Scholar ip-4

by L. E. Modesitt

  “I didn’t know there was anything there, sir.”

  “Which side was swung out, sir?” asked Gauswn, rising to his feet.

  Quaeryt concentrated, trying to remember. “The left.”

  “Then there might be a catch somewhere between the planks that form the edges of the cases there.” Gauswn took the ax from the student scholar, hefted it, then stepped toward the seemingly unbroken wall of shelves.

  Three deftly aimed strokes of the ax-so precise that Quaeryt had to wonder where the undercaptain had learned to handle it-and one slightly splintered polished support later, the section of shelves leaned forward, but only about a third of a yard, if that.

  Gauswn stepped away. “The back is lined with iron, and there’s an iron rod affixed to a plate. A long cold chisel would be better. I’ll just break the ax, otherwise.”

  So Quaeryt found himself waiting for another fraction of a quint before another student hurried back with the cold chisel.

  Finally, Gauswn snapped the junction between rod and plate and the shelves swung open. “I should go first, sir.”

  “No. You follow me.” Quaeryt stepped around the undercaptain, contracted his shields so that they were close to his body and strengthened them, and then eased down the circular wooden staircase, sturdy enough that it did not even creak once.

  At the bottom of the staircase he faced an open space and two doors. Both were closed, but in the dim light that filtered down, he could see bootprints on the dusty stone floor leading to the door on the right. He stepped forward and opened the door-only to find shelves stacked with bottles that looked to hold wine.

  He studied the wine closet again, until he saw where the dust had been disturbed. He tried to lift the bottle, but it did not move. He tried to pull it toward him. There was a slight give, but nothing more. He pushed the neck of the bottle, and the entire back of the closet swung away, revealing a long tunnel curving toward the west and angling downhill, a tunnel not quite tall enough for Quaeryt to stand erect.

  Quaeryt stepped back into the lower level of the building. “Undercaptain, you might have some men follow the tunnel and see where it leads. But have them be careful.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Quaeryt opened the second door. The shelves there held dusty squat jars. He touched several, but they all also adhered to the wooden shelves on which they rested. He pulled and pushed on almost a score before the back of the closet swung away.

  This time, Quaeryt swallowed. Beyond the false closet was a squarish chamber, in which blades were racked on one part of the wall, crossbows on another, seven pikes on another … and various other weapons and accouterments, some of which Quaeryt had never seen.

  “Mother of the Namer…” Gauswn looked to Quaeryt.

  “I think we know a little better why not too many people in Tilbora are exactly fond of the dear scholars.” Quaeryt shook his head. “This will keep. Go see about getting men to follow the tunnel and see if the patrols had any fortune in finding the good scholar Zarxes. Or the young one who tried to attack me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The dust suggested that neither the armory nor the tunnel had been used at least in a few weeks, but Quaeryt didn’t see any reason to point that out. The expressions on Nalakyn’s face suggested that the preceptor of students hadn’t known, either, although Quaeryt would have wagered that Alkiabys knew … and that raised the question of where Chardyn’s assistant had gone. Quaeryt doubted Alkiabys was anywhere near the Ecoliae, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if there happened to be another tunnel, and even another armory. In fact, the way matters were going, he would have been shocked if there weren’t.

  When Quaeryt followed Gauswn up the narrow spiral staircase and emerged back in the Master Scholar’s study, he looked at Nalakyn, who had remained, as if frozen. “Nalakyn, I imagine you’re the most senior scholar here. I want every scholar to come to the door of the study and see this, but no one is to touch the body. Then I want them all to assemble in the dining hall. The students will have to remain in the building for now, but they don’t have to see the body or attend the assembly. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “After the meeting, we’ll discuss arrangements for the pyre. There will be no services and no memorial.”

  “Sir?”

  “I don’t think the scholars can afford a memorial to a traitor to Lord Bhayar, and I certainly don’t intend to allow it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then you may go.” Quaeryt did not take a deep breath until he was momentarily alone. Then he headed for the front porch to see if the company’s troopers had been able to find Zarxes. He paused for a moment as he noticed the figure of the ancient chorister walking away from Gauswn, again mounted, but he had to wait only a few moments before the undercaptain rode over.

  “Any fortune in finding the princeps?”

  Gauswn’s reply was simple. “No … sir.”

  “I didn’t think they would. What about the other one?”

  “They’re still looking…” Gauswn looked down from his mount at Quaeryt. “What would you have us do now?”

  “I’m going to meet with the scholars. After that, I’m going to write a quick report to the governor so that one of your men can ride back and inform him. Then we both wait for orders. In the meantime, no scholar goes anywhere.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Quaeryt walked around the entire porch, but it was empty. After a time, he made his way to the dining hall. As he stepped inside, the murmurs died to absolute silence.

  “Please be seated.” He waited until everyone was in a chair before he continued. “The reason you are assembled here is very simple. Both your reputations and possibly your lives are in danger. Some scholars have been involved in acts against both High Holders and the former governor of Tilbor. In addition, when I brought this matter up before the Master Scholar and the princeps less than a glass ago, your beloved princeps attacked me with the half-staff of the Sansang and then slashed the throat of Master Scholar Phaeryn. He escaped through the secret tunnel from the study of the Master Scholar. I requested Scholar Nalakyn to have you all view the study so that there would be no mistake about what occurred.

  “Hard as it may be for some of you to accept what has happened, the fact is that the roots of the problem lie years in the past. That past is past, and anyone who attempts to use it as a cause or as a reason will suffer. I don’t care about the past. Neither does the governor. Nor does the princeps of Tilbor. We all care about the present and what happens from now onward.

  “I will be acting as Master Scholar to oversee the transition to a true scholarium, one devoted to scholarship and study, and to education. The school will continue. The practice of Sansang will not. For the moment, Scholar Nalakyn will act as princeps.” Quaeryt stopped and waited for several moments. “I trust that is clear. For a time longer, no one will leave the scholarium. Anyone who does leave, when that is allowed, will no longer be considered a scholar, and their name and description will be sent to every scholarium in Telaryn.” He turned to Nalakyn. “You may say whatever you think appropriate after I leave. Then join me in the princeps’s study.”

  Quaeryt walked out of the dining hall and to the princeps’s study, where he sat down and began to write a summary of exactly what had happened so that Gauswn could send one of the rankers with the report to the governor. When he finished, since Nalakyn had not arrived yet, Quaeryt went to find Gauswn.

  The undercaptain was in the rear courtyard and rode over to where Quaeryt stood on the edge of the rear covered porch.

  “Here’s the report to the governor. Oh … could your man go to my quarters at the palace and pick up some gear? I have the feeling I may be here much longer than you or your men.”

  Gauswn frowned. “Sir … is that safe? Staying here?”

  “It will be.” One way or another.

  “But with an armory like that…?”

  “There’s another one somewh
ere as well, and probably another tunnel, but the scholars responsible are dead or fleeing to the hill holders. Most of those left just want to be scholars, and they never wanted to be anything else. And that’s what they will be.”

  “Yes, sir.” Gauswn didn’t sound totally convinced.

  “If you’d get that report off to the governor…”

  “Oh … yes, sir.”

  “I need to meet with the preceptor of students. He’ll be acting princeps. I’ll have to act as Master Scholar for a time.”

  “You’re the only one who could, sir.”

  Quaeryt couldn’t refute that, and didn’t try. “I’ll be in the princeps’s study if you need me.” He turned and headed back across the porch, glancing to the northwest, where dark clouds were massing for an autumn-afternoon thunderstorm.

  He still had to wait almost half a glass for Nalakyn.

  “I’m sorry, sir. It took a while.”

  “It did. You were in the dining hall a long time. What did they say-besides being outraged?” asked Quaeryt, his tone gently ironic.

  “I pointed out that you were a scholar and that you represented Lord Bhayar … and that you had the power to remake or destroy the Ecoliae. Some of them didn’t like it. I also pointed out that when you left, Chardyn vanished, and that when you returned, Zarxes killed the Master Scholar and fled.” Nalakyn shrugged apologetically. “It seems to me that opposing you and Lord Bhayar isn’t a good idea. Most of them understood what I meant. Some of them only understood that you have power.”

  Quaeryt understood the distinction, and that didn’t make him any happier. The next days would be anything but pleasant. At the same time, he had the feeling that, somehow, he’d played into Rescalyn’s hands … and that bothered him even more.

  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.

  70

  By midday on Solayi, Quaeryt was beginning to wonder what Phaeryn and Zarxes had been doing with their time. He had been through all the files and records in the studies that had belonged to the Master Scholar and the scholar princeps, and he’d found remarkably little correspondence. All the records of receipts and expenditures had been kept-apparently accurately and in great and clear detail-by Yullyd. Nalakyn handled the assignment of scholars who taught the students. While Zarxes had been the one to approve expenditures of more than two silvers at a time, there really weren’t that many, except for large orders of produce and meat.

  What had they done, except plot?

  He’d checked the weapons in the second armory, and only a handful were truly sharpened and oiled and in the very best of condition. He’d talked to the ostler, and discovered that the pair of riding horses assigned to the scholars hadn’t been used that much, and the pair of dray horses were used almost daily with the wagon for obtaining various supplies. The two geldings used by the Master Scholar and the scholar princeps were ridden almost daily, but where and for what purposes, the ostler didn’t know. Finally, after returning to the main building, Quaeryt summoned Nalakyn into the Master Scholar’s study.

  “Sit down.” Quaeryt waited, then asked, “What exactly did the Master Scholar do?”

  “He was the Master Scholar, sir.”

  “I understand that. But you are the one who makes sure everything is done for the school. Yullyd handles receiving and paying out golds and keeping track of them. Chardyn and Alkiabys took care of Sansang training.… What did Phaeryn and Zarxes do?”