Scholar

69

While Quaeryt waited for further orders, he set to dealing with the tasks that needed immediate resolution. The first was finding the other armory and tunnel. That proved much easier than finding the first two had been. He just lined up the scholars and asked, pointing out that no one was going to be happy if he had to take an ax to every wall in the scholarium-that was what he insisted that all the scholars call it from then on-especially if Lord Bhayar’s armsmen had to waste time doing it.

Finally, a younger scholar suggested that he try the lower-level laundry room on the east side. There the access to the other tunnel and a larger armory-one without dust-came through two working linen closets. The tunnel ended a quarter mille to the east in the middle of a small garden under a circular stone sculpted with the design of a quill pen. There were bootprints, but no sign of Alkiabys.

Then he had Nalakyn locate a roster of the scholars and students and have a student make a copy for him while he made a top-to-bottom, room-by-room inspection of all the buildings. After that, Nalakyn briefed him on the usual daily and weekly activities of all scholars and students. Gauswn returned and informed him that continuing patrols around the Ecoliae had discovered no sign of either missing scholar.

Late on Vendrei afternoon, just after the pyre that turned Phaeryn into ashes subsided into ashes itself, a ranker courier returned from the Telaryn Palace with a dispatch for Quaeryt-and all of his gear. The dispatch was brief.

Your handling of the scholars was acceptable. Given the situation, the governor believes you should remain at the Ecoliae for the time and continue your efforts to reorganize the scholars along lines more in keeping with the traditional practices of scholars and in correspondence with the needs of Telaryn as a whole. One squad will remain with you. Report any new developments. You will receive further orders as required.

The brevity and wording of the dispatch-and the arrival of his gear-made two things very clear. Quaeryt would be staying at the scholarium for at least a few more days, and Straesyr was displeased. The latter suggested that Straesyr didn’t know or wish to admit what Rescalyn had in mind.

Before receiving the dispatch, he’d worried about taking on authority he didn’t have, but he’d justified it to himself by asking how else he could save the scholars from themselves. After the dispatch, he worried about his handling being merely “acceptable.” What in the Namer’s sake had they expected?

He worried even more about why Zarxes had murdered Phaeryn. Because the Master Scholar would reveal too much? To throw the blame-at least in the minds of the hill holders-on Quaeryt and the governor? Or merely as a self-centered delaying tactic to allow Zarxes himself to escape? Or was there some other reason he hadn’t even considered?

Since he had no answers, he’d returned to doing what he could do.

In the end, Quaeryt arranged for second squad to use the former staff rooms above the stable, and he took a second-level room away from any others, barred and wedged it shut, and eventually slept-uneasily. He woke early on Samedi morning, dressed, and immediately checked with the squad leader. Nothing untoward had occurred. Nor had any of the patrols during the night found any sign of either Alkiabys or Zarxes.

After breakfast in the dining hall, where he sat at a table with Squad Leader Rheusyd, he’d made his way back to the Master Scholar’s study, which had been cleaned, and began to study the ledgers provided by the bursar that outlined the expenses of the Ecoliae. In less than a quint, he discovered an unexplained entry that appeared every month under “Funds Received.” The title was just “scholar stipends,” but the sum was the same each month-twenty golds. He went back to the first entry in the ledger he had before him-more than five years earlier-and the entry was the same, with no explanation.

He picked up the ledger and walked to the third door-that to the study of Yullyd, the bursar-opened it, and stepped inside.

“Sir?”

“How long have you been bursar?”

“Four years, sir. I took over when Covean died of consumption.”

Quaeryt opened the ledger and pointed to the latest “scholar stipend” entry. “There’s no explanation of this, and there’s one like it every month from the first page in the ledger. Where did they come from?”

“I don’t know where those golds came from, sir. They weren’t golds, either. They were new-minted silvers, twenty golds’ worth. The Master Scholar never said who sent them and told me not to ask and not to worry. They were always delivered by a barge courier in a canvas bag during the first week of every month. I asked, but the courier didn’t know anything except that he was told to meet a barge that came from upriver and take the bag to the Ecoliae.”

“Are there any other entries like that in the ledger?”

“No, sir. That’s the only one I can’t explain.”

Quaeryt nodded, if slowly. “Thank you.” Twenty golds’ worth of new-minted silvers? Every month? He closed the ledger and tucked it under his arm, turned, and left the study. He did not return to the Master Scholar’s study, but headed toward the princeps’s study because the mention of the death of the previous bursar had reminded him of another question.

When he stepped into the princeps’s study, Nalakyn was talking with a scholar Quaeryt did not recognize. Both looked up, worried, and the other scholar stood, as if to leave.

“You don’t need to go. I just had a quick question for Princeps Nalakyn.” Quaeryt turned to Nalakyn. “I haven’t seen Sarastyn.”

“Oh … didn’t you know? He died the day after you departed. He had been ill, you know?”

“I knew he was ill, not that he had died. Thank you.”

Ill though Sarastyn might have been, reflected Quaeryt as he returned to the Master Scholar’s study, he had no doubts that Phaeryn or Zarxes had “helped” that illness along. He couldn’t help but wonder what else he might have learned from the old scholar … or what Zarxes hadn’t wanted him to learn.

He sat down behind the desk and looked at the closed ledger. According to the figures, the Ecoliae was barely getting by … and that was with a twenty-gold monthly payment, most likely from one of the hill holders. But from whom? Why in new-minted silvers?

The source was likely Zorlyn, because his son had been the scholar princeps, and twenty golds a month wouldn’t have hurt a wealthy hill holder, especially if the scholars were furthering Zorlyn’s interests. But what interests exactly? And how?

At the moment, Quaeryt didn’t have an answer to those questions, but he did know that, like it or not, he would have to ask for a similar payment from Straesyr and Rescalyn in order to keep the scholarium operating-just another task he wasn’t exactly anticipating with anything remotely resembling pleasure.