by Perrin Briar
“Are you always this shy around guys?” Roland said.
Cassie glanced at him, and then looked away. She blushed. No, she was never shy like this with boys. She wasn’t a hussy, she had simply always gotten along better with boys than girls. The relationships were easier, simpler. If there was ever sexual tension and she sensed they might have been interested in her, she was quick to cut it short to avoid any problems.
If Cassie herself began to get the familiar stirrings of interest in one of the boys, she always took the time to get to know him first. Then she approached him, making it clear she liked him. It was best to be obvious, she’d found. Boys were oblivious to subtlety, except when they were making their own clumsy attempts.
“Maybe you’re used to feigning lack of intelligence with boys, but you don’t need to do that with me,” Roland said. “I like smart women. I guess it rubbed off on me from my mother. My tutor says we all eventually want what we were brought up with.”
Cassie’s face curled like she’d just bitten into a sour apple. It might have been true, but that didn’t make her want to think about it. She turned her mind to the reason for the farm within the protective walls.
“I guess you’d need it just in case of attack,” Cassie said.
A smile played across Roland’s lips.
“And why would that be useful?” he said.
“Because when you’re under attack, one of the most important resources you have, one that might mean the difference between success and failure, is the need to feed your people,” Cassie said.
She glanced at him again, and then looked away. She didn’t want to look stupid in front of him.
“That’s right,” Roland said. “You have a good head on your shoulders. We need a large stock of food in case we’re attacked by the dragon and can’t get out. It’s unlikely to happen now, of course, what with sacrificing the dead bodies to the dragon. It’s a hangover from the past when such attacks were common place. Now let me ask you another question…”
“Do we have to do this?” Cassie said. “I hate being tested.”
“This isn’t a test,” Roland said. “This is a question.”
“What’s the difference?” Cassie said. “When you already know the answer to the question, it’s a test. Isn’t that the difference between an innocent question and an exam? The fact those asking the questions already know what the answer is?”
Roland cocked his head to one side.
“Not necessarily,” he said with a smile. “It might be a question to validate what we think we know.”
He smiled a lot, and Cassie found it very distracting. Roland had one of the most beautiful smiles she had ever seen. It glowed, lighting up an entire room. It told you not to worry, that he would always be there to help you if you needed it. He would be a great lord.
They had reached the orchard’s front gates. Roland turned to their armed guards.
“Please wait here,” he said.
The guards nodded, bowed their heads, and stood outside the farm with hands resting on their sword hilts.
“You don’t need your security?” Cassie said.
“In town?” Roland said. “Almost certainly not. The people love my father. They wouldn’t want to harm him or his offspring. They want things to continue as they are.”
“Then why have them at all?” Cassie said. “You must admit, it sends a confusing message.”
“It does,” Roland conceded. “But we are English, and we love few things more than tradition. It might be outmoded, outdated, and unfashionable, but it is the way we have always done things. If we continue to do the things we’ve always done, there’s no reason we can’t continue to survive. And that’s tradition. Change is seen as dangerous. But have no fear. If someone does set upon us, we wouldn’t need my armed guards in any case. I’m exceptionally good with a sword.”
Cassie looked at the hilt of Roland’s sword sticking out of its scabbard.
“It’s encrusted with jewels,” Cassie said.
“Your powers of observation astound me,” Roland said.
Cassie glared at him.
“My point is, it is a show sword, meant to be gawped at by locals, not to be used,” she said.
Roland pulled his blade from its scabbard and laid the point across the back of his forearm.
“Is that real enough for you?” he said.
“Yes,” Cassie said. “But it doesn’t prove anything about your skill to use it.”
Roland blinked, startled. He replaced the blade and smiled at Cassie with his arms folded.
“You’re quite something, aren’t you?” he said.
Cassie wasn’t sure whether to take that as a compliment or not.
“It’s a good thing,” Roland said. “Most of the women here are…”
“Boring,” Cassie said.
“Consistent,” Roland said. “They’re cut from the same cloth and there’s little exciting about them. Nothing that sucks me in or makes me want to get to know them. Whereas you…”
He circled Cassie.
“You’re quite different,” he said. “Unlike any girls I’ve seen or likely to see here. Would you care for an apple?”
“Excuse me?” Cassie said.
The sudden change in topic had taken her by surprise.
“An apple,” Roland said, pointing at the glowing balls of red hanging suspended from the trees around them.
“Oh,” Cassie said. “Yes. Please.”
Roland reached up, went onto his tiptoes, and pulled a pair of apples free. Workers were inspecting the produce and picking the ripe specimens. They placed them in baskets almost overflowing with juicy fruit.
A strong wind whispered through the trees and made the leaves rattle. Some of the leaves snapped off and floated like confetti at the closing of a wedding ceremony, twisting and fluttering to the ground. The apple trees were arranged in long, seemingly unending, rows.
Cassie bit into her apple. It was bright red, juicy, and just about the most delicious fruit she had ever tasted. It was just the right mix of crunch and juiciness. She consumed the rest of the apple with hungry bites.
“Do you like it here?” Cassie said.
“It’s fine,” Roland said. “It’s relatively safe and there aren’t a lot of problems.”
“You don’t seem like the kind of person who would be happy in a small world like this,” Cassie said. “I could imagine you as a go-getter in a big city.”
“You think?” Roland said. “When you’re raised in a world such as this, the only one you’ve ever known, you don’t really think about it.”
“No, I suppose not,” Cassie said. “Which is why you should be allowed to try out the two and make your decision.”
“And you think being a go-getter in a city is better than a lord in a small town?” Roland said.
“I don’t think it’s better,” Cassie said. “Just different.”
“You were at the feast last night,” Roland said. “You heard my father offer his position to anyone who wishes to take it. Do you remember?”
“Yes,” Cassie said. “Has anyone ever accepted the challenge?”
“Yes, once,” Roland said. “The lord willingly gave up his power, and the challenger took it up.”
“What happened?” Cassie said.
“What do you think happened?” Roland said.
“Is this another test?” Cassie said with a frown.
Roland smiled.
“Sorry,” he said. “But how else do you think my father became lord?”
It took a moment for the comment to penetrate Cassie’s consciousness.
“Sorry?” she said. “What do you mean?”
“My father wasn’t born the lord,” Roland said. “And my mother wasn’t born to be the lord’s wife either.”
Cassie’s frown deepened.
“I’m sorry, you’ve lost me,” she said. “I thought that was how titles passed from one generation to another? By birth.”
“I
guess it is the most logical thing to assume,” Roland said.
“How did that even happen?” Cassie said.
“It’s remarkable the things you can achieve if you put your mind to it,” Roland said.
“You’re telling me your father, the lord, was never born into his current position?” Cassie said.
She still couldn’t wrap her head around the information.
“That’s what I’m telling you,” Roland said. “Remarkable isn’t it? The opportunity was there, ready for anyone to come along and take. And then when someone finally did, my father did something remarkable, something no one, except my mother, believed he could do. It was him who came up with the idea to feed the dead bodies to the dragon. Everything he did was successful. It was like he was blessed and whatever he touched turned to gold.”
“The old lord must have been bummed,” Cassie said. “I would have regretted having that clause, letting someone else come along and take away all my power like that.”
“No, not really,” Roland said. “He’s a cobbler now. He’s much happier. Everyone says so. If he wasn’t, my father would find something in the castle for him to do.”
“Whoever came up with the idea for someone else to take over clearly never thought someone would actually step up to the plate,” Cassie said. “Otherwise they wouldn’t have created it.”
“And no one would have,” Roland said. “Until things went terribly wrong. The system was put in place to hold those in charge accountable, knowing that if they did a bad job someone else could easily take his position. The person taking up lordship only had humiliation to deal with. They had little else to lose, save face.”
“Why didn’t more people want to be lord?” Cassie said. “I know if I lived here a long time, I might want to try.”
“Because most don’t have the education to lead people,” Roland said. “People know this. People said my father was stupid for trying to be lord, that he would only end up shaming himself and my mother. But she supported him. Anyone can do it, it just takes time to learn how, just as it does with any job, but this time there are much fewer opportunities for failure, a sharp learning curve.
“If it wasn’t for both my mother and father there would still be people running around scared. It was because the dragon appeared and started terrorizing people fifteen years ago that my father decided someone needed to do something.
“It was from then that we managed to really begin to advance and develop, able to build the wall that could protect us. Of all the lords we’ve had, my father has had the most effect on the improvement of the people and their lives. I’m really proud of him.”
“Your father never considered removing the clause?” Cassie said. “To cement his power and stop anyone from doing what he did to the last lord?”
Roland looked like he had never considered the idea before.
“No,” he said. “He likes having it there. It keeps him on his toes. I like it too. I wouldn’t want the position if there was no chance of me being overthrown.”
“What did your father do before all this?” Cassie said.
“He was a stablehand,” Roland said. “He worked at my mother’s noble house before they got married. Then the dragon attacked, and the rest is history.”
“But they seem so…” Cassie said, searching for the right word.
“Cultured?” Roland said. “It’s an act. A practised act. One they’re exceptionally good at. They wouldn’t have been taken seriously by the nobles if they didn’t sound and look the part, and so that was one of the first things they did—make themselves look the part.”
Cassie began to realize just how special and unique the lord’s family was. They were not only the most powerful family in the town, but they were also the most forward-thinking. If the town was to change for the better, it was going to need them to lead.
27.
THE STAIRS wound around the inside of the cylindrical wall in a spiral. Before undergoing their adventure Zoe would have found it a difficult slog. Despite all the hours of running she’d put in on the surface, it was nothing compared to the workout she got down under the surface every day.
The stairs ended at a thick wooden door. Lady Maltese put her shoulder to it and pushed, but it was too heavy for her. Zoe joined her and pushed. They had left the guards at the bottom of the tower. At the time Zoe had liked the idea of being alone with the lady, but now she was beginning to regret that decision.
The workshop was located in the highest tower of the castle. It did not look like much on the outside, but on the inside it was full to bursting with worktables packed with tools and equipment.
It was a mess, as all the cleverest and more creative people were prone to be. Zoe supposed human creativity was the same wherever you went. A human mind preoccupied with thoughts was always less likely to be concerned with trivialities like tidiness.
“Originally Jeffrey’s workshop was located on the other side of town,” Lady Maltese said, “but my husband wanted to keep an eye on any new developments. So we relocated him here, where he could work in peace, with all the food and drink he might require, and all the silence he could ever need. We keep him very comfortable.”
“So I can see,” Zoe said. “A mind like his needs to be protected and well fed.”
Buried amongst it all, sprawled in a moth eaten armchair, were the empty bottles of a drunk. Sitting amidst it was the creative genius drunk himself, Jeffrey. He was fast asleep, drooling, a thick mucus growing on his flat chest and grey-white beard.
A wire bird cage hung in one corner, and when Zoe approached it it became clear it wasn’t as empty as she’d first thought. Flies buzzed around it, a pile of shapeless feathers in the bottom. So much for a pet to keep you company. Zoe wondered how long it had been dead. Not that it mattered. Dead was dead.
“Should we wake him?” Zoe said.
“The bird?” Lady Maltese said. “I think it’s a bit late for that, don’t you?”
Zoe looked at the lady, who grinned.
“Sh,” Lady Maltese said, pressing her finger to her lips. “Let him awaken naturally. It’s how he comes up with his best ideas.”
Great. What were they meant to do in the meantime? Zoe had wanted to see the workroom and inventor at work, and now here she was. Jeffrey was hard at work. Drooling. Snoring.
Zoe decided she would take her time and poke around. As she moved around the room she realized that, despite the mess, there was nothing that would have looked all that out of place in the modern world. To be sure, there were items that looked like early prototypes of modern instruments, but their shape and materials were not all that different.
There was a makeshift TV, but the glass was too thick and wouldn’t have produced much in the way of a picture. But the theory was there, and the pieces of electronics to make it to boot. How someone from this time could have dreamed up something so sophisticated was beyond understanding for Zoe.
Newton was a genius of pure mind, unprecedented in his day, matched only by Einstein. These two men went into their own private rooms to figure out the laws of the universe and, incredibly, managed to come up with something so profound, so incredibly simple, logical and yet beautiful, that it could only be correct.
Jeffrey perhaps wasn’t able to solve the riddles of the universe, but had the remarkable ability to glimpse the future, or rather the present, on the surface. He could then develop his own systems of how they might work in this day and age.
Looking around, Zoe could see some of his inventions were rough, childlike interpretations of what he’d seen in his mind. Early stepping stones in the rapid evolution of man.
Zoe began to wonder about their moral code for helping these people. Was it right to give them a hand up? To help them to develop these forms of technology? She supposed it wasn’t like they would be helping them create dangerous weapons, or ways to split the atom. But wasn’t all technology inevitably pointing in that direction anyway? If so, giving them any help whatsoever
was dangerous. Zoe wasn’t sure. She would need to speak to Bryan about it before they made any decisions.
Jeffrey grumbled under his breath. Then his eyes shot open. Lady Maltese approached him slowly and handed him a piece of paper and a pen. The inventor took it, not blinking, dipped the pen in the ink and began to draw on the parchment, slowly at first, and then gradually building into a frenzy, working faster and faster.
“What’s he doing?” Zoe said, sidling up to Lady Maltese.
“Drawing his dreams,” Lady Maltese said. “Inspiration has struck.”
They waited for him while he completed his drawings, and didn’t approach him again until he had finished. He put the pen down and lay back in his armchair.
Lady Maltese picked up the old man’s sketch and extended it to Zoe so she could see. To her it looked like a bunch of scribblings and black shapes. She was disappointed.
“What is it?” Zoe said.
“I don’t know,” Lady Maltese said. “No one does, save him. Later, he will come to it and begin outlining whatever it was he originally saw in his dreams. Only once he has completed it will we begin to understand what it is he has drawn. Even then, with his description to us, we might not understand. Such is the mind of a genius. It works at its own speed and doesn’t feel the need to slow down to cater for us.”
Zoe looked again at the image. This time her mind came up with a dozen modern inventions it might have been. She looked at Jeffrey, who was already falling back to sleep. He really was a force of nature.
It wasn’t for another fifteen minutes that the inventor decided to wake fully. He stumbled into the bathroom and washed his face, coughing up something Zoe didn’t like to imagine. It could have been a lung by the sounds he was making.
A little refreshed, Jeffrey returned to his workroom. He started when he saw the two ladies standing there. He clearly hadn’t noticed them earlier.
“Good morning,” Jeffrey said.
“Evening,” Lady Maltese said.
Jeffrey peered at the sky out the window.
“So it is,” he said.
“How are you able to come up with such things?” Zoe said.