files took him until the second glass of the afternoon, when he left for a time to get some water-from one of the pitchers in the princeps’s anteroom-followed by a walk in the gardens, where he filched a late apple from one of the trees. The apple was crisp, but tart. Then he sat on a stone bench shaded by a well-trimmed juniper and thought about all that he had read so far that day.

There wasn’t a single mention in any of the reports about trouble with either timber holders or High Holders in the north. Nor was there any mention about Tyrena, directly or indirectly. The impression he’d received was of a land at peace with itself. That left three likely possibilities. Either Eleonyd was being deceived by everyone on the Council and everyone reporting to him, or he managed the reports to eliminate any mention of unpleasantness, or the land was truly at peace with itself. Since the reports didn’t really go anywhere, and no one was ruling over Eleonyd, it was unlikely that the Khanar was having false reports made, or even that someone had substituted reports later, because what would have been the point after the khanarate had fallen?

From what little Quaeryt had seen of Tilbor, except for the backwoods and timber holders, the people didn’t seem especially unruly. Stubborn and stiff-necked in a quiet way, but not rebellious … and if the regiment had been successfully recruiting for years …

He paused-except for the scholars, and that might be because of Phaeryn’s and Zarxes’s connections to the timber holders. He rose from the bench, stretched, and took a deep breath, then headed back down to the archives.

By two quints past fourth glass, his eyes were again blurring in the dim light of the two lamps in the archives, and it was getting close enough to time for the evening meal. He had to admit that he was surprised not to have found any other mention of Tyrena in any of the papers he’d viewed, but then, in that time period, she’d been old enough that little would have been said, and young enough, if Chardyn and Sarastyn were accurate, that marriage was not yet an issue. Or … someone had removed the papers dealing with her.

While that omission bothered him, he doubted that, except for satisfying his own curiosity, it was terribly relevant to his mission for Bhayar. Still … until he knew otherwise, he couldn’t just dismiss the absence of Tyrena from the records.

He was just heading up the lower staircase when he saw Vhorym coming down.

“Sir? The princeps wanted me to let you know that the governor will see you at ninth glass tomorrow morning.”

“Ninth glass. Thank you. Ah … where is his study?”

“It’s on the other side of the rotunda exactly opposite the princeps’s study.”

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure, sir.”

Quaeryt let the squad leader hurry back up the stone steps, then made his way to the wash room near the mess, before returning to join the officers in the mess.

“Scholar … come join us!” The call came from a tall captain that Quaeryt didn’t even recall seeing before.

Quaeryt smiled and walked toward the table closest to the door, where the captain stood. “I’m Quaeryt, formerly with the Scholarium Solum in Solis.”

“Kalphryn, senior captain, engineers.” He gestured to the place across from him.

“Thank you.” Quaeryt sat, as did the captain.

“Captain Meinyt said you came out from Solis. What news do you have?”

“Solis is still as hot as ever in summer and harvest,” Quaeryt said wryly. “Nothing’s burned down; no one’s at war, or wasn’t when I departed; and I should have ridden overland with a courier, even if I’m not quite the worst rider in Lydar, because coming by ship got me wrecked and near-drowned.”

Kalphryn smiled; the two captains beside him laughed.

“We heard Rex Kharst had his eyes on Antiago,” said Kalphryn.

“He probably does, but the word in the tavernas was that he was still having trouble with Khel.”

“Word also is that you’re getting dispatches from Solis.”

Quaeryt managed to laugh immediately. “Yes … I did get a missive from one who would rather be a student of mine, and it asked about how a scholar would determine how to trust those who would give advice.”

“He must be wealthy.”

“She is … and far beyond my reach, especially given her family’s proclivity to marry well. I’m doubtless a diversion. As for other news … there’s a new minister of finance, but I don’t recall his name, and there’s also a new pleasure house a mere five blocks east of the palace.…” Quaeryt went on for a time, trying to recall every bit of news and trivia that he could, occasionally taking a sip of the lager that had appeared in the mug before him, before finally ending, “… and on the voyage here, I did discover that the City Patrol chief of Nacliano doesn’t like scholars, or bookstores, and that some merchanters are now carrying cannon with shells that hold Antiagon Fire. That’s likely to mean that whatever war gets fought next will be largely on land.” Quaeryt turned to the engineer captain. “You have more experience in that, far more, than do I. What do you think?”

“Nasty stuff, Antiagon Fire … not that much of it, though … few imagers can create it … still … you’d need warships with iron hulls and decks, and they’d be slow and sluggish under sail … be costly and take forever to build, too…”

Quaeryt nodded and kept listening, even as he took a healthy helping of the sauce-covered cutlets and mashed potatoes on the platter passed down the table.