The Discovery of an Assassin

by Brian Keller

  As they walked out of the classroom, Miss Camilla spoke, “Come with me. I have a small booklet that you’ll need to copy before you begin working on an encyclopedia.”. She offered no further explanation as he followed along. Miss Camilla brought him to her classroom. It looked like twelve glassware merchants were warehousing their products here. As he followed her through the room he could see that the room was arranged in a similar fashion to his own classroom, except fewer workspaces, no desks, and each student’s work area was larger. Even though Cooper could now see that everything had an arrangement, the room still looked incredibly cluttered. The tiny reflections off the roomful of vials and beakers made it almost look like a roomful of candles. Miss Camilla handed him a small bundle of bound pages. She explained that the booklet described the specific mixtures to create the shades and hues of the paints needed to correctly depict the illustrated plants. She added, “You will make your own copy of the paint mixing instructions, then I will show you how to mix the paints. Once I am satisfied that you can produce a suitable copy, I shall provide you with the book for you to copy.”. She pulled a fairly large tome from a shelf, laid it on a table and opened it for Cooper to see. She spoke again, “This is the volume I will lend you to copy.”. Cooper looked at the page of the opened book. It was beautiful. The plant description was written along one side of the page and a painted drawing of the plant on the other side. The colors were vibrant and the plant looked like it could be plucked from the page. Cooper suddenly felt very unsure about being able to draw the plants in this book. These weren’t drawings, they were art! Cooper said so. Miss Camilla smiled and said, “We shall have you try some sample illustrations first and see how they look. Getting the colors exactly right is very important, that is why you must make a copy of the mixing instructions first. Later, I’ll assemble the jars of paints, brushes and the sticks and bowls for blending the paints. You can get them from me once you’ve finished copying the instruction booklet. That should take you several days anyway,…or you could just make the copy without illustrations… but I believe that Master Worthan wants you to learn the material and I’d like some fully completed pages. I’ve opened this book to show you that there are subtle differences in colors.”, she pointed at a purple flower and continued, ”You see here that there are several variations of purple that make up the flower petals.”. She pointed to different spots on the petals and named them, “lavender, fuchsia, amethyst, lilac, royal… All of these are described in that booklet. Each shade is described by the base color to start with and how many drops of each other color to add in order to get it right.”

  Cooper returned to the sleeping bay with a head full of thoughts. He’d said that he could copy the illustrations, but that was before he saw them. The richness of the colors, the detail, all so delicate, intricate in fact; Cooper had concerns that he’d be unable to reproduce them. But then, there were certainly worse things than being unable to draw or paint. No point in worrying about something until he knew it was going to be a problem. He’d follow instructions, as he’d always done, and do the best he could. If his efforts weren’t good enough, then he’d just copy the words and leave spaces for the paintings.

  Aden and Loryn were working on her reading and Cooper’s eyes drifted across the alphabet book that Aden had made for her. Aden could draw! If copying the plants proved to be beyond his ability then perhaps Aden could assist. Or if that didn’t work out, he could speak with Camilla about having Aden do the drawings. However it worked, it was good to have options.

  The following morning, Cooper and his classmates were all flexing their necks, shoulders and forearms. It appeared that everyone was feeling the residual soreness from yesterday’s training. Breakfast went slower than usual. There were a few instances of dropped utensils. The cooks had seen it all before and already had mops and buckets standing by.

  Cooper had no messages to deliver that day, but still only managed to fill out half of a page before lunchtime. Between weapons practice, message deliveries, and residual soreness, it took him another four days to finish his textbook. As promised, Mister Skran had them practicing reverse grip strikes and blocks, the soreness and stiffness continued.

  Eight days later, Mister Skran announced that they would pair up to practice again. “As with unarmed practice, we will start with strike-block-counterstrike drills. These sequences will become more complex as you all improve. I expect that it will be a couple of weeks or more before you are ready for practice fighting, but we have to work towards that. Move slowly through the combinations. Begin moving faster only when you can do it without hurting yourself or your partner.”.

  Over the next two weeks, the combinations became faster, and the movements became smoother. The students’ muscles became more accustomed to the training and most of the soreness now came from bumps and bruises.

  Twenty-two days after Cooper completed copying his textbook, he had nearly finished copying the booklet describing how to mix the paints. That evening, after dinner Cooper went to Miss Camilla’s classroom to let her know, but the room was locked. He knocked on the door and got no answer. He didn’t know where Miss Camilla’s sleeping bay was, or if that’s even where she was right now.

  He returned to the dining hall, one of the cooks had recognized Miss Camilla’s token when Loryn showed it to them. The ladies didn’t know which room was hers, but they knew which hallway, so he walked there and knocked on the first door he came to. From inside he heard a gruff shout, then some scraping and a clatter, then the door was pulled open. The man that answered was probably in his mid-twenties, dark hair somewhat matted and hanging down on all sides. His arms and torso were covered with leather armor that had all the straps loosened, and his legs were only covered to the knees by a pair of thick woven pants. Obviously, he’d been interrupted while removing his armor. His brown eyes looking through Cooper, he growled, “Waddiya want, kid?”. Cooper was already hurrying with his reply, “I’m just looking for Miss Camilla’s room. I was told it was in this hallway.”. The only answer he got was a grunt and a gesture towards a door across the hall and one down. The only other sound was the rough closing of the door. He was thinking, “Well, that could’ve gone worse…”, as he crossed the hallway to Miss Camilla’s door and knocked. From inside Cooper heard, “One moment…”, then nothing. A few seconds later the door opened. Miss Camilla looked a little surprised to see him. He handed her the booklet he’d been copying, saying, “A few more pages and it’ll be complete. I wanted to show it to you in case it wasn’t right; and if it is right, then at least you’d know that I’d be needing to learn to mix up paints in a day or so.”. Camilla looked at a few pages, “You have a decent hand for writing. Hearing what Skran had to say about you, I had feared that your hands might only be good for holding a weapon.”. He wasn’t sure but he thought he might’ve been complimented twice just now. She continued, “I’m not going to take the time to check your writing for accuracy, I’ll assume that you’ve copied it correctly. If the paints don’t come out right, then we’ll know otherwise.”. She smiled to herself. He spoke, “I wanted to speak with you about that as well. I will try to copy the pictures the best I can, but I have no idea if I can copy them with that much detail and beauty. I have a classmate that is skilled with drawing. If I cannot do it, would you prefer that he try?”. Then he thought to add, “I’d still mix the paints.”. She thought for a second or two, “Let’s see how you do first. If your artwork is horrible, then we’ll decide what to do.”. She continued, “I have a little time right now, I’ll finish preparing a set of base paints for you. You can get them from me tomorrow after dinner. Tomorrow, make copies of the first two pages of the book, drawings only, and bring them with you. When doing a book like this, always start each page with the drawings first, no words. I will teach you how to use your paints and brushes tomorrow night. Once the drawings are painted correctly, then it’s a simple matter to finish the pages by filling in the words once the paint has dried.”. Cooper nodded
, her instructions sounded very practical. She had a little more to say, “If you ruin any brushes or paint pots, I’ll charge you for them. Otherwise you can just give them back to me when you’re done, or when you’ve done all you will. It may take a couple years to copy this manual, so I’ll just accept however many pages you can copy correctly.”. Cooper nodded and she continued, “Follow me now and we’ll get you the book.”.

  Once back in his sleeping bay Cooper lay down on his bed and started carefully turning pages, looking at the pictures and studying the written information. Each entry started with a detailed, written description of the appearance. It went on to relate any medicinal uses for the various parts of the plant. The next part of the description was about how the plant might achieve harmful effects. The petals from one plant might soothe the stomach if boiled, steeped and then decocted, whatever that meant. But the sap of that same plant might cause blisters on the skin. It seemed to him that although there was a good description of medicinal uses, there was much more writing devoted to how to crush, muddle, boil, distill, blend, or seemingly hundreds of other processes used to extract and refine the material in order to obtain its harmful effects. Cooper was pretty sure he knew Miss Camilla’s specialty.

  He’d only studied a few pages but he’d decided that he was going to enjoy this, even if he couldn’t manage the illustrations. He wanted to study longer but he could feel sleep coming on. Even Loryn and Aden had gone to sleep a short while ago. Although he knew that Miss Camilla wouldn’t trust him with a rare volume, he was going to do whatever he could to protect this book. He’d keep it in his footlocker until after breakfast tomorrow. He doused his lantern and went to sleep.

  He woke to something shaking and rattling, then Birt’s voice, “Hey! Get up! The breakfast bell should be ringing any minute now.”. Cooper sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. What was going on? He seldom slept this late…! In fact, he felt like he could still lie back down and go back to sleep…. Birt yelled, ‘Hey Cooper! You up yet?”. Cooper grumbled, “Yeah, I am now.”. He got up and made his way to the privy. The breakfast bell rang before he’d finished, but it only took him a few minutes to get dressed and get to the dining hall. He was in line to put food on his plate when Miss Camilla approached him. “I expect you studied the book for a while last night? How did you sleep?”, she asked. Cooper suddenly became wary. “I.. um.. overslept, Miss. Why do you ask?”. He asked with an I-already-think-I-know tone. She smiled, “I just wanted to test something, and you looked like you could use a good night’s sleep.”. She handed him a small bundle wrapped in cloth. “Douse that cloth with the contents of the vial, then wipe the edges of the book’s cover. Unless, of course, you wish to sleep through class too.”. He arched his eyebrows and asked pointedly, “Anything else I should know?”. She replied, “Nope. That should be it.”. Now that he thought about it, he did feel pretty well rested.

  Cooper wiped the edges of the book, as instructed. He still took special care of how he held it as he carried it to the classroom. Once there, he laid the book down and opened it carefully and slid it to the left, as far as he could without the book falling off the small desktop. It didn’t leave much space for the blank page, but he only needed the right half of it to draw on.

  Master Worthan walked over to Cooper’s desk and observed. After a moment Master Worthan spoke, “So that is the book that Miss Camilla has selected for you…? Interesting. Well, when it comes time for you to paint, I suspect you will need to seat yourself elsewhere. I will have a small, flat table brought in and placed in the back of the room for you. We don’t want you to be spilling paints everywhere.”. Cooper wasn’t sure he wanted anything that further singled him out from his classmates, but it did make sense. He thanked Master Worthan, added that Miss Camilla intended for him to begin painting tomorrow and began copying the first diagram.

  It was a slow, deliberate process. He added ink a miniscule amount at a time and tried to meticulously follow the same lines as the completed diagram. It took him over an hour to finish the six petals of the flower. By the time another hour had passed, he’d completed the outline of the plant. He began to fill in some lines that looked like veins in the leaves and some lines that showed where there were major color variations on the flower petals. He figured that would make it easier for when it came time to add colors. He’d hoped to have two plants drawn before lunch, but at this rate it was doubtful. He leaned back to take a wider view of the plant he’d drawn and he felt pretty good about it. He understood what Miss Camilla meant about taking such a long time to copy this book. It had taken over two hours to outline one plant and another hour to fill in some details. It would surely take longer than that to paint it and then it still needed the written description added. Each page would take almost a full day of doing nothing else, and the book had to have at least three hundred pages, probably more. Surely he’d become more practiced, but he only had four months before he was scheduled for written testing. At least by then he was sure to know the difference between pinnate and lobed leaves. Cooper blotted his drawing and placed a blank sheet above it to start copying the plant on the second page. By the time the lunch bell rang, he’d completed the outline of the top half of the plant and was partly finished with drawing veins in one of the leaves. He could probably draw faster but if he messed it up partway through, then all the time taken to get to that point was wasted. Better to go slowly and avoid making too many mistakes. He’d decided that as long as he got the outline right, he could paint over any mistakes he might make after that. He wanted to avoid that since those mistakes may make it harder to paint, and painting would surely be the most difficult part.

  After lunch, Mister Skran had the students select padded gloves that would fit them. Cooper couldn’t help but think how nice it would’ve been to have these a week ago. He put that thought from his mind, today they were going to practice fighting with weapons. Mister Skran told them outright, “Today you will move freely while selecting which combinations to employ. Try to hold yourself to the combinations that you’ve practiced so that your partner can respond with learned blocks and counters.”. As the students began spreading out in the room, Mister Skran raised his voice to ensure all could hear him, “As you become attuned to the differences between armed and unarmed fighting we’ll begin to incorporate improvised techniques. This should allow you to more fully develop your fighting instincts, if you have any.”. He paused and looked around the room. Once he was satisfied that everyone had chosen their spot he called out, “Begin.”

  Cooper and Rukle did as instructed. They had spoken briefly beforehand and had agreed that it would be better to have Mister Skran tell them “Faster.”, than to risk injuring each other. They circled each other adjusting their guard and going through combinations at a controlled speed. Mister Skran was busy with several pairs that were too eager, or just foolish. After a few minutes they heard Mister Skran’s voice from across the room. “Rukle. Cooper. Faster.”. A few hours later, at the end of the session both boys had a fair sweat going. They had begun practicing faster, then as it became comfortable they paused, nodded to each other and re-engaged going a little faster than before. In less than two hours’ time, they were fighting at a much faster pace and each of them were glad to have the padded gloves. After each of them had a bruised finger or two, they’d agreed that they should slow down just a little and hold that pace for awhile. More than once, Cooper had to resist finding his Flow. He felt like he could just reach out and touch it. It was so close. Master Worthan had been very clear about that, and Cooper pulled himself back to working on his technique and timing.

  Rukle had found himself on the defensive more often than he’d wanted. It wasn’t that Cooper was that fast. Well, to be honest, he was that fast, but not today. Today they weren’t training for speed. But Cooper just had a way for being right there whenever there was a gap in his defense. Cooper would attack, just as he should, and that forced Rukle into a defensive role. ‘I should be attacking!’, though
t Rukle. ‘I am going to be an Assassin one day! And that means I’ll be attacking. A cut, a stab, or a slash, and then I’m gone. Not all this prancing around!’. A counter attack from Cooper followed by a continued assault forced Rukle into fully concentrating on the here-and-now, and his frustration passed.

  After three hours, Mister Skran stopped the session, “Before we have some lasting injuries”, and sent the students back to the classroom for the remaining time before dinner. Cooper spent thirty minutes on copying another couple pages in his instruction booklet before he felt confident enough in controlling his quill to continue copying the plant diagram. He’d nearly finished the second plant by the time the dinner bell rang. He blotted the diagram, rolled up both sheets, picked up the book and left the classroom. He detoured long enough to deposit the book and sheets with his copied drawings into his footlocker, then went on to dinner.