Green Rider

by Kristen Britain

  “I’m here to see Dean Geyer.”

  “Dean Geyer is in a meeting.” The man stuck his nose back into his papers and proceeded to ignore Stevic.

  Bureaucrats, Stevic knew, could be worse than aristocrats. As a merchant, he had dealt with his share of tax collectors and trade officials. “I will see the dean now.”

  “Have you an appointment?”

  “Of sorts.”

  “There are no appointments scheduled on the roster at this time.” The clerk didn’t even glance at the appointment book on his desk.

  “I received a letter from Dean Geyer instructing me to visit when I arrived.”

  “Do you have it with you?”

  Stevic frowned. “I—it was destroyed.”

  “I see.” Though Stevic towered above, the clerk still managed to look down his nose at him. “Dean Geyer is busy. Either you have an appointment or you do not.”

  Stevic wondered if the clerk gave the royals the same run-around, or if they received special treatment. He placed his hands on the clerk’s neat desk and leaned down so he could look the man in the eye. “You will create an appointment for me now, or by Breyan’s gold, I’ll inform the dean that his clerk is reading poetry rather than attending to his duty.”

  The clerk licked his lips and gulped nervously. “Very well, but the dean will be annoyed.”

  “I pay this school handsomely so my daughter can attend. I expect some of that tuition goes toward your salary, and that of the dean. I do not think it unreasonable that the dean see me. Now.”

  “Of course, my lord.”

  So, the clerk did treat royals the same way. Perhaps he wasn’t so bad after all. “I am no lord. I am Stevic G’ladheon, chieftain of Clan G’ladheon. At your service.” He put his hand to his heart and bowed slightly, as was customary.

  The clerk sniffed as he took in the fine clothing. “Oh. A merchant, I suppose. Very well. Follow me.” He hoisted his robes of office and strode across the lobby, his sandals whispering on the marble floor.

  They mounted two sets of spiraling stairs carpeted with rich red pile, and zigzagged through numerous branching corridors before halting before enormous double doors of oak. The clerk hesitated and glanced over his shoulder at Stevic. Noting the merchant’s expression of resolve, he licked his lips and knocked.

  “Who is it?” barked a voice from within.

  “Dean Geyer, I—”

  “Oh, Matterly. Come in.”

  The clerk shrugged and pushed the doors open. Dean Geyer, a distinguished looking man with snowy hair and bright blue eyes, sat at his vast desk, just about to insert a mast into the upper deck of a large model ship.

  “I see how busy he is,” Stevic whispered to the clerk. Matterly reddened.

  The dean cleared his throat when he noticed Stevic, and pushed the model aside. He stared at the clerk, awaiting an explanation.

  “Chief Stevic G’ladheon to see you, Dean,” Matterly said. He backed out of the office without another word, pulling the doors shut as he went.

  Stevic ignored the impressive collection of books on the dean’s shelves, and the rare hand-drawn maps framed on the wall that would have ordinarily intrigued him. He stepped right up to the desk and focused his attention on the ship model, examining it carefully. “I’ve sailed a few of these square riggers myself,” he said.

  “I, uh ...” Geyer ran his fingers through his white hair and chuckled nervously, like a child caught with his finger dipped in the honey pot. “I tried sailing once or twice, but uh . . . the sea sickness, you know.”

  Stevic scrunched his brows together. “You’ve glued the bowsprit to the stern.” He clucked in dismay. “And see here—” he pointed to the rear of the model, “—you’ve put the jib where the spanker belongs.”

  He stood straight, feet spread and hands on hips, and turned his attention on the dean. He surveyed the dean as critically as he had the model, as if something was out of place. Geyer swallowed and twisted a length of twine around his little finger. He tried to speak, but under Stevic’s stern appraisal, no words came out.

  “I beg your pardon for this intrusion, Dean,” Stevic said finally, “but your letter demanded immediate attention. I haven’t even been to see my daughter yet.”

  The dean paled and seemed to quiver. Then he mastered himself and pointed at a chair on the other side of his desk. “Of . . . of course. Please sit. You must be weary after such a long journey. From Corsa if I’m not mistaken.”

  “You are not mistaken.” Stevic pulled up a leather upholstered chair. “And I will sit, though I’m not tired. What I really want, Dean, is answers. Why is my daughter being expelled from school?”

  Dean Geyer changed the arrangement of his glue pot and carving knives on his desktop, and picked up an unattached model mast which he rolled between his fingers. He seemed unwilling to look Stevic in the eye.

  “Not expelled, not exactly. Suspended. You see her grades were dwindling, and she’d been picking fights with other students.”

  “Those are no reasons for a . . . suspension.”

  “I’m afraid they are. We do not abide schoolyard brawls. Fighting is not in keeping with the principles of the school.”

  “Brawls?” Stevic said. “My daughter does not participate in brawls.”

  The dean pushed his fingers together in a triangle. A smile fluttered on his lips. “A fight, then. A fight which she initiated. Fortunately, the other student involved was not hurt.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Perhaps you do not, but the student’s family complained to the trustees. You must also know she was not doing well academically.” The dean relaxed as he explained Karigan’s shortcomings. “She hardly attended her classes, and even when she did, her grades were still mediocre, not in keeping with our standards. That alone would be enough for dismissal. With this as her background, and a fight she provoked as cause, the trustees determined Karigan should spend some time at home and reconsider her reasons for being here.”

  Stevic’s face flushed an angry red. “My daughter is not mediocre. Nor is she a bully who goes about provoking fights.”

  Geyer spread his hands wide to indicate the matter was beyond his control. “As a parent, you are entitled to feel that way about your child. Needless to say, the trustees have formed another opinion about her. It is hoped that upon reconsidering her behavior of the past, she will change her ways and return to Selium . . . in time.”

  Stevic gripped the arms of his chair, feeling as if he would explode. “I would talk with your trustees. If I don’t receive satisfaction, my donations to this institution will cease. I will talk to the Golden Guardian himself if I must, but first I wish to see my daughter. I have yet to hear her side of the tale.”

  Geyer blanched again. “She isn’t home? You . . . you haven’t . . . seen her?”

  “Of course not. I told you. . . . What’s going on here? Where is my daughter?”

  The dean mumbled to himself and looked around his office as if seeing it for the first time. Stevic felt he would strangle the dean with a strand of the model ship’s rigging for all he could not seem to say anything. Geyer gathered his courage, but couldn’t bring himself to look in Stevic G’ladheon’s eyes. “She ran away. I was the last to see her.”

  Stevic struck the flat of his hand on Geyer’s desk. Papers flew off and the ship model shuddered. A freshly glued mast toppled over and clattered onto the desktop.

  “My daughter is missing?” Stevic lowered his voice to a hoarse growl. “I thought more of Selium than this.” He pointed a shaking finger at the dean. “I hold you responsible for her being missing. I demand to see Guardian Fiori at once.”

  Geyer cringed in his chair. “The Guardian isn’t—”

  Stevic didn’t wait to hear the rest. He threw the double doors open, stormed out of Dean Geyer’s office, and searched up and down corridors for the Golden Guardian’s office. He flung doors open, startling administrators and disrupting classes. He pushed clerks
out of his way when they blocked passageways. Exclamations and curses followed in his wake.

  When he thought he had searched every office, he found another corridor branching off from one of the main ones. He struck off down the poorly lit corridor not slackening his stride. Candles ensconced on the wall sputtered at his passing. The rich red pile disappeared, revealing scuffed and scarred floorboards. Finally, he came upon a door adorned simply with the symbol of the golden harp. He opened it and entered.

  The office was a disarray of musical instruments. They hung on the walls, lay on shelves, and leaned in corners. Some were in pieces, or had broken strings curling crazily from tuning pegs. Countless books were stacked on the floor—there was no space on the shelves for them. A thick layer of dust coated everything, and the scent of resin hung thick in the air.

  “This is the Golden Guardian’s office?” Stevic said with incredulity.

  “As a matter of fact, it is.”

  Beyond the plain pinewood desk in the center of the room, a girl in a uniform of indigo with a white apprentice knot at the shoulder, looked up with sea-green eyes from the book she had been reading.

  “I beg your pardon,” Stevic said, “but I need to see Guardian Fiori.”

  The girl’s book thumped closed, and she sighed. “I’d like to see him myself, but he’s the only one who knows where he is.”

  Stevic waited for an explanation, but the girl seemed to have sunk into her own thoughts and didn’t go on.

  “Ahem,” he prompted. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s doing what a minstrel does best. He’s journeying. He could be in the northlands, Ullem Bay, or Rhovanny for all I know. He never knows where he’ll be until he’s there. He has been gone up to a year, and longer than that before I came to live with him.”

  Stevic reckoned himself open-minded, but this girl was no older than his Karigan. It was rumored the Golden Guardian was well into his sixties, and though it was not unusual for older men to wed younger women prime to bear children, this age discrepancy was criminal.

  He stalked over to a dusty window that overlooked the campus. A bell chimed four times, resonating through the floorboards, as if it must be very close. Students poured out of buildings and onto the square below, changing classes. Karigan should be among them, but she wasn’t. Where was she? On the road home, he hoped. A pigeon perched on the windowsill.

  “Some governor Fiori is if he isn’t here to watch over his interests.”

  “Pardon?” the girl asked. “I don’t hear well. It’s best if you face me.”

  Stevic turned in surprise. This wasn’t Fiori’s wife at all, but his daughter! He reddened in embarrassment. “You’re Karigan’s friend, aren’t you? Young Estral?” Karigan had spoken of Estral, saying that she was deaf in one ear from an accident, but still a fabulous musician.

  The girl nodded with a smile. “And you’re her father.” Then her face grew serious. “You haven’t seen Karigan, have you?”

  “No. I expected to find her here. Either a message she had run away didn’t reach me before I left Corsa, or the dean didn’t bother to send me one.” The anger began to build within him again, like a fire scorching his belly. “I hold Dean Geyer responsible for this. If anything has happened to Karigan—”

  “It’s terrible.” Estral’s shoulders sagged and she rested her chin on her hands. “I wish . . . I wish she’d come back. I miss her. It hasn’t been the same here without her. I’ve no one to talk to, and the other students pester me worse than usual. She used to sort of protect me. I don’t know why she ran away. Did you know her grades were improving, and that Arms Master Rendle had taken her on as a student just before she was suspended?”

  “Your story differs from the dean’s,” Stevic said. “You say Karigan left no clue as to where she went?”

  “No. And I wouldn’t blame the dean too much. He’s a little out of touch, and perhaps too much at the sway of the trustees. After all, it was an aristocrat Karigan fought.”

  “An aristocrat?”

  “Lord-Governor Mirwell’s heir. He was humiliated after she beat him at swordplay.”

  “Never heard of anything good coming out of Mirwell.” Stevic’s caravans rarely traveled there. The common folk were, on the most part, too poor to purchase his goods, and the wealthy were more interested in arms, which he didn’t sell.

  Estral continued, “It created a sensation all over town.”

  Stevic grinned mirthlessly. “Sounds like something she would do.”

  Estral shook her head. “She never knew it, but she had more friends than she ever realized because she stood up to bullies like Timas. A lot of the students here are not of noble blood or wealth, but are full of talent. Father makes a point of searching for such children and bringing them to Selium. They are often at the mercy of those such as Timas.”

  “And instead of playing along, she stood against the ruffians.” Stevic rubbed his chin. “Yes, that is like her.”

  The office door creaked open. Stevic started in surprise as the Green Rider he had seen earlier with the undertaker walked in. She still clutched the arrows, black-shafted, he saw, her brow furrowed with anger.

  “I wish to see Guardian Fiori,” she said. The corners of her eyes were creased from too many years in the sun, and her cheeks were sprinkled with faded freckles. Her hair, which had looked so intense outside, now appeared a burnished auburn with a streak of gray sweeping from her temple. Hazel eyes sparkled alertly, no doubt taking in every detail of the Golden Guardian’s disheveled office. Her nose was disjointed as if it had been broken once, and a badly healed scar ran raggedly down her chin and neck in a brown line until it disappeared beneath her collar.

  “I’m sorry, but he’s away,” Estral said.

  The lines across the Rider’s brow deepened. “You are being honest with me? I can sense falsehoods if I so choose.” She fingered a brooch on her shortcoat. Stevic hadn’t noticed it before, and even now couldn’t seem to make out its shape or design.

  “I’ve no reason to lie to you,” Estral said. “My father is traveling.”

  “Your father! You’re not one of those idiot clerks—please forgive me.” Her voice was chagrined, and it was difficult to imagine her as the same woman who had shaken the undertaker by his lapels. Stevic wondered if she had given the clerk Matterly similar treatment. “I was hoping he could help me identify this talisman.” She held the arrows aloft. The steel-barbed tips were encrusted with dry blood. “There are words carved on them in a language I can’t quite make out, but I have my own thoughts. They’ve the feel of magic. Very old magic.”

  Estral gazed at them with some interest but didn’t ask to hold them. “I’m sorry Father isn’t here. Maybe Master Galwin could help. He’s a historian and the school curator. He studies the lore of old magic. Where did you find them?”

  “In the back of one of my finest Riders.” She sighed. “We believe he was bringing us a message of some significance.” Then, as an afterthought, she introduced herself. “I am Laren Mapstone, captain of His Majesty’s Messenger Service. Your father has been very helpful to me in the past. That is, dealing with objects of antiquity and magic.”

  “Ach,” Stevic said. “Magic is evil.” He made the sign of the half moon with his fingers to ward off any magic that might be conjured up just by mentioning it.

  Captain Mapstone gave him a long, measuring look. Her head did not even reach his shoulders, but her bearing made her seem equally tall. “And who are you?”

  “Chief Stevic G’ladheon, at your service.” He bowed deeper for her than he had for the clerk.

  “Oh. A merchant. Obviously with backward views. Magic is magic. It’s the user who makes it evil or good.”

  “I still wouldn’t touch it.”

  The Green Rider’s lips drew back into what could have been a smile. “There are those who still touch magic and use it, despite the denial this country has been immersed in for the last several centuries.”

  Before S
tevic could retort, the door creaked open again. This time, a man of wiry and well-muscled build walked in. His hair was steel gray, but his mustache and eyes were as black as night. A pipe protruded from his shirt pocket.

  “Pardon my intrusion, Estral,” he said, “but I hear that Karigan’s father is here.”

  Estral nodded toward Stevic. “That’s him, Master Rendle.”

  “Arms Master Rendle?” Stevic stepped past Captain Mapstone to greet the man. He forgot to bow.

  “Pleased to meet. We’ve a few things to discuss.”

  Estral’s chair scraped the floor as she stood up. “Guess I’m not going to get anything done here. Nobody ever bothers to come back here except when I have to study.”

  “If you could direct me to Master Galwin . . .” the Green Rider requested, and followed Estral out.

  The arms master watched after them. “A dangerous job that Rider has.”

  “How’s that?”

  Rendle shook himself as if he hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud. “Can you imagine riding all hours of the day at the mercy of weather during all seasons? Can you imagine bearing a message through dangerous territories, or taking bad news to a short-tempered lord who wouldn’t think twice about killing you? Can you imagine carrying a message someone doesn’t want delivered? The lifespan of a Green Rider is very short. That captain is about as old as I see them get.”

  “That’s all very well, but it’s their job. Why, sometimes it’s no better for a merchant traveling with a load of goods. Unless you’ve a full complement of guards. I know plenty of merchants who have been killed for—”

  “Aye, it’s their job, and Green Riders are the closest to insane as I’ve ever seen.”

  Unsettled by the arms master’s words, Stevic watched out the dusty window as Captain Mapstone and Estral crossed the courtyard down below. “Tell me about my daughter.”

  Arms Master Rendle leaned against the Golden Guardian’s desk, his arms folded across his broad chest.

  “By the end of the fight,” he was saying, “I saw enough to recognize she had some natural talent with the sword. It was the way she moved. It was raw and instinctual, but I saw promise. You must understand that most of the students who come to me are there mostly because it is part of their coursework, or a clan tradition to receive weapons training. They hone traditional skills it is unlikely they will ever use. Minstrel students are more musician than warrior, but weapons training is required for them. The Guardian believes they should be prepared for the world they wander in, and I quite agree. But it is rare to find a student with actual interest and talent.”