He paused to let the words sink in before continuing. “The layout of the island is not favourable for a sneak-spy-and-snatch operation. There is forest in the western reaches, but everyone lives on the east side where there is almost no cover. You will have to move in the open, through their society. I won’t conceal from you that even with a year’s preparation, taking a sacrificial tribute from Ulnoi will be like stealing a fish from the jaws of a bear. I will aid you, but in rebellion against the fear that I am sending you to your doom.”
Aedan began to understand that he would not be leaving that night.
“I’m assuming you have paid little attention in your Lekran classes,” said Fergal. Aedan avoided his look. “So you have a considerable amount of learning to do in a relatively short time. But there is another problem.”
Aedan raised his eyes.
“Prince Burkhart is not likely to let you go.”
“But –”
Fergal hushed him with a wave. “Which means that we will need to be careful about how we get you out of here. You will also need help on Lekrau. I recommend asking Tyne. She has been posted on one of those islands before. She is fluent in the language and knows the culture.”
“Why would you help me do something that the prince would oppose?”
“Because, since Burkhart betrayed us all, my allegiance is to his father, the king, and I know that the king would approve of sending you – partly for Kalry’s sake, and partly because it is time that we begin to strike back at Lekrau. For too long we have presented that nation with a soft belly, an invitation.
“The thing is, Aedan, you don’t know the full truth. Reports of Lekran raids have been suppressed by Burkhart’s direct orders. Many more were taken this past year than in previous years. If you are successful, we will learn much that could be used against the slavers. Burkhart sees only the immediate threat of the Fenn, and has pulled all resources from watching Lekrau. I believe that this is short-sighted and may cost us dearly. So I shall not only aid you, but see that you are commissioned – though Burkhart will probably overrule the commission if he learns of it. I’ll provide whatever resources the academy can offer, and Osric will no doubt be able to supply a good deal more.”
“It’s starting to sound like a big operation. How will we keep it all hidden?”
“I have a few ideas,” Fergal said, and turned back to the fire. Aedan knew from the rough treatment the beard was getting that something was amiss.
“What is it?” Aedan asked.
“This is not going to work …”
Aedan began to interrupt and Fergal glared him to silence from beneath the bristling eyebrows.
“This is not going to work if you simply add Lekran studies to your current programme. You have less than a year. Less than one year, Aedan. In any of your languages, have you even approached native fluency in that time?”
Aedan knew he was not required to answer.
“And it’s not just the words of the language. It’s the whole culture. You need to be Lekran – the opinions you have of national figures and their deeds, the foods you prefer and how you like them done, your favourite jokes, your attitude towards slaves and how you react to them when you see them mistreated on the road … After Krunvar, there is no nation whose ways are so unnatural to us, no nation where our habits and manners stand out so clearly.”
“Quin succeeded.”
“That’s just it. He did not. You and Kalry found him out. What if you encounter curious children on Ulnoi?”
“I understand all of this, but what choice do I have?”
Fergal leaned towards the fire, putting his elbows on the armrests. “The only way I see that offers a reasonable chance,” he said, “is a way that will cost you everything you have worked for. You will need to give up your studies and your ambitions to become a grey marshal. Your preparation will need to be full-time and the programme will take you to your limits and beyond. You will lose a year and then much of the following year in your attempt to locate and bring Kalry back. By the time you return to Castath, if you do, I doubt even I could get you back into your current position.”
Aedan looked confused. “Fergal, do you really think that would give me even an instant of hesitation?”
Fergal’s eyes crinkled and the beard moved, betraying the hidden smile. “An excellent reply,” he said. He looked from under the hedges awhile. “I believe you will succeed, young Aedan. Tomorrow I shall speak to your masters and explain that I have appointed you as my assistant whom I will personally train. You will continue your classes with Dun, and one or two other subjects that might prove useful to you, but the rest will come to an end. From tomorrow you will begin to learn – at frightening speed – how to be Lekran.”
“Can I not begin now?”
Fergal laughed and, after brief consideration, pointed to the red volume. “Finish it by morning,” he said. “We’ll go through it in greater detail again when you have a better grasp of the language. And try to get at least an hour’s sleep. If you thought the marshals’ programme was demanding …”
Aedan was already on his feet.
“One more thing,” said Fergal. “Don’t tell anyone. Not yet. If these plans reach the wrong ears we could both be tried for intended desertion – you have a form of military training and this is a time of war preparation. Remember that.”
–––
“It tastes like raw fish entrails!”
“Quite correct. Raw fish entrails tend to do that. Now have another mouthful and try to get this one down.”
Fergal was merciless. Where he had obtained the hideous grey mush, Aedan did not care to know, but the fact remained that this was a Lekran delicacy, and one that he would need to be able to devour with relish in front of watchful eyes. He made another attempt, gagged and ejected it into the bucket.
Fergal sighed. “Try to think of steak while chewing.”
“I can’t. The taste is too convincing.”
“Well you’ll have to find some way of getting it down. You’ll need some breakfast in you.”
“Don’t the Lekrans eat bread?”
“Of course, but swallowing bread is a skill you already have. Now do you want to learn or not?”
Aedan gripped the bowl, held it to his lips and tipped, swallowing in great gulps and trying not to think at all. When he replaced the bowl on the table there was a moment of uncertainty as he hovered over the bucket, neck and shoulders twitching, but miraculously, it all stayed down.
“Good,” said Fergal. “When Dun has finished with you, I want you back here and ready to study like never before.”
Aedan jogged away on shaky legs, looking as green as the sea that was washing around inside him.
He had broken the news to his dorm before breakfast that he had been appointed as an assistant to one of the senior clerks. They had looked at him as if he had lost his mind. He’d seen surprise, confusion and sadness in their faces, and it had hurt more than expected.
During the training session, he had to answer, or rather parry, several more questions. Warton, to Aedan’s surprise, was openly upset. He actually seemed angry. Even Cayde frowned. Malik was the only one who looked pleased.
Aedan wished that he could tell them everything, but Fergal’s warning rang in his ears like a tower bell.
When he got back from Dun’s class, the fishy dish had settled, and he braced himself for the next obstacle. Fergal unlocked a heavy door at the back of his office and pushed it. It swung open with a sigh, admitting a cool breath of air that was heavy with leather and paper and deep thought. Aedan stepped through onto a walkway overlooking the biggest library he had ever imagined. Four levels of book-filled balconies ran around the circumference, and on the vast floor beneath, stepladders and even movable staircases enabled dwarfed figures to scale the towering islands filled with honeycombs of scrolls.
“This,” said Fergal, “is where the masters and approved senior students draw the knowledge that is delivered in the
classes. Many of these books are uncopied originals. All of them are important. You will be spending a large portion of your time here with Lekran histories, folk-tales, plays, songs, and plenty more. And the beauty of it is that most of the volumes will have been written by Lekrans. If you are to learn to behave like one of them, you need to think like one of them, which means that you must now study from their perspective, not ours.”
“I thought that kind of writing was kept away from the public – censored.”
“It is. But this is not a public library. You will find a lot here that will turn you red with anger; foreign opinions of us can be very offensive. You had best get over your reactions – those would give you away quickly indeed. Let me take you to your section.”
They were on the highest of the balconies. Fergal led the way along a book-lined wall to a turret stairway that appeared to be made of solid brass. They descended one level and walked to the far corner. Regularly placed lamps cast a good light and Aedan was able to make out the titles and sequential numbers on spines.
“Roughly between these two pillars,” Fergal said, indicating a collection of perhaps five hundred books, some of them almost as thick as the stone pillars themselves. “Did you finish the first book?”
“Yes, but there is a lot I didn’t understand.”
“That was to be expected. I suggest that you start with three collections of children’s stories, followed by three of popular folk tales. These are things every Lekran would know, things you cannot afford to pass over. They will also help with your grasp of the language on a foundational level. There are three Lekran-to-Thirnish dictionaries. You may keep one with you, but it would be better for you to use the straight Lekran dictionary as soon as you are able. How large is your current Lekran vocabulary?”
“Maybe four hundred words and another two hundred that are vague.”
“By the end of two weeks, I want you at a thousand. That’s in the region of forty words a day. Write down every new word along with a phonetic, all the meanings, and space for several examples of how it can be used. You are not to avoid a single word in the children’s stories or the folk tales – those are the words that form the basis of a language, words you need to fall back on without hesitation. I will aid you with pronunciation and syntax. You will spend an hour every day with Kollis and an hour with Tyne.”
Fergal ignored Aedan’s look of displeasure at the mention of Kollis. “From now on you will speak to all of us in Lekran only.”
With this, Fergal switched seamlessly into the language and Aedan had to concentrate to follow the next words. “Olin mjierta nau Leikrar … Your food will be Lekran and you will not only eat it but learn to prepare it. I have had arrangements made so that you can still take your meals in the company of your friends, though they will probably find them strange.”
What Aedan heard was, “Your food will … Lekran and … you will not … eat it but … learn … it. I … made … you … meals … of your friends … will … find them strange.” One possible meaning of this was strange indeed.
Fergal placed his reading lantern on one of the large desks that stood against the balcony railing. “The assistant’s desk in my office is now yours. I expect it to be cluttered with books before the hour is up.”
He walked away and left Aedan to stare, bewildered, swaying slightly, as the enormity of what he had undertaken began to settle on him. When the giddiness passed, he took a hold of himself and attacked the shelves, skimming over titles until he found the section of children’s literature. He selected a weighty volume that cracked open and released a puff of dust. The pages were dark with age, but the script was neat and easy to follow. He picked a few more collections, and after much searching, found two dictionaries, then staggered back to the office beneath the pile of books, lamp balanced on top.
Fergal insisted that Aedan interrupt him for help with pronunciations after every tenth word he wrote down. It was a language with difficult sounds requiring all manner of unfamiliar contortions of tongue and lips to form the complex vowels.
The day went slowly.
Lekran folk stories were strange, full of sea monsters that crawled up onto the shore in the forms of serpents or jelly-like masses with hundreds of creeping tentacles. The heroes, if the illustrations were to be trusted, scoffed at armour or anything else that interfered with the display of their muscles. They donned only loincloths and attacked the beasts with only spears. Most of the stories had similar themes to the ones Aedan had grown up with, but the way the themes were illustrated was alien, sometimes amusing, and often disturbing. It seemed to be a culture where strength and domination were honoured. Kindness and mercy made few appearances.
“Very good,” said Fergal, when Aedan explained these observations. “You are quite right, but I advise you not to share that with your dinner hosts tonight.”
Aedan looked back wordlessly. For fifth and sixth foreign languages they had not yet been required to socialise with native speakers.
“You didn’t think you would be able to prepare in the comfortable isolation of study without actually meeting the people themselves?”
“But I …” Aedan could not put the Lekran words together quickly enough and Fergal ploughed on.
“The sooner you put aside your barrier of prejudice, the better. These are good people I am sending you to. Getting to know and appreciate them will help to close the distance you would otherwise preserve between yourself and the subjects of your studies.”
That was the beginning and end of the argument. Every night from then on, Aedan dined with the Lekran families that Fergal knew. There were four families. Two came from wealth, and two from more indigent circumstances. These were people who had been granted citizenship of limited rights in exchange for political favours. They were essentially traitors to their homeland, but they were natives of Lekrau and had not forgotten the customs of their people.
Aedan rotated through the families, dining as a Lekran every night of the week. The initial warmth of welcome and the self-consciousness of entertaining a stranger caused his hosts to suppress many cultural peculiarities, but soon these began to show through.
He noticed how the women’s roles were more subordinate, how children never dared to interrupt, how the father determined what was funny or interesting, how this was never challenged, how nobody was ever thanked for doing what was perceived to be a duty, and a hundred other social currents that no book would have properly revealed. Yet beneath it all he perceived a comfort with the customs, or perhaps just an unwillingness to challenge them. But no matter how familiar they became, some of these social norms continued to feel wrong to him.
A number of the dishes were as strange as that first breakfast Fergal had prepared. Aedan had more than one desperate moment when getting the food down was only a shade less difficult than swallowing bricks. By sheer force of will he avoided humiliating himself. He even began to like some of the peculiar foods.
One of the more unsettling lessons he learned was never to touch the women. After Aedan took an embarrassed woman’s hand in greeting, her husband drew him aside and explained that taking an unmarried woman’s hand was akin to a proposal of marriage, and touching another man’s wife was an insult only atoned for with blood. Aedan understood by this that a significant quantity of blood would be required. He apologised profusely and never repeated the mistake. It was a stark warning of how easily a cultural blunder could ruin everything once he was on Lekran soil.
“Fergal,” Aedan began after returning from one of these dinners. “I have something I want to do and I think I can convince you, but you are not going to like it.”
The first spring winds rushed in from across the plain, carrying a stream of dead leaves, wheat husks and dizzy midges that tumbled past the five people sitting on the west wall. The early sun was just cresting the hill. It warmed their backs and threw long shadows out over the grassy expanse. As the parapets here had not been completed, they were able to sit side by s
ide on the broad surface with their feet dangling.
“Thank you,” Liru said, squeezing Aedan’s arm. “You already know my answer.”
“And mine,” said Peashot as he leaned forward, puffed into the tube, and sat back with a slightly tilted head to better appreciate the yell of pain from below.
“Hadley?” said Aedan.
“I have a few questions.” While he was all momentum when following his own instincts, he had shown a curious tendency to think a good deal more about others’ plans.
“Ask away,” said Aedan. It wasn’t the first time Hadley was cross-examining his ideas.
“Firstly, why take so many? Doesn’t that make it harder to move unnoticed?”
“In Thirna yes, but on the Lekran Isles it is different. The more slaves people have, the more important they are and the less they are interfered with, up to a point. Tyne has seen it herself. She was posted there for a year.”
“It’s just like that,” she said.
“Alright. Then how did you convince this Fergal to include us? Taking two marshal apprentices and Liru out of training for the duration of the rescue is a big cost. I don’t see how he can justify it for the rescue of two girls who can’t really be of any help to Castath. What did you promise him?”
Aedan laughed. “I didn’t offer you as a library slave if that’s what you are worried about. I told him that Liru’s sister would be a potential source of information valuable to Castath, and to find her we need Liru. I also said that with you and Peashot along, sabotage becomes feasible.”
“Sabotage!” Peashot’s face lit up.
Hadley’s grinned. “Exactly what are we going to sabotage?”
“I’d like to destroy all their sacrificial temples and sink every one of their slave ships. That would be a good start.”
“I’m sure you’d also like to fly.”
Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) Page 73